Monday saw the Dems move in two ways that will increase their chances for success in 2020. If they continue on this road, and abandon their subtle Arthur Brown-like usual tactics, the GOP may want to take notice and adjust accordingly.
First they decided to have their 2020 Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It’s a state they still don’t believe they lost to Trump last time around. With this choice of locale they help return it to the Dem fold and also may be targeting those economic populist votes in the upper Midwest that gave the president his margin of victory there, Michigan, and in Mid-Atlantic Pennsylvania.
Without those states Trump will have a hard time and may have to flip others (like Nevada and Colorado) he lost in 2016 in order to triumph. While I still think, given the record of incumbents and reelection, he will win, this Wisconsin venue could hurt his chances. It is an act of political sanity on the part of the Dems. This contrasts with their current ideological binge to the left, which could undo moves like this and usher in a 1972 general election scenario for the de facto Socialist Party.
The second is the announcement from Nancy Pelosi that impeachment is off the table unless a billowing smoking gun is found and the push for impeachment is bipartisan. After all, if they really think Trump is on the ropes, wouldn’t they want to run against him instead of against a squeaky clean Mike Pence?
They also remember impeachment, which they know will not mean removal from office for the president, can rebound against them just like Clinton’s numbers went up in the 90s after the GOP impeached him. Though, the question can then be posed: What are all the House investigations of the president for if none of them can lead to impeachment? The likely answer: a Dem strategy of a PR death of a thousand cuts.
Pelosi also may think that the supposedly soon-to-be released Mueller Report will be a big fat nothing and is trying to manage expectations and soften the blow for heretofore rabid Dems who boasted of the likely damning Mueller results.
These developments are early on in the 2020 game and are only an indication of things to come. But if the Dem leadership puts politics over ideology and can convince their nominee to do so as well, things will be a whole lot sportier in the fall of 2020 than the president now thinks or then wants.