Political Misfits

Last Call for Sneaky Pete and the Klob, No Surprises in South Carolina

Kingmakers are real - in South Carolina, at least. Also real, but definitely not fabulous - coronavirus and Mike Pence’s weekend spin tour.
Sputnik

Today on “Political Misfits,” hosts Bob Schlehuber and Jamarl Thomas reviewed the results of the Saturday open primary in South Carolina, where, as long predicted, Joe Biden won. Biden won decisively, with Bernie Sanders a distant second and the rest of the pack trailing even further. The defeat - or perhaps the consultations afterward - were enough to convince Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar to pack it up, pack it in and let the real fight begin. 

Biden’s victory also breathed some new life into the press narratives of Joe as the Comeback Kid and Sanders as Bad on Race, both of which the misfits and guests China Dickerson and Ra Shad Frazier-Gaines sank their teeth into. 

Dickerson, a South Carolina native and national political director for Forward Majority, gave her overview of older, rural, black southern voters and how some campaigns haven’t found messages that resonate with them. Representative Jim Clyburn’s endorsement of Biden seemed to prove consequential in exit polls, generating a result that incensed Frazier-Gaines, founder and chair of the Black Caucus of the Young Democrats of America and founder and chair of Black Progressives. Biden’s victory might have been predicted, but it makes no sense, he explained. The misfits and friends also said the unsayable about President Trump at CPAC - the man is funny. He might be wrong, but he is making his supporters laugh, and the Democrats ought to figure out how to achieve that. 

Also not making a lot of sense was Pence on his Sunday cable news tour, trying to convince Americans that the risk of coronavirus infection is low even as the virus spreads in some of the country’s busiest and most populous areas. 

Finally, our hosts tried to make sense of the latest in Afghanistan, where a peace treaty between the US and the Taliban seems to have conditions in it that the Afghan government isn’t ready to meet. With the relaunch of “operations” by the Taliban against the government in Kabul, it’s possible this peace could be DOA. 

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