The Only Way to Stop Sanders

The Economist: “Start with the absurdity of counting on Mr Sanders’s moderate rivals to peg him back. They are the main reason for his rise. There are too many of them and none is a standout. Their bickering over tiny differences has fragmented the center-left—and is utterly dull. This center-left logjam has made Mr Sanders’s small left-wing base more potent, his leftist rhetoric more distinctive and, until now, his candidacy only indirectly threatening to his main rivals, which is why they hardly attacked him.”

“The vanity campaigns of the Democrats’ billionaires have been even more helpful to him. Tom Steyer, a retired financier with no original ideas, has risen in South Carolina at Mr Biden’s cost by outspending the field. Mr Bloomberg, whose lavish campaign and dire political skills (again on display in Charleston) are drawing inevitable comparisons with the Wizard of Oz, has also badly reduced Mr Biden in the Super Tuesday states. Mr Sanders would be in a weaker position without them.”

“The only way his rivals could pull back the populist senator would be by quitting and thinning the field. But, having a well-judged sense of each other’s weaknesses, they will not.”