March 5, 2020--The Youth Vote

Interviewed last night on the Rachel Maddow Show, Bernie Sanders spoke with pride about how his political "movement" was attracting increasing numbers of young voters.

When Rachel pointed out that this is untrue, he blanched and insisted that it is. She pressed him, noting the evidence does not support that conclusion.

He disagreed, saying he "believes" it to be true. 

It was as if he said, if the facts aren't corroboratable, turn to believes to make your case.

Here, from USA Today are the facts. They support Rachel Maddow:

Exit polls for five southern states that Biden won – Alabama, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia – found that young voters did not show up at the polls in the numbers they did in 2016.

• In Alabama, only 7% of the voters were in the 17-29 range compared to 14% in 2016. Sanders won six of every 10 of those voters Tuesday compared to four of 10 in 2016.
• In North Carolina, 13% of Tuesday’s electorate were young voters, compared to 16% four years ago. Of those, 57% went for Sanders in 2020 compared to 69% in 2016.
• In South Carolina, young voters made up 11% of the electorate Tuesday compared to 15% in 2016. Sanders won 43% of those voters Tuesday compared to 54% four years ago.

• n Alabama, only 7% of the voters were in the 17-29 range compared to 14% in 2016. Sanders won six of every 10 of those voters Tuesday compared to four of 10 in 2016.
• In North Carolina, 13% of Tuesday’s electorate were young voters, compared to 16% four years ago. Of those, 57% went for Sanders in 2020 compared to 69% in 2016.
• In South Carolina, young voters made up 11% of the electorate Tuesday compared to 15% in 2016. Sanders won 43% of those voters Tuesday compared to 54% four years ago.

Anecdotally, it does appear that many college-age students turn out for Sanders' rallies, but this is never quantified. How many register to vote and then actually do is. And as one can see from the actual Super Tuesday vote, Rachel Maddow had it right.

I am reminded of 19-year-old James Kunen's Strawberry Statement: Notes of A College Revolutionary, a 1970 book about the student protests that roiled Columbia University's campus in 1968.

It was serious business but had another side to it that Kunen also wrote about--the "revolution" was a great place to meet girls.

Is it too cynical of me to point this out?

March 4, 2020--Money Can't Buy You Love

The Washington Post headline this morning had it right--Biden "Romps." 

If I'm coherent enough after staying up all night to gather the results from Super Tuesday, am I right to say that the only state outstanding is California, which Sanders is likely to win? Fairly narrowly at that after losing much of his lead there to a post-South Carolina revivified Joe Biden.

Biden won big in Texas, didn't he? Yes Texas.

When all is tallied, it may look as if Biden will emerge with more actual Super Tuesday delegates than Bernie. Am I right in what I wrote Monday that Bernie's movement is not a juggernaut, not an overwhelming movement but a more conventional candidacy where he has trouble getting more than 25-30 percent of the vote? That his candidacy has a ceiling, and not  a very high one at that?

But Sanders will live to fight many days. Many. Basically saying the same thing over and over until we all collapse from boredom, exhausted by his angry one-note rant. 

Voters, it seems, want to feel good and optimistic and Bernie makes everyone as grumpy as he is. Don't we all have at least one blustering uncle like that who we hope not to get stuck sitting next to on Thanksgiving?

Isn't the biggest loser from yesterday Elisabeth Warren who came in third in Massachusetts? Third in her home state!

Actually, the biggest loser was the half-a-billion-dollar candidate Mike Bloomberg who discovered that money can't buy you love, only American Samoa. 

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.

February 26, 2020--Fidel & Bernie

With less than a week to go before the crucial Super Tuesday primaries where 40 percent of the Democratic delegates will be up for grabs,  Bernie Sanders, who has been running for president for many years is finally being vetted by his opponents and the media.

For example, until last weekend during a 60 Minutes interview, he had not been pressed about the cost to taxpayers of his ambitious social programs, including how he would pay for them. 

He fumbled around in his response and it was clear he didn't have those numbers readily at hand. He finally said Medicare for All would cost $30 trillion but when asked what about other programs such as free college tuition and forgiving student debt, testily he said--"Well, I can't--you know, I can't rattle off to you every nickel and every dime." 

Nickels and dimes?

This was an irresponsible version of an answer for programs that would cost Americans many trillions more.

When a few months ago Elizabeth Warren was pressed to reveal the cost of her healthcare program, also Medicare for All, when she released a detailed budget, with costs also running into tens of trillions and no meaningful plan for how to play for them, she was rightfully excoriated and her poll numbers--she had been in first place--began to slip. To a point where she is no longer realistically viable. 

Sanders, just a few days ago, for the first time, was asked about his comments some years back that appeared to show support for Fidel Castro's agenda and spoke about how the first thing Fidel did in 1959 when he took power was institute an island-wide literacy program. Not a word about the brutal side of Castro's rule. Bernie came off sounding as if he was an apologist for the communist presidente.

Rather than saying his views about Castro were expressed some years ago, that they have "evolved," and he no longer has such a favorable opinion of Fidel--though that would be a fib--a day or two later he doubled-down in another interview while his advisors shrugged, claiming this was just an example of Bernie being Bernie. Unlike traditional politicians he is not a hypocrite and is "consistent" in his views. (Some would say rigid.)

Though there is something attractive about a presidential candidate being a truth teller, doesn't Sanders recognize that this time around it's all about winning and that some prevaricating is a small price to pay if it contributes to ridding us of Trump?

Also lurking, waiting to be exposed and mocked are his favorable views of the Sandinistas and Soviets. Apparently while on his honeymoon trip to Moscow he came away a fervent admirer of the chandeliers in the Moscow subway and by implication the USSR system.

This positive assessment of Castro and the Soviets may cost him the election because by giving Fidel a pass, it is hard to see Sanders carrying Florida and in a close Electoral College election it could again come down to Florida, Florida, Florida.

Sanders is making it too easy for Trump to caricature him.

If you think I am being unfair to Sanders by demagoguing Castro, back in my college days I helped establish a Fair Play for Cuba chapter in New York City, met Castro and Che Guevara, and read Jean-Paul Sartre's On Cuba cover-to-cover three times!

This is not about Cuba but Sanders' candidacy.

I got over my infatuation with the Cuban Revolution before I turned 25. Bernie at 78, not so much.

Fidel Castro in New York 1959

January 3, 2020--Nominee Bernie? President Bernie?

The just released report on how much Democratic candidates took in during the last quarter of 2019 confirms that Bernie Sanders is a prodigious money-raising machine. 

In addition to the $34.5 million he netted (considerably more than his closest rivals--Buttigieg's $24.7 million and Joe Biden's $22.7) Bernie noted that since launching his campaign for the 2020 nomination, more than five million individuals contributed to his campaign.

This coupled with his nearly one million volunteers, shows him to be a political force to reckon with.

In effect, he will ultimately net about as much money to deploy on the election as multi, multi billionaire Mike Bloomberg has allocated.

His true power as a candidate will be on full display on Super Tuesday, March 3rd, when 15 state caucuses and primaries will select about 40 percent of the delegates needed to secure the nomination. Bernie appears to be poised to do exceptionally well. 

Like it or not, it may be time to predict that Sanders has a clearer path to the nomination than Elizabeth Warren, Pete Buttigieg, or even Joe Biden.

This assumes that Warren continues to falter and most of her potential voters shift to Sanders and that Mayor Pete also slips back and a majority of his supporters find their reluctant way to Biden. 

This would leave Sanders and Biden standing and since there look to be more progressive Democrats than so-called moderates among the electorate, I can see Sanders securing the nomination if a brokered nomination process can be avoided.

Having said this I might as well go further out on the limb and suggest that if Bernie wins the nomination he could as well win the general election. After we hear testimony from Bolton and Giuliani, all bets on Trump are off.

September 24, 2019--Get Ready For Warren

The latest poll numbers from Iowa are good news for Elizabeth Warren and her growing number of supporters.

The headline from the latest Des Moines Register/CNN poll is that Warren is now two points ahead of Biden--22 to 20 percent. Sanders is at 11 percent, and no other candidate is in double digits. 

Warren's numbers have been soaring and Bernie's and Kamala Harris's (now at 6 percent) have been declining. Until recently Biden has been in the lead in Iowa but for the first time his numbers are slipping and he is trailing.

There are still about five months until the caucuses and things likely will change, but more and more potential voters are saying they are getting locked into their choices so the trends we are seeing could continue.

More important numbers from the poll are related to the uniqueness of the Iowa caucuses. On the day they are set to occur, caucusers in attendance are allowed to switch from their first choice of candidates, if he or she fails to reach the "viability threshold," to their second or third choice. Since in a crowded field no one is likely to gain a winning majority on the first ballot candidates who have the most second and third place supporters have a distinct advantage. 

The Register poll shows Warren with by far the most fallback support. 71 percent say she is either their first, second, or third choice, a number much higher than for any other candidate.

So, unless something seriously unexpected happens, Warren could win in Iowa and as a result have momentum going forward, especially for taking on Biden and Sanders in New Hampshire, next up in the primary season. And winning the first two primaries would help her in South Carolina where coming in second (after Biden) could be considered a form of victory. It would be the first state where she will be challenged to demonstrate she can do well among African-American voters. This is very much an open question and critical to her ultimate viability in the general election.

These first three primaries are the traditional package. What is new is that on Super Tuesday, March 3rd, a week after South Carolina's primary, for the first time, California will join 13 other states on this most delegate-rich of days. Previously, the Golden State held its primary so late in the process that, with notable exceptions, it did not have much impact on who was nominated. 

But with Warren likely to prevail in California, it will be of great political benefit for her to rake in most of California's delegates and to be anointed by the progressive media. 

The morning after Super Tuesday the race for the nomination could in effect be over.

At the moment, with all sorts of caveats, Warren appears to be the Democrat to beat. And she could turn out to be a powerful opponent for Trump. First, it is obvious he does not do well when with smart and assertive women. Warren is nothing if not that. As a consequence, desperate, we can expect to see barrages of misogyny from him. Then she could be the one best able to get under his skin during the debates and provoke him to self destruct.

Here's the worry--as she moves into the lead in the polls (in Iowa and beyond) her record and campaign promises will undergo ramped-up scrutiny. Her greatest vulnerabilities will be exposed and picked at. For example, she will be pushed to show how she proposes to raise the many trillions required to pay for even a small number of the initiatives she has promised to deliver--Medicare for All and the implications for private health care first and foremost. Increasing taxes on the wealthy (not likely to happen) would not begin to pay for all she has promised. 

She needs to begin now to clean this up. She needs to begin the transition from insurgent to an insurgent frontrunner. As smart as she is I expect she's already on it.

March 4, 2016--Voting With Their Feet

I have a smart friend who follows elections carefully. She is a Democrat and quite worried.

Before Super Tuesday she told me that the way she was going to think about the results was not so much following who-won-which-states and by what percentages--the usual way of keeping track of winners and losers--but rather by monitoring how many raw votes in the aggregate would be cast for both Democratic candidates versus how many in total would be cast for all the Republicans.

In that way, she said, she would see which party was winning the turnout race and, when comparing that to equivalent results from 2008 and 20012, she would get a sense of which party was generating the most excitement among voters.

She is even unhappier now than she was a week ago before Super Tuesday's votes were tallied.

Here's why--

Compared to 2008--the last time there was a contested Democratic primary--the number voting this year is down 32 percent.

And on the other side, the totals have skyrocketed--total GOP votes are up 61 percent compared to 2008 and a whopping 73 percent compared to four years ago.

Then, when comparing the total Republican vote to all who voted Democratic, the GOP candidates have garnered 2.8 million more votes than both Democratic candidates combined. In fact, GOP numbers are at all time highs. By more than a million vote.

What to make of this?

On the Democratic side an historic primary is underway with Hillary Clinton, the first woman likely to be nominated by a major party matched up against an exciting, voter-mobilizing Independent-Socialist contender, Bernie Sanders. One would think that they would turn out at least as many voters as Obama, Hillary Clinton, and their other rivals attracted eight years ago.

The Republicans, on the other hand, who began with a lackluster mob of 17 or so candidates with little cub appeal ranging from Scott Walker to George Pataki to the relatively uninspiring and robotic Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio.

This leaves us with one obvious explanation--Donald Trump.

Love him, hate him (and we know now who is doing the loving and hating) he is a vote machine. He might still be stopped--he is capable of shooting himself in the foot without warning--but at the moment he's setting all-time records.

My friend, as I said, is not happy. She's right not to be.

March 3, 2016--Super Tuesday: Who Really Won? Who Really Lost?

The New York Times banner headline on Wednesday morning was, "TRUMP AND CLINTON FEAST AS 12 STATES VOTE."

Putting aside the funky "feast," did the NYT get it right?

One could make a case that they missed the real stories. For both parties.

That case would claim that the apparent biggest winner--Hillary Clinton--with by far the most delegate votes (she has 1,001 while Sanders has only 371) was really a loser.

She has thus far benefitted greatly, disproportionately, by being propelled into the lead by rolling up a powerful stream of victories in mainly southern states with large concentrations of Democratic African-American voters while she is doing less well in other, more demographically balanced states. States such as Colorado, Minnesota, Oklahoma, and Vermont, all of which Sanders won on Super Tuesday.

Further, over the next few weeks there will be mainly winner-take-all primaries in states such as Kansas, Nebraska, Maine, Illinois, Michigan, and of course Ohio where Sanders may be set up to do quite well.

And a large portion of Clinton's delegates (more than half her total) are so-called "super delegates," chosen by local party elites. These delegates could turn out to be evanescent if Sanders gets on a roll.

Remote as this may be, this is still possible and a good reason for the Clintons not to do too much premature celebrating since, according to this analysis, Sanders sort of won and Clinton sort of lost.

On the GOP side, if I were Trump I would be a little nervous. Many pundits said he was sure to carry all 11 Super Tuesday states, with the exception of Ted Cruz's Texas. Cruz did in fact win there with a margin of 17 percentage points, more than double what was predicted.

And then he went on to defeat Trump in Oklahoma (Tuesday's most unpredictable state with Cruz and Sanders winning) and the Alaska caucus.

Also, the otherwise hapless Marco Rubio managed to win the Minnesota caucus while Trump wound up a weak third.

Add to that that Trump, on average, is getting only 35-40 percent of the popular votes and if you add up all the GOP delegates thus far awarded, he has only 45 percent of them.

Not exactly a New York Times feast.

If Kasich wins Ohio and Rubio manages somehow to win Florida, Trump could be in trouble. Minimally a brokered convention would be a distinct possibility where the remaining party bosses and big-money people would rig things for Paul Ryan or Mitt Romney.

So for me the Republican winners might be Kasich, who did pretty well in Vermont and Massachusetts and should do much better during the next two weeks, and without doubt Cruz, who is the current stand-out number two.

Then again, Ben Carson may turn out to be the biggest winner. If he "suspends" his candidacy, as expected, he'll no longer have to appear on stage side-by-side with these people.

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.

February 23, 2016--Oy Vey Another Debate

I just realized that there's another Republican debate scheduled for Thursday evening. At the same time as American Idol.

This presents problems--

I am addicted to both. The GOP campaign and Idol. Thankfully there is On Demand so I'll watch the debate live and then stream Idol.

After getting trounced in South Carolina, Rubio and Cruz have declared that it is now a three-man race. Ignoring the continuing existence of John Kasich and, yes, still in it, Ben Carson.

Kasich still thinks he can win the nomination, especially after Super Tuesday (a week from today) when the campaigns turn more to the Midwest. Kasich Country he believes. Carson will continue until the last votes are counted since his campaign has never been about the presidency but about promoting his brand and selling books.

So what to look forward to on Thursday? I mean in the debate.

Pundets are saying it's really a two-man race. Not between Cruz and TRUMP or Rubio and TRUMP, but between Cruz and Rubio. For second place. Whoever loses is then supposed to follow Jeb and drop out, making it a two-man race, again forgetting Kasich and Carson both of whom will trundle on since it costs them nothing to do so. A few airline tickets and a freshly pressed suit to wear to the debate.

So the fireworks, one would think, would be between Rubio and Cruz.

I suspect in fact the fireworks will be between Cruz and TRUMP and Rubio and TRUMP. One will hope to emerge as the better potential giant killer and thereby become TRUMP's chief rival.

This prediction is for whatever it's worth.

But lest you are taken in by this, you should know I predicted Amelia Eisnehauer on American Idol would make it to the top 14.

She was sent home last week. I had assumed enough people would think she's the granddaughter of President Dwight Eisenhower and that would get her some votes.

So much for what I know.

Amelia Eisenhauer