by Greg Valliere, AGF Management Ltd.
LAST NIGHT’S DEBACLE IN IOWA allows candidates to make up their own narratives — “I won,” Pete Buttigieg proclaimed last night, but who will ever know for sure?
REPORTS ON THE GROUND indicated great enthusiasm for Bernie Sanders, while crowds were embarrassingly slim for Joe Biden in many locations. Yet all of them can say they won; no one will concede they lost.
AFTER A YEAR of campaigning in Iowa, and millions of dollars spent, the results announced this afternoon will matter little. The outcome will always be suspect, and hopefully this bizarre caucus system will die.
SO NOW IT’S ON TO ANOTHER mostly white state that doesn’t look like the rest of America, but at least New Hampshire will have voting booths. We continue to believe Sanders leads in the Granite State’s Feb. 11 primary, and we continue to believe that Joe Biden is in trouble, hanging on until he gets to more diverse states later this month.
THE SMARTEST DEMOCRAT IN AMERICA is looking like Mike Bloomberg, who showed the good sense to avoid Iowa and New Hampshire. He’s inching higher in the national polls, now close to 10%, and soon may become the “stop Bernie” candidate.
THE ARGUMENT AGAINST SANDERS is simple — not only would he be the underdog to Trump, but Sanders at the top of the ticket could drag down dozens of Democrats running in congressional and gubernatorial races. Trump has ratcheted up his criticism of Sanders, calling him a “communist.”
NOT THAT A TRUMP-BLOOMBERG race would be pretty — the president alleged over the weekend that Bloomberg has demanded a box to stand on in upcoming debates; being short is a fatal flaw in Trump’s eyes. A Bloomberg aide responded that Trump was lying, just as he lies about “his fake hair, obesity and spray-on tan.” Not exactly the Lincoln-Douglas debates . . .
TRUMP ON A ROLL: He gets an hour of free TV tonight to brag about the economy; he’ll win acquittal on Wednesday; the Democrats looked amateurish last night in Iowa; and the markets are shrugging off the coronavirus.
ONLY TWO CANDIDATES CAN STOP TRUMP, in our opinion — Trump himself, always capable of turning off moderates with some new outrage; or Bloomberg, who’s willing to spend billions, hiring the best campaign staff money can buy, and saturating the airwaves with ads. Bloomberg was handed a gift last night; let’s see if he can exploit it.
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This post was first published at the AGF Perspectives Blog.
