Just in case you’ve been busy with your life, and have not spared much of a thought to the primaries beyond what wanders across any of the various screens you view on a daily basis, you might think that the Democratic primaries have only just begun, the results are mixed, and we’re in it for the long haul, and that Nevada Saturday and South Carolina next week are the be all and the end all of the story.

You could be forgiven for thinking so, because the huge lead-up and grandeur of these early caucuses and primaries gives them an outsize value. But in the grand scheme of things, they are not the whole enchilada. In two weeks, however, March 1 will be either the end of the beginning, or the beginning of the end, for this nominating fight.

(In order to not get too bogged down in specifics and statistics, I am going to round numbers.)

The number of delegates needed to win the Democratic nomination is roughly 2400. So far, we’ve seen about 70 regular delegates get allocated via the Iowa and New Hampshire contests, barely a dent in the amount needed to win. However, by this time in two weeks, one quarter of the final number, i.e. one half of the winning number, will have been doled out via primaries and caucuses.

One thousand of those delegates are being awarded on March 1, across a dozen contests. If Sanders continues to build on his early success, and fights to a win, or even roughly a draw that day, then his viability is confirmed and we are in it for the long haul.

But if Hillary is a clear winner that night, then it is all over but the shouting.

That seems like a disproportionate outcome, I know, but the disproportionality stems from the super delegate system the Democrats put in place decades ago to avoid the tsuris the Republicans are feeling from Trump. Approximately 700 party elders, elected officials and the like are also given a voice in selecting the candidate. Hillary already has about half of those committed to her. Bernie has 8.

So any clear victory by Hillary Clinton on March 1 will create a delegate hole too deep for Bernie to climb out of, given that there are no winner-take-all primaries in the Democratic contest. Even a clear victory by Bernie will only bring the contest closer to a tie, but he will still be behind, and we will settle in for a longer duration.

Another prospect working against Bernie is the SuperPAC money.   The ideological simonizing gives him a stronger moral underpinning – which plays, don’t get me wrong! – but the sad fact of the matter is that the Hillary will enjoy a significant advantage in the air war, thanks to SuperPAC money doubling her total, freeing up her campaign cash-on-hand to concentrate on the ground war.

With roughly the same amount of campaign money, Bernie will have to spend proportionately more on ad buys, and expensive media markets for 3/1 include Atlanta, Denver, Dallas, Houston, Boston and Suburban-DC Virginia. This will exacerbate throughout the primaries and, even if he wins, he’ll need the help of unaffiliated SuperPACs to win the general, whether he wants them or not.

Based on delegate and money math, then, the weather report for the Democratic nomination is mostly Hillary, with a chance of Bernie.  I’ll cover the GOP state of play in a later post.

~Primo

New London, Connecticut.

Police get a call about a gunshot.

“He answered the door,” Capiot said, referring to the victim.

Police had the man, who was in his late 40s, sit on the sofa and continue to put pressure on his leg. Capiot said the man shot himself “mid-calf,” between his knee and ankle.

The subject suffered a gun shot to his leg from a 40-caliber handgun. He was conscious and able to respond to questions from officers.

“He was just finished cleaning the gun,” Capiot said. “He was not cleaning his gun (while it was) loaded.

He was fine and released from the hospital that night.

The officer stopped by the man’s house Sunday to check on him.

“He was doing OK. He was sitting back in his chair watching TV with his family,” Capiot said.

As of press time, the gun was at the station for safekeeping.

He has a family?  Dudes, just keep it at the station.

Y’all, Marco Polo.

He’s lost.  are Rubio ran a “Morning in America” ad.  Only thing wrong with it was that it was Morning in Canada.

Yes, he’s talking to you, Canada!  Wake up!

I know it’s Obama’s fault, but you might want to check to see if there’s a Ted Cruz insider involved.

Thanks to everybody for the heads up.

Okay, here’s a SuperPAC we can all get behind.

Just read the first paragraph of the transmittal letter by clicking here.

Or, squint and read here.

That’s pretty cool.

Thanks to Alfredo over at the Dairy Queen for the heads up.

Okay, so I will admit that I rank Marco Rubio about three clicks below getting shingles on your wedding day, but he really chapped my butt this morning talking about the power of the presidency.

“The president can nominate whoever he wants, but the Senate is not going to act, and that’s pretty clear. So, we can keep debating it but we’re not moving forward on it, period.”

Well, thank you for that lesson in democracy, Capitan Ultimatum.

I guess that’s just Marco’s way of saying, Happy President’s Day!

Remind me again how many time Republicans have voted to kill Obamacare?

You know, just for fun, I think President Obama should nominate Marco Rubio just to watch the damnfool vote against himself.

.

The collective wit and wisdom of the clientele here is what makes us the Worlds Most Dangerous Beauty Salon – dangerous, at least, to the anti-progress forces which threaten to take civilization back into the Dark Ages.   Words and ideas have always been sword and buckler against such recidivism.  Long-time customer Micr has been credited with my favorite example of this: “snacilbupeR.”  In one clever inversion, he has captured the essence of the perversion of what used to be a fine upstanding member of America’s two-party system.  But it is a term that people have stumbled over, a time or two, and has never been fully fleshed out for the casual patron, so I have taken a whack at describing the genus, here, in verse.  And so without further ado, I hereby dedicate  to Micr:

The Ballad of the snacilbupeR
by Primo Encarnación

We stood on the Hill with our hands out
With a lead in the Senate and House.
We offered to work well in harness
(Can you harness a horse to a louse?)
The country had spoken quite clearly
But now found themselves in a stupor:
The minority GOP party
Had turned into snacilbupeR.

Tradition’s conservative party
Likes all of their changes quite slow:
They keep one foot on the brake pedal
And prefer “Caution” to “Go!”
But lately they’ve slowed so completely
That “progress” to them is a curse.
The people we call snacilbupeR
Are Republicans stuck in reverse.

They’re taking their country back with them
To a land that time has forgot,
When white Jesus bronc-busted T-Rex,
With sodomites busted by Lot,
And blah people knew well their places,
And wives? Well they were just super:
Barefoot and pregnant while cooking
Is the gal for a snacilbupeR!

And guns, well sir, don’t get them started!
This country was always its best
When a man who went out on a Sunday
Was never considered well-dressed
Without he had strapped on his pistol,
To shoot someone inside a church.
The Christian and armed snacilbupeR
Is the saintliest man since John Birch.

As far back in time as they long for,
The old time they tend to forget
Is when all of the Indians lived here,
And white peoples’ backs were all wet.
Columbus and all his successors,
Each good snacilbupeR believes,
Were white Christian action-film heroes,
Not manifest destiny thieves.

Then poor benighted electors,
In twenty-first century ten,
Gave back Congress to snacilbupeR,
Then did it again and again.
The districts are so gerrymandered,
Minority votes so suppressed,
That unless all you good folks are voting
Then all progress will be regressed.

snacilbupeR – what care they for science
Unless it is factually free
In order to serve the agenda
Of the fossilized fuel industry?
For polar bears, people and coastlines,
For the Atlantic Goliath Grouper,
For anyone who’s not a Koch-head,
Your murderer is snacilbupeR.

No matter your views this election –
“Go Hill!” or “Feel the Bern” –
The death of Judge snacilbupeR
Means we need all your votes for this turn.
And now that this ditty is finished
And you’ve all stuck it out like a trooper
We’ve learned the true meaning of evil:
Not each other – snacilbupeR.