In New Hampshire, It’s All Sanders and Buttigieg

With only a couple of days left until the New Hampshire primary, the latest poll aggregates are showing the dramatic effects of the Iowa caucuses:

Pete Buttigieg is soaring and Joe Biden is tanking. Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders and Amy Klobuchar are steadily gaining ground while Elizabeth Warren is steadily deflating.

Personally, I thought Biden did OK in Friday’s debate, but the consensus of the punderati is that he did poorly. If that’s the case, and he drops below 10 percent, it’s probably all over for Biden. Three presidential races over three decades and three losses.

Beyond that, who knows? I still find it hard to believe that Buttigieg has much of a chance, but after election night of 2016 I’ve given up on prognosticating. There’s obviously something about the American public that I don’t get anymore. If Republicans can nominate Donald Trump, I guess it’s not out of the question that Democrats could nominate Pete Buttigieg.

POSTSCRIPT: It’s worth noting that the two frontrunners are also the two who are the vaguest about how they’ll get anything done. Bernie promises a lot, but it all depends on his mythical “revolution,” and Pete is mostly full of mushy talk about “a new way of doing politics” and so forth. And the candidates who are doing poorly? The one with a plan for everything and the one running on experience in getting things done. It’s almost as if Democratic voters all understand that plans and experience are useless in the face of a Republican Senate that will block every single thing a Democratic president tries to do.

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