Post-New Hampshire Thoughts

New Hampshire is in the bag, and it's a win for Bernie Sanders. That makes him one for two, or two for two, depending on how you count. Let's go with 1.5 for two. And second place goes to none other than South Mayor Pete Buttigieg -- the Iowa Caucus winner (or "winner" -- again, I'm just not going to go into it). Third place, in a huge late surge, was Amy Klobuchar, who rounds out the pledged delegates winners. Fourth and fifth were Warren and Biden, respecitvely.

So where is the race now? My assorted thoughts:

• The biggest story is, of course, the Klobucharge. Namely, that people have finally settled on "Klobucharge" being the correct term. Indeed, as Eric Muller observes, this is just the tip of the iceberg: there's laying on the Klobucharm, flying off the Klobucharts, watching opponents get Klobucharred....

• We're so starved for hot takes that "the winner of the evening was the guy who won the evening" never satisfies. After all, Bernie beat Pete Buttigieg by less than two points in a state where he obliterated Hillary Clinton four years ago, and they actually earned the same number of delegates. Is that really good news? Answer: yes, because the moderates are still fractured and it's really hard to see Buttigieg consolidating the vote while there's time for it to make an impact. Sanders is now the definite -- though not overwhelming -- favorite.

• That said, the other big winner definitely is Klobuchar, who I think probably has positioned herself as the moderate candidate to beat. But does she have the resources and time to really launch in other states? Does she have any significant basis of appeal in communities of color? I'm doubtful -- which is another reason why this was a good night for Bernie.

• On the one hand: It's strange how we make all this noise about how unfair it is that the Democratic primary begins with two states that have virtually no POC voters, then write campaign obituaries after just two states with virtually no POC voters hit the polls. On the other hand: Joe Biden looks like toast, and his last stab at relevancy may be to play kingmaker among the remaining moderates. My guess is if he passes the torch to anyone, it will be Klobuchar.

• Tough night for my candidate, Elizabeth Warren. Getting the Castro endorsement may well have been prescient in the worst way: just like with Castro, my entire Twitter feed loves her, and just like with Castro, that love sadly is not translating to significant real world impact. She's not yet DOA, but she's in a tough spot. Sad.

• Two drop-outs: Yang and Bennet. I think a lot of Yang's supporters go to Sanders. As for Bennet's voters, well, you'd have to ask Michael Bennet because I'm pretty sure he's the only one.

• There were also reports -- quickly retracted -- that Tom Steyer was dropping out as well. This was the only time anyone has thought about Tom Steyer in the past month.

• While everyone else has been distracted, Michael Bloomberg is quietly rising in the polls based on the irresistible grassroots force of having literally infinity money to spend on advertising. But what happens when that force hits the immovable object of "Bloomberg is a sexual harasser whose signature political program was police harassment of Black people"? I imagine Bernie will start lighting him up on this sooner rather than later -- but until we actually see it, it's hard to know what will happen.

• Every year, political commentators breathlessly ask "could we have a brokered convention?" And every year, actual knowledgeable observers roll our eyes and say "there will never be a brokered convention." And yet ... could we have a brokered convention? Most of the "Sanders is the front-runner" case right now is based on the moderates dividing up the vote and allowing  Sanders to continue skating to narrow plurality wins based on his high floor/low ceiling. But Democrats don't have any winner-takes-all states, so even if Sanders keeps "winning" pluralities he's not amassing a delegate majority or anything close to it (the New Hampshire delegate tallies right now are Sanders 9/Buttigieg 9/Klobuchar 6).

• A brokered convention would be a disaster. Dis-as-ter. It's almost impossible to imagine Sanders winning it -- with the possible exception of Warren, none of the remaining heavies seem likely to have delegates itching to back him. But can you imagine how Sanders Sibs will react if they have a plurality of delegates going in, won the most states, and still lose the nomination? Hell, they barely accept it as legitimate when they lose the normal way. It will be Dems in disarray on steroids, except this time it will actually be true. A brokered convention might well rip the party apart.

• The only way Sanders wins the nomination in a brokered scenario is if his delegates credibly threaten to shoot the hostage (in this metaphor, the hostage is America, and shooting it means sitting back and letting Trump win), and they just might do it, which means threatening to do it just might work. Either way, it's a nightmare.

I Watched a Debate! Part 2

I watched the first debate, so I kind of felt obligated to watch the second as well. Fair is fair (though I did miss the first half hour). Tonight certainly felt a little more eventful and punchy than last night -- in part because Biden was such an inviting target. It was a bit surprising to Harris take the lead on the Biden pile-on, though. I would also say there was a wider range of views expressed on stage than there were last night, where it really was a near-universal convergence on a broadly progressive vision.

Most importantly, I think there was more of a "shake-up" tonight compared to last night, where for the most part everyone just treaded water. Here we saw a candidate who had struggled to gain traction really shine (Gillibrand) and two who had been near the top really stumble (Harris and especially Biden).

Now for individual assessments:

• Joe Biden: Not a good night for him. True, he was in a tough spot, as he clearly had a target on his back and was taking a lot of heat from other candidates. But he didn't do himself any favors, either. He was garbled, he had little narrative other than "I was next to Obama when he did a bunch of great things", and his exchange with Harris on school busing was the worst moment in the debate that didn't involve Marianne Williamson speaking. This is the sort of performance that a lot of us feared would start his inevitable unraveling. C
• Bernie Sanders: While not exactly scintillating, I'd say this was a successful night for Sanders. Somebody drilled into him that he needed to not be overtly antagonistic to the other Democrats on stage, and he for the most part stayed disciplined on that score. The ending bit where he specifically complimented the other "good ideas on stage", before pivoting to his need for a political revolution, was the right frame. And while I don't think he really stood out, he didn't need to stand out -- he just needed to stand back and watch Biden go into free-fall. A-
• Kamala Harris: One of my early favorites, but I have to say I was not impressed. She seemed shaky and unsure of herself, like her nerves had gotten to her. She improved as the night went on, and got lucky that Biden's truly terrible answer on busing bailed her out at one point, but overall she did not seem ready for primetime and that surprised me. C+
• Pete Buttigieg: He's a good speaker, but not a lot else was going on. He'd clearly prepped the hell out of the question on the shooting in South Bend, and the answer wasn't bad, but he got baited into being defensive in an exchange with someone (Bennett?) that did not go in his favor. Still, on the whole, he probably held steady. B
• Kirsten Gillibrand: She was, in my view, the breakout winner. She was smart, composed, and substantive, and had a clear narrative around protecting women and families. I liked Gillibrand before, but had kind of written her off because she wasn't getting any traction in the polls. I wonder if she might see a bump after tonight. I thought she was really strong. A+
• Michael Bennet: Seemed like a fine, basically progressive generic White guy, which isn't good enough for a guy like him in a field like this. C+
• Eric Swalwell: Had a bunch of smirky little lines that weren't as clever as he thought. Otherwise unremarkable. C
• John Hickenlooper: He really seemed committed to red-baiting, and I do not think it's a winning strategy. He's, at best, third on the depth chart for the "moderate" lane behind Biden and Klobuchar, and Klobuchar in particular would wipe the floor with him (possibly literally, if he forgets to bring a salad fork). D+
• Andrew Yang: He's at his best when talking about the freedom dividend, which makes sense since that's his signature. On any other issue he sounds like a tech bro who thinks doing well in Silicon Valley qualifies him to run the world. Do you remember when we were all aghast at Mark Zuckerberg running for President? This is the same thing, except less interesting. I do not think drawing a straight line from "enthusiasm on Reddit boards" to "Democratic debate stage" is proof that our democracy still works. C
• Marianne Williamson: Who is this women? What is that accent? Why is her first call as President to the Prime Minister of New Zealand (to say "nuh-uh -- we're the best place to raise a child!")? It was physically uncomfortable listening to her tonight. I don't know what specific conspiracy theories she believes in, but I have no doubt she believes in some. F

At this stage in the game, I'm mostly concerned with winnowing the field down to something manageable so we can actually have a reasonable nominating contest. So here's my take on who (from both evening's debates) should drop out (or at least be cut from future debates), based on their performance and my assessment of whether there's any plausible route for them to make a serious play in the contest.

• Drop-outs: Williamson, Swalwell, Hickenlooper, Ryan, Delaney.
• Bubble (they should probably all drop out too, but it's early and I'm feeling nice): Yang, Bennet, Gabbard, Inslee, De Blasio.

UPDATE: Reading through others reactions, wow am I ever in the minority re: Harris (and again -- I'm a Harris fan! She was my off-the-blocks favorite! So this isn't anti-Harris hostility). And obviously it matters more what others think than what I think. Likewise, nobody else seems to have even noticed Gillibrand, let alone given her the sort of breakaway credit I did.

Yesterday I think my views aligned with the CW, today clearly they don't. But since most of my appraisals were based on my assessment of "will this appeal to people", you should take the crowd's wisdom over mine. Harris surge!