The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

NEW HAMPSHIRE RESULTS

Posted on | February 11, 2020 | Comments Off on NEW HAMPSHIRE RESULTS

 

Well, I suppose I might as well do one of these, since it’s the first time Democrats will vote in a situation where the party hacks can’t steal votes from Bernie. The polls in New Hampshire will close at 8 p.m. ET and . . . Wow, it must suck to be Joe Biden tonight.

 

UPDATE 8:10 p.m. ET: As I noted this morning, the possibility of a fifth-place finish for Joe Biden in New Hampshire could not be ruled out, and that’s how it seems to be shaping up. How can he continue his campaign after getting less than 10% of the vote in New Hampshire? Of course, the doddering old fool keeps talking about South Carolina, but I can’t imagine him doing so well there as to recover his “frontrunner” status. Biden was supposed to be Mister Electability, remember?

UPDATE 8:30 p.m. ET: Beside the Biden zombie campaign, you know who else is finished tonight? Elizabeth Warren. She’s heading for fourth place in her own backyard, losing to Amy Freaking Klobuchar, a nothingburger of Minnesota niceness. Warren was trying to be Hillary 2.0, selling what was supposed to be a new and improved version of The First Female President™ narrative. She finished third in Iowa and is now fourth in New Hampshire and where, pray tell, does she expect to actually win anything? So it looks like the feminist sisterhood is screwed, unless they can rally behind Klobuchar, who doesn’t strike me as the kind of Angry Bitch that feminists could be expected to support.

 

UPDATE 9:25 p.m. ET: Watching MSNBC tonight, and the anti-Trump network is in need of an intervention. They simply don’t want to deal with the reality: Bernie is winning, Biden is hopelessly doomed, and Warren probably won’t make it to Super Tuesday. Klobuchar did surprisingly well in New Hampshire, but she has neither the money nor the staff to campaign effectively for the Super Tuesday delegate bonanza. More to the point, there is no end in sight for this divided party, because multi-billionaire Mike Bloomberg has made a big play for Super Tuesday. Suppose, then, that Bloomberg is able to buy something around 10% of the vote on Super Tuesday. Assuming the Biden or Warren haven’t struck the tent by then, that will mean five candidates (Bloomberg, Biden, Warren, Buttigieg and Klobuchar) vying for the “Anybody But Bernie” vote. Even if Warren and Biden quit before Super Tuesday, however, there would still be three candidates trying to stop Sanders, who is good for 30% of the vote in just about any Democratic primary or caucus.

Meanwhile, both Andrew Yang and Colorado Sen. Michael Bennett have ended their campaigns, having gotten exactly zero delegates — the same number as Biden and Warren so far, I hasten to add.

 

UPDATE 9:50 p.m. ET: Looking at the numbers now, you’re struck by how weak Warren and Biden performed. Neither of them broke 10% and this outcome just won’t do. You’re not a viable contender if you can’t make double digits in New Hampshire. Considering that Biden was the consensus front-runner, leading nearly every national poll and with near universal name recognition, how does he explain this debacle?

Fourth place in Iowa and fifth in New Hampshire? Zero delegates?

Biden flew to South Carolina and gave another rambling semi-coherent speech, emphasizing the idea that black voters haven’t had any real influence in the results in the two early states, but so what? Does he expect black voters to stampede to the polls to save the old white man? Like they owe him something, and it’s time to pay up?

No sensible person would expect such a thing, and look at the calendar: We’re now about 10 days from the Feb. 22 Nevada caucuses (which Biden will lose), and the South Carolina primary isn’t until Feb. 29. Does anyone think Biden will recover enough momentum in the next 18 days to make his appeal to black voters in South Carolina more credible? Or would you guess, as I do, that most black voters are becoming disgusted with the choices offered to them in this primary campaign? Neither of the most promising black candidates (Kamala Harris and Cory Booker) even made it as far as Iowa, so why should black Democrats — offered a choice between five or six white candidates, none of them likely to beat Trump in November — get excited about voting for any of them?

 

UPDATE WEDNESDAY: Elizabeth Warren Is Doomed, and Feminists Can’t Understand Why.




 

Category: Bernie Sanders, Democrats, Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden, New Hampshire

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