Michigan and the subsequent 125 Democrat delegates is a critical state for the presidential primary contest between Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders.   Michigan (125 delegates), Idaho (20), Mississippi (36), Missouri (68), North Dakota (14), and Washington State (89) all vote next Tuesday March 10th.

Former Vice-President Joe Biden, an advocate for outsourcing U.S. jobs via corrupt trade deals, is hoping to leverage his phony pro-union bona-fides & crush Bernie Sanders in Michigan.

However, Bernie has a strong ground team in Michigan, understands the importance in delegate accumulation, and also knows it is critical to defeat the ‘unelectable‘ narrative the DNC Club has deployed against him.

Michigan is also critical for Bernie because his positions on Cuba have damaged his hopes in Florida (219 delegates) voting on March 17th.

If Bernie is going to mount a progressive charge against the power of the DNC apparatus he needs a strong outcome from working class voters in Michigan, Illinois (155) and Ohio (136 delegates).  The primary contests in Illinois and Ohio are held on March 17th along with Florida.

Into this critical moment comes Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer who is: (a) part of the professional party apparatus; and (b) endorsing the party candidate, Joe Biden.

MICHIGAN – Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) on Thursday endorsed Joe Biden for president, a significant boost for the former vice president ahead of next week’s primary in the Wolverine State.

Whitmer, whose state’s primary will allocate 125 pledged delegates, cast Biden as an advocate for working families, citing his work on health care, bailing out the auto industry and more during his time in the Obama administration.

“Working families in Michigan need a president who will show up and fight for them, and Joe Biden has proven time and again that he has our backs,” she said in a statement. “Michiganders have grit. We’re tough. We know what it’s like to be overlooked and counted out. And we know that when you get knocked down, you pick yourself up and get back to work. Joe Biden has been right there with us in the tough fights.” (read more)

Joe Biden and Gretchen Whitmer

In many ways the 2020 Democrat primary is even more difficult for Bernie because the potential for his success is/was higher.  In 2016 the Club apparatus knew Bernie Sanders was positioned as a primary candidate in name only.  The Club had already structured a pre-determined outcome; a road-map specifically designed for Hillary Clinton.

In 2016 DNC Club leadership didn’t initially pay too much attention to Bernie early in the primary because they never gave him a chance.  It was only after the primary race was well underway; and seeing an actual fire under the grassroots support he carried; that the Club realized Sanders was factually a threat.  Once the machine moved internally to eliminate Bernie as a possibility…. the rest -as they say- became history.

This year the Club obviously took Bernie very seriously and pre-positioned a multitude of defensive systems, all very well funded, to diminish him.

Team Bernie needs a win or split decision in Michigan (125 delegates) and Washington State (89 delegates)… because Idaho (20), North Dakota (14), Missouri (68), and Mississippi (36), are far less favorable.

The importance of Michigan on March 10th, and the alignment of the professionally-black caucus behind Biden, appears to be why Bernie is ceding Mississippi in the south and cancelling trips.

(Via Bloomberg) Bernie Sanders canceled a campaign trip to Mississippi scheduled for Friday and will instead campaign in Michigan, an aide said Thursday. The move means that Sanders is effectively ceding votes in the South to Joe Biden.

Sanders was supposed to campaign on Friday with Jackson, Mississippi Mayor Chokwe Lumumba, who endorsed the Vermont senator.

But, after losing 10 of 14 states on Super Tuesday, Sanders is redirecting his focus to Michigan, which holds its primary contest on Tuesday. Biden had particularly strong performances across the South on Tuesday, lifted by overwhelming support from black voters, and is expected to easily win Mississippi on Tuesday.

Sanders won a surprise victory in the Michigan primary in 2016, and the state will be critical to his ability to catch up to Biden, who overtook him in delegates after Super Tuesday.(read more)

This landscape is why the duplicity of Elizabeth Warren is particularly painful for the loyal Bernie Sanders supporters.  It would be immensely valuable for Elizabeth Warren to join with Sanders and mount a united progressive charge into the state of Michigan.

With both Sanders and Warren assembling their coalitions in Michigan a win would be much more likely.  However, the Club knows exactly this point…. And that is exactly why Liawatha is following Club directions and not endorsing Bernie.

The positive for Sanders is the DNC rule-changes that make every state proportional in delegate distribution.  If Sanders can stay a close second in states he does not win and  simultaneously expand large margins in the states he does win, then he has a viable path against the machine.   However, this approach requires BIG wins in BIG delegate-rich states.

Essentially that’s Bernie’s delegate road-map to the convention:

(1) stay a close second place in the smaller states that he loses; and

(2) have big wins in the big states where he has larger networks.

With that in mind the Sanders campaign likely regrets some of the recent remarks about Cuba that made Miami-Dade voters twitchy.  It will be interesting to watch what Team Bernie does in Florida; Bernie cannot concede 219 delegates and still hope to win the nomination, even with optimism toward Ohio (136) and Illinois (155).

March 10th and March 17th are critical dates for Bernie Sanders….

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As expected most media outlets are now reporting Elizabeth Warren is ending her ill-fated bid for the presidency and is gonna git her a beer.

NEW YORK TIMES – Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts plans to drop out of the presidential race on Thursday and will inform her staff of her plans later this morning, according to a person close to her, ending a run defined by an avalanche of policy plans that aimed to pull the Democratic Party to the left and appealed to enough voters to make her briefly a front-runner last fall.

Though her vision excited progressives, that did not translate to enough excitement from the party’s more working-class and diverse base, and her support had eroded by Super Tuesday. (more)

It will be interesting to watch if Warren endorses Sanders on the trail of tears, or if she takes her tin cup to Joe Biden.

A most likely scenario for Liawatha is a non-endorsement of Sanders without an overt endorsement of Biden and the Big Club; simply because a non-endorsement of Sanders is a covert endorsement of Biden and her limo-liberal alliance.

According to recent reporting Elizabeth Warren is in negotiations with Bernie Sanders and with Joe Biden about her future in the race, her scripted departure, and which campaign can provide the best incentives for her endorsement.

The fact that Senator Warren is negotiating with both Bernie and Biden teams only highlights the reality of her inauthentic nature.

Warren’s inauthenticity was painfully obvious as she became more desperate and started pandering to ever-smaller groups of constituents, ultimately culminating in her political promise to allow a transgendered 9-year old grade-school student to select her cabinet.

If Senator Elizabeth Warren takes the Bloomberg cash and endorses Joe Biden she will lose any/all progressive credibility; albeit fraudulently based credibility built upon a need to hide her limo-liberal bona fides.  She will also be targeted by the most vocal left-wing elements of the Bernie-AOC caucus for selling out.

If Senator Warren goes with Bernie Sanders, she can retain her progressive title, but will lose all inside DC political capital and be on the wrong side of the party apparatus.  Or, put another way, it could cost her millions.

So, what will she do?….  Credibility or CASH… which is more valued?

Washington Post – Top surrogates and allies of Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders are discussing ways for their two camps to unite and push a common liberal agenda, with the expectation that Warren is likely to leave the presidential campaign soon, according to two people familiar with the talks.

The conversations, which are in an early phase, largely involve members of Congress who back Sanders (I-Vt.) reaching out to those in Warren’s camp to explore the prospect that Warren (D-Mass.) might endorse him. They are also appealing to Warren’s supporters to switch their allegiance to Sanders, according two people with direct knowledge of the conversations who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss delicate discussions that are supposed to be confidential.

Warren associates and the camp of former vice president Joe Biden also had talks about a potential endorsement if she drops out, according to two people familiar with the conversations.(continue reading)

…”C’mon Liz, let it in… accept it… let me help you… you know you want to”…

Billionaire Mini-Mike Bloomberg spent more than $700 million in an effort to win the Democrat presidential nomination.  He won American Samoa. Today mini-mike announces he is suspending his campaign and immediately endorses Joe Biden.

Bloomberg has a massive campaign system behind him, including thousands of campaign workers and a nation-wide network from his political committee activities around gun control.   It is virtually certain Bloomberg will use a legally permissible independent expenditure and put the very expensive apparatus into play behind Biden.

New York – Former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg suspended his presidential campaign on Wednesday, endorsing Joe Biden after pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into his own failed White House bid.

“Three months ago, I entered the race for president to defeat Donald Trump. Today, I am leaving the race for the same reason: to defeat Donald Trump,” Bloomberg said in a statement. “It is clear to me that staying in would make achieving that goal more difficult.”

Bloomberg’s exit comes hours after a disastrous showing in the Super Tuesday primaries, which netted the former mayor only a single first-place victory in the territory of American Samoa. (more)