Mike Bloomberg suspended his presidential campaign today. He has endorsed Joe Biden.
The lesson many will draw from Bloomberg’s failure to win any primary other than the one in American Samoa is that it’s foolish to skip the early contests. To be sure, skipping the early contests isn’t generally a recommended strategy, but I don’t think it was foolish in Bloomberg’s case. His downfall was his debate performance, not his timing.
It’s true that Bloomberg might have debated better if he had been campaigning all along. But one can essentially skip the early contests and still participate in debates. If memory serves, Rudy Giuliani did this in 2008. Unfortunately for Giuliani, he didn’t have anything like Bloomberg’s ability to mass advertise.
The other problem for Bloomberg was Joe Biden’s revival. It destroyed Bloomberg’s core claim that only he stood between Bernie Sanders and the nomination.
Imagine a scenario in which Bloomberg debates well and Biden doesn’t revive. In this scenario, Bloomberg would not have flopped on Super Tuesday and might well have a shot at winning the nomination despite skipping the early contests.
Disappointing though it was, Bloomberg’s Super Tuesday performance bettered that of Elizabeth Warren. Why, then, is Warren still in the race?
Last night, as she was getting trounced in state after state, including Massachusetts, she sent a message to her supporters. It stated that “we might not know the results the full results from states like Texas, California, and Colorado for a few days.” True. We know, however, that Warren lost each of these states and lost each big.
Warren continued:
Here’s the bottom line. There are six more primaries just a week away, and we need your help to keep up the momentum.
Momentum? Is Warren delusional?
Yesterday, I disputed the notion that Bernie Sanders is the victim of a conspiracy by the establishment. I found scant evidence to support such a claim. If there is such evidence, it’s Elizabeth Warren’s continued presence in the race.
However, I think her continued presence is due to a personality defect, not an establishment conspiracy to deny Sanders leftist votes.
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