Then There Were Two

No Plan For That: Seeing no path forward, Senator Elizabeth Warren dropped out of the race for the Democratic presidential nomination yesterday morning.  Her departure leaves two candidates, Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden, three if you count Hawaii Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard but since no one really counts her, I won’t either.  Together with her husband and Bailey, her rather adorable Golden Retriever, Warren formally announced her decision to depart the race during a press conference held outside of her Cambridge, Massachusetts home.  In addition to lamenting that her departure from the scene leaves two old white guys battling it out for the nomination she also expressed her disappointment in not being able to convince voters that there was a place for a candidate whose views fell between the moderate and left wings of the Democratic party.  Significantly, at least for now, she doesn’t plan to endorse either Bernie or Joe.  There’s no question that her progressive policies fall closer to Bernie’s but she also expressed some affinity for Joe and notably her supporters, many of whom don’t share much with Bernie’s base and who have been incredibly offended by their overt hostility, appear pretty much evenly split between the two guys.  Warren, who despite her failure to come out on top, was the smartest person running this season; she is likely cooking up a plan to maximize her impact, and that plan probably involves aligning her with the eventual winner. With her base so evenly split my guess is that she won’t endorse anyone until she knows who that septuagenarian guy will be.  As to that, given the remaining states up for grabs, many delegate wizard/prognosticators believe that Biden has the edge.  And Bernie, who is unlikely to bow out until he has exhausted all his options, appears to be concerned about their views.  Yesterday, after Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer endorsed Biden, Sanders cancelled plans to speak at a rally in Mississippi, one of those southern states that Biden is expected to win, to head to Michigan.  Bernie edged out Hillary Clinton in Michigan in 2016 but right now polls show the state’s March 10 primary going to Biden, an outcome that could doom Bernie’s chances.  In addition to Michigan,  four other states, Idaho, Mississippi, Missouri, and Washington are also on the March 10 primary schedule, with a fifth, North Dakota, holding a caucus. The next big primary day after that is March 17 where Arizona, Florida, Illinois and Ohio will be up for grabs and needless to say, given Bernie’s affinity for Fidel Castro’s literacy program, delegate rich Florida is already in the Biden bag.  Now for a bit of pontificating, yesterday a lot was said about how sad it was that with Warren out, the 2020 election will be all about which old white guy gets to serve as president for the next four years.  Okay, it would have been nice to have a woman at the top of the ticket, but let’s focus here, the important thing is winning and if winning means an old white guy as the candidate, so be it!  

Viral Musings: Speaking about old white guys, in addition to tweeting out glee about the end of “Mini” Mike Bloomberg’s and “Pocahontas” Elizabeth Warren’s campaigns the stable genius currently residing at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, or at least residing there when not campaigning or hanging at Mar a Lago or Bedminster, himself a known germaphobe, continues to assert that the Coronavirus is not a big deal, going so far as to suggest that since most infected people will exhibit only minor symptoms they should go to work even if they think they are sneezing and coughing germs.  Needless to say, the experts emphatically disagree, which probably explains the spate of recent school closings and why a cruise ship with 3500 passengers has been left stranded off the port of San Francisco receiving virus test kits via helicopter air drops.  The number of confirmed cases of COVID 19 in the US is now at 250, with 12 reported deaths, however the actual number of people infected is thought to be way higher since despite VP Pence’s promise that there would be enough of those test kits available to test upwards of a million people, the kits are still in short supply.  On the funding front, by a vote of 96 to 1 the Senate passed the $8.6 billion Coronavirus funding package previously passed by the House, sending it to Trump who though he earlier said that he only needed $2 billion because there were so many other critical social programs he could easily tap instead, is expected to sign it ASAP.  In case you are wondering that one “no” vote came from Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, who when he’s not playing Senator is an MD specializing in ophthalmology. In other virus news, it looks like Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, the designated virus scapegoat, has already been sidelined as VP Pence has started banning him from meetings and daily press updates.

Et Cetera:  Senator Chuck Schumer has apologized for those remarks he made about Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh though Trump, of course, still hasn’t apologized for anything.  US District Judge Reggie Walton, a Republican appointee,  “sharply rebuked” Attorney General Barr for his handling of the Mueller Russia report, saying Barr had made “misleading public statements” to spin the investigation’s findings in Trump’s favor and had shown a “lack of candor.”  The judge then directed the Justice Department to give him an unredacted version of the Mueller report so that he could decide if any additional information from the document could be publicly disclosed.  That rebuke is unprecedented but then again Barr’s behavior is too.  It appears that Mitt Romney may still be playing the role of Republican conscience. Apparently Romney is considering voting against Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson’s subpoena for all that Burisma/Biden stuff.  If Romney, who says that he’s concerned that the subpoena is politically motivated, duh, sticks to his guns, not yet a certainty, then Johnson won’t be able to get enough votes out of the Senate Homeland Security Committee to authorize the subpoena.  The stock markets gave up most of their post-Super Tuesday gains.  Who would have guessed that not only is a Fed rate cut not a virus cure but that it wouldn’t cure investor fears about virus related economic certainty?