Everything old is new again in 2020? I could have sworn I’ve seen these production numbers before in different years. Yet here we are again, watching candidates – specifically Democrat or liberal ones – using the same old playbooks.

Want proof? Here’s the candidate and the year that the strategy being employed was first tried.

Kamala Harris: 2008 Playbook

Here we have the “official” launch from the junior senator from California. (Wait, she already announced? And now she’s doing an “official” launch? Maybe this is really the 2016 Hillary Clinton Playbook.)

The stage is set in Oakland for Kamala Harris to formally announce her presidential campaign. There are a few flags. pic.twitter.com/vlgyKJRier

— Matt Viser (@mviser) January 27, 2019

This “official” launch was really a “I hate Trump” speech, so of course it played well in Oakland.

Harris’ political celebrity was evident at Sunday’s sun-kissed rally in downtown Oakland, where she was born and began her career as a public prosecutor. She drew an impressive crowd that police estimated at more than 20,000, as well as live nationwide coverage on several cable TV networks.

She used her 35 minutes of remarks to lay out a liberal agenda calling for expanded access to healthcare, preschool and college education and, above all, to inveigh against President Trump and the direction he has led the country.

“We are at an inflection point in the history of our world,” Harris said, overlooking a multiethnic sea of listeners from the steps of Oakland’s City Hall. “We are here because the American dream and our American democracy are under attack and on the line like never before.”

Kamala Harris is trying to use the Barack Obama 2008 playbook, but that may not work as well as it did for Obama – especially since other candidates want in on that sweet, sweet narrative.

Kamala Harris was dubbed the “Female Obama” even before she announced she was going to “pull off an Obama-sized feat in 2020,” as McClatchy put it when the California senator formally entered the Democratic presidential primary this week. Now, her campaign envisions replicating the coalition that backed Barack Obama’s 2008 primary upset: “Asians, Latinos and other voters of color, as well as educated white liberals” and young voters.

Julián Castro has the same idea. After the 44-year old grandson of Mexican immigrants announced his candidacy, his brother Joaquín predicted that he would have “strong support” among Obama voters because “his message resonates” with them.

Julián Castro’s fellow Texan Beto O’Rourke was also touted as Obama’s natural political successor. “He’s Barack Obama, but white,” said one anonymous donor to POLITICO, marveling at O’Rourke’s Senate campaign and his online fundraising haul.

Other candidates, still waiting in the wings, can be expected to eye the Obama coalition for themselves. If Cory Booker or former Attorney General Eric Holder enter the race, surely more Obama comparisons will be made. Nobody would confuse Joe Biden for Barack Obama, but he does have the unique credential of having been Obama’s vice president and would hope to impress his voters. Bernie Sanders, who won over young white progressives but not older African-Americans in 2016, has been spending more time in front of black audiences ever since.

Also not helping Kamala Harris was learning that she used a much older – ahem! – playbook at the beginning of her political career.

Former San Francisco mayor Willie Brown broke his silence on his relationship with Democratic senator Kamala Harris on Saturday, admitting in his weekly column that he used his powerful post to boost her young career when they dated.

Brown, who was openly in an extramarital relationship with Harris when he was speaker of the California State Assembly and running for mayor, had avoided commenting on his relationship with Harris since she announced her run for president a week ago. Harris has also managed to avoid addressing the role Brown played in the early stages of her political career.

In his weekly San Francisco Chronicle column, however, Brown referred to it as the “elephant in the room” and acknowledged that he used his position to help her career.

“I’ve been peppered with calls from the national media about my ‘relationship’ with Kamala Harris, most of which I have not returned,” Brown wrote. “Yes, we dated.”

Brown goes on to address the fact that he appointed Harris, who was just a few years out of law school and working at the Alameda County district attorney’s office, to two well-paid posts on California state commissions and later helped her in her first election.

“Yes, I may have influenced her career by appointing her to two state commissions when I was Assembly speaker,” he writes. “And I certainly helped with her first race for district attorney in San Francisco.”

The two reportedly broke up in December 1995 just before he became mayor, but he remained a political ally.

Ew. And also, EWWWW. That’s not “dating,” that’s giving your then-mistress (Brown has been legally married to his wife since 1958, but has had an open marriage and relationships with several women over the years) cushy political gigs in order to jump-start her career, but it was all okay, Brown says, because she said she wouldn’t give him any preferential treatment after that? Yeah, just imagine a Republican woman getting away with THAT kind of career booster (remember Nikki Haley was accused by fabulist Michael Wolff of doing the same, but it was such a lie that even the press didn’t buy it?). The press isn’t going to touch this affair with a ten-foot pole. But it sure makes Kamala Harris’s #MeToo problem look a whooooooole lot more interesting.

Howard Schultz: 1992 Playbook

Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz is getting close to tossing his hat in the ring. But not as a Democrat. No, this progressive Seattle liberal doesn’t want to run as a Democrat.

I love our country, and I am seriously considering running for president as a centrist independent.

— Howard Schultz (@HowardSchultz) January 28, 2019

As a born Seattleite, let me say HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. There is nothing “centrist” about Howard Schultz. The man has a gigantic ego, and he wants the public to stroke it. Sound familiar?

Yeah, the left was very much not enamored with the idea. And honestly, given the history of Howard Schultz and the Sonics, I’m pretty sure that even Seattle won’t vote for the lying weasel – even though he’s trying to apologize and smooth things over, almost 13 years after the fact, RIGHT NOW. He must REALLY want to be president if he’s actually apologizing.

Don’t believe him. Schultz is trying to copy Ross Perot, circa 1992, and play spoiler. It would be thoroughly entertaining for the GOP to watch Schultz elbow his way into a presidential run that can only take votes from Democrats. Will we be so lucky? Only time and hubris will tell.

Hillary Clinton: 2008 and 2016 Playbooks

Oh yes, you read that right. It might just be déjà vu all over again.

CNN White House correspondent Jeff Zeleny said Sunday on CNN’s “Inside Politics” that Clinton told people “as recently as this week” that she isn’t “closing the doors to the idea of running in 2020.”

“I’m told by three people that as recently as this week, she was telling people that look, given all this news from the indictments, particularly the Roger Stone indictment, she talked to several people, saying ‘look, I’m not closing the doors to this,’ ” Zeleny said.

“It does not mean that there’s a campaign-in-waiting, or a plan in the works,” he continued.

The former secretary of State has previously not ruled out another presidential bid, saying last October that she would “like to be president.”

Zeleny added that Clinton believes running “could be a possibility,” given that she won the popular vote over President Trump in 2016 and that several former Trump associates have been indicted in special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian interference in that election.

Only Hillary Clinton could possess enough arrogance and obliviousness to actually believe that she could run again for president in 2020 and NOT be a national laughingstock. Two failed campaigns are not enough? Third time’s the charm?

Let’s just say that the reception isn’t as warm as Hillary might think.

No, I’m saying this about Bernie Sanders and I’m saying it about Hillary Clinton. No, No, No to both of them. If they run it will be divisive and proof they really don’t care about the future of this nation. I want new candidates we all can support.

— denise (@ddeenniissee59) January 27, 2019

There are plenty of Democrats who would probably still vote for Hillary. But can you imagine how those primary debates are going to go? Hillary on a platform with ten other candidates, at a minimum? And all of them willing to tear her apart for losing to Donald Trump? If Hillary Clinton decides to run again, she has only herself to blame for the carnage that will follow. But dignity and Hillary Clinton are not on speaking terms.

Anyone else excited for all the 2020 reruns? After all, you’ve seen it all before!

Featured photo via Pixabay, Pixabay license free for commercial use