By Dan Balz Chief correspondent September 5 at 11:32 AM
At the beginning of this year, the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania sponsored a focus group in the Denver suburbs composed of a dozen adults — Republicans, Democrats and independents. Looking back almost nine months later, the two-hour discussion proved to be a prescient guide to the surprising politics of 2015.
For any conventional politician paying attention, what was said there should have been unnerving. The name Donald Trump was never mentioned, nor was that of Ben Carson or Bernie Sanders. But the sentiments expressed that evening help explain why those three candidates are in the forefront of the political conversation on this Labor Day weekend.
Dan Balz is Chief Correspondent at The Washington Post. He has served as the paper’s National Editor, Political Editor, White House correspondent and Southwest correspondent.View Archive
The participants made it clear that they were fed up with politics as usual. They were harsh in their judgments about most traditional politicians, the political establishment and the way Washington works. They had no particular appetite for a clash-of-dynasties presidential campaign pitting a Bush against a Clinton.
They were especially critical in their assessments of Jeb Bush. They were tepid toward Hillary Rodham Clinton, although judgments fell more predictably along partisan lines. The participants longed for someone who seemed different and who they believed understood their lives. The name Elizabeth Warren, the populist senator from Massachusetts, sparked positive comments, even from some of the Republicans.