DAVID MARCUS: Sorry Stephen A. Smith, Democrats don’t let outsiders win their primaries
In his decades covering sports, Stephen A. Smith has seen a lot of cheating and dirty tricks, but it’s nothing compared to what he'd face in a longshot bid for the Democratic nomination for president.
Those who run the nation’s oldest political party will not just hand Smith the car keys. In fact, they will do everything they can to destroy his nascent political career, even if that means destroying him.
STEPHEN A. SMITH SAYS HE'S STRONGLY CONSIDERING PRESIDENTIAL RUN
On Sunday, Smith appeared on ABC’s "This Week," after confirming last week that he is not ruling out a run at the highest office in the land. And after all, you might say, if a celebrity like Donald Trump can find himself residing at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., then why not Stephen A. Smith?
The answer to that question is that Democrats are not Republicans.
Just ask Robert F Kennedy, Jr., who Democrats denied any opportunity to challenge Joe Biden in the 2024 primary, and who now works for Trump.
The party didn’t just try to defeat RFK Jr., they sought to humiliate and marginalize him. Smith should take heed.
Democrats do not go with the hot hand just to win. If they did, Bernie Sanders would've been their nominee in 2016, not Hillary Clinton. And they proved it again at Sanders' expense in 2020, when they pushed him aside for Joe Biden. Democrats want someone from their club, or at least someone they can control.
Stephen A. Smith is neither.
To be sure, there is a very positive case to be made for Smith as the Democratic Party wanders through the political wilderness, shivering in the long cold shadow of Biden’s incompetence and decrepitude.
Smith is obviously a gifted communicator, and more than that, he appeals to the Achilles heel of the party, working-class men. He also appears more or less immune to wacky woke ideas like men playing in women’s sports.
Smith has an undeniable everyman appeal. After all, almost by definition a sports analyst is the guy you want to have a beer with, and even in that world, Smith balances the brutishness of sport with high-mindedness and impeccable style.
His wildly successful career in the aggressive and high-stakes world of sports media is an asset for Smith. Before voters can agree with what a politician has to say, they have to want to hear what they have to say. Smith knows how to get attention.
But before we start designing the fully lit basketball court in the Rose Garden, it is worth considering the extensive tools that the Democrats’ elite have to thwart Smith, a set of tools that, had they had them, Republicans would have used to kneecap Trump in 2016.
First of all, superdelegates, which is to say unelected party insiders who cast ballots for the nominee at the party convention, play a vastly bigger role in the Democrats’ primary process than in the GOP’s. Added to this, given the dominance of Democrats in our major urban areas, local Democratic Party machines play an outsized role.
It was Rep. James Clyburn’s get-out-the-vote effort in South Carolina cities that propelled Biden to his 2020 win, even though just a week earlier his candidacy had looked dead as a doornail.
The party elders pick the candidates, whether the voters like it or not. Let’s not forget that just five months ago Kamala Harris ran for president, having never won a primary. Does it really matter how many votes Smith can get in a party that anoints nominees nobody voted for?
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In 2016, Donald Trump didn’t so much win the Republican nomination for president as he did take over the GOP, fundamentally transforming it in ways we are still seeing play out with young and working-class voters, and with tariffs and peace deals.
To become president, Stephen A. Smith would have to likewise. It wouldn't be enough to simply get the most votes for the Democratic nomination. He would have to fundamentally change the party itself, and the power structures within it, like Trump did.
As talented as Smith is, changing the Democratic Party is likely too tall an order for anyone. It is a machine designed to minimize voter impact.
If Smith really wants to be president someday, he’d probably have a better chance running as a Republican. But that is a column for another day.