The impeachment vote. The promises of more impeachments. The Iowa app, which wasn't much of one. The State of the Union address, and Nancy Pelosi's silent tantrums therein. The coronavirus. The Super Bowl. The groundhog and the absence of a shadow.
There's been so much news in the last week that some folks might have missed it: Pete Buttigieg won the Iowa caucuses.
Well, maybe. We remember back to 2012 when Mitt Romney supposedly won those caucuses, too, only to have better numbers showing him in second place a few weeks later. Considering all the troubles Iowa has seen so far, it might be a while longer before Mayor Pete can claim an undisputed heavyweight title.
But as the numbers began to roll in from Cedar Rapids and Des Moines and Sioux City, another thing became apparent: The radical left has not taken over the Democratic Party. Not yet.
According to the last numbers we saw, the self-proclaimed leftists in the race--Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders--accounted for 43.4 percent of the Iowa vote. The other 56.6 percent were split between the moderates: Mayor Pete, Joe Biden and Amy Klobuchar.
A poll released last week by The Boston Globe showed Uncle Bernie and Elizabeth Warren getting a combined 34 percent of the vote in New Hampshire. Which means two-thirds of the Democrats in that state know their party should nominate somebody with a realistic chance of winning. Perhaps even somebody who's a member of their party, which Bernie Sanders is not. (He's an independent who calls himself a socialist.)
Throughout the fall and winter, we've watched two of these candidates promise everything from Medicare for All to erasing college debt. Bernie Sanders has proposed national rent control. Elizabeth Warren would abolish the Electoral College. Bernie Sanders wants to give felons the right to vote--while they're still in jail. Elizabeth Warren would make child care another entitlement program. Sens. Sanders and Warren are trying to out-flank each other--a good strategy when the armies met at Antietam and Bull Run. But flanking maneuvers in politics can come back to thwart advances.
Somebody was quoted in the news last week, bemoaning candidates of the more liberal stripe: "If Sen. Sanders is the nominee for the party, every Democrat in America up and down the ballot--blue states, red states, purple states, easy districts competitive ones--every Democrat will have to carry the label that Sen. Sanders has chosen for himself."--Joe Biden.
We could add that Elizabeth Warren is just as out there as Bernie Sanders. But she has sense enough to keep a party affiliation.
After the New Hampshire primary, Michael Bloomberg will begin showing up in polls, too. And most consider him a moderate, at least in most topics not categorized as Gun Control.
Maybe the Democratic Party hasn't left the real world quite yet. Give us another 60 days, and we'll know for sure.
Editorial on 02/10/2020