“Smokin’” Joe Biden’s terrific Tuesday
Joe Biden’s on a roll.
Ten days ago, he was nearly pronounced politically dead.
That was before the South Carolina primary election.
Thanks to a key endorsement from House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.), and strong support from South Carolina’s African American voters, Biden’s campaign is flying high.
South Carolina went big for Biden.
So big, that his vote total more than doubled his nearest competitor – Bernie Sanders.
Within hours of the final votes being cast in South Carolina, a number of Biden’s Democratic opponents saw the light.
Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg not only ended their presidential campaigns. They endorsed Biden.
Tom Steyer, who flooded his campaign with $191 million, but never produced a single ripple, also dropped out.
He’d be the shining example of how money can’t buy you ballot box love if it wasn’t for Michael Bloomberg. (We’ll deal with him a few paragraphs down)
Biden was feeling his oats by the time Super Tuesday rolled around.
His ho-hum presidential debate performances and his slips of the tongue seemed like distant memories when the vote totals started being revealed last Tuesday night.
First, North Carolina and Virginia fell into the Biden column.
Then, Alabama, Tennessee, and Arkansas.
And by the time Texas and Massachusetts fell, it was clear Biden was leaving Bernie Sanders in the dust.
Massachusetts, by the way, is the backyard of Elizabeth Warren, one of that state’s two Democratic Senators.
Warren came in third place. What’s even worse, is the fact that Warren is a native of Oklahoma. And Biden easily won that state, while Warren fell to fourth place.
Michael Bloomberg, who was born in Massachusetts, could only manage a measly fourth-place finish.
That was probably a signal for Bloomberg to step aside.
He’s one of the world’s richest men. Yet despite spending $600 million on his futile presidential campaign, all he got was a win in American Samoa.
American Samoa?
Many American Samoans might not be able to find American Samoa on a map.
By Wednesday morning, Bloomberg not only saw the handwriting on the wall, but he also began writing it. He bid his campaign farewell, then he threw his lot behind Biden – forcefully.
Of the 28 Democrats who declared their intentions to run for the presidency, only a handful remained. (18 of the 28 dropped out before a single primary election was even held)
Heck! Most of us know who Beto O’Rourke or Kamala Harris is. But who even knew some guys named Wayne Messam and Richard Ojeda had run?
With Elizabeth Warren’s failure to gain any traction – even in the state where she’s the current U.S. Senator, she announced her withdrawal on Thursday morning.
What does this all mean? That aside from Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden, only Tulsi Gabbard is hanging on.
Both Biden and Sanders can lay claim being frontrunners.
There’s evidence that Biden’s rise could be striking fear at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Suddenly, President Trump has started bringing up those ties between Biden’s son Hunter and that Ukrainian gas company – Burisma.
He’d hardly mentioned those ties after his impeachment trial. Especially since Biden’s campaign appeared to be floundering.
That’s not the case, anymore.
We can expect Trump and his supporters to go the “Burisma, Burisma, Burisma” route.
Just 24 hours after Super Tuesday, Trump told Fox News’ Sean Hannity, “That will be a major issue in the campaign. I will bring that up all the time.”
Of course, he will.
So will Republicans in Congress.
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) says he’s ready to release an “interim report” on investigations into Biden and his son and their supposed ties to Burisma.
Meanwhile, Sanders is conducting his own form of political malpractice.
He’s now running political ads that seem to indicate that he’s best buddies with Barack Obama.
They’ve never been close allies.
It’s a cheap play for African American votes.
Michael Bloomberg ran similar ads featuring him and Obama before he dropped out of the race. That little scheme obviously didn’t work for him.
Neither will Sanders’.
Edward A. Owens is a multi-Emmy Award winner, former reporter, and anchor for Entertainment Tonight and 20-year TV news veteran. E-mail him at freedoms@bellatlantic.net.