"National crises often lead to more centralized power. But everything about this one is unusual..."

"... including President Trump’s decision to let state and local authorities make nearly all decisions about daily life and business activity. Washington provides expert advice, policy guidance, backup supplies, emergency personnel, and massive funding. It has not issued national mandates. Trump has refused to shift more power to the central government.... Trump’s reliance on federalism... caught the left by surprise. When the crisis began, liberals voiced their long-standing criticism: Trump is a wannabe dictator who will use this crisis as an excuse to exercise authoritarian power. He hasn’t.... Government leaders [have generally tended to] suspend the rules so they can act swiftly and decisively... That’s why Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus, Woodrow Wilson the First Amendment, and Franklin Roosevelt the basic rights of Japanese Americans.... State and local officials already face mounting public resistance... Federal courts are taking hard looks at restrictions on speech, worship, protest, and business operations. They are skeptical of executive orders that override statutory laws. Judges are unlikely to waive constitutional protections for any extended period, if that...."

Writes emeritus polisci prof Charles Lipson.

So the "government leaders" who are targets of complaints about authoritarian power are the state and local officials, not Trump. Trump relied on the American tradition of federalism — a high ideal — to locate the criticism away from himself. This forces the anti-Trumpsters — the left — to choose between criticizing him for not being enough of a dictator or to shift to criticize the state and local officials — many of whom are on the left — for excessive authoritarianism. Or they could just be incoherent on the subject of authoritarianism and — if Trump takes control — call him a despicable dictator and — if state and local officials exercise control — declare that it's just lovely to be so effectively and masterfully controlled — thank you, Governor, thank you, mayor, and curse you horrible fellow citizens who don't follow orders.

"Cuomo’s rise is an unalloyed benefit for his state and the nation’s largest city, but it is not an unalloyed benefit for his party."

"To almost any sentient observer, it looks like the Democrats have picked the wrong guy to oppose Trump this fall. But the Democrats have painted themselves into a corner. They can’t simply stride out across the wet paint now that Biden has effectively won the nomination. He won it in open primaries, with settled rules, and there’s no way to change them. Biden won’t offer the party an easy escape. He won’t suddenly renounce the prize he has sought his entire adult life. And even if Uncle Joe woke up with a horse’s head in his bed and backed out, Bernie Sanders would say, 'Hey, I’m next. No cutting in line.' In that unlikely scenario, the Democratic Party would undoubtedly reject the hardline socialist at their convention in Milwaukee, but doing so would enrage his staunch supporters and fracture the party unity necessary to defeat Trump.  So why not nominate Cuomo for vice president and hint that Biden would step aside after one term?... A Biden-Cuomo ticket would be made up of -- gasp -- two older white men. Where is the woman on that ticket? Where is the African American? How exactly did they get pushed aside in a party that is built upon the rock (or is it sand?) of identity politics? Moreover, Biden has actually promised, in public and on tape, that he will select a woman for his running mate...."

From "Cuomo Rising, Biden Wandering" by political scientist Charles Lipson (at Real Clear Politics).

This is a terrible problem for Democrats, but I would give priority to the important work Cuomo needs to keep doing for New York right now. He should not be pulled off the job to do the work of running for President (or Vice President!). Right now, he looks especially good because he is coordinating with the Trump administration. It would be disastrous to confuse that work by making him Trump's official opponent. Getting through this crisis is more important than the presidential election, and even if it weren't, the Democrats are not going to win by putting their party interests above taking care of the immediate problem now. Cuomo is the Governor of New York. He's doing a what seems to be a good job of it, right when that is what is desperately needed. That's more than enough for Cuomo. The fact that Biden is a terrible presidential candidate for this time is just too damned bad.

"Michael Bloomberg is so wealthy he couldn’t fritter away his fortune, even if he tried. But he’ll make a good start if he spends $100 million or more..."

"... to win the Democratic presidential nomination. It’s a fruitless quest. He must be smart enough to know it... Still, the glittering prize of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. dazzles even the shrewdest eyes, and it may have dazzled Bloomberg’s. Running would be a rare mistake in a career that led him to vast riches and the mayoralty of America’s largest city.... The problem is that Bloomberg made the city safer by cracking down on petty criminals... and frisking lots of people to lessen gun violence. Those policies, begun under Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and continued under Bloomberg, worked well—but... [b]eing strong on crime is the surest way to alienate today’s Democratic primary voters.... Bloomberg’s second problem is... that he is not embarrassed by his riches, that he made them in the financial sector, and that he opposes the activists’ anti-growth policies, such as the Green New Deal...  Bloomberg faces other problems, too. He is the opposite of charismatic.... a dull campaigner who opposes the left’s most ambitious programs. He has little support among minorities or public-sector unions. In today’s Democratic Party, that’s an awkward spot from which to seek the nomination."

That's from "Bloomberg Will Hit an Iceberg" by Charles Lipson, an emeritus polisci professor at the University of Chicago.

Isn't this the kind of naysaying the other billionaire attracted 4 years ago? I don't care what's in "today’s Democratic Party." I care about what will work for the people, and many of us don't feel like insiders to either party. Trump saw how to go straight to the people, barging right past the party regulars. Why can't Bloomberg do that too?

I see the black-people-hate-him argument is being used against Bloomberg. Just last week, the black-people-hate-him argument was used against Buttigieg.

Bloomberg could spend a billion dollars on his mission... and why not?! What else can he do in the few years he's got left on the planet? What else can he buy?  I'm not saying he's a big old narcissist, and I don't even think that about Trump. I think that, like Trump, he believes he has some answers and people have gone woefully astray. Bloomberg, with all that money, may think he can instruct us and get us back on a good, sensible track, away from all that left-wing craziness and out of the little hands of Donald Trump.

Do we need an independent prosecutor for ACORN?

Chicago polisci prof Charles Lipson makes the argument:

Independent prosecutors should not be appointed lightly. But in this case, there are good reasons why Atty. Gen. Eric Holder and other political appointees in the Justice Department should step aside. First, although no allegations have yet touched the Obama campaign, ACORN did have significant ties to the campaign and other progressive causes. Published reports show that ACORN and its subsidiaries received some $800,000 from the Obama campaign to get out the vote. Second, ACORN is intimately tied to the Service Employees International Union, one of President Barack Obama's most powerful and vocal supporters.

ACORN's close ties to the progressive movement and Democratic Party mean that there will be little public confidence if Holder decides not to pursue an ambitious investigation and ultimately prosecute....

What we have seen on tape cries out for a serious, independent investigation to determine if ACORN and its affiliates are a criminal enterprise, whether they have spent federal grants lawfully, whether they helped taxpayers file fraudulent returns, and whether they violated laws prohibiting tax-exempt organizations from engaging in partisan politics. These are big questions, and the public needs to know that Washington's answers are fair and impartial.