For some peculiar reason, the political commentariat this week are bending their bulging brains towards the question of which one of the progressive Democrats currently angling for a presidential bid next year will catch the brass ring. We have a year and a few days to go until Election Day, 2020, and nine months until the Democrat Party convention when the final decision on a candidate will be made; I speculate that the fierce urgency of defeating Orange Man Bad has a lot to do with so many hopefuls running early and often, and the overwhelming media interest in their assorted prospects.

I can’t claim ownership of a finely-tuned predictive crystal ball, or have any informants within the inner party, but I have been following the political scene as reflected in the crazy-house mirror of the internet since about 2002, and before that through a variety of print publications, and over time one does develop a sense of how things may develop with regard to next years’ presidential campaign.

First – I don’t see Joe Biden going anywhere save a semi-dignified retirement. It’s not just that he displays a degree of mild senility, an almost complete lack of any concrete positive achievement as a career legislator, a documented record of getting uncomfortably handsy with women and kids in public spaces, and a jaw-dropping degree of corruption tied to his substance-addled son; it’s that the national establishment news media appear to be declining to park a veil of discretion over all of the above. It’s almost as if someone has put out the word through the successor to JournoList that it’s OK now to rake ol’ Slow Joe over the coals.

One might suspect that the national establishment news media is still hoping for the Dowager Duchess of Chappaqua, Felonia von Pantsuit, AKA Hillary Clinton herself to take to the hustings once more. She certainly has been making all the appropriate noises of late about her eagerness to take on Orange Man Bad, but I don’t think she has a hope in hell, even if the establishment national news media (and the entertainment media, too) have a dispiriting tendency to look at her unlovely corpus with worship in their eyes. She is old, sick, drunken, fat, not charismatic, and busted. Resentful as all get-out, as her presidential apotheosis was snatched from her twice already. All she managed in her long career was to remain married to another superficially charming and charismatically skilled political actor and get four of her State Department functionaries or contractors killed in Benghazi during her tenure as Sec State.  Pity that none of that charm and skill managed to rub off on her. (I could make a very crude comment here regarding Bill and Hillary Clinton’s marriage and the intimacies involved, but then I would prefer to be tasteful. And also refrain from nauseating readers.) So; not Hillary, although the Old Guard among the establishment and entertainment media might have a go at supporting her. Just for old times’ sake.

I honestly don’t see the Democrat Party operatives being sufficiently insane/intent on self-immolation to nominate Bernie Sanders, the die-hard old Commie, and all-around useless old fart – especially not after his recent health problems.

In no particular order of appearance – next on my list of possibles is the pretend-Hispanic Robert Francis O’Rourke, who for political purposes, goes by the fond diminutive of “Beto”, although one can frankly wonder WTF? He’s about as Hispanic as I am (being of provably Anglo-English-Distantly German descent). I assume that lifetime proximity confers a degree of knowledge of another culture (it certainly has with mine) but all that Robert Francis has going for him is a Kennedyesque physical appearance, and a gift for channeling the nastier attitudes and ambitions of the prog characters in this dystopic novel series. Maybe the Dems will go for him – but he has been so far out on the fringe that I can’t help thinking that those few in the inner circles are regretfully chalking a ‘no’ and moving on.

Kamala Harris. She does have the “female person of color” privilege going for her, but it is bad enough to be appealed to vote for a woman just because she was the spouse of a formidable politician: Now we are supposed to vote for a woman just because she got her start as the mistress of a formidable politician?

Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, besides a risible surname and a morsel of gay privilege (as well as having served in the military) is just Beto Light. And South Bend appears to be a crime-ridden pit of civic despair. If Mayor Buttigieg had been able to do anything positive about that, then he might have been qualified for a higher office, not that this ever stopped the ambitious before. Otherwise, a truckload of fail.

Cory Booker, formerly a mayor of Newark, New Jersey (another crime-ridden pit of civic despair); a fiercely heterosexual person of color, and as far left as a summer day is long. Pete Buttigieg with a dark tan.

There is persistent speculation in some quarters that Michelle Obama might be a last-minute surprise addition to the Democrat Party slate, but I honestly can’t see this. She already has the celebrity, and the more than generous bennies of a former First Lady and has never struck me as being a really nose-to-the-grindstone individual. Oh, sure, as long as it was parties and exotic trips to distant places, rubbing elbows with the Beautiful People, and flaunting awful and unflattering clothes, but actual dull, draining work, which campaigning and being chief executive would entail … no.

Tulsi Gabbard is a distant outside shot: attractive, well-spoken, and speaks her mind. She is also a military veteran, as lefty as they come, but curiously does not seem to despise conservatives and those residents of flyover country, which is probably why she is a very distant possibility, after Elizabeth Warren … who is the one I believe will be nominated. (With a VP who is whoever comes in second after her, at the convention.)

Finally; Mrs. Warren, sometime Cherokee, long-time law prof, and a prevaricator of some distinction, not that she is unusual in that regard as a politician. A moderately-rabid leftist like all the above, she has female privilege, is attractive and energetic for her age, and in better health that Bernie, Biden and the Dowager Duchess. She also appears to be well-focused and accustomed to working towards a goal. In spite of her embarrassing series of missteps, gaffes and outright untruths, should she be anointed as the One, the national establishment media will obediently hitch themselves to her campaign, and pull it, juggernaut-like, through the streets of the cities, tactfully veiling over her claims of being Cherokee, and fired for being pregnant. The national establishment media is all about mole-hilling the misdeeds of the Democratic Party leadership, while making a mountain of anything about a conservative that they don’t like. That and massive levels of ballot-box stuffing, fraudulent voters, and precincts which turn in more ballots than are people known to live there. Your thought and speculations?