In the second round of primary elections – with Michigan as the big prize – former Vice President Joe Biden continues to run the table on socialist Senator Bernie Sanders. It is a reflection that a bit of political sanity has returned to the Democratic Party.
Sanders is again proving the case he made in 2016 – that there are not enough radical left voters even in the Democratic Party to give him a majority among Democrat voters. He can run “as” a Democrat for President of the United States, but Sanders is now, has always been and will continue to be an avowed socialist.
Perhaps if Sanders had remained a Democrat after attempting to seize the Party’s presidential nomination in 2016, he would have had more credibility in 2020. But He only seems to have fealty for the Democrats when he wants to be President. Biden has hammered on that issue by billing himself as “a real Democrat … a lifelong Democrat.”
Biden moved out of the loser column with a very impressive win in South Carolina. His support from black Democrats proved a unique benefit in a state where approximately 60 percent of Democrat voters are black. Biden benefited by having a number of Super Tuesday primaries in states where blacks had disproportionate strength in the Democrat primaries.
But it was in northern states that Biden exposed the lack of support for Sanders’ radical revolution. He beat Sanders with virtually every demographic category of voters with the possible exception of the youngest – and once again, they did not come out in high numbers.
In the latest round of primaries, Biden beat Sanders in the Vermont senator’s “must win” state of Michigan – and by a very comfortable margin. Biden crushed Sanders in Mississippi. And even in the one state that Sanders was expected to win big – Washington State – Biden eked out a razor thin win and an even split in delegates at last count.
If not Washington State, wherein any future primary can Sanders come out on top?
It is numerically possible for Sanders to yet win the nomination – and even slightly more possible for him to prevent Biden from securing enough delegates to secure the nomination before the convention. But the odds are not good.
That slim chance should not be enough to keep Sanders in the race, but he well knows that the more delegates he has in Milwaukee, the more powerful he is – especially in terms of the development of the Democrat Platform.
Sanders has dragged the Democratic Party to the left. There is no doubt about that. And he remains a man obsessed with his radical agenda. If given the chance, Sanders will produce a Platform that will hang around the neck of Biden and his vice-presidential candidate like an albatross.
It looks like Biden has a clear road to the nomination at this point – as long as he does not have a major health issue or makes more unsettling gaffes.
So, there ‘tis.