On Sunday night, Bernie Sanders was endorsed by Chuck D in Los Angeles and Joe Biden was endorsed by Terry McAuliffe in Norfolk, Virginia. Chuck D is the 59 year-old founder of Public Enemy, self-described raptivist, and longtime supporter of left causes. He compared Trump to Hitler, warned the crowd of mostly millennials about corporate America, and sang the group’s most famous song, “Fight the Power.” McAuliffe, a Bill Clinton acolyte, is the former governor of Virginia and a prolific Democratic Party fundraiser. Speaking of Sanders, he told the crowd, “We don’t need a revolution, we need Joe Biden in the White House.”
Until Saturday, the prospect of a Sanders-led revolution within the Democratic Party seemed exceedingly likely. His opponents were divided and cash-strapped and had little incentive to exit the race in favor of a single anti-Sanders candidate. Party leaders were paralyzed with indecision. Biden looked shaky, and he kept losing. But then the actual Michael Bloomberg, as revealed in two debates, turned out to be a pale shadow of the virtual Bloomberg who loomed large in half a billion dollars of slick campaign ads. Elizabeth Warren failed to meet expectations in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada. The two intriguing moderates, Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar, had exceeded expectations in the first two states but those successes proved fleeting.
Biden’s 29-point victory in South Carolina transformed the race in a flash. He became the dominant alternative to Sanders, forced out three moderate rivals jamming up his ideological lane, starved Warren and Bloomberg of attention, rallied Democratic leaders to his campaign, and reversed the Sanders takeover of the party with a counter-revolution of the establishment. It all happened in 48 hours.
So while Chuck D and Terry M may be imperfect avatars for the two competing factions trying to wrestle control of the Democratic Party today when 14 states vote—the aging radical versus the consummate party insider—they are nevertheless instructive of what is now a clear and well-defined nomination fight between two late septuagenarians: a Sanders-led revolution versus a Biden-led restoration.
Anita Dunn, who took control of much of the Biden campaign after the Iowa debacle, argued that two important things happened in the 10 days between the Las Vegas debate on Feb. 19 and the South Carolina primary on Feb. 29 that allowed Biden to regain control of the race. “The Nevada debate was the debunking of this growing myth that Bloomberg was going to emerge as the alternative to Bernie Sanders and be acceptable to this political party,” she said. “And the South Carolina primary is when we solidified for many elected officials what the ultimate contrast would be, and who the two candidates would be.”
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11.27.2024