A noun, a verb and South Carolina: Joe Biden's last-ditch primary strategy

[JoeOtterbein]

Politico

The ex-veep says the first Southern primary — and its majority black electorate — is the real test of a Democrat’s strength.

By MARC CAPUTO

02/10/2020 07:13 PM EST

MANCHESTER, N.H. — Joe Biden’s campaign has one answer to questions about whether his candidacy is collapsing: A noun, a verb and South Carolina.

The state was always the Biden campaign’s firewall, but now it’s a final hope, his rhetorical device to change the narrative of back-to-back losses and still plausibly argue his electability. The first Southern primary is now the rallying point where he dispatched a top adviser Monday, and where his campaign’s co-chairman will hold a “launch party” Tuesday, when the campaign is bracing for a blowout defeat in New Hampshire’s primary.

In the Biden campaign’s telling, South Carolina’s Feb. 29 primary and its majority black electorate is the real test of a Democrat’s strength because no presidential candidate has won the party’s nomination without the strong support of African American voters, who are concentrated in the Southeastern states that begin voting March 3.

As part of that argument, the campaign’s South Carolina surrogates are spreading the word that New Hampshire voters shouldn’t vote for Pete Buttigieg because of his anemic black support.

“Whatever happens on Tuesday, Vice President Biden will still be in this race,” Symone Sanders, the Biden adviser he dispatched to Columbia, S.C., said repeatedly Tuesday on national and local television. “This race very much runs through Nevada, South Carolina and Super Tuesday.”

Privately, Biden’s campaign advisers sound gloomier notes.

snip

more at link

[Garrett78]

1. Snowball effect: bad loss leads to bad loss, which leads to bad loss, which leads to collapse

[George II]

2. And yet, aside from the continued false attacks, he's leading in about 40 states/territories....

[wisteria]

3. Malarkey, and horse dung.

[jcgoldie]

4. They are all talking about Biden like he's toast

Reminds me of one of Garrison Kiellor's Sven and Ollie jokes...

Sven was laid up on his death bed and for a week he never came out of the upstairs bedroom of the old farmhouse. He seemed to get weaker with each passing day and had no appetite for anything sleeping all day long. Then suddenly his fever broke one day and he smelled something cooking down in the kitchen. He got himself out of bed and made his way out and down the stairs limping along with the help of his cane. Spread out on the table were all sorts of delicious smelling baked goods... fruit pies and cookies and cakes. He started to help himself to a piece of his favorite pie and just then Ollie came from the front room and slapped his hand away. "Don't touch those!" she quipped... "They are for the funeral!"