Shifting Granite

New Hampshire:  Assuming that today’s primary doesn’t go all Iowa on us, by the end of the day the Democratic race for president will be more of a free for all than ever.  It’s likely that with neighbor state senator Bernie Sanders doing well, Pete Buttigieg riding his Iowa wave, Amy Klobuchar benefiting from a good debate appearance and Elizabeth Warren struggling but still on the board, Joe Biden’s presidential run will hit a mountain sized speed bump that even South Carolina, with its more diverse Biden friendly population, won’t be able to resuscitate, at least that’s what the polls and the various pundits are predicting.  The WBZ – Boston Globe- Suffolk University New Hampshire poll shows Sanders with an 8 point lead, receiving the backing of 27% of respondents, Buttigieg in second with 19%, Klobuchar in third with 14% and Biden and Warren each with just under 12% while a CNN poll has the same two leaders but places Biden in third with Warren and Klobuchar behind him.  Given their lack of diversity, Biden was never expected to win New Hampshire or Iowa, but it’s likely that a string of two bad losses will send the message to many of those voters who found comfort in his mainstream positions and thought that he was the best bet to beat Trump that Joe is not the antidote to the Trump nightmare that they thought he was.  And, notably, those essential Black voters are known to be very pragmatic, they’ll jump Joe’s ship if they believe that he’s not the one who can take Trump down.   Oddly enough, despite the fact that the media keeps harping on Mike Bloomberg’s “stop and frisk” past, recent polls indicate that he is now doing well with Black voters.  A new national Quinnipiac University poll which shows Sanders in the lead with the support of 25% of Democratic voters over Biden with 17%  has Bloomberg in third with 15%, Warren with 14% and Buttigieg with 10%. Notably that same poll shows Bloomberg eating into Biden’s popularity among Black voters.  Though Biden still holds his usual lead, his support is down from 49% to 27% while Bloomberg’s has risen from 7% to a whopping 22%, not bad for a guy who didn’t even bother to show up for the first two primaries.

Return of the Snake: Trump showed up in New Hampshire yesterday, to provide some of his usual counterprogramming.  In addition to dredging up his old racist snake story, the anti-immigrant diatribe that impresses white supremacists everywhere, he also encouraged his fans to go out and vote in the Democratic primary for any candidate, hint, hint Bernie Sanders, who would be easiest for him to beat in the general election.  That’s possible because New Hampshire is one of those states where independents can vote in either the Democratic or Republican primary.  As to Trump’s assumption that Bernie would be the easiest candidate for him to beat, he’s not the only one who shares that view, a lot of pundits and moderate Democrats agree.  However, the polls, to the extent they are to be believed indicate otherwise.  Yesterday’s Quinnipiac poll shows Bernie beating Trump 51% to 43%.  The same poll shows Bloomberg beating Trump 51% to 42% and Biden 50% to 43%  with every other leading candidate including  Warren, Klobuchar and Buttigieg beating him too,  albeit by smaller margins.  National polls, especially this early in the game, are to be taken with a grain of salt but after a relentlessly rough week for anti-Trumpers those results are nice to see.

Justice Chronicles:  Attorney General Barr confirmed that he’s been receiving and “reviewing” whatever that means information about Hunter Biden forwarded to him by that trusted fellow Rudy Giuliani but that he’s directed his staff to scrutinize that information because everyone knows that everything that comes out of Ukraine is questionable.  House Judiciary Chair Nadler isn’t buying any of it, not that Barr cares.  Nadler sent him a letter demanding he explain himself adding “As you know, the Department has formal, established channels by which to receive information and begin investigations. This new channel to Mr. Giuliani would seem to be a significant departure from those traditional channels."  No doubt Barr filed Nadler’s letter in the wastebasket, the place he puts all letters from Democratic Chairmen. Stepping back to the Mueller investigation, there was news on that front as well.  Plans to sentence one time national security advisor Michael Flynn’s have been put on the back burner as he continues to try to reverse his guilty plea.   In other news Federal  prosecutors filed a sentencing memo recommending that Trump associate Roger Stone serve 7–9 years in jail for his crimes, the ones that involved obstruction of justice, lying to Congress and witness tampering.  Since Stone was actually found guilty by a jury he can’t try to pull his plea a la Flynn, but not to worry.  Yesterday Trump called his conviction and the sentencing memo a “miscarriage of justice.”  No doubt a few pardons are planned.   And because New Yorkers like to travel and are entitled to the same advantages of everyone else in the country, New York State’s Attorney General Letitia James is now suing the Trump administration over its decision to bar New Yorkers from the Trusted Traveler Programs.

Et Cetera: Score one for West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin.  He responded to Trump’s slam that he was nothing more than a Schumer puppet and a munchkin because he had voted against acquittal by saying “Munchkin means that you’re small, right? I’m bigger than him — of course he has me by weight, now, he has more volume than I have by about 30 or 40 pounds.” #LOL