"Less than a week before the 2024 presidential election... [u]sing the now-disgraced and shuttered 538 as its unimpeachable source..."

"... the [New York] Times scoffed at a number of the latest polls that showed Trump leading. A 'torrent of polls began arriving just a few weeks ago, one after the other, most showing a victory for Donald J. Trump,' wrote the Times. These polls 'stood out amid the hundreds of others indicating a dead heat in the presidential election.'... [T]he Times accused those pollsters — 37 in all — of being 'focused on lifting Republican enthusiasm before the election' and 'cementing the idea that the only way Mr. Trump can lose to Vice President Kamala Harris is if the election is rigged.'... 'Unlike its competitors, RealClearPolitics does not filter out low-quality polls' and also 'does not weight its averages.' Which is just another way of saying that, unlike 538 (which got the election wrong and has lost so much money and credibility it just closed in disgrace), RCP does not put its thumb on the scale. It lists the polls and offers the averages, and that’s it...."

From "Far-Left NY Times Owes RealClearPolitics Apology After 538 Shutdown" (Breitbart).

"Kamala Harris poised to withdraw from 2020 presidential race"/UPDATE: "Kamala Harris ends 2020 presidential campaign."

CNN reports.

The California Democrat informed her senior staff of the decision Tuesday morning and is planning a public announcement later in the day.

Wow. I guess the new polls were devastating.

The new Politico/Morning Consult poll had her at 5 (the same as Bloomberg), and the new Hill/HarrisX poll had her at a horrifying 2 (the same as Steyer, Yang, and Castro).

I remember making my "NYT pushes Kamala" tag — back on December 29, 2018. I really thought the press was going into coronation mode over her. Maybe she thought it would be easy, that she could lean back and let all good things come to her. Why wouldn't they? But if she got conned by that, she does not have what it takes to be President. Too bad... but who does? Nobody. Still, you've got to give a better impression of having what it takes than she ever did.

ADDED: Who's the biggest beneficiary of Kamala Harris's withdrawal? I say Amy Klobuchar. Woman + moderate compared to Elizabeth Warren. Second best answer: Cory Booker.

"She began dating Mr. Brown, now 85, around 1994, when she was working in Alameda County and he was speaker of the California Assembly."

"He appointed her to two well-compensated state posts. He gave her a BMW. He introduced her to people worth knowing.... Ms. Harris’s allies have bristled at any suggestion that Mr. Brown powered her ascent, dismissing the charge as sexist and making clear that she was plenty capable of impressing on her own... Ms. Harris told SF Weekly in 2003 that she was so independent of Mr. Brown that he 'would probably right now express some fright about the fact that he cannot control me.' 'His career is over,' she said, as Mr. Brown’s second mayoral term wound down. 'I will be alive and kicking for the next 40 years.' But Ms. Harris also promoted Mr. Brown’s support on her fliers. And his barely hidden hand helped goose her precedent-busting fund-raising. 'He was instrumental behind the scenes,' said Mark Buell, a major Democratic donor who served as Ms. Harris’s finance chairman. 'Willie Brown told me — and I didn’t want to believe him — you have to raise $1 million to win this race. And we did.' Mr. Brown, who now writes political columns, cheekily declined to be interviewed, on the grounds that he could not assist a rival publication... Asked if Mr. Brown was a factor in the [2003] race — either as a boogeyman deployed by her rivals or as a sitting mayor with an interest in the outcome — Ms. Harris said: 'Um, I’d — you know. You can ask the pundits. I — yeah.'"

From "Kamala Harris Was Ready to Brawl From the Beginning/In her first race, she defied her old boss, a fund-raising pledge — and the implication that she owed her career to her ex-boyfriend" (NYT).

I did the math so you don't have to: In 2003, Brown was 69 and Harris was 38. And 69 divided by 2 plus 7 is 41.5.

Whatever you want to say about how Harris ascended in politics in California, you know very well what she's been doing as a presidential candidate in the past year. She's a terrible candidate. As I wrote after the last debate: "I don't understand why she's there and I don't believe she understands." Has anyone ever asked her the "Ted Kennedy" question, "Why do you want to be President of the United States?"

"Ms. Gabbard comes across as shy or maybe tense. She is not the jovial politician cracking jokes with her staff or buttering people up."

"Doom is her main talking point. The only personal topics she speaks about easily are veganism and fitness. She says she is a big fan of mixed martial arts and drops in on classes while on the trail. As a child, she could not afford taekwondo classes, so she started doing capoeira, which was taught in the park for free, she said. Her husband is more chatty. At a snack break, Mr. Williams grabs a Capri Sun and sticks the straw in the opposite way, which he says is better. 'When we were first dating, one of my best friends said, "Dude, you’re gonna be in the White House one day,"' and I was just like, "Yeahhh."'"

From "Tulsi Gabbard Thinks We’re Doomed/Or we will be if America doesn’t leave the rest of the world alone. That’s why the 38-year-old congresswoman from Hawaii is running for president," a weird little article in the NYT.

I don't know what "sticks the straw in the opposite way" means!

The article doesn't have the word "doom" in a quote from Gabbard. It does have her saying, "There are thousands of nuclear missiles pointing right at us, and if we were to get an attack, we would have 30 minutes, 30 minutes, before we were hit," but that's a fact that's a component of any serious thinking about national security, so I don't see how citing it makes "Doom... her main talking point."

I'm going to warily give this post my "NYT pushes Kamala" tag. That's where I keep track of my suspicion that the Times (and MSM generally) predetermined that Kamala's the one. Here's the mention of Kamala Harris in the article:

After Ms. Gabbard tore into presidential candidate Kamala Harris for her prosecutorial record during the second Democratic debates on Wednesday, the California senator on CNN called Ms. Gabbard an “apologist for an individual, Assad, who has murdered the people of his country like cockroaches.”

The article doesn't have Gabbard responding specifically on Assad, but quotes her saying, "We should be coming to other leaders in other countries with respect, building a relationship based on cooperation rather than with, you know, a police baton."

Gabbard is also connected to some people Democrats will be wary of: Ron Paul ("Tulsi Gabbard by far is the very, very best"), Ann Coulter ("Go Tulsi!"), and Joe Rogan ("Tulsi Gabbard’s my girl, I’m voting for her I decided, I like her"), Twitter's Jack Dorsey (who's contributed), and David Duke (who "has tweeted approvingly").

I think what's going on is that Gabbard is dangerous to Democratic Party interests. The doom sensed is defeat in the presidential election.

"Beto O'Rourke raised massive $6.1 million his first day in the 2020 race..."

According to his campaign, CNN reports.

That tops the $5.9 million one-day total Sen. Bernie Sanders announced after he launched his campaign. The closest other 2020 Democratic candidate to publicize their first-day fundraising total was California Sen. Kamala Harris at $1.5 million....

[O'Rourke's] refusal to release first-day fundraising totals over the weekend had raised doubts that O'Rourke had met fundraising expectations around his campaign launch. He remained coy about his fundraising for days.

"I can't right now," he said Friday in Washington, Iowa.

A reporter responded that O'Rourke could share his fundraising totals if he wanted to.

"You're right," he responded. "I choose not to."

Ha ha. Brilliant move, withholding the numbers and creating the space within which naysayers would neigh. It makes the good news sparkly bright.

Oh, the anguish this must cause Kamala Harris pushers (like the NYT)! Oh, the pain to those who sought to create a fundamental belief that the Democrat candidate could not be a white man! The Bernie-Beto-Biden triad must be stopped, that was their message. But Bernie got in and raked in the cash, and now Beto's done even better. The non-whitemales are far behind. And the #1 white male isn't even in yet. But we know Biden will show up next, and the only question will be whether he'll out-fund-raise the other components of the triad, the other white males.

By the way: "Biden Accidentally Says He’s Running, Crowd Chants ‘Run, Joe, Run!’" (Rolling Stone).

“I know I get criticized. I’m told I get criticized by the new left,” Biden said told the audience at the First State Democratic Dinner. “I have the most progressive record of anybody running for the — anybody who would run.”

Before Biden even had a chance to walk the statement back, the audience was already on its feet, cheering him on, chanting, “Run, Joe, run!”

“I didn’t mean it!” Biden insisted, laughing, adding, “Of anybody who would run, because, folks, we have to bring this country back together again.”

"Low-level employees were asked to perform duties they described as demeaning, like washing her dishes or other cleaning — a possible violation of Senate ethics rules, according to veterans of the chamber."

I'm afraid I must do a third post on the NYT article "How Amy Klobuchar Treats Her Staff."

I just want to focus on the subject of a U.S. Senator asking low-level staff to do cleaning and the journalism of calling it "a possible violation of Senate ethics rules, according to veterans of the chamber."

Why can't we have better reporting? Who are these unnamed people who make vague statements about ethics rules? Is this good journalistic ethics? What makes someone a "veteran of the chamber"? Could you be more specific?! Did you find out how little cleaning tasks like collecting coffee cups and rinsing them out are handled by other Senators?

It strikes me as unfair to waft "a possible violation of Senate ethics rule" without telling us what the rule is or committing to exposing and casting aspersions on all the Senators who ask staff to clean things.

If low-level staff think this kind of work is demeaning, let's talk about that. If there's no specific rule against assigning them cleaning tasks and there should be, then make a rule. Don't mobilize a fake rule for the purpose of taking down a candidate that you want out of the way.

For a while, I've had a tag "NYT pushes Kamala," where I've been collecting evidence of my hypothesis, and this post gets the tag. Does Kamala Harris have staff who are asked to do things like clear away coffee cups? Please check that for me and apply the same standard of newsworthiness and sneering at her if she does, because I think you're trying to clear away Amy to help Kamala.

And by the way, that's not going to help Kamala. Quit acting like she needs help, and quit pre-destroying her competition. Kamala could fail, and Kamala fans might need Amy.

And, NYT, you'd better make sure none of this coverage is sexist. Why am I hearing about the woman who expects her staff to clean up after her? Is it because the male Senators never do such things or is it because — on some level of consciousness — you expect a woman to do the cleaning?

On the Monday after the weekend when Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar announced their candidacy for President, is there any new evidence that the NYT has already picked a winner?

Look how the NYT home page structures the coverage this morning (click to enlarge and clarify):



I've had the tag "NYT pushes Kamala" since December 29th, when I wrote "The NYT makes its 2020 presidential choice obvious."

There are 5 women running in the race for the Democratic Party nomination — so many that I have to stop and try to remember them all. I count on my fingers and I google to check my work. And I feel that the NYT is always there to say, Don't worry, don't be confused, there's Kamala, and there's everyone else.

And I wonder about holding back the other women. The NYT can't know Kamala Harris will wow the crowds at rallies and shine at the debates. I don't think Harris, as a presidential candidate, has been tested at all, and I don't know anything about how serious antagonists will try to take her down... other than 1. She had a sexual relationship with Willie Brown and he boosted her early career, and 2. She's too much of a prosecutor to win the love of a minority group Democrats need to turn out if they're going to beat Mr. Criminal Justice Reform Donald Trump.

The big link — the one with the smiling face — goes to "THE LONG RUN/‘Progressive Prosecutor’: Can Kamala Harris Square the Circle?/Ms. Harris seemed to try to be all things to all people as a district attorney and state attorney general. Now, as she runs for president, her record faces a chorus of critics, especially on the left." The photo reappears and fills the whole screen. I see that the article is about the second thing of the 2 things I know. Is the NYT running interference for her? If you actually read the article, you'll find lots of criticism. It's not a puff piece. Excerpts:

"The more you learn about Kamala Harris, the more formidable she appears."

David Brooks is in love again.*

She is an amazing amalgam of different elements...

As opposed to amalgams of the same element. Why mess up your alliteration with a redundancy? And why not an amazing amalgam of elegant elements? Keep the alliteration at least.

... highly educated elite meritocrat, Oakland street fighter, crusading, rough-elbow prosecutor, canny machine pol and telegenic rhetorical brawler. She is also probably the toughest and most hard-nosed progressive on the scene right now....

She went to a prestigious school.... before going to law school, zooming up the political ladder and marrying a partner at a prestigious law firm. She is famously comfortable in rooms of the very wealthy.

But in deciding to work as a prosecutor — rather than going to a law firm — Harris was immersing herself in the gritty world the rest of the achievatrons were rising away from....

The rest of the achievatrons... like I guess the "partner at a prestigious law firm" she acquired as one of the achievements Brooks admires.

Harris was a beneficiary of the machine of the California political giant Willie Brown, who she briefly dated... but Harris made it clear at one forum that there is no way she’s going to bend if Brown or his allies try to influence her....

To beat Trump, I suspect Democrats will want unity. They won’t want somebody who essentially runs against the Democratic establishment (Bernie Sanders); they’ll want somebody who embodies it (Harris). They’ll want somebody who seems able to pulverize Trump in a debate (Harris)....

Seems!

Harris’s fearless, cut-the-crap rhetorical style will probably serve her well in this pugilistic political moment.

Probably!

Can anyone provide me with a good video clip demonstrating "Harris’s fearless, cut-the-crap rhetorical style," something that looks like it could "pulverize Trump in a debate"? I've never noticed anything like that. I hear a flat, bland style of speech. I mean, that's okay with me. I'm not looking for excitement. But if you're going to lavishly praise her rhetorical style and predict the pulverization of Trump, you need some evidence.

ADDED: I googled "fiery speech from kamala harris" and got this "Nobody is above the law" business, but it's Harris reading in a flat, nasal voice and frequently looking down and stumbling. Show me something where she's thinking on the spot and saying words that come straight from her head that show a "fearless, cut-the-crap rhetorical style" that could "pulverize Trump in a debate."

_____________________________

* I'm saying "again" because of the way Brooks gushed over Barack Obama in 2006. He famously said, "I remember distinctly an image of--we were sitting on his couches, and I was looking at his pant leg and his perfectly creased pant.... and I’m thinking, a) he’s going to be president and b) he’ll be a very good president." Notice that's a spoken quote. Brooks didn't write that in a column. The column he wrote at the time was "Run, Barack, Run." Here's how Brooks wrote about Obama:

[Barack Obama] notes that it’s time to move beyond the political style of the baby boom generation. This is a style... that is highly moralistic and personal, dividing people between who is good and who is bad.

Obama himself has a mentality formed by globalization, not the S.D.S. With his multiethnic family and his globe-spanning childhood, there is a little piece of everything in Obama. He is perpetually engaged in an internal discussion between different pieces of his hybrid self — Kenya with Harvard, Kansas with the South Side of Chicago — and he takes that conversation outward into the world....

He distrusts righteous anger and zeal. He does not demonize his opponents and tells audiences that he does not think George Bush is a bad man.

He has a compulsive tendency to see both sides of any issue.... During our talk... he kept returning to his mode, which is conversation, deliberation and reconciliation....

"Kamala Harris Was Not a ‘Progressive Prosecutor’/The senator was often on the wrong side of history when she served as California’s attorney general."

Writes lawprof Lara Bazelon in a NYT op-ed.

Time after time, when progressives urged her to embrace criminal justice reforms as a district attorney and then the state’s attorney general, Ms. Harris opposed them or stayed silent. 

Most troubling, Ms. Harris fought tooth and nail to uphold wrongful convictions that had been secured through official misconduct that included evidence tampering, false testimony and the suppression of crucial information by prosecutors....

In “The Truths We Hold,” Ms. Harris’s recently published memoir, she writes: “America has a deep and dark history of people using the power of the prosecutor as an instrument of injustice.... I know this history well — of innocent men framed, of charges brought against people without sufficient evidence, of prosecutors hiding information that would exonerate defendants, of the disproportionate application of the law.”

All too often, she was on the wrong side of that history....

I'm giving this my "NYT pushes Kamala" tag, though it counts against the proposition for which I created the tag.

It would be interesting to see Kamala Harris as the Democratic Party nominee, up against Trump, with Trump able to claim a more progressive record on criminal justice reform.

The NYT looks for the Democratic Party candidate who "matches the moment," tells us what this "moment" is, and nudges the non-moment-matching would-bes to stay out of the way.

"It is hard to recall a recent presidential primary where, at the outset of the race, there was this much genuine mystery — not only about who would eventually emerge as the nominee, but who planned to run at all," write Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns in "2020 Democratic Presidential Candidates Are Lining Up. Who Matches the Moment?" (NYT):

Ms. Warren’s announcement Monday was expected. And it will not be a surprise when Senators Cory Booker of New Jersey and Kamala Harris of California enter the race in the coming weeks. But the number of would-be candidates who may ultimately stay out of the race is larger than the list of contenders who are certain to run.

There are the well-known, or at least much-buzzed-about, Democrats who are still deliberating: Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. is the most prominent of this group, and leads the field in initial polling in Iowa. But there is also great anticipation over Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, the runner-up for the Democratic nomination in 2016, and Representative Beto O’Rourke of Texas, whose losing Senate bid this year electrified many grass-roots Democrats.

It is unclear if any of these men will enter the race — particularly Mr. Biden, who, associates say, is ambivalent about running after over three decades of presidential fits and starts.

It's a subtle pushback to the Bernie-Beto-Biden triad, but it is — as I see it — another NYT pushback to the 3 white men who ought to know better than to clutter the path of The Foursome. And we can see who the expendable member of The Foursome is, because they've left her name out of this article altogether.

Martin and Burns home in on Warren, who just announced she's in the running. She's early, but she's late:

Would she be the president today if she had run in 2016, as some liberal activists and admirers urged her to? Mr. Sanders ended up filling the void on the populist left and ran a surprisingly strong campaign against Hillary Clinton....

[T]he more recent history of presidential calculations suggests that candidates are wiser to run when the moment presents itself. That is what Mr. Obama did in 2008 after just four years in the Senate, the same period Ms. Warren would have served by 2016. Some Democrats think 2020 is Mr. O’Rourke’s moment: He has been in the House for just six years, but many liberals see his energy and freshness as inspiring.

One reason Ms. Warren announced on Monday and declared so early, her allies suggested, was to erase any uncertainty about her intentions among supporters whom she kept waiting — and ultimately disappointed — in 2016....

Timing is also crucial in presidential races because the issues can change so quickly. Mr. Trump’s incendiary rhetoric and policies around race and immigration have shifted the political conversation away from matters of economic inequality, which has been the life’s work of Ms. Warren and which defined much of the 2016 Democratic primary.

I think the reason why the NYT didn't mention the fourth member of The Foursome (Kirsten Gillibrand) was because they had to focus on Warren, given her announcement, and there's this idea that the "political conversation" has shifted from class consciousness to race consciousness. It's not a white-person "moment" anymore. "Who Matches the Moment?" says the headline, and the "moment" is, apparently, what Trump made it, with his "incendiary rhetoric and policies around race and immigration."

So Warren had her time, 2016, and she missed it, and let's not even mention that other white woman — or get derailed into the icky inquiry whether Warren is white — because the path needs clearing. Who knows how much white-person clutter could fall on the path the NYT would like to clear for — let's be honest — Kamala Harris?

The NYT is trying to be somewhat subtle, but it seems so obvious to me.

By the way, whatever happened to the rise of women, and why isn't the "moment" about #MeToo, which would vault Kirsten Gillibrand to the front?

I've been seeing the simultaneous crushing of the white male triad — Bernie, Beto, Biden — and I get it, but what's with "Why the Bernie Movement Must Crush Beto O’Rourke"?

That's the headline for this Jonathan Chait piece (in NY Magazine).

2 days ago, I was strongly impressed by the NYT article that promoted the Senate Foursome (Harris, Gillibrand, Warren, and Booker) and, on their behalf, gave the BBB triad a shove:

For the Senate foursome, moving quickly into the race is also a pre-emptive effort to undercut the early advantages of a duo of universally known contenders, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who may enter the race in the coming months. Mr. Biden and Mr. Sanders would start off with important advantages....

But as white men, Mr. Biden, Mr. Sanders and Mr. O’Rourke do not reflect the gender and racial diversity of many Democratic candidates and swaths of the electorate that dominated the 2018 midterms. Ms. Harris, Ms. Warren, Ms. Gillibrand and Mr. Booker, by contrast, would instantly make the 2020 Democratic field the most diverse array of presidential candidates in history. And they might well scramble the early polling leads held by Mr. Biden and Mr. Sanders, who benefit from strong name recognition but would be in their late 70s by Election Day 2020, at a moment when some in the party are agitating for generational change....

So let's take a closer look at Chait's plan to get Bernie — or is it just his "movement"? — to crush Beto. (Maybe get the BBB triad to fight itself and leave The Foursome free to perform more appealing feats?)

[O'Rourke] has replicated aspects of Sanders’s appeal — his positivity and refusal to accept PAC money — while exceeding it in some ways. Sanders is charismatic in an unconventional way, the slovenly and cranky but somewhat lovable old uncle, while O’Rourke projects a classic handsome, toothy, Kennedy-esque charm that reliably makes Democrats swoon. Hard-core loyalists find the contrast irksome....

The frequently invoked comparisons between O’Rourke and [Obama] explain both O’Rourke’s wide appeal within the party ranks and the mistrust he has inspired on the far left. Socialists generally regard Obama as a failure....

Baffled liberals, many still nursing wounds from 2016, see the passionate intensity of the Bernie movement as a personality cult, propelled by unthinking devotion to him (or spite at the party that they believe rigged the primary against him). It is anything but. The socialist left belongs to Sanders simply because there is no other presidential candidate who meets their exacting ideological criteria. They see O’Rourke as a threat to their project because, in important ways, he is.

So, about that headline — "Why the Bernie Movement Must Crush Beto O’Rourke." I don't think it's Chait saying this is what he wants to happen. I think it expresses the point of view of "the Bernie Movement" (i.e., real socialists). The idea is that Beto (like Obama) isn't a real socialist and he's a threat to the socialist agenda, therefore those who care about socialism must get Beto defeated.

The NYT was trying to crush the BBB triad in one fell swoop, for the sake of The Foursome. Chait is talking about socialists getting a good footing as the race goes forward, and opining that it won't happen at all unless Bernie has that niche. Beto is blocking Bernie's access to the niche.

By the way, beginning with this post, I'm using Beto to refer to Beto O'Rourke. I generally use last names, but there are some exceptions, and one of them is Bernie, and I like grouping the 3 B's together —  Bernie, Beto, Biden. I made a new tag: the Bernie-Beto-Biden triad.

I'm tracking what I believe is the NYT's obvious selection for the 2020 Democratic Party nominee for President — Kamala Harris.

I started yesterday, blogged here, with my new tag "NYT pushes Kamala."

Today, at the top right corner of the home page:



There's no particular reason for that op-ed to appear now other than to give KH some substance within our political emotions. Here's an excerpt:

I remember that I had just entered the race for California attorney general and she asked me how it was going.

“Mommy, these guys are saying they’re going to kick my ass,” I told her.

She called her mother "Mommy."

She rolled over and looked at me and unveiled the biggest smile. She knew who she’d raised. She knew her fighting spirit was alive and well inside me.

My mother died on Feb. 11, 2009, two months after her 70th birthday.... And though I miss her every day, I carry her with me wherever I go. I think of the battles she fought, the values she taught me, her commitment to improve health care for us all.... As I continue the battle for a better health care system, I do so in her name.

Remember Hillary launching her 2016 campaign by talking about her mother? Is this a woman-running-for-President cliché? I imagine advisers telling women candidates that they must associate themselves with motherliness, but without causing us to picture them in the motherhood role.

Kamala Harris's mother was a breast cancer scientist (and her father is a Stanford University economics professor).

The NYT makes its 2020 presidential choice obvious.

On the front page:



Inside, the text is clear. There's Kamala Harris and there are 3 other decent choices... and those 3 other guys need to step back and get out of the way:

Senator Kamala Harris of California.... Elizabeth Warren, the Massachusetts senator... Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey... And Senator Kirsten Gillibrand.... These four high-profile Democratic senators are poised to enter the 2020 presidential race in the next several weeks...

The speed of the senators’ efforts reflects intense political pressure to establish themselves as leading candidates in a Democratic field that could get crowded, fast.... and they don’t want to lose a step to a rival fresh face, such as Representative Beto O’Rourke, the former Texas Senate candidate who has been the focus of intense speculation in recent weeks as a potential presidential candidate....

For the Senate foursome, moving quickly into the race is also a pre-emptive effort to undercut the early advantages of a duo of universally known contenders, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who may enter the race in the coming months. Mr. Biden and Mr. Sanders would start off with important advantages, including existing networks of support among early-state activists and party donors, and the stature to generate impressive displays of support at early rallies.

But as white men, Mr. Biden, Mr. Sanders and Mr. O’Rourke do not reflect the gender and racial diversity of many Democratic candidates and swaths of the electorate that dominated the 2018 midterms. Ms. Harris, Ms. Warren, Ms. Gillibrand and Mr. Booker, by contrast, would instantly make the 2020 Democratic field the most diverse array of presidential candidates in history. And they might well scramble the early polling leads held by Mr. Biden and Mr. Sanders, who benefit from strong name recognition but would be in their late 70s by Election Day 2020, at a moment when some in the party are agitating for generational change....

The number of male operatives under consideration for campaign manager posts has raised concerns among some female Democratic strategists who hoped the diversity of the 2020 field would prompt more hiring of female and minority staffers for senior roles.... The focus on staff diversity reflects not only the influence of the #MeToo movement on Democratic politics but the demands of a party that has shifted to the left during the Trump era....