The Biden juggernaut rolls on, but Sanders is closing. Warren is in trouble (meaning her smear of Sanders did not work). Needless to say — though of course IA, NH, SC, and NV are each different — this is a good place for Sanders to be. It’s hard to believe this was the DNC’s desired result.Nate Silver basically agrees, with the caveat that Sanders is not performing as well in Iowa and New Hampshire state polls as he is in the national polls, where his gain in momentum is clearly registered, along with, believe it or not, Mike Bloomberg's.
To review from yesterday the winning scenario for Joe Biden: a commanding win in South Carolina, followed by a decisive victory on Super Tuesday; the mainstream media lines up behind Biden in the early spring at the same time recession appears; recession is declared by the end of the second quarter, and it picks up steam going into the general election; the DJIA drops by 10,000 points. Biden wins in a landslide.
For Bernie the scenario is different. I should say the "scenarios" are different because his candidacy has much more activist grassroots backing than any other Democratic aspirant. Bernie can win in multiple scenarios, including a "status quo" election against Trump. Meaning? Bernie can beat Trump with the socio-economic conditions exactly as they are today -- with the Dow at 29,000, low unemployment and the war drums muffled for the time being.
Why? Because Bernie will outperform Hillary in the three states -- Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania -- that Trump carried narrowly, very narrowly, to win the 2016 election.
Trump has not widened his base in four years. I'd argue that his base in these three states -- because of his warmongering, his failure to deliver an infrastructure spending jobs program -- has diminished, so much so that Trump will have his hands full beating a cadaver like Joe Biden let alone someone like Bernie who will draw the underclass to the polls in November.
Let's cut to the chase. What's the scenario where Bernie beats Trump? As I said yesterday, and the polling appears to reflect this, the first four states, with the exception of South Carolina, will be a tight scrum. Super Tuesday performance is all-important. When you look at the Super Tuesday states -- California, Massachusetts, Vermont, Maine, Colorado -- it's not the Dixie Primary of yesteryear. Absent some sort of unforeseen collapse, Bernie is going to do well on Super Tuesday, and he will continue to do well as the primaries grind along until June 6. Bernie easily has the most solid campaign organization. He is going to continue to amass delegates throughout the spring giving the electorate ample time to comprehend the enormity of Biden's appalling record in Congress.
During this time, whether before or after Super Tuesday is anyone's guess, Obama will attempt to shatter Bernie's candidacy. It will boomerang as Hillary's recent attack did. If you have David Axelrod on the record saying Hillary fucked up by attacking Bernie on the eve of Iowa, you know Hillary's attack backfired. The same thing will happen for Obama. Obama will have to attack Sanders because the billionaire class will demand it.
There will be a big anti-DNC backlash as a result, which will make it difficult for Super Delegates to toss the nomination to a neoliberal in a brokered convention. Sanders wins.
As a result, Trump will overreact and become so bellicose and absurd another war scare with Iran or with Venezuela or with North Korea or with China will result. Bernie's long anti-war record will provide a bright and shining example of sanity and Trump will be turned out handily, losing all the industrial states he won four years ago to beat Hillary.
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