Analysis of Democrat Presidential Race

Democrats worst nightmares might be coming to fruition.  With Super Tuesday looming on March 3, frontrunner Bernie Sanders frightens the Democrat establishment because of his full-throated socialist agenda.  Now there is speculation that Democrats may be hurtling toward a brokered convention.

Neither scenario bodes well for the Democratic Party's chances to reclaim the White House.  After a disastrous start to the primary season with the Iowa caucus debacle, Democrats had to be shaking their heads wondering what else could go wrong.  The answer is Senator Sanders heading the ticket.

After winning the popular vote in both Iowa and New Hampshire, Sanders vaulted into lead on the strength of a stellar ground game.  Sanders has no trouble recruiting young volunteers to staff his statewide campaign offices.  The 78-year old also draws the largest and most enthusiastic crowds.

Many Democrat voters are not spooked by Sanders' endorsement of socialism.  A 2019 Pew Research Study found nearly two-thirds (65%) of Democrats have a somewhat positive or very positive view of socialism.  Republicans and GOP leaning independents are diametrically opposed: 84% against. 

Money is usually a strong indicator of the staying power of a primary candidate.  Just released Federal Election Commission figures underscore Sanders' appeal.  He raised $107.9 million in the latest reporting period, far outdistancing his primary rivals.  Sanders is not going away.

Former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, a virtual unknown a year ago, surprised pollsters by nipping at the heels of Sanders in the first two contests.  The Buttigieg campaign has steamrolled more well known opponents and has attracted better educated, upper income voters.

However, national polls show that among African-American Democrats only one percent back his candidacy.  If those polls are accurate, it spells trouble for Mayor Pete.  He will face tough sledding in upcoming primaries in which African-Americans are a larger share of Democrat voters.

In a national presidential match, a Democrat cannot win the Oval Office without high African-American voter turnout and a sizable margin over Mr. Trump  That leaves the Democrat establishment in a quandary because Buttigieg, like Obama in 2008, is a needed fresh face.

Buttigieg is polished, articulate and media friendly.  All assets Obama enjoyed in 2008.  Buttigieg also raised $75 million in the latest quarter.  He is the darling of Hollywood and Silicon Valley.  Both have shoveled millions of dollars into the Buttigieg campaign.

Rising political star Sen. Amy Klobuchar's stock is soaring after her third place finish in New Hampshire.  She represents the moderate lane in the party race.  Her strategy of a laser focus on the first two contests paid off.  But her campaign may be derailed by lack of funds.

Among the top tier candidates, she raised the lowest amount of money, $28.7 million in the recent quarter.  That was less than Sanders, Buttigieg, Warren and Biden.  She and Buttigieg are competing for the same big donors, who prefer a progressive without the socialist baggage.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren's campaign is cratering. Although she raised $81.7 million, she has underperformed in the opening round. After the woeful New Hampshire showing, he has turned more strident.  If she drops out, the chief beneficiary will be Sanders, who shares common views.

Former Vice President Joe Biden needs to throw a Hail Mary pass.  His campaign is flagging and donors are beginning to have doubts about his chances.  Biden is pinning his hopes for a jumpstart in Nevada and South Carolina primaries.  The states appear to be friendlier territory for Biden.

However, the latest Quinnipiac Poll finds Biden's support among African-Americans is eroding in South Carolina. That does not bode well for a comeback.  Plus his campaign is haunted by disappointing defeats.  Voters often are influenced by early results when they go to the polls.

Biden entered the race with a huge advantage in name recognition and his past association with the Obama presidency.  Neither have proven enough to woo the majority of Democrat voters who are looking for a populist candidate who will shake up Washington.  He represents the status quo.

Biden also suffered collateral damage in the impeachment trial.  Democrats aimed at Mr. Trump but struck Biden, whose son Hunter's affiliation with a corrupt Ukraine gas firm received glaring attention during the trial.  The mainstream media tried a blackout of news coverage to protect Biden.

It failed because social media was ablaze with juicy conspiracy theories and catty comments about the Bidens.  Although no Democrat will ever admit it, Biden's reputation was sullied.  Clever Buttigieg defended Biden in a debate, which only called more attention to the Biden imbroglio. 

When the inevitable happens, a Morning Consult Poll shows Sanders is the top second choice for Biden supporters with 27% claiming they would vote for the senator.  Fully 35% of Warren voters indicate they will switch to Sanders.  Assuming both drop out, Sanders will solidify his lead.

When former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg leaped into the race, there was early chatter about him claiming the middle ground and uniting the party.  Recent revelations about Bloomberg's views on minorities and crime have all but crippled his opportunity to ride his billions to the nomination.

That isn't Bloomberg's only achilles heel.  He is a billionaire in a candidate field that preaches disdain for the wealthy.  He is a solid but uninspiring campaigner.  Bloomberg lacks charisma that even money can't buy. He is anathema to the socialist wing of the party. Can he overcome his shortfalls?

But make no mistake about it.  Bloomberg is the Democrat establishment candidate.  His campaign has just recently unleashed ads attacking Sanders' supporters, a dubious tactic that could backfire.  For all the fawning over Bloomberg, he has yet to prove he can win a single primary.

Super Tuesday represents the last remaining test for Sanders.  Fourteen states will hold primaries, including delegate-rich Texas and California.  A total of 796 delegates will be at stake.  If Sanders emerges with the most delegates, his challengers will face daunting odds.

That leaves Democrats staring at the likelihood that Sanders will have bagged the most delegates prior to the convention in Milwaukee in June.  The question is: Will he have enough delegates to anoint him the presumptive nominee before then?  The prospect of a brokered convention portends.

If there is a brokered convention, where the frontrunner is short of securing the nomination, history suggests the eventual winner will be too bloodied to win.  The most recent brokered convention occurred in 1984 when Walter Mondale eventually won the nomination and then lost in a landslide.

Party purists are jittery about embracing Sanders, who runs for office in his home state of Maine as an Independent eschewing the Democrat label.  Knots of Democrat House representatives and senators openly worried about the down ballot effect of Sanders in a recent New York Times article.

All that said, Democrats are wary of denying Sanders the nomination. In 2016 after Sanders lost the nomination to Hillary Clinton, his voters were dispirited by what they viewed as a rigged system against their candidate.  As a result, most stayed home on election day.

Alienating Sanders and his base will create a chasm in the Democratic Party.  If another candidate emerges as the nominee, there is a real threat his supporters will remain on the sidelines. This is Sanders' last shot at the presidency.  A snub might compel him to run as a third party candidate.

The current Democratic Party dilemma may sound familiar to Republicans.  Not so long ago in 2016 the GOP establishment was bonkers about the prospect of Trump at the top of the ticket.  Although he drew the largest crowds, he wasn't conservative enough, a former Democrat and anti-establishment.

Grudgingly, old guard Republicans accepted the reality that he would be the nominee and abandoned efforts to sabotage his candidacy. The Democratic Party could learn a lesson from this.   Denying Bernie Sanders the nomination through skulduggery will likely sink the Democrat ship.

Don't Let Your Kids Grow Up To Be Wealthy

They are the tiniest minority in America, numbering 585.  Most people don't know one.  And yet they are shamelessly pilloried by politicians.  They blame this group for every calamity in America from economic inequality to climate change.  Unlike other minorities, no one rises to their defense.

This diminutive faction is the nation's billionaires. The class has a total net worth of $2.399 trillion.  The exclusive club includes some members as young as 32 and two as old as 88.  Amazon chief Jeff Bezos tops the elite list with total wealth of $112 billion. Bill Gates is distant second at $90 billion.

Once upon a time, it was the American dream to become successful and prosperous.  Average citizens looked in admiration upon self-made millionaires who grew up with little and rose to stirring heights of capitalism.  Not any more.  Today billionaires are villains to be mercilessly disparaged.

Politicians have cast the wealthy as the new boogieman.  Self-described socialist Bernie Sanders has made attacking the "billionaire class" a cornerstone of his 2020 presidential run.  To listen to Sanders on the campaign trail, billionaires should be shackled in a stockade on the public square. 

"We live in a nation owned and controlled by a small number of multi-billionaires whose greed, incredible greed, insatiable greed, is having an unbelievably negative impact of the fabric of the entire country," Sanders ranted in an interview.  Sanders must be jealous that he is only a millionaire.

To underscore his disgust, Sanders took the social media to post the following Tweet: "How many yachts do billionaires need? How many cars do they need?  Give us a break.  You can't have it all."  Spoken like a man who owns three homes with his spouse Jane.

Another Democratic Party presidential contender Elizabeth Warren has made deriding the wealthy a staple of her stump speech.  "America's middle class is under attack," she grumbles.  "How did we get here? Billionaires and big corporations decided they wanted more of the pie."

To punish the rich, Warren has proposed levying a 2 percent additional tax on families with total assets of more than $50 billion and three percent on those with wealth that exceeds $1 billion. These duties would be in addition to her plan to hike taxes on the income of the richest Americans.

The future for billionaires looks gloomy with political newcomers such as New York's Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez bursting on the scene with even more draconian tax plans.  The 29-year-old politician has floated the idea of a 70 percent marginal top rate on incomes above $10 million.

That sounds more like confiscation than taxation.  Not surprising coming from a self-avowed Democratic Socialist.  Only one presidential candidate seems to be bucking the trend of bashing billionaires.  Perhaps, that's because he is one: former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz.

"I'm self-made," Schultz declared when he was deplored for self-funding his campaign.  "I grew up in the project in Brooklyn, New York.  I thought that was the American dream, the aspiration of America."  Polling from Pew Research suggests Schultz may be out of touch with today's generation.

In a nationwide survey in 2017, Pew found the dream for most Americans is "freedom of choice on how to live."  Having a "good family life" ranks second.  Third is "a comfortable retirement."  At the bottom of the list is "wealth."  However, prosperity makes the first three easier to achieve.

Still that doesn't explain the current visceral hatred toward the wealthy.  Nothing stirs up a crowd, especially of young people, like a verbal spanking of the rich.   Without delving into group psychoanalysis, the explanation might be envy and resentment of those with money. Who knows?

Even politicians are conflicted.  On the one hand they thrash the mega-rich, but use the other hand to take millions in contributions from billionaires, their surrogates and political shell organizations.  Would a sane person hand over money for the privilege of being verbally sprayed by a skunk?

Take Bernie Sanders as an example of this dichotomy.  Sanders made a big show out of the fact his 2016 campaign was largely funded by small donations under $200. However, OpenSecrets reveals that his largest donors were Alphabet, Inc. (Google), Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Boeing and IBM.

The CEO's of each one of those organizations are either multi-millionaires or billionaires. Apparently, they enjoy being lambasted as filthy rich jerks.  These heads of mammoth corporations are either daffy or sadistic.  Makes you wonder about their motive for funding rhetorical flagellation.

In the current political climate, counsel your children and grandchildren to strive to be middle class.  Politicians pander to this economic group.  No one can define the middle class any more, but that matters little.  Middle class is the safe haven from politicians' verbal hostilities.

There is only one problem with having every American pursuing middle economic nirvana.  Who will pay for all those grand schemes, such as Medicare For All and the Green Deal, unless the nation continues to churn out more billionaires?  Now that's a conundrum for Sanders, et al. to ponder.