Super Tuesday
Not that this is the least bit about me, but what kills me the most about this endless primary process is Elizabeth Warren's failure to hold and consolidate her lead. As Virginia Heffernan tweeted last night, she would have been "the brightest, most dynamic, most principled & most effective president in history." But, Heffernan went on to say, the country is "too broken by Trump to rise to the occasion." So it turned back to Joe Biden as "the right heartbroken man for this heartbroken time." It--we--put our longing for normalcy ahead of our desperate need for reform and progress. We'd rather pretend that there's a reasonable bi-partisan middle to return to than deal with the fact that the country is being remade by fascists.I think there's a kind of mournful poetry in that analysis, but many disappointed progressives will more likely point their fingers at the DNC or Bloomberg and thunder about the power of corporate money. I'm not saying that Buttigieg and Klobuchar didn't make deals, but the real shift appears to have been driven by Democratic voters. Disheartened Warren people will swallow their disappointment and vote for Biden, but at least some number of online Bernie-ites will do what they can to be spoilers.And if you thought Trump projected before, watch what he does now. Biden is not just corrupt and senile and nepotistic, but, as Trump tweeted only yesterday, he is a TV addict. Pretty soon Trump will accuse him of cozying up to Putin, playing golf at the tax payers' expense, and failing to prepare for the plague.But you know what? Biden's vulnerability, his bad luck, and his Job-like long-sufferingness is what drew all those votes in South Carolina and Super Tuesday. The more dirt Trump throws on him, the more voters will identify with him. He wasn't my first, second, third, or fourth choice, but as weak as he is, as retrograde and over-rated as he is as a politician and thinker, I think he might have it in him to win. But in keeping with that same schlemiel-itude, I think it's likely he'll be a one-term failure.
