regarding the states in the south, this is nowhere near as bad as last time, and it might not be insurmountable for sanders - if he can figure out how to win in states like minnesota.

but, if michigan looks like minnesota, he's fucked....

my skepticism about the sanctity of the results aside, it had been clear for a while now that sanders's decision to focus on the south instead of shoring up support in the north was a major tactical mistake. he was never going to get all of these religious fundamentalists to vote for him, and he should have had the intuition to key in pretty quickly on the centrality of religion in the south. i heard him say things like "we have a big lead in the north and can afford to focus elsewhere", but that's just taking them for granted. you have to tend to your base, or you lose it.

he won all those states by huge margins four years ago. even with fishy results, why was a coalition of centrist candidates able to beat him in these states? why couldn't he get above 35% in states he dominated four years ago?

i've pointed this out before: he's running for commander in chief. that's a tactical mistake that a smart general just doesn't make. it's called "thinning out your troops". it's akin to fighting wars in foreign lands, instead of fixing the problems at home.

so, you can follow my arguments or reject them, but it doesn't change the reality that sanders' decision to put all of his efforts into winning in the south has backfired very, very badly. not only did he not win in the south, but he lost states in the north that he should have won very easily. this should be deeply concerning to him, as it may reflect badly on his ability to compete in a slew of other states he's expected to do well in. we may find out very soon that he's done, and this is over - not because biden cheated, although it seems as though he did, but because he didn't tend to his base, lost their enthusiasm and in the end lost their interest.

he can't win the nomination solely on the strength of hispanics and teenagers, but he ignored everybody else, and they appear to have moved on.

so, there's going to be a narrative about how sanders got beaten badly in the south, and it's inaccurate. he seems to have improved his totals in most places, and biden is not getting numbers anywhere close to the ones that clinton got - mostly due to bloomberg, who is just aimlessly splitting the vote out of vanity. if sanders does turn this around, bloomberg may find himself a rather hated person, because he's prevented biden from really putting him away.

rather, sanders got beat badly in the north - areas he was supposed to be dominant in, and this is a consequence of his tactical error of focusing resources on winning red states in the south.

this should be a lesson for the next northern liberal that tries this - don't make the same mistakes as bernie!

for right now, i want to say "if his campaign does not realize the error and course correct, it's days are numbered", but the truth is that it's probably too late.

he'll probably win arizona, though.