Wes Moore for President

My most recent post here was not my finest. I asked President Biden to step down. But as one commentator noted, I didn’t suggest an alternative. And I implied (but never said!) that we Dems need a strongman to overcome the lure of Trump. What I should have said is that we need a candidate with the strength, vitality and youth to beat the appeal of a strongman like Trump. In this post, I’ll try to fix all that.

Ever since he won the governorship of Maryland, I’ve been watching Wes Moore. Right now, today, if we had a ranked-choice-voting primary to replace President Biden, he would be my first choice. Here’s why, in rough order of importance:

1. Calmth. Yes, I’m coining a new word here. But we need a new word to describe a special quality that Moore has. He has a calm, measured and yet decisive manner of speaking. It works like flame retardant on a bonfire.

Watch a few of his speeches and you’ll see what I mean. After mere minutes of listening, your adrenal glands subside and your brain kicks in. Moore’s combination of mildness, empathy, reason, and intelligence are just the balm we need in an era when accusations, blame, lies, fear and sometimes rage are all that most pols serve up.

2. Military Experience. Right now, all of us Dems are scared to death of losing, and for good reason. But what if we win? Trump has hinted that violence will follow, maybe even civil war. And the paradigm of his January 6 Insurrection gives him a platform on which to build new attacks.

Our misguided debacle in Vietnam caused us to create an “all-volunteer” military. As a result, very few of our leaders have served in our armed forces. Among my short list of alternatives to Biden, only Pete Buttigieg also has served. Raimondo, Whitmer, and Newsom never served. Moore served two years in combat in Afghanistan and attained the rank of captain.

If Trump loses, I think some kind of violent disturbance is likely, if not inevitable. When/if it comes, I want our Commander-in-Chief to have had military experience. I want to see quick and decisive action, overwhelming force, and thoughtful tactics and strategy—all of which will save lives and reduce casualties and the risk of violence spreading. And I want a leader who will use all the powers of his/her office, including martial law and the new immunity from criminal prosecution that John Roberts has given presidents, to jail the troublemakers pending trial and put a quick kibosh on any mimicry.

Combat experience will also serve Moore well in the field of foreign policy. The world is becoming increasingly violent and unruly, so much so that calls for American troops may soon arise, if only for clandestine capture or rescue missions. Both citizens and troops will have more confidence in the orders of a Commander-in-Chief who has actually seen combat.

3. Trust in Science and Expertise. Moore first came to my attention as I watched his victory speech on winning the governorship of Maryland. After promising to keep abortion a decision for a woman and her doctor [timer at 16:08] he said that giving every child in Maryland a year of pre-pre-K education was one of his top priorities [timer at 16:38]. With the Democratic “trifecta” in Maryland, he got the pre-pre-K done during his first year.

What impressed me most was the reason that Moore later gave for this important educational initiative. He relied on the science of human brain development, which says that the most important gains occur in the first few years of life.

How many times have you heard a politician say that spending money is a top priority because scientists say it will make things better? Moore will bring scientists and other experts back to their proper places in society, and science back to its proper place among Enlightenment values.

And as for the Enlightenment, set the timer for his victory speech at 23:16 and listen to Moore define the term “patriotism.” It sounds to me a lot like the Western Enlightenment, in different words.

4. The Bridge Collapse. To see what Moore is made of, watch his speeches about the tragic collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore Harbor. No blame. No finger pointing. He simply explains: this is what happened, and this is how we’re going to fix it.

Competent engineers were consulted. Expertise was applied. Two and a half months after the bridge collapsed, its dangerous remnants had been removed, the ship that had caused the damage sailed out of the harbor under its own steam, and the harbor re-opened. No fuss. No muss. Just quiet competence. That used to be how we Americans worked all the time.

5. Jack of All Trades. Wes Moore has been all of the following: (1) a military-school kid, after his father had died and his mother gave him “tough love” to fix some discipline issues; (2) a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University; (3) a Captain of airborne troops in Afghanistan; (4) an investment banker; (5) a founder of non-profit community organizations; and (6) a best-selling author (with a book about a kid with the same name whose life took a very different trajectory).

With all this experience, Moore understands deeply what it takes to lead on a heating planet with a population over 8 billion people: you have to pick the best experts and follow their advice. That’s what Moore did in educating Maryland’s children and clearing Baltimore Harbor after its disastrous bridge collapse. When Moore gets though explaining precisely how and why Trump botched Covid, our economy, Trump’s own tariffs, and our relations with Iran and North Korea—by shooting from the hip with his own half-baked ideas—voters will begin to recall what true leadership is.

6. Racial politics. Can a second Black candidate win the presidency after a backlash to the first one helped elect the worst president in our history? I think so. That backlash is at its height right now; it can’t go anywhere but down. And virtually all the backlash voters are already MAGA supporters; they voted for Trump in 2020, and Biden won. I doubt any non-Black progressive or moderate voter will turn away from a candidate as solid as Moore simply because he’s Black.

On the other hand, Moore will bring Black voters who are now considering voting for Trump, or for a third-party candidate, back into the Democratic fold. He may even do that with straying Hispanics. He will attract youth much better than an 81-year old man with speaking and memory problems.

Since straying Black voters are the Dems’ greatest potential liability in the upcoming election—and one that the Trump campaign seeks relentlessly to exploit—Moore’s identity will probably be a net electoral plus, especially in battleground states like Michigan and Pennsylvania. Once people see how calm, smart and measured he is, how empathetic, and how good a leader, he will win.

7. No Skeletons. Moore seems to have no skeletons in his closet. He got arrested for graffiti in his youth, and a public nonprofit he started failed. He’s married, with two kids, and his private life is private. Unless I’m missing something, there’s no dirt in his history to dig up.

I have only two reservations about Moore. First, he will have had only two years as governor of Maryland before becoming president. But if you add his two years of military leadership in combat, that’s four years: two thirds of the time George W. Bush had as governor of Texas before becoming president. (Bush served in the Texas Air National Guard but never saw combat.)

Moore beats George W. Bush all hollow in intelligence, public speaking, judgment and leadership. And of course Trump had zero political experience before he became president.

My second reservation is campaigning. Will Moore, who excels in his calmth, mature judgment, empathy, and intelligence, be able to best Trump in the electronic media that are Trump’s only plausible field of expertise? Will Moore be able to dig out from under an avalanche of lies and boasts?

I can’t answer that question definitively now. But Moore is young, vital, and adaptable, and his combat experience will have been worse than anything that Bone Spurs can throw at him. Moore may have to undergo some crash campaign training, but it won’t be the first time in his life when a lot hung on learning fast.

As I look at the field of possible Democratic candidates, including President Biden, I see Moore as standing head and shoulders above the rest. His military leadership and contacts, his instinctive and experienced resort to science and experts, and his calm, measured approach to problems all are vital ingredients, in my view, of a return to normal.

His governorship of Maryland, although short, has been an unqualified success. I think voters will quickly see the vast gulf between leadership based on true intelligence, good judgment and reliance on experts, on the one hand, and a carnival barker’s boasts on the other. And Moore has the youth, vitality, stamina, and intelligence to best an increasingly deranged malignant narcissist in campaigning and public debates.

Oh, and I guess there’s another small problem: if Moore becomes president, Marylanders will be sorry to lose him.



For brief descriptions of and links to recent posts, click here. For an inverse-chronological list with links to all posts after January 23, 2017, click here. For a subject-matter index to posts before that date, click here.

Permalink to this post