And then there were . . .

I confess to utter puzzlement over the appeal of lab-generated Mayor Pete whose policy statements are as thin and fluffy as cotton candy and equally nutritive. That said, it is undeniable that he has energized a certain demographic who must see the gay candidate as some sort of Obama redux, an innovation in the political landscape who is cool by the fact of existing and who trots out comfy platitudes at the speed of light. (Caitlin Johnstone called him “the Mozart of bloviation.”) In any case, the Indiana boy wonder should enjoy his moment in the sun given that pulling neck and neck with Bernie in the first two contests was a remarkable feat for a young squirt mayor with a weird name.

However, I believe the more important story of this inaugural primary season is the version of Ten Little Indians playing out before us. We started out with 20 or 21 candidates, a dozen of them faded before we even noticed they were there, and now two heavy hitters who were expected to dominate are sinking fast. Biden is a painfully lousy politician and was always likely to implode; even so, the speed and magnitude of his collapse is epic. Short of convincing Barack Obama to stump South Carolina with him for the next three weeks, it’s not clear how Biden can salvage his dignity, much less his presidential pretensions.

Elizabeth Warren was a front-runner in New Hampshire for a spell and comes from the state next door, so she cannot paint her fourth-place finish as anything less than a disaster. The new flavor of the month is Amy Klobuchar who was the beneficiary of rave chatter on the cable shows all night and, I predict, will become the replacement female darling as Warren is escorted to the wings. Let’s see if Klobuchar decides to slam the B boys (including Bloomberg) as icky males, or perhaps she’ll decide that that ploy didn’t work so well for EW.

In short, we have a phenomenon seen repeatedly in these mass candidacies at the start of a presidential season: steady attrition in which top-rated pols with all the “right” characteristics are pumped up by Beltway chatterers and then are relentlessly felled by the march of those little columns of numbers parading across the screen. Some flashy and expensive contenders flop in the batter’s box.

Once again, Bernie’s first-place finish in total votes was roundly ignored by the corporate yappers, which should serve him perfectly as he grinds on to Nevada and South Carolina and watches the runners-up sink their teeth into each other’s throats. Warren’s eventual departure will leave the field starkly divided into two camps: Bernie and Other. No one can even pretend to echo his insistence on reversing direction 180 degrees in economics, foreign policy, and the role of government, and no one adheres to his theory of social change nor has built the volunteer army to back it up. He’s unique.

Bernie’s critique of runaway cowboy capitalism will be the same in November as it is now. His main adversary in Nevada and beyond isn’t any of the candidates—it’s the undecideds who aren’t convinced that he can win despite his, um, winning. The voters may go nostalgic and choose mushy centrism for November, or they may be seduced by Bloomberg’s billions. But win or lose, Bernie won’t change either his message or his way of doing politics. He’ll just be around, doing what he’s always done.

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