If he wins, he shuts out a lot of people who’d have big roles in a Biden or Klobuchar administration. If he loses, he drags a lot of Democrats down with him. (Supporters of Hillary Clinton are, if anything, angrier, at least in my inbox.) But he represents two big threats: that of losing to Trump and that of beating Trump.

For all the bad press that his supporters get-and I’ve been the target of some of their online rage-they don’t seem to be worse than any other political fan base. He doesn’t belittle or insult his rivals. Why this should be the case isn’t immediately obvious, since Sanders is no Donald Trump. What’s more, it’s a party establishment that dislikes Sanders to a striking degree. Democratic voters don’t appear to be fed up with the party establishment the way Republican voters are. Biden’s rivals have dropped out, while Sanders’s rival has stayed in. And there are more and more reasons to think it’ll be Joe despite his vulnerabilities. So we’re headed into a two-man race: old Bernie at 78, young Joe at 77. He dropped out Wednesday morning and endorsed Biden, putting a strain on the local economies of upcoming primary states counting on his deep pockets. He hovered around 15% in most states-highs of over 20, lows of under 10-which wasn’t enough to make him the guy who just bought it all. We owed it to the economy to give the man a few states and keep him in the race for another month or two. Mike Bloomberg, with all his campaign spending, has been a one-man stimulus package to counteract the downturn caused by the coronavirus. Some of this he can’t change, even if he’d like to. Some will say Bernie’s supporters were too rough, while others will say Bernie’s approach to his rivals was too gentle. Some will say it was the fault of the woke, who pushed Sanders toward fringier positions, especially on border enforcement. (Recriminations are a beloved tradition in political life.) Some will say it was the fault of Elizabeth Warren, since she split the left. Was this inevitable? Few things are, and people will replay the game in their minds. But coming second to Biden in Maine and Massachusetts and Minnesota was not good. It’s too soon to do a premortem on his campaign. We’ll come back to that point.īernie Sanders enjoyed a big win in California, a formidable achievement, in addition to picking up victories in Colorado, Utah, and Vermont.

At this point the best hope for Democrats appears to be Trump’s collapse rather than Biden’s rise. All men and women created by-you know, you know the thing.” But the problem is-you know.

No other candidate will tell a rally, “We hold these truths to be self-evident. Biden is without a doubt the funniest candidate in the race, if not by design.

To watch the party machinery prop up Biden and wheel him toward the convention will be either entertaining or despair-inducing, depending on your tendencies. (Add Mike Bloomberg and Elizabeth Warren if you like, but their cases are different.) It couldn’t be Biden who dropped out for Buttigieg or Klobuchar. But the only establishment candidates left in the race as of a week ago were Biden, Klobuchar, and Pete Buttigieg. Everyone knows that Biden has way more baggage and way less facility with words or, it now seems, thought, than someone like Amy Klobuchar. (The rebel will always face more obstacles, almost by definition, so complaints on that front must be limited.) But was this the best establishment candidate for the times? Did people think that Joe Biden would have a better shot at besting Donald Trump than any other establishment candidate who was still in the race? Few honest people would answer yes and yes. From a citizen’s perspective, it’s…well, it’s…um, what is it? There is nothing wrong with voters choosing an establishment candidate after a semi-fair fight. From a journalist’s perspective, the comeback of Joe Biden is a terrific story.

Biden press conference gafs