He could win it all in the debate tonight. Then a win Saturday in South Carolina would be the nail in the coffin.
Bernie’s not a politician, not really. He serves in public office for the prominence it gives him, the pulpit from which he can preach.
Bernie’s a preacher, a true believer, and unyielding, unapologetic socialist. He won’t back down, he won’t equivocate. He will stand his ground.
The debate begins. Has Bernie got it in him?
There are close to 3 million immigrants from India in this country. From 1980 to 2010, they increased eleven-fold, roughly doubling every decade. I suspect a lot more will be coming soon.
It looks like the Republicans will win the House, and one of the things President Trump will insist on in 2021 is a rational immigration policy – a policy that selects immigrants based on what they can be expected to contribute to their new country. In immigration, as in all, it’s America First.
Canada has a relatively sane immigration policy, and Indians are the largest group to benefit, followed by Filipinos and Chinese. We’re likely to have the same experience as the Canadians, and Asian-Americans, led by Indian-Americans, will soon be our fastest growing ethnic minority.
Seeing as how we’re going through a time of conflict with China, it’s good to be friends with a country with 1.3 billion people. A lot of those people are very bright, speak English, and want to come to this country. When they get here, Trump wants them to be Republicans, and he’s off to a good start.
Sanders is having the Democratic nomination handed to him. The field is so weak, he seems strong in comparison.
Bernie’s first big break came at the Feb. 7th CNN debate. At the time, Sanders, at 22.7%, still trailed Biden in the national polling averages. Warren was a strong third, with 15%.
Then Warren and the CNN reporter ganged up on Bernie, jointly accusing him of lying about saying a woman couldn’t win. It was a set up, and that hit on Sanders was such a cheap and dirty shot it backfired. Immediately after the debate Warren went down to 12%, and Bernie shot into the lead with 28.6%, a lead he has never relinquished.
Then in yesterday’s NBC debate we had the destruction of Bloomberg , the one candidate the betting markets thought had a shot at beating Bernie. Bloomberg showed himself to be unelectable. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men aren’t going to put Bloomberg back together again. So right now the bettors are giving Bernie close to an even shot at the nomination.
A Democratic Party led into a national election by an honest to God, self declared socialist! My God, this could be big, really big.
This could be a realignment election, a once in a generation event, similar in importance to FDR’s win in 1932. That election led to an entire generation of Democratic rule, from ’32 to ’52.
I can see it happening. Trump looks like he’ll be doing at least two rallies a week from now until November. He doesn’t just want to beat Sanders. He wants to crush him.
Sanders, and socialism, need to be repudiated by the American electorate. Only then can there be a return to sanity in the Democratic party.
Bernie was a red diaper baby, born in Brooklyn in 1941. In 1980, at the age of 39, he was elected Mayor of Vermont’s largest city, Burlington. Eight years later he remarried, and the day after the wedding he flew to the Soviet Union for his honeymoon.
The man was 47 years old, educated and well informed. He knew what the USSR was, and what it stood for, and its bloody history. He nonetheless went to Moscow, and lavished praise on the most prolific mass murderers and the greatest despots of the 20th century.
If you’re under 30, you don’t know anything about the Soviet Union. It ended before you were born. So Bernie’s past association with it means nothing to you. This is one reason why Sanders gets 45% of the Democrat vote under the age of 30.
Just 13% of Democrats over 45 go for Bernie. These people have some memory of what the USSR was like, and they want nothing to do with it, or its apologists.
Political campaigns can be educational. It’s tricky, and has to be done with great skill. But Trump has a lot of smart people working for him, and I’m betting they can come up with a way to explain what the old Soviet Union was really like, and demonstrate to the ignorant youth vote that only a complete nut would take his new wife on a honeymoon there.
Following this year’s politics means going to a betting website to get the latest odds, and to go to Nate Silver and 538.com. Money doesn’t lie, and while Nate’s a bit of a lib, he doesn’t let that affect him (much).
The money says Trump’s got less than a 60% chance of getting reelected. 538,com says there’s a 40% chance of a brokered Democratic convention. Those two numbers don’t add up. They don’t make sense. If there’s a brokered convention, Trump wins. A lot of the losers at that convention, be they Sanders or Bloomberg voters, are not going to support the winner. And Trump wins.
So that 57.8% chance that the bettors are giving Trump to win is too low. They’re not factoring a brokered convention into their calculus. Over time, Trump should become a prohibitive betting favorite.
Enthusiasm counts in elections. I’m sure Nate has it factored in to his Mysterious Model. Republicans are fired up, and raring to go. The Democrats don’t have a leader yet, and when they get one there will be bad blood in the party.
Back on July 11th of 2019 Nate said the Democratic race all boiled down to the fab five: Biden, Sanders, Warren, Buttigeig and Harris. Klobuchar has taken Harris’ place, but other than that the prediction from seven months ago holds up pretty well. Nate’s a smart guy.
538.com hasn’t discussed the chances of Trump winning. That has to change, eventually. Nate and his gang won’t like it, but they’re going to be honest about it. Trump’s a big favorite, no matter how you look at it.
Trump won’t get cocky, and take a win for granted. He’ll get greedy, and want to win big. Huge, even.
Big enough to bring along a lot of my favorite people, state legislators.
reaganproject.com 