[ Posted Wednesday, February 12th, 2020 – 18:03 UTC ]
There are now two early-voting states in the rearview mirror, after New Hampshire proved last night that it was far better at counting votes than Iowa. Otherwise, I would have had to wait a few days to write this article, but thankfully things went much more smoothly in the Granite State. So now we've got actual voters weighing in rather than just public opinion polling and punditry. And New Hampshire has shaken up the race even more than Iowa did, continuing the realignment of the Democratic presidential field.
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[ Posted Tuesday, February 11th, 2020 – 15:16 UTC ]
It's "first in the nation" primary time, which means it is time once again to throw down my own markers and predict the winner of New Hampshire tonight. I've long felt that pundits who merely vaguely describe the race as it stands are craven, because it's a lot tougher to actually try to foresee the results ahead of time in an article under your own name. So I've always publicly announced my picks ahead of time, even if they turn out to be disastrously wrong in the end.
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[ Posted Monday, February 10th, 2020 – 17:57 UTC ]
In 2016, Donald Trump ripped up the playbook on how to get elected president and then he wrote his own unique version. Quite obviously, it worked a lot better than anyone expected. Democrats now face a surprisingly similar situation in 2020 with Bernie Sanders, because he seems poised to use almost exactly the same playbook that allowed Trump to succeed against a field of candidates much more acceptable to his party's establishment.
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[ Posted Friday, February 7th, 2020 – 16:46 UTC ]
Throughout the presidency of Donald Trump there have been many weeks that have left everyone completely exhausted, because so many momentous events have happened with such blinding speed. Each time, it's been tempting to say: "Trump can never top that week" at the end of it. We've all but given up doing so, because no matter how intense things get, there always seems to be a way to ratchet things up the very next week. However, that temptation was almost overwhelming this particular week.
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[ Posted Thursday, February 6th, 2020 – 18:22 UTC ]
Iowa royally screwed up. That much is beyond dispute. In fact, as I write this -- days after the Iowa caucuses concluded -- the results still are not complete and no winner has been anointed. Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg are within a tenth of a point of each other in the metric used to determine winners, although Bernie's clearly going to win the popular vote (both of them, in fact). Perhaps by the time New Hampshire votes we'll all know who the winner in Iowa was. But at this point, even that isn't guaranteed.
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[ Posted Wednesday, February 5th, 2020 – 17:09 UTC ]
As I write this, the Iowa Democratic Party has now reported 85 percent of the caucus returns. Perhaps after a full 48 hours we'll know the full results, but at this point I wouldn't bet on it. But while heaping scorn on Iowa is amusing, the results as they stand are realigning the entire Democratic presidential field, so it's worth taking a look at how everything is shifting.
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[ Posted Monday, February 3rd, 2020 – 16:43 UTC ]
We're finally at the point where Democratic primary voters (or "caucus voters," today) get to register their choices in an actual election. It's been a long and winding road to get here, and along the way 18 of the announced 29 Democratic candidates have already dropped out of the race, leaving us with only (!) 11 remaining. After the Iowa and New Hampshire results are in, that field should narrow down to, hopefully, single digits.
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[ Posted Friday, January 31st, 2020 – 17:34 UTC ]
As of this writing, nothing has been officially decided yet in the Senate impeachment trial. However, one thing seems almost certain at this point: there will only be 49 votes, maximum, in favor of calling witnesses. Both Lisa Murkowski and Lamar Alexander have announced that they will not be voting for witnesses, which leaves all 47 Democrats together with only Mitt Romney and Susan Collins. Murkowski may have been persuaded to vote no because if she had voted yes it would have set up an uncomfortable situation for Chief Justice Roberts, who would have to decide whether to break a 50-50 tie or not (with the safe money being on "not"). In any case, that's how things stand as I begin writing this.
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[ Posted Tuesday, January 28th, 2020 – 18:19 UTC ]
In less than a week's time, we will have the first results of the 2020 Democratic primary season, from the Iowa caucuses. After more than a year of campaigning, the curtain is finally going to go up and we'll all be able to see what actual voters think about the remaining Democratic candidates. Or most of them, at any rate, since Michael Bloomberg won't be on the ballot at all until Super Tuesday.
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[ Posted Monday, January 27th, 2020 – 18:08 UTC ]
Could the 2020 presidential election wind up being a contest between two black swans? Or, to put it another way, will we actually get to see a contest between Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders?
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