Joe Biden's faltering campaign was revitalized by his big win in South Carolina. Reinvigorated, the excitable Joe Biden took to the podium in South Carolina to show his appreciation by thanking South Dakotans for their votes.
It was important for centrist Biden to win since, until Super Tuesday, Bernie Sanders had more delegates. Bernie had so much momentum that I had already picked out my re-education internment camp in preparation for a socialist Sanders win. Both Bernie and Biden are so old they think Super Tuesday is the special at their favorite diner.
Panicked by the woeful list of options on the Democrat side, the party decided to go with the candidate with the closest proximity to Obama, his pen pal Joe Biden. Sanders is too socialist for the South. And with a roaring economy, this is not the best time to be peddling seedy, soft-core socialism.
Two of the more centrist candidates, Mayor Pete and Amy "Combs" Klobuchar, got a little talking to by Obama and were promised some things, so they dropped out of the race.
Just when Joe Biden was losing momentum and out of money, he won big on Super Tuesday, and it came at a great time for him. Biden was about to pull out of the race and throw his support behind Joe Biden.
One must realize, as Hillary Clinton did, that in the Democrat world they do not recognize who has the most delegates or Electoral College votes. Whoever the party insiders want to win, wins. Dems worried so much that Bernie Sanders might win that Slippery Adam Schiff was already pitching impeachment framing ideas to Nancy Pelosi.
Bernie is so close to winning this thing that he is already eerily reassuring business owners in America, "If you like your businesses, you can keep your businesses."
But Biden did so well in Texas that he has already proposed his son, Hunter, for a Texas Gas Company board seat.
Then there is Bloomberg, who was savaged by Sen. Elizabeth "Pocahontas" Warren in the debates. He is not used to mouthy women whom he cannot pay off. He has spent $500 million on self-aggrandizing ads and not doing interviews. Bloomberg, who is so rich he has been self-sheltered from any criticism, found out the hard way that Democratic politics are brutal - and you don't bring a checkbook to a gunfight.
And Warren, who is out of money, had an embarrassing third-place finish in her home state. Her campaign is so broke that her new Indian name is "Running Short."
Astonishingly, Hillary spent $1 billion of other peoples' money in 2016 versus only $325 million Trump spent to beat her. Twenty percent of it, or about $60 million, was Trump's personal money. Trump's return on investment was high. The others are starting to look like dopes. Bloomberg is a short man but, even standing on his wallet, he cannot measure up.
In (very) short, Bloomberg spent a half a billion dollars and only won American Samoa. For just $25 million he could have bought the whole island and rights to the next three NFL draft choices from that island.
So where are we with the Dems?
Now with Mayor Pete out, the "party of diversity" essentially has only white, old, male candidates left. Biden is the youngest man in the race. Sanders is 78 and whippersnapper Biden is 77. All have passed the CDC's estimate of male life expectancy of 76.2 years. Warren, who dropped out Thursday, is 71. Her husband is younger than she is but is likely to die before her, because he wants to.
Contact Ron Hart at Ron@RonaldHart.com or @RonaldHart on Twitter.
Ron HartView other columns by Ron Hart