Page 22 Daily Mail, Thursday, March 5, 2020
it, this campaign will send
Donald Trump packing.’
Mocking his Democrat rival’s
radicalism, he added: ‘People
are talking about a revolution.
We started a movement.’
Mr Sanders remained defiant
and confident of victory, telling
a rally: ‘You cannot beat Trump
with the same old, same old
kind of politics.’
The final results from Califor-
nia will take weeks to arrive
but Tuesday at least estab-
lished that the Democrat nom-
ination will be a two-man con-
test between candidates with
sharply differing manifestos as
well as personal styles.
Left-winger Elizabeth Warren
was a distant third, failing even
to win her home state of Mas-
sachusetts, and billionaire
Michael Bloomberg quit after
securing only 12 delegates
(compared with Mr Biden’s 380
and Mr Sanders’s 328).
Mr Bloomberg had stood
largely because he feared the
Biden campaign would fizzle
out and fail to stop Mr Sand-
ers. In defeat, he said he would
be endorsing Mr Biden, calling
him a ‘great American’.
His endorsement is a boost
for the cash-strapped Biden
operation, which has raised far
less money than Mr Sanders
and couldn’t even afford to
campaign in some of the states
where it won on Tuesday.
While Super Tuesday was an
astonishing political resurrec-
tion for Mr Biden, it was an act
of pragmatism for many Dem-
ocrat voters rather than a ring-
ing endorsement of his vision.Voters overwhelmingly told
exit pollsters their priority was
to oust President Trump by
choosing a candidate with the
best chance of doing so.
Mr Biden has long been seen
as the sort of centrist candi-
date capable of winning back
working-class white voters who
defected to Mr Trump in 2016.
Many Democrats also say that
after four years of Trump chaos,
they want a return to relative
normality rather than another
radical shake-up, which Mr
Sanders has promised.
Wall Street clearly agreed
with that sentiment as share
prices jumped yesterday after
the Biden success.
He was helped enormously
on Tuesday by fellow moder-
ates Pete Buttigieg and Amy
Klobuchar dropping out of the
race and urging their support-
ers to back him. And he was
also saved by black voters whos u p p o r t h i m p r i n c i p a l l y
because of his connection as
v i c e - p r e s i d e n t t o B a r a c k
Obama (who has yet to endorse
anyone). They propelled him to
victory at the South Carolina
primary last weekend and on
Tuesday ensured he won states
across the South.
Mr Biden also did well in
northern states such as Min-nesota and Massachusetts that
he had never been expected to
win. Mr Sanders, meanwhile,
continued to do well with Lat-
ino and more liberal voters.
However, the real division
between their supporters isn’t
ethnic but demographic, with
older voters flocking to Mr
Biden and the young pulledtowards the idealistic senator
from Vermont. Worryingly for
Mr Sanders, a radical Left vet-
eran who has much in common
with Jeremy Corbyn, turn-out
by younger voters was rela-
tively low on Tuesday.
Once again, the US media
appear to have misjudged the
conservatism of the electorate.
Swept away by the youthful
euphoria for Mr Sanders and
his string of celebrity support-
ers ranging from Jack Nichol-
son to Ariana Grande, they had
largely written off Mr Biden.
He has, admittedly, per-
formed badly in TV debates,
where he has been hesitant
and faltering, with no bold new
ideas. He is also by his own
admission a ‘gaffe machine’
and there has been specula-
tion that he suffers from cogni-
tive impairment.
But his rival has arguably
even more serious drawbacks.IT was the night the dead walked
again – or at least one of them.
‘Sleepy’ Joe Biden, as Donald
Trump calls the former US vice-
president, had headed into crucial
‘Super Tuesday’ voting as the lost
cause of the Democrat nomination
battle after a lacklustre campaign.
Now he’s ‘Smokin’ Joe’, very much
back in the running after winning at
least nine of the 14 states voting in pri-
mary elections on Tuesday. He’d gone
from ‘joke to juggernaut in 72 hours’, as
one commentator put it.
In the process, he dashed the hopes of
his ‘democratic socialist’ challenger
Bernie Sanders, who had been con-
vinced he could wrap up the nomination
in the first few weeks of the primaries.
Sanders won four states including –
though yet to be confirmed – California,
which carries the highest number of the
delegates who will finally anoint the par-
ty’s presidential nominee in July.
The comeback kid – Mr Biden is 77 toMr Sanders’s 78 – gave a jubilant victory
speech which, in his gaffe-prone tradi-
tion, started with him mixing up his wife
and sister as they stood behind him.
‘It’s still early but things are looking
awful, awful good,’ he told a rally of a few
hundred supporters in Los Angeles.
‘Just a few days ago the press and the
pundits had declared the campaign
dead... I’m here to report we are very
much alive. And make no mistake aboutWHEN vegan protesters stormed Joe
Biden’s victory speech, it wasn’t a body-
guard who jumped in to protect the
presidential hopeful – it was his 68-year-
old wife Jill.
Mrs Biden, pictured above in green,
stepped in as her husband delivered a
speech in Los Angeles, California.
She quickly threw her body in the way
of one woman before wrestling another
female activist away seconds later.
The protesters were holding anti-dairyindustry placards in Tuesday night’s dem-
onstration. The moment has since gone
viral with social media users calling for
the former teacher to be made US defence
secretary if Mr Biden wins the election.
This is not the first time Mrs Biden has
acted as security for her husband.
When a man began shouting at Mr
Biden during a New Hampshire rally last
month, Mrs Biden jumped up and kept
the heckler at bay before paid security
guards intervened.Wife Jill fends off protesters
MICHAEL Bloomberg quit the
White House race yesterday
after spending more than
$500million (£390million).
The billionaire suffered a
disastrous Super Tuesday
which saw him secure just
one territory – American
Samoa. But he failed to win
any of the 14 states up forgrabs to win the nomination
f o r t h e D e m o c ra t s. M r
Bloomberg, 78, said: ‘Defeat-
ing Donald Trump starts with
uniting behind the candidate
with the best shot to do it. It’s
clear that is my friend and a
great American, Joe Biden.’
Mr Trump tweeted: ‘Mini
Mike Bloomberg just “quit”Bloomberg bows out after £400m campaign
Out: Michael Bloomberg‘Joke to juggernaut
in 72 hours’‘We are very
much alive’Minister:
BBC out
of touch
with the
Shires
CULTUrE Secretary Oliver Dowden will
today tell the BBC it must do more to get in
touch with the ‘whole of the United Kingdom’
after it missed key political trends like the
backing for Brexit.
In his first speech since he took over from
Nicky Morgan last month, Mr Dowden will
make clear that he wants the corporation to
move beyond a ‘narrow urban outlook’.
While singling out the global respect the
BBC commands, comparing its reputation to
the NHS, he will warn that institutions have
to change if they want to ‘retain support
and relevance’.
He will say that without ‘genuine diversity of
thought and experience’ the BBC will ‘miss
what’s important to people’ and ‘seem distant
and disengaged’.
Mr Dowden will add the corporation ‘must
reflect all of our nation, and all perspectives’.
He will also raise the issue of whether the
corporation has guarded its ‘unique selling
point of impartiality’ across all of its output.
The Culture Secretary’s comments come
after the BBC has in the past been accused of
being slow to pick up on the public mood on
issues like immigration and the growing sup-
port for Brexit.
Addressing industry leaders from media,telecoms and technology, Mr Dowden will ask
whether the BBC is ‘ready to embrace proper
reform’ to ‘ensure its long term sustainability
for the decades ahead’.
The Government is currently consulting on
whether to decriminalise licence fee evasion,
which will be followed by a new licence fee
settlement and mid-term charter review in
the coming years.
The BBC is also taking on responsibility for
funding free TV licences for over-75s.
The Government has suggested that the
licence fee could be scrapped at the end of the
charter in 2027.
Mr Dowden, speaking at the Media and
Telecoms 2020 & Beyond conference, will say
that in the world of increased choice from the
likes of Netflix and YouTube, the BBC needs
to focus ‘even more strongly on relevance
and representation’.
But he will say that the corporation is ‘cher-
ished’ and it ‘would be crazy to throw it away’.
He will add that the BBC has helped build our
British sense of self through shows such as
Fawlty Towers, Gavin and Stacey and Blue
Planet, which brought generations together.By Paul Revoir Media Editor
Flack: CPS and
police in clear
PROSECUTORS insisted yesterday they were
right to charge Caroline Flack with assault
after two reviews concluded the case had
been handled correctly.
Miss Flack, 40, killed herself after learning
the CPS was still pursuing allegations that she
attacked her sleeping boyfriend Lewis Bur-
ton with a lamp. After her death, the TV star’s
managers accused the CPS of ‘a show trial’.
But a CPS review concluded it was right to
charge Miss Flack despite Mr Burton not
supporting the case. A separate review by
the Independent Office for Police Conduct
also cleared investigating officers.‘Move beyond a
narrow outlook’From Tom
Leonard
in nEw York