File this one under: "If I doesn't laugh, I thinks I'm gonna cry!"

President Donald Trump, that noted stable genius, apparently has the answer to the coronavirus. Here's how an article in today's Washington Post began:

Trump administration officials are holding preliminary conversations about economic responses to the coronavirus, as the stock market fell sharply again on Friday amid international fears about the outbreak, according to five people with knowledge of the planning.

Among the options being considered are pursuing a targeted tax cut package, these people said.

Later in the article, Senator Chuck Grassley seemed to at least be open to the idea as well:

"At this point, the coronavirus has not had a broad impact on the U.S. economy and its effects have been limited. However, Chairman Grassley and the Senate Finance Committee stand ready to consider appropriate tax relief responses if that becomes necessary and the extent of the problem can be determined," Michael Zona, a Grassley spokesman, said in a statement.

"Tax relief responses." Seriously. That's what Republicans are now considering to fight a viral epidemic. There's an old saying that goes: "When you only have a hammer, pretty soon every problem starts to look like a nail." Republicans' one magic panacea for everything and anything that ails America is to cut taxes on the wealthy, because obviously there is simply no problem that cannot be improved by increasing the inequality of wealth in this country. Hammer, meet nail.

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Since my election forecast dominated last Friday's column, I've decided to post my picks for South Carolina early this week, to free up the format for tomorrow. Also, I sincerely doubt that one more day of polling is going to change my mind about any of these picks, so I feel it's pretty safe to put them out there a day early.

South Carolina will be the final of the first four states to vote, and Super Tuesday will follow almost immediately thereafter. Which brings up a technical note. Up until now, due to the breadth of the field, I've been posting my picks for the top five slots. But by now, I think that fourth- and fifth-place finishes are going to be irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, so I'm only going to pick the top three for South Carolina, and then only try to pick the winner of each state from Super Tuesday forward. Squabbling about who came in second versus third is going to become all but meaningless as we move deeper into the primary calendar, mostly because people will be much more focused on the total delegate count.

Before we get to this Saturday's picks, though, we've got to first bring our scorecard up to date. Pervious to the Nevada caucus, this stood at:

Total correct 2020 primary picks so far: 7 for 10 -- 70%.

My predictions for the Nevada outcome (based on the traditional delegate division percentages) were as follows: (1) Bernie Sanders, (2) Elizabeth Warren, (3) Pete Buttigieg, (4) Joe Biden, (5) Tom Steyer. As it turned out, I wildly overestimated Warren and wildly underestimated Biden. I did get lucky in the middle of that split, and wound up picking the first, third, and fifth places accurately. The Nevada results came in the following order: (1) Bernie Sanders, (2) Joe Biden, (3) Pete Buttigieg, (4) Elizabeth Warren, (5) Tom Steyer. This translates into 3-for-5 for my crystal ball, making my overall stats now:

Total correct 2020 primary picks so far: 10 for 15 -- 67%.

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Donald Trump is known to be a germophobe, but his fear of COVID-19 has nothing to do with any personal fear of actually contracting the virus. No, he's scared for a bigger reason -- because he knows that if the virus causes a sickness in the American economy writ large, then this will undercut his biggest campaign theme heading into the 2020 election. He's made this argument many times, essentially telling voters that they may not like him personally or appreciate his tweets, but the economy is so darn good that they have to vote for him so he can continue the good times.

That argument breaks down if the economy isn't doing well, obviously. Which is why it is no surprise that Trump reportedly was incensed at the stock market for tanking the first two days of this week, on fears of what a coronavirus pandemic could do not just to the American economy but to the whole world's economy. America is now so intertwined with foreign economies -- China's in particular -- that if they turn down it could cause America to enter a recession as well.

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Welcome back again to another of our post-debate snap-reactions columns. Tonight was the tenth in the continuing series of Democratic presidential debates, moderated this time by CBS. When they woke up and remembered to, I should say, because at several extended times during the night I thought the moderators had completely left the room for a coffee break. It certainly seemed that way, since the candidates just engaged in a free-for-all shouting match where it was impossible to hear what any one of them had to say. This wasn't an isolated incident, it happened over and over again. And the moderators either were too timid to even try to, you know, moderate the discussion, or they were just flat-out incapable of doing so. Or, as I said, perhaps they had all ducked out for a few moments in the hallway.

Tonight's debate seemed just as high-energy as the last time around, which was held last week in Las Vegas. The stakes couldn't be higher, as this is the last time the candidates will all stand on one stage until after Super Tuesday -- which may well eliminate a number of them. But to me (at least) tonight didn't seem quite as personal and vicious as the last installment. Perhaps this was due to Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg deciding to forego the "Amy and Pete attack each other with chainsaws" part of the program -- which, up until now, had been a regular feature of all the other debates where they faced each other on stage.
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Bernie Sanders emerged from the Nevada caucuses as the man to beat in the Democratic presidential nomination race. He is now the lone frontrunner, having outpaced Pete Buttigieg and Joe Biden by significant margins. In fact, he is now positioned to become almost unstoppable, should he do well in South Carolina and, more importantly, on Super Tuesday. The question for those who would stop Bernie is now a very stark one, because it basically boils down to which candidates will quit, and how soon they'll bow out.

Bernie's good fortunes with the voters are causing the moderate and establishment Democrats to absolutely freak out right now, because they see the pathways to stopping Bernie shrinking and falling away, one by one. Last week, it was conventional wisdom that Bernie had a built-in "ceiling" of support, and that this would never exceed roughly 25 percent of the electorate. After a rash of new polls was released showing Bernie much higher than this (north of 30 percent in multiple polls), the new storyline immediately became: "Bernie will not win a majority of delegates, so let's plot how to stop him at a brokered convention." This, again, assumed Bernie was not really all that big a threat, since he obviously would never received an outright majority of the delegates.

Nevada shot that concept down, though. Bernie is going to win not just a majority, but the lion's share of Nevada delegates, after blowing the field away. If he pulls off a similar performance in California on Super Tuesday (which seems to be what the polls are indicating), he will be well on his way to winning a clear majority of the convention delegates.

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We are hereby totally throwing in the towel on our usual "weekly news wrap-up" segment here, because the Democratic primary race is ever so much nicer to focus on. In place of it, we offer up what we wrote back in Friday Talking Points Volume 523, from last April -- a "Generic Weekly News Roundup" with Mad-Lib-style fill-in-the-blanks. Two paragraphs even caught our eye as being not all that far removed from the current week, to wit:

Trump was also in the news this week for firing [HIGH-RANKING ADVISOR], which he claimed was due to [TOTALLY MADE-UP AND CAPRICIOUS REASON]. Multiple White House sources report, however, that the real reason was that [HIGH-RANKING ADVISOR] refused to violate numerous federal laws when directed to by Trump, which sent him into a rage.

...and the slightly-more-tongue-in-cheek:

In the current field, Senator Elizabeth Warren released [WILDLY POPULAR AND DETAILED POLICY IDEA], but the media completely ignored it because it was so intently focused on [LATEST SHINY-OBJECT NON-STORY FROM CAMPAIGN TRAIL]. And also because they had to have time to run the [LATEST ADORABLE CAMPAIGN VIDEO] from [CURRENT MEDIA DARLING CANDIDATE], thirty or forty times each hour. "[CURRENT MEDIA DARLING CANDIDATE] has really locked up the [CAT-LOVERS / DOG-LOVERS / ROCK FANS / STAR WARS FANS / YOUTH ACTIVIST / SENIOR CITIZENS] vote, with this new video clip," said every cable news anchor, simultaneously.

Cynical? Perhaps. Amusing? We hope so, at any rate. But let's push on with the real subject at hand instead, shall we?

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Normally, after a presidential debate, I'd wait a few days or even a week before taking a look at the state of the race nationally, but we're in the crunch phase of things so I'm just going to leap right in without the benefit of seeing how the post-debate poll numbers shift. The numbers were already shifting before the debate, though, so there's still plenty to analyze and very little time to do so. Nevada caucuses this Saturday, we've got another debate next week, and then South Carolina votes next Saturday. Three days after that is Super Tuesday, when one-third of the total delegates will be decided. So we really don't have the luxury of waiting, at this point.

Last night's debate was certainly a humdinger. It also got the highest viewership of any 2020 debate yet, if early indications are correct. More people were watching, and they certainly got more bang for their buck this time around.

Will it change anything? The conventional wisdom is that no matter how much the pundits love to dissect debates, they rarely actually move the needle with the voting public. However, that didn't turn out to be true in New Hampshire, where Amy Klobuchar rode a big debate wave right into third place. Will this one have the same effect, or possibly the opposite effect, on any of the candidates? It's hard to say, at this point.

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There's an old switcheroo-at-the-end joke that goes: "I went to see the fights, but a hockey game broke out instead." After tonight, this can now be updated to: "I went to see the fights, but a Democratic presidential debate broke out instead." In fact, the best word I can think of to describe what we all just saw is "brutal." Maybe for the next debate, we should have a metal detector installed so that nobody can bring any brass knuckles to the podium? Just a thought.

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Today, Michael Bloomberg placed in double-digit support in his fourth national poll, just before the deadline. As a result, he will be on tomorrow's debate stage. This could be a pivotal moment for the entire Democratic presidential race, no matter what the outcome.

Up until now, Bloomberg has had the freedom to carpet-bomb the airwaves -- with little or no opposition -- in almost every state in the Union. No other candidate has had a such bottomless supply of money (Bloomberg, by some reports, has now spent over $400 million in advertising alone -- a staggering number, considering that it's only February). In most of the states Bloomberg's been up on the airwaves, viewers have seen zero opposition ads to counter any of his message. This has allowed him to make the best possible first impression on millions upon millions of voters. But that's going to change tomorrow night, because for the first time Bloomberg will have to face all his Democratic opponents on free television for a few hours. So while his ads may have paved the way, this will really be the first time many voters will get the chance to see Bloomberg live and in person, rather than in heavily-scripted ads.

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[Program Note: As I am occasionally wont to do, I am taking today off because it is a holiday. Sort of. Rather than celebrating the birthday of Abraham Lincoln and George Washington separately, we now have today's catchall holiday instead. Maybe this is for the best, because even George Washington wasn't even born on Washington's birthday -- and that has nothing to do with making all federal holidays fall on Mondays. But that's a different story, of course. Today I decided to reprint an earlier column, on the subject of how many actual presidents we have to celebrate today. And the answer's not as easy as you might think. So happy holiday, everyone, and I promise we'll resume new columns tomorrow.]

Originally Published February 21, 2011

Happy Presidents' Day, everyone!

The two formerly-individual holidays celebrating Washington's Birthday and Lincoln's Birthday have been merged into a single federal holiday -- a holiday which, while intended to honor both Washington and Lincoln, has now become somewhat "genericized" (in name, at least) into a celebration of all our presidents. But what about the forgotten presidents? [Or, to be scrupulously accurate, "presidents"?]

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