Bernie Sanders wins New Hampshire primary
Sanders narrowly beats out Buttigieg; panel reaction and analysis.
Results of Tuesday’s New Hampshire Democratic primary provide little clarity in the crowded race for the party’s presidential nomination that is being dominated by socialism, chaos and a pathetic field of left-wing candidates.
Fox News projected that career politician and socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont was the narrow winner of the primary. Former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg came in a strong second, followed by Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota in third place.
Darkhorse candidates Andrew Yang and Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado dropped out of the race Tuesday night after poor performances in New Hampshire and in the Iowa caucuses last week, but nine Democrats remain in the nomination battle, preventing any one candidate from garnering a majority of the primary votes.
SANDERS EDGES OUT BUTTIGIEG TO WIN NEW HAMPSHIRE, AS KLOBUCHAR SURGES TO THIRD
Sanders’ victory tells us he is gaining momentum among a small plurality of Democratic primary and caucus voters in the opening rounds of the competition to become the Democratic nominee who will run against President Trump in November.
With 86 percent of precincts reporting, Sanders had close to 26 percent of the vote in the New Hampshire Democratic primary – a far cry from the 60 percent he received when he defeated Hillary Clinton in the Granite State in 2016. Buttigieg had just over 24 percent and Klobuchar had almost 20 percent.
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Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and former Vice President Joe Biden trailed far back in fourth and fifth place. Neither Warren nor Biden could reach 10 percent of the vote – far below what had been expected of them early in the nomination race. No other candidate could reach even 4 percent.
Tuesday’s results indicate that the badly splintered Democrats should be concerned about their sluggish voter turnout to date and their deep divisions.
Buttigieg’s razor-thin victory in the delegate count in the Iowa caucuses last week (if you trust the Democrats counting the votes), coupled with his strong showing in New Hampshire certainly makes for good campaign talking points, but should not be misconstrued. While he came close to winning in New Hampshire, he still wound up with the silver medal.
Until last month, 38-year old former Indiana mayor was in charge of a city with a population of only about 100,000. While Buttigieg has demonstrated over the past year that he’s capable of delivering a canned stump speech and raising money, he’s far from a political phenomenon. In fact, when you consider his scant record of accomplishment, he’s mediocre at best.
It’s only the historically weak Democratic field this year that allows a candidate like Buttigieg to gain oxygen. How would Buttigieg have fared in Democratic primary fields from the past like the ones that consisted of Vice President Al Gore and Sen. Bill Bradley of New Jersey in 2000, or Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts and Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina in 2004, or Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois and Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York in 2008? I think everyone knows the answer to that – including Pete Buttigieg.
Klobuchar beat expectations in the primary with her third-place finish, beating both Warren and Biden by a wide margin.
Warren’s distant fourth-place finish will likely spell an early doom for the candidacy of the leftist former Harvard professor.
Klobuchar, first elected to the Senate in 2006, is a prototypical liberal backbencher who has done nothing of significance on the national stage. She is perhaps best known for the episode when she apparently ate a salad with a comb on an airplane due to a forgotten plastic fork and had a staffer wash the comb after the meal.
The New York Times report on this bizarre tale had staff members describing Klobuchar’s treatment of her employees as “dehumanizing.” Likeability still matters in politics and that could spell big trouble for Klobuchar as rival Democratic campaigns start their in-depth opposition research of her past.
The oxygen for Buttigieg and Klobuchar is being provided in large part by the monumental implosion of Biden’s campaign. In just a matter of weeks, Biden has gone from experienced frontrunner to washed-up has-been.
For the third time since 1988, Biden has proven – in sleepy and at times disturbing fashion – that he doesn’t have what it takes to become president. It appears he will continue on to run in nominating contests in Nevada and South Carolina at the end of the month, but his campaign is flat-lining and everyone knows it.
When the Biden candidacy soon to be over, he and his son Hunter should get their stories straight about their corrupt antics in Ukraine before they go talk to investigators in the U.S. Senate.
These are desperate times for the Democrats, as they see President Trump’s approval rating in polls tick upward and his campaign raise record amounts of money in the process of building an extraordinary 50-state organization.
Democrats are so anxious about the November elections that they are taking a look at the hopelessly out-of-touch and completely uninspiring former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg to pick up their drooping flag.
Former Republican Bloomberg is the consummate political opportunist and a phony. He was an ardent supporter of “stop and frisk” policing until he decided he was going to run for president as a liberal in the mold of current New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio.
Bloomberg’s contrived left-wing proposals are as stale and tired as the man himself. The only thing “Mike will get done” if he is elected – to paraphrase his campaign slogan – is to wreck the booming Trump economy with job-killing tax hikes and overregulation, harming American families.
According to a recent Gallup survey, an impressive 59 percent of Americans say that they are better off financially than that they were a year ago and a staggering 74 percent say they’ll be even better off financially a year from now.
The report, titled “Record-High Optimism on Personal Finances in U.S.,” is proof positive that the Trump economy is booming and that people are feeling it in their pocketbooks, bank accounts, and 401(k)’s.
President Trump’s pro-growth economic policies, working in tandem with his businessman’s mindset, are a welcome combination working wonders for America. Trump is a leader who embodies the promise of vibrant free-market capitalism – the system that has made the American economy the envy of the world once again.
There is dignity in working hard, having a job, paying taxes, and providing for your family. With a record number of Americans employed – including record-low unemployment rates in the African-American, Hispanic, and Asian-American communities – it’s abundantly clear that new opportunities are becoming available to more and more of our citizens every day, whether the anti-Trump media want to acknowledge it or not.
The Trump agenda is optimistic, inclusive and innovative; and it’s working for all Americans across the board. President John F. Kennedy was right when he said that “a rising tide lifts all boats.
It goes without saying that JFK would have been greatly disturbed by today’s Democrats’ embrace of socialism, high taxes, and less freedom. These Democrats are backing policies that would kill jobs, take your health care away, and confiscate your guns as they seek to impose their warped socialist agenda on you and your family.
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At the end of the day, Bernie Sanders is all talk and no action. In 2016 a Politico report described Sanders as someone who “rarely forged actual legislation or left a significant imprint on it” in his years in the House and Senate.
The truth is that Sanders is a hardened and angry socialist, too far to the left to compromise with anyone. His four decades in politics have been marked by pessimistic speeches that embrace the policies of some fake utopia that has never existed and never will. The biased liberal media should ask Sanders to provide an example from world history in which socialism didn’t destroy a society.
With the specter of an unabashed socialist becoming the 2020 Democratic nominee for president, things are certainly looking up for supporters of the ultimate political outsider – Donald Trump.
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But this is no time for complacency. The coalition of tens of millions of Americans who believe they are better off today than they were four years ago must fight for what they believe until Election Day and then turn out to vote in record numbers to swamp the dangerous socialist uprising once and for all.
President Trump has a hopeful vision for our country and he’s rallying people around that vision. Leadership is a beautiful thing – and the rest of the world has taken notice of the great American comeback.