A lot of Democrats need to think quickly about how to react now that Bernie Sanders leads the race to their presidential convention.
Primary voters are much more ideological and partisan than the average American who casts his or her ballot in November. That’s why candidates run to the extremes until they win the nomination, then tack back sharply to the center in the general election. But Sanders has neither the ability nor the inclination to perform such a volte-face. So, what if he is swept in on a wave of nouveau socialism that leaves him high on the convention beach, while the sea washes back out again, taking all his drowning competitors with it?
I am also, to switch metaphors, reminded of an old adage about a hesitant cat, which is caught motionless because it wants to leap forward but doesn’t quite dare. The Democrats are that cat, now. Do they risk springing forward with Sanders, who has boiling enthusiasm on his side, and try to present him as a suitable president? Or, do they keep holding back, denying him wholehearted support in the hope that someone else will get the nomination. If they do that, they risk merely weakening his chances of success and commensurately boosting those of President Trump.
Like the cat, they’re in a quandary. I’ll be watching carefully for signs that party bigwigs are phasing out their attacks on Sanders and starting instead to normalize him, to suggest that more than $20 trillion of promised extra spending by a honeymoon-in-Moscow socialist is just the tonic America needs. If you start to see Sanders getting glowing profiles instead of rotten tomatoes, you’ll know Democrats and their media allies have thrown in the towel and decided to feel the Bern.
One policy on which Sanders is now in the Democratic mainstream — only Michael Bloomberg is a heretic on this — is opposition to charter schools. And that’s the subject of “Not Left Behind,” which is our cover story. Trump made a big point in his State of the Union speech of his support for school choice. He clearly recognizes it’s a wedge issue that can splinter black and Latino votes away from the Democrats.
Quin Hillyer celebrates two successive days 40 years ago, which between them stiffened the spine of the nation and perhaps changed the course of the Cold War. The first day was the “miracle on ice,” when the USA’s Olympic hockey amateurs inflicted a massive 4-3 upset defeat on the supposedly invincible professionals of the USSR. (Did you hear that sniff from Bernie?) A day later, Ronald Reagan refused to be sidelined in a presidential debate and barked, “I am paying for this microphone,” and started his sweep toward the presidency. Thrilling stuff!
Fred Barnes wonders if Virginia’s astonishing lurch left, from red to deep blue with hardly an intervening period of purple, will produce an electoral backlash, and James Piereson and Naomi Schaefer Riley excoriate those on the Left prosecuting a war on private charitable giving.
