Perhaps it would be premature to declare the 24-candidate Democratic presidential field effectively a three-person race, considering the technicality that the race really hasn't started.
Still, I can't foresee a winner other than Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren or Kamala Harris, and, if it's Joe, I can't see anyone but one of the others on the ticket with him.
Some say the vast field gives someone deep in the 24 a chance to step out. More likely is the contrary--that everyone but the top three, or five, will get lost in the crowd.
It's true that the top tier, consistent in all polling, actually encompasses five candidates.
But I discount Bernie Sanders as a conceivable nominee because too many Democrats want to win the general election and find him a liability in that context because of socialism. Anyway, the emerging Elizabeth Warren has stymied him on the populist left and is taking votes from him.
And I discount Pete Buttigieg for the same general reason--perceived liability in the general election, and not only, or even mainly, because he's gay. It's also because he's 37 and has only been mayor of South Bend, Ind.
For that matter, Buttigieg is this cycle's thoughtful darling of the liberal commentariat and the high-income, highly educated white left--meaning this year's Bill Bradley or Paul Tsongas or Bruce Babbitt, none of whom ever got into the Oval Office except as a visitor.
With rare exception, you cannot win the Democratic presidential nomination without the black vote. At this point, Biden dominates there, owing to his name identification and association with Barack Obama.
Beyond that, Biden is the plurality choice of Democrats who say their choice will be driven by which candidate has the best chance to defeat Trump.
Biden could well limp out of Iowa and New Hampshire, where there are few black votes. He might even finish second or third in one or the other or even both. But then South Carolina would be his firewall, along with the various Southern states including Arkansas where the Democratic turnout will be heavily African American.
There's only one candidate seemingly a threat to Biden on black votes, and that is U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris. She's had trouble getting going, but may have put opening misplays behind her. She is positioning to take black votes from Biden while appealing as well to the populist left that prefers Warren and Sanders but might need somewhere to go if those candidates cancel each other out and Biden leaves them cold.
Harris' path to the nomination is to upset Biden in South Carolina, fight him close across Super Tuesday, and then win the newly advanced contest in her delegate bonanza of a home state, California.
The clearer path is that she does well enough to become Biden's obvious running-mate selection, a role in which she'd energize the black vote and assuage the populist left otherwise deflated by the demise of Warren and Sanders.
That leaves Warren. She was at one point a sterling non-candidate, so serious that Trump found it advisable to give her a nickname and ridicule her pre-emptively.
She started horribly. But she has fully righted herself and has climbed steadily both in vote share and general favorability. She's done it by preaching a more palatable and informed version of Sanders' message and taking no prisoners in her all-out disdain for modern-day Republicanism.
If Biden and Harris start splitting the black vote, and if Buttigieg reaches his ceiling with white high-end liberals, and if Sanders loses ground to a fresher Warren, then Warren conceivably could end up the nominee.
All of that awaits the first debate. Naturally, there are those saying we should wait at least for the gate to open before we call the order at the finish line.
But you must place your bets before the race. And mine are on Biden to win, Warren to place and Harris to show, with Biden picking Harris as his running mate.
John Brummett, whose column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, is a member of the Arkansas Writers' Hall of Fame. Email him at jbrummett@arkansasonline.com. Read his @johnbrummett Twitter feed.
Editorial on 06/19/2019