Biden Surges Ahead

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[Note to Readers: the numbers in this post, and the conclusions, have been updated as of 3 am Thursday, March 5.]

It’ll take a few days, maybe a couple of weeks, for all the absentee ballots in California to trickle in, and for the dust to settle. But Super Tuesday seems to have rendered a tentative verdict.

Old, reliable Joe Biden could be Trump’s challenger in the fall. The Super Tuesday tally included not only our two biggest states (California and Texas), but also two of the most progressive (California and Massachusetts). It’s unlikely that any one, two or three remaining states will change the verdict.

The present lopsided delegate totals are 433 for Biden and 388 for Sanders, with Warren at 36, and the three who have suspended their campaigns totaling 45 (Buttigieg at 26, Bloomberg at 12 and Klobuchar at 7). Only 902 of the 1,991 needed for nomination are known now, or about 45%.

The Super-Tuesday verdict is 48% for Biden, 43% for Sanders, and less than 10% for all the rest together. Sanders won only California, Colorado, Utah and Vermont. Of those, California and Colorado are reliably blue, while Utah is reliably red, so only Sanders’ own state, Vermont, with a tiny electoral vote total of three, is significant.

As for the seven all-important States Up for Grabs, only two have spoken so far. They are New Hampshire and Nevada, which both went for Sanders.

Yet with a total of only ten electoral votes, out of 89 for the seven states, these two states are hardly decisive. Thus a solid conclusion on who is more “electable” as between Biden and Sanders must await at least the end of April, when the key states of Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin will have spoken. Together, they account for 75 out of the 89 key electoral votes.

So far, Democratic voters’ electoral message is loud and clear: go for safety, security, and reliability. Don’t try anything new or funny. When the guy in the White House is an existential threat to our democracy and our culture, just get rid of him, as quickly, surely and quietly as you can. Don’t take any risk unless absolutely necessary.

That’s the message of Super Tuesday, and nothing that GOP cross-registrants did or might have done managed to budge it.

People like me hoped this election, against an historically incompetent president, might usher in a new progressive era, an antidote to the relentless rightward surge since Reagan. We may just have to wait, but we’ll have no solid answer in that regard until the end of April.

If Joe is the nominee, there are some consolations. By about a year, he is not the oldest of the leading democrats. He hasn’t had a heart attack, and his health seems robust. He may not have a powerful message, or even a particularly coherent one. But he’s a known quantity and people trust him—especially African-Americans.

What can Joe do to cement his victory and unify the party quickly? He can follow my advice from a year ago, picked up by Tom Friedman (or re-invented independently) last week. He can begin assembling a robust team of rivals, starting with a choice for vice president.

I know, I know. It’s customary to wait until the Convention. But nothing about politics in this country has been customary since November 8, 2016, and nothing ever will be again if Trump wins the general election. There are a whole lot of disappointed progressives who may not work as hard or contribute as much for Joe as they might have for Bernie or Elizabeth. The best way to keep them on board and pulling hard on their oars is to pick one of those two for Veep.

In my view, the right choice is obvious: Warren. She’s eight years younger than Sanders. She hasn’t had a heart attack and seems in perfect health and vigor. She’s a woman. As VP, she can carry females’ hopes and dreams, which were dashed so roughly in 2016 and then again with Warren’s and Klobuchar’s poor showings in the primaries.

Last but hardly least, Warren has proved herself more than capable of fulfilling the VP’s traditional “attack dog” role. Despite all his wealth, she whittled Bloomberg down to size in and after just two debates. I would love to see her blasting away at Trump from the sidelines while Biden cuts him down in direct encounters.

But the notion of a “team of rivals” goes far beyond the vice-presidential role. The essence of Trump’s presidency is one-man rule. He’s erratic, wilful, and capricious. He doesn’t listen to anybody but his favorite moron-pundits on cable news. In a mere three years, he’s made mincemeat of our superb federal bureaucracy, as its slow and incompetent response to Covid-19 so sadly reveals.

Nothing could show the contrast between Democrats and the GOP—between competent government of experts and a government of blind loyalty to a single, deeply flawed man—than presenting a list of names who could hit the ground running in all federal departments on January 20 of next year.

Nothing could bring Democrats together as quickly as knowing that every Democrat’s favorite candidate for president will find a role to play in next year’s executive branch. Nothing prevents Biden from publicly offering even Sanders a job in his Cabinet, perhaps as Secretary of Labor, and leaving the offer open until after the Convention.

Joe is not the most progressive, the smartest, the most charismatic, or the most impressive Democrat, even among those running this year. But by quickly assembling a team of his rivals, he can unify the party, assuage hard feelings, and present the general electorate with an unmatched and unmatchable winning team.

It’s appropriate to withhold final judgment until the end of April, when the vast electoral-vote bulk of the States Up for Grabs will have spoken. After that, the Dems should take advantage of every second remaining until November 3 to pummel Trump and teach the difference between empire and competent democratic government.

Age at Inauguration (If Elected President)
Candidate	Age
Biden	78
Bloomberg	78
Sanders	79
Trump	74
Warren	71

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