Groundhog Day

It might be in November this year

“Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it, good and hard.”

—H.L. Mencken

WOULD the Democratic Party, or rather those who vote in its primaries, do it two elections in a row? Will they nominate the only person who cannot beat Donald Trump? If polls in Iowa are to be believed, it could happen.

This past week, the Bernie Sanders campaign did the unthinkable: It told its aides in Iowa that it expected to win tonight.

Expectations are everything to campaign managers at this point in an election cycle. Days before the first votes are counted, they usually do their best Lou Holtz imitations. That is, they don’t exactly poor-mouth their candidates—that would hurt fundraising— but they want to exceed expectations. Bill Clinton, you’ll remember, won neither Iowa nor New Hampshire in 1992. But he did well enough to pronounce himself The Comeback Kid.

According to press accounts, campaign organizers for Bernie Sanders have said they no longer need to reach undecided voters in Iowa, but instead need to target supporters to make sure they show up at the caucuses tonight. There’s a phrase for this: setting high expectations. Now, anything less than an allout win will feel like a loss for Sen. Sanders and his people.

Bernie Sanders isn’t a traditional Democrat. Bernie Sanders isn’t even an actual Democrat. He’s an independent, and a self-proclaimed socialist.

Last week, Jonathan Chait of New York magazine said nominating Bernie Sanders would be an “act of insanity.” Note well: New York magazine ain’t National Review.

From Mr. Chait’s article: “Sanders has gleefully discarded the party’s conventional wisdom that it has to pick and choose where to push public opinion leftward, adopting a comprehensive left-wing agenda, some of which is popular, and some of which is decidedly not. Positions in the latter category include replacing all private health insurance with a government plan, banning fracking, letting prisoners vote, decriminalizing the border, giving free health care to undocumented immigrants, and eliminating ICE.”

Whether or not the Democratic Party wants all that, the American people certainly don’t. Combine that with Bernie Sanders’ flirtation with the Socialist Workers Party and his 1988 honeymoon in the Soviet Union, and Donald Trump’s campaign team must be salivating like Pavlovian dogs.

Yet, many voters are telling pollsters they’ll choose the junior senator from Vermont at the caucuses tonight, and during the New Hampshire primaries next week.

If they do, they’ll get the president they deserve. But it won’t be Bernie Sanders.