In Peter Gabriel’s great song Biko, about the South African Civil Rights leader Steven Biko, he say:
You can blow out a candle
But you can't blow out a fire
Once the flames begin to catch
The wind will blow it higher
Gabriel was talking about a movement, not the man Steven Biko. That movement was the fight to end South African Apartheid. Biko was the candle that was blown out in a cell in a prison in Cape Town. However, the movement only grew until Apartheid was cleared away like a fire through prairie grass.
Well on Monday night, the flames of a movement caught the metaphoric political grass on fire. There had been some smoldering in the brush, but the establishment ignored it. Now they are going to get caught up in it. It will only get bigger.
If you don’t think so, then explain how it is that Sanders can raise almost as much money as the best known politician in the world. $20 million in January alone. $1 million on Monday night. I give 20 measly dollars every time I get paid. Sanders average contribution is $27. People who have never given before are giving to Sanders, like the person I talked to this morning, by the way, someone I would have never thought of as a Sanders supporter.
Also, you can look into the data from Monday night, and granted it has value as to how to make adjustments going forward, but there is only one data point that matters. Sanders received 49.6% of the Iowa vote! A relative nobody got 49.6% of the vote against the most known politician in the world. She is the most connected politician in the world as well. 99% of the Iowa Democratic establishment supported her and all it got her was 49.9%. Incumbents, which she is running as, are not supposed to get less than 50%.
New Hampshire will be a major indicator of whether Clinton can put out this fire. If Sanders wins by 5 or 7 points, you can chalk it up to “liberal New Englanders" and the next door affect. However, if he wins by double digits, fire flags should be going up in the Democratic establishment. The wider the margin, the more worried the “party" should be.
True momentum is something that is catchy. When people start seeing Sanders actually demonstrating he can win, then people will give him a second look. When Nevada and SC roll around, there will have been a significant amount of MSM attention on Sanders pushing Clinton to the wall in Iowa and blowing her doors off in NH (knock on wood, yes, I am superstitious).
If this happens, Clinton will wish she had built that firewall out of something other than dry kindling.
PS: I am going to a meeting tonight and will not be able to participate in comments. Please keep it nice (as much as you can). If you are interested the meeting is for grants to get art equity into communities that have been unserved or underserved.