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The U.S. Democratic Party has just concluded its first two voting exercises of the 2020 primary election season designed to lead to the election of their official candidate for the presidential elections in November of this year. To characterize the processes of the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary as confusingly inept would be an understatement. In Iowa, the new vote-counting system produced largely inconsistent and incomprehensible results two weeks ago, requiring a large-scale ongoing recount but it appears that the leading candidate was Bernie Sanders, aged 78, an independent Senator from the state of Vermont and Pete Buttigieg, aged 38, the former mayor of the small town of South Bend Indiana got second place honors. Shockingly, everyone´s favorite, former Vice President Joe Biden ended up in fourth place far behind Senator Elizabeth Warren who garnered the third spot. And then it got even worse for Biden: in the New Hampshire Primary he dropped to fifth place! Again, Sanders – who is still recovering from a massive heart attack he suffered in October of last year – garnered first place, Buttigieg was second and, surprisingly, Amy Klobuchar, the relatively unknown Senator from Minnesota catapulted into third while Elizabeth Warren dropped into fourth position. A number of national polls of likely democratic voters conducted on Thursday, February 13th , still showed Joe Biden with a slight lead in first place – but sinking fast. Bernie Sanders – a self-styled “Democratic Socialist” – was close behind and, shockingly, seemingly out of nowhere appeared a dark horse interloper: Mike Bloomberg the billionaire former mayor of New York City. Bloomberg who will not participate in primaries until next month has blanketed the nation with an unheard-of massive television campaign which has cost him 110 million Dollars of his own money so far and has gotten him a place on the democratic televised debate stage this week. (Apparently, his plan to buy an election victory for himself is showing results) His plan is to fully engage his campaign on “Super Tuesday” in March when in ten States, a majority of the 1991 delegates which will select the official Democrat presidential candidate at their national convention in July of this year, are determined. But his racist stop-and-frisk policy as New York mayor can´t be forgotten. He violated the bodies and constitutional rights of mostly minority men and boys. “…What Michael did as mayor amounted to a police occupation of minority neighborhoods, a terroristic pressure campaign, with little evidence that it was accomplishing the goal of sustained, long-term crime reduction…”: The New York Times. With all of this confusion among the Democrats, Donald Trump must be celebrating in the White House: Biden, while still in the lead, remains a flawed candidate. The Democrats don´t have a Barack Obama – they simply don´t have a single, truly charismatic leader who is inspiring the people on a national scale. Bernie Sanders, by calling himself a Socialist, would certainly receive the kiss of death from Trump in the presidential election because the American electorate is simply not prepared to put a socialist in the White House. Sanders narrowly edged out Pete Buttigieg, who will receive the same number of New Hampshire delegates at the Democratic Convention. Pete Buttigieg has two problems: 1) his relations with the black electorate because of police brutality against minorities during his term as mayor of South Bend, 2) there is the aspect of his sexual orientation: the ultra-conservative South and Mid-west are not ready to contemplate a president who is married to a man. Whether or not the electorate is prepared to consider the two female contenders as viable opponents to Trump is, at this point, anyone´s guess.

One has to admit: At present, Donald Trump, aged 73, has several powerful factors in his favor. Voters in the U.S. tend to stick with what they know. No incumbent has lost the White House since George H.W. Bush´s defeat at the hands of Bill Clinton in 1992 – and that was during a recession and tax increase, whereas Trump is enjoying steady economic growth, near constant stock market records, and the lowest unemployment rates in half a century. Some 56% of Americans now approve of his handling of the economy, his highest rating since taking office. He also has advantages of time and money. He has effectively been campaigning for a second term in office since the day of his inauguration in January of 2017 – and he has done so with a potentially lethal combination – on the one hand, rollicking rallies all over the country and a constant stream of Tweets that sell a crude, offensive populist message. On the other hand, his campaign team is presiding over clinically rigorous data-gathering and internet-based voter mobilization and radicalization operation – supported by cyber operations conducted by Russian military intelligence exactly as in the election campaign that brought Trump to power in 2017. With the massive help of the Russians, Trump could even afford to suffer another heavy defeat in the popular vote (Hillary Clinton had a 3,00,000 advantage in the popular vote in 2016 over Trump) If the Russians manage to make him prevail again in a small handful of States that by their vote decide the Electoral College. The U.S. has a singularly bizarre electoral system in which the president is not elected by popular vote, but by a body of 435 electors which are unevenly apportioned among the 50 States. Winning in only a few of them can get you elected president – as Trump found out to his delight in 2016.

With this worrisome panorama, on can only hope that the American electorate will heed the old adage: “Fool me once – shame on you! Fool me twice – shame on me!” and turn out in overwhelming numbers on election day to put a normal patriotic Democrat president in the White House. Please consider the final countdown: 9 days to the Nevada caucuses, 16 days to South Carolina primary, 19 days to Super Tuesday, 264 days to Election Day and 342 days to Inauguration day!