Rumbling And A-Tumbling On Campaign Trail 2020-The Mysteries Presidential Candidates Jockeying For Position Unfurled-Maybe

By Sam Lowell

In the old projects neighborhood when I was a kid we used to, being very short of money for official store-bought games, play a game called fuzz ball. The idea, the winning idea was to figure out where the twelve to fifteen balls (old golf balls found on a country club golf course just sitting there for the plucking even if we were trespassing) would wind up once the rules were established which basically kept things moving (and each of us off the other’s back about fouls and stuff). It was that ancient silly game that I was thinking about recently when I was asked by my political comrades who are along with me ever since last January knee-deep, no, waist deep in the 2020 presidential campaign on behalf of Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont.      

The real connection between fuzz ball and this odd-ball presidential election campaign are the number of ups and down in the process before some kind of clear winner is asserted. Many a time I thought I had the game in the bag only to have some goof golf ball come up and whack my chances. When my Bernie group got formed last winter we thought we had it all figured out and in some ways we had, have but mainly the jury is still out. Then Sleepy Joe Biden and Senator Sanders apparently mainly on previous name recognition were assumed to have the front-runner status. Senator Sanders jumped out into the lead as long as Sleepy Joe had not formally declared his candidacy. In the meantime serious contenders like Senator Elizabeth Warren from Massachusetts were putting ground games together as were holy goofs like Andrew Yang and little Tommy Steyers were spreading plenty of dough around to keep visible and pray for rain or something.

Then come late spring and Sleepy Joe’s formal announcement that he wanted to be king of the hill. That sent his stock way up the charts. Why? Somehow sight unseen he was the only one who could beat one Donald J. Trump, the only hope of the corporate friendly establishment wing of the Democratic Party. That mantra kept him afloat for far longer than any of us in the Sanders corner expected until the debates, until Sleepy Joe actually opened his mouth and was found to be made of pure dust (which still hasn’t kept some from using the same old, same old argument about electability)

Some people got nervous though and started looking for the next best thing which turned out for a minute through the summer to be Senator Warren, if she could do business, tone down her act. And she come. Every day you would hear about her surging in some polls and if you weren’t just a little wary, and a little cynical about such polls when they were all over the place she looked like she would be queen of the hill. She fell down a bit on Medicare for All and her general wonkish demeanor and draw and right now she is licking her wounds. We shall see what happens in the early going when actual votes are counted. Not everybody put their eggs in one basket though. Pistol Pete from South Bend began to get (and still have) some serious play if Sleepy Joe falls down or Professor Warren can’t make a turnaround. We shall see.

Through all of this I have not mentioned Senator Sanders who took the biggest hit when Sleepy Joe entered the lists. His numbers never really moved all summer and he was written off (if not previously then at that time) as a favorite of the fanatics in the party and not much else. Worse Senator Warren was pulling voters from his fringes (and cadre too) so by early October it looked like he was done for. Especially when the heart attack scare took hold about his age and such. That was the nadir but strangely from his recovery period onward he has moved up the charts again. Not an unimportant consideration that rising star Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) saved his bacon by a big endorsement and rally in Queens when he was on the ropes. For that he should be eternally grateful. Who knows what will happen as we head into the actual vote-counting but my political comrades and I have agreed that looking at Iowa and New Hampshire the Senator has a shot at getting over the finish line. Something that in early October seemed totally improbable even to we die-hards.