For those of you under 60, the title of this post recalls LBJ's anguished quote, "if I've lost Walter Cronkite, I've lost middle America" in reaction to the CBS news anchor's criticism of the Vietnam war in 1968. Cronkite's criticism caused Johnson to not run for a 2nd term in 1968, paving the way for republicans to regain the White House after their landslide loss in 1964.
Of course, David Brooks is no Walter Cronkite. The latter had cachet among a wide swath of America. His credibility was the gold standard at the time. Brooks is a cranky right of center columnist for the NYT who specializes in pretending non partisanship while always skewering the democratic side of any issue. I'm sure he is mostly ridiculed by the Faux News viewership of flyover America if anyone out there pays him any attention. However, his column today is likely to be quoted on the moderate side of the right wing. He anguishes over a hypothetical choice in the 2020 election between Cheetolini and Elizabeth Warren and comes down pretty firmly for Warren.
There are many months to go before the nominating conventions, but the possibility of the dems nominating Warren has gone from a fringe dream to a valid possibility and if conservatives like Brooks are counseling a vote for a champion of the supposed far left, Warren can probably count on a least a half dozen votes from moderate republicans who actually read Brooks' column!
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