Been busy again, had to play a bit of catch up on the debate. I actually thought Bernie did very well. Warren devoured Bloomberg like a ravenous wolf picking off a sickly deer. Then everyone else piled on like a school of piranhas and picked the skeleton clean. I can't imagine this doesn't hurt him in the polls, especially with this as the most watched debate. I don't think it'll affect Nevada much though, since Bloomberg isn't there. Question is how does it affect Super Tuesday, does Biden recover? I hope not.

I have a weird feeling that Steyer will surprise with strong performances in Nevada and South Carolina. He could benefit greatly from a Bloomberg fallout if he invested similarly in Super Tuesday ads right after a couple of good top three performances in NV and SC. Considering how this race has gone so far with so many candidates in the second tier, why not one more?

Warren's performance will probably cause another surge. Let's hope it doesn't hurt Sanders too much in Nevada, but with so much early voting already done (almost 70k, nearly as much as the whole caucus turnout last year!) I think Bernie will still come out on top. If she and Steyer take second and third, and the occasional polls, rumors of carried over strength, and Biden's poor caucus turnout game and retreat to South Carolina gives Pete and Amy a sufficient opening, Biden could end up 5th or 6th place, which in a more diverse state would crush his campaign. Even a third place finish in Nevada would damage Biden at this point. He really needs to turn things around by proving he can win in diverse states.

I think everyone besides Sanders and Bloomberg need a good showing now in Nevada and/or South Carolina. Sanders seems established as a frontrunner (which also means he needs to win Nevada, or this image is damaged). Bloomberg seems established to be a strong candidate coming Super Tuesday.

Everyone else needs a strong showing before Bloomberg pushes into the race. So far Biden, Warren and Steyer had no strong showing. Steyer and Biden could possibly hope for South Carolina, as their polls are good there, but more shows of strength are obviously better. Warren cannot hope on SC, she needs a good result in Nevada.

Buttigieg and Klobuchar probably stay in the race until Super Tuesday in any case, but so far they are seen as candidates for the "white" states. A good result in Nevada or South Carolina could help a lot.

So in conclusion I see everyone hoping for the second place finish in Nevada, and the polls are close enough between all five. But only one can get it, right?

Bloomberg's favorability dropped 20 points in the latest Morning Consult poll. Ouch.

So many candidates that could perform decently in Nevada. Very hard to predict how this one will turn out, specially given it's a caucus.

Our Cartoon president has a take on the debate:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k06vMRJli7w

Yeah first place looks solid for Bernie, it would really hurt him to not get first. Especially if he gets second to anyone but Biden. Warren needs second the most, but only because Klobuchar isn't expected to get second anyway. Klobuchar needs a good showing though, she has to get some delegates. Same for Pete. Not getting any delegates would confirm the prevailing "Pete and Amy can't win non-whites" narrative. Under 10 percent would really hurt them, crossing that psychological "single-digits" barrier that Warren and Biden crossed in New Hampshire. Biden and Steyer still have South Carolina, so they can take a poor performance, though Biden getting single digits again would be really bad, and anything outside the top 3 would be really bad. Biden needs second the least though, because even 6th place wouldn't knock him out. He's in this to Super Tuesday no matter what.

Warren being second would breathe new life into her campaign, being non-viable would probably be a death blow. Honestly if she gets single digits in Nevada and doesn't drop out, I might start to believe Uran about her wanting to drag Sanders down out of spite. 538 already has her at less than 1% chance! Just 0.8 and still falling! She definitely needs Nevada, and getting no delegates or finishing outside the top 3 would end the campaign of any reasonable person (Note that this would mean that Gabbard is definitely not being reasonable by staying in at this point, which I also regard with suspicion). At this point, if a non-establishment candidate is still not getting delegates in most places, they're just taking percentage points from Bernie and dragging him down. You can't combine delegates at a contested convention in return for a cabinet position if you have no delegates to bargain or too few to matter.

In Warren's defense though, it's pretty ironic that in 2016 the argument against Bernie was that he and Clinton were "basically the same" because of Clinton's short Senate voting record being close to Bernie's, and that thus she's just as progressive and it's "her turn". Meanwhile now, they actually have a candidate that is much closer to Bernie than Clinton was, with a much longer record to back that up, and rhetorically similar as well. Yet rather than rally behind Warren under the same argument, the argument on one hand when they briefly supported her is that she's not like Bernie, while on the other hand they rally around various centrists just for being centrist, and bend over backwards to change the rules so a center-right billionaire can enter the race and compete, and seem to be actively seeking for a contested convention. They're not even trying for unity now. She was easily the closest thing to a unity candidate if that's what the party wanted, but they don't.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/21/politics/nevada-caucus-confidentiality-agreements/index.html

Okay, I'm gonna raise the red flag now, I have a bad feeling about this caucus. There have been rumors swirling since Iowa that the Nevada caucus is headed for a similar meltdown, and it's starting to look like the Nevada Democratic Party is preparing for just that sort of scenario. If recent polls are remotely correct, the margin for Sanders should have him as a decisive winner with an unpredictable mess for second. Even if there's a meltdown, that shouldn't change, but this could still be really, really ugly. I don't want to buy into the conspiracy theories, because they're just that, but damn, these caucuses never seemed to have a problem before, and suddenly no one can do them right.

The conspiracy theories aren't just that. The DNC has its thumbs on the scale and are very blatant with it this time around. They've had early voting where in predominately latino and black communities they don't instruct them to sign their sheets which would make them void, and instead of releasing where it happened, and who it happened with, they instead gave the campaigns the list....

Honestly I'm surprised people still have faith in the system after 2016 and the DNC being exposed. (They got sued and argued that the DNC is a private organization and can choose their candidate in a smoke filled back room if they wanted to, yes this was the defense they "won" with)

The 2012 Iowa Caucus of the Republicans was a far larger mess. It took weeks until the final recanvassed result came out, and then it turned out Santorum had beaten Romney, contrary to what was proclaimed in the Caucus night. And finally, after some shenaningans, the vast majority of the state delegates ultimately went to... Ron Paul.

It turns out caucuses are shit and the whole thing collapses with large or greater than expected attendances. No wonder 50% or more decided to early vote in Nevada.

Bloomberg is being propped as the new front runner. He gets fake-attacked for being insufficiently woke, crass, racist, sexist, homophobe etc. Best example is Warren and her hilarious "fat broads and horse faced lesbians comment", this will make BB more popular.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4hrxBiJ9IY

He should be attacked on his unpopular policy positions, present and past: supporting Bush's wars, supporting Obama/Clinton's wars, open borders, surveillance state, AIPAC, etc. However, all Democrat candidates and the entire mainstream media support these positions so they can't attack him there. Why do they even oppose him if they agree on everything?

Coincidentally he really did get under Bernie's skin with a side remark about his three houses, most heated gaming moment of the debate.

Yes, I'm aware of that, all of it. Yet Trump won despite his establishment not liking him. He overcame the system with popular support. We can do so too. Even if Bernie is the only one that thinks the winner should be the person with more votes (shame on you Warren...), there comes a point where you can overwhelm the system, and Bernie has pretty explicitly said this is his plan. It's also his plan for the general to beat any interference from Republicans. We're corrupt, but we're not North Korea corrupt, or even Russia levels of corrupt yet. That's why this election matters so much. That's why we can't afford to give up, lose faith, or despair. Bernie had said as much that we can't afford that, and we should listen.