theatlantic--2020-02-25--The Loudest Debate Yet

The Loudest Debate Yet

In their voices you could hear not only anger but panic .
They seemed worried about the impending demise of their individual campaigns , yes , but in a race that has turned so sharply on the question of electability , their fear went a step further : Each Democrat on that stage seemed to suggest that without his or her name at the top of the ticket , the party stood no chance of defeating Donald Trump in November .
“ I am scared , ” Steyer said as he inveighed against both Sanders and former New York City @ @ @ @ @ @ @ can not pull this party together , if we go to one of those extremes , we take a terrible risk of reelecting Donald Trump.
” After largely escaping the spotlight last week in Nevada , Sanders was a frequent target tonight .
“ Vladimir Putin thinks that Donald Trump should be president of the United states , and that ’ s why Russia is helping you , ” Bloomberg said in the debate ’ s opening moments , referencing reports that Russia is interfering on behalf of both Trump and Sanders .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ said the Vermont democratic socialist would be a drag on the Democratic ticket .
“ I like Bernie , ” Klobuchar said .
“ We came in together to the Senate .
But I do not think that this is the best person to lead the ticket.
” For the second week in a row , Warren lit into Bloomberg repeatedly .
In one of the most visceral attacks of the entire campaign , she used her own story of losing a teaching job when she got pregnant to dredge up an accusation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ employees .
A woman alleging workplace discrimination at Bloomberg ’ s financial firm said that when he found out she was expecting a child , he told her to “ kill it.
” The audience in Charleston gasped when Warren raised the charge , and some even booed .
“ I never said that , ” Bloomberg angrily replied .
Earlier , Warren had brought up Bloomberg ’ s recent history of supporting Republicans , noting that he has supported South Carolina ’ s own Senator Lindsey Graham as well as conservative Senator @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ran for the Senate herself in 2012 , Bloomberg backed the incumbent Republican , Scott Brown .
That past , she said , would make him an unacceptable risk in the general election .
“ I don ’ t care how much money he has , ” Warren said .
“ The core of the Democratic Party will never trust him.
” Warren treaded much more lightly with Sanders , although she did draw more of a contrast with him than she has in the past .
“ Bernie and I agree on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ think I would make a better president than Bernie , ” she said , explaining that she ’ s had more success in the fights she ’ s waged , such as pushing for the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau .
She said their plans for Medicare for All were similar , but his “ does n't show enough about how we ’ re going to pay for it .
”

Well, that was loud.
The seven Democrats vying for the party’s presidential nomination shouted their way through the 10th debate tonight in Charleston, South Carolina, ahead of Saturday’s primary. They interrupted one another, bickered with one another, and bitterly accused one another of all manner of political and moral failings.
“I’m not out of time!” former Vice President Joe Biden snapped at one particularly chaotic moment. Like one of the more memorable segments at the first debate, last summer, the words might have carried a double meaning, and not in the way Biden wanted.
For Biden, and indeed for several of the candidates onstage, tonight was perhaps their final opportunity to rejigger the Democratic race before Senator Bernie Sanders can dramatically widen his delegate lead next week in the Super Tuesday contests. Biden is banking first on a victory in South Carolina this weekend—tonight he vowed to win the state but notably would not guarantee that he’d stay in the race if he lost. Senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, along with former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg and the billionaire Tom Steyer, could also have been appearing in their final debate.
In their voices you could hear not only anger but panic. They seemed worried about the impending demise of their individual campaigns, yes, but in a race that has turned so sharply on the question of electability, their fear went a step further: Each Democrat on that stage seemed to suggest that without his or her name at the top of the ticket, the party stood no chance of defeating Donald Trump in November.
“I am scared,” Steyer said as he inveighed against both Sanders and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. “If we cannot pull this party together, if we go to one of those extremes, we take a terrible risk of reelecting Donald Trump.”
After largely escaping the spotlight last week in Nevada, Sanders was a frequent target tonight. “Vladimir Putin thinks that Donald Trump should be president of the United states, and that’s why Russia is helping you,” Bloomberg said in the debate’s opening moments, referencing reports that Russia is interfering on behalf of both Trump and Sanders.
Virtually all of the candidates except Warren said the Vermont democratic socialist would be a drag on the Democratic ticket. “I like Bernie,” Klobuchar said. “We came in together to the Senate. But I do not think that this is the best person to lead the ticket.”
For the second week in a row, Warren lit into Bloomberg repeatedly. In one of the most visceral attacks of the entire campaign, she used her own story of losing a teaching job when she got pregnant to dredge up an accusation made by one of Bloomberg’s employees. A woman alleging workplace discrimination at Bloomberg’s financial firm said that when he found out she was expecting a child, he told her to “kill it.” The audience in Charleston gasped when Warren raised the charge, and some even booed. “I never said that,” Bloomberg angrily replied.
Earlier, Warren had brought up Bloomberg’s recent history of supporting Republicans, noting that he has supported South Carolina’s own Senator Lindsey Graham as well as conservative Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania. When she ran for the Senate herself in 2012, Bloomberg backed the incumbent Republican, Scott Brown. That past, she said, would make him an unacceptable risk in the general election. “I don’t care how much money he has,” Warren said. “The core of the Democratic Party will never trust him.”
Warren treaded much more lightly with Sanders, although she did draw more of a contrast with him than she has in the past. “Bernie and I agree on a lot of things, but I think I would make a better president than Bernie,” she said, explaining that she’s had more success in the fights she’s waged, such as pushing for the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. She said their plans for Medicare for All were similar, but his “doesn't show enough about how we’re going to pay for it.”
“I dug in,” Warren continued. “I did the work, and then Bernie's team trashed me for it. We need a president who is going to dig in, do the hard work, and actually get it done.”
It was a clear shot, but like so many of the attacks leveled against Sanders tonight, it was a glancing blow. For Warren, as for the others, it might have come too late. The early contests end on Saturday, and then one-third of the country weighs in on March 3.
The Democrats were louder and more desperate tonight because they’re all realizing that to stop Sanders, they’re just about out of time.


theatlantic--2020-02-25--The Atlantic Politics Daily: Medicare for All—Maybe

Not even a week ’ s passed since we last recapped the state of the Democratic primary before a debate ( not even 150 hours , you can count ‘ em ) .
Tonight ’ s affair ( the tenth , count ‘ em ) comes days before key primaries in South Carolina and then 14 Super Tuesday states , plus American Samoa .
Here ’ s where we left the contenders : ‣ Joe Biden : He needs a win , and he ’ s still counting on his South Carolina firewall .
But ... ‣ Michael Bloomberg : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Maybe he ’ ll try to pivot to gun control tonight .
‣ Pete Buttigieg : After Iowa , he very boldly started acting like a front-runner .
For a very limited time , he was .
Will he and Amy Klobuchar continue their two-way hostilities ?
‣ Amy Klobuchar : She ’ s still here .
After struggling with Latinos in Nevada , she now may be facing a similar challenge with black voters in South Carolina .
‣ Bernie Sanders : Will he be a bigger target than he was last @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tonight relatively unscathed ?
‣ Tom Steyer : Now for billionaire number two !
He ’ s returning to the debate stage in a state where he ’ s spent a lot of money ( and where one of our reporters caught up with in October to understand … what he ’ s thinking ) .
‣ Elizabeth Warren : She continues to struggle in the early states , ending up fourth in Nevada .
Warren and Sanders are often lumped together , but the two have pretty fundamental differences in vision , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ litigious group has spent decades trying to stop the government from telling doctors what to do .
What happens if it succeeds ?
The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons might sound like another boring doctors ’ group politely debating telehealth legislation .
But AAPS is a small yet vociferous interest group .
Like Zelig with a stethoscope , it has popped up in nearly every major health-care debate for decades , including the Affordable Care Act and opioids , and it wields a surprising amount of influence .
Senator Rand Paul of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 2010 .
( A Paul spokesperson told me that while the senator is no longer a member , he is supportive of AAPS ’ s fight against Obamacare . )
When Representative Tom Price of Georgia was nominated to lead President Donald Trump ’ s Department of Health and Human Services , several newspapers pointed out that he , too , was a member .
( At the time , an HHS spokesperson said that not all doctors in a group believe the same thing . )
Today ’ s newsletter was written @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Politics desk , and Christian Paz , a Politics fellow .
It was edited by Shan Wang , who oversees newsletters .
You can reply directly to this newsletter with questions or comments , or send a note to politicsdaily @ theatlantic.com .
Your support makes our journalism possible .
Subscribe here .

Why it isn’t Medicare for All or bust for some Bernie Sanders supporters. Plus: The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons isn’t what it might sound like.
It’s Tuesday, February 25. In today’s newsletter: Some Medicare for All talk for all who want to talk about it.
Plus: Biden at the brink? Bloomberg to the breach? Where candidates stand heading into the last Democratic debate before Super Tuesday.
*
« TODAY IN POLITICS »
(ROBYN BECK / AFP VIA GETTY)
Medicare for All—Maybe
Listen to Democratic front-runner Bernie Sanders talk about Medicare for All, and you’ll hear pretty clear disdain for more incremental measures to reform the American health-care system.
Sanders has blasted a so-called public option, the trendy moderate alternative to Medicare for All, as a “failed idea.” He’s leaned on Medicare for All as one of his clearest policy differentiators.
But how do Sanders organizers talk about Medicare for All? When my colleague Elaine Godfrey sought them out, what they told her ended up sounding less like what the candidate himself espouses on the campaign trail:
They said they are clear-eyed about how difficult achieving such gargantuan reform will be. And they would be pleased, if not completely satisfied, with passing a public option as a compromise. “The goal is Medicare for All, but we recognize, Senator Sanders recognizes, that that’s going to be a process,” Kristin Pack, a 50-year-old stay-at-home mom and one of the leaders of Our Revolution Central Kentucky, told me. “If we could get a super-solid public option that could not be easily upturned by another party coming into power, that would be wildly successful.”
Elaine’s story tries to get at the heart of why it isn’t Medicare for All—or bust—for Sanders supporters.
—Saahil Desai
*
« DEBATE REFRESHER »
(Elizabeth Frantz / Reuters)
Not even a week’s passed since we last recapped the state of the Democratic primary before a debate (not even 150 hours, you can count ‘em). Tonight’s affair (the tenth, count ‘em) comes days before key primaries in South Carolina and then 14 Super Tuesday states, plus American Samoa.
Here’s where we left the contenders:
‣ Joe Biden: He needs a win, and he’s still counting on his South Carolina firewall. But ...
‣ Michael Bloomberg: He took a beating last week. Maybe he’ll try to pivot to gun control tonight.
‣ Pete Buttigieg: After Iowa, he very boldly started acting like a front-runner. For a very limited time, he was. Will he and Amy Klobuchar continue their two-way hostilities?
‣ Amy Klobuchar: She’s still here. After struggling with Latinos in Nevada, she now may be facing a similar challenge with black voters in South Carolina.
‣ Bernie Sanders: Will he be a bigger target than he was last week? Or will he emerge from tonight relatively unscathed?
‣ Tom Steyer: Now for billionaire number two! He’s returning to the debate stage in a state where he’s spent a lot of money (and where one of our reporters caught up with in October to understand … what he’s thinking).
‣ Elizabeth Warren: She continues to struggle in the early states, ending up fourth in Nevada. Warren and Sanders are often lumped together, but the two have pretty fundamental differences in vision, Frank Foer argues.
*
« EVENING READ »
(BETTMANN / GETTY / KATIE MARTIN / THE ATLANTIC)
The Opposite of Socialized Medicine
A small, litigious group has spent decades trying to stop the government from telling doctors what to do. What happens if it succeeds?
The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons might sound like another boring doctors’ group politely debating telehealth legislation. But AAPS is a small yet vociferous interest group. Like Zelig with a stethoscope, it has popped up in nearly every major health-care debate for decades, including the Affordable Care Act and opioids, and it wields a surprising amount of influence. Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky was outed as a member in 2010. (A Paul spokesperson told me that while the senator is no longer a member, he is supportive of AAPS’s fight against Obamacare.) When Representative Tom Price of Georgia was nominated to lead President Donald Trump’s Department of Health and Human Services, several newspapers pointed out that he, too, was a member. (At the time, an HHS spokesperson said that not all doctors in a group believe the same thing.)
Olga Khazan reports.
*


theatlantic--2020-02-28--Donald Trump, Bernie Bro

Donald Trump, Bernie Bro

“ Sanders would be every holiday present rolled into one , ” Sean Spicer , the former White House press secretary and an ex–senior adviser to a pro-Trump super PAC , told me .
“ With Bernie , there ’ s a general agreement that he ’ s a gift.
” Mistreating Sanders and alienating his supporters could cost Trump the election , depending on how the Democratic nomination fight ends .
An analysis from the political scientist Brian Schaffner shows that in 2016 , tens of thousands of Sanders supporters voted for Trump in Wisconsin , Michigan , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from blue to red .
Had these voters aligned with the Democrats instead , Hillary Clinton would have won all three states and , ultimately , the election .
“ To the extent that a Democratic primary becomes close and maybe Sanders doesn ’ t get the nomination , there ’ s a good chance that a reasonable share of his supporters is likely to buy into the thinking that the party had it in for Sanders , ” Schaffner , a Tufts University civics professor , told me .
“ And if @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of those people might find it easy to sit out a general election or cast a protest vote.
” Sanders could also prove a tougher opponent than Trump reckons : He has grassroots backing , plenty of money , and a version of the same populist message that propelled Trump ’ s 2016 upset victory .
Democratic operatives see a deep cynicism , not solicitude , in Trump ’ s approach .
“ Trump feels that he can attract the support Bernie has—that ’ s all , ” Tad Devine , a top @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , told me .
“ I don ’ t think he likes Bernie.
” Every corpuscle of Trumpworld appears dedicated to propping up Sanders .
One obvious tip-off that Trump is trying to promote Sanders ’ s candidacy : He ’ s relatively sparing in his insults .
Master of the raw and indiscriminate putdown , Trump will demean just about anyone : teenage climate activists , Gold Star families , and deceased lawmakers alike .
But when it comes to Sanders—who , let us not forget , has called Trump a “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the republic—the president often sounds like a fanboy , if not a Bernie Bro .
Even his nickname for Sanders , “ Crazy Bernie , ” is mild by Trumpian standards .
The counterpuncher isn ’ t counterpunching much at all—not yet , anyway .
“ People like his message .
He ’ s got energy , ” Trump said about Sanders to reporters in the Oval Office earlier this month .
Since the summer , Trump ’ s campaign has spent only about $ 25,000 on Facebook ads that mention Sanders , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , according to an analysis by Bully Pulpit Interactive , a Democratic communications firm that also examined the Trump campaign ’ s Facebook ads targeting Biden .
( The Trump campaign declined to comment on its advertising strategy . )

Not so long ago, Donald Trump seemed obsessed with just one of the Democrats vying to replace him: Joe Biden. Over the past year, as the former vice president became the front-runner, Trump’s campaign spent about $270,000 on Facebook ads targeting Biden—more than it spent against other top candidates. Then Biden began to collapse and Bernie Sanders started to rise. Trump’s social-media ads demonizing “Sleepy Joe” tailed off. Yet thus far, there’s been no appreciable pickup in anti-Sanders ads. It’s as if Trumpworld might want to go easy on Sanders.
It does. Team Trump views Sanders as the weakest candidate left on the Democratic side, and isn’t eager to do anything to impede his rise, several of the president’s past and present political advisers told me. They seem to see Sanders as a no-lose proposition: The president wins whether the senator from Vermont captures the nomination or not.
Should Sanders prevail, Trump’s strategy will be to spotlight his democratic-socialist identity in an attempt to make voters fear he’ll take away their freedom. (Trump will try to brand any Democratic nominee a socialist—Team Trump just thinks it’ll be easier with the guy whose self-description includes the word.) If Sanders falters, Trump will argue that he was unfairly robbed of a nomination he earned. Trump has long stoked suspicions of an anti-Sanders conspiracy within the Democratic Party, for what seems to be two purposes: leaving Sanders’s following so disillusioned that they stay home on Election Day, or perhaps persuading them to switch sides and vote Republican. Sanders may not need Trump, but for the time being, Trump needs Sanders.
“Sanders would be every holiday present rolled into one,” Sean Spicer, the former White House press secretary and an ex–senior adviser to a pro-Trump super PAC, told me. “With Bernie, there’s a general agreement that he’s a gift.”
Mistreating Sanders and alienating his supporters could cost Trump the election, depending on how the Democratic nomination fight ends. An analysis from the political scientist Brian Schaffner shows that in 2016, tens of thousands of Sanders supporters voted for Trump in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania—three battleground states that Trump narrowly flipped from blue to red. Had these voters aligned with the Democrats instead, Hillary Clinton would have won all three states and, ultimately, the election.
“To the extent that a Democratic primary becomes close and maybe Sanders doesn’t get the nomination, there’s a good chance that a reasonable share of his supporters is likely to buy into the thinking that the party had it in for Sanders,” Schaffner, a Tufts University civics professor, told me. “And if that’s the case, some of those people might find it easy to sit out a general election or cast a protest vote.”
Read: What Bernie Sanders’s 2020 rivals learned from Hillary Clinton
Sanders could also prove a tougher opponent than Trump reckons: He has grassroots backing, plenty of money, and a version of the same populist message that propelled Trump’s 2016 upset victory. Democratic operatives see a deep cynicism, not solicitude, in Trump’s approach. “Trump feels that he can attract the support Bernie has—that’s all,” Tad Devine, a top adviser to Sanders’s 2016 campaign, told me. “I don’t think he likes Bernie.”
Every corpuscle of Trumpworld appears dedicated to propping up Sanders. One obvious tip-off that Trump is trying to promote Sanders’s candidacy: He’s relatively sparing in his insults. Master of the raw and indiscriminate putdown, Trump will demean just about anyone: teenage climate activists, Gold Star families, and deceased lawmakers alike. But when it comes to Sanders—who, let us not forget, has called Trump a “pathological liar” and a danger to the republic—the president often sounds like a fanboy, if not a Bernie Bro. Even his nickname for Sanders, “Crazy Bernie,” is mild by Trumpian standards.
The counterpuncher isn’t counterpunching much at all—not yet, anyway. “People like his message. He’s got energy,” Trump said about Sanders to reporters in the Oval Office earlier this month.
Since the summer, Trump’s campaign has spent only about $25,000 on Facebook ads that mention Sanders, often lumping him in with other Democrats, according to an analysis by Bully Pulpit Interactive, a Democratic communications firm that also examined the Trump campaign’s Facebook ads targeting Biden. (The Trump campaign declined to comment on its advertising strategy.)
If anything, Trump and his allies have been amplifying a message that Sanders has been sending for years: that the Democratic establishment wants him to lose.
Random events have been portrayed by Team Trump as part of a plot to doom Sanders’s candidacy. The campaign has referenced the Iowa-caucus debacle, which one official said deprived Sanders of a “victory lap”; Clinton’s fresh criticism of Sanders; and even the decision by The Des Moines Register not to release a poll on the eve of the Iowa caucus.
During the Nevada-caucus race, which ended Saturday, the state Republican Party sent a truck to Sanders’s rallies displaying a message that the system is “rigged” against him.
And in at least one state, Republicans are trying to swing the election to Sanders. Ahead of the South Carolina primary this weekend, some state Republicans have urged party voters to cross over and back Sanders, with the explicit goal of vanquishing Biden, the candidate favored to win. (South Carolina’s open primary system allows registered voters to take part in either party’s contest.) “We will have a clear contrast between capitalism and freedom-loving Americans against Bernie Sanders and his Democratic socialists, so we would welcome that if it turns out that way,” said Stephen Brown, the former chairman of the Greenville County Republican Party.
Trump isn’t sentimental when it comes to blood sports like politics. People are useful to him or they’re not. His advisers told me that he may feel some affinity for Sanders because both face antagonism from party-establishment figures. But the Sanders campaign is under no illusion that the president holds any real affection for him. “We understand that he’s insincere,” Jeff Weaver, a senior adviser to the Sanders campaign, told me. “Trump’s crocodile tears don’t impress us.” During the 2016 race, Trump privately called Sanders a “lunatic,” Sam Nunberg, a former Trump aide, told me. Appearing on Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night talk show that same year, when both Trump and Sanders were vying for their respective party’s nomination, Trump said, “I actually think Bernie would be easier to beat” than Clinton.
Derek Thompson: Bernie Sanders is George McGovern
Polling suggests that he may be right. A Wall Street Journal/NBC News survey earlier this month showed Sanders beating Trump by four percentage points in a general-election race, a poorer showing than Biden and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. More worrisome for Sanders is how voters tend to look at a candidate espousing socialist ideas. In the same poll, about 67 percent said they would have at least some reservations about a socialist candidate, compared with just 28 percent who said they’d be comfortable with one. “I like the idea of Bernie having to explain democratic socialism versus communism, and explain it in South Florida to people who fled oppression in their countries,” Marty Obst, a senior political adviser to Vice President Mike Pence, told me.
Every presidential candidate wants a sure path to victory. In the 2016 race, Clinton’s campaign believed that the weakest candidate was Trump, seeing him as so flawed, Clinton would not only beat him but pick up a few red states, such as Arizona and Georgia, along the way, in a show of force against Trumpism. She lost both states, along with the ultimate prize.
In Trump’s orbit, some are warning against a similar overconfidence. “I know there are Republicans who want Sanders to be the nominee. That’s living dangerously,” says John McLaughlin, a Trump pollster. “If he wins the 2020 election, that’s a bad loss. It’s more important that we focus on strengthening ourselves.”
As someone whose own campaign prospects were sorely underestimated, Trump should be cautious in dismissing Sanders. Making political predictions in this volatile climate is risky. In time, Trump may not see Sanders as the gift he once relished.


theatlantic--2020-02-29--Bernie Sanders Meets His Biggest Threat

Bernie Sanders Meets His Biggest Threat

A split among the moderate candidates—Biden , former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg , Senator Amy Klobuchar , and former South Bend , Indiana , Mayor Pete Buttigieg—is also helping Sanders maintain his perch atop the field .
Although Sanders is likely to cross the 15 percent threshold needed to collect delegates in virtually every contest on Tuesday , none of his opponents can say the same—at least according to the polls .
Biden is strong in Virginia , North Carolina , and across the South , but weaker elsewhere .
Klobuchar is battling to win her home state @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is looking to win in Massachusetts and rack up some delegates in California .
Then there is Bloomberg , the billionaire who has warned that Sanders can not defeat President Donald Trump but whose candidacy may be helping the democratic socialist win the Democratic nomination .
Bloomberg has shown strength in Texas and North Carolina , but his weak debate performances have stalled his rise in the polls .
In a late bid to recapture support , the former mayor has purchased three minutes of national airtime on CBS and NBC tomorrow night @ @ @ @ @ @ @ coronavirus .
Indeed , Sanders ’ s biggest threat is not any one of his opponents but a party establishment that remains nervous about his potential nomination .
Within minutes of the polls closing in South Carolina tonight , pressure was building for some of the lagging candidates to drop out and rally behind Biden .
“ I ’ m hoping some of the candidates tomorrow get out , ” former Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe , a previous chairman of the Democratic National Committee , said on CNN as he endorsed the former @ @ @ @ @ @ @ would rather most of his rivals stay in for now—even if that means he takes a few losses on Super Tuesday .
“ A lot of states out there , ” he said tonight .
“ That will not be the only defeat.
” In a sign of the increasing urgency of the calendar , Sanders devoted part of his speech to imploring young people to vote and to rebutting critiques of his electability in a race against Trump .
Sanders needs a larger turnout among young voters to hold off his rivals @ @ @ @ @ @ @ win in the fall .
His double-digit defeat in South Carolina was a shellacking .
If his landslide in Nevada suggested that Sanders had made deep inroads among the Latino community , the result in South Carolina is a reminder that he has a much tougher challenge in winning over African Americans , and particularly older voters .
More important , however , Sanders must hope that South Carolina is not the first sign of a broader national reconsideration of his candidacy .
The answer to that question could be clear by Tuesday @ @

Sanders’s biggest obstacle is not any one of his opponents but a party establishment that remains nervous about his potential nomination.
Senator Bernie Sanders knew he wasn’t going to win South Carolina, and he knew he didn’t need to win South Carolina. So by the time polls closed today, he was long gone.
As the Democratic front-runner, he had that luxury.
“You can’t win ’em all,” Sanders told a rally in Virginia tonight before congratulating former Vice President Joe Biden on his first primary win.
The real march to the party’s presidential nomination begins on Tuesday, when 14 states vote. More than one-third of the delegates who will convene at the national convention in Milwaukee this summer are at stake Tuesday. The biggest prizes include California, Texas, and Virginia, where Sanders had already flown to tonight in a bid to make sure that his blowout loss to Biden was merely a hiccup, and nothing more.
Sanders remains well positioned in the Super Tuesday states, and unlike Biden, he has the money to capitalize on his narrow victory in New Hampshire and his much larger caucus win in Nevada last week. He also is benefiting from early voting: More than 2 million people have already cast ballots in Democratic primaries in Super Tuesday states, potentially limiting the bounce that Biden will pick up from South Carolina. Nowhere is that more significant than in California, where Democrats have been voting for nearly a month and where polls show that Sanders is leading by as many as 20 points. The senator from Vermont is also up, though by a narrower margin, in Texas, and victories in those two states, along with strong results elsewhere, could ensure that Sanders emerges from Tuesday with a significant lead in overall delegates.
Read: Joe Biden’s first-ever primary win is a big one
A split among the moderate candidates—Biden, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Senator Amy Klobuchar, and former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg—is also helping Sanders maintain his perch atop the field. Although Sanders is likely to cross the 15 percent threshold needed to collect delegates in virtually every contest on Tuesday, none of his opponents can say the same—at least according to the polls. Biden is strong in Virginia, North Carolina, and across the South, but weaker elsewhere. Klobuchar is battling to win her home state of Minnesota, while Senator Elizabeth Warren is looking to win in Massachusetts and rack up some delegates in California.
Then there is Bloomberg, the billionaire who has warned that Sanders cannot defeat President Donald Trump but whose candidacy may be helping the democratic socialist win the Democratic nomination. Bloomberg has shown strength in Texas and North Carolina, but his weak debate performances have stalled his rise in the polls. In a late bid to recapture support, the former mayor has purchased three minutes of national airtime on CBS and NBC tomorrow night to deliver a presidential-style address on the coronavirus.
Indeed, Sanders’s biggest threat is not any one of his opponents but a party establishment that remains nervous about his potential nomination. Within minutes of the polls closing in South Carolina tonight, pressure was building for some of the lagging candidates to drop out and rally behind Biden. “I’m hoping some of the candidates tomorrow get out,” former Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe, a previous chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said on CNN as he endorsed the former vice president.
Sanders, however, would rather most of his rivals stay in for now—even if that means he takes a few losses on Super Tuesday. “A lot of states out there,” he said tonight. “That will not be the only defeat.”
In a sign of the increasing urgency of the calendar, Sanders devoted part of his speech to imploring young people to vote and to rebutting critiques of his electability in a race against Trump. Sanders needs a larger turnout among young voters to hold off his rivals and convince Democratic skeptics that he can win in the fall.
His double-digit defeat in South Carolina was a shellacking. If his landslide in Nevada suggested that Sanders had made deep inroads among the Latino community, the result in South Carolina is a reminder that he has a much tougher challenge in winning over African Americans, and particularly older voters.
More important, however, Sanders must hope that South Carolina is not the first sign of a broader national reconsideration of his candidacy. The answer to that question could be clear by Tuesday night.


theatlantic--2020-02-29--The U.S. Once Wanted Peace in Afghanistan

David A. Graham : Everyone knew we were losing in Afghanistan Administration officials themselves seem determined to hold down expectations .
“ We ’ re not getting to a peace deal , ” a senior administration official , speaking on condition of anonymity , said in a briefing days before Secretary of State Mike Pompeo went to Doha for the signing ceremony .
“ We ’ re getting to the start of a discussion about a political settlement , or a peace deal … But we are at the very , very beginning of this process.
” The deal specifies @ @ @ @ @ @ @ forces from the country in little over a year , provided the Taliban lives up to its end of the agreement .
Yet the Taliban has managed to fudge even two key U.S. goals that remain : The group does not formally renounce al-Qaeda or formally recognize the Afghan government , instead saying that al-Qaeda can ’ t use Taliban territory to threaten the U.S. or its allies and that it will participate in intra-Afghan peace talks .
Women will take part in those talks , but Pompeo said this month that it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ how their rights would be protected—effectively dropping Obama-era demands from the agenda .
( The Taliban , which has consistently demanded that the United States must leave immediately , has also fallen short of that goal : The deal says the U.S. will draw down to 8,600 troops within 135 days—bringing troop numbers back around to the level they were when Trump took office . )
This agreement may enshrine the more limited ambitions of the U.S. in Afghanistan , but , in fact , the bar lowering started not long after the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ searched for victory and instead found more violence .
Indeed , American ambitions actually looked deceptively modest in 2001 , because the war was supposed to be easy—an overthrow of the Taliban government then running Afghanistan , a bit of humanitarian help , and the election of a new friendly government to ensure that terrorists couldn ’ t use the country to attack the United States .
But by 2006 , the Taliban had launched an insurgency , and Bush wound down his presidency in 2008 by sending thousands more U.S. troops to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ most immediate goal was to “ restore basic security ” —a far cry from his earlier hopes for “ a free and stable democracy.
” Obama simultaneously raised resources—troop numbers went up from 31,000 at the end of the Bush administration to around 100,000 in 2010—and lowered expectations for what could be achieved .
He spoke of the need simply to “ disrupt , dismantle , and defeat al-Qaeda ” and prevent its return to Afghanistan .
Around the same time , Secretary of State Hillary Clinton acknowledged that the administration was pursuing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that any negotiations required the following outcomes : “ Insurgents must renounce violence , abandon al-Qaeda , and abide by the constitution of Afghanistan , including its protections for women and minorities .
If insurgents can not meet those red lines , they will face continued and unrelenting assault .
”

For George W. Bush, the goal was the destruction of al-Qaeda, the total defeat of the Taliban, and a “stable and free and peaceful” Afghanistan. For Barack Obama, it was a degraded Taliban that could be reasoned with but would have to renounce violence, respect women, and abide by the Afghan constitution. For Donald Trump, it was just a reduction in violence and a clear path to the door—the Afghans themselves would have to figure out the rest.
Over nearly two decades of war in Afghanistan, the United States government went from seeking to annihilate the Taliban, to meeting with them furtively, to negotiating with them openly, before, finally, signing a deal with them. And at each juncture, the expectations dropped.
The agreement the United States and the Taliban signed today is both truly momentous for happening at all and severely modest for what it contains. In essence, it extends a seven-day truce in which U.S. and Taliban forces refrained from attacking each other, calls for Afghans to talk among themselves, and lays out a plan for a U.S. withdrawal over 14 months. The U.S. isn’t going anywhere immediately, and neither is the Taliban; there’s not even a full cease-fire. Implicit in all of it is the larger recognition that, for the U.S., getting out of Afghanistan will mean lowering the bar.
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Administration officials themselves seem determined to hold down expectations. “We’re not getting to a peace deal,” a senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said in a briefing days before Secretary of State Mike Pompeo went to Doha for the signing ceremony. “We’re getting to the start of a discussion about a political settlement, or a peace deal … But we are at the very, very beginning of this process.”
The deal specifies that the U.S. will pull all its forces from the country in little over a year, provided the Taliban lives up to its end of the agreement. Yet the Taliban has managed to fudge even two key U.S. goals that remain: The group does not formally renounce al-Qaeda or formally recognize the Afghan government, instead saying that al-Qaeda can’t use Taliban territory to threaten the U.S. or its allies and that it will participate in intra-Afghan peace talks. Women will take part in those talks, but Pompeo said this month that it’s up to Afghans to decide how their rights would be protected—effectively dropping Obama-era demands from the agenda. (The Taliban, which has consistently demanded that the United States must leave immediately, has also fallen short of that goal: The deal says the U.S. will draw down to 8,600 troops within 135 days—bringing troop numbers back around to the level they were when Trump took office.)
This agreement may enshrine the more limited ambitions of the U.S. in Afghanistan, but, in fact, the bar lowering started not long after the war did, as three successive presidents searched for victory and instead found more violence. Indeed, American ambitions actually looked deceptively modest in 2001, because the war was supposed to be easy—an overthrow of the Taliban government then running Afghanistan, a bit of humanitarian help, and the election of a new friendly government to ensure that terrorists couldn’t use the country to attack the United States. But by 2006, the Taliban had launched an insurgency, and Bush wound down his presidency in 2008 by sending thousands more U.S. troops to the fight. By then, the most immediate goal was to “restore basic security”—a far cry from his earlier hopes for “a free and stable democracy.”
Obama simultaneously raised resources—troop numbers went up from 31,000 at the end of the Bush administration to around 100,000 in 2010—and lowered expectations for what could be achieved. He spoke of the need simply to “disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al-Qaeda” and prevent its return to Afghanistan. Around the same time, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton acknowledged that the administration was pursuing contacts with the Taliban, but insisted that any negotiations required the following outcomes: “Insurgents must renounce violence, abandon al-Qaeda, and abide by the constitution of Afghanistan, including its protections for women and minorities. If insurgents cannot meet those red lines, they will face continued and unrelenting assault.”
“Look, this is Afghanistan,” one anonymous American official told The New York Times in 2012. “Is it going to be Switzerland? No.” The paper noted at the time that the mantra around Washington was “Afghan good enough,” and that expectations for the central government in Kabul even to simply control all of Afghanistan’s territory had evaporated. Then National Security Adviser Tom Donilon just wanted “a degree of stability” to keep al-Qaeda from launching attacks, the Times reported, but even that was elusive. Lawrence Nicholson, the now-retired Marine lieutenant general who led a troop surge into the southern province of Helmand in 2009-2010, told me, “A lot of the areas that we had stabilized and cleared of Taliban went right back [to Taliban control] after we left … It was like pulling your hand out of a bucket of water.”
So Trump, when he came into office, was not unique in his desire to leave—and then became the third president in a row to decide to send more troops. “My original instinct was to pull out,” he said in 2017, “and historically, I like following my instincts.” But: “The consequences of a rapid exit are both predictable and unacceptable.” He offered no affirmative reason for staying, mentioning only the risks of leaving. Ensuring women’s rights was no longer part of the goal.
It still took Trump’s envoy Zalmay Khalilzad more than a year of negotiations to get a deal. Last fall, the U.S. and the Taliban were on the verge of signing an agreement when Trump pulled out, citing an American soldier’s death in Kabul. He revealed in a tweet that he had scrapped an extraordinary plan to host Taliban representatives at Camp David, along with the Afghan president, within a few days of the anniversary of the September 11 attacks.
This time it’s just Pompeo in Doha and Secretary of Defense Mark Esper in Kabul, though Trump said last week he would have been perfectly willing to sign the agreement himself. The deaths of two U.S. servicemen in Afghanistan this month didn’t derail the talks; they died not in a Taliban attack, but at the hands of an Afghan in army uniform. Those men brought to six the number of U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan this year—now 2,348 over the course of the conflict. Some 43,000 Afghan civilians have died, by one estimate; Afghan security forces were dying at a rate of about 9,000 a year for four years until 2018; then the U.S. military said casualties were higher in 2019 but classified the statistics.
The senior administration official who held the briefing on the deal ahead of time acknowledged “a healthy skepticism in many quarters” about it and even highlighted risks. “Nobody sees an increasing return on violence in Afghanistan,” the official said. “It may be that circumstances don’t play out the way we want [them] to. But we do believe this is the very best chance.”
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That chance relies on the trustworthiness of the Taliban. Even in the group’s recent appeals to a U.S. public that may be just as eager for its troops to leave Afghanistan as the Taliban is to drive them out, Taliban representatives have refused to acknowledge al-Qaeda’s responsibility for the September 11 attacks. Last September, a Taliban spokesman told CBS that “still it is not known” who was behind those attacks. Just this month, the Taliban’s deputy head declared in a Times op-ed, “Reports about foreign groups in Afghanistan are politically motivated exaggerations by the warmongering players on all sides of the war.”
Robert Grenier was the CIA station chief in Islamabad when the U.S. invaded Afghanistan—almost 20 years ago, he tried to prevent the war by the same means Trump is now trying to end it: negotiating with the Taliban. Grenier tried to persuade a Taliban official to give up Osama bin Laden and possibly stop the invasion altogether. But even with the threat of a U.S. invasion bearing down, his interlocutor could not get the movement to sever ties with al-Qaeda or hand over bin Laden. “What’s unusual about my perspective is I’ve been willing to deal with these people,” Grenier told me recently. He said he feared that the president was seeking a face-saving way out of the conflict, and was relying too much on the word of the Taliban—a fundamentalist group—to protect the world from radicals they’ve shown no inclination to renounce, let alone control. He said, “I have no reason to believe that this is a decent agreement.”