“No people will tamely surrender their Liberties, nor can any be easily subdued, when knowledge is diffused and virtue is preserved. On the contrary, when people are universally ignorant, and debauched in their manners, they will sink under their own weight without the aid of foreign invaders.” —Samuel Adams (1775)

If not for Iowa’s distinction as holder of the nation’s first primary on 3 February, the latest Demo debate in Des Moines wouldn’t matter much. Iowa’s 3.1 million residents put it 30th in population, and the Hawkeye State suffers from the undue influence of leftists from nearby Chicago, who treat the eastern part of the state like a dude-ranch suburb. The Iowa primary is actually composed of secret closed caucuses promising a prize of 49 delegates, of which 41 are pledged, so all eyes are on Iowa until its caucuses conclude.

Last night’s dull debate was the first of the election year. It was hosted by the Democrat Party’s public-relations firm, CNN. Participants included frontrunners Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Pete Buttigieg, along with outliers Amy Klobuchar and billionaire leftist Tom Steyer.

That’s a large field of candidates given how close we are to voting in Iowa and New Hampshire, and it reflects both the lack of unity and strength within the Democrat Party. It’s now a uniformly white field of candidates after New Jersey Sen. Cory “Spartacus” Booker dropped out — except, of course, for “Honest Injun” Warren, who has been certified 1/1,024th Cherokee or some other indigenous flavor.

Noticeably absent from the “oh so important” Iowa Demo debate was billionaire leftist Mike Bloomberg, the former nanny-state New York City mayor whose political platform is focused on his abjectly hypocritical concern for “income inequality” and his dangerous gun-confiscation agenda. He may not have been on stage yet, but make no mistake, Bloomberg, a longtime enemy of Trump, is the most dangerous Demo contender in the running.

In order to qualify for the debate, candidates had to first demonstrate broad-based funding support from 225,000 unique donors (at least 1,000 of whom had to be from each of 20 states). Second, they had to meet popular political polling thresholds.

Bloomberg made the polling thresholds (5th place at 5.8%), but he’s intentionally not soliciting individual donations. However, his ad buys now total more than $200 million mostly in swing states, almost as much as the rest of the Democrat field’s combined $222 million — effectively doubling their collective strategy to defeat Donald Trump.

He plans on spending a lot more prior to the convention, including $10 million for a 60 second ad during the Super Bowl and $100 million more in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Arizona ahead of their primaries. By the super-Tuesday primaries on 10 March, we estimate he will have spent more than $400 million, mostly in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Florida, Arizona, Texas, and North Carolina. And he has hired more than 1,000 campaign staffers at rates far above others contenders.

Bloomberg does not desire to be on the debate stage with his fellow leftists, but if he is to be taken seriously, he must reluctantly participate in the next Demo primary.

The debate stage is not his objective. The stage podium he wants is the big one at the Demo convention in July – if Joe Biden does not have a clear path to a majority of the party’s delegates. He will be using his enormous advertising budget to broker a path for his preferred candidate. That brokering will take place behind the scenes before the first convention votes are cast.

And given Bloomberg’s $52 billion net worth, he will have an outsized influence on whichever candidate ultimately wins the nomination.

After the convention he will spend another $500 million on “Hate Trump” advertising to defeat his long-time enemy – again, strategically most of that in critical swing states. He is the domestic version of socialist billionaire George Soros, and is prepared to spend more than $2 billion to defeat Trump. In effect, he is forming a “shadow political party for the Democratic nominee,” and $2 billion amounts to “just 1 percent of Bloomberg’s estimated net worth.”

Sidebar: This is yet another example of why I believe a candidate should not be able to make limitless donations to their own campaign or on behalf of others (buy the office). They should be subject to the same limits imposed on every other American — $2,800 in a primary and general election.

Who then will win Bloomberg’s convention favor and affection and his $500 million advertising lotto defeat Trump? There are basically four candidates who represent two Democrat Party factions. Biden and Bloomberg represent the left-of-center “moderate” Demos, and Sanders and Warren represent the far-left socialist/feminist wing.

Biden’s views align most closely to those of Bloomberg, and he is the “establishment candidate.” Thus, if Biden makes it beyond Super Tuesday (which I believe he will) despite the fact he is virtually non compos mentis, he is going to be Bloomberg’s boy.

On the other hand, Bernie Sanders is surging in the polls, and the 78-year-old Vermont socialist is leading the pack. Notably, he’s also surging in fundraising, having raised more than $34 million last quarter, compared to Buttigieg’s $25 million, Biden’s $23 million, and Warren’s $21 million. As I warned a year ago, “Take Sanders’s 2020 Campaign Seriously and Literally.” Against all odds, he may be the Democrat nominee against a weak field of contenders, but the new norm for presidential candidates is “against all odds.” Consider Trump’s surprise with in 2016 and you have the template for a Sanders nomination.

Democrat Party poobahs are certainly taking Sanders seriously, and they’re concerned about a repeat of 2016, when Hillary Clinton and the DNC conspired to sandbag Sanders in order to secure the nomination for her. The end result of their malfeasance was, of course, a shocking Electoral College victory for Donald Trump and the sudden onset of Trump Derangement Syndrome.

The “Sanders Surge” is, once again, creating a lot of heartburn for the Demos, who know that his nomination could be “an epic nightmare for them.”

I believe Bloomberg is positioning himself as an insurance policy against Sanders’s nomination in support of Biden.

In the RealClearPolitics polling average (the poll to watch), Biden has a substantial national lead over Sanders (27% to 19%) and has marginal leads over Sanders in both Iowa and New Hampshire.

But regardless of whether Biden, Sanders, or Warren wins the nomination, Bloomberg’s Demo-dollars will remain a looming threat to American Liberty.

I profiled the threat he and his club of wealthy leftists pose to Liberty in a column two years ago: “The Archenemies of Liberty — Soros, Steyer, Bezos, and Bloomberg,” noting that this megalomaniac has “an insatiable narcissistic quest for power, including centralized government power.” Typical of rich leftists, he does not want to play by the rules, just dictate the rules for others.

Whomever Bloomberg and his sidekick Tom Steyer back at the convention, that nominee will be beholden to them and most certainly will comply with their wishes. We call this arrangement a “quid pro quo.” Of course if the tide changes for Biden, Bloomberg may decide he actually does want the nomination.

And on that note, the Demos’ “urgent” articles of impeachment, which were held hostage by Nancy Pelosi for more than a month, are on the way over to the Senate this week.

Some are suggesting that Pelosi’s delay was intended to help Biden’s candidacy, because now Sanders and Warren will be distracted by their obligatory attendance at the Senate impeachment trial just ahead of the early primaries. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said: “This is the dirty little secret that nobody is talking about, why the speaker held these papers. … This benefits Joe Biden. This harms Sanders, who … will be stuck in a [Senate] chair” instead of out campaigning.

Shades of the 2016 Sanders sandbagging…

In response, Pelosi’s deputy chief of staff declared, “Impeachment has nothing to do with politics or the presidential race.” Seriously, that is the best reply he could script. (Big Lie playbook rules: When trying to deflect from the truth, always leave the denial to a cutout at least two steps removed from the originator of the lie!)

Moving forward, because the Democrats are in panic mode about the increasing chances that Sander will prevail, they have changed the debate rules in order to give Bloomberg easier access to future debates. He may or may not make the cut in the 19 February debate in Nevada and 25 February debate in South Carolina.

Finally, while I’m neither a gambler nor a prognosticating political pretender, if I was, I would suggest you keep your eye on this potential combo ticket: Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. I know, crazy, right? I think Biden will be Bloomberg’s water boy, and he’ll have to go younger and non-white in order to abide by his party’s obsessions with race and identity. Booker would be another option, but I suspect Biden’s advisers will insist he go female, and Harris is that default.

Of course, in the unlikely event that Bernie survives the slings and arrows of the DNC, he could choose metrosexual Beto O'Rourke, who can pass as both female and Mexican.

Updated

Semper Vigilans Fortis Paratus et Fidelis
Pro Deo et Libertate — 1776