Sifting Through the Rubble from the Granite State Primary

Pundits expected the Democrat New Hampshire primary to be an easy win for Senator Bernie Sanders (Socialist-VT). After all, Sanders had name recognition being a Senator from a neighboring state as well as his resounding victory in the 2016 Presidential primaries.  

Senator Bernie Sanders (Socialist-VT) after New Hampshire primary

So Sanders triumph in the 2020 New Hampshire primary was not a great surprise. What was remarkable, however, was the narrow margin of victory and muted percentage of support. When Sanders ran essentially against First Lady/Senator/Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (D-NY), he racked up 60% support and beat her by 22%. While there was a more crowded field in Election 2020, Sanders only won 25.9% compared to ex Mayor Pete Buttigieg (D-South Bend) 25.4%.  This flips the placement in the closely contested (and thoroughly botched) 2020 Iowa Caucuses.  

What seems significant is the degradation of support for Sanders in New Hampshire, despite his inherent advantages.  For the moment, Buttigeig is the principle competition for Sanders.  But the campaign is shifting to the Nevada Caucus on February 22, which “Mayor Pete” may not have the organization to capitalize. For the South Carolina Primary on February 29, Buttigieg seems to have difficulty attracting support from African American voters, which comprise two thirds of Palmetto State Democrat voters.

Sanders is an avowed Socialist, which is anathematic to admit for Establishment Democrats who want to win in November. Considering the malarkey (sic) in the Iowa Caucus tabulation as well as manipulating the debate rules, there seems to be a behind the scenes effort to mute “The Bern”’s momentum to allow for an alternative who the Establishment deems more electable.  

Ordinarily, the second place finisher would be the designated competition, but Mayor Pete seems weak in other early primaries. In this cycle, billionaire ex Mayor Michael Bloomberg (R-I-D-NYC) opted to skip the February primaries to vigorously compete in the twelve primaries on Super Tuesday March 3. Thus, “Mitey Mike” (sic) might play the white knight and steal an easy nomination from Bernie Sanders.

Another interesting nugget from the Granite State Primary was the third place finish by Senator Amy Klobachar (D-MN) with 19.8%.  Klobachar garnered more than double Senator Elizabeth Warren’s (D-MA) support, which was surprising as Warren was a neighboring state pol and she expended considerable resources in New Hampshire.   Warren is on the far left of the Democrat political spectrum, but it does not appear that Warren voters did not gravitate to her ideological comrade Sanders.

Klobachar seems to have been aided by a stand out debate performance in the New Hampshire debate.  Moreover Klobachar won some attention the prior week when she was the first to declare victory (despite placing 5th) in the Iowa Caucuses.  Perhaps Klobachar won some support from voters concluding that she is the viable female candidate. It is a safe assumption that Klobachar prospered with the collapse of the Warren and ex Vice President Joe Biden (D-DE) campaigns. 

Andrew Yang dropped out after earning 3.3% support in New Hampshire, as well as Senator Michael Bennett (D-CO) with 0.3% of the vote. Ex Governor Deval Patrick (D-MA) is expected to drop out after a 0.4% performance.

Joe Biden left New Hampshire early to kick off his South Carolina campaign, as he sensed the impending doom. In the end, former frontrunner Joe Biden placed fifth in New Hampshire with 8.4%.  Paired with his fourth place finish in Iowa, it is almost certain that Biden is the walking dead in the primary process, as it will be difficult to raise more funds with such pathetic early showings. It is dubious if Quid Pro Quo Joe could beat Mickey Mouse.

News coverage of the primary process loves to focus on who won the horse race and not the delegate count. Granted, the delegate stakes are paltry in Iowa and New Hampshire, but the process matters.  As long as there is a competitive three person race, the more likely it is for there to be a brokered Democrat convention, as no candidate has a clear majority. If it seems as if Sanders is cheated out of the nomination (again), James O’Keefe's exposes with Project Veritas exposed the violent sentiments of Bernie bros working on the campaign, it could be a hot time in Milwaukee in July.

No Malarkey from Joe Biden?

Apparently, former Vice President Joe Biden (D-DE) is not totally detached from reality as he offered a no malarkey assessment of his campaign's performance in the 2020 Iowa Caucuses.  With less than 70% of the vote tallied after two days, Biden is running in 4th place with 15.9% support.  On the bright side, Biden (barely) qualifies for delegates.  But on the dark side, he might place fifth behind Senator Amy Klobachar (D-MN).

Iowa is not about delegates, as only 41 were available from the Iowa Caucuses.  It is about gaining momentum at the start of the Presidential Primary campaign.  Conventional wisdom is that there are three tickets out of Iowa, and it looks like Lunch Bucket Joe got a gut punch rather than his ticket punched.  Granted,  Biden did not pour all of his resources into organizing in the Hawkeye State, like Mayor Pete Buttigieg (D-South Bend, IN) or Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA).  But a former Vice President, who the media kept touting as the national front runner,  being an also ran is devasting.

Some have suspected that the Democrat Establishment have been obliquely seeking to help Biden, because the prospect of nominating socialist Senator Bernie Sanders (Socialist-VT) scares the bejesus out of them.  Thus, the delayed submission of the Articles of Impeachment curiously required that sitting Senators (Sanders, Warren, Klobachar, Bennett) could not be out on the Hawkeye hustings when the Senate was trying President Trump.   Moreover, the prolonged odd delay in reporting results from the Iowa Caucuses (which has been attributed to software output issues) both steals the thunder from winning candidates like Buttigieg and Sanders, thus taking away momentum from Iowa and it obscures the gut punch of a fourth place finish for Biden. 

Political junkies know that Biden planned on having a South Carolina strategy, as he expects to garner giant support from the largely black electorate who would give fealty to Barack Obama's number two.   The problem is that he has to make it to the end of February.  When a candidate, like Biden, is competing as a front runner, it burns cash. If Biden has another disappointing result in New Hampshire, the money dries up and the staff starts to bolt. 

The Establishment's chosen candidate has been floored by a Hawkeye gut punch and they feel they need to slow the Sanders juggernaut lest he becomes the inevitable nominee.  So they need someone to last until the March 3rd Super Tuesday primaries, when ex Mayor Michael Bloomberg (R, I, D) can buy them some time and victories before the Milwaukee convention in July.

And THAT'S no malarkey.

Tulsi Gabbard on the DNC

As Democrat voters begin the 2020 Election Cycle, it seems that establishment Democrats are putting their thumbs on the scale to try to shape the outcome.

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard is outraged that the DNC and CNN are not allowing her on stage for the New Hampshire debate, despite garnering 8% support, while they are letting former Governor Deval Patrick (D-MA) onstage as he only has 2% support.

The DNC seems worried that Senator Bernie Sanders (Socialist- NH) may well sweep the first few primaries, which would make him the odds on favorite to win the Presidential nomination.  So the DNC changed the rules for qualifying for future debates, ignoring the grass roots element of qualifications.  

That rules change allows billionaire candidate ex NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg to participate.  That becomes crucial as Bloomberg is banking on a strong Super Tuesday showing on Tuesday March 3rd and the fact that he can self finance his campaign.  

Atheists' Umbrage at Obama’s Movie Massacre Prayer

Just hours after to the Midnight Movie Massacre in Aurora, Colorado, President Barack Obama recast his re-election campaign rally into a more somber public appearance. Mr. Obama encourage Americans to put aside politics as he called for a day of prayer and reflection.



 President Obama concluded his remarks in Fort Myers, Florida with a brief prayer: “May the Lord bring them comfort and healing in hard days to come.” These temperate remarks to the grieving American public trying to process the 12 people murdered along with 71 others shot seemed quite Presidential.

Unfortunately, atheists expressed at Mr. Obama’s attempts to offer spiritual succor to the nation. The Center for Secular Humanism Tom Flynn opined that Obama bent the rules against the establishment of religion with his remarks. To wit, Obama’s oration excluded Americans who do not worship the “Lord” or those are atheists.

It is no surprise that gun grabbers, like New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg (D-R-I) to quickly jump on this Dark Knight Rises shooting as an excuse to further restrict Second Amendment rights. It took less than six hours for the Lamestream Media to seek to link the tragedy to targets of their ideological agenda. Brian Ross, the supposed chief investigator of ABC News, broke into Good Morning America to report the suspicion that the shooter had links to the Tea Party (which were absolutely off base but where does a wrongly identified person get his reputation back?).

Atheists have been striving to impose their secular creed which imposes freedom from religion in the public square. While it seems that such secularists have a fundamental misunderstanding of the First Amendment establishment clause, it is more unseemly that purveyors of the atheist agenda did not have the decency to wait a day to hang their hook on such a sad news story.