Biden's Super Day
In spite of bad polls and some bad press, Joe Biden beat expectations in Super Tuesday's voting. Last night, Biden swept the southern states, aided by strong support from black voters, and he also scored surprising wins in Maine, Massachusetts and Minnesota.
Nevertheless, Bernie Sanders struck gold in the Golden State, winning the delegate jackpot of California, along with Colorado, Utah and Vermont. When all of California's delegates are finally allocated, it is expected that Biden will have a narrow lead of 60 to 70 delegates over Sanders.
Looking ahead to future contests, the numbers crunchers at FiveThirtyEight.com predict that Biden will be short of a majority when he arrives at the Democrat National Convention. In other words, it's going to be a long, hard road to Milwaukee and the Democrat Party nomination.
The Fallout
This morning, Michael Bloomberg ended his campaign and formally endorsed Joe Biden. While Biden is no doubt thrilled to have Bloomberg's endorsement and financial backing, I suspect Joe won't be sharing a pizza with Bloomberg anytime soon!
Presumably trying to appear to be a man of the people, Bloomberg's campaign posted a video of the former mayor grabbing a piece of pizza, ripping off the crust, putting some back in the box, and then licking his fingers.
This from the guy who bought a three-minute infomercial on two major networks to explain how he would deal with the coronavirus! Needless to say, the social media criticism was brutal.
Senator Elizabeth Warren, who finished third in her home state of Massachusetts, is reportedly taking a day off to "assess the path forward." Many progressives are furious with Warren for staying in this long and siphoning votes away from Sanders.
A final point: Early voting is not a good idea. More than half a million people cast ballots weeks ago for candidates who dropped out. Their votes were completely wasted.
Roberts In The Middle
The Supreme Court today heard arguments in a critical case challenging a Louisiana law that requires abortionists to have hospital admitting privileges in case of an emergency during the abortion procedure.
The Louisiana law is similar to a Texas law the high court struck down in 2016 in a 5-to-3 vote after Justice Scalia had passed away. But the Supreme Court has changed significantly since then.
President Trump appointed Justice Neil Gorsuch to replace Scalia and Justice Brett Kavanaugh to replace Anthony Kennedy, who was the deciding fifth vote in the Texas case.
The Louisiana law is just common sense. Doctors performing surgical procedures that can and do go terribly wrong should be able to access hospitals in emergencies. The left is usually eager to regulate businesses. Yet the left insists that there be no regulation at all when it comes to the abortion industry.
The left also insist that abortion is about "women's healthcare." Well, that is precisely the issue in this case – regulations to ensure the health and safety of women.
Chief Justice John Roberts, who voted to uphold the Texas law four years ago, seemed somewhat at odds with his previous opinion today. Reports suggest that he was wrestling with how much weight to give the precedent set by the Texas ruling. A decision is expected this summer.