Anyone But Bernie...or Bloomberg?

February 18
Issue #5 The Anybody But Bloomberg Edition
My, my. We have come quite a long way --down-- from the days of heady talk about "resistance" to Donald Trump. As former WSJ editorial page editor and now repentant neocon Max Boot wrote this week in the Washington Post:
“ I don’t see massive marches in the streets. I don’t see people flooding their members of Congress with calls and emails. I don’t see the outrage that is warranted — and necessary. I see passivity, resignation and acquiescence from a distracted electorate that has come to accept Trump’s aberrant behavior as the norm.”

And it looks to me that things might now get even worse, Frightened and cowed Democrats -- who have suddenly become data experts in election predictions-- seem to be on the verge of surrendering their own party to one of the richest plutocrats in the world, the three time Republican mayor of New York City, and a man whose racial and sexual baggage will take three freight trains to carry. This surrender to Mike Bloomberg would not only betray all the forward-motion momentum of the Democrats of the last 4 years, it would not only aid in Trump's re-election, it would also alienate an entire younger generation of the electorate and inevitably lead to a very bloody and ugly mash up of the Democratic Party at this summer's convention,

Let's set the scene. I wrote a book a book about Las Vegas and I know something about Nevada,

Let me be direct. My still connected sources tell me they are absolutely sure Bernie Sanders will win the Nevada caucuses this Saturday, These sources are not Sanders activists but rather political professionals. Mayor Petey will most finish second, maybe a close second, and the others will all crap out.

Sanders is also catching Biden in South Carolina and if Joe rolls snake eyes in Vegas this week, Sanders could easily win that state as well.. Voters in California began early voting tonight and unless there is some radical change in the political topography, Sanders will also win delegate rich California on March 3. In short, the Bernie juggernaut is for real and he is on the path to finishing first among all the contenders. The media has let itself be distracted by myriad other subplots but Bernie should be the central story. He is winning. And he seems set to keep on winning.

Let's also mention that the betting odds on Bernie coming in first have now crossed the 40 percent mark with Bloomberg about 10 points below him. Everybody else is more than a long shot.

It is becoming unlikely however that Sanders will come into the convention with the 1991 delegates needed to win the nomination, which means we are very likely headed for a "contested convention" where the nominee will be chosen through wheeling and dealing.

Hence, the growing movement inside the Democratic Establishment and the brain dead punditocracy to gel an ABB, an Anybody But Bernie opposition. Never mind that EVERY match up poll shows Bernie to be the strongest candidate against Trump. Forget that he can energize an entire generation of young and new voters. Forget that he is starting to gain minority support. Forget that his favorables are the HIGHEST among ALL Democratic voters.

The problem is, he is a SOCIALIST. And the pearl clutchers among the Democrats are convinced that Trump will use this to crush him like a bug Really? What else is new about Trump?

Trump would not try to crush Warren as an elitist Harvard professor who pretended to be Pocohantas? Trump would not crush Biden for all the reasons that Democrats themselves are rejecting him? Amy and Pete would not be extinguished as the provincial lightweights they are? Pete would not be crucified for being married to a man? And what about Bloomberg. You don't think being the Jewish Mayor of NYC is a bit of a vulnerability among those Trumpy voters that the "pragmatists" think they can win over. How about branding him an elitist Globalist (which he is)? And while the debate on guns has begun to tilt away from the NRA, you don't think Bloomberg's funding of all major gun control groups is sort of anathema to even "moderate" Republicans? Gun Grabbin' Mike would be a likely campaign epithet.

The bigger point here is that the most vulnerable politician in this race is, in fact, Donald J. Trump. He's the guy who is, or should be, unelectable. He is totally beatable if the Democrats pick a candidate who has the sharpest contrast with him and is willing to politically skin him. So why not do it?

Oh, yeah, I forgot. Bernie is a socialist. Gasp! Sidetracking for just a moment, young people, those supporting Bernie and beyond, understand socialism much differently than the Biden and Bloomberg fan clubs. They understand it not as gulags, and the KGB breaking down your door (those were Totalitarian Stalinists btw not very mild socialists like Sanders). They understand socialism as civil solidarity, as universal medical care, as a restrained foreign policy, as affordable housing and education. And they, of course, are right.

What the Democratic establishment fears is not Bernie being a socialist, but a Bernie who would reshape the party into being one that much better serves ordinary people rather than the current big donors, and protector of the personal fiefdoms of ossified elected officials.

I have a modest proposal, if you don't mind. Yes, I have made it clear that I am a Sanders supporter. I agree with him and I think he is the strongest candidate against Trump. You are free to disagree...but how about making one small but important promise to yourself: Do Not Vote for Mike Bloomberg. ABB. Anybody But Bloomberg.

If Bloomberg comes into that convention in a strong way, with a stack of delegates, there will 100% for sure be a move by the other candidates to cut some sort of transactional deal with Rich Mike and they will unify around him to take the nomination away from the guy who won the most votes, the most states and the most delegates.

Could that really happen? You bet! There are more than 700 "superdelegates" -- party hacks and elected officials -- who would be able to vote for whomever they wanted if Sanders does not get a majority on the first round of convention voting.

How hard do you think it would be for Bloomberg to buy out Pete, Amy and even Warren with some sort of promised appointment to have them surrender their delegates?

What's the big deal, then? ABB. Bloomberg as dragon killer.

Ha! Of all the candidates other than Sanders, Bloomberg is far and away the worst, First, to win a majority he would have to steal it from Bernie and I predict that would be the end of the Democratic Party as we know it. It would alienate a solid third or more of Democratic voters and it would make the party downright toxic for the next generation of voters -- who are almost all Bernieacs.

Some questions to ponder: if Bloomberg is the nominee just who do you think he is going to nominate as Supreme Court and Federal judges? What's he going to do about are interminable wars? More importantly, just how many young voters, how many crucial black voters are gonna get up at 6am on a cold November morn to wait two hours in line to vote for such a wooden and remote creature as Bloomberg? Not many, How many of those white working class guys in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania -- who love deer hunting-- are gonna go out and vote for the Gun Grabber? Even fewer. And just who is Bloomberg's base -- other than the Fortune 500 corporations who depend on his Bloomberg Terminal to service them?

And if Bloomberg did beat Trump, what does the next EIGHT years look like, cuz that is what we are talking about. Just how much of the Democrats' new more progressive agenda would become reality under Bloomberg? How about that hallowed Democratic fight to "get big money out of politics?"

But.. wait... you protest. Our goal right now is just to get back to "normal" and Bloomberg can get it done. If by normal you mean the situation we were in before Trump was sworn in, yeah, we might be able to get back to that under MIke,

If you are a nice middle-class liberal or "moderate," pre-Trump normalcy was just fine for you. Nobody was trying to deport you, no cop was trying to shoot you, and no social worker was cutting you off of food stamps. So let me ask you, apart from being morally offended, just exactly how has Trump hurt you, personally? Probably not at all. Your 401K has ballooned. Your kids are still in good schools. You are not being investigated by William Barr. That means, normalcy to you means simply removing this morally offensive baboon from office and apparently not much more, if anything.

I will now put this in boldface. You seem to have forgotten that Trump did not turn America into an abnormal society. On the contrary, the far from normal functioning of America before Trump is exactly what produced him!

Trump was the product of many things, beginning with a Democratic Party that for 30 years or more ignored rural and working class America and began to kiss the ass of the Tech Cult. You think Bloomberg would turn that around?

Pre-Trump "normal" mean the emergence of the greatest wealth inequality in our history. It meant working full time for $30,000 or $40,000 a year and not being able to afford medical care, nor college for your kids. Nor having $400 in the bank for an emergency. That's of course, if you were lucky. Otherwise you were pushed down into the gig service economy where 60 hours of a week might get your rent paid. Pre-Trump normalcy meant urban cops shooting urban youth. It meant Obama deporting more Latinos than George W. Bush.Normal meant lobbing drones into Yemen. It meant a deep decline in collective faith of our democratic institutions. It meant having your kids live with you till they were 40 or their moving out of state where they could afford rent under $3000 a month.

If this is all normal to you, Mike will have 8 years to correct none of this. But you will be just fine.

Solution? I don't think that is difficult to imagine. If Bernie wins the plurality and the nomination goes to a floor vote, he should be pro-active (along with his supporters) in making deals with the other Dems to pre-empt any move by Bloomberg to do the same.

It's gonna be Bernie vs, Bloomberg. Which side are you on? Not just in November. But for the sake of our children and the future? -- + --

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