Bernie sanders

Dosvedanya, Bernie. The honeymoon with the Democratic primary has come to as decisive an end as his old romance with the Soviet Union. 2016 is not 2020. The bottom line: After four years of Donald Trump, Democrats have sobered up. There will be no sipping of the socialist moonshine that Sanders was purveying. He was able to dispense small batch samples but no more — even in Michigan, the site of his former triumph over Hillary Clinton. This time, voters didn’t even really bother to examine his wares. Rather, they quite sensibly flocked to Joe Biden who rolled up victory margins that should scare the daylights out of Donald Trump.

I met Joe Biden last month, after one of his town hall events in New Hampshire. His team had turned the music up loud, presumably so that 77-year-old Joe — the gaffe machine from Scranton, Pennsylvania — would not be recorded saying something stupid as he mingled with the fans and reporters. I shook Biden’s hand and — limey hack that I am — asked: ‘Mr Vice President, how, as President, would you approach Brexit Britain and Boris Johnson?’ ‘What?’ he said. I repeated the question, shouting this time. ‘What?’ he said again, smiling. His dentures were brilliant; his eyes mad blue. He had no idea what I was talking about. I tried one last time, screaming ‘Boris Johnson!’ in his ear.

How in the world did Chris Matthews get himself fired? To be sure, the man did stick his foot in his mouth so often that the word ‘Keds’ is probably embossed on the inside of his cheek. But hadn’t the good people at MSNBC heard? Brand Matthews is hot right now! ’Tis the season for motor-mouthed men who begin sentences with ‘Now this isn’t something you should say around your mother but…’2020 is shaping up to be the Year of the Drunken Uncle. And according to my astrological observations of the planet Jupiter as well as a star that just moved and might actually be a plane, that augurs great nuttiness ahead.

Perhaps the intense wave of establishment Democratic party consolidation around Joe Biden over the past 48 hours isn’t a concerted conspiracy — no smoke-filled rooms, no corrupt deals, no villainous blackmail schemes. But the Democratic party establishment (which we’re often told does not exist) is clearly making every effort to give the appearance of something conspiratorial going on.Take yesterday, for instance. Pete Buttigieg meets for breakfast with 95-year-old Jimmy Carter (?), ensures the visit is well-publicized, then heads home to South Bend and pulls the rug out from under his campaign. Wait, what? Is this the same Pete Buttigieg whose aides just a few days earlier released an elaborate memo detailing his surefire path to a formidable delegate acquisition?

Bernie Sanders just lost his first primary of 2020. He’ll lose a few more on Tuesday. But as of now, in terms of delegates and polling alike, Bernie Sanders remains the Democratic front-runner. And Joe Biden has wound up, ironically, not as the frontrunner but as the 'Stop Bernie!' candidate. South Carolina was Biden’s first primary win in any of the presidential races he’s ever run, which stretch back to 1988. He’s had his eye on the White House for a very long time, and voters have consistently found other Democrats more compelling — other Democrats like Michael Dukakis, not just other Democrats like Barack Obama.

At one point in tonight’s Democratic debate in South Carolina, Mike Bloomberg referred to the other candidates as ‘contestants’. The evening certainly felt like a raucous gameshow. The moderators had no control whatsoever. Everybody had a good time. There will be some nice parting gifts, such as nominations to secretary of State or other offices, should there be a Democratic win.Elizabeth Warren’s campaign is dead — it has been for weeks — but she insists on dragging it around and sticking its rotting corpse in the faces of the other candidates. She’s not happening and no ‘selfie line’ (actually just a photo line) is going to change that.