Dems seek Perfect Trump Antidote, hope there is one

Perhaps you think New Hampshire sent us a mixed message. After all, Bernie Sanders won but the moderates got more votes, and on Tuesday night three different candidates seemed to be giving victory speeches.

What does the Democratic rank-and-file really want? Well, the answer is: Ralph in Michigan.

Ralph is the symbol of all the people in swing states who went for Barack Obama and then turned Republican in 2016. Democrats want him back!

And who does Ralph want? Somebody who looks more reasonable than the current occupant of the White House? Well, that’s all the Democratic candidates. And pretty much every other elected official in recent memory.

Getting rid of Trump is everything. While nobody in either party has ever described him as restrained, he’s gotten worse since he skittered past the impeachment crisis. A normal unhinged president might, say, fire a cabinet member on a whim. Trump preferred to can a distinguished military officer for being the brother of an officer who testified about the Ukraine situation under subpoena.

How do you think Ralph would react if a Democratic

candidate connected the brothers’ story to Trump’s draft-dodging bone spur? Pete Buttigieg, who served in Afghanistan, is definitely into bringing up that bone spur.

We’re presuming Ralph is a non-crazy, non-racist average person who thought it was time for a change when Hillary Clinton was the Democratic nominee. And liked Trump’s, um, spunkiness. Now he’s begun to worry that there’s a tad too much spunk in the White House.

Who do you think he’d be looking at now? Probably not Joe Biden. Biden has run for president three times and he’s never won a primary. Or come in second. Or third. Ralph cannot possibly be impressed.

Elizabeth Warren’s only possible consolation for her poor showing was that she came in ahead of Joe Biden. But she was spunky even in defeat. Warned the party against “harsh tactics” and then posed for a ton of selfies. Kudos.

And what about Bernie Sanders? He won, but he beat Buttigieg by fewer than 4,000 votes — out of nearly 300,000 cast. And although Sanders does do well with working-class voters, I doubt Mrs. Ralph is going to come around unless he learns how to talk about, say, eliminating college tuition without shouting and scowling.

The big winner in New Hampshire was Amy Klobuchar, who came in a rather impressive third. Now she’s a serious candidate, and it will be interesting to see how Trump decides to attack her.

But back to Ralph, the target swing voter. We have not discussed how old he is. That matters a lot. Sanders, 78, has huge support from younger Democrats, but in New Hampshire he got only 14% of the voters over 65. Buttigieg, 38, got nearly a quarter of older voters.

What’s the story? A) Mayor Pete reminds them of their grandkids.

B) Bernie reminds them of the guy at their coffee shop who stops complaining about the weather.

C) Millennials hear Sanders speeches and think he’s rapping.

Right now, Michael Bloomberg is pretty popular. Most people don’t know much about him except his ads — he’s sort of the political equivalent of Geico. But we’ll have much more opportunity to be snide about his campaign on Super Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Ralph hasn’t made up his mind. But we’ve come a long way. Hopes soaring, hopes crushed. And if we ever get Iowa straightened out, the Democrats will have allocated nearly 2% of the delegates to the convention. Gail Collins writes for the New York Times.