Friday, March 6, 2020

The Presidential race after Super Tuesday

Republicans: Democrats are socialists and communists and they want to give everything to blacks and Mexicans and wimmin!

Establishment Democrats: Sanders is a socialist and a communist and he doesn't want to give anything to blacks or Latinos or women.

Status Quo Joe Biden: We can't let Sanders or Trump win because I'm Obama's, Obam-, I'm was his guy. And we have to protect the Supreme, the top one, the court - you know the thing! And Medicare for All, we can't - it won't - it's a lyin' dog face pony-soldier program."

That's pretty much the state of the race as we head for another big Tuesday.

David Dayen points out the importance of Michael Bloomberg's very expensive crash-and-burn Presidential campaign (Mike Bloomberg’s Belly Flop Was a Great Moment for Democracy American Prospect 03/04/2020):
There’s a perception (inaccurate though it may be) that elections go to the highest bidder, and Bloomberg’s bid was astronomical. He was trying something fundamentally new in political history, and for a while it was working. ...

He spent more to win the presidential election than any general election candidate in American history, and he reached that lofty perch nine months before Election Day. That doesn’t even include what he spent to buy political support, from candidates he previously showered with campaign contributions and mayors whose initiatives he funded through his philanthropy. ...

Even before [the Democratic debate in the week prior to Super Tuesday], progressive messaging on Bloomberg took hold. Yes, he was successfully labeled as the avatar of stop and frisk. But others, including the Prospect, expressed the great danger a plutocratic presidency would present. A Bloomberg coronation was likely to lead to austerity cuts, union busting, and authoritarian violence against protesters, as it did in New York City. But more than that, it would mean our elections could be bought, that our institutions had no use other than as a plaything for an egomaniac with money.

And then Bloomberg’s first debate, in Las Vegas, confirmed the smallness of this man, his lack of virtue. A silent billfold behind the podium would have done better. Yes, Elizabeth Warren did the heavy lifting on Bloomberg, particularly over the sexual misconduct cases at his company and the nondisclosure agreements he forced women to sign. But the stage was set in the week leading up to that debate, with a sustained argument from the left that handing Bloomberg the keys to the Democratic Party would represent the formal end of the Democratic Party in America. Bloomberg’s only response was a grumble. [my emphasis in bold]

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