In order to try and stop Bernie, the establishment quickly lined up behind Biden ahead of Super Tuesday. Biden showed up on Super Tuesday with a huge performance but after California votes come in it’ll be pretty much a tie in delegates. The Democratic base seems like it has either been brainwashed by “electability” or has had fear & weakness beat into their brains. Barack Obama WON after he was considered unelectable, while Gore, Kerry, and H. Clinton all LOST after being touted as the safe electable choice. It seems like the media and the party elite have just beaten into people’s heads that to win they must hug the “center” as hard as they can. You can’t actually say you have progressive plans or else your opponent will call you a socialist. You must run solely on things like “unity” “freedom” “choice” or other bullshit empty terms. That’s why they go so hard after Bernie, because they know if he wins that whole way of thinking/running will be over. So they brand him as unelectable with Biden as the safe electable one and the media treats it as fact.
I just don’t understand how people think Biden is the electable candidate. Some of the things that hurt Hillary the most in 2016 were Iraq, Trade, and questions over corruption. Biden has all that baggage but also with the bonus of some cognitive decline. It is shocking sometimes just how hard it has become for Joe to complete a sentence. This guy would get mopped by Trump on a debate stage and if that happens I will be demanding elder abuse charges against the Democratic elite and his top campaign staff.
Another race last night was a Congressional race in Texas where corporate Democrat Henry Cuellar was primaried by young progressive Jessica Cisneros. Cueller was supported by the NRA, fossil fuel companies, the DCCC, Republican mega-donor Charles Koch, and Nancy Pelosi. With all that money and established support against her, Cisneros came within 2 points off knocking off the incumbent. This just shows where the heart of the Democratic establishment is. They’d rather work with Republican donors to protect a guy who Votes with Trump 70% of the time than have to support a progressive who will challenge them.
I really hope that Biden collapses soon because if the establishment can pull him over the line, then I think there will be another 4 years of Trump. Honestly it seems like there are a lot of Democratic elite who would rather Trump than Bernie. At least with Trump, they can do their #Resist bit, sell their books, and go on TV to spew their terrible takes. If Bernie won, they wouldn’t have insight into that world and more importantly they wouldn’t have influence. Plus if Bernie won they might actually have to fight for some of their ideals instead of just compromising off the start.
Super Tuesday was a shocker as after Joe Biden saved his campaign’s life on Saturday, he has made this solidly a 2 person race. He not only held on to his strongholds in the South but won Texas, Massachusetts, and Minnesota with him and Bernie the only ones to get delegates across all 14 states. Even after a near perfect night for Joe, after California is all counted it’ll likely be basically tied on delegates. Regardless of what the media says, this race is far from over. Biden 1000% has the momentum and luckily for him (and unlucky for Bernie) there is not a debate until the 15th and 6 states will vote before that. The only bright spot for Bernie is that the establishment lined up behind a guy who is his own worst enemy.
Last night was embarrassing for Michael Bloomberg after spending half a billion dollars and only getting delegates from a few places. He dropped out today and endorsed Biden. Elizabeth Warren also had a disastrous night after finishing 3rd in her home state and only qualifying for delegates in 3 states. I assume she will be out by the next votes, but you can never really know with her.
While last night was obviously a great one for Joe Biden after the establishment coalesced around him, he won Super Tuesday and officially made this thing a 2 person race. The bad news for Biden is that now that it’ll be him and Bernie 1v1 on the stage, his struggle to form full coherent sentences will be on full display. Also not a great sign for Joe is that the last moderate, free trade supporting, foreign policy hawk, with a list of bad votes and baggage surrounding corruption and their health nominated by the Democrats lost to Trump.
The next contests will be Tuesday March 10th where Mississippi, Michigan, Washington, Missouri, Idaho, and North Dakota will vote. Mississippi should be a big winner for Biden while Washington should be a winner for Bernie and I’m not sure what will happen in Missouri, Idaho, and North Dakota. But the big prize that day will likely be Michigan where the winner will have their electability arguments bolstered. There will not be a debate before those contests which seems like a missed opportunity for the Democratic Party especially since it’ll just be Bernie v. Biden.
Right now it looks unlikely that either Biden or Sanders will reach 51% of the delegates so one of them needs to get over 40% and/or build a lead of at least 5% or so before the convention to prevent a complete shitshow in Milwaukee.
Today’s the day everyone predicted would narrow the field, Super Tuesday, where 1/3 of the delegates are up for grabs….except that consolidation has already happened. 3 people dropped out after SC and the establishment has thrown everything behind Joe Biden. They must’ve offered up something big to get Amy Klobuchar to drop out 24 hours before likely getting her 1st Primary win. Mayor Pete also dropped out and endorsed Biden and even Beto was brought back into the fold. It’s hilarious watching Pete and Beto bow to Biden after running their campaigns almost entirely on being a new face/voice. I guess that’s why they’re in the spot there are now, having to endorse someone else for relevance. But Biden still faces an uphill challenge on Super Tuesday. He hasn’t spent much time in any of the states and didn’t have the money to spend there, hence the avalanche of endorsements and the constant coverage over the last 72 hours. Thankfully the Democratic establishment has learned from 2016 and backed the electable Joe Biden, a moderate Iraq War/Free Trade supporting candidate with questions involving corruption and who spends as little time outside as possible to avoid scandals/gaffes. What could possibly go wrong?
As always we’ll start with the state of the race in 1 picture:
Biden has the momentum after SC but after winning the first 3 contests and leading the fundraising, Bernie has the organizational edge in Super Tuesday states. If Bernie can open up a lead after today, Biden’s path to the nomination only comes from a brokered convention. If Biden can keep it close then it would solidly become a 2 person race as both would have a shot to get 51% of the delegates.
Here are some of the biggest things to look for:
The far and away biggest thing to look for is the number 15. You have to win at least 15% to get delegates in states, so it’ll be important to see how many of the states candidates are above that threshold.
California: The final numbers for California probably won’t be in for days, maybe weeks. 3 million votes have been cast already. The most important thing will be if Warren or Bloomberg can reach 15% and if they do it will shift 100s of delegates.
Texas: Texas seems like a toss-up with Biden going all in last night on the state. Bernie winning here would be big for him and he has gone hard for the Latino vote after winning the outright majority of Latinos in Nevada. Again look for whether a 3rd or even 4th person can get to 15.
Here’s a look at all the states/delegates up for grabs today:
Here’s a closer look at what to watch for, by candidate:
Bernie Sanders
People may disagree with me having Bernie as the sole frontrunner, but everyone is chasing him and he’s only chasing 51%. Bernie looks like the favorite in CA and a win there would be big but a more important things for him would be only 1 other person max hitting 15%. This could be the deciding factor of the race as if only Biden reaches 15 then Sanders would get an extra ~20% of the delegates than he would if anyone else reached 15. Texas is a state the Bernie campaign invested a lot in the Latino community. He dominated that vote in Nevada and might need a similar showing to win Texas. Can Bernie win in places like Colorado, Utah, Massachusetts, Minnesota? Can he win North Carolina, Virginia, or Oklahoma? Can he reach 15% in the Southern States? Bernie’s lead after all these states will define the race. A big lead may be insurmountable, a close lead means its a real race going forward.
Joe Biden
A good night for Biden is sweeping the South, winning Texas, NC, VA, and reaching 15% in California. Worst case for Joe is being the only one (besides Bernie) at 15% in CA, and only winning in the South (besides Texas). Look out for how Bloomberg does and if he seems to take away Biden support. Bloomberg finishing above 15% in only states Biden wins would hurt the former VP in his chase after Bernie. Good news for Biden is that he has a chance to make this officially a 2 person race after today. Bad news is he still has to debate with Bernie, where he’ll have to talk a lot more meaning he’ll have a lot more sentences to struggle to form…..plus his record still exists.
Elizabeth Warren
After watching candidates like Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar drop out, Elizabeth Warren has stayed in the race despite having done worse than both of them. Less than a week after going at SuperPACs, Warren got a SuperPAC that is helping her stay in the race. It seems like Warren is just trying to rack up as many delegates as she can on Super Tuesday, even though she might lose her home state to Bernie. It’s puzzling seeing Warren still in the race as she only has exactly 1 path to winning the nomination……which would be an attack or outbreak at the convention where Warren is the designated survivor. Other than that she has ZERO (0) chance of being the nominee, especially if she loses Massachusetts. Warren is doing a lot more harm to her reputation with progressives by staying in the race after everyone else dropped to back Biden. If she drops out after S.T. and endorsed Bernie that would help but if she gets 15% in places like CA or TX then she could do real damage to Bernie.
Michael Bloomberg
Michael Bloomberg’s campaign wasn’t looking good after his debate performances but now after a Biden resurgence, his campaign is not looking great at all. He still has all his billions which will do something but if he somehow manages to hit 15% in some states he could actually help Bernie by siphoning off some of Biden’s support. It’ll be interesting to see if Biden does well on Super Tuesday, if Bloomberg drops out and just puts all his cash behind Biden and launching anti-Bernie attack ads. If not, his path remains the same as it’s always been….buying the nomination at the convention.
If you go to a Bernie Sanders event you’ll hear hours upon hours worth of deep policy talk about income inequality, the importance of so many issues facing the country, and a need for systemic change. But all of that seems like overkill after seeing this 1 tik tok. This video is only 1 minute long but it should become the new central theme of the Sanders campaign in my humble (dumb) opinion.
A number like a billionaire is way too big for our dumb ape brains to even begin to comprehend. But seeing the scale of a billion visually like that in grains of rice is really eye-opening (no pun intended). You see stats that the top 3 people in the U.S have more wealth than the bottom 50% but that doesn’t really sink in until visual demonstrations like this. I don’t know how you watch that video and see how much money Jeff Bezos has (in grains of rice) and not want to support Bernie.
Bernie needs to hire this kid and bring this show on the road. Let this kid do his performance warm up the crowd with his pounds of rice and Bernie can cut his speeches down exponentially. Just walk up there and say “you think someone should have this amount of money while people sleep on the street, go bankrupt from medical care, have to ration their life-saving medicine because they can’t afford it, and an entire generation is being slowly strangled by student debt???? Couldn’t be me” and then drop the mic and hit the road to the next stop. Could easily double the amount of rallies he could do and would drive home his point better to more people than any hour and a half policy-centric speech ever could.
Today is the South Carolina Primary and it’s significant as if Biden loses his campaign is all but over while a Sanders win could all but end the race. Luckily for Biden he’s the favorite but still desperately needs momentum heading into Super Tuesday where 1/3 of the delegates are up for grabs. As always here’s the State of the Race right now in 1 picture to start:
Bernie Sanders enters as the sole frontrunner after going 3/3 to start the Primary season. A win here in South Carolina would seemingly end the race but even without a win, he could still pick up an insurmountable lead after Super Tuesday where he leads in states like California and Texas.
For Joe Biden the thing he needs most, beyond a win, is momentum. He needs to excite people in S.T. states and needs a lot of money for those contests. It might be too late for Biden already though as he’ll have to ramp up staff and organizing in these states in about 72 hours. Here’s a look at Biden’s operation on the ground in the biggest prize, California:
A foreboding sign for Biden's Super Tuesday ground game: Last Friday, his sole campaign office in California was padlocked shut. https://t.co/IFbnDdstTa
Even an idiot like me knows it’s probably not a good sign for a campaign when the sole campaign office in the state is padlocked shut on a Friday. (And that’s doesn’t even touch on the fact that he only has 1 office for the entire state of the California…..for comparison Bernie has 23). It’ll be interesting to see if a Biden wins allows him to take a lot of Bloomberg support on S.T. where 15% is needed to get delegates so the worst case scenario for everyone (but Bernie) is for Biden/Bloomberg to split votes and end up at 14% in a bunch of these states. This could happen in California which would officially give Sanders a metric fuck ton of delegates.
Back to South Carolina, which could also be the last stand for Tom Steyer and Tulsi Gabbard. Without a strong performance, both of these candidates should be out. Steyer has spent most of his money/time in South Carolina and he’s been in 3rd in the polls but he needs keep his support here after he failed to in Nevada. He did however have a hilarious clip go viral last night of him dancing on stage while Juvenile performs the classic “Back Dat Azz Up”
Presidential candidate Tom Steyer on stage with Juvenile dancing to “Back that Azz Up” last night in Columbia, South Carolina pic.twitter.com/8CFvVt0Nvn
If Steyer under-performs it won’t be due of a lack of electricity
Candidates like Elizabeth Warren. Amy Klobuchar, and Pete Buttigieg probably won’t do well in South Carolina but are relying on Super Tuesday. If any of them do surprisingly well it could give them a life-saving spark. Massachusetts and Minnesota vote on S.T. and if Warren and Klobuchar lose their home states that should be a wrap on their campaigns. It’s hard to convince people to keep giving you money (or that you could get the nomination at a brokered convention) if you can’t even win your home state. Mayor Pete has been doing his best Obama cosplay so far but still has yet to attract support from people of color. I guess his message of a new face for old ideas isn’t catching on as well as his consultants/focus groups hoped.
Pete 2020
Michael Bloomberg isn’t on the ballot in South Carolina but I’m sure he’d like to see a big Biden win. Yes they would share a lot of support in S.T. states but it seems like Bloomberg’s only play is a contested convention and that can’t happen unless him and someone else get above the 15% needed to win delegates.
It seems we’re getting to a point where everyone, but Bernie, thinks their only chance is at a contested convention….If you wanna read how a brokered convention would be the worse thing to happen to the Democratic Party, click here.
Now there has been a stir-up recently over decades old comments Bernie Sanders made about Fidel Castro in which he lauded the Cuban literacy program. Now some people wrote this off as one small compliment in a sea of condemnation or pointed to Barack Obama saying the same thing just a few years ago….but those people are wrong. Bernie Sanders has decades long record of supporting and claiming to love authoritarian countries. First I’ll show you how he supports Castro using logic:
Now if you’re not convinced by that impeccable #Logic then I’ll give you another example. Bernie is definitively a fan of one of the biggest authoritarian countries in the world. This country has the biggest prison population in the world, per capita, has a history of discrimination against minorities, has a history of not only interfering in other countries’ elections but a history of overthrowing leaders and has just recently assassinated a top foreign official. And Bernie’s support of this country is unquestionable, not only because of his positions and statements but by his actions as well………because he is a member of this country’s government.
That’s right Bernie Sanders is a fan of the United States of America. Not only that, he claims to love the country. This is a country where he has spent decades in government. So it should be pretty clear to everyone now that Sanders is a big fan of authoritarian nations. It’s simple to see and anyone who denies this reality is either biased or has some galaxy brain while the true patriots (and those who don’t understand sarcasm) know that Bernie is an authoritarian’s #1 Stan.
I wasn’t planning on talking about this but there’s been a lot of talk recently about the possibility of a brokered convention for the Democrats this year. Now I’m not sure if that is because it’ll really happen or if it’s because a brokered convention is every journalists wet dream. A chance for these people to pretend they’re in West Wing and talk about a bunch of bullshit for a week. As of now though it just seems like a nice distraction for a lot of the media an establishment as their freakout over Bernie continues.
There was a report in the NYT today that talked to about 100 superdelegates who want to hand the nomination to someone else besides Bernie. They dreamed of Sherrod Brown, Michelle Obama, maybe even Nancy Pelosi. Anyone but that divisive, unelectable guy……you know the one who’s the most liked in the race and leads almost every poll against Trump 1v1.
MSNBC discussed the possibility of a brokered convention today, and even when I thought MSNBC had reached peak insanity with their coverage they found a way to top it:
That’s right this former State Rep & MSNBC contributor argued that people don’t get to choose the nominee, the party does. This attitude is exactly the kind of out-of-touch backwards logic that makes the Democrats lose. Because there’s no doubt if Bernie Sanders goes into the convention with at least 40% or so of the delegates and then doesn’t get the nomination, that will be the END of the Democratic Party. But this just shows how out of touch the party elite is because they’re so worried about losing that they are willing to do something like this. And these same people would come out after the election and be shocked as to why their people didn’t turn up after telling 40% of them their vote didn’t matter in the primary. It’s actually very simple, there would be no easier way for Democrats to lose the election than by going through a year+ long primary, only to tell their base that the person who got the most votes isn’t the nominee.
This whole thing though comes down to self-protection against Bernie. The democratic party won’t be able to act like they’re barely left of center and argue from a position of weakness with Sanders at the top of the ticket. They’d actually have to fight for their ideas instead of trying to be Republican-lite. Plus if Sanders actually won, these donors and lobbyists would lose their superdelegate powers and would no longer be influential with Sanders fighting for public funding of elections and taking on special interests. That’s what this whole charade is about, not electability, not about ideology, but about the Democratic elite losing some of their power and influence.
So let’s hope this doomsday scenario never has a chance to happen. But if it does it will be very interesting to see if the Democratic leadership would destroy the party itself in order to try and save themselves.
Now I’ve never written about ABC News because it’s hard to joke about a company that brings on Chris Christie (of Bridge-Gate fame) and Rahm Emmanuel (of covering up a murder to get re-elected fame) as their top pundits. When these two guys are your go to people for insight there’s really no funnier joke than that. But today ABC really showed their true colors when they announced a suspension for award-winning journalist David Wright after a video came out of him saying horrific things. You might be thinking “What are these things?”…well here are some of the things he said. *Viewer Discretion is Advised*
He criticized the news media over things that almost every media critic, myself included, has said. He said the media focuses too much on the horse-race and the candidate of the week. He criticized the coverage of Trump boiling it down to 3 things; the outrage of the day, the investigation, and “palace intrigue”. He also said that they’re not disciplined in their Trump coverage and they constantly 2nd guess themselves because of the fear of being seen as the Liberal Media and that taking the bait over every outrage helps enable Trump.
He called out Disney, which owns ABC, for using the news center for free promotion:
“You can’t watch ‘Good Morning America’ without there being a Disney Princess or Marvel Avenger appearing,” Wright said. “It’s all self-promotional. And promotion of the company, and also promotion of individuals within the company, as opposed to the kind of dedication to the story, and a commitment to telling stories that we need to tell that are maybe hard to tell…The commercial imperative is incompatible with news”. “Our bosses don’t see an upside in doing what we’re supposed to do, which is to speak truth to power and hold people to account.”
And the cherry on top was Wright exposing his own personal views, “I would consider myself a socialist. I think there are too many billionaires, and I think that there’s a wealth gap. That’s a problem.”
Yep pretty crazy stuff I know. He called out the media in the same ways that every person who’s watched it would call out. He shockingly revealed that journalists have private opinions and there’s no place for that in journalism. Every journalist must basically be a cold, unfeeling stenographer with no original thoughts or opinions……So basically just Wolf Blitzer.
The soulless eyes and empty mind every journalist should strive for
Calling out his boss, Mickey Mouse, probably was the thing that got him suspended as you can’t have the public thinking companies like Disney buy media outlets for anything other than love of good ol’ fashioned muckraking.
But the suspensions looks even worse when you remember the last scandal that came out of ABC a few months ago when a leaked video showed a reporter venting her frustration that she had the Epstein story years ago but ABC killed it over concerns the Royal Family wouldn’t give them access anymore.
So for those keeping track at home…. here’s a look at the morality of ABC
People who should be in jail like Christie or Emmanuel? Back-up the Brinks Trunk
Exposing the world’s biggest pedo or keeping access to the Royal Family? Royal Family duh
State mild criticisms and express personal opinions in private? Suspended & Re-Assigned
Just another example of the exemplary news industry in the U.S
I’ve always disliked the format of the debates but after the train-wreck debate tonight in South Carolina, it seems like the perfect time to post this. The debates are terrible when the moderators don’t take control, when the networks treat the debates like a reality TV show, when they ask bad questions or don’t follow up, and they never seem to cover all of the important issues.
To fix these debates there are 4 easy steps to take:
Take control away from the DNC & the networks. Instead do what they used to and have different interests groups (like the League of Women’s Voters) host the debates
Have Debates focused on specific topics. Have a climate debate, a healthcare debate, a foreign policy debate, an education debate, a labor debate, a debate on poverty, etc.
Have those debates hosted by experts. Let people who have an actual depth of knowledge about each subject ask the questions and push-back on the candidates.
Have a “mute” button. If a candidate goes too far over the time limit you mute them. They try to yell and get time, mute them. Multiple people try talking over each other, mute them all.
I think these easy changes would make these debates infinitely better. Instead of terrible moderators asking bad questions or the whole thing becoming a glorified food fight….have experts host issue-oriented debates. Take the party and the networks out of the equation. That way instead of focusing on talking points or getting a good 15/30 second clip you can blast all over the web, candidates will be forced to talk in-depth about their ideas and plans.
I don’t why I got my hopes up after the last debate that this one would be entertaining again. I’m not sure there were any real winners tonight but there were definitely 2 losers….the moderators and the viewers. The moderators never once had control over the debate, anyone could just start talking the loudest, take control and once you started you could go on forever. The whole thing was just terrible to watch and for that I’m not sure there will be any clear changes from this debate. The crowd seemed to be off as they were cheering/booing at weird times…until it came out that those people were charged $1500-3000 to attend the debate. The Democratic Party for Common People by Common People as always.
I think Biden probably did enough to stay the favorite in South Carolina. He actually had some fire, went on the attack, and since he didn’t collapse….he’s a winner I guess. I don’t know if anyone else was a winner. Bernie faced a lot of attacks but I thought he handled himself fairly well. Definitely not his best performance but I don’t think it hurts him and he’s still definitely the favorite. Bloomberg didn’t get crucified like last week so I guess that’s a win for him.
Warren and Amy didn’t really have great nights but I don’t think they did terribly either. The problem is both of them need a spark in their campaigns. Tom Steyer also had a decent night but I think he needed to do better to secure a top 3 finish in South Carolina.
Pete had a pretty bad night in my opinion and that may be biased because I’ve grown to hate him more and more as the campaign has gone on. He spent so much of his time tonight preaching about what is or isn’t electable like he knows what he is talking about. But in reality he’s never won a statewide election or gotten 11,000 votes!
So yeah while this was a pretty terrible debate, hopefully the next debate stage will be thinned out a little bit. Bernie is still the clear frontrunner and it looks like it’ll be Bloomberg or Biden who will be his main candidate. Unless Warren, Amy or Pete get a surprising result in SC or on Super Tuesday, they don’t have a chance.
District of Clowns 