No, Michelle Obama is not running

But the Demos wish they had a smart, charismatic candidate like her

So after Monday night’s Democratic Convention, how many of you heard from a friend asking, “Why didn’t Michelle Obama run for president?” (Raises hand.)

She wouldn’t do it in a million years of course. She looked like she couldn’t wait to get out of the White House at the end of her husband’s term. She even said it in her speech: “I hate politics.”

But it is worth noting that Obama is someone who has grown her profile since leaving public service. Her book sold 10 million copies. The subsequent book tour was staged in packed theaters and was filmed for a documentary. She schmoozed on stage with Oprah Winfrey. She’s started a podcast, reportedly for big bucks.

Compare and contrast to Hillary Clinton, to pick a name not totally at random.

Obama is, simply, an influencer. Monday night she delivered exactly the speech we expected, smart, funny and pointed. Michelle laid it out — Trump isn’t up for the job. He’s in over his head. It is what it is — and America nodded along.

And yet our candidate is Joe Biden.

Which is not to say I’m not all in for Joe. I’m backing Biden like a cure for male pattern baldness.

But when my friend (thanks Tom) said he wished Michelle was running, my first thought was, you know, we actually had a large and diverse Democratic pool of presidential candidates when this started.

And we still ended up with Biden, a 77-year-old, white guy who has been in politics since the days when he called donors on a rotary phone. You’ve seen the polls. More Biden voters say they are voting against Donald Trump than for Biden.

And yet members of the Democratic field in 2020 had trouble breaking out of the pack. No need to go through the individuals, but the field was basically a rugby scrum in the early primaries with everyone muddling around in the middle.

Then Biden won South Carolina — with a huge assist from SC icon Rep. Jim Clyburn — and suddenly he was the thundering favorite. Days later he won 10 states on Super Tuesday and the race was essentially over.

What had been a six-person field just a week or so before, was winnowed down to two — Biden and Sanders — and then one. Voters seemed to decide the important thing was to beat Trump, and if Biden was in the lead, all right let’s go with that.

One of the commenters on the FiveThirtyEight podcast said she recently saw a yard sign: “Any responsible adult in 2020.”

But the lack of energy for the Demo hopefuls may make a point. It isn’t clear how to take on Trump.

Trump’s a blunderbuss, talking over everyone, tossing out crazy-ass “facts,” and gasp-inducing crude insults. He’s been in our faces for almost four years, sewing chaos and wild schemes that never seem to happen — how’s that National Garden of American Heroes going?

You can spend hours fact-checking him, but there’s almost no point. You come back the next day and say, “Actually that wasn’t true,” but he’s already on to the next dog whistle. Somebody said Trump is a day trader, and that’s perfect. On to the next day.

Or you can return the insults, but then you play into the old saw: Never argue with an idiot. They will drag you down to their level and then win on experience.

At this point, I literally leave the room when Trump comes on the news. There are two people I can’t stand to watch on TV any longer — Donald Trump and Trevor Gott.

But there is a fed-upness for Trump opponents. They want to see him get his. Obama hinted Monday night that when she said, “When they go low, we go high,” she wasn’t talking about going soft.

“Going high means standing fierce against hatred,” she said. “Going high means unlocking the shackles of lies and mistrust with the only thing that can set us free — cold, hard truth.”

All right, so maybe Biden gives a ringing speech this week that sets hearts a’flame. And then he goes after Trump in debates and creates one viral line after another.

But what is more likely is he will be good old Joe. He’ll lose his train of thought from time to time, and make some archaic references that will make him seem out of touch.

However, I also believe if there is one thing the American people love, it is comeuppance. To see someone bully, brag and bluster, only to be handed an embarrassing defeat.

Something else Obama said Monday night was that being president “doesn’t change who you are. It reveals who you are.”

We’ve had nearly four years of reveals with Trump. No one thinks of him as a charming rogue any more. Even his supporters know what he is. He’s managed to alienate virtually everyone who ever worked for him, from Michael Cohen to John Bolton to his niece, Mary Trump.

I think voters are seeing that and are not going to vote for it. He’ll whine and shout and threaten law suits.

But he will lose. It will be the greatest comeuppance in American political history.

And, oh yeah, Joe Biden will be president.

Now, if I am wrong about this, I will have to admit it in public. Wouldn’t you like to see how it plays out? Nothing to it. Just subscribe to this newsletter. It is free. And worth every penny.

Even @SFBART thinks Joey Bart should be called up by the Giants.

I think we all pretty much bought the Giants’ explanation for why hot, hot catching prospect Joey Bart is not on the Big League roster. As general manager Farhan Zaidi has said, he needs to get more at bats in minor league games.

Yeah but, as I said in my Sunday Santa Rosa Press Democrat column, it turns out he’s not batting against minor league teams. With the Coronavirus, Giants’ minor leaguers are at the Sacramento alternate camp.

Which means they are basically doing drills and playing simulated games against each other. Dereck Rodriguez, who has been up and down to the camp and back, talked last week of seeing “the same guys . . . the same uniforms. It’s tough.” He even said that when they are short-handed sometimes coaches fill in and play positions.

That sounds nothing like what the Giants’ brain trust is saying it wants for Bart. And as far as batting against Big League pitching, he’s already doing that. Pitchers like Rodriguez go up and down from SF to Sacto weekly.

And how’s he look? Rodriguez, like others before him, said he’s “unbelievable. He’s a Big League player.”

But so far the team is resisting the extremely reasonable arguments I have made in favor of getting him to San Francisco.

At least I’m not alone.

@SFBART, which probably can’t wait for a tie-in deal with public transportation and a Giant star named Bart, sent a Tweet. It says, “No Joey Bart,” and then a face shedding a tear.

Geez, is it hot or what? But not as hot as these takes in this newsletter. (See what I did there?) Maybe you should share this with a friend. Still free. Still worth that, if not more.

Jet McKinnon and Candidate Taylor on the 49ers

This is the time of year to speculate on NFL rosters. Assuming we have a season — and I’m still a little dubious.

So with that in mind in my Santa Rosa Press Democrat 49ers blog post I wrote about Jerick (Jet) McKinnon and Trent Taylor. Each is coming off some pretty extensive injuries. But they each have also drawn rave reviews this year.

That’s important because the 49ers have been waiting on McKinnon, a running back, for two years while he battled a knee injury. And WR Taylor had a whole horrible series of problems after he broke his foot and missed all last year.

It looks very promising for both of them. But a word of caution, players who get a bunch of injuries tend to keep getting them. Not sure why that it true, but it seems to be.

Case in point, was also going to write about Jalen Hurd, who was coming back to the team after sitting out last season with back problems. But I ran out of room and didn’t include him.

Good thing because on Monday Hurd made a cut on a pass pattern and tore his ACL. He’s out for this season.

Contact C.W. Nevius at cwnevius@gmail.com. Suggestions and compliments cheerfully accepted. Complaints not so much. Twitter: @cwnevius