The State of the Race

So Booty-Judge judged his chances would ultimately boot him from the field. Either that or the ultra-secret McKinsey & Co Presidential Selection Algorithm spit out some terrible probabilities this morning after his rounding-error share of the South Carolina black vote yesterday. I’m sure the nerds at their computer screens know that this whole scenario can RePete itself in future election cycles.

Some additional thoughts and observations:

Do you realize that Buttigieg can run for president again for the next 40 years and still be younger than Joe Biden is today? At some point, he’ll become Harold Stassen, but that day is a long way off.

Do you realize that with the withdrawal of Buttigieg and Tom Cryer (or whatever his name is), Joe Biden is now the youngest man in the Democratic field?

Is it too late for Jerry Brown to enter the race? Even as a write-in? Seriously. I know, goofy Gov. High-Speed-Rail-to-Nowhere Moonbeam, but at age 82 he’s still more alert and sensible than the current Democratic field. He has to be sitting in his retirement ranch in northern California right now thinking, “What the hell? What a bunch of clowns.” He wouldn’t be wrong about that. (NB: When I find myself in a tough spot in Berkeley, I proclaim that I am “a Jerry Brown Republican,” which they don’t get because a lot of California campus lefties don’t like Brown, but there’s something to it and it gets me out of a jam.)

In addition to the delegate allocation rule changes, the Democrats’ obsession with making voting easier may come back to bite the stop-Bernie forces in a big way this week. How many Democrats have cast early mail-in ballots for Buttigieg? In California, early voting has been soaring over the last decade. Watch for Mayor Pete’s final numbers in CA on Tuesday. Each one of them is now a wasted vote.

I’m not sure Paul is right below that Pete’s withdrawal from the race helps Biden the most. Polls are all over the place, with some showing Biden is the second choice of most Pete voters, while others show Sanders to be the second choice of most Pete voters. In 2016, Trump turned out to be the second choice of a lot of Bush, Rubio, and Cruz voters.

Can we still quote Yogi Berra—”It ain’t over till the fat lady sings?” Not sure. Probably not. Let me amend it then: “It ain’t over until the gender-fluid body-positive deep-voiced intersectional critical theorist declaims on the performative outcome of the neoliberal false consciousness parade steals the nomination from Bernie.”

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