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An Establishment in Panic
Townhall.com ^ | February 14, 2020 | Pat Buchanan

Posted on 02/14/2020 5:33:33 AM PST by Kaslin

From the day he entered the race, Joe Biden was the great hope of the Democratic establishment to spare them from the horrifying prospect of a 2020 race between The Donald and Bernie Sanders.

Today, that same establishment wants Joe out of the race.

Why has Biden suddenly become an albatross?

His feeble debate performances and fifth-place finish in New Hampshire all but ensure Joe will not be the nominee, and if he stays in, he will siphon off votes in Nevada and South Carolina that would go to candidates who might put together a majority and stop Sanders.

The panic of the establishment is traceable to the new political reality.

With popular-vote victories in Iowa and New Hampshire, Sanders has largely united the left-wing of his party and displaced Biden as the front-runner and favorite for the nomination.

Meanwhile, the non-socialist wing of the party has failed to coalesce around a champion to stop Sanders and is becoming ever more splintered.

In Nevada, Sanders now has three moderate challengers.

Biden, "Mayor Pete" Buttigieg, who ran second in New Hampshire, and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who ran third and took votes that might have given Buttigieg a win in the Granite State.

Biden, Buttigieg and Klobuchar are all now headed for the Nevada caucuses on Feb. 22, where Sanders is favored. And all three will be going on to South Carolina, a state into which billionaire Tom Steyer has poured millions of dollars.

Sanders, however, is not without his own problems.

Not only is he anathema to the establishment, he cannot wholly unite his party's left-wing until his senatorial soulmate Elizabeth Warren gets out. Though she ran a poor fourth in New Hampshire, Warren is also going to Nevada to offer herself as a unity candidate.

But as Biden's hour is up, so is hers. And if she is not out of the race before Super Tuesday on March 3, she risks being beaten in her own home state of Massachusetts.

Where does this leave the Democratic field?

Two candidacies, Warren's and Biden's, are in hospice care.

Two candidates, Buttigieg and Klobuchar, competing to be the moderate alternative to Sanders, are in danger of canceling each other out.

Two candidates, Michael Bloomberg and Tom Steyer, are billionaires who will be battling on Super Tuesday to crush the scourge of billionaires, Bernie Sanders.

Bloomberg, the three-term mayor of New York, upon whom the establishment has begun to look like the last best hope of stopping Sanders, has already dumped a third of a billion dollars into his campaign

His poll numbers have risen accordingly, and he is probably the strongest challenger to Sanders now, because, with his $60 billion fortune, he can sustain himself and his organization through the convention.

But would Sanders lose gracefully to a plutocrat who deployed his billions to deny him a nomination Sanders has sought for half a decade?

Would Bernie Bros, who believe they were cheated out of the nomination in 2016, accept defeat and support a billionaire they believe robbed them of a prize they thought they had won fairly?

Bloomberg is now facing more serious matters as a candidate in a party of minorities. Here is an excerpt from an audiotape of Mayor Mike at a 2015 conference in Aspen, Colorado, addressing the crime-fighting tactic of stop and frisk that he used for years as mayor.

"Ninety-five percent of your murders and murderers and murder victims fit one M.O. You can just take the description, Xerox it and pass it out to all the cops. They are male minorities, 15 to 25," said Bloomberg.

"One of the unintended consequences is people say, 'Oh, my God, you are arresting kids for marijuana that are all minorities.' Yes, that's true. Why? Because we put all the cops in minority neighborhoods. ... Why do we do it? Because that is where all the crime is. ... And the way you get the guns out of the kids' hands is to throw them up against the wall and frisk them."

Midweek, it was learned that Bloomberg, during the economic crisis in 2008, said that getting rid of "redlining" -- a policy by which bankers routinely deny mortgages to low-income largely minority neighborhoods circled in red as risky -- was to blame for the collapse.

In remarks at Georgetown University in 2008, Bloomberg said:

"It all started back when there was a lot of pressure on banks to make loans to everyone. ... Redlining ...was the term where banks took whole neighborhoods and said, 'People in these neighborhoods are poor, they're not going to be able to pay off their mortgages, tell your salesmen don't go into those areas.'"

In presidential elections, Democratic candidates win 90-95% of the black vote. After revelations of his candid discussions of the merits of redlining and the benefits of stop and frisk, Bloomberg may have a tough time climbing that hill.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 2020demonrats; joebiden
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1 posted on 02/14/2020 5:33:33 AM PST by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

Looks like the DEMs are pushing for the Buttplug to be the nominee.


2 posted on 02/14/2020 5:34:57 AM PST by CatOwner
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To: Kaslin

Buchanan actually believes anybody these candidates are moderate? As Biden would say, “malarkey!”


3 posted on 02/14/2020 5:36:24 AM PST by workerbee (America finally has an American president again.)
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To: Kaslin

Buchanan actually believes anybody these candidates are moderate? As Biden would say, “malarkey!”


4 posted on 02/14/2020 5:36:24 AM PST by workerbee (America finally has an American president again.)
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To: CatOwner

>Looks like the DEMs are pushing for the Buttplug to be the nominee.

The problem is half the black votes will stay home


5 posted on 02/14/2020 5:38:58 AM PST by struggle
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To: Kaslin

“The non-socialist wing of the party has failed to coalesce”.
There is no non-socialist wing of the party so there is no one to coalesce around.


6 posted on 02/14/2020 5:41:21 AM PST by certrtwngnut (4- Do something,,,,even if it's wrong.)
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To: struggle

The beautiful irony is, remember, no one was suicidal enough to run against Hillary. So they INVITED Bernie in so she could have a “sparring partner” who would give her the appearance of having “won” a nomination. That was where things started to go wrong. Bernie realized she was so pathetic he might actually win.

IOW they did this to themselves. The absolute WORST of injuries one can suffer.


7 posted on 02/14/2020 5:42:42 AM PST by wastoute (Government cannot redistribute wealth. Government can only redistribute poverty.)
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To: workerbee

Agree. Particularly Buttigieg. Moderate? No.


8 posted on 02/14/2020 5:44:42 AM PST by John W (Trump/Pence 2020)
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To: Kaslin

Bottom line: The establishment is going DOWN.

Trump took out the right support pillar in ‘16
and Sanders may take out the left one this year.

In any event they are teetering.


9 posted on 02/14/2020 5:49:34 AM PST by Buckeye McFrog (Patrick Henry would have been an anti-vaxxer)
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To: Kaslin

I have never seen any of the DNC candidates as competent, credible or honest... but then, I like my logic and ethics. So I can’t feature any of those guys in the WH leading the most powerful national entity in the known universe.


10 posted on 02/14/2020 5:50:07 AM PST by SMARTY ("Nobility is defined by the demands it makes on us - by obligations, not by rights".)
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To: CatOwner

Yep, Butterplug is the new dems “golden shower boy”.


11 posted on 02/14/2020 5:50:22 AM PST by eartick (Stupidity is expecting the government that broke itself to go out and fix itself. Texan for TEXIT!)
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To: CatOwner
From the day he entered the race, Joe Biden was the great white hope of the Democratic establishment ....

There, I fixed it...

12 posted on 02/14/2020 5:50:42 AM PST by nikos1121
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To: Kaslin

As Warren and Biden fade away, the question remains as to where their support (such as it is) winds up. It looks like Biden’s support has already gone to the little pervert and to the Senator woman with the annoying voice in roughly equal numbers. Warren is obviously fake, but her supporters are dumb enough to fall for it. Most of Warren’s support would likely go to Bernie if conventional wisdom is correct. Will the DNC try to artificially prop up Warren in an attempt to keep Bernie from benefiting?


13 posted on 02/14/2020 5:51:34 AM PST by cdcdawg (Cornpop was a pony soldier!)
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To: Kaslin

If Bloomberg was that great for minorities then that means all minorities in NYC are thriving, their children are in first class schools, they are all living in safe neighborhoods, right? As a mayor that was his responsibility and he wants to be president based on his accomplishments in NYC.


14 posted on 02/14/2020 5:53:47 AM PST by McGavin999 (Queen Fancy Nancy Of North Poopistan)
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To: Kaslin
Everyone is missing Pat's big point - the DNC is making war on it's leading candidate and jiggering it's own process to get him out and that means getting Biden out of the way so that someone else might take Bernie out.

Don't worry dims, the RNC isn't any better. They made war on Trump and tried for anyone but... It's saved GOPe butts from the voters putting them in the dustbin of history, but that doesn't mean they like it.

Big picture - the world went one way and DC establishment politics is trying to go another way.

15 posted on 02/14/2020 5:56:25 AM PST by AndyJackson
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To: Kaslin

This is a right wing author saying that the left is in a panic.


16 posted on 02/14/2020 6:00:20 AM PST by kidd
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To: Kaslin

Slo-Joe was the ‘Great White Dope’, now he just wanders around looking for hair to sniff.


17 posted on 02/14/2020 6:00:23 AM PST by Beagle8U (Did Eric Ciaramella kill Epstein? He didn't kill himself.)
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To: Kaslin

“May” have a tough time? He’s a Jewish billionaire with these statements on his record. Meanwhile Trump has been working hard to court the Black vote for years. Trump’s share of the Black vote would explode.

Also, there is simply no way the Bernie Bros would support Mini Mike.

Trump would absolutely demolish him.


18 posted on 02/14/2020 6:01:38 AM PST by FLT-bird
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To: cdcdawg

I suspect the DNC throws Liewatha a financial lifeline for just this reason. If she drops out, Bernie scoops up most of her support.


19 posted on 02/14/2020 6:03:57 AM PST by FLT-bird
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To: Kaslin

“An Establishment in Panic”

I’ll drink to that.
Crash and burn.
Never to return!


20 posted on 02/14/2020 6:04:20 AM PST by Leep (Everyday is Trump Day!)
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