Biden or Bernie, Super Tuesday outcome surprises veteran Vancouver journalist

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VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) — It’s a total shock to see Joe Biden as the frontrunner to lead the Democrats against Donald Trump, according to a Vancouver journalist.

Globe and Mail reporter Frances Bula spent two weeks in the U.S. watching the Democratic caucuses and primaries in person, and after Super Tuesday, she says she never could have predicted the outcome.

“My head is spinning on how quickly things changed,” she says after Biden rose ahead of Bernie Sanders, leaving Elizabeth Warren in the dust. Even though Bula knew there was always going to be a moderate candidate giving Sanders a run for his money, she didn’t expect it to turn out the way it did.

“I’m as flabbergasted as everyone that it is Joe Biden,” she says, explaining many people she spoke to at the primaries said they wouldn’t vote for Sanders or Warren for being “too radical.”
Biden scored victories from Texas to Massachusetts, revitalizing a presidential bid that was teetering on the edge of disaster just days earlier.

The former vice president was declared the winner of his 10th Super Tuesday state, Maine, by Wednesday afternoon.

Biden’s rival, Bernie Sanders, seized the biggest prize with a win in California that ensured he would drive the Democrats’ nomination fight for the foreseeable future.

When it comes to Biden or Sanders, Bula says it’s not clear yet what either candidate becoming president would mean for Canada – aside from the fact Trump would no longer be in charge and there “would be a sense of at least the worst of the worst is not there anymore.”

Biden, she suspects will offer a status-quo approach to policy while Sanders, who has stuck by his anti-establishment identity, would mean turmoil for the White House as he would be forced to work within the establishment while trying to revolutionize the country.

She says American politics bleed across the border “economically, socially, but also psychologically” and often affects Canadians far more than even municipal politics, which she has covered extensively for decades.

“I don’t know anyone whose not sort of semi-aware of world events who doesn’t feel incredibly battered by the last three years of watching the Trump Republican government in action.”

Bula is surprised Elizabeth Warren fell so far behind but believes she may be too closely aligned with some of Sanders’ policy pitches to be considered an alternative.

“[Warren] just doesn’t have the hype. She’s as progressive as Sanders, but she somehow doesn’t generate the hype,” she says.

“I think for some women it feels like really super-qualified, competent women always lose out to any guy who comes along no matter how mediocre,” she tells NEWS 1130.
Warren did not win a single state during Super Tuesday and finished an embarrassing third in her home state, Massachusetts.

With files from the Associated Press

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