Bernie Has to Win Michigan

If yesterday I was hopeful that the Sanders campaign could easily reverse Biden's Super Tuesday momentum, today I am far less so. The red-baiting has started again, and Bernie appears to be tacking to the right, aligning himself with Obama's legacy, in a bid to win over older African-American voters and suburban centrists. I guess this makes sense now that the #Youthquake model of bringing new voters to the polls apparently has been scrapped. Elizabeth Warren's departure did not translate into an endorsement of the Sanders campaign, and I doubt it will anytime soon.

Then there's Nate Cohn's analysis of the upcoming Michigan primary. It's not favorable to Bernie:

Mr. Sanders has so far failed to match his 2016 strength across the white, working-class North this year, and that suggests it will be hard for him to win Michigan.

This pattern has held without exception this primary season. It was true in Iowa and New Hampshire against Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar. It was true in Maine, Minnesota, Massachusetts and even Vermont on Super Tuesday against Mr. Biden.

Over all, Mr. Biden defeated Mr. Sanders by 10 points, 38 percent to 28 percent, in counties across Maine, Minnesota and Massachusetts where white voters made up at least 80 percent of the electorate and where college graduates represented less than 40 percent of the electorate. According to the exit polls, Mr. Biden was tied or ahead among white voters in every state east of the Mississippi River on Super Tuesday.

This is a marked departure from 2016. Back then, Mr. Sanders tended to excel among white, working-class and rural voters across the North. This made Michigan, where white voters represent a well-above-average share of the Democratic electorate, one of his stronger states. He dominated in Michigan’s small towns and rural areas, losing only in few counties that tended to have older voters.

It is hard to say why Mr. Sanders has faltered among these voters, given the consistency of his message and his improved name recognition. One possibility is that many of his 2016 supporters were casting protest votes against Hillary Clinton. Another possibility is that many former supporters of Mr. Sanders ultimately backed the president and are now lost to the Democrats.

One sliver of hope is that Michigan's black vote is far less disposed to the Obama administration because of its handling of the Flint water crisis. But if Bernie loses the rural vote, it might not matter.

In 2016 voters were reacting to the offensiveness of Hillary Clinton and the failed neoliberalism of the Obama administration. Now voters are reacting to the exhausting spectacle of a Trump White House. You would think that Joe Biden's reduced cognitive abilities, if not outright dementia, as well as his long spotty record of supporting free-trade deals and foreign wars, would make him radioactive. Unfortunately, voters in the Democratic primary appear to have decided on the addled Biden as the anti-Trump, and they are willing to the pull the lever back to Obamatime.

I think it's doomed and desperate. There's no going back to Obamatime, and Biden might not even make it to the convention -- that's how compromised I believe his mental health to be. Maybe the DNC will push the Biden people to adopt a front-porch campaign like William McKinley's; at least it would limit Biden's stress and strain.

In any event, Trump could easily defeat Joe Biden with social media memes alone, and Trump has the unlimited budget to do it.

There's one scenario where Biden could win the presidency; it's the one I mentioned in January: stock market collapse and economic recession. We do seem headed for an economic downturn.

Bernie has to win Michigan. If he can't, with Florida right around the bend, I don't think he can do it.