if we pick a candidate who makes the tent big enough to hold all Democrats

Jeralyn: "Instead of freaking out over Bernie, Dems should examine what his supporters believe a Bernie presidency might look like."

I've been advising people for some time now that a Bernie Sanders presidency is really nothing to fear. If (or when) he's our party's nominee, then I'm all in. Let's face it, a Sanders administration is eminently preferable to the present dreadful alternative. However, he's still not my first choice, Jeralyn, and here's why.

Let me first start off by saying that I agree with Sen. Sanders on a whole host of issues. We need to significantly reduce the costs of health care, elder care and child care. We need to both raise the minimum wage to at least $15 / hr. and raise taxes on the wealthiest 1% of Americans, whose aggregate net worth is already nearly three times that of the least wealthy 80% of Americans combined.

We also need to provide universal access to quality primary, secondary and higher public education, including universal public pre-school. We need to address the reality of climate change with a renewed sense of vigor and urgency. And we need the humility, courage and fortitude to curtail our country's overseas adventurism, particularly when taking such uncalculated risks clearly advances America's private interests at the primary expense of the public interest.

But all that said, there's still something perversely insidious about candidates who so cavalierly offer promises that they cannot possibly keep. And in my humble opinion, this is where Sanders constantly comes up dreadfully short. By repeatedly vowing to implement admittedly sweeping but otherwise untenable policy initiatives, such as free health care, national rent control, free college education and the summary cancellation of all student loan debt, Sanders is basically refusing to be grounded in reality.

By repeatedly throwing this red meat to his mostly young progressive followers, who generally have neither the life's experience nor the political savvy to realize that each of his initiatives presently stands a snowball's chance in hell of passing, Sanders has effectively shifted an important national policy debate within our Democratic electorate in a decidedly frivolous direction -- and worse still, he's doing so at an otherwise deadly serious and dangerous time.

Please don't get me wrong. Many of Sen. Sanders' proposals are indeed noble initiatives that are certainly worthy of pursuit as long-term policy objectives. But he and his supporters are not going to achieve their goals merely by inundating the U.S. media universe with cliché-riddled political mission statements recycled from the 1960s and '70s, e.g., "We need a revolution -- a mass multi-generational, multi-racial grassroots movement to take over American politics and enact actual transformative and meaningful change." (That's an actual Bernie quote, reproduced ad nauseum elsewhere on social media.)

And so, while I'm not at all opposed to Bernie Sanders' proposed itinerary and destination, I want to first see a road map which outlines a clear and viable pathway to eventually get there, before I will agree as a card-carrying Democrat to hire him as our party's driver. Because he needs to understand that his failure to provide that road map will make our job as Democrats that much harder, come this fall's campaign.

I talked to my Texan daughter, -----, to day.  Last week she said she was voting for Pete but today she said she reconsidered (like I did) and is going to vote for Biden.  I was surprised.  I think many people may be coming to the same conclusions.

I have also posted I channel surf a lot; every time an ad comes up I switch to another station.  Three times so far I have switched when a Bloomberg ad came up only to find there was a Bloomberg ad running on the new station.

Maybe more to the point all the ads were one of three of four Bloomberg ads with AAs saying how Bloomberg worked in criminal justice issues that helped blacks or economic issues that helped blacks or blacks singing Bloomberg's praises.

Thing is all these ads were in Florida; probably the worst big state for Sanders since lots of Hispanics don't like what Sanders has said about socialism in general and Castro in particular.  In fact Biden has made it clear he expects to do well in Florida; given his advantage with AAs.  It looks like Bloomberg is targeting his ads to hurt Biden by siphoning off AA voters.

Buttigieg May Be Joining Klobuchar at Biden Rally

March 2, 2020 at 2:53 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Pete Buttigieg may be joining Amy Klobuchar to endorse Joe Biden at a rally in Texas later tonight.

Washington Post: "There's a charter plane scheduled to go from South Bend to Dallas this evening, arriving not long after Biden's rally begins."

"The Buttigieg team has been silent about this for hours but it's possible Biden does what few have been able to: Bring Klobuchar and Buttigieg together."