"America must seize on the moment and I truly believe — as I actually told the VP last night when I called him — that I think this is a moment to put a woman of color on that ticket."

Said Amy Klobuchar, who says she called Biden on Wednesday to tell him she was withdrawing from competition for the VP slot, NBC News reports.

I think we all already knew her chance was blown:

In the immediate aftermath of Floyd’s killing, Klobuchar’s time as chief prosecutor for Hennepin County came back under scrutiny, specifically the lack of prosecutions she pursued in cases of police brutality....

Asked if those questions about her past record on police brutality would have made it harder for her in the role of vice presidential nominee, Klobuchar said Thursday: "I think I could've functioned fine and there's a lot of untruths out there about my record and now is not the time to debate those."

So what I hear in her effort at a high-minded statement is an undercutting of the other women who are in the running. First, Elizabeth Warren — who is not a woman of color except in her memory of younger days when family lore and a desire to identify were enough. Why step on her chances, Amy? Second, all the various black women who are in the running. Amy is ensuring that when one of them is picked, everyone will believe they were picked because of their race.

"Amy Klobuchar didn't prosecute officer at center of George Floyd's death after previous conduct complaints."

Yahoo News reports.

Ex-Minneapolis police officer Derick Chauvin saw at least 10 conduct complaints during his 19-year tenure before he was fired Tuesday, according to a database that documents complaints against police. In particular, he was involved in the shooting death of a man who had stabbed other people before attacking police, as well as some other undisclosed complaints. Klobuchar did not prosecute Chauvin and other officers involved for the first death, which occurred in October 2006 while she was running for Senate. The case was under investigation when Klobuchar took office in the Senate in Jan. 2007, and later went to a grand jury, which declined to charge the officers... ...Klobuchar "declined to bring charges in more than two dozen cases in which people were killed in encounters with police" as Hennepin County attorney. Instead, she "aggressively prosecuted smaller offenses" that "have been criticized for their disproportionate effect on poor and minority communities"....

Biden will need to gently close the door on Vice President Amy.

"Black activists warn Biden: Don't pick Klobuchar as VP."

That's the headline at Politico, making it sound as though a group of activists had sent a warning to Biden, when it's just that Politico interviewed black activists who, under questioning, expressed concern that Amy Klobuchar would not be very effective in bringing out the black vote. One of the interviewees is a co-author of a Washington Post op-ed that said Biden does "not need help winning white, working-class voters" and picking Amy Klobuchar "will only alienate black voters." She says, "If it was important enough to raise in an op-ed, it speaks to how serious we are." Another interviewee said "There are enough people who either A, don’t know her, or B, have a negative view of her that it becomes another thing the campaign has to do — introduce her and convince communities of color that she’s OK."

"Back in late 2017, it looked like Franken was going to weather the charges of inappropriate conduct against him, until Democrats apparently decided to sacrifice him..."

"... presumably in part to demonstrate that they could police their own.... The coup was quick and brutal. First, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand posted on Facebook a call for him to resign. Then, in quick succession, 13 more Democratic women senators (and a majority of the entire caucus) joined her. Whether Franken was guilty or innocent -- and he'd asked for a hearing -- his position became untenable. The day after Gillibrand’s shiv, he announced his intention to resign. (Chuck Schumer had told him to be out by 5 P.M.) If it looked like an orchestrated takeout, that's because it probably was. Biden -- even if innocent -- is now in a position where he must constantly worry about getting Frankened. By whom? Well, by the same sorts of powerful Democrats who helped him win the nomination (perhaps by helping orchestrate the well-timed withdrawals of Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg).... I'm also not saying 'they' want to replace Biden now.... But they could change their mind, and quickly, if he gives enough of them enough reason -- either by faltering, or pissing them off, or a combination of the two.... Biden probably wasn’t about to forge bold new directions.... But now Biden’s really in no position to step on anyone’s toes. Power has shifted away from the candidate."

From "The Frankening" by Mickey Kaus.

That could be read to say that Biden's position is stronger than ever. The Party wanted Biden because he would do what they want, and now there's even more reason for them to believe he will. He's boxed in.

Amy slips... and it seems she's revealing that she's Biden's VP choice.

{ WATCH }

A slip this morning by Sen. Amy Klobuchar during a campaign event for Joe Biden in Grand Rapids.

“I could not think of a better way to end my candidacy, as hard as it was to do with our beloved staff and everyone else, than to join the tick—“ pic.twitter.com/KZvzqNzkUJ

— Mikenzie Frost (@MikenzieFrost) March 7, 2020

So funny... and kind of charming. I hope she is Biden's choice. I think they'll be cute together. What better way than a gaffe to reveal your connection to the gaffe-master?

Via "Klobuchar 'ticket' slip-up at Biden event in Michigan sparks speculation she'll be his VP pick" (Fox News).

AND: Let's see how Joe is doing:

This is Joe Biden at his St. Louis rally earlier today. He spoke for less than 10 minutes, and these are just SOME of the verbal errors he made. This is NOT a stutter. This is serious. @progressvoice @KyleKulinski @OrganizingPower @CANCEL_SAM @shaunking #WhereIsJoe pic.twitter.com/5zsWddwqNi

— The Path Forward YT (@PathForwardYT) March 7, 2020

IN THE COMMENTS: Bob Boyd tells the perfect joke: "Biden picked her because her hair smelled like honey mustard."

Stick a comb in it, she's done.

Amy's out.

ADDED: She's endorsing Biden and will appear with him at a rally tonight. As for Buttigieg, he's mulling: "Buttigieg mulls Biden endorsement" (CNN). The time for action is now, Pete. Endorse Biden today.

UPDATE: Buttigieg takes my advice. He will endorse Biden, the NYT reports.

How the Democratic candidates responded to prompt what's "the biggest misconception about you."

There are different ways to interpret this invitation, so let's analyze and judge the candidates by the choices they made.

These are not in the order they appear in the transcript. I've grouped them in the way that fits my analysis.

First up: Biden and Bloomberg:

BIDEN: I have more hair than I think I do.

BLOOMBERG: Misconception, that I'm six feet tall.

Both of these men used the opportunity to point to a physical flaw that they've probably been sensitive about all their adult life. It's a well-known flaw. But it's not a misconception to believe that Biden has struggled with hair loss and Bloomberg is short. So they had to restate the flaw to make the answer fit.

One approach would have been to exaggerate the flaw so that it's wrong. That is, Biden could have said: The misconception is that I'm completely bald! And Bloomberg could have said: Some people say I'm only 4 foot 9! Now, nobody has that misconception, but I'd find it very funny.

Bloomberg exaggerates in the other direction, and nobody has that misconception, but he's imagining himself as a tall man, and in doing so, conceding that he is not. There's a kind of self-deprecation in that, even though it seems to be sneaking in a boast. But it's not a boast, because we absolutely know he's not 6 feet tall.

"Over and over, we are told that women are not allowed to be angry. It makes us unattractive to powerful men who want us to be quiet."

"I’m angry and I own it. I’m angry on behalf of everyone who is hurt by Trump’s government, our rigged economy, and business as usual."

Wrote Elizabeth Warren in an email reacting to Joe Biden, who's written that she has an "angry, unyielding viewpoint."

Quoted in "Klobuchar and Warren are shattering the expectations of female candidates" (WaPo), a column by Karen Tumulty, which I read mainly to try to understand what expectations still existed that hadn't been shattered by Hillary Clinton.

The name Hillary Clinton does not appear in that column! Does the columnist have an "expectation" that females disappear when they are unwanted?

Okay, here's the answer, according to Tumulty. Supposedly female candidates proceed in "a cautious manner" and stick to "a narrow lane of acceptability" where they are "tough but likeable, strong but not pushy" and "[n]ever, ever angry."

There's all this talk about Mike Bloomberg maybe wanting to stand on a box, but did anyone notice...

... that Amy Klobuchar stood on a box?

She carefully steps down off the box at the end of the show:



Nobody else had a box.

Why did Buttigieg go for the 5-o'clock-shadow look at last night's debate? It's the look that famously hurt Nixon!

To show you how it looked, I'll just give you a clip that happens to be one of my favorite moments. It begins with Amy Klobuchar  — "Are you trying to say that I'm dumb? Are you mocking me?" I can't even remember what that was about. I just think it's funny. Reminds me of that "Do I amuse you?" scene in "Goodfellas":



Anyway, Buttigieg clearly chose to display beard stubble. Why?! I've been hearing for 60 years that Nixon made a horrible blunder going on TV with 5-o'clock shadow.



But let's get a little correction from the Richard Nixon Foundation:

RN was not recovering from the flu, but from an infected knee. He was clean-shaven, though his complexion tended to give the impression of a five o’clock shadow. While the recently-hospitalized RN did not look his best, he hardly had the death’s-door appearance of legend. (When I show video of the debate to students, they wonder what the big deal was about.) JFK was youthful, but so was RN, who was only four years older....

Obviously, candidates learned long ago that they needed to tend to their appearance. Lighting and makeup are important, and you'd think every single man would go with a super clean shave. Don't make the Nixon mistake!

So why did Buttigieg decide — and it has to be a deliberate decision — to go with visible stubble?

One reason that seems very clear is that his problem is that he may be too young. As you can see from that quote from the Nixon Foundation, Nixon's problem was that he looked tired and old next to the youthful John Kennedy. Buttigieg is much younger than anyone else, so it was in his interest to look older.

I can think of other reasons. Stubble is masculinizing, and he might want to make a strongly masculine impression to defend against whatever prejudice against gay men is at play in voters minds.

And he might want to cancel out the Alfred E. Newman impression he makes on some people ... including President Trump:



Alfred E. Neuman is a beardless doofus. I mean, occasionally he sports a beard...



... but that's not the image that springs to mind. And it's not stubble.

Amy Klobuchar gets a second chance to say the name of the president of Mexico, and she still can't say "Andrés Manuel López Obrador."

She pronounces "Andrés" as "Andre" — no "s" and the accent on the first syllable:



It's like Ron Blagojevich trying to prove to Donald Trump that he can name the houses in Harry Potter's Hogwarts School:



He says "It's Slithering and it's Hufflepuff and it's Ravencloth." But it's Slitherin and Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw.

Blagojevich only needed to impress Trump. (He failed.) There were no Hogwarts voters to feel alienated by his inability to pronounce Hogwarts names.

Klobuchar needs to impress Hispanic voters, and saying "Andre" for "Andrés" feels as though you have no experience with people who speak Spanish.  Or even just the Spanish language, with its super-simple pronunciation rules. The way she grins while saying it wrong is so disturbing.

ADDED: If you keep watching the Klobuchar clip — which I finally did — you'll see she proceeds from her proud pronunciation of the name to blathering about why she got it wrong, and it's the worst possible answer! She says she'd had a very long busy day, and she was tired. She lists events "ending about 2 or 3 in the morning."

3 in the morning! That's the precise time that we've been saying a President needs to be ready to go, completely up for the most challenging tasks!

In the new NPR/Marist poll, Bernie is at 31% and second-place goes to Bloomberg, who gets 19%, enough to put him in tomorrow's debate.

Bloomberg needed a 4th poll giving him at least 10% nationally, and now he has it.

3rd and 4th places go to Biden (15%) and Warren (12%), and both of them are moving downward — Biden down 9 points and Warren down 5. Buttigieg and Klobuchar are both below 10% — the cut-off point for qualifying for the debate if you're qualifying on national polls.

(You can also qualify for this debate by hitting 12% in 2 polls from SC or Nevada or by having already won a delegate. Buttigieg, Sanders, Warren, Klobuchar, and Biden have all won delegates — 23, 21, 8, 7, and 6, respectively.)

High stakes for tomorrow's debate! This is where people will decide if Bloomberg deserves to become the focus of all the stop-Bernie action. If he doesn't, that action will continue to be diffused over 5 candidates, unless one of the other 4 — Buttigieg, Warren, Klobuchar, or Biden — suddenly emerges as the one to back. It's hard to see how anyone other than Bloomberg has a shot at becoming The One, so the anti-Bernie anti-Trumpsters have got to be looking at Bloomberg with an absurd amount of expectation.

It's hard to see how he can do well enough in the debate for that to happen. I think the 5 — that is, all the Democratic non-Bernies — will simply try to keep a majority away from Bernie and position themselves to win at the convention. That's 5 months away. And then there are only 3 1/2 months before the election. Democrats need a way to get through the next 5 months without devolving into brand-destroying chaos. Unless Buttigieg, Warren, Klobuchar, and Biden get together and pick one of them to go forward, the answer is going to be Bloomberg.

Unless he's awful at that debate.

And won't Buttigieg, Sanders, Warren, Klobuchar, and Biden all try to make him look awful?

I would advise Buttigieg, Warren, Klobuchar, and Biden to get together and pick one. But they need to do it soon. If I picture those 4 huddling and really trying to decide which of the 4 of them should take up the banner of moderate anti-Trumpism, I see the choice as Amy Klobuchar. She's the best age (59), she's female, and she's got a long record in the Senate. But that's too sensible, isn't it? The Democrats are so keyed up to fight that they're not going to accept mere sensibleness.

And yet mere sensibleness is also all Bloomberg purports to be. But he's spending billions to make that feel good, good enough to let go of the crazy excitement that is Bernie Sanders.

And Donald Trump.

Here's an article at Politico about Bloomberg's debate prep:

[H]is team is working to get him to project comfort and composure in the line of fire, while portraying him as the toughest Democrat to take on Donald Trump. Howard Wolfson, the veteran Democratic strategist who joined Bloomberg’s orbit in 2009 after working on Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential race, is playing the role of Sanders... Wolfson joked that his inspiration for Sanders came from watching “Statler and Waldorf,” the cantankerous elderly Muppets who lob critiques from their balcony seats...

How much did Bloomie pay him for that?

Bloomberg is trying to hone a crisp and energetic appeal to voters that will contrast with Biden— another white, male septuagenarian on stage, according to advisers. Other potential pitfalls for Bloomberg are his tendency to use dated language — words like “bawdy,” for instance — to dismiss concerns about his financial news service’s work culture for female employees....

So.... understanding the sexual harassment problem as a problem of using "dated language" and understanding one's opponents in terms of really old TV puppet shows. You can have billions of dollars to spend but you can only buy what's out there for sale. And Bloomberg — who, if elected, will make a lot of hiring decisions — found Wolfson, the man who helped Hillary lose.

Rush Limbaugh imagines what's going on in the desperate, desolate minds of Democrats.

"You’re looking at your options today, and you’re asking, 'Okay, can we win with Klobuchar? We don’t want to put Klobuchar up there because she doesn’t have a prayer. Trump’s gonna wipe the floor with her, and that would mean two women in a row get wiped out by Donald Trump. Two Democrat women in a row. We can’t have that! We can’t let that happen.' Then they’re sitting there and they’re looking at Mayor Pete — a 37-year-old gay guy, mayor of South Bend, loves to kiss his husband on the debate stage — and they’re saying, 'Okay. How’s this gonna look, a 37-year-old gay guy kissing his husband on stage next to Mr. Man, Donald Trump? What’s gonna happen there?' They gotta be looking at that, and they’ve gotta be saying that despite all the great progress and despite all the great wokeness and despite all the great ground that’s been covered, America’s still not ready to elect a gay guy kissing his husband on the debate stage president. They have to be saying this, don’t they? Now, there may be some Democrats who think that is the ticket. There may be some Democrats who think, 'That’s exactly what we need to do, Rush. Get a gay guy kissing his husband on stage! You ram it down Trump’s throat and beat him in the general election.' Really? Having fun envisioning that. What are you left with? Crazy Bernie. They’re left with the avowed revolutionary socialist who isn’t even a Democrat. So which of those three…? They want to take all three out. They would like to get rid of all three of those, the establishment of the Democrats. But if they can’t, which of those three would they rather lose with? Who among those three losing will do the least damage to the Democrat Party going forward? That’s what they are facing, if you ask me."

Link to Rush Limbaugh website.

I went to the official website for the link after reading (and listening to) "Rush Limbaugh: 'Mr. Man Donald Trump' will 'have fun' with Pete Buttigieg because he kisses his husband" at Media Matters. Media Matters intends to hold Rush up for contempt. Here's a comment from over there:

We don't want to get into what Flush likes to kiss, other than to say it did earn him a Medal of Freedom. And is there any more word on an exact time that the grim reaper will dispatch Flush to the fires below? I ask for millions of like-minded people who want to plan their block parties.

I think it's interesting that anti-Trump, anti-Rush people would view what Rush said as homophobic. He's imagining that Democrats are thinking that voters are homophobic. How is that different from what Democrats are saying out loud when they say — and they say this over and over — that black people won't vote for Buttigieg? They're all but coming out and saying that black voters are homophobic? It is different in one way — it disparages black people. If it's not disparagement, but simply an effort to understand how voters react to candidates, then what's wrong with what Rush said. The speech is too clear?

By the way, it's fantastic to hear Rush Limbaugh going strong on the radio. Even Rush haters should feel cheered by a man's strength against the forces of nature.

What should Biden do now? (To me, it's obvious!)

Great NY Post cover. The article there is "The spectacular collapse of Joe Biden as Democratic frontrunner." Biden came in 5th in New Hampshire, and he conspicuously left the state before the results started coming in, while people were still voting. Perhaps he meant to signal to them that they should vote for Pete or Amy if they want to stop Bernie.

Political experts said the 77-year-old Biden’s campaign has been dealt repeated blows by poor debate performances, his family’s ties to the Ukraine scandal, cringe-worthy gaffes, low-energy events and a lackluster ground game in early states....

By ditching New Hampshire, Biden has essentially bet the house on the Feb. 29 primary in South Carolina, where he has by far the most support from black voters. He is hoping for a resounding victory there, in what his campaign is betting will be a firewall state for him....

I think he should get out now, not skew the voting any longer. He's not going to make it, and he doesn't deserve to make it. He's been the Jeb of the 2020 Democratic race, standing in the way of others but unable to succeed himself. He should bow out now, which will look gracious. It won't look gracious later, after 2 or more weeks of clinging to lost hope. He can endorse Pete or Amy and give one of them a boost now, when it will really count.

But then, if what he secretly wants is to help Bloomberg, he should just cling to his horrible campaign and keep telling us it's all about South Carolina. Choke off support for Pete/Amy and keep the ground clear for Bloomberg's big entrance on Super Tuesday.

“It’s the Klobuchar miracle,” I say out loud.

Watching some super early returns.

“Klomentum,” Meade says.

UPDATE: At 6:46 CT, Gloria Borger said “Klomentum” on CNN.

UPDATE 2: “Klomentum” has been around since before Meade independently coined it. Not trying to claim first.

UPDTE 3: Michael Bennet and Andrew Yang have dropped out.

AND: Steyer is out. ADDED: I heard that on tv, but I am not seeing it in print, so I doubt it.

ALSO: My son John looks back on the Yang performance in the debates.

I'm as interested in Amy Klobuchar as the next person... You know me, I said in December 2018...

"I'm just going to be for Amy Klobuchar."

But I am amazed that on the day of the first primary, this is what I see at the top of my go-to political link webpage Memeorandum:



"Clay Aiken on 2020 primary...."

Clay Aiken!??

Is there some other Clay Aiken than the Clay Aiken I know, the guy who came in second in the second season of "American Idol"? No, this is that Clay Aiken.



Apparently, his opinion on who's the best Democrat this time around is the most important political news this morning.

I clicked through to the column, even though it's at USA Today, which is so clogged with ads that I feel like a person who doesn't even know how to read. But here's a paragraph. I'll put it over here so I can see it:

I, for one, am tired of candidates trying to dazzle me with meaningless platitudes or beat me over the head with poll-tested spin. I’m not so stupid that I can’t realize when a candidate doesn’t answer the question. I am not so forgetful that I don’t remember when they spit out the same talking points in every interview. The political world is littered with self-important candidates who speak to us like … well … politicians. We need a candidate who, instead of speaking with scripted talking points, is straightforward, honest and down to earth. Klobuchar is relatable.

Okay, I was with you until you asserted that Amy is not like all those other candidates....

And at that point, I got distracted into the "Not Like Other Girls" phenomenon:



To conclude: Amy is a politician, and Clay is a pop singer, and today is the New Hampshire primary, and you know me, I said it long ago, I'm just going to be for Amy Klobuchar.

ADDED: I'm reading those other links pictured in the Memeorandum screen-grab above. There's "Trump Rallygoers Confident He Can Beat Any Democrat This November" at HuffPo. That quotes one woman's opinion of Amy Klobuchar: "She seems like a bitch. She’s got that bitch face on her all the time... I have no use for her. I think she’s crazy.”

Klobuchar on the upswing meets Biden on the downswing.

On the Real Clear Politics graph of poll averages for the New Hampshire primary, both candidates hit 11.3:



I think a strong message is being sent to New Hampshire voters to drop Biden and vote for someone else — Buttigieg or Klobuchar — if you want a chance to stop Bernie.

Less than a month ago, Biden was on top:

Do you think Trump will be better off not having to run against a woman this time?

That's my first question, upon reading "BUCHANAN: Could be down to 3 white guys by end of month..." (at Drudge). The link goes to a column by Patrick Buchanan at WND.*

If Klobuchar runs fifth in Iowa and third, fourth or fifth in New Hampshire, in what state does she win her first primary? And as her fundraising has never matched that of the front-runners, where does she get the money to match Sanders or Bloomberg on Super Tuesday, now just three weeks off?...

As for Warren, in her battle with Sanders to emerge as the champion of the progressive wing of the party, her third-place finish in Iowa, and her expected third-place finish in New Hampshire, at best, would seem to settle that issue for this election.... I[n] what state does Elizabeth Warren beat her progressive rival?...

It's bad for the Democrats to lose their female candidates, but that does seem to be where things are going. They've already lost all their black candidates (at least the ones strong enough to have gotten on the debate stage (there's still Deval Patrick)). So it will, in all likelihood, be a white male against Trump. Is that better for him? I could argue both ways, so I give the question to you for now.
________________

* WND? Is that a disreputable website? I see it also has: "James Woods sprung from 'Twitter jail,' gets instantly political/Sarcastically asks: 'How's Jeffrey Epstein doing?'"

After being held captive in "Twitter jail" for nearly a year, essentially locked out of his own social-media account and precluded from posting any messages, actor James Woods triumphantly returned to the site Thursday night....

His first tweet:

I’ve tried so hard this past year to live without the wealth of knowledge available on Twitter, but this kind of blazing insight can be found nowhere else, so... I’m back! #AOCStillAMoron pic.twitter.com/kB0oDXmArB

— James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) February 7, 2020

If you were following Woods before his banishment, check to see if you still are. I was and am.

ADDED: From Wikipedia: "WorldNetDaily (WND) is an American news and opinion website and online news aggregator which has been described as 'fringe' and far right as well as politically conservative. The website is known for promoting falsehoods and conspiracy theories."

Is this gender-related? The NYT endorses both Amy Klobuchar and Elizabeth Warren.

I like the illustration, but this is semi-nuts:



The nice illustration is by Jules Julien. It's even better if you go to the article page, here.

If Kamala Harris were still in the race, would the Times have picked 3?

Let's read:

On the Democratic side, an essential debate is underway between two visions that may define the future of the party and perhaps the nation. Some in the party view President Trump as an aberration and believe that a return to a more sensible America is possible. Then there are those who believe that President Trump was the product of political and economic systems so rotten that they must be replaced....

Democrats must decide which of their two models would be most compelling for the American people and best suited for repairing the Republic.... The history of the editorial board would suggest that we would side squarely with the candidate with a more traditional approach to pushing the nation forward, within the realities of a constitutional framework and a multiparty country....

[But now b]oth the radical and the realist models warrant serious consideration.... That’s why we’re endorsing the most effective advocates for each approach. They are Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar.....

You decide if you want to go realist or radical, and the Times has picked the best realist and the best radical. This is similar to choosing the best Democrat and the best Republican when there are active primaries in both parties.

Anyway, the question becomes why Warren over Sanders? The NYT observes that Sanders is 79 (Warren is 70) and he just had a heart attack. But it's not just that. The Times says he's "overly rigid, untested and divisive." Meanwhile, "Senator Warren is a gifted storyteller." Oh, yes, I remember the story of how Bernie told her a woman can't be President and the story of how she is a person of color. But the Times means:

She speaks elegantly of how the economic system is rigged against all but the wealthiest Americans... In her hands, that story has the passion of a convert, a longtime Republican from Oklahoma and a middle-class family, whose work studying economic realities left her increasingly worried about the future of the country....

How do we know Warren was "a longtime Republican"? I agree it's a good story!

I'm skipping over a lot, but here's the part where the Times has a reservation (sorry, I just stumbled into that word, but I do see the humor potential):

In her primary campaign...  she has shown some questionable political instincts. She sometimes sounds like a candidate who sees a universe of us-versus-thems, who, in the general election, would be going up against a president who has already divided America into his own version of them and us.... The senator talks more about bringing together Democrats, Republicans and independents behind her proposals, often leaning on anecdotes about her conservative brothers to do so....

For those who opt for moderation, why is Amy Klobuchar the one? The Times ticks through the alternatives. Pete Buttigieg is young. Andrew Yang has no governmental experience. Bloomberg is "the candidate in the race with the clearest track record of governing," but he's not campaigning in the normal way. Joe Biden is "prone to verbal stumbles," and he just "tinkers at the edges of issues," and talks about "merely restoring the status quo." So: Amy!

The senator from Minnesota is the very definition of Midwestern charisma, grit and sticktoitiveness. Her lengthy tenure in the Senate and bipartisan credentials would make her a deal maker (a real one) and uniter for the wings of the party — and perhaps the nation.... Her record shows that she is confident and thoughtful, and she reacts to data — what you’d want in a crisis....

I think the NYT really wants Amy Klobuchar to be the one. And you know me: I said it in December 2018: "Why aren't the Democratic candidates better? I'm just going to be for Amy Klobuchar."

Here's how the NYT ends its dual endorsement:

Democrats would be smart to recognize that Mr. Trump’s vision for America’s future is shared by many millions of Americans. Any hope of restoring unity in the country will require modesty, a willingness to compromise and the support of the many demographics that make up the Democratic coalition....

There will be those dissatisfied that this page is not throwing its weight behind a single candidate, favoring centrists or progressives. But it’s a fight the party itself has been itching to have... the very purpose of primaries...

May the best woman win.

I think there's a dual endorsement here not because there are 2 women left and the NYT wants a woman, as if there's no way to distinguish them because there's only one factor, gender. I think the NYT wants to stand back for a while and let voters have their time with the radical option and get rid of one of the radicals (Bernie, they hope), and later when things settle down, they'll let us know that the realist is better suited to go up against Trump. They hope to give Amy some traction in the meantime, and if it comes down, in the end, to Elizabeth and Amy, they'll advise Democrats to pick Amy.

But chances are, it will boil down to Biden and Bernie, and if it does, that's when we'll know how dedicated the Times is to the realist side of the Democratic Party. They'll embrace Biden.

4 hours ago, I said I wanted to blog the debate transcript to see what was said about the miniature controversy over whether Bernie opined that a woman cannot win in 2020.

So let me follow through. Obviously, I've been in no hurry. I didn't watch the debate past the first question last night, and, though I have the thing recorded, I'm not interested in watching it now. I have the transcript, but I'm not even going to skim the whole thing. I'm only going to read through the part about this one issue, because I've been blogging about it, and I want closure on the subject. I will simulblog my reading of this one portion of the transcript.