The Boston Globe Is Right-- Send Ed Markey Back To The Senate

As I've said many times, Joe Kennedy III doesn't take a sip of water or tie a shoelace before considering how it will impact his eventual run for the presidency. Largely on the romanticism of his name, he was elected to an open House seat in 2012, where he hasn't been an especially impressive member. He's certainly no AOC-- not on any level. A member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, he's barely a progressive. His lifetime ProgressivePunch score is B+ (that high once he decided to challenge Markey and start voting more progressively to run the score up).

Senator Ed Markey, on the other hand, has the best ProgressivePunch voting record of anyone in the Senate; someone's got to be #1; it's Markey. You might be interested in knowing he's been endorsed by Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, Zephyr Teachout and AOC-- as well as the Sunrise Movement, Our Revolution, PDA and NARAL. Bad incumbents should be relentlessly primaried. Good ones, on the other hand, should be supported. That's why Blue America has endorsed Ed Markey for reelection and for the September 1 primary. Please consider clicking on our ActBlue 2020 Senate thermometer on the right and showing him some love; he's earned it. Yesterday, the editors of the Boston Globe gave him a full-throttle endorsement, noting that he's often ahead of the curve in championing progressive causes, something no one will ever accuse Joe Kennedy of. In the House and, more recently in the Senate, Markey has been a leader-- which is different from a follower-- in "cracking down on insider trading, ensuring consumer access to wireless spectrum technologies, or helping create a broad movement to put a freeze on nuclear arms."

Decades before CNN hosted its first town hall for presidential candidates devoted to climate change, and decades before Greta Thunberg, the Swedish teenage activist, was named Time magazine’s “Person of the Year,” Markey worked to make the air we breathe cleaner and to stave off the catastrophic heat waves, droughts, and rising seas poised to displace millions of people around the world.

In the 1980s, he co-authored legislation, signed by President Reagan, to make household appliances more energy-efficient, which has saved Americans billions on electric bills and spared communities and the planet the toxic, heat-trapping emissions from hundreds of coal-fired power plants. He co-led the bipartisan effort to raise fuel economy standards for cars and trucks that resulted in the 2007 law that brought forth new, innovative low-emissions and electric vehicles to the marketplace and reduced Americans’ consumption of oil. And in 2009, he and Representative Henry Waxman of California successfully moved a historic cap-and-trade bill through the US House of Representatives that would have put a price on carbon emissions and made a significant impact on planetary warming, had it not faltered in the Senate amid lackluster support from an Obama White House that prioritized health care reform.

If the senator from Malden spends a lot of time in Washington, one reason might be that he’s been busy getting legislative proposals passed to improve people’s lives. With the pandemic ravaging the American economy, Markey has pushed for policies to aid vulnerable families, especially for the millions who have lost jobs, businesses, and health insurance during the crisis. He has advocated business relief targeted at enterprises owned by women and people of color, temporary assistance for gig workers, and greater oversight of corporate bailout funding.

What distinguishes Markey’s leadership from many other Democrats, however, is that he’s pushed the country to think bigger about its response to the pandemic, whether it’s a call to fight the disease with a new kind of Manhattan Project, pushing for larger-scale stimulus, or articulating that this political moment is akin to the conditions that made possible FDR’s New Deal. In this moment, the country and the Commonwealth need leaders who won’t settle for incremental progress, who recognize the profound underlying conditions of inequality and racial injustice that exacerbate our problems, and who notice that the table is set for transformational change and can help carry it out with legislative proposals.

No problem makes that need more apparent than the climate crisis. Global carbon emissions hit a record annual high before the pandemic, temperatures are rising, and the Paris agreement is in the lurch after President Trump’s avowed withdrawal. Climate disasters cost the United States more than $525 billion over the past five years. Summer heat waves kill the old and young, Siberia burns, and seas rise in coastal cities including Boston. Leading climate scientists recently have warned us that the window to act to prevent catastrophic warming is closing.

Yet political will to address climate change is growing in the American public, and the need for significant federal stimulus to address the fallout of the pandemic presents the opportunity to remake the economy to be more energy efficient and less carbon intensive. If Democrats win back the White House and the Senate, Congress may at last pass legislation to spare society the worst humanitarian and economic costs of climate disasters. Markey is poised-- and arguably more prepared than any other politician in the US government-- to fill in the conceptual aspirations of the Green New Deal resolution that he cosponsored with Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez with practical policies and to get them passed in Congress.

As countless observers have pointed out, the Sept. 1 Senate primary is not a contest between candidates with competing values. Representative Joseph P. Kennedy III also cares about progressive causes, and his commitment to voting and health care access and to protecting immigrants and LGBTQ rights is laudable. A call to Joe is bound to yield insights about what’s happening on the ground in communities in the Commonwealth-- the congressman has his finger on the pulse of his constituents in the Fourth District and of Massachusetts politics. He uses his name and that trademark Kennedy charisma to help Democrats around the country win, a noble cause in an era when the GOP has made Donald Trump its flag bearer. It is clear that Kennedy has a passion for public service and the drive to have a real impact. This board looks forward to seeing what he will accomplish, whatever his next role is.

But Kennedy has not made a persuasive case for removing Markey from the Senate seat he has occupied with dignity and tenacity while achieving real results. With the window for action on the climate crisis closing, Kennedy’s candidacy looks less compelling; while he’s committed to the cause, he lacks the chops and track record that Markey would bring to a legislative effort to renew the economy with cleaner sources of energy and make communities more resilient.

Contrary to what some skeptics of Kennedy’s bid think, primary races are not inherently a waste. They can serve to usefully challenge thinking within the party and to unseat incumbents who fail to deliver for their constituents or who have become hopelessly out of touch with the needs of the nation. But Markey is not past his time; rather, his time may finally have arrived.

The crux of Kennedy’s campaign against Markey seems to come down to the question of whether a generational torch-passing is needed in the delegation this year. And here, the senator’s own words to The Globe editorial board are his best defense: “It’s not your age. It’s the age of your ideas that’s important.”

Markey’s priorities are focused not on nostalgia for America’s past but on securing a better future, whether it’s advocating access to broadband in classrooms, research on gun violence, or curbing the pollution that will change the planet for coming generations. In the protests for racial justice sweeping the country, Markey sees echoes of past social movements, a chance to listen and have the politics of the streets shape the politics on Capitol Hill.

That’s not out of touch; it’s tuned in to what the next generation is demanding. And to do right by them, it’s urgent to keep Ed Markey in the game.

During last Sunday debate, Kennedy was asked why he joined the notoriously racist join a famously racist Kappa Alpha fraternity, which worships Robert E. Lee (who they explicitly acknowledge as their "Spiritual Founder") and why it took him until last month-- 2 decades after the fact-- to disassociate himself from it. He admitted he wishes he hadn't joined but that doesn't answer the question. He always claims that the Stanford chapter had nothing to do with the national organization, which just isn't true. The frat's literature, rituals and traditions are filled with reverence for the Confederacy and the Old South and for racism. The chapters-- albeit before Joe K III joined-- used to call themselves Klans, although we're not talking ancient history here. When the first black students to integrate the University of Georgia (1961) arrived on campus, the Alpha Kappa Klan flew the Confederate flag at half mast. It wasn't until 2001 that the Alpha Kappas stopped flying the Confederate flag.

This week, Kennedy's campaign accused Markey of not including the towns of Stoughton, Blackstone, Dana, Dudley, Enfield, and Prescott on a campaign map and insisting "they do not exist in Markey's Massachusetts. Well, Dana, Enfield and Prescot actually don't exist in anyone's Massachusetts. They were flooded to make way for the Quabbin Reservoir in the 1930s. I guess if he doesn't remember the racism of his college frat, who could expect him to know not to schedule any rallies in Dana, Enfield and Prescot.

Isn't It About Time For Some Racial Justice Reform In Our Country?

Later-- after the CNN appearance above-- on Fox News Sunday, Cornel West said "What we’re seeing here is the ways in which the vicious legacy of white supremacy manifests in organized hatred, greed and corruption. We’re witnessing the collapse of the legitimacy of leadership, the political class, the economic class, the professional class, that’s the deeper crisis... The beautiful thing is we’re seeing citizens who are caring and concerned hitting the streets. The problem is we have a system that’s not responding and seems to be unable to respond." And Trump does nothing but make everything worse-- in this case much worse.

Roxane Gay isn't as well known but her NY Times OpEd yesterday was just as salient and just as important. "Eventually," she wrote, "doctors will find a coronavirus vaccine, but black people will continue to wait for a cure for racism... The economy is shattered. Unemployment continues to climb, steeply. There is no coherent federal leadership. The president mocks any attempts at modeling precautionary behaviors that might save American lives. More than 100,000 Americans have died from Covid-19." Actually, that 106,128 deaths in the U.S.

Many of us have been in some form of self-isolation for more than two months. The less fortunate continue to risk their lives because they cannot afford to shelter from the virus. People who were already living on the margins are dealing with financial stresses that the government’s $1,200 “stimulus” payment cannot begin to relieve. A housing crisis is imminent. Many parts of the country are reopening prematurely. Protesters have stormed state capitals, demanding that businesses reopen. The country is starkly dividing between those who believe in science and those who don’t.

...The disparities that normally fracture our culture are becoming even more pronounced as we decide, collectively, what we choose to save-- what deserves to be saved.

And even during a pandemic, racism is as pernicious as ever. Covid-19 is disproportionately affecting the black community, but we can hardly take the time to sit with that horror as we are reminded, every single day, that there is no context in which black lives matter.

Breonna Taylor was killed in her Louisville, Ky., home by police officers looking for a man who did not even live in her building. She was 26 years old. When demonstrations erupted, seven people were shot.

Ahmaud Arbery was jogging in South Georgia when he was chased down by two armed white men who suspected him of robbery and claimed they were trying perform a citizen’s arrest. One shot and killed Mr. Arbery while a third person videotaped the encounter. No charges were filed until the video was leaked and public outrage demanded action. Mr. Arbery was 25 years old.

In Minneapolis, George Floyd was held to the ground by a police officer kneeling on his neck during an arrest. He begged for the officer to stop torturing him. Like Eric Garner, he said he couldn’t breathe. Three other police officers watched and did not intervene. Mr. Floyd was 46 years old.

These black lives mattered. These black people were loved. Their losses to their friends, family, and communities, are incalculable.

Demonstrators in Minneapolis took to the street for several days, to protest the killing of Mr. Floyd. Mr. Trump-- who in 2017 told police officers to be rough on people during arrests, imploring them to “please, don’t be too nice”-- wrote in a tweet, “When the looting starts, the shooting starts.” The official White House Twitter feed reposted the president’s comments. There is no rock bottom.

Christian Cooper, an avid birder, was in Central Park’s Ramble when he asked a white woman, Amy Cooper, to comply with the law and leash her dog. He began filming, which only enraged Ms. Cooper further. She pulled out her phone and said she was going to call the police to tell them an African-American man was threatening her.

She called the police. She knew what she was doing. She weaponized her whiteness and fragility like so many white women before her. She began to sound more and more hysterical, even though she had to have known she was potentially sentencing a black man to death for expecting her to follow rules she did not think applied to her. It is a stroke of luck that Mr. Cooper did not become another unbearable statistic.

An unfortunate percentage of my cultural criticism over the past 11 or 12 years has focused on the senseless loss of black life. Mike Brown. Trayvon Martin. Sandra Bland. Philando Castile. Tamir Rice. Jordan Davis. Atatiana Jefferson. The Charleston Nine.

These names are the worst kind of refrain, an inescapable burden. These names are hashtags, elegies, battle cries. Still nothing changes. Racism is litigated over and over again when another video depicting another atrocity comes to light. Black people share the truth of their lives, and white people treat those truths as intellectual exercises.

They put energy into being outraged about the name “Karen,” as shorthand for entitled white women rather than doing the difficult, self-reflective work of examining their own prejudices. They speculate about what murdered black people might have done that we don’t know about to beget their fates, as if alleged crimes are punishable by death without a trial by jury. They demand perfection as the price for black existence while harboring no such standards for anyone else.

Some white people act as if there are two sides to racism, as if racists are people we need to reason with. They fret over the destruction of property and want everyone to just get along. They struggle to understand why black people are rioting but offer no alternatives about what a people should do about a lifetime of rage, disempowerment and injustice.

When I warned in 2018 that no one was coming to save us, I wrote that I was tired of comfortable lies. I’m even more exhausted now. Like many black people, I am furious and fed up, but that doesn’t matter at all.

I write similar things about different black lives lost over and over and over. I tell myself I am done with this subject. Then something so horrific happens that I know I must say something, even though I know that the people who truly need to be moved are immovable. They don’t care about black lives. They don’t care about anyone’s lives. They won’t even wear masks to mitigate a virus for which there is no cure.

Eventually, doctors will find a coronavirus vaccine, but black people will continue to wait, despite the futility of hope, for a cure for racism. We will live with the knowledge that a hashtag is not a vaccine for white supremacy. We live with the knowledge that, still, no one is coming to save us. The rest of the world yearns to get back to normal. For black people, normal is the very thing from which we yearn to be free.

I asked some of the top congressional candidates from around the country how they are thinking about the weekend's protests and if they're at odds with their opponents about the racial justice issues.

Lisa Ring is running in the coastal Georgia district and her opponent is a Trumpist Republican, Buddy Carter. Lisa told us that on Sunday she "attended a peaceful protest in Savannah along with hundreds of protesters in my district. Sadly, protesting against racial hatred, brutality and murder has become all too familiar on the coast of Georgia. Just a few weeks ago I was in Brunswick (also in my district) protesting the murder of Ahmad Arbery and the corruption of the Glynn County D.A.s office to arrest the perpetrators who hunted down and killed Ahmad. Rep. Buddy Carter offers the usual platitudes. Yet, he would never join us at a protest or propose any significant change involving racial justice or law enforcement accountability. To do so would anger his support base which remains at the heart of a systemically racist system that refuses to die. We marched this same route in 2016 shouting 'black lives matter' after the deaths of Philando Castile and Eric Garner. We heard the same canned responses from our leaders. If we expect change, we must do more than march, we must take power away from the ineffectual leaders in our country who lack true compassion and provide no solutions to injustice.

The Democratic candidate in Riverside County's 42nd district is progressive Liam O'Mara and he's taking on serial Trump enabler Ken Calvert. "Year after year,"he told us this afternoon, "we see the same stories, about young men and women of color savagely beaten or killed for non-violent crimes. At some point you would think the country might listen to the many sociologists and historians who have been describing the causes for decades. But no, every time it seems to follow a predictable pattern of short-term outrage, then a return to business as usual, with public figures seldom asking the hard questions or proposing viable solutions. And solutions do exist! Instead of terrorizing poor communities with heavily-armed enforcers, we should invest in businesses and civic renewal projects. We need fully to break the school-to-prison pipeline, and that means taking the emphasis off of law enforcement and placing it on things like counselling and adequate resources for success. In addition, we need to create a stronger culture of individual accountability among the police, and get back to the spirit of community policing to restore trust in law enforcement. Our congressmember, Ken Calvert, has made an appeal to God and called for us to move forward in peace. This is a polite way of saying nothing should change, the protesters should go home, and life for middle class white America can return to blissful ignorance of the daily challenges faced by people of colour. We don't need a 28-year incumbent with a history of race-baiting-- we need a new voice to tackle the challenges of our times.

Cathy Kunkel is running in the central district of West Virginia, also against a Trump Republican, Alex Moonie. "In the WV Can't Wait movement," she told us today, "we are fighting for a government for works for all of us. Not just the 97% white population of West Virginia, but all of us. That means taking on a broken criminal justice system where 12% of our prison population is black, an education system that disproportionately funnels black students into a school-to-prison pipeline, and an economic system where the racial wealth gap is growing even wider. These are problems that must be tackled at the federal, state and local level, and we must do so by listening to and lifting up the voices of black leadership - leaders who have been speaking up for decades about the pain and fear in their communities. As Martin Luther King, Jr said, 'a riot is the language of the unheard.'"

Texas progressive Mike Siegel is taking on GOP incumbent Michael McCaul in a gerrymandered Texas district that was created to prevent Travis County (Austin) from being fully represented. Siegel told us that "We are looking at a 400-year history of slavery, Jim Crow and institutional racism, compounded by a national health pandemic, compounded by an economic crisis, compounded by a hateful and divisive presidency. There will be no easy fixes or 'going back to normal.' What is needed is massive, structural change to how we approach public safety, policing, and criminal justice. The Texas 10th has long been a center of struggle for racial justice. This is the home of Prairie View A&M, a leading historically-- black college located on a former slave plantation. This is where Sandra Bland died in police custody after an unconstitutional arrest. This is where Rodney Reed has been on Texas Death Row for decades for a crime that was committed by a white former police officer who was protected by his friends in law enforcement. And this is where Michael McCaul has been a 'representative' for sixteen years in name, never lifting a finger to fight for Black lives in any of you nine TX-10 counties. This week I am joining Ayanna Presley’s call for passage of

The People’s Justice Guarantee, a comprehensive demand for criminal justice reform. We have much to do to create an equitable and just society, and eradicating racism in criminal justice is an essential part of this work."

There's just one progressive challenger in Arizona who has a chance to replace a conservative, Eva Putzova. She told us that her "ex"-Republican Blue Dog opponent is mouthing the same tired platitudes that all conservatives save for a weekend like this. "Tom O'Halleran's response to the latest brutal murder of a black man at the hands of a white police officer was 'we need to improve our understanding of racism.' These are empty words from another politician who has no plan or intention of providing real solutions to systemic racism in our country. A bill to just study the idea of reparations for African-Americans has been in Congress for 5 months and he hasn't co-sponsored it. To save lives, we need bold reform that flips the system on its head. That's why I proudly signed current and former congressional candidates Cori Bush (MO-01) and Anthony Clark’s (IL-07) Pledge to End Police Violence, which includes comprehensive reform to tackle police violence head on. To address the systemic racism embedded in our country, we also need deep criminal justice reform, including the federal legalization of marijuana, and ending cash bail and for-profit prisons. And that's just to start. We can't solve systemic racism in a few bills, but it's the duty of our Congressmembers to move us closer towards justice. Right now, Tom O'Halleran is sitting still."

Monroe County, NY progressive Robin Wilt is taking on a do-nothing career politician of her own party. Racial justice is an important issue for her; though not for him. "According to 24/7 Wall Street, my Congressional District is ranked second-worst in the nation in terms of outcomes for Black Americans," she told me. The only one that ranks worst is the Minneapolis Congressional District in which George Floyd was murdered. What that means in terms of health care, educational, and wealth and income disparities, is that Black Americans in my district are three times as likely to be impoverished, three times as likely to be unemployed, and have a homeownership rate of less than half that of their white counterparts. These disparities are borne of the structural racism and unjust policies of which my opponent, as a three-decades-long state Assemblyman in the region, is one of the architects. As one of my supporters so eloquently said, 'You cannot expect the people who made the system, who have spent their lifetime benefitting from the system, to change it.'

Rochester has also had its own issues with police brutality and lack of accountability. Recently, the electorate overwhelmingly passed a referendum establishing a civilian review board that has subpoena power in matters of police discipline. In an ongoing lawsuit, the Police Union has attacked the Police Accountability Board civilian oversight provision on constitutional grounds. My opponent has remained silent on the matter.

The Rochester City School District, which according to the same 24/7 Wall Street article, is comprised of approximately 90% students of color, recently faced a $30-million dollar budgetary shortfall. My opponent, instead of calling for New York to live up to its obligation to fully-fund the district’s foundation aid that is its due, callously called for Donald Trump’s Justice Department to investigate the Rochester City School District’s finances. This is the self-same segregated school system that LA School Report identified as having the most economically segregating school district border in the country.

As I listened to the impassioned testimonials at the Rochester Black Lives Matter protest this past Saturday, out of the corner of my eye, I witnessed my opponent ducking out. I was surprised that he had deigned at all to make an appearance, so when he exited prematurely, in the middle of one Black and Brown person after another expressing the pain and anguish of the inequities that our communities of color endure, I couldn’t help but think that his act of turning his back and ducking out on the speakers, after taking his photo opportunity, was the perfect analogy for how he has treated our communities of color during his tenure as an elected official.

It is time that we had a representative in the 25th Congressional District who not only understands that it’s not okay to turn one’s back on our most vulnerable and disaffected communities, but also that in order for us to make progress as a district, we must do so together; it cannot be achieved at the expense of our most marginalized.

Tom Guild is also taking on a pathetic excuse for a Democrat, but in Oklahoma City. His opponent is Blue Dog Kendra Horn, one of the most anti-progressive members of the House Democratic caucus. "There are so many pernicious and vexing problems begging for systemic change in America," Tom tildes today. "The ruling political class plays games with people’s lives in order to stay in the saddle and continue to not only not solve existing problems but to add new quagmires to the top of the heap. Black and Brown people in our country start their struggle to survive more often than not dealing with the heavy weight of poverty on their backs. We desperately need systemic change. For instance, most people of color in America have either no health care available or woefully inadequate options. We could make systemic change to help nearly everyone by moving to a single payer health care system. It would take the profit incentive out of the equation and greatly diminish the grating weight on the backs of Americans. It would also help Black and Brown Americans the most, because they are the ones suffering the most under the current for profit system.

"Even the Pelosi-led Democrats in the U.S. House are simply kicking the lead weight down the road by propping up the private health care system and maximizing profits for Big Insurance and Big Pharma, and calling that reform. The Senate Republicans are even worse. Black and Brown neighborhoods tend to have poor educational opportunities, which exacerbates the problems faced by our Brothers and Sisters of Color. At the state legislative level, most legislatures have Democrats 'fighting' to provide too little funding for minority schools, while many Republicans want to defund public schools altogether and plow what little public money there is available into 'charter' and private schools, either directly or indirectly.

"So our Black and Brown Brothers and Sisters are stifled by poverty and lack of quality educational opportunities. As they grow up, many minority children learn to fear law enforcement officials and are often treated with disrespect, threats to their lives, and too often actually lose their lives at the hands of police officers who are charged with protecting them. The recent list of Black Men and Women unarmed and submissive to police, who nonetheless end up losing their lives grows like topsy. Not only is the George Floyd case very recent, it is also particularly heinous and egregious. White officers had him subdued and completely under their control, while one of the white officers put his knee and the weight of his body on the neck of Mr. Floyd for nearly nine minutes and for three+ minutes after George Floyd begged for his life by painfully communicating that he could not breathe. Mr. Floyd’s alleged crime was trying to pass a counterfeit $20 bill. There are so many words or phrases to describe Mr. Floyd’s horrific experience. Heinous. Brutal. Despicable. Unforgivable. Racist. Inhumane. Heartbreaking. Senseless. The list goes on and on.

"We desperately need systemic change in the criminal justice system. It way too often treats people of color as the dreaded-- other. First, police forces should closely mirror the demographics of the areas they serve. E.g. If 30% of a city’s population is black, 30% of the police department should be black. We need to solve the cruel problem of poverty. We need to provide all of our brothers and sisters with a quality education. We need to treat everyone with respect. We need to prosecute errant law enforcement officials, so that justice is truly blind. We need to love one another. We need to follow the Golden Rule. We need to elect people to represent us who want to make systemic changes and solve intractable problems. We need to defeat or not elect candidates who are on the make and are political social climbers and don’t care about the people they represent. God knows we have a lot to do, a lot of systemic changes to make, and a whole lotta love to dole out by the truckload. He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother or sister or neighbor or co-worker or fellow American or human being. It seems a daunting challenge, but as the old saying goes-- a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Do Black Lives Matter? Hell. YES! Once we wrap our minds, hearts, and souls around that one, we begin the process of systemic and healing change and the opportunity to solve difficult and vexing problems, instead of adding to the list horribles! We should adopt Jackie DeShannon’s Put a Little Love in Your Heart as our second national anthem!"

Status Quo Joe-- Inert, Non-Presence

Trump (+ Pence), Gavin Newsom, Andrew Cuomo, Bernie and Elizabeth Warren are preaching out to frightened Americans in a big way-- Bernie and Elizabeth substantively, Trump and Pence as part of the p.r. approach and Newsom and Cuomo with their baby steps. But Status Quo Joe is no where at all. His handlers and the plutocrats who financed his toxic SuperPAC think he has it all sewn up and they don't want voters to notice his frightening-- and disqualifying-- mental deterioration. Trump's daily appearances are propaganda more akin to his MAGA hate rallies than to FDR's fireside chats. Jennifer Senior for the NY Times last week: "In a time of global emergency, we need calm, directness and, above all, hard facts. Only the opposite is on offer from the Trump White House. It is therefore time to call the president’s news conferences for what they are: propaganda. We may as well be watching newsreels approved by the Soviet Politburo. We’re witnessing the falsification of history in real time. When Donald Trump, under the guise of social distancing, told the White House press corps on Thursday that he ought to get rid of 75 to 80 percent of them-- reserving the privilege only for those he liked-- it may have been chilling, but it wasn’t surprising. He wants to thin out their ranks until there’s only Pravda in the room... If the public wants factual news briefings, they need to tune in to those who are giving them: Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada and Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany." Meanwhile, as French economist Thomas Piketty wrote earlier this month for Le Monde, Bernie is attempting to save American democracy.

Let it be said at once: the treatment received by Bernie Sanders in the leading media in the United States and in Europe is unjust and dangerous. Everywhere on the main networks and the large daily papers we read that Sanders is an ‘extremist’ and that only a ‘centrist’ candidate like Biden could triumph over Trump. This biased and somewhat unscrupulous treatment is particularly regrettable when a closer examination of the facts actually suggests that only a full-scale reorientation of the type proposed by Sanders would eventually rid American democracy of the inegalitarian practices which undermine it and deal with the electoral disaffection of the working classes.

Let’s begin with the programme. To say emphatically, as Sanders does, that a public, universal health insurance would enable the American population to be cared for more efficiently and more cheaply than the present private and extremely unequal system is not an ‘extremist’ statement. It is on the contrary a declaration, perfectly well documented by many research studies and international comparisons. In these difficult times when everyone deplores the rise of “fake news”, it is right and proper for some candidates to rely on established facts and not resort to obscure language and complex tactics.

Similarly, Sanders is right when he proposes large-scale public investment in favour of education and public universities. Historically the prosperity of the United States has relied in the 20th century on the educational advance of the country over Europe and on a degree of equality in this field, and definitely not on the sacralisation of inequality and the unlimited accumulation of fortunes which Reagan wished to impose as an alternative model in the 1980s. The failure of this Reagan-style rupture is patent today with the growth of national income per capita being halved and an unprecedented rise in inequality. Sanders simply proposed a return to the sources of the country’s model for development: a very wide diffusion of education.

Sanders also proposes a considerable rise in the level of the minimum wage (a policy in which the United States were for a long time the world leaders) and to learn from the experiences in co-management and voting rights for employees on the Boards of Directors of firms implemented successfully in Germany and in Sweden for decades. Generally speaking, Sanders’ proposals show him to be a pragmatic social-democrat endeavouring to make the most of the experiences available and in no way a ‘radical’.  And when he chooses to go further than European social democracy, for example with his proposal for a federal wealth tax rising to 8% per annum on multi-billionaires, this corresponds to the reality of the excessive concentration of wealth in the United States and the fiscal and administrative capacities of the American federal state, which has already been demonstrated historically.

Now, let’s deal with the question of opinion polls. The problem of the repeated assertions that Biden would be better placed to beat Trump is that they have no objective factual basis. If we examine the existing data such as those compiled by RealClearPolitics.com, it is clear in all the national opinion polls that Sanders would beat Trump with the same differential as Biden. These polls are of course premature, but they are just as much for Biden as for Sanders. In several key States, we find that Sanders would come out ahead of Trump, for example in Pennsylvania and in Wisconsin.

If we analyse the surveys on the primaries which have just taken place, it appears clearly that Sanders mobilises the working-class electorate more than Biden. It is true that the latter attracts a considerable share of the Black vote, an inheritance of the Obama-Biden ticket. But Sanders mobilises the vast majority of the Latino vote and crushes Biden amongst the 18-29 years age group, as he does in the 30-44 years group. Above all, all the polls indicate that Sanders has the best scores amongst the underprivileged (annual incomes below 50,000$, no higher education qualification), whereas Biden, on the contrary, has the best scores amongst the most privileged (annual incomes above 100,000$, higher education diploma), whether it be White voters or those from minority backgrounds, independent of age.

Now it so happens that the highest potential for mobilisation is amongst the most underprivileged social categories. Generally speaking, voter turnout has always been relatively low in the United States: just barely above 50%, whereas it has long been between 70%-80% in France and in the United Kingdom, before falling recently. If we examine things in greater detail, we also find that on the other side of the Atlantic, there is a structurally lower participation amongst the poorest half of the voters, with a difference in the region of 15%-20% with the richest half (a difference which has also begun to be visible in Europe since the 1990s, even if it remains less marked).

To put it clearly: this electoral alienation of the American working classes is so long-standing that it will certainly not be reversed in one day. But what else can we do to deal with it than to undertake a far-reaching re-orientation of the election programme of the Democratic Party and to discuss these ideas openly in national campaigns?  The cynical, and unfortunately very commonplace vision amongst the Democratic elites, that nothing can be done to mobilise further the working-class vote, is extremely dangerous. In the last resort, this cynicism weakens the legitimacy of the democratic electoral system itself.

Also last week, Norman Solomon contrasted what Bernie doing with what Biden is laying in wait to "accomplish." He wrote that "On the surface, the coronavirus emergency has nothing in particular to do with Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders. What’s obvious is that Donald Trump’s unhinged bluster and inaction let the pandemic get a lethal jump on the United States, people are dying while huge numbers of lives are in jeopardy, and quick drastic steps are imperative. Yet at the same time, the differences between what Biden and Sanders are advocating have enormous implications for what could be done to curb the deadly virus in this country."

The absence of a public health system is consistent with a timeworn pattern of massive holes in the public sector. Biden merely wants to patch up some of the holes, while Sanders wants to build strong structures on truly democratic foundations.

“It is time to ask how we got to where we are, not only our lack of preparation for the virus, but how we end up with an economy where so many people are hurting at a time of massive income and wealth inequality,” Sanders said at the close of his recent debate with Biden. “It is time to ask the question of where the power is in America. Who owns the media? Who owns the economy? Who owns the legislative process? Why do we give tax breaks to billionaires and not raise the minimum wage?”

While so-called “moderate” Democrats like Biden don’t want to answer-- or even hear-- such questions, Sanders insists on continuing to ask them. Such perseverance has never been more needed than at this pivotal moment, with so many lives in the balance. “Where the power is in America” has everything to do with why the U.S. government’s response to the unfolding coronavirus catastrophe has continued to be so anemic, foreshadowing so many more deaths and so much more grief.

It’s urgent to implement all-out measures to contain the coronavirus spread (seriously aiming for containment rather than merely “flattening the curve”). Meanwhile, policies are needed to make sure that insurance-industry profiteers and other sectors of corporate America don’t get away with rapaciously benefiting from catastrophe in ways that would cause untold misery for vast numbers of people.

A pair of campaign documents released this week-- the Biden “Plan to Combat Coronavirus (Covid-19) and Prepare for Future Global Health Threats” and the Sanders “Emergency Response to the Coronavirus Pandemic”-- convey big differences in approach to the current unprecedented crisis.

Biden proposes to tweak the health care system and aid only some who suffer economic distress. In sharp contrast, Sanders is proposing far-reaching measures that include free health care for all (“Medicare will ensure that everyone in America, regardless of existing coverage, can receive the health care they need during this crisis”) and major financial assistance to all (“emergency $2,000 cash payments to every person in America every month for the duration of the crisis”).

Calling for programs that would spend at least $2 trillion in response to the coronavirus emergency, Sanders laid out commensurate programs—to “mobilize on a scale not seen since the New Deal and World War II to prevent deaths, job losses, and economic ruin.”

Joe Biden vs. Bernie Sanders is not only an electoral contest between presidential candidates. It’s also a contrast of patchwork fixes vs. profound structural changes. Refusal to upset the apple carts of corporate power vs. willingness to fight that power. Tepid adjustments vs. truly transformational agendas.

Sanders was correct when he said last week that “poll after poll, including exit polls, show that a strong majority of the American people support our progressive agenda.” Days ago, the Bernie 2020 campaign sent out a mass email declaring that “our campaign has won the battle of ideas.”

Whether the ideas that Sanders is championing can appreciably shape the government’s response to the coronavirus will have a lot to do with how successful the United States can be in limiting its terrible effects.

Biden And Black Voters

Ibram X. Kendi is the director of the Antiracist Research and Policy Center at American University. About 5 weeks ago The Atlantic published a piece he wrote about what he fears a conservative Democrat winning the nomination. He refers to the conservative wing-- incorrectly as just as the corporate media wants him to-- as moderates. His analysis is so good, it's a shame he doesn't understand the importance of not ceding that word-- moderate-- to the right. Anyway, he points out that these conservative Democrats who think they own the Democratic Party "are calling for a rematch against Trump in the 2020 election, claiming they are the most electable. The thought is haunting me, like Trump’s hell. As much as moderate Democrats fear that nominating a progressive will ensure Trump’s reelection, I am haunted by the fear that nominating a moderate will ensure Trump’s reelection."

When moderate Democrats assure us that they would win back more white swing voters than progressive Democrats would, I am haunted by the thought that the evidence is hardly so reassuring. I see moderate candidates struggling with younger voters, who are more likely to favor progressive policies, and are more likely than older voters to stay home or vote third party if they don’t like the Democrat. The leaders of nine progressive organizations recently told The Atlantic that a Biden nomination “would trigger a huge deflation in enthusiasm, and a shrinking ... volunteer pool.”

...I don’t prefer the misleading term moderate (or progressive for that matter). Self-identified moderates, independents, and undecided voters are not necessarily centrists. But there are Democratic candidates claiming that they are best equipped to win these moderates, independents, Republicans, and undecided voters. There are candidates opposing Medicare for All, free public college, the Green New Deal, and a wealth tax. I will call these candidates moderates. And these are the Democrats I fear will lose to Trump.

I am not alone. Nearly one-third of Democratic-primary voters fear their party could lose the presidential election if their nominee is not progressive enough. A relatively equal number of Democratic-primary voters fear their party could lose if their nominee is not moderate enough. But it seems like moderate fears have received the most airing. Every time I looked up over the past year, I saw broadcasts of “stark” warnings like “The latest wave of far-left ideas ... could lead to electoral disaster in 2020.” I heard moderate candidates like Biden saying, “Show me the really left-left-left-left-wingers who beat a Republican.” After stepping off a summer debate stage, Senator Amy Klobuchar said on CNN, “People [who] are watching right now” are “moderate Republicans, and we need to win them to win the election.” In The Atlantic, Yascha Mounk urged Democrats to win back those Obama-to-Trump voters who “made a real difference” in the 2016 election.

Mounk is right. But maybe the candidate of change-- no matter his or her party-- is the most attractive to these all-important Obama-to-Trump voters, almost all of whom are white. It may have been their campaigns of change, when compared with Mitt Romney and Clinton, that caused Obama and Trump to attract the same white voters. Even their original campaign slogans fit together: Yes, we can make America great again.

After the 2016 election, a young white independent in Michigan said Obama was “really likable” and Trump earned her vote by being “a big poster child for change.” After Obama, Clinton lost ground among young and liberal working-class white voters, the two groups Democrats probably have the best chance of winning back from Trump-- and the two groups moderate Democrats struggle to attract.

In 2016, Trump managed to win 20 percent of liberal white working-class voters, and 38 percent of those who desired policies more liberal than Obama’s policies. How? Obama and Trump “had the same winning pitch to white working-class voters,” according to a New York Times analysis. Obama and Trump successfully cast Romney and Clinton as dismantlers of companies and outsourcers of jobs, and themselves as the defenders of the forgotten people. And, Trump added, they have been forgotten because they are white.

Working class (and non-working-class) white voters were more likely to switch from Obama to Trump if they embraced racist ideas. Maybe Obama’s more liberal economic and foreign-policy appeal-- when compared with Romney-- kept white racist ideas at bay in his 2012 voters. Maybe Trump inflamed their racist ideas in 2016, while being less conservative on economic and foreign-policy issues than past GOP nominees. Maybe a progressive candidate can better expose Trump’s conservatism and corruption on economic and foreign policy to winnable young and liberal white swing voters, which could break their racist allegiances to Trump, which perhaps explains why Senator Bernie Sanders currently leads Trump by the widest margin of all Democratic candidates. Maybe a pro-diversity, pro-corporate, and hawkish moderate Democrat will again alienate winnable white swing voters in 2020.

Maybe it is strategically unwise to build a presidential candidacy based on winning back a sizable number of white voters who supported Obama and flipped to Trump. Roughly seven in 10 Obama-to-Trump voters approve of Trump’s job performance, according to a recent Morning Consult poll of these voters in the swing states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. How can anyone who is serious about defeating Trump think Democrats should nominate a candidate on the theory that he can win back voters who Morning Consult says “resemble Republicans” and who overwhelmingly approve of Trump-- over a candidate who can win back voters who “resemble Democrats” and who overwhelmingly disapprove of Trump? Roughly seven in 10 other swing voters-- those who voted for Obama in 2012 and did not vote in 2016-- disapprove of Trump in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Morning Consult called them “low-hanging electoral fruit” in three states Clinton lost by less than 80,000 votes combined.

The low-hanging fruit is disproportionately composed of young voters, and especially young black voters. Democratic primary voters should value candidates’ performance with these other swing voters as much as they value their performance with white swing voters. Sanders and Senator Elizabeth Warren are running first and second among voters under 35, according to the latest national poll by Quinnipiac University. Among young black voters, Sanders is outpacing Biden by double digits. Only Warren and the businessman Andrew Yang register more than 1 percent support among this crucial group of swing voters. Black support-- young or old-- for Buttigieg and Klobuchar is nearly nonexistent-- as is their chance of defeating Trump without heavy black support.

Young black swing voters who are not supporting Biden are more likely to be progressive and less likely to identify as Democrats than their elders. They look at Biden’s record-- from pushing “tough on crime” and welfare-reform legislation to mistreating Anita Hill during the Clarence Thomas hearings to demeaning black parents-- and are repelled. Like Clinton’s super-predator video, I fear Biden’s record can push the other swing voters into not voting.

...Democrats should be more worried about a moderate nominee being out of touch with winnable voters. If the 2018 midterm elections are any indication, moderate Democrats may also be out of touch with winnable Obama-to-Trump swing voters, according to data from Sean McElwee and Brian F. Schaffner. Eighty-three percent of Obama-to-Trump swing voters who switched back to the Democratic Party in 2018 support Medicare for All, nearly mirroring the overwhelming support among other swing voters who voted Obama, didn’t vote in 2016, and then voted for Democrats in the 2018 midterms. These two groups also opposed Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement, supported a $12 minimum wage, and backed a millionaire’s tax at similarly high rates. These two seemingly distinct groups of swing voters (one prototypically white, the other prototypically young and black) may be in line with each other on economic, foreign-policy, and climate issues-- and crucially, also may be most closely aligned with progressive candidates. This pumps the heart of electability-- any progressive nominee would have clear pathways to two of the most important groups of swing voters whom Democrats lost in 2016.

Yesterday, in Grand Rapids, Jesse Jackson endorsed Bernie. Jackson noted that Bernie and he see eye to eye on expanding Pell Grants, nominating African American women to the Supreme Court and to the Cabinet. "With the exception of Native Americans, African Americans are the people who are most behind socially and economically in the United States and our needs are not moderate. A people far behind cannot catch up choosing the most moderate path. The most progressive social and economic path gives us the best chance to catch up and Senator Bernie Sanders represents the most progressive path. That's why I choose to endorse him today."

Jacobin's Branko Marcetic sees things a lot like Kendi and Jackson do, pointing out that "Biden’s string of primary victories highlights a central paradox of his career: he has secured the loyalty of African American voters while working nonstop to let them down. Big PhRMA whore Jim Clyburn (D-SC) resuscitated Biden's dead-in-the-water campaign. Clyburn, a prototypical DC establishment shill, doesn't give a shit who Biden really is and how he's betrayed black voters in the past.

[S]urveying Biden’s record, one is left with a different impression: that Biden has, in fact, built a career on the back of steadfast African-American support while consistently betraying those same voters.

Elected as county councilman in 1970, Biden was known as an advocate for public housing, earning him racist abuse from bigoted locals in Delaware. Yet he quickly assured the press about his public housing stance: “I am not a Crusader Rabbit championing the rights of people.”

True to his word, when plans for a controversial moderate-income housing project came to the New Castle County Council in 1972-- one opposed by a crowd of hundreds who attended the meeting-- Biden voted with the rest of the council to table it indefinitely. More accurately, Biden disappeared after a recess, and the vote had to be delayed until he could be found and his vote put on the record. When the county’s housing authority later drew up plans to buy a complex to convert to “non-elderly” public housing, the agency’s outreach to discuss the plan with Biden fell on deaf ears; Biden was too busy campaigning for the Senate.

Upon entering the Senate, Biden went where one would expect a champion of civil rights to go: on the Senate Banking Committee, where he worked on bills to regulate predatory private debt collection and sat on its housing subcommittee.

But not for long. Explaining that “other issues are more important for Delaware-- the issues of crime and busing,” Biden departed Banking in 1977 for the Judiciary Committee. The decision paved the way for him to become the Senate’s leading liberal opponent of busing and architect of mass incarceration, each of his efforts calamitous to the cause of black equality.

The full significance of Biden’s anti-busing crusade has rarely been explored. Though his 1975 anti-busing amendment failed, by clearing the Senate, it was credited by the Congressional Quarterly as signaling the end of the upper chamber’s previous commitment to defending desegregation measures. Meanwhile, his lasting anti-busing achievement-- the 1977 Eagleton-Biden amendment, which barred the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare from using its funding for busing-- became the bane of existence for civil rights activists and school administrators around the country, whom it blocked from fully implementing desegregation plans. That it had no effect whatsoever on the court-ordered busing in Delaware, the ostensible reason for Biden’s sharp right turn on the issue, didn’t prevent him from being pleased with its impact. Biden was so against busing that, on a Judiciary Committee filled with former segregationists, he became the member who would vote against two historic black nominees to the Justice Department because of their stance on the matter.

Meanwhile, as Biden pushed the flurry of tough-on-crime legislation in the 1980s and 1990s that would prove so disastrous for communities of color, he was well aware of its dangers. He referred to the “political hysteria of the law and order campaigns” of the 1960s and later chided Reagan for his punitive approach: “It costs more money to keep a prisoner in jail than to send your son or daughter to Harvard or Yale,” he told a crowd. As early as 1972, as Biden demagogued on the dangers of crime and drugs for his Senate campaign; one expert whom Biden himself deemed “eminently qualified” to talk about crime trends had complained about politicians misleading the public on the issue; he assumed the expert wasn’t talking about him, Biden said.

The carceral avalanche that resulted was one half of a post–civil rights counterrevolution; the other took place in the courts. As a member and later chair of the Judiciary Committee, Biden let through several hard-right justices to the Supreme Court, Anthony Kennedy chief among them. Handpicked by Biden as a nominee acceptable to Democrats, he praised Kennedy throughout his confirmation hearing while feeding him softballs, hoping they could “all get out of here,” declining to investigate his anti-abortion views and earlier controversial rulings. Once on the court, Kennedy completed its right-wing takeover, working with his fellow conservatives to weaken civil rights protections. Biden’s failure was compounded four years later with the Clarence Thomas nomination, when, at Republicans’ behest, he did everything humanly possible to undermine Anita Hill’s testimony about the judge’s sexual harassment.

All the while, Biden lectured Democrats to forget the multiracial coalition that formed the bedrock of their party and move closer to the politics of the suburban South. “You have been where the Democratic Party was, and now the Democratic Party must be where you are,” he told Democrats in North Carolina as he toured with the centrist Democratic Leadership Council (DLC). At one stop in Alabama, he dropped from his stump speech references to police brutalization of civil rights protesters and his (nonexistent) civil rights activism.

Key to his argument was that Democrats had “lost the middle class” by becoming beholden to “special interests” and “interest groups,” who “had a stranglehold on us.” But Biden meant something very specific with these innocuous-sounding terms. Even earlier in his career, he had referred to “minorities and other vested interests” and blamed unchecked growth in federal spending on constituent interest groups who wouldn’t give up on programs they benefited from. As he told the NAACP Convention in 1986: “You can’t try to pit the Rainbow Coalition, blacks, Hispanics, poor whites, gays, against the middle class.” For good measure, he pointedly snubbed Jesse Jackson by publicly ruling him out as his running mate. Jackson hit back, griping about unnamed deficit-cutters “combing their hair to the left like Kennedy and moving their policies to the right like Reagan.”

“It’s about time politicians stop making pro-black speeches before pro-black groups and pro-labor speeches before the labor groups,” Biden once said. “People don’t want to hear what they think you think they want to hear.”

Yet throughout his career, Biden would routinely and cravenly change his talking points depending on whether he was speaking to a black audience. Upon receiving a 1978 endorsement from Howard Jarvis, the anti-tax businessman who had backed California’s Proposition 13, Biden’s office issued a statement that he was “delighted,” and that Jarvis had “recognized the fact that I have consistently voted for lower taxes and lower government spending.” Days later, talking to a mostly black audience, he warned them about the consequences of measures like Proposition 13, before saying he didn’t “have any feeling about [Jarvis’s] endorsement.” Twenty-four years later, after spending the whole of 2002 pushing for war with Iraq (a conflict hugely unpopular with black voters) and suggesting Saddam Hussein was connected to Al-Qaeda, he turned around a month after voting for the war to tell an audience of African-American columnists that it was “the dumbest thing in the world,” and that he didn’t “consider the war on Iraq the war on terror.”

Then there’s Biden’s infamous 2003 eulogy of segregationist and sexual predator Strom Thurmond, the man with whom Biden had worked to shift the US criminal code in a more punitive, unforgiving direction. Today, Biden’s South Carolina eulogy is viewed as an uncomfortable relic of a less enlightened era; in reality, it was unusual even then. Not only was Biden one of only two Democrats to show up to the funeral (the other, Fritz Hollings, had served with Thurmond for thirty-six years in the state), he was one of a mere seven of 225 living former and sitting senators to do so. Thurmond, who had famously filibustered the 1957 Civil Rights Act into oblivion, was a “brave man” whose “lasting impact” was a “gift to us all,” Biden told attendees.

That’s not to mention Biden’s long history of taking aim at entitlements like Social Security, a program of enormous importance to African Americans, and which large numbers of black Americans rely on to survive.

It’s one of those strange ironies of history that Biden, having spent a career betraying African Americans on key, consequential issues, now counts them as the main reason for his electoral viability; and that after insisting to Democrats that the party could only survive by prioritizing conservative white voters in the South over its multiracial base, he has been rescued from oblivion by mostly older black voters in the South. The fact that most of those in South Carolina backed him while telling pollsters that the US economic system needs a “complete overhaul” reveals this irony to be a tragedy.

Let me leave you with a few words from Norman Solomon: "Let’s be blunt: As a supposed friend of American workers, Joe Biden is a phony. And now that he’s running for president, Biden’s huge task is to hide his phoniness... Biden has a media image that exudes down-to-earth caring and advocacy for regular folks. But his actual record is a very different story. During the 1970s, in his first Senate term, Biden spouted white backlash rhetoric, used tropes pandering to racism and teamed up with arch segregationists against measures like busing for school integration. He went on to be a fount of racially charged appeals and “predators on our streets” oratory on the Senate floor as he led the successful effort to pass the now-notorious 1994 crime bill... Meanwhile, for well over four decades-- while corporate media preened his image as 'Lunch Bucket Joe' fighting for the middle class-- Biden continued his assist for strengthening oligarchy as a powerful champion of legalizing corporate plunder on a mind-boggling scale. Now, Joe Biden has arrived as a presidential candidate to rescue the Democratic Party from Bernie Sanders... Biden exemplifies a disastrous approach of jettisoning progressive principles and failing to provide a progressive populist alternative to right-wing populism. That’s the history of 2016. It should not be repeated."

Bloomberg Is Still Trying To Buy The Election But Has Still Been Unable To Dominate The Weak Conservative Lane

The most interesting news about Biden I saw today was Branko Marcetic's piece for Jacobin about how Biden pulled the Democratic Party to the right starting in the 1980s when he helped Reagan start dismantling much of the New Deal. Marcetic found an old Biden quote from the Wilmington Morning News that Biden would never say during a primary but that defines him perfectly: "In a strange way the election of Ronald Reagan is more consistent with the budgetary thrust that a guy like me... has been going for for the past few years." Marcetic added that "Biden's already growing public discomfort with the New Deal legacy made him perfectly poised to drift rightward with the Reagan years... [admitting in 1981 that] “he was 'not concerned about social programs as much as the direction' the country was going... [During his 1988 presidential campaign], Biden continued to insist that the answers to US economic misfortune lay 'beyond the reach of government' and criticized 'the old Washington-based approach to economic policy.' America’s workplaces needed their own in-house daycare centers, he insisted, but not if the government mandated them; rather, the White House should make its own daycare center, because 'if other chief executives see a president doing it, they will likely follow suit.' He promised to balance the budget by 1993, though without any tax hikes. Other big ideas were poached from his rivals, like having companies give workers ninety days’ notice when they closed plants. And he reminded the public about his conservative positions on busing and abortion."

But that isn't the kind of stuff you'll hear on TV or read about in the corporate media, where they prefer to talk about the horse race. In Biden's case, it was how his six-figure ad buy across the Super Tuesday states is practically meaningless. He's targeting African-American voters in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia, reminding them that it was him, not Bloomberg, who was close to Obama.

According to data compiled by Advertising Analytics, an ad tracking firm, Biden is spending by far the least on Super Tuesday TV ads out of all the candidates who participated in Tuesday night’s debate in South Carolina.

Bernie Sanders, the current frontrunner for the Democratic nomination who has blown by Biden in both national polling and the hunt for national convention delegates, has aired or reserved roughly $13.5 million worth of airtime across all 14 of the Super Tuesday states. He’s dropped at least seven figures in three states-- Texas, North Carolina and Colorado-- and mid-six figures in three additional states.

Amy Klobuchar’s campaign has booked about $3.5 million worth of television time, and her campaign says it has invested more in digital spending. Pete Buttigieg, another campaign that went up late in Super Tuesday states, hits about $1.6 million in TV spending, and Elizabeth Warren comes in at a bit over $916,000.

All of them are dwarfed by the two self-financing billionaires in the race. According to Advertising Analytics, Mike Bloomberg has spent over $183 million on blanketing the airwaves in Super Tuesday states-- en route to spending over half a billion dollars in total on advertising for his campaign so far-- while Tom Steyer has spent over $35 million, more than double what Sanders dropped.

Yesterday NBC reported that Bloomberg is absolutely owning black media, "spending a record $3.5 million to advertise his presidential campaign in the black news media in an aggressive attempt to garner African American support in his bid to earn the Democratic nomination." And on Monday, the Hollywood Reporter carried a piece by Erik Hayden about how Bloomberg's TV ad blitz is burying everyone else's efforts in California, having spent $63.2 million on TV alone here.

To compare, the only candidate who's in the same ballpark is fellow billionaire candidate Tom Steyer, who has spent $27.2 million on television ads in California, or less than half of what Bloomberg is spending, the research firm finds. Meanwhile, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has spent just $6.3 million in TV ads in the state so far.

“Bloomberg, Sanders, and Steyer are the only three candidates on air in California," notes Rachel Haskins, marketing manager at Advertising Analytics. "We can’t say if the campaigns have adjusted their spending because of Bloomberg’s totals, but Steyer has been spending in California since December 8, and Sanders went up on January 26, even before the Iowa caucuses."

Haskins added, "In 2016, Sanders didn’t hit the airwaves until May 1-- a month before the June 3 CA primary. Sanders has also spent $6.3 million on TV in California since January; in 2016, he spent $1.8 million in the state.” Others who've spent relatively negligible amounts on TV ads in California include Rep. Tulsi Gabbard ($73,704 last July) and former candidate Sen. Cory Booker ($1,500 on cable in December), per Advertising Analytics.

While Bloomberg is dominating linear airwaves, political spending on Facebook in California is less lopsided. The Bloomberg campaign has spent $5.8 million on Facebook ads in the state, ahead of Steyer ($4.6 million), Sanders ($1.5 million), Mayor Pete Buttigieg ($668,889), Senator Elizabeth Warren ($623,769), former Vice President Joe Biden ($420,183) and Senator Amy Klobuchar ($202,348), according to Advertising Analytics' tally through Feb. 20.

Despite his advertising blitz, Bloomberg is trailing in California support. Senator Sanders leads the field with 27.9 percent, while Bloomberg garners 14.7 percent, ahead of Biden (12.9 percent), Warren (12.4 percent), Buttigieg (11 percent), Klobuchar (5.6 percent) and Steyer (3.2 percent), per Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight state poll average.

Writing for the L.A. Times, Jenny Jarvie reported that Bloomberg has dumped a fortune into advertising in hopelessly red states so he can win delegates on Super Tuesday. His strategy is states like Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi and Arkansas "illustrates a major reason why his big-spending bid for the nomination forges ahead despite his widely derided performance in last week's debate, which caused a significant drop in his national standing in some polls."

As of Monday, Bloomberg had spent more than $191 million on advertising in Super Tuesday states, according to Advertising Analytics. That compares with $36 million for the next-highest spender, billionaire Tom Steyer, $12 million for Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and minimal amounts for other Democrats.

In Alabama, he has poured more than $8 million into TV and radio ads in the last two months while Sanders has spent just $142,000 and two of his main competitors, former Vice President Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Ind.-- have not advertised. Bloomberg has visited Montgomery twice, opened up four campaign offices and hired 30 people while most of his rivals have two paid staffers or fewer.

Part of Bloomberg’s pitch is that national Democrats have long neglected the South, essentially ceding states like Alabama to Republicans, and he'll change that.

“I believe it’s time for the national Democratic Party to stop ignoring Alabama,” he said earlier this month to the Alabama Democratic Conference.

“I’ve devoted a lot of my resources to those swing states from Michigan and Wisconsin to Florida and Arizona, but I’m also working to create what we call a new generation of swing states-- states like Alabama and Texas, which could very well turn blue if more people voted.”

...Some of the other candidates are organizing here. Sanders has more than 1,000 volunteers contacting voters through phone banks and knocking on doors across the state. The Buttigieg campaign plans 100 events Saturday. Still, Bloomberg has likely amassed the largest Democratic presidential staff in Alabama history, Democrats say.

“His presence is overwhelming,” said Montgomery Mayor Steven Reed, who was elected last fall as the first African American in the office.

“It matters,” Reed added. “It helps him gain some traction in communities that may not have been touched by a campaign."

...“The fact is the people in Alabama really don't know Bloomberg — unlike Joe Biden, who has been into Alabama for a long time,” said Sen. Doug Jones, a Biden supporter. In 2017, Biden came to Birmingham to campaign for Jones.

But while Biden has won the endorsement of Jones and some other party leaders, including Rep. Terri A. Sewell and Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin, his poor showings in Iowa and New Hampshire, and his distant second-place finish behind Sanders in Nevada on Saturday, did not help his case with undecided officials.

With no clear front-runner nationally, and little competition here yet, Bloomberg has seized the opening to spread the message that he is experienced, well-funded and the candidate who can beat President Trump.

“His strategy of skipping the first four states is incredibly risky,” said Andra Gillespie, associate professor of political science at Emory University. “But with Joe Biden's campaign having faltered, and perhaps having stumbled irrevocably, his strategy doesn't seem to be as far-fetched or quixotic as it once did.”

A former Republican, Bloomberg faces challenges in courting black voters after strong criticism of his support as New York mayor of stop-and-frisk policing and his suggestion that the end of redlining contributed to the 2008 economic collapse. Yet locals say his wealth allows him to get noticed, especially among older, more moderate black Democrats uncertain whom to support.

“Bloomberg has had a free hand in places like Alabama to be nothing but positive,” said Glen Browder, a professor at Jacksonville State University and a former Democratic congressman. “When Bloomberg comes to town flush with cash, not asking for contributions and just saying, 'I’d like to have your support,' that’s a pretty powerful introduction.

But as people come to focus on just who and what Bloomberg is... his support shrivels and dies. CNBC's Yelena Dzhanova explained how Bloomberg's moment dissipated after voters saw him in action on the debate stage. She wrote that "While Bloomberg has positioned himself as the 'cool' candidate on social media, reaching out to so-called influencers to post endorsements of his candidacy, the effort may be falling flat. Support for Bloomberg began to stagnate around two weeks ago, according to national polls. He’s hovered around the 15% mark since a week before the Nevada debate, according to a RealClearPolitics polling average. He had been rising in national support thanks to massive spending on campaign ads. He’s plowed more than $500 million of his own personal fortune into those messages since he entered the race in November.

...Here are some other Super Tuesday states where support for Bloomberg has plateaued:

• Minnesota: Bloomberg’s support has decreased from 9% to 3% in the span of a few days after his first debate. Sen. Amy Klobuchar is in the lead in Minnesota, her home state, with 29%, according to the latest poll conducted between Feb. 17 and Feb. 20.
• Texas: Bloomberg in the most recent poll is in third place with 17%, down from the 18% that he garnered in a poll conducted from Feb. 12 to Feb. 18. Former Vice President Joe Biden and Sanders are tied for first place, with 24% each, according to the latest poll from Public Policy Polling conducted between Feb. 24 and Feb. 25.
• North Carolina: Bloomberg remains in third place with 17%, up slightly from 16% in a poll conducted between Feb. 12 and Feb. 18. He trails Biden, who has 23%, and Sanders, who has 20%, according to the most recent poll conducted from Feb. 23 to Feb. 24.
• Oklahoma: Bloomberg remained at 20%, but fell from first place to second behind Biden, who has 21%, according to the most recent poll conducted between Feb. 17 and Feb. 21.