HOLY TOLEDO!

Nate Silver, who apparently does not like Bernie much, has this as his latest odds for who will have won the nomination after all the primaries are completed:

Bernie              44%

No one            20%

Biden              20%

Warren              5%

Buttegieg          5%

Good grief!!  Can this be anywhere close to correct?

Note that he projects Bernie and Warren together as having enough to win.

YOU DO WHAT YOU CAN

On Valentine's Day, Susie and I will drive to Pittsboro to early vote in the Super Tuesday Primary.  Monday, I will deliver a killer lecture on Chapter One of CAPITAL.  It features imaginary trips to a Catholic mass and a local supermarket and an analysis of the opening line of Pride and Prejudice, and turns on a deep structural analysis of the miracle of transubstantiation.

God, I love to teach!

NOW WHAt?

As if Iowa weren't enough, and the State of the Union weren't enough, and the"*acquittal" weren't enough, and the lingering of my cold weren't enough, this morning a storm knocked out the power in this part of North Carolina.  It is a measure of the baleful effects of my cold on my usual high spirits that I consider these all of roughly equal significance.  Well, the power is back on anyway, so I shall spend a few minutes prognosticating.

Here is a possible scenario.  After Super Tuesday [March 3rd], Klobuchar, Yang, Bennett, Gabbard, Steyer, Patrick, and whomever else is among the also-rans drop out, leaving Sanders, Warren, Buttegieg, Biden, and Mr. Moneybags still in it.  Sanders racks up lots of delegates, Warren and Buttegieg get decent numbers, Biden gets enough to keep him alive, albeit on life support financially, and Bloomberg actually gets relatively few delegates despite his billions, given the rules that govern these things.  As the primary season plods on, the Democratic Establishment goes into full freak-out mode at the prospect of a Bernie candidacy, and they do everything they can to keep him from a first ballot victory [which he probably cannot manage to win anyway,]

BECAUSE, on the second and subsequent ballots, the unpledged delegates [aka superdelegates] get to weigh in.  This year, there are 3979 pledged delegates to the Democratic Convention and 771 unpledged delegates.  I suspect that very few of those 771 will be Bernie Bros, which means that some sort of anyone but Bernie movement might win ...

UNLESS Bernie and Warren join hands and sing Kumbayah all the way to the White House.

As you can see, I am still feverish.

FEVERISH THOUGHTS

It is a fact often commented upon that no one ever gets any sympathy for having a cold, even though a bad cold can make you feel worse than many more serious ailments.  I think I am starting to get better after several days of a bad cold [my first in many, many years]. The misery of the cold was made worse by the bizarre aftermath of the Iowa caucuses.  I felt a little spacey anyway from the cold, and the absurdities of the app screw-up made me wonder whether I was hallucinating.

Now that 71% of the results have been reported – up from 62% yesterday – I think we can conclude that Biden is toast.  Mayor Pete is having his moment, but with 0% support in the Black community, he is not going anywhere.  All of which has led Bloomberg to double his ad buys, which is a windfall for local TV stations, to be sure.  The Democratic Party establishment is freaking out over Bernie, John Kerry is overheard by a sharp-eared reporter floating the idea of a run for the nomination, Warren lives to fight another day, Klobuchar is going nowhere, and Yang, Steyer, et al. are footnotes.  Do I have that right or are my cough drops getting to me?

HUME WILL HAVE TO WAIT

I have some sort of cold or infection in my throat that makes my dulcet tones sound like the notes of a subdued foghorn.  I taught yesterday, with the aid of cough drops and water, but I do not want to be immortalized on YouTube in my current condition.

I shall drink hot tea and wait for the Iowa results.  

DOUR THOUGHTS

A slight cold and the stresses of preparing both for my course today and the launch of my Hume lectures on Thursday have kept me from posting in several days.  Watching American politics these days has put me in mind of Gandhi’s famous remark.  Asked what he thought of British democracy, he replied sardonically, “It would be a lovely idea.”

There is much discussion these days about whether 'our' democratic American traditions can survive Trump.  I recall a tense moment when the Lone Ranger and Tonto faced a menacing group of Cherokee warriors.  “Are we going to survive?” the Lone Ranger asked nervously.  Tonto, you will no doubt remember, replied “What do you mean ‘we,’ White Man?”

Well, if the Coronavirus doesn’t get me, I will be curious to see how things fall out over the next few months.