争论爆发在初选的年代everal states, influential media voices are calling for further cloaking the electoral process in obscurity — in the name of protecting candidates and voters alike from the ravages of the coronavirus, of course. The epidemic — and America’s fragile democracy — demands nothing less.
“
It’s time to cancel the US presidential campaign,” a not-at-all-alarmist headline from Council on Foreign Relations alumna Laurie Garrett
screamedin Foreign Policy on Wednesday. The New York Times concurred,
offeringa less hysterical primer on “
How to protect the election from coronavirus” on Thursday (spoiler alert: “
let everyone vote by mail”) from the American Civil Liberties Union’s Dale Ho. And a cascade of blue-checks have weighed in with their support for the idea on social media.
...
Bringing the campaigns online provides an obvious advantage to the favored establishment Democrat, Joe Biden, whose energy and coherence on the in-the-flesh campaign trail have been noticeably flagging. The former vice president profanely lashed out at a Michigan voter as that state headed to the polls on Tuesday, and attendance at his rallies has suffered from the same “
enthusiasm gap” that plagued the 2016 establishment pick, Hillary Clinton. Democratic Socialist challenger Bernie Sanders — and President Donald Trump, for that matter — regularly fill large venues with enthusiastic crowds, making it difficult for even the most determined centrist pundits to claim Biden enjoys the overwhelming support of the American people. Canceling the nominating convention, as Garrett and other establishment stalwarts are calling for, plays into the hands of the DNC, whose lawyers infamously argued in response to a 2016 voter lawsuit that they could pick the party’s candidate in smoke-filled back rooms if they so desired.