[Added on March 2, 2020 at 22:02 German time: According to Reuters, Buttigieg will endorse Biden].
[Added on March 2, 2020 at 20:23 German time: Ahead of Super Tuesday, Amy Klobuchar has just dropped out of the race and endorsed Joe Biden!].
On Sunday, March 1, 2020 the Democratic presidential field further cleared up before Super Tuesday: Tom Steyer and Pete Buttigieg both ended their presidential campaigns.
It was a wise decision for both. Tom Steyer had had high hopes for South Carolina, where he had invested over $12 million in TV ads alone. However, the result was meager: 11.3% meant third place in South Carlina, but witout a single delegate. Pete Buttigieg fared even worse with 8.2% and no delegate either. Why Elizabeth Warren with 7.1% and Amy Klobuchar with 3.1% stay in the race remains a mistery.
The good thing about Elizabeth Warren fighting on is that she takes votes away from the self-declared Socialist Bernie Sanders, but Amy Klobuchar is weakening the moderate Joe Biden as well as the multi-billionaire Michael Bloomberg, for whom Super Tuesday will be the first test at the ballot bax. In the debates, he has not looked well-prepared. He has to get his act together to challenge Sanders and Biden.
Should Michael Bloomberg end up far behind Biden, he should immediately end his race and put his billions behind the Biden campaign. But if he should relatively close to Biden, he should fight on. For several reasons.
South Carolina was Joe Biden’s first win ever in 30 years and three presidential races. He is a born loser. Furthermore, as Obama’s vice-president, he was largely a side-kick. He had some successes, but Obama’s record is not half as good as Democrats think. He foreign and military policies were a disaster, leaving some 11 million refugees and internal displaced people behind in Syria alone, with Iraq totally destablized, Afghanistan never under control, Putin annexing the Crimean peninsula, etc. Furthermore, Obamacare, Obama’s greatest reform, was not as successful as Joe Biden thinks. Only roughly half of the previously ininsured got insurance and health care never really become more affordable, especially drug prices did not come done.
And Joe Biden is tainted by his son’s Ukrainian affair. Hunter Biden got his extremly lucrative job with a shady Ukrainian gas company only because he was the son of the then vice-president of the United States. Joe Biden is most likely not corrupt, but his son got into a shady business thanks to his father’s political position. And the father stands by his son. You may (rightly) say: And what about Trump’s affairs? They are far more and far worse. True. But Trump voters don’t care. Over 90% of Republicans stick with “their” president despite many shady affairs and reversing long-time GOP policies, moving from interventionism to isolationism, from free-trade to protectionism, from the goal of a balanced budget to “who cares about the deficit?”
According to a end of February 2020 Gallup poll, 85% of Republicans are satisfied with the position of the United States in the world today. In an early February 2020 Gallup poll, President Trump’s job approval rating was 94% among Republicans and 49% among all voters.
The Democrats need a really strong candidate to challenge Trump. They have to be united. And they need the Afro-American and Latino vote.
If the economy and markets will be strong in November, Trump will be hard to beat. The coronavirus Covid-19 could become a game-changer. The virus could substantially slow down China as well as other major economies such as Japan, Italy and, ultimately, the United States. In the interconnected world with plenty of cross-border supply chains, most countries will be affected from a global slow down. Some could fall into a recession. Even a long-lasting stock market crash is possible.
Joe Biden is the man of the moment. But will he remain in this position after Super Tuesday? We will find out very soon.
Suggested book: Jules Witcover: Joe Biden: A Life of Trial and Redemption, 2019, 576 pages. Order the paperback written by political columnist and veteran Washington correspondent Jules Witcover (*1927) from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk. Order the Kindle eBook from Amazon.com.
Article added on March 2, 2020 at 10:19 German time.
