Campaign watch: A Not-So-Super Tuesday
For all the hype, Bernie Sanders is “still a long way from putting the nomination to bed,” argues The Week’s Noah Millman. In fact, a “true nightmare scenario,” in which “Sanders limps into Milwaukee as the clear delegate leader” but has “well under 40 percent of the delegates,” is “all too possible.” Democrats can avoid that fate, but only if Sanders has “a decisive win in Texas,” proving he has support in even “a somewhat-Southern state,” or if Joe Biden can “consolidate” moderate support by “sweeping the South, and denying Bloomberg any victories on Super Tuesday.” Absent these scenarios, Democrats will “have to choose between anointing an extraordinarily weak nominee or essentially invalidating the primaries” — which would “tear the party apart.”
From the left: Warren’s Not Dead Yet
The media have decided that the Democratic nominee will “definitely” be Bernie Sanders, sighs The Guardian’s Moira Donegan, even as Elizabeth Warren, whose campaign was “presumed dead,” is seeing a comeback. Warren did poorly in the first three primary contests, but her Nevada debate performance started “re-energizing her passionate base of support,” leading to a donation boost and a new poll showing she’s “surged to second place” nationally. She’s also changed her demeanor: “Rigorously positive” early on, she’s now displaying “anger,” an “appropriate response,” because “the American people are angry, too.” Even if Warren doesn’t win, she’s bringing unique “passion” to the campaign. Warns Donegan: “Democrats ignore Warren’s anger — and women’s anger — at their own peril.”
Neoconservative: Why Jews Reject Bernie
Bernie Sanders’ “decades-long record” of support for “leftist autocrats” puts him “far outside mainstream Democratic Party traditions,” says James Kirchick at Tablet — and it explains why “America’s first serious Jewish presidential candidate garners only a tiny fraction of support” from Jewish Dems. Nor does his version of democratic socialism cut it: Indeed, Sanders’ politics would be “anathema” to those Jews and “Jewish-friendly” institutions that historically deserve the “most credit” for the “best of democratic socialist ideals in America”: the Workmen’s Circle, Dissent magazine, David Dubinsky, Al Shanker and others. These people and groups “abhorred men like Sanders,” who have sought to “erase distinctions between democrats and totalitarians on the left.” Sanders comes from “an entirely different political lineage, that of anti-anti-communism.” Democrats would be “foolish” to nominate him.
Health desk: A Good-News, Bad-News Pandemic
With coronavirus, the world faces “the first postmodern pandemic,” writes the Washington Free Beacon’s Matthew Continetti, and the resulting “fractured public narrative” may slow the response. The good news: “Science, medicine and public health have improved immeasurably” since a century ago, when the US last faced a health crisis of this size. The bad: “COVID-19 is novel,” so it may “be more than a year” before we can mass-produce a vaccine. Worse, much of the media will hype the “most outrageous scenarios” to damage the president’s re-election prospects. Their “worldwide” reach “distributes misinformation” and “incentivizes hysteria.” “Dealing with ‘community spread’ is hard enough,” snarks Continetti. “Try doing it while watching Don Lemon.”
Libertarian: Pols Will Make COVID-19 Worse
As the coronavirus spreads, Republicans and Democrats are abiding by the old adage “never let a good crisis go to waste,” observes Reason’s Eric Boehm. On Wednesday, President Trump bragged about how he slowed the spread of the disease into America by cutting off air travel from China and suggested further restrictions may be coming — even though evidence shows travel bans don’t “reduce the number of people who get sick” during outbreaks. Democrats, meanwhile, are using the crisis to attack Trump, blasting him for “bungling” America’s response — even though it’s far too soon to conclude anything much about the government’s reaction. One thing’s clear, though: “No matter how bad the outbreak might turn out to be, you can bet that politicians will find a way to make it worse.”
— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board