The South Carolina primary seems to be having a major impact on the Democratic presidential race. Amy Klobuchar, the senator from Minnesota, has announced that she is leaving the race, joining Pete Buttigieg and Tom Steyer. She has endorsed Joe Biden.
I had thought she would stay in at least until tomorrow because her home state of Minnesota votes on Super Tuesday and she had been endorsed by a major newspaper there and she could go out having at least one victory to her name. But maybe her internal polling had shown that she would lose badly an so she decided to leave now so that she can continue to argue that she is a proven winner in her state.
This leaves just Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, and Michael Bloomberg still in it.
This pruning of the field will undoubtedly please the political and media establishment who seem to think that many candidates were splitting the anti-Sanders vote and that the supporters of the people who have dropped out will flock to Biden or Bloomberg and one of them will become their sole standard bearer and beat Sanders.
Where this leaves Warren is not clear.
What is also not clear is what this means for early voting practices. Those who had already voted for the three candidates who dropped out may be regretting their decision to do so.
Tulsi Gabbard is still hoping to get approximately 0% of the vote.
I, for one, do hope she stays in so that this isn’t just a race between white guys. (Yep, I recognize Gabbard is still in it. I doubt she’ll ever drop out. But she also has little chance at getting a single delegate.)
Otherwise, I don’t know who Rania Khalek is, but I see she’s saying “[Warren] will be remembered for this” if she doesn’t drop out to give Sanders a better path for victory. I sure hope other Sanders supporters don’t follow suit because it would seem highly hypocritical of them! Unfortunately, I won’t be surprised if many do engage in hypocrisy. Sure, as always, I hope I’m just overly cynical, but I have plenty of experience witnessing people proclaim to be principled to later drop their principles when no longer convenient.
In this case, I’m particularly concerned with those who have been proclaiming it’s not democracy if the person with the most votes doesn’t win. (That’s already a bogus position to take as it is.) If Warren staying in appears to result in Bernie not having the most votes, they should stand true to their supposed principle and accept defeat. Worse, if Warren staying in appears to cause the convention to be contested (in a situation where Bernie has the most votes, but not the over 50% of delegates needed), then the problem is with the process and not Warren. After all, that’s what many have been complaining about. So they’d better not go about changing their tune!
I know I’m going to be watching for that. I’ve been implying that Warren wasn’t simply losing ground because of minor changes to her plans but because of bias against her from BernieBros. If Bernie supporters stop pointing fingers at the super delegate process and turn them on Warren or gripe about not having the most votes and blame Warren, I will argue that to be strong evidence of my belief.
Ha ha! Throwing shade at Tulsi Gabbard, I see.
@ 2 Leo Buzalsky
<I don’t know who Rania Khalek is,
Rania Khalek is an interesting commentator on US politics among other things. I highly recommend her “Red-baiting Bernie on Cuba otherwise entitled ” Why is the US so scared of Cuba?
https://raniakhalek.com/
I would like to think that these departing endorsements will actually make people see that the establishment Democrats have it in for Sanders and Warren, and these endorsements will backfire.
Thus “exceeding expectations”!
@Leo #2:
I feel like you’re doing cynicism wrong. This is just partisanship because what you’re calling cynicism lands in only one spot. Your conspiracy theorizing about how you want Bernie supporters to act in the future (so you can chide them now), your total buy-in on a discredited stereotype created by an opposition campaign, these are stacked to lean in one direction only. This is like saying you survived a torrential flood because you turned on a hose and dumped 10 feet of water on one square foot of your lawn. Sure, it’s a lot of water but it’s pretty specifically aimed and it’s definitely not what anyone else will envision if you call it a flood.