POST TRUMP ACQUITTAL AND IOWA/NH, CAN BLOOMBERG WIN?

This past week has been a tumultuous week in American politics - the acquittal of Donald Trump as a result of the wholesale pathetic surrender of the Republican Party to create a dictatorial Presidency; the dismal performance of Joe Biden in the Iowa Democratic Caucuses; the sub par performance of Sanders in the latter event; the dramatic emergence of Mayor Pete and the doubling down entry of Michael Bloomberg to gain the Democratic nomination and the Presidency - all happenings, thundering down at once on the numbed American body politic. 

Donald Trump, after Susan Collins reassured us that he had learned his lesson, in response to Adam Schiff, who was "a hundred percent sure" that POTUS would carry on with his corrupt ways, fired fact witnesses in his impeachment trial. LIeutenant Vindman, Vindman’s brother who was guilty of being Vindman's brother and Ambassador Sondland were unceremoniously fired in a third world type retribution. Then to end a momentous week Trump’s former Navy Secretary Richard Spenser, a life long Republican, announced his support for Democrat Michael Bloomberg for President. 

A triumphant Trump gloated over a demoralized Democratic body politic as his under water poll numbers slowly crept up. Mitt Romney was the sole Republican Senator who bravely elected to be on the right side of history. You would have thought the party of Abe Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan might have put up a bigger fight against a third world tin pot dictator taking over their Party. Post acquittal Trump, the leader of the Republican Party, has called the heads of his law enforcement agencies “scum”. The Republicans legislators have sold their souls for a mess of political pottage.  

The question hanging over this somber scene is whether or not Trump can be defeated in 2020. With former Mayor of New York Bloomberg entering the race in a desperate gamble to stop Trump it is obvious that he believes that Joe Biden, the current poll frontrunner,  is not up to the task. All this leaves the burning unanswered question - if Biden, the current leader in national polls is out of it, Sanders chanceless, and Mayor Pete being far more unknown than the unifying successful Democratic nomination winners, Obama, Bill Clinton or Jimmy Carter ever were, can Bloomberg at this “late” stage emerge as the Democratic candidate who can beat Trump?

HAIL TRUMP

Trump, drunk with his absolute power having being confirmed, turned the usually unifying State of the Union address and bipartisan WhiteHouse Prayer Breakfast into his Nuremberg style rallies. The unedifying Prayer harangue followed a sermon by a Conservative Evangelical preacher who spoke at length that it was Christ’s message that you listen and love your political opponents. His craven Party cowered in silence lest the bully single them out as not being loyal enough. The POTUS is relying heavily on his incumbent status to once again give him an electoral College victory thereby reversing his 2018 thrashing at the polls. 

Trump has to agree with the Bloomberg assessment. Bloomberg seems to infer that between the efforts of Trump, Giuliani and a lackluster Biden himself that the former Vice President's fate is sealed. Trump is now focussing on Bernie. He has changed his on line advertising campaign to that the alternative to him is a Democratic Socialist. Nobody can argue with the uncanny accuracy of Trump’s gut. (His problem is his cognition).

Trump is far from having a clear run as several court challenges are nearing finality. Even with a Justice Department in tow there is Lev Parnas and Igor Froman, the Freedom of Information requests that the courts are enforcing and all those women and their sexual harassment claims. The Supreme Court are on track to rule on whether his finances should be released. Whether McGahn will testify or not on the POTUS’S blatant obstruction of justice in the Mueller investigation is wending its way to finality. His testimony will be additive to all the outstanding evidence on the Ukraine saga. Then there is Bolton and several others waiting in the wings to spill the beans in lucrative book deals. 

So teflon Trump has problems other than who his Democratic rival may be. He has one worry less in that there will be no opposition within the Republican Party. However the latter's cultish obsequience comes at the cost of the Republican legislative nominees having to defend his mad cap actions in purple states and Republican suburbia which switched in 2018. More and more will emerge on Ukraine and embarrass the Republican legislator candidates on their vote not to have witnesses and documents in the Senate trial.

At the end of the Trump day he is relying on running against a “socialist” and an electorate that when in doubt sticks with the devil that they know.

IOWA  AND THE FORTUNES OF JOE, BERNIE AND MAYOR PETE

Joe Biden

Joe Biden, who up to time of going into print is leading the Democratic polls nationally, finished up a sad fourth in the Iowa caucuses which really was reflective of his heartbreaking pitiful campaign. It is fair to say that in spite of his poll position he has engendered virtually no enthusiasm amongst the body politic having only a few donors. In Iowa he had no ground game and few volunteers but what was most disconcerting was that he squandered the public platform given to him, being at the center of Trump’s defense in the Senate termination trial. That gave him an ideal platform to give back what he got. Other than the lame repetition that the lengths that Trump went to smear him was obvious evidence that he was the candidate that the POTUS feared most, there was a silence.

The fact that he has not given as good as he has got is an ominous sign for a year long campaign. Trump will feed on this weakness like a cobra going for the neck. It will be the sequel to “Crooked Hillary” with Rudi on the sidelines feeding garbage from his corrupt Ukrainian prosecutors. Attorney General Barr is seemingly running cover for Giuliani instructing all Federal legal offices to get permission from him on indictments related to Ukraine. 

At best his performance to date is hubris but whatever it is it is not good enough. Jay H. Ell believes that this foretells that Trump would seize on this temerity and crush him. He was feistier in the New Hampshire debate but all in all it may be too little too late.

Bernie Sanders

Under normal conditions Sanders with name recognition and more small donor support than any other candidate should be positioned to take over as the candidate of the Democratic Party for the 2020 Presidential election. But these aren’t normal times. Sanders isn’t a Democrat. Also the number one priority of the Democratic electorate is a candidate who can beat Trump and grave doubts are already emerging.

Objectively Sanders had a disappointing showing in Iowa. He not only didn’t score a decisive victory, his overall delegate number was less than versus Clinton last time out. His expectation was that he would bring tens of thousands new voters so as to equal the record of two hundred and forty thousand attending the Obama caucuses in Iowa in 2008. Instead the attendance was about a hundred and seventy thousand which was similar to 2016 where he was defeated by a similar narrow margin by Hillary. To add insult to injury more of those that caucused for Hillary than for him in 2016 pitched up to caucus in 2020.

It is almost senseless to keep repeating the obvious that there is no way on earth in 2020 that he could win the American Presidency as a self proclaimed Socialist. Currently prior to Iowa he was running in second place to Biden in national polls at about twenty percent support. That is more or less his ceiling at the moment. (See Jay H. Ell’s last week blog, “Trump and Sanders and the US Political System").

Sanders is going to struggle to beat Buttigieg in New Hampshire. If that prediction is correct Bernie would have not racked up two clear victories that were expected to launch his campaign and persuade the Democratic electorate that he is the one to beat Trump. 

Mayor Pete Buttigieg

If anyone is a victor at this stage of the game it is Mayor Pete who some commentators are likening to Obama. He exites, he is new, he is articulate, he is charismatic and the consensus among white Iowa and New Hampshire Democrats is that he is the choice among the three front runners to beat Trump. Mayor Pete is also tough and authentic, being a declared member of the LGBT minority. His toughness was exemplified when he demolished a serious competitor in Beto O’ Rourke early on in the campaign and has stood toe to toe with all comers since then. 

Buttigieg has just moved up to be one percent behind Sanders in New Hampshire so his start has to exceed his highest expectations. Nationally, even at this stage, he is still behind the three time Mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg. If he can win in South Carolina where African Americans, who represent close on half of the Dems electorate and in Nevada where Hispanics are a sizable component of the body politic than he may well become favorite to win the nomination. 

 However, currently, his support among African Americans is even less than Sanders. He is thirty seven years old and his political experience is limited to being Mayor of a small town of a hundred thousand in Indiana. But as he successfully reminded the Mid West voters where he is a Mayor is in Mid West Trump country, Indiana. He has emerged from obscurity to being a serious challenger.

MAYOR MICHAEL BLOOMBERG 

Mayor Michael Bloomberg, for whatever reasons, elected not to participate in the first four Democratic nomination contests. One of the leaks as to the reason was he was waiting to see how the center left Joe Biden would perform. Well he has not waited for all four contests to be completed. After Iowa he had seen enough and jumped in with a vengeance. While he was not on the ballot in the first two contests reporters attest that he was the elephant in the room, his name coming up again and again, as the best hope to beat Trump.

It is ironic that he is using his humungous sixty dollar billion fortune to put himself in contention. It always was only justified  by the Republican ideologues that “money was free speech guaranteed by the Constitution”. For a Democrat to use their bizarre logic to take the GOP on was never ever imagined. 

Bloomberg is saturating the media with incredibly well crafted adverts which to date have not belittled any opponent for the Democratic nomination. He is on target to spend a half a billion dollars at this early stage of the game. He has just put in place five hundred more staffers across the country to create an infrastructure that can take on the Trump/Republican machine. What is more he has declared whoever the Democratic nominee is that he will leave his infrastructure in place on his tab. 

At this stage Jay H. Ell will not discuss the merits of Bloomberg versus Trump but rather look at the numbers as to whether at this stage it is possible for him to win. This is because the common wisdom is that by only entering now he has already "lost out".

BLOOMBERG BY THE NUMBERS

The major benefit of participation in the first four contests for the Presidential nomination is the massive psychological advantage it gives the winner of being the presumptive nominee. Five of the last seven Democratic nomination winners won the Iowa caucuses. The benefits include being the flood of the ching ching of contributions from donors. (Many candidates who think they could still win have not the resources to continue). Money is no object for Bloomberg. 

The perception that that anyone entering at this late stage has lost too much ground is a misperception. There are a total of four thousand and fifty one delegates up for election in the Democratic Primaries of which only one hundred and fifty five or less than four percent are up for grabs in the opening four Primaries. 

Bloomberg is entering the Primaries on Super Tuesday, March 3, where there are fifteen states participating including delegate rich California and Texas.  Thirty - one percent, (twelve hundred and fifty - eight) of the delegates are the prize of Super Tuesday. In the rest of March there are another one thousand and ninety one delegates in contention - twenty - seven percent of the total that are in competition. So March, (fifty - eight percent of all delegates), really decides the primary. Bernie was running behind Hillary once the Primaries were over in that month and never ever seriously challenged thereafter. 

Most contestants emerging from the early contests in February haven’t enough money to organize and advertise in Super Tuesday. The latter occurs just four days after the completion of the South Carolina match up. The victors are hoping that the bounce that that they have received in the four February Primaries and the fact that several of the nominees have dropped out will help their momentum. Bloomberg was on track to lay out a billion dollars prior to the Iowa shambles and claimed he was going to double up as a result. He has already spent half a billion in infrastructure, advertising and appearances, focussing on Super Tuesday. So he does need not the initial primaries for financial momentum and name recognition. 

Now with three weeks to go Bloomberg is hitting up to fifteen percent in some national polls. So he definitely can be a contender. Bernie already is underperforming his figures against Hillary which was basically a two horse race. Biden, Warren and Klobuchar are likely to also have some of the spoils but are being left behind. That leaves Bloomberg and Mayor Pete. The former has to believe that he has a better chance of beating Trump than Mayor Pete otherwise he might have waited to see how South Carolina and Nevada went. 

In the unlikely event that Sanders is competitive and the seven hundred Democratic super delegates have to decide the Democratic contender on the convention floor they would certainly not go with Sanders.

AT THE END OF THE DAY

Bloomberg is viable by the numbers. Jay H. Ell will blog at a later date as to what he believes his merits are and his chances are against Trump. If the race finally devolves around Buttigieg and Bloomberg the Democrat establishment super delegates are unlikely to tip the balance against whoever the front runner is. 

Just one further comment on the week that was - the hypocrisy being displayed by the Republicans attacking Nancy Pelosi for tearing up Trump’s speech is staggering to say the least.