It hasn’t even been a week since the last debate, and here we fucking go again. For some reason the DNC thought it would be a great idea to schedule three debates all within the shortest month of the year; meanwhile, I’m still hungover from last time.
Not to mention these are all starting to blur together, as I included Tom Steyer in the last ranking despite his not qualifying for the debate. But after triple-checking on Google and asking my cat to give it a once-over just in case, I can confirm he is in fact a part of this debate. Joy.
Once again, these rankings do not necessarily reflect my personal preferences, but are just a gauge of how each campaign is faring heading into the debate based on consumption of news, polls, and bottles of Snapple to see what the undersides of their lids say.
Crack open a new bottle, it’s going to be a rough night.
1. Bernie Sanders
While Bernie may not have technically won Iowa, from a practical standpoint he may as well have. That means Sanders has pulled off a hat trick with the opening primary states, and is the clear frontrunner in terms of momentum, polling, and delegates. The revolution is underway!
The danger for Sanders is also that the revolution is underway, and establishment Dems are freaking the fuck out about it. It’s an open question about what exactly they can do about it, but for starters the moderate candidates will only have eyes for Bernie tonight. Now that Mike Bloomberg has been put in his place, their ire will be directed at Sanders to try and put as many speed bumps in front of him as possible.
The fact that Russia is apparently trying to help his campaign isn’t going to help in this regard. Neither are his previous comments about Fidel Castro, and his opponents are likely to seize on both of these to try and slow him down. But the race is still now his to lose, and his focus needs to be on not providing more ammunition for pundits and critics to attack him with. So maybe don’t call too much attention to your newest endorsement, Bernie.
Drinking Rule: Chug a beer and smash the empty can against your forehead whenever Sanders says he is fed up with anything.
2. Joe Biden
Things are finally looking up for Ol’ Joe. After some frankly disastrous performances in Iowa and New Hampshire, Biden seems to have regained some footing with a second-place finish in Nevada. This drastic improvement is in keeping with his campaign’s insistence that as the primary moves to more diverse states, his numbers will improve. And with South Carolina and Super Tuesday on the horizon, Biden is heading into friendlier territory.
He is still heading into that territory weakened, though. He has done very little so far to bolster his “electability” pitch, and has lost significant ground when it comes to his support among black voters, which was supposed to be one of his big selling points. He is the aging high school quarterback who hasn’t figured out that buying beer for the local youths isn’t quite as endearing as it used to be. It’s possible he can still coast through on his established place within the Democratic Party and his proximity to Barack Obama, but unless Sanders implodes this is looking less and less likely.
Drinking Rule: Take a shot of watered-down vodka anytime Biden mentions his work with Obama.
3. Elizabeth Warren
Warren is stuck in a weird limbo right now. She has had disappointing third and fourth-place finishes so far, which does not exactly scream “viable.” However, her last debate performance was a true scorcher, and it improved her support among Nevada voters who didn’t vote early. It also gave her national polling numbers a boost. And I know I bring up her ground game a lot, but as we move towards Super Tuesday as opposed to focusing on a single state, these are all things trending positive for Warren.
So she is very good at keeping her campaign going and her supporters enthused despite lackluster primary performances, but that can’t work forever. And while she was able to beat Bloomberg to a pulp at last week’s debate, she can’t really do that to Sanders as they share such similar policy goals. She can keep clobbering the other candidates, but with Sanders taking up all the progessive oxygen, she is essentially performing hits for him so he doesn’t have to. She can let the moderate candidates attack Sanders and try to be the more well-rounded alternative, but that requires her to be a background player, which has not worked out for her in the past. It’s like watching Nic Cage trying to be serious in a movie; you keep waiting for the fun payoff but the longer it goes on the less likely it is to happen.
Drinking Rule: Drink anytime Warren interrupts another candidate or moderator just to call Bloomberg a dumbass piece of shit.
4. Pete Buttigieg
Pete has had some strong showings in the early states, which in theory is great news for his campaign. So far he is the only candidate outside of Sanders who has consistently performed well. Unfortunately, this has been the easy part of the campaign for Mayor Pete. South Carolina has a large black population, and not only does Buttigieg have close to negative support from the black community as a whole, his campaign is still really bad at not lying about black endorsements. So yeah, things could be better.
Buttigieg is well aware of the rough road ahead, as evidenced by him asking to speak to Nevada’s supervisor about the final vote count from the caucus. He needs to squeeze every last delegate out of these early states, because the chances of him keeping this streak going are slim to Pete eating a cinnamon roll like a normal human being. This debate is realistically his last chance to make a play for non-white support and prevent his campaign from peaking early.
Drinking Rule: Take a drink whenever Buttigieg sounds like the living embodiment of an Excel spreadsheet.
5. Tom Steyer
Okay, for real, Steyer is in this debate. And his position has largely remained unchanged from last week’s dry run. While he is a non-entity nationally, he is polling ridiculously well in South Carolina. And along with Sanders, Steyer has helped to sap a significant amount of black voters away from Biden at a crucial moment. Which just goes to show how much money can buy you, because it’s not like he has been lighting up the debate stage (his choice in ties notwithstanding).
But it’s hard to see what this will amount to. If he wins South Carolina it could force a recalibration in the race, but even with his surge in polling that is extremely unlikely. Best-case scenario is he will have a mid-tier finish, which is better than he has been doing but unlikely to change anyone else’s mind. Who knows, maybe Bloomberg isn’t the only billionaire working a conspiracy angle, and Steyer is just trying to dilute Biden’s support to give the wind to Sanders. After all, Steyer just wants to say hi to Bernie! I’m not crazy – you’re crazy!
Drinking Rule: If Steyer wears the same tie again, drink every beer in your fridge.
6. Mike Bloomberg
Hahahahahahahaha. Man, that was fun. For a brief shining moment, the entire field of candidates was united in dunking on Bloomberg, and it was glorious. Bloomberg has really put in the effort to take over Steyer’s position as the billionaire punching bag, and he is a perfect fit for it. After weeks of hyping Bloomberg up as the only candidate who can take on Trump, his supporters had to eat crow and find increasingly bizarre ways to spin his debate performance into something positive. Bloomberg went from being endlessly covered by the mainstream news media to intentionally forgotten overnight.
He isn’t really going anywhere, though. He still has so much goddamn money to burn on this race that debate performances and poll numbers don’t really matter. He will run as long as he has to in order to be considered for a brokered convention, which is really all he is trying to accomplish anyway. He’s a piece of shit.
Drinking Rule: Take a drink whenever you think or say “Fuck you” to anything Bloomberg says, or even just in response to seeing him onscreen.
7. Amy Klobuchar
Poor Amy. She had finally gotten some real momentum. Things seemed to finally be going her way. But then Klobuchar did a big ol’ faceplant at last week’s debate. She seemed unprepared, and responded to having forgotten the name of Mexico’s president earlier in the week with a recitation of the Wikipedia entry for Mexican trivia facts. Things got so bad for her that Warren had to jump in and tell everyone to back off, and since she had just curbed-stomped Bloomberg, no one argued. So not a great night for Klobuchar.
Then that was followed by a sixth-place finish in Nevada, making her strong showing in New Hampshire feel more like a fluke than anything sustainable. And unlike the other candidates, Klobuchar doesn’t have as large of a war chest from fundraising to keep her afloat. If she has another bottom-tier performance this week, she might not be able to afford to make it to Super Tuesday. Unless something magical happens at the debate, this campaign is at the end of the road.
Drinking Rule: Drink everytime you catch Klobuchar stabbing another needle into her Buttigieg voodoo doll under the podium.