Amateurs shouldn’t run for president

BloombergOpinion Early Returns

Jonathan Bernstein

One thing that reliably gets me angry is amateurs jumping into politics at the highest level without having learned how the U.S. system works. Another is mindless Congress-bashing. Tom Steyer, an activist and former hedge-fund manager now running for president, is managing to do both. Steyer's latest idea is to come out against … the August recess. He says Nancy Pelosi and other House Democrats haven't been working hard enough to "deserve a month-long vacation." He seems to be unaware that the House recently passed a major minimum-wage bill and has otherwise been systematically advancing the Democratic agenda. House Democrats also made a deal on federal spending for the next two years and raised the debt limit well before default talk might've riled the markets. There's plenty to criticize about their oversight of President Donald Trump's administration, but they've nonetheless made progress amid unprecedented stonewalling, backed in some cases by partisan courts.  Of course, if Steyer had his way, Pelosi would've brought an impeachment bill to the House floor months ago. Such an effort might well have failed in the House back then; even if it had passed, the Senate would've quickly cleared the president. So it's not clear exactly how that would've put Democrats in better shape to restrain Trump's lawlessness.  More to the point, Steyer should know that most lawmakers work hard. It's often a seven-days-a-week position, with members busy full time during the week in Washington and in their districts over the weekends. Recesses are officially called "district work periods," which is sort of silly but not wrong: While most lawmakers do take some days off, they also spend a lot of time meeting with constituents and generally working the district. That's part of representation, a process central to democracy that many folks who only know politics from Fox News and MSNBC don't know much about.  It's possible that Steyer – who's urging voters to sign a petition telling Pelosi to cancel the recess – is simply bashing Congress as a way of winning over enough donors to qualify for the September debates. If so, his willingness to criticize his own party to further his ambitions is something that Democrats will likely hold against him. In any event, a candidate who claims to want to restore proper constitutional government and the rule of law shouldn't be out there scoring cheap points against Congress. The belief that there must be a magic bullet somewhere that one's party is (mysteriously) failing to exploit isn't unusual among people who don't understand the political system very well. It's relatively harmless if their political participation is restricted to online comments sections. It's a lot more dangerous when thrown around by a presidential candidate.  1. "Trump has unwittingly sanctioned the U.S. economy." Dan Drezner about the effects of Trump's trade wars. 2. Matthew Dickinson continues his series on Democratic candidates in New Hampshire with Amy Klobuchar.  3. Elahe Izadi and Kayla Epstein on "the Squad." 4. Marty Lederman on Congress investigating the president. 5. My Bloomberg Opinion colleague Timothy L. O'Brien on Republicans who won't speak up about Trump's bigotry.  6. Andrew Sprung on the Democrats' health-care plans.  7. Fred Kaplan on the exit of Dan Coats and what comes next. 8. Heather Caygle, Jake Sherman and Laura Barron-Lopez report on major turmoil at the Democrats' House election committee. Sure seems like there's more to this story than we've seen so far. One note of caution: It's never good for a party when its formal organizations are in chaos, but it's unlikely to be a significant factor in 2020 House elections.  9. And Bloomberg's Allyson Versprille reports on the demise of the postcard tax return.  Get Early Returns every morning in your inbox. Click here to subscribe. Also subscribe to Bloomberg All Access and get much, much more. You'll receive our unmatched global news coverage and two in-depth daily newsletters, the Bloomberg Open and the Bloomberg Close.

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