The Register's editorial

Editor’s note: Register endorsement editorials generally focus on the candidates the editorial board endorses, rather than those it does not. Because of the large field and the many well-qualified candidates, the board is sharing its thoughts about some of the other candidates in the hope that it might prove useful as Iowans weigh their choices.

ENDORSEMENT: Elizabeth Warren will push an unequal America in the right direction

WHY WE ENDORSE: Opinion editor explains the purpose of today's editorial

Michael Bennet

The U.S. senator from Colorado impressed the editorial board in both his visits. He boasts a resume of accomplishment in several spheres: an attorney, an executive at an investment company, superintendent of the Denver public schools and a two-term senator.

His insights into the challenges of urban education alone would be an epiphany for the executive branch. He’s pragmatic (he was part of the Gang of Eight that secured passage of a comprehensive immigration bill in the Senate, and he argues for a public option as a more workable path than pushing immediately for “Medicare for All”), but he’s also pound-the-table passionate about fiscal irresponsibility and congressional dysfunction.

U.S. Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, a one-time rival in the presidential race, complimented Bennet as a trusted ally in pursuing criminal justice reform and combating racial injustice.

Reservations: The editorial board tries to ignore poll results, but Bennet has struggled to gain traction after a late start following treatment for prostate cancer. He could continue doing good work in the Senate, or he would make a fine secretary of education. Either could position him for another presidential bid, which would be welcomed.

Joe Biden

There is much to commend the former vice president.

President Trump’s mercurial foreign policy has embraced foes and estranged allies. Biden far outdistances the field in knowledge of foreign policy and familiarity with world leaders.

His 36 years in the Senate and his eight years of rounding up votes as vice president give him unrivaled experience in knowing how to get legislation passed through Congress.

Biden can sometimes be gaffe-prone, but the board does not doubt that his heart is in the right place. He has endured the unfathomable losses of his first wife and two children. It has been moving to see him repeatedly take time on the campaign trail to share a quiet moment with others grieving the loss of loved ones.

Reservations: He lacks Warren’s specific expertise on income inequality issues. His ideas lean more toward incremental improvements on the Obama years than the bold agenda the times demand.

Pete Buttigieg

The former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, is a gifted speaker who demonstrates an impressive command of policy nuances and offers refreshing, common-ground approaches unburdened by the constraints of Washington insider politics.

Befitting a one-time McKinsey consultant, he brings an analyst’s mind-set to breaking down issues, guided first by data and science rather than ideology.

He and U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii are the only two remaining candidates in either party who have served in the military, including war-time deployments. They offer a valuable boots-on-the-ground perspective on the cost of continuous war.

Reservations: His new-generation appeal is also his vulnerability. An eight-year tenure of heading a city the size of Davenport hardly seems adequate preparation for leading this vast, diverse, divided country. His relative lack of support among communities of color also raises questions about his ability to unite the country and suggests an area for personal growth.

John Delaney

The former congressman from Maryland has worked hard to earn Iowans’ support. He’s met with Iowans at more than 250 events since announcing his candidacy in July 2017, about a third more than the next-closest rival, U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota.

His policy views generally align with the rest of the field. In his three terms in Congress, he compiled a record of pragmatism and bipartisanship.

Reservations: His inability to gain traction after such maximum effort shows the difficulty in breaking through the noise of a crowded field.

Amy Klobuchar

The senior U.S. senator from Minnesota offers a distinguished record of service in important local and federal offices. She’s serving her 14th year in the Senate. Before that, she was county attorney for eight years in Hennepin County, home to Minneapolis and the most populous county in the state. That job exposed her up close to the ravages of gun violence and racial bias in the justice system.

Her biggest appeal: She has a proven record of working across the aisle to get things done. Among senators who have served from 1993 to 2018, she ranks in the top third of the Lugar Center’s bipartisan index, which measures how frequently senators co-sponsor bills introduced by the opposite party or attract co-sponsors from the other party to bills they have introduced.

Reservations: It’s another case of strengths being potential risks. The board appreciates Klobuchar’s Midwest pragmatism and her recognition that passing legislation requires compromise. But do today’s urgent needs to bring our troops home and restore economic fairness call for bolder approaches?

Helping you make your own decision

Voter guide: Don’t have a lot of time? Find FAQs on the key issues and where the candidates stand and more to make your vote matter.

Don’t have a lot of time? Find FAQs on the key issues and where the candidates stand and more to make your vote matter. Candidates on the issues: Find out how the 2020 presidential candidates plan to tackle healthcare, climate change, gun violence and more.

Bernie Sanders

The Vermont senator shares Warren’s drive to improve prospects for working-class families. His two presidential campaigns have benefited the nation by focusing attention on an economy increasingly rigged to benefit the wealthy at the expense of the worker.

Reservations: While Elizabeth Warren and Sanders are in lockstep on many positions, concerns about Warren’s potential for divisiveness are magnified with Sanders. As a self-identified democratic socialist, someone who has set himself apart from the Democratic Party during his congressional career, let alone breaking bread with Republicans, could he build the consensus needed to govern?

He has routinely opposed trade agreements supported by Iowa’s farmers and manufacturers. His rhetoric is so anti-interventionist that one wonders whether he would recognize times when military action is justified as a deterrent.

Tom Steyer

Steyer founded the hedge fund Farallon Capital Management in 1986 and amassed a fortune estimated at $1.6 billion before resigning in 2012. Since then, he has backed his beliefs with hundreds of millions of dollars, founding the nonprofit NextGen America, which fights climate change and registers voters, and Need to Impeach, a campaign to press for President Trump’s removal from office.

NextGen America claims to have registered 1.3 million voters, and his donations to candidates in key U.S. House districts in 2018 are credited with helping Democrats flip control.

He clearly isn’t shy about spending his own money to catalyze change and has shown he can inspire and organize grassroots activism.

Reservations: Steyer says his business success best positions him to take on Trump regarding oversight of the economy. But Trump’s overall performance as CEO of the U.S. government begs the question: Is another billionaire businessman with no previous government experience the best choice? It also feels disquieting that while he calls for ending the stranglehold of money on politics, he has spent $100 million of his own money on his campaign so far, buying his way onto the debate stage by flooding the airwaves with ads.

News coverage: Breaking down the Register's endorsement

Andrew Yang

The board is glad this prescient entrepreneur is in the race because of the attention he has brought to the promise and peril posed by the fourth industrial revolution.

While technological transformation will create jobs unimagined now, it also threatens the jobs of millions of workers. Yang argues that automation will displace not just truck drivers and factory employees but also bookkeepers, retail and food service workers, call center employees and even doctors, accountants and lawyers.

Sure, some of his projections could prove overblown. But a key way today’s companies adapt to the rapidly shifting business landscape is to continuously hire then shed workers. It’s vital to help laid-off employees quickly retrain for new jobs at comparable wages. Yet after four decades of manufacturing decline and more than a decade of Internet disruption, America is still lousy at doing that.

Reservations: He lacks experience in government at any level. Some of his ideas, such as giving a universal basic income of $1,000 a month to every adult, are too radical to win public embrace.

Two voices that are missed

The editorial board was disappointed to see the campaigns of U.S. Sens. Cory Booker of New Jersey and Kamala Harris of California fold before voting begins.

Both are smart, accomplished public servants. Booker was mayor of Newark before his election to the Senate in 2013. Harris was the district attorney in San Francisco and served two terms as state attorney general before her election to the Senate in 2016.

Booker worked across the aisle with U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa to secure passage of the First Step Act, significant criminal justice reform that was signed into law by President Trump in late 2018.

Both Booker and Harris can more than hold their own in dissecting policy pros and cons.

But they are also missed as authentic voices on matters such as mass incarceration, racially biased policing and persistent disparities between whites and people of color in academic achievement, wealth and quality of health care.

It’s difficult to draw a direct line between President Trump’s reckless rhetoric on race-related issues and an increase in racial tensions, but Gallup polling since 2001 generally shows heightened concerns in recent years about race relations.

The next president must recommit to the unfinished work of the American experiment: ensuring equal opportunity and equal justice under the law.

Note: In its deliberations, the editorial board did not consider former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick or former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who are not focusing their campaigns on Iowa, or U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, who has not campaigned in Iowa since October.