This race needs to go on. At least for awhile longer

[BeyondGeography]

25. It should be clear by now that Joe is the stumble-proof Teflon candidate of the moment

True, many of those in the opening states who saw him close-up turned thumbs-down, but we’re in a post-campaign media narrative-driven environment, whatever that is.

Personally, I feel Trump has dumbed everything down, including campaigns. This whole thing has been about electability, the only issue that rose to some-level of significance has been MFA, and that was used to bring candidates down (Warren) or leveraged to increase perceived electability (Buttigieg). The things that made Trump possible in the first place, ie the issues that Bernie has been emphasizing with mind-numbing repetitiveness, have been subsumed by Trump himself.

Only one thing matters, beat Trump. Biden’s comps v. Trump remained strong even when he was struggling. Now that he’s ahead with basically 2/3 of the party behind him, plus Bloomberg’s money, what’s to stop him? He has already displayed levels of ineptitude in the debates that would have been fatal in most any other environment, so forget debates. Trump has already shot his wad with Burisma, so forget tantalizing new “revelations.” Money is cascading in, so forget fundraising problems. Biden is going to win.

The only real remaining drama is how will Sanders respond to this reality. Going forward, he will lose most everywhere and he will lose big more often than not. His Party of One culture and the alienation of others that accompanies it means he will have few defenders outside the die-hards when times go from tough to hopeless, which will happen very soon (post March 17). I’m interested to see how or if that registers with him and hoping against hope that he will show something resembling magnanimity and leadership when the time comes to pull together. A guy can dream.