Pete buttigieg

'Is there a concert on tonight?', a bystander asked a cop at a traffic light outside the Southern New Hampshire University arena. If only. In fact Democrats from all over New Hampshire (and, let's face it, probably Boston and Vermont too) descended on Manchester's Elm Street for the McIntyre-Shaheen 100 Club dinner. Supporters of various candidates stood out in the bitter cold, cheering the names and slogans of their choice for president. A small contingent of Trump supporters also braved the weather in hoodies, one of whom had brought along a large cereal box labeled 'Biden's Corn Pops'. While branded as a dinner, in truth what unfolded was more like a sporting event. Think WWE without the surprise guests, or drama.

I see that various pundits are competing to write the political epitaph for Joe 'son-of-a-bitch' Biden. That’s entirely understandable. It’s been clear for some time that Biden is on the threshold of senility, and it is only my charitable disposition that prevents me from speculating about which side of the threshold he occupies. And then there was the desolation wrought by the Democrats’ impeachment entertainment. From the start, it was clear that the chief casualty of that amateur theatrics was going to be Joe Biden and his sniff, sniff, sniffing son Hunter. Everyone who is not Bill Kristol understood that the bullet of that purely partisan hit job would miss President Trump.

If you're after a real fight, come to Manchester, New Hampshire on a Friday night. An idyllic Catholic college smothered in snow was the setting for the 895th (I think) Democratic debate, the most pugilistic yet. It all unfolded in the arena where St Anselm College usually play basketball and Joe Biden delivered the first dunk, going after Bernie Sanders for not costing out his ambitious Medicare For All proposal. In the last week, following the Biden campaign has been like watching a 16-year-old Labrador on its last legs: it seemed as if it would be more humane if someone put it out of its misery. Biden has ramped up his efforts in the Granite State since his debilitating display in the Iowa caucuses.

The results from Iowa are still trickling in, but however much confusion there is in Des Moines, the choices that lie ahead for Democrats are clear. There are some questions the party’s leaders and voters can’t put off answering for much longer. How long will they prop up former Vice President Joe Biden? Whoever is ultimately crowned the winner in Iowa, Biden was among the losers — a distant fourth place finish from the nominal frontrunner and establishment favorite in the kind of state he is supposed to be able to win back from President Trump. We’ve seen establishment candidates survive weak showings in the early states only to right the ship in a state like South Carolina before, usually on the Republican side. But nobody has had to do so from such a position of weakness.

Come on, guys, we all know that Mayor Pete doesn’t come out on top, no matter what the internet says. The dwarf from South Bend is already claiming victory in the disastrous Iowa caucus debacle, but there is absolutely no way Mayor Pete is a viable candidate for the Democratic party for one glaring reason: blacks. Mayor Pete doesn’t even register on polls among black Democrats. That’s 0 percent support. In order to show how down with the struggle Mayor Pete is, he’s posed for the cameras with fried chicken and Al Sharpton, drank malt liquor from a brown paper bag on the streets of Inwood, attended black churches in the Carolinas, and sent out surveys to his staff about microaggressions. White people were prohibited from filling out the survey.

It may be only the third time in American history the president has been impeached but it’s the first time no one gives a damn, not even the Democratic party itself. If that preamble didn’t perfectly set the tone for the last Democratic debate of the decade, a bubbling labor union dispute that nearly shut down the event at Loyola Marymount University this week in Los Angeles, certainly did. Couple that with the troublemakers who vandalized the LMU hillside monogram with large ‘Trump 2020’ letters, visible from the busy Pacific Coast Highway.Also ahead of the debate, a mopey splash on CNN’s front page, one of two networks to broadcast it, bemoaned ‘the smallest and least diverse Democrat debate.

Fear not everyone — there are only seven Democratic debates left this cycle. As if the prospect of a fifth in six months wasn't exhausting enough, the Atlanta bonanza kicked off after 11 hours of impeachment hearings. No wonder the spin room was more muted than usual. Host Rachel Maddow opened proceedings with an impeachment question, making the huge assumption that most viewers had watched them (they hadn't). Of the senators running, only Bernie Sanders didn't take the bait. 'We should not be consumed by Donald Trump', he said, 'we can deal with Trump's corruption, but we also have to stand up for the working families of this country.' Much of the night appeared like business as usual.

How do you know Elizabeth Warren is the Democratic front-runner? Well, the polls give you a clue. But the more significant evidence is that the other presidential candidates went for her at the CNN debate last night. When they turn on you like that, it means you are winning. Warren was attacked by various candidates — by Pete Buttigieg and by Amy Klobuchar most effectively. She wobbled a bit, especially on her vague Medicare plans, but she didn’t falter. It’s clear that she isn’t the devastatingly brilliant candidate establishment progressives so want her to be. She sounds a bit hurt and feeble when attacked: how will she cope with 2020?

If the Democratic presidential debates reflected the sort of person who votes for the party, Marianne Williamson and Tulsi Gabbard would be center stage. As would Ed Buck, Harvey Weinstein, and the ghost of Jeffrey Epstein. But with Williamson systematically sidelined by the Democratic machine and Gabbard abruptly deployed to the front lines at the behest of a vengeful Kamala Harris (I mean, maybe?), we were left with the chum.

Austin, TexasShortly after Pete Buttigieg took to the stage at Buford’s Backyard Beer Garden in downtown Austin, I heard a loud thud from off to my right. A small circle of people crowded around a woman lying passed out on the ground.'She went down like a felled tree,' remarked a journalist next to me. Up front, Buttigieg was in full flow listing America’s many woes that need sorting. People crouched down to help — 'Give her space!

Residents of Washington DC want the federal capital to become an independent state. In 2016, 86 percent of DC voters supported a petition to Congress to permit DC into the Union as its 51st state. The chief issue for Washington residents — ‘Taxation Without Representation’ — is displayed on all their license plates: the 700,000 city residents do not have a vote in either House of Congress. Unfortunately for Washington, though, the DC statehood movement is unpopular nationwide. According to a recent Gallup poll, 64 percent of respondents oppose the US capital becoming an independent state, while only 29 percent support the proposition.

Joe Biden bled last night. Kamala Harris slashed him to ribbons over his opposition to busing and his kind words for long-ago segregationist colleagues. But Harris, who has a knack for turning left-wing dogmas into vivid images and personal stories, made only the most generic of pitches on her own behalf in her closing statement. Most of the other officeholders on stage were similarly uninspired. Bernie Sanders was a bracing alternative to Hillary Clinton four years ago. But his message is now just repetition—nothing makes him a different or better candidate than he was in 2016, even as the country has changed profoundly and the field of rivals he now faces is nothing like the one-on-one race with Clinton.

Now that former Pennsylvania congressman Joe Sestak has entered the race, there are now 24 Democratic candidates for the presidency (excluding Mike Gravel, who’s not running to win). That’s right – one candidate for every can of beer in a case. Or every hour in a day. Or both. Mercifully, all 24 won’t be onstage for the party’s first official debates, but there are nevertheless so many contenders who met the criteria for participation that the event has been split up into two nights.The prospect of a two-dozen-candidate field in a primary for an election which ultimately won’t be decided for over a year would make anyone want to grab the nearest adult beverage. So we created a drinking game for you.

Referring to her imaginary victory in the midterm elections, the LARPing governor of Georgia, Stacey Abrams, delivered to Democrat voters a come-to-Jesus moment. ‘The notion of identity politics has been peddled for the last 10 years, and it’s been used as a dog whistle to say that we shouldn’t pay too much attention to the new voices coming into progress,’ she said to an audience last week. ‘I would argue that identity politics is exactly who we are and it’s exactly how we won.’ She didn’t win, for the record. But this is what they call in therapy a breakthrough. The Democrats seemed to have finally entered the fifth stage of grief: Acceptance, a time of adjustment, readjustment and resolve.