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photo: John Collazos
Essays and Videos
The Two Things That Sank Buttigieg’s Candidacy
Figuring out why Pete Buttigieg dropped out of the presidential race yesterday is easy. He had gotten trounced in South Carolina, appeared likely to get trounced on Super Tuesday, and, according to FiveThirtyEight, had a less than 1 percent chance of winning a plurality of pledged delegates overall.
The more interesting question is how Buttigieg—who dazzled the national media, captivated big donors, and came close to winning the first two primary contests—found himself in this unenviable spot. The answer says …
The Scarlet B
BERNIE SANDERS’S ANNOUNCEMENT on Sunday that he’ll be skipping AIPAC’s annual policy conference hardly came as a surprise. He didn’t attend in 2016, and his progressive rival, Elizabeth Warren, had already announced that she’d be a no-show. The Intercept had recently reported that AIPAC was indirectly funnelling money to the Democratic Majority for Israel, a lobbying group that has run ads calling Sanders unelectable. Candidates don’t generally appear before organizations that are trying to sink their campaigns.
Bernie’s Greatest Weapon
If the Democratic National Committee is trying to rig the presidential race against Bernie Sanders, it’s doing a lousy job.
By letting Michael Bloomberg into last night’s debate in Nevada, the DNC did the Vermont senator an enormous favor. Sanders is clearly the Democratic front-runner. He tied for first place in Iowa; he won New Hampshire; he’s ahead in national polls; he’s way ahead in Nevada, and he’s way ahead in California, the biggest Super Tuesday prize. As The …