Well, Joe Biden continued his South Carolina revival, and Mike Bloomberg tanked like a lead balloon. Bloomberg won’t be the party’s savior after all, but it will be the old comfortable sweater that no longer has it’s fastball. Who knew?
At the time of publishing this post, it looks like Biden got 390 delegates last night, Bernie Sanders got 330, Liz Warren got 36 and Mike Bloomberg got 12. Tulsi Gabbard has 1. That’s still a long way to 1991 — the amount that the winning candidate needs to amass — but Biden now has the lead.
It’s now a two-person race
The strategy of having Buttigieg and Klobuchar drop out and endorse Biden clearly worked, opening up the center lane for Biden. Even Beto O’Rourke came out of hiding and endorsed Biden. Smoking Joe isn’t a better candidate today than he was last week, but he now has all the momentum.
Biden and Sanders have bifurcated the electorate.
Biden has older voters, African Americans and moderates. Sanders has younger voters, Latinos and progressives. The two sides are going to need each other. African American women are the most loyal Democrats there are, and we’re going to need them. We’re going to need younger voters as well. We’re all going to have to work hard to keep everyone involved and motivated, as defeating Trump should be a priority for everyone.
Money can’t buy you Love.
As Mayor Bloomberg proved, money can’t buy you loved. When Biden seemed to be standing in quick sand a lot of people were ready to jump on the Bloomberg bandwagon. But one disastrous and one semi-disastrous debate performance later, it’s clear that Bloomberg is not the heir apparent.1
Elizabeth Warren’s campaign is over.
Some of her supporters, especially women, are outraged that she did not receive more love on Super Tuesday. But she didn’t. She appeals to intellectuals like me, but we don’t make up a majority of the Democratic party. She came in 3rd in her (and my) home state of Massachusetts, where Joe Biden (seriously?) came in first.2
Young voters are not coming out in droves.
Despite Bernie’s promise that he would bring out young voters, who generally are so enthused about his candidacy, it didn’t happen. But older voters and African Americans, the “old reliables,” are coming out in droves. And they came out for Biden. Unless Bernie can figure out how to actually get young people to the polls in numbers unlike what we’ve ever seen before, part of the logic for his candidacy disappears.
- In fact, just as I’m writing this the news came over the wire that Bloomberg is dropping out of the race, clearing more space in the center lane for Joe Biden. Bloomberg has, however, promised to spend as much cash as necessary, whether on himself or others, to defeat Trump and help Democrats in down-ballot races.
- Like a lot of other “pundits,” I thought if anyone could beat Liz here in the Bay State, it would be Bernie. But Smoking Joe got the job done.
