March 2, 2020--Bernie's Ceiling?

After each debate and primary, political pundits make lists of "winners and losers." 

The Washington Post, New York Times, and the cable news channels publish theirs even before all votes are counted and all the crosstalk and shouting subsides.

Saturday evening Biden was declared the winner of the South Carolina primary by all the networks literally seconds after the polls closed. How well he did was that obvious. There was only one winner, and quite a victory it was. Biden by a KO with Bernie the sole loser. Sanders got just 20 percent of the vote while Joe received a resounding 48 percent.

Actually, though Sanders lost in a landslide, the biggest loser of the night might have been his self-proclaimed "movement."

The Sanders' movement, Bernie reminds us many times a day, consists of millions of modest folks contributing on average about $18 to his campaign and they are said to be augmented by millions more who have volunteered to work on his campaign. 

I am certain that most of what he reports is accurate (at least the money-raising part of it is verifiable and the amount raised and the number contributing is truly remarkable), but my sense of something that claims to be a political movement needs to attract more than a fifth of the vote.  

We'll know better tomorrow when the results of the 14 Super Tuesday primaries are tallied, but at the moment I am wondering about the power of Bernie's juggernaut, including how many young people have actually turned out to support him, how many first-time voters he calls forth, and how well organized his volunteers are.

During the past year, in poll after poll, Trump consistently has been shown to be supported by 40 to 42 percent of those surveyed. I can't recall one poll where he dipped lower than 40 percent or was preferred by more than 42 percent.

Some who study these matters say this is his ceiling. Joe Scarborough calls him a "42 percent candidate."

If the ceiling metaphor works for Trump it likely works for the Democratic candidates. Warren appears unable to rise above 10 percent, Klobuchar 5 percent, Buttigieg 15 percent, and until Saturday, Biden's ceiling was about 20 percent.

Again, we will see how this heuristic works on Super Tuesday. It already appears that Sanders will do extremely well in California and that might scramble this analysis. Then again if this occurs but the other 13 primaries stay true to form (even with Mayor Pete out of the race) it may mean that California is an outlier.

One thing that seems likely is that as a result of the vote counts Tuesday night the Democratic race will be scrambled. The most likely outcome is that by the end of the day we will have a two-person race--Biden versus Sanders. Then we would learn if there is in fact a robust Bernie movement or revolution. My current sense of things is that it is considerably less than represented. Most voters appear to want calm and healing not confrontation and uncertainty.

And then there are the huge egos. That could keep everyone in the race until the convention in Milwaukee.

February 28, 2020--Go, Mike, Go

Mike Bloomberg says he entered the race for the Democratic nomination because Joe Biden was faltering and it looked as if Bernie, a self-declared socialist, anathema to an uber-capitalist such as Bloomberg, was likely to become the nominee. 

So he wrote a check to himself for a billion dollars to spend on a media campaign in support of his own candidacy. As of today, he has not secured a single delegate and sits at 10-15 percent in the polls.

His bet is to go all in on Super Tuesday, March 2nd, three days from now, hoping he will prevail in enough of the 14 states that will be holding primaries to begin to block Sanders' path to the nomination.

This is unlikely to happen. Actually, from where Bloomberg currently stands with voters it is virtually certain he will come in second or even third in a few of the smaller states. To make matters worse, he is doing poorly in delegate-rich big states such as California and Texas.

The situation in the Lone Star State exemplifies Bloomberg's problem.

The latest polling from Texas is instructive. 

It has Biden and Sanders tied at 24 percent. Bloomberg is in third place with 17 percent and Warren is next at 14 percent. Buttigieg sits at 10 percent and Klobuchar languishes at just 4 percent.

But here's the most interesting part--in Texas, if Bloomberg was not in the race, Biden would have a comfortable 31 to 25 point lead over Sanders. Without Bloomberg in the race Warren would pick up 3 points, rising to 17 percent; Mayor Pete would add 1 point and Klobuchar 3.

Here's the irony and the way forward--

Bloomberg entered the race, he says, to keep Sanders from winning the Democratic nomination. But it appears that by joining the contest he is bringing Biden down and clearing a path to the nomination for Bernie. 

A prime example of unintended consequences.

The solution, though, is clear--Bloomberg should drop out of the race Saturday night after Biden wins the South Carolina primary by as much as 20 percentage points. 

That would resuscitate Joe's campaign and perhaps begin the process, with a revived and reenergized Biden leading the way, in denying Sanders the nomination.

Perhaps.

March 2, 2016--Hillary Clinton's Red State Strategy

What do the following states have in common--

Texas, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Arkansas?

Now add South Carolina to the list.

Three things at least--

The first group of states participated yesterday in Super Tuesday caucuses and primaries. And South Carolina held its Republican primary just three days ago.

Hillary Clinton won all of these states by wide margins, which essentially means that she will be the Democratic nominee for the presidency.

But, all eight of these states are so-called Red States, which means that for decades as well as for this November, there is virtually no possibility that any Democrat, much less Hillary Clinton, running against Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, or Marco Rubio, will carry any of them. They represent the new Republican Solid South.

Why then did the Democratic National Committee agree to allow these very conservative, solidly Republican states to determine who would be the Democratic nominee?

I would be tempted to say that this is because the DNC, under the manipulated leadership of Debbie Wasserman Schultz--my Snowbird Florida congressperson and fervent supporter of Clinton's---did everything she could to rig the outcome of the Democratic selection process.

She and the DNC, knowing that these states, though they for decades have wound up safely in the GOP column in national elections, in Democratic primaries, because in some states more than half of registered Democrats are African American, they predictably wind up solidly behind Hillary Clinton.

For example, in South Carolina last weekend, where about 60 percent of registered Democrats are black, Hillary Clinton garnered more than 90 percent of their votes. Enough to help her carry the state by 50 percentage points. In this, she did even better than Barack Obama in 2008.

I would be tempted to say that Wasserman Schultz arranged the primary schedule to manipulate this outcome, but that would be more than stretching the truth because since Super Tuesday came into existence in 1976, the primary schedule has been pretty much structured as it currently is.

In effect this means that the Democrats appear to be willing to allow Red States to play an inordinate role in determining their nominees. More specifically, to have African-American voters have a disproportionate say.

There is much to complain about how black people still face discrimination but, in this important case, they are more than fully empowered.

January 17, 2016--My Republican Friends

She sounded so angry.

"I hate them!" It was a lifelong friend calling from New York.

"Is everything all right?"

"No! Everything's all wrong!"

"With?"

"I just told you. With everything"

"Everything?"

"Well, not everything." She was beginning to calm down. "But pretty much everything. We're finished."

"We're? Who's the we? And again what's the everything? Or the pretty much everything? That sounds serious." I was looking for some way to lighten the mood.

"The country. Everything's getting worse. Look at the election. I mean, at the Republicans."

"We can argue about all of this because I don't think everything or pretty much everything is getting worse. I agree that some things are worse; but I'm old enough, and to tell the truth, so are you, to remember when down here in Florida there was legal segregation, women couldn't easily get into medical or law school, pretty much all gay people were closeted, there was a lot of overt antisemitism, there was World War II and the Cold War, and . . ."

"You're right about much of this but still. Maybe it's an aging thing, I hate what's going on and I hate them."

"Again the them. You have to help me out here. Clearly I'm not following you. If, as you say . . ."

"Republicans."

"That's who you hate?"

"I despise them. Is that better than hate?" I could sense her quivering.

"To me, not that much better. And . . ."

"And I know what you're going to say. I've told you this before, you spend too much time with them. With Republicans. I read your stuff and a lot of it sounds as if you're apologizing for them. How many positive things have you written about that horror show Donald Trump? Whose last name you keep insisting on capitalizing."

"About this we can really disagree. Both in Florida and in Maine I do have quite a few Republican friends and, though I differ with them about most of their political views, I really like them and beyond that learn a lot from them. Partly by having some of my insufficiently examined beliefs and views challenged but also because I find myself agreeing with some of what they have to say."

"There. You said it--you agree with them."

"Not about everything. Far from that. But . . ."

"But about what?"

"Like we need to revisit the cost structure and effectiveness of our social programs. Especially Social Security, Medicare, and the Veteran's Administration."

"You'd cut them back? Obamacare too?"

"No. But make them work better and make sure that people who need them get more assistance than at present. Making the system more pay-as-you-go. Remember that concept? Shouldn't we liberals or, if you prefer progressives, who believe in a significant role for government, be the first ones clamoring to clean up the inefficiencies and abuses and stop making excuses for them?"

"Sounds dangerous to me. If we join the conservatives in critiquing these safety-net programs that people pay for, we'll only contribute to pulling the rug out from under them."

"But doesn't our reflexive, unquestioning support for these programs do more harm than good? Doesn't that call our credibility and the justification for these programs into question? I'm trying to say that though I come to very different bottom lines than most of my Republican friends I share their criticism that all these programs should have to face scrutiny and be forced to clean up their act. So they can run more efficiently, be less vulnerable, become more cost-effective, and do more good. I don't hear too many progressives saying this."

"And what about your Donald Trump? You seem unduly attracted to him."

"He's not mine but I'll admit to that."

"You'd consider voting for him?"

"Maybe but when it comes time to pull the lever I doubt I would. In any case, I'm not ready just yet to do any declaring."

"What's the attraction?" I was happy to hear that my friend had stopped sounding so agitated.

"For me he's a wonderfully disruptive force. Even a radical one. More than Bernie Sanders. Which is why both establishments are so afraid of him. He could turn out to be a traitor to his class. I'm not saying he's potentially dangerous because the GOP feel he'd lose to Hillary. Or because the Democrats are afraid he'd win in November. But because they both fear that if he wins he will expose and then change the nature of the game both parties have been playing for years and getting away with."

"I still hate them all."

I chose to ignore that.

"Take just two recent examples--how he responded to getting booed during the debates in New Hampshire and South Carolina. How TRUMP turned on the audience, saying that the auditoriums were packed with party hacks, donors, and lobbyists who were invited to attend by the Republican National Committee. He was right about that. Ditto, by the way, for the Democrats. And, here's the radical part--he didn't care that they were booing him. He responded with a dismissive wave, indicating he doesn't need them. That in fact they are at the heart of our political and governmental problems. Not part of the solution."

"I admit I did like that," my best friend said.

"And my other example, an even more potent one, was how he insisted on picking at the 9/11 scab, saying, correctly I'm sure you would agree, that George W. Bush didn't 'keep us safe.' Quite the opposite. He reminded Republicans that George W was president on 9/11, not Bill Clinton, and had been for eight months. Then after that he had us invade Iraq, lying--that was his word--about their having weapons of mass destruction. And how as a result that region is now in almost total chaos. What did you think about that?"

My friend muttered something into the phone which I didn't understand.

"Remarkable, right, that the GOP front runner would say this, and double down on it, while in South Carolina on the very same day ex-president Bush emerged from his political cocoon to campaign for little brother Jeb. And when someone from the press suggested that he'd pay a political price for saying this, especially in so-called 'Bush Country,' TRUMP said, he literally said, 'I don't care.'"

"I didn't hear that."

"Maybe that's because you don't have enough Republican friends."

At that at last we both laughed.