Tag: Democratic Primary

Contributor Post Created with Sketch. Nevertheless, She Desisted: Warren Ends Campaign

Jon Gabriel, Ed.
Jon Gabriel, Ed.
40 11
 

After abysmal showings in every caucus and primary to date, Sen. Elizabeth Warren finally suspended her failed campaign for the presidency. “I wanted you all to hear it first, and I wanted you to hear it straight from me,” Warren said in a staff call Thursday morning. “Today, I’m suspending our campaign for president.”

Media figures are in mourning, as the Massachusetts senator was seemingly created in a lab to appeal to upper-middle-class urbanites who attended the right schools, laugh out loud at New Yorker cartoons, and scribble bad prose for a living.

Warren has been in the horse race for more than two years but didn’t win or place anywhere. In six states, she settled for a third-place show; in the other 11, she came in fourth or fifth. She spent more than $90 million.

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Contributor Post Created with Sketch. Bloomberg Out; Warren to Follow?

Jon Gabriel, Ed.
Jon Gabriel, Ed.
31 13
 

Two weeks after demanding all other “moderate” Democrats drop out of the presidential race and support him, Michael Bloomberg called it quits Wednesday and endorsed Joe Biden.

The former mayor’s strategy was to hurl hundreds of millions of dollars at the electorate in advertising and organization and perform big on Super Tuesday. The first part worked like a charm; the second, not so much.

The only primary Bloomberg won was the territory of American Samoa, while he only reached the 15 percent threshold for delegates in Arkansas, Colorado, Tennessee, and Utah. His paltry performance in the other 10 states made his decision to exit easy.

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Contributor Post Created with Sketch. Democrat Debate Recap: Crabs in a Bucket

Jon Gabriel, Ed.
Jon Gabriel, Ed.
66 26
 

When you’re shucking a bucket of crabs, the smart ones try like hell to escape. But as soon as one gets to the edge of freedom, the rest of the crabs yank him back down. That was the Democratic debate Wednesday night in Las Vegas.

Bernie Sanders is the frontrunner but would lose if the so-called moderate lane unified behind a single candidate. Instead, the other five Democrats spent two hours pulling each other down, leaving the Brooklyn Bolshevik free to yell about whatever it is he yells about.

Mike Bloomberg got quite the hazing in this, his first debate. Elizabeth Warren opened with a savage attack.

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Contributor Post Created with Sketch. Farewell, Spartacus: Where the Dem Race Stands Now

Jon Gabriel, Ed.
Jon Gabriel, Ed.
12 9
 

After months of barely hanging on, Sen. Cory Booker (NJ) has finally suspended his campaign to become the Democratic presidential nominee.

“It was a difficult decision to make, but I got in this race to win, and I’ve always said I wouldn’t continue if there was no longer a path to victory,” Booker said in an email to supporters.

In a tweet, Booker added: “To my team, supporters, and everyone who gave me a shot—thank you. I am so proud of what we built, and I feel nothing but faith in what we can accomplish together.”

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Contributor Post Created with Sketch. Bonfire of the Vanity Fair: Beto Drops Out

Jon Gabriel, Ed.
Jon Gabriel, Ed.
27 8
 

Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke began his presidential run with a Vanity Fair cover photo by Annie Leibovitz. It proved to be the high-water mark of his campaign.

Since then, Beto’s run has been a comedy of errors. A Kerouac-style vision quest driving aimlessly around the country that he journaled on his web diary. Instagramming a gross dental appointment. Leaping on tables, windmilling his arms, and shouting about the promise of hope to help change what is possible for the future of hopeful promises.

Gassing on about vagaries made him a media darling when he was up against Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. But on the big stage he seemed, and still seems, shocked that the parade marched on without him. From weak debates to stump flubs to utter policy cluelessness, some white male billionaires just can’t catch a break.

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Recommended by Ricochet Members Created with Sketch. Biden: “There’s at Least One Gender”

David Deeble
David Deeble
28 16
 

Disingenuousness is the lifeblood of political lifers, but for Joe Biden, it’s the very air he breathes. How could it be otherwise given the impossible task of appeasing his party’s wild-eyed woke base without alienating those Democrats – namely, African Americans – who still have at least one foot tethered to reality?

Asked how many genders there are at a campaign stop in Iowa, the former vice president answered, “At least three,” which is an improvement, I suppose, on “At least one.” When pressed to elaborate, he replied, “Don’t play games with me, kid.” What’s striking – and endearing – about this last comment is its staggering cynicism. To the young college student who asked the question, gender isn’t a game: it’s an all-consuming obsession. So transparently cynical are Biden’s pseudo-appeals to millennials that I wouldn’t be surprised if his answer to the question “Can men get pregnant?” is “Sure, yeah, why not.”

Much attention has been paid to the sheer quantity of gaffes performed by the logorrheic Biden, but the inscrutability of the gaffes deserves special attention. One could place Biden quotes side by side the output of a chimp banging away on a typewriter and still be hard-pressed to tell one from the other. Did Biden really say in the lead-up to the second Gulf War that “The Saudis are fundamentally vicious anti-Americans but they’re our fundamentally vicious anti-Americans”? To ask the question is to answer it.

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Recommended by Ricochet Members Created with Sketch. Did The First Debate Prove Russia’s Already Hacked The Election?

David Deeble
David Deeble
21 14
 

You mean to tell me that the Democratic candidates are going to campaign on kitchen table issues like forced busing, reparations, open borders and banning private health insurance and that Putin has nothing to do with it?

I know the counterargument: America’s election can’t be hacked by a second rate country whose chief exports are vodka, brides and performance-enhancing drugs. To that, I have a two-word response: Marianne Williamson.

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Contributor Post Created with Sketch. Should Democrats Avoid Women Candidates?

Mona Charen
Mona Charen
21 15
 

Many Democratic voters are worried that a woman candidate cannot win the presidency in 2020. “I don’t think they’re strong enough to carry it for themselves,” an Iowa voter told the Washington Post. Amber Phillips reports that “female politicians are held by voters to a much higher standard than men,” and points to polls showing that today’s support for Elizabeth Warren (12 percent) and Kamala Harris (8 percent) drops to low single digits when voters are asked who is likely to defeat Trump.

Without denying that some people may harbor misogynistic feelings, and that many Democrats may indeed fear, as Phillips reported, that while they personally would happily vote for a woman for president, their neighbors might not, this doesn’t prove that women are held to a higher standard. The evidence is mixed. It’s never possible to know with certainty what motivates voters. Could Romney’s religion have decided the 2012 race? It’s possible.

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