Tuesday is always special because it’s when each new issue of the Washington Examiner magazine hits the street. But this is no ordinary Tuesday; it’s Super Tuesday. Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, and Virginia all choose who they want to be the Democratic presidential nominee. (President Trump will, of course, clean up among Republicans.)
Super Tuesday has massive weight. It’s when Trump broke the back of GOP resistance to his nomination in 2016, winning seven states to Ted Cruz’s three, and Marco Rubio’s one. It’ll reveal whether Bernie Sanders can do the same thing on the Democratic side of the ledger, or whether Michael Bloomberg’s billions or Joe Biden’s something-or-other can stall the party’s swoon into the arms of the 78-year-old unreconstructed Marxist, Bernie Sanders. So, this might be Supernova Tuesday, when the politics we’ve known explodes.
How could this happen? I wrote last week under the headline “Socialism vs. America” that we’re watching a party decide whether to blow away restraints and choose a champion whose promises to change the nation radically are not the sort of aspirational vapors voters always hear. This time, one of the two big parties could accept an agenda to make America into a different (much worse) country — no longer a shining light of freedom, but a busted polity falling for the blandishments of a squalid egalitarianism that always fails.
Jay Cost writes about how the Democratic Party system of concealing its true intentions has finally collapsed. Up till now, Democrats have camouflaged their radicals to con the electorate. But there’s no concealing who Sanders is. He trumpets admiration of Fidel Castro, the Soviet Union, and confiscating healthcare choice from 160 million citizens. He wants a clear mandate, and the party hierarchy is in a state of utter panic. Trump again looks like the luckiest politician alive.
Jay Caruso lays out how the Democratic Party’s control collapsed, Ed Morrissey profiles Amy Klobuchar, perhaps the Democrats’ most capable candidate, I suggest that similarities between Sanders and Trump are more apparent than real, Rob Crilly lays out the Trump attack lines against the Democratic front-runners, Phil Klein reveals California’s crucial role, Madeline Fry notes that as voters go to the polls, partisan “sorting” is getting worse, and Naomi Lim sends us a postcard from Texas.
