Himes, Hayes weigh Dem endorsements ahead of S.C.
Voters in South Carolina head to the polls Saturday in what may prove to be a make-or-break primary for some presidential candidates.
As the Democrats battled on the debate stage on Tuesday night, Rep. Jahana Hayes sat in the audience listening and clapping with a whole lot of mixed feelings. The Connecticut Democrat flew down to Charleston just for the debate, and while she called a “really good contest,” she added “there was a lot of things I did not like.”
Spoiler alert: Hayes, D-5, is not planning on making another presidential endorsement any time soon, now that her original love Sen. Kamala Harris, DCalif., ended her campaign. Most of the Connecticut delegation said this week they’re not planning on endorsing any time soon.
Reps. Jim Himes, D-4, and John Larson, D-1, both said they were mulling over possible endorsements before the Connecticut primary on April 28. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-3, said “obviously I will make an endorsement,” but did not indicate when.
But endorsement or no, this week the Connecticut delegation let me pick their brains about the Democratic field and how the candidates might affect competitive House and Senate races in 2020. Which brings us back to Hayes, who holds the most purple district in Connecticut.
Is Hayes panicking, like some House Democrats, about the possibility of selfdescribed Democratic socialist, Sen. Bernie Sanders, of Vermont, the front-runner, clinching the nomination?
“I wouldn’t say that I’m panicked,” Hayes said. “I hope people don’t equate some of his views with the totality of the Democratic caucus.”
Hayes said some of Sander’s idea are “a little too extreme.”
“I like the premise and the idea of some things, but some things I’m like that’s not the way I would go about it,” Hayes said. “I personally don’t feel that every person who has experienced success in this country has some how done something wrong or we should we angry at billionaires and millionaires. No we need to change the rules. We need to make it more equitable.”
Himes also indicated he’s not “feeling the Bern” very strongly at the moment.
“Anything can happen but when I hear him dismissing fracking in Pennsylvania and turning off a lot of Floridian voters, like a lot of people I wonder if he’s saying and doing things that make it impossible for him to win,” Himes said. “But that’s a wonder.”
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., disagreed.
“I think any of those Democrats now in contention can beat President Trump and do it handily,” Blumenthal said. “So I personally have no deep concerns about the effects [of a Sanders nomination] down the ballot but they know their districts better than I do. I’m not contradicting members of the House who say it may be a disadvantage.”
DeLauro she said she was “confident Democrats will have the best ticket” and bristled at a question about whether Sanders’s label as a socialist was a weak point for his campaign.
“People want to make the divide between socialism, Democrats, et cetera. For me Democrats are progressives,” she said. “We shouldn’t fall into this trap.”
A flashpoint for surging Sanders this week has been his repeated remarks on Cuba in interviews, televised town halls and the Tuesday debate. Hayes called the
Sanders’s response to the suggestion that he has “sympathies” for communist governments in Cuba and Nicaragua one of the more “interesting” moments of the debate.
Sanders has praised the literacy rates in Cuba, while insisting he opposes authoritarian governments. His attitude toward Cuba drew criticism from moderates in the race like South Bend Mayor Peter Buttigieg.
Sen. Chris Murphy, DConn., said this week he has worked with Sanders on foreign policy issues and had some praise for the senator.
“He’s been very strong on the issue of congressional authorization of military action overseas,” Murphy said. “I think he’s got a very developed sense of America’s role in the world, but I think so do a lot of the other candidates. I think a lot of these other candidates have given some pretty serious thought to how badly necessary it’s going to be to correct Trump’s broken and disastrous foreign policy.”
Murphy told CNN he thought Sanders could beat Trump — but so could other Democrats.
So what about the other Democrats, who at this early stage in the delegate dash, are still very much in it?
Blumenthal applauded for former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s work on gun violence.
“Michael Bloomberg deserves praise for his commitment,” Blumenthal said. “He’s really put his money where his mouth is.”
Hayes criticized Bloomberg and Sanders for not “own[ing] their mistakes” of the past. For Bloomberg, that was a policy used by police during his 12 years as mayor of stopping and frisking millions of people in New York, mostly black and Latino men, she said. For Sanders, it was several votes against pieces of gun control legislation in the 1990s, including opposition to a mandatory waiting period for purchasing a firearm and support for a law that helps protect gunmakers from lawsuits.
Bloomberg has said he regrets that stop-and-frisk policy, while Sanders has explained how his views on gun laws have now changed.
Hayes said she felt both men tried to “spin it” in the debates, though. “That political polishing part of it… it’s really not my style,” she said.
Former Vice President Joe Biden — who has a lot riding on his ability to win in South Carolina — had a “better” debate this week, but may be struggling to get his message out, Hayes said. “There were lots of things where I was like ‘I personally know you have done a lot work in these areas and I don’t feel like you’re articulating that.’ ”
As she hopped into an elevator, Hayes added “Buttigieg is smart! He’s impressing me. I don’t know what that means!”
Larson said he has been conferring with every presidential campaign about their plan for the nation’s social security program.
“We have a lot of good candidates. I like Biden. I like Buttigieg. I have been impressed by [Sen.] Amy [Klobuchar, D-Minn.]. I work with both [Sen.] Elizabeth [Warren, D-Mass.] and Bernie on expanding Social Security. So I don’t have a strong favorite of any of them.”
Now that I’ve written a 30-inch column about what politicians think about other politicians, let me just say that what matters most is what the voters think — that’s you.
Democrat, Republican, independent, confused, whatever your label, email me with a few cogent sentences about who you hope will be elected president in 2020 and why. Include your name and your hometown and I may include your response in a future DC Buzz.