Mayor Pete Buttigieg has now taken a 10-point poll lead in New Hampshire as well as in Iowa. The first two primary states (actually a caucus and then a primary) and Pete is beating the pants off Elizabeth Warren, Typewriter Joe and Bernie Sanders in both. .
The poll of likely Democratic primary voters was conducted Nov. 13-18 by landline and cellphone and has a margin of error of 6.1 percentage points.
In a related development, a nationwide poll of African-American voters indicates that POCs of all ages and income levels have abandoned Biden and are embracing Buttigieg across the board. No more suspicion about his handling of the South Bend police chief matter, no more homophobia among older POCs…a complete switchover from attitudes of just a week ago. Yes, I’m kidding…Jesus, lighten up.
For the first time in the 2019 campaign, Mayor Pete is ahead of the other Democratic contenders (Typewriter Joe, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders) in a poll about the forthcoming, all-important Iowa caucus. A Monmouth University Poll shows Buttigieg leading with 22%, followed by Joe Biden at 19%, Sen. Warren at 18%, and Sen. Sanders with 13%….it’s over, Bernie! This is the first time that the South Bend mayor has come in first in any poll. Biden and Warren’s numbers are within the margin of error, but Buttigieg has nonetheless risen 14 points since Monmouth’s August poll.
Speaking as a staunch Beto O’Rourke admirer, I have to acknowledge — admit — that Pete Buttigieg, however likely or unlikely his chances of winning the Democratic Presidential nomination, is right now the most engaging contender out there. Somebody on Morning Joe recently called him “the Mister Rogers of the Democratic presidential candidates“; in my eyes he resembles Eric Kohn of Indiewire. Brilliant, well-spoken, a Millennial (he was in high school when Colombine happened)…an obviously sharp guy who seems to really understand the worldly particulars as they exist right now, but especially gets the coming shape of things. Progressive but specific, practical. Definitely not on the side of the p.c. Robespierre purists.
Posted on 1.29.20: Bernie Sanders’ recent poll surges have me worried and thinking something I never thought I’d admit to myself, much less post in this column. I’m deathly afraid of what might happen if the devotional blues, Bernie Bros and under-30s manage to enable Bernie to capture the Democratic nomination. I can’t believe I’m actually saying this but for all his gaffes, droolings, weaknesses and vulnerabilities I want Joe Biden to beat Bernie.
And I really don’t feel much enthusiasm for Joe. Does anyone?
I realize that my favorite guy, Pete Buttigieg, is done, but I’m furious that the race has come down to this. Neither of these geezers has that magic-wandy current. People don’t want a crusty Democratic socialist trying (and almost certainly failing) to push through Medicare For All — they just want a return to sanity and normality. Buttigieg could be that “normal” but he’s been gored so many times by African Americans and the progressive left that it’s a miracle he’s still standing.
I agree with Bernie for the most part. People want change. I would love to see this country turn into Finland. But I’m terrified of what’s happening now.
Subhead: “[Sanders’] ideas are toxic outside blue America. He’s never won anything that really matters outside of Vermont, and all the available data shows his brand is a flop in red and purple states.
Excerpt: “Sanders has never won anything that really matters outside of Vermont, and all the available data shows that his ideas are politically toxic. Yet a week before primary voting begins, he is surging in Iowa, New Hampshire and California.
“Democrats now face a monumental choice. Deciding which presidential candidate should go head to head with Donald Trump is the paramount political calculation of our lifetimes.
“In the past, when Sanders has declared himself and his ideas to be ‘winners’ in red and purple areas, it has turned out to be demonstrably false. Democrats must not be fooled by him now.
Taking comfort from the blissfully anti-woke, Intellectual Dark Web insights of Matt Taibbi, Bari Weiss, Bill Maher, Bret Weinstein, Jordan Peterson, Joe Rogan and Sam Harris isn’t enough. Because I still miss one of my all-time heroes, Camille Paglia. She hasn’t done or said much, media-glare-wise, since an early 2017 book tour to promote “Free Women, Free Men: Sex, Gender, Feminism,” a collection of essays. And I for one would love to hear some new Paglia assessments.
She’s been silent, in other words, since the launch of #MeToo feminism in late ’17, followed by subsequent BLM + “1619 Project” wokester militancy + prolonged street demonstrations (occasionally accompanied by storefront trashings, lootings and burnings) that were ignited by the 2020 murders of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, et. al. The hints and premonitions were there in early ’17, but the currents have intensified over the last two and 2/3 years.
Not just about the “wokescenti” but Joe Biden‘s ascendancy and what might happen in ’24, the popularity of Joe Rogan, black antagonism toward Pete Buttigieg‘s candidacy, The 1619 Project, Robin DiAngelo‘s “White Fragility”, critical race theory studies, etc.
So where’s she hiding and why doesn’t she unload about a few things? She was completely appalled by self-righteous stridency when it was mostly happening on campus, but now it’s happening all over.
“The real truth is that Trump won an election that the Democrats blew. I’m a registered Democrat who voted for Bernie Sanders in the primaries. Sanders would probably have won both the nomination and the election had the prestige mainstream media, heavily in the tank for Hillary, not imposed a yearlong blackout on him. Despite being an unknown quantity to most Heartland voters, Sanders still almost won, and a couple of primaries, like Iowa, may have been stolen from him.
“Trump was elected because he was addressing problems that the Democrats had ignored or had no solutions for. Why aren’t disappointed Democrats focusing their fury on our own party? The entire superstructure should be swept away and the egomaniacal Clintons consigned to mothballs. I’m looking to a new generation of younger Democrats to effect change. In the future presidential sweepstakes, my money is on California’s new senator, Kamala Harris. She seems to have the whole package!”
Only three or four months after ranking at the top of certain polls and looking like the young moderate liberal who might catch lightning and surge ahead and take the Democrat Presidential nomination, and only a couple of weeks after finishing neck-and-neck with Bernie Sanders in Iowa and just a little behind Sanders in New Hampshire…after coming really close and generating all kinds of excitement and intrigue and fierce debate, Pete Buttigieg is dropping out of the race.
My heart is broken in two. Tears are honestly welling up. I’ve been a loyal Pete guy since last spring or thereabouts. (I signed on when I realized that Beto was apologizing too much.) And now Democrats are officially fucked and stuck with the battle of the late 70something white-hairs with slightly bent-over postures.
Pete has fallen on his sword for the best of reasons. He knows that the race has come down to Bernie vs. Biden, and that the only chance to stop Bernie the Destroyer is to urge all the liberal moderates to vote for doddering Joe, come hell or high water and despite his senior conversational moments. It’s called biting into a reality sandwich, and it tastes fucking awful. Why is Amy Klobuchar still in the race? To what possible end?
For months African American voters (particularly the older homophobic contingent) have been turning their backs on Pete, and yesterday they really stuck the knife in when the former South Bend mayor ended up with a lousy 8.2% of the South Carolina primary vote. Thanks so much, POCs, for totally shutting down the only hope for generational turnover and Millennial vibrancy in the forthcoming presidential election. Goorah for homophobia!
AA voters did, however, get behind Biden big-time, and now he’s the only guy who has half a prayer of stopping Bernie. So at least there’s that.
Lesson #1 of “Three lessons for PleaseNotBernie“, written by N.Y. Times columnist Ross Douhat: “You need candidates who aren’t actually winning primaries to drop out.
“The fatal conceit of establishment politicians facing an insurgency is that because the insurgent has obvious weaknesses, they should hang around and hang around, piling up third-place finishes and minor delegate hauls, in the hopes of gaining…something. What they are actually likely to gain is blame, irrelevance or both; just ask those noted influencers Jeb Bush and John Kasich.
“So if you are, say, Amy Klobuchar, the fact that you have a solid case for your own electability is not a reason to stick around for Super Tuesday if you finish behind Pete Buttigieg in South Carolina as well as in Nevada. If you’re Buttigieg, your strong Iowan and New Hampshire performances aren’t a reason to stay in if it’s clear you can’t compete nationally with Michael Bloomberg and Joe Biden. If you’re Biden, if you lose South Carolina, you should drop out the next day. And so on.
“None of this means that simply consolidating the field will stop Bernie; he might well win a head-to-head race, too. But giving him five or six opponents in every contest makes the solidity of his core support an insurmountable advantage. And if you can narrow the field.”
We all know there’s no real chance to stop Bernie. But there might be a sliver of a possibility if Biden, Klobuchar and Warren quit after the South Carolina primary.
Nicole Wallace: “[What you’re describing] sounds like political suicide.” James Carville: “It is. If you don’t win the Senate back, you don’t get anything. Nothin’ is gonna change. If you don’t push yourself to be a majoritarian party…[especially] if you have 55% of the voters available to you, then you’re making a real mistake.”
So are Democrats really serious about running a candidate against Donald Trump who…
1. Will be 79 years old on Election Day and would turn 80 in his first year of office.
2. Had a heart attack that drastically reduced his life expectancy.
3. Has never passed any significant legislation during his 30 years in office. [HE comment: I thought Sanders had passed two or three bills…no?]
4. May cause several of the moderate House Democrats we elected in 2018 to lose this year.
5. Refused to pay child support for much of his 30s.
6. Wrote [an essay] saying “a woman fantasizes about being raped by three men simultaneously” and blaming cervical cancer on a lack of female orgasms.
7. Complains nonstop about a “Democratic establishment” even though he’s been in Congress for 30 years and is part of that establishment.
8. Supported Fidel Castro and said he wanted to “throw up” when he heard JFK criticize him. [HE question: In what year? Who recorded or documented this quote?]
9. Went to a rally for the Nicaraguan Sandinistas where they chanted “Death to America” and “The Yankee will die.” [HE: Where was the rally? Who reported or reecorded those “death to America” comments?]
10. Honeymooned in the Soviet Union. [HE to Fassler: My ex-wife and I honeymooned in Communist Czechoslovakia in 1987 — no biggie.]
11. Is married to a woman with a history of shady business dealings.
12. Refuses to speak to [reporters for] local papers in his home state of Vermont.
13. Supported a controversial bill that moved toxic waste to poor Latino communities in Texas.
14. Voted for a bill allowing undocumented immigrants to be detained indefinitely pending deportation.
15. Voted against Senator Ted Kennedy’s immigration bill in 2006.
16. Voted against the Brady Bill and received support from the NRA in his initial runs for Congress.
17. Voted against Amber Alerts.
18. Has alienated colleagues in the House and Senate who would otherwise have been his allies.
19. Called Planned Parenthood “the establishment.”
20. Has a campaign staff whose most prominent surrogates either voted for Jill Stein or refused to vote for Hillary Clinton in 2016.
21. Refuses to release either his medical records or his tax returns.
22. Tried to convince superdelegates to give him the Democratic nomination despite losing elected delegates in a landslide.
23. Allowed his supporters to disrupt the convention of the first female presidential nominee.
24. Did only 43 events for Hillary Clinton after she won the nomination – by contrast, Hillary did more than 100 events for Barack Obama in 2008.
25. Disdains identity politics, saying that it’s “not enough to say ‘I’m a woman, vote for me.’” [HE comment: Bernie’s right about that.]
26. Has an army of supporters who frequently bully, dox and harass anyone who criticizes him (i.e., Bernie Bros).
27. Frequently campaigns against more moderate Democrats in favor of far-left candidates—who usually go on to lose their primaries by wide margins.
28. Was helped by Russia during the 2016 election and is being helped by them again today.
29. Has fired staffers within 24 hours of their hiring because of their racist posts. [HE comment: Isn’t that usually regarded as an appropriate response?]
30. Yells at network executives who don’t give him more positive coverage.
31. Disdained Barack Obama in private and tried to run against him in 2012.
32. Refuses to join the party he’s running to be the leader of.
33. Most importantly: Sanders has no idea how to get any of his proposals enacted into law.
Bernie Sanders‘ loss to Donald Trump next November will usher in a period of catastrophic bully-boy autocracy that will make the last three years look faint-hearted by comparison. It will also shatter the Democratic party into a thousand shards of shrieking recrimination — people will lose their minds — while accelerating the planet’s fossil-fuel destruction tenfold and God knows what other horrors.
In ’16 blunt-spoken Bernie seemed like a good guy compared to cackling eye-bag Hillary, but now he’s the Pied Piper of Destruction and an all but certain deliverer of…oh, God, more misery than most of us can even imagine. And for the sake of the very best intentions. Over the cliff and into a Jeremy Corbyn-like abyss.
And so tonight’s Las Vegas debate, naturally, will be all about what a terrible billionaire candidate Michael Bloomberg is. A candidate who might have a chance of beating Trump…maybe. Progressive twitter has been tearing Bloomberg down over the last several days, and this evening he’ll be slashed, trashed, hammered, punched, bruised, brutalized and rhetorically spat upon, etc. Partly by Warren but mostly, I presume, by the Death’s Head Moth from Vermont.
I’ve never liked Amy Klobuchar, but I’m almost hoping she catches on. She won’t because too many people feel as I do but I’m hoping against hope. I don’t know what to do or say or feel. We’re dead, finished, kaput. The most corrupt and ethically destructive U.S. president in history is probably going to be re-elected. We’re all in a pit of hell. When Bernie loses next November you can thank guys like Kid Notorious along with the wokester purists.
Bloomberg is somewhere between 5’7″ and 5’8″, by the way. Watch closely when and if he stands next to Mayor Pete, who’s also said to be 5’8″.
If Bernie Sanders wins the Democratic nomination, our deranged and grotesque authoritarian crime-boss president will almost certainly be re-elected, and this country will be saddled with a political and cultural tragedy of increasing proportions.
This is not theory, not maybe — it’s real. How can Democrats be so rock stupid as to not see the tragedy that’s currently unfolding and taking shape? The republic is splitting, cracking apart. The end of civic sanity and reason is nigh. And it’s like we’re all covered in a kind of slow-motion glue.
The untested Sanders (a virtual babe in the woods on the national stage) is electoral death. He won’t just get knifed and bloodied by the Trump smear machine — he’ll probably get creamed a la Jeremy Corbyn and George McGovern.
Can anything prevent this nightmare? Not if African-American voters have anything to say about it, and of course they will starting with the South Carolina primary.
Pete Buttigieg recently connected with moderate suburban Iowans, and could theoretically do the same countrywide in the general. But AAs (particularly your older-demo homophobes) are apparently determined to sit on their hands rather than support him. (One more time — thanks, guys!) And of course Bernie bruhs and other progressives hate Pete’s guts. Except Pete or someone like him — a sensible, practical-minded, non-scary moderate liberal or left-centrist — represents the only shot at beating Trump. Who else could become the prime banner-carrier for this kind of approach at this point? Biden, Warren and Klobuchar are too low in the polls — they have no serious heat. Ditto Bloomberg and Steyer. It’s down to Pete v. Bernie, except Bernie is more or less Corbyn.
Filed on Sunday, 2.9 by London Times correspondent Josh Glancy: “At a ‘politics and eggs’ event on Friday morning in Manchester, New Hampshire, Bernie Sanders faced a friendly crowd, who applauded his familiar spiel about the ills of Wall Street, Donald Trump and big pharma. But one voter, Lenny Glynn, had a question.
“’There’s a lot of people in this room that share your anger, your anxiety and your rage,’ Glynn said. ‘But there’s a question in a lot of our minds. Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the British Labour Party, who is very similar ideologically and politically to you, just took them to the worst defeat they’ve had in half a century. How can you assure us that you would not face the same onslaught?”
N.Y. Times columnist Frank Bruni, filed on 2.8: “You can analyze Sanders and assess his prospects in terms of how liberal many of his positions are: the end of private health insurance, the dismantling of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, free tuition at public colleges regardless of a student’s economic circumstances. By that yardstick he’s Corbyn, and, in my view, a hell of a general-election risk.”
“Americans are always worried that when we lose our freedom it’ll look like the movie Red Dawn, with tanks in the streets. That’s not how a republic ends. We keep the names on the institutions, [but] we change what’s inside. We still have trials — we just don’t have witnesses. We still subpoena people — they just don’t show up. There’s still an EPA — it just works for the coal companies now. It’s like the way TV channels sometimes completely change formats but keep the name? MTV — music television — hasn’t had music videos for years. The Learning Channel has no learning — it has Honey Boo-Boo and American’s Worst Tattoos and Family By The Ton.
“When Rome stopped being a republic, it didn’t stop having a Senate. And neither have we. It’s just more like student government now. Because that’s what dictators do. Russia has a pretend parliament. So does China. And North Korea.”
“It is always darkest, John McCain used to say, before it gets totally black. So it is for the American center-left right now. Bernie Sanders is currently favored to win the nomination, a prospect that would make Donald Trump a heavy favorite to win reelection, and open the possibility of a Corbyn-esque wipeout.
“While Sanders has not expanded beyond a minority of the party, he has consolidated support of the party’s left wing, and while its mainstream liberal wing is split between numerous contenders, it is hard to see how the situation is likely to improve soon. Indeed, it could get worse, much worse.
With the Iowa caucauses happening tomorrow night, the likelihood is that Pete Buttigieg will emerge as a third-place shower, just behind Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden. (And almost certainly ahead of Elizabeth Warren.) Buttigieg was looking like a winner in these two states during early to mid November. Then he became a political pinata, and all the attacks seemed to coalesce or reach some kind of critical mass by late November and early December, and his numbers began to drop.
All things considered, Buttigieg is a good guy. Liberal, reasonable, sanely progressive, super-brilliant — a perfect temperamental and generational counterweight to The Beast. Plus he’s sensible and modest and offers respect for others. The improvement in the cultural character of this country would be close to glorious if this modest, midwestern Christian were to beat Trump, and given the fact that Pete is mature and practical and respectful of Bumblefucks and definitely not in league with the hated Khmer Rouge wokesters, he would certainly defeat Trump. Maybe not by the same margin that Biden would command, but he’d win.
But the uglies (the general progressive purist crowd, Bernie bruhs plus the pro-Bernie under-30s, progressive Black Twitter and Gay Twitter) have been attacking Pete so savagely over the last couple of months that he’s probably not going to make it. And African-American voters have been staunchly skeptical and/or flat-out against Buttigieg since forever.
As a single, solitary West Hollywood voice I was just want to take this opportunity say thanks to all of you, and to tell you from the bottom of my heart how much I loathe and despise all the Pete attackers for sticking us with Bernie vs. Biden. Neither of these geezers is the breath-of-fresh-air rockstar that the Democrats need. And yet here we are. Thanks, assholes!
Steyer doesn’t have a prayer of winning Iowa and New Hampshire, but it wasn’t so long ago that Buttigieg did. I haven’t felt this much hate for purist hard-case lefties since Zero Dark Thirty was campaigned against in the Best Picture race of 2012 and ’13.
Bernie Sanders’ recent poll surges have me worried and thinking something I never thought I’d admit to myself, much less post in this column. I’m deathly afraid of what might happen if the devotional blues, Bernie Bros and under-30s manage to enable Bernie to capture the Democratic nomination. I can’t believe I’m actually saying this but for all his gaffes, droolings, weaknesses and vulnerabilities I want Joe Biden to beat Bernie.
And I really don’t feel much enthusiasm for Joe. Does anyone?
I realize that my favorite guy, Pete Buttigieg, is done, but I’m furious that the race has come down to this. Neither of these geezers has that magic-wandy current. People don’t want a crusty Democratic socialist trying (and almost certainly failing) to push through Medicare For All — they just want a return to sanity and normality. Buttigieg could be that “normal” but he’s been gored so many times by African Americans and the progressive left that it’s a miracle he’s still standing.
I agree with Bernie for the most part. People want change. I would love to see this country turn into Finland. But I’m terrified of what’s happening now.
Subhead: “[Sanders’] ideas are toxic outside blue America. He’s never won anything that really matters outside of Vermont, and all the available data shows his brand is a flop in red and purple states.
Excerpt: “Sanders has never won anything that really matters outside of Vermont, and all the available data shows that his ideas are politically toxic. Yet a week before primary voting begins, he is surging in Iowa, New Hampshire and California.
“Democrats now face a monumental choice. Deciding which presidential candidate should go head to head with Donald Trump is the paramount political calculation of our lifetimes.
“In the past, when Sanders has declared himself and his ideas to be ‘winners’ in red and purple areas, it has turned out to be demonstrably false. Democrats must not be fooled by him now.