Here Are the Numbers Bernie Needs to Win

07 March 20

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Here Are the Numbers Bernie Needs to Win

Doug Johnson Hatlem, Jacobin
Hatlem writes: "The delegate math looks better than the current media narrative suggests. Bernie Sanders and the movement behind him are still very much in the game. Here are the results he needs to win the nomination."

or all the talk of Joe Biden’s inevitability, the former vice president has won 45 percent or less of the delegates pledged to date. When the dust has settled on Super Tuesday ballot counting, his 50–75 delegate lead over Vermont senator Bernie Sanders will be smaller than Barack Obama’s more-than-100-delegate lead over Hillary Clinton at the end of February 2008. And it is far smaller than Clinton’s 224 pledged delegate lead over Sanders after Super Tuesday in 2016. Both of those races continued through June, and we should expect that 2020’s Democratic nomination process may well be even more competitive.

Bernie will have to hold Biden to something like 45 percent in the remaining contests. As implausible as that might seem at the moment, it should be remembered that just a week ago, Biden commanded only 15 percent of delegates available through the first three contests.

While Biden does have the wind at his back, “Gaffe Master Flash,” as Jon Stewart once dubbed him, will no longer be able to hide in a crowded field of eight or more candidates all vying for major attention. His speaking time in debates will now need to triple or quadruple, and the penchants for plagiarism and biography embellishment that helped sink previous Biden candidacies will now take center stage.

The Sanders campaign, meanwhile, is out with television ads trumpeting the fact that Bernie has also been friendly with Barack Obama — even earning the former president’s respect — and using Joe’s own explicit support for freezing Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. Those powerful words were only one small part of Biden’s decades-long crusade to balance the budget by cutting entitlements rather than increasing taxes on the wealthy or reining in military spending.

Here are two plausible paths that could see Bernie Sanders as the Democratic nominee come Milwaukee in July.

Path A: A “Just Short” Plurality (1,285+ or 52% of Remaining)

It does require a fair bit of whiplash to transition from the fourteen-month race, initially with twenty or more candidates, to a head-to-head contest in the space of just hours. It is marginally possible for Sanders to win a plurality in a head-to-head contest. (This path assumes again that Warren does not immediately endorse.) It would have to be a plurality, though, where Sanders also has a clear enough lead over Biden that party officials will have to think seriously about the destruction that would be wrought in elevating the second place candidate over the first.

Sanders would need to win about 52 percent of remaining delegates, finishing at something like 1,910 delegates to Biden’s approximately 1,870. Sanders would want the popular-vote lead in this scenario as well. Adding Elizabeth Warren’s 76 delegates (Warren supporting Sanders should not be assumed in this path) and even Tulsi Gabbard’s two delegates from American Samoa would not get Sanders to 1,990.

It would be possible, then, to block a first ballot win for Sanders with only Michael Bloomberg, Amy Klobuchar, and Pete Buttigieg unsuspending their candidacies just long enough to have their delegates cast a vote for them or for Biden on first ballot. Failing a coalition majority for Biden (the rules for such first-ballot coalitions are unclear, complex, and largely untested), superdelegates would be backup, providing one final Biden rescue effort on ballot number two in Milwaukee.

The only form of insurance against this turn of events for Sanders is that, more than anything else, it would signal not only a near-guaranteed second term for Donald Trump, but likely the end of the tenuous alliances that now make up the entire Democratic Party structure.

While the party establishment might risk that, it’s not at all certain they’d take that gamble — possibly even unlikely.

Path B: A Combined Majority (1,300+ or 53% of Remaining)

This path is very similar to Path A, but it’s more optimistic. We saw flashes in debates this summer of how powerful a tag team Warren and Sanders could be when it seemed that they were holding to an unstated nonaggression pact. All of that blew apart in the fall and especially into January. In this path, Warren immediately endorses Sanders, and they barnstorm the country together with energy and passion for big structural change. Sanders reaching 53 percent seems far more plausible in this imagined world.

It may well, however, be a dream far too good to be true. You can be sure that establishment Democrats are putting their very best foot forward in private to keep Warren from doing this, even if it most likely means selling her on reverting to her “neutral” stance of 2016 — or possibly even endorsing Biden.

Biden, the Zombie Candidate

After the surreal weekend that began on Saturday in South Carolina, one would be forgiven for thinking that the police have arrived and the party is over.

But Joe Biden is, in fact, a zombie candidate jolted back to life with a few phone calls from Obama. Now there’s nowhere left for the candidate to hide, though — the same candidate who wildly claimed to have been “arrested in South Africa with the UN ambassador on the streets of Soweto,” then walked it back a few days later. Such inventions would completely kill the chances of a lesser candidate. A living candidate.

What is the proper way to lay to rest a presidential campaign where the candidate himself has long since passed, but where no one — particularly the Democratic establishment — can afford to acknowledge it?

We’re all about find out.

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Mark Meadows. (photo: ABC)

Trump Names Mark Meadows Chief of Staff, Ousting Mick Mulvaney
Seung Min Kim and Josh Dawsey, The Washington Post
Kim and Dawsey write: "President Trump announced Friday that he has selected outgoing Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) as his next White House chief of staff, tapping one of his most stalwart congressional allies to run the White House as he navigates a global health crisis in a reelection year."

“I have long known and worked with Mark, and the relationship is a very good one,” Trump tweeted shortly after arriving at his South Florida resort, where he is spending the weekend.

Meadows replaces acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, who is being appointed the U.S. special envoy for Northern Ireland, Trump said in a follow-up tweet. The president thanked Mulvaney for “having served the administration so well.” The envoy position has been vacant under the Trump presidency.

Mulvaney stepped into the role in an acting capacity in early January 2019 on the departure of John F. Kelly. Meadows will be Trump’s fourth White House chief of staff, after Mulvaney, Kelly and Reince Priebus.

Meadows, a four-term lawmaker, announced in December that he would not run for reelection and hinted in his statement that he would join either the administration or Trump’s 2020 campaign.

The former leader of the conservative House Freedom Caucus made his mark on Capitol Hill as a frequent thorn in the side of GOP House speakers while developing a close relationship with the president, becoming one of his most fervent defenders.

Trump often calls Meadows early in the morning and late at night, after growing distrustful of House Republican leadership and developing an appreciation of Meadows’s appearances on cable television.

Mulvaney was given advance notice of the tweet, a senior White House official said, but did not learn about the job change until the president had already offered Meadows the job.

Mulvaney’s departure is likely to mean broad changes in the West Wing. He also had been a member of Congress and of the Freedom Caucus before joining the administration, and he installed in government posts a number of die-hard loyalists and conservatives who often bragged about getting things done below the radar.

Some of those aides, particularly his principal deputy, Emma Doyle, had already seen their responsibilities shrink in recent months. Meadows has developed close ties with senior adviser Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, who advocated for putting him in the post.

Mulvaney had also served as the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget and as the interim head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Russ Vought is now the acting OMB chief and could be nominated for the permanent post, according to two White House officials.

Trump sees Meadows as a fierce political operator who can be helpful to him as he goes into a stretch where his reelection campaign is likely to take him on the road three, and perhaps more, days per week.

The president recently had dinner with Meadows and his wife at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, a White House aide said. And at the recent wedding of White House aides Stephen Miller and Katie Waldman, Meadows sat next to Trump at the head table, attendees said, although Mulvaney did not.

Meadows thanked Trump in a statement Friday night. “It’s an honor to be selected by President Trump to serve alongside him and his team,” he said. “This President and his administration have a long list of incredible victories they’ve delivered to the country during this first term. With the best yet to come — and I look forward to helping build on that success and staying in the fight for the forgotten men and women of America.”

He has recently been at the White House nearly every day, advisers say, meeting with the president and others, particularly Kushner. He was seen last week having lunch with Marc Short, Vice President Pence’s chief of staff, in the White House Mess.

Aides had spoken of the two men having a deal for several months, and Trump began telling people on Thursday evening and Friday morning that he was going to tap Meadows, a person familiar with the choice said.

Meadows was instrumental in Trump’s impeachment defense, sometimes talking to the president four or five times a day, other advisers say. Trump did not have a volcanic falling-out with Mulvaney but never fully trusted him and kept him in the job in an acting capacity.

Like Mulvaney, Meadows is unlikely to prove as stiff a disciplinarian as Kelly, who encouraged the president when leaving to find someone who would challenge him or else he would find himself impeached.

One longtime Trump adviser said it was a questionable choice to install Meadows, given that he has no experience leading such a large operation.

“The president, and I’ve heard him say this, sees Mark as very good politically,” said the person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations. “But the president is a political animal. He needs someone who will actually take care of the store for him while he’s out running for reelection. And there’s a question in my mind whether Mark can do that.”

Meanwhile, Mulvaney often seemed out of the loop and sometimes even blissful about it.

He regularly traveled away from the president on weekends. When Trump clashed with national security adviser John Bolton last year and fired him, Mulvaney was in North Carolina, politicking for members of Congress.

At times in recent months, one close Trump adviser said, the president would say there was no need to loop Mulvaney into a particular discussion.

Mulvaney did not accompany the president Friday to Tennessee to survey storm damage, Atlanta to visit the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or South Florida for the weekend.

At a White House meeting with Trump, Pence and chief executives of major airlines earlier this week, Mulvaney stood off to the side, even as other senior administration officials sat at the table. Trump has been displeased generally with the administration’s handling of the novel coronavirus and has grown angry with Mulvaney on several occasions, aides said.

In a recent talk at the Oxford Union in England, Mulvaney seemed at peace with the idea that his days could be numbered.

“Generally speaking, this job does not last that long. Who knows how much longer I’m going to last?” Mulvaney said during the February remarks.

Meadows prides himself on being an operator in Washington. He is often at some of the city’s swankiest parties and galas, including the Meridian Ball, and at the British Embassy and other black-tie events. He also maintained close relationships with key congressional Democrats, such as the late representative Elijah E. Cummings (Md.), who was chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee.

He keeps a place in North Carolina but has spent much of his time in Washington in recent years.

“Mark is a really savvy strategist. You love him or hate him, but anyone who knows him knows he thinks three-dimensionally at all times,” a senior administration official said. “That’ll be his biggest value-add to the White House. He thinks of angles and approaches that others won’t, and thinks steps ahead. He’ll be crucial in helping get out of the cycle of being totally reactive.”

Some in the president’s orbit, though, worry that Meadows is duplicitous. Several current and former Trump aides say they feel he often tells the president one thing but sometimes tells lawmakers or Capitol Hill staffers something entirely different.

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Immigration officials have continued to separate some children from their parents at the border. (photo: Eric Gay/AP)

Key Trump Administration Officials Failed to Act on Warnings About Family Separation, Watchdog Reports
Priscilla Alvarez, CNN
Alvarez writes: "Senior Department of Health and Human Services officials failed to act on repeated warnings from staff about family separations at the US-Mexico border, and staff members were advised not to put controversial information in writing, according to a HHS inspector general report released Thursday."
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Hands typing on a computer keyboard. (photo: hamburg_berlin/Shutterstock)

New Bill Would Protect Journalists From Being Prosecuted for Publishing Classified Information
Alex Emmons, The Intercept
Emmons writes: "Almost a year after the Trump administration unsealed an indictment against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, two progressive members of Congress are trying to prevent a World War I-era secrecy law from being used to investigate and prosecute journalists for publishing classified information."
READ MORE

Activists in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. (photo: Getty Images)

"Supreme Inequality": Author Adam Cohen on the Supreme Court's 50-Year Battle Against Justice
Democracy Now!
Excerpt: "The makeup of the U.S. Supreme Court has come under intense criticism in recent years after two Trump-nominated justices joined the bench."
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Demonstrators take part in a protest marking the National Day Against Femicide in Santiago in December. (photo: Iván Alvarado/Reuters)

'Our Role Is Central': More Than 1 Million Women to March in Huge Protest in Chile
Charis McGowan, Guardian UK
McGowan writes: "More than a million women in Chile are preparing to join a massive protest this Sunday to mark International Women's Day, in a march expected to reignite the wave of social unrest that began four months ago."
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EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler. (photo: Getty Images)

EPA Doubles Down on Its Attempt to Censor Science
Vijay Limaye, National Resources Defense Council
Excerpt: "The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's 2018 censoring science proposal aimed to undercut the agency's application of landmark public health science by severely restricting its use in decision making."

he U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's 2018 censoring science proposal aimed to undercut the agency's application of landmark public health science by severely restricting its use in decision making. The proposal was a dangerous disaster that lacked any sound legal basis and threatened to impose draconian and hugely costly restrictions on the types of scientific information eligible for consideration by EPA in implementing laws like the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, and Safe Drinking Water Act. Those laws have delivered major health and economic benefits to the American public over the past 50 years, and that progress was put in direct peril because of this transparent attempt to undercut the evidence-based approach that has made environmental protection so effective in the U.S.

Because Pruitt's 2018 proposal was so ill-conceived, it generated fierce opposition. The 600,000 public comments submitted to EPA included criticism from scientists and health experts (like doctors and nurses, epidemiologists, and toxicologists) and everyday citizens who understood its potential to fundamentally weaken our nation's public health safeguards by favoring industry-backed pseudoscience over consensus-based, peer-reviewed, established facts. NRDC submitted 127 pages of comments on the original proposal, outlining its numerous legal and scientific deficiencies—flaws that should've sent the proposal into the trash bin.

Instead, with former coal industry lobbyist Andrew Wheeler now running the EPA, the agency Tuesday proposed to expand the scope of the censoring science rule. In a wandering supplemental proposal, EPA reveals that it now intends to greatly expand, not retreat from, its science censorship agenda in key ways:

• Broader definitions: EPA now says that its science censorship rule would apply to any "data and models" used by the agency to craft regulations. This change is a significant expansion of the net cast in the original proposal, which was limited to "dose-response data and models," and it could weaken a wider range of current pollution controls across the country.


• Arbitrary interference: The agency proposes to prioritize its consideration of certain scientific studies over others without clear criteria. That's a recipe for bias and chaos in future EPA rulemaking, because there's no clear explanation for how such important decisions will be made or implemented.


• Veto power: The agency proposes to give the EPA administrator the authority to ignore the rule's restrictions and make exceptions to allow for an unlimited number of handpicked studies to be considered. Moreover, the administrator would not need to provide any robust explanation for such a run-around.


• Retroactive restrictions: EPA now says that it may apply the rule retroactively so that it could throw out the literally tens of thousands of studies that it has relied to craft environmental laws. This radical approach could upend the decades of gains we've made in national clean air and water protections and force us to start from scratch—meanwhile, restrictions on polluters could be significantly relaxed.

Amazingly, nearly two years after it first proposed this idea, the agency still doesn't know what the legal authority it has to implement this fatally-flawed proposal. Instead, it's asking the public to tell it what that is. This is absurd and, I believe, unprecedented. Agencies are supposed to be interpreting the law, not embarking on fanciful crusades and then trying to find a legal justification for their actions.

It's no secret that the Trump administration despises science, whether it's the factual evidence of accelerating climate change or the significant health dangers posed by the COVID-19 outbreak. Rather than accept scientific facts and do their jobs, EPA's political leaders prefer to close their eyes and reject established truths. By redoubling its efforts on science censorship and stacking the deck in favor of industry interests, the Trump EPA is putting the health of us all at risk.

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