Foiled, again.

Just as Joe Biden looked to have his nomination for Democratic Party presidential nominee all locked up, out comes a New York state judge, who ruled that New York must hold its presidential primary, coronavirus or no coronavirus.

According to The Hill:

A federal judge issued a ruling Tuesday requiring New York to hold its presidential primary in June and restore Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and other former presidential contenders to the ballot. 

The ruling from Judge Analisa Torres of the Southern District of New York, an Obama appointee, said Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s (D) decision to scrap his state’s primary violated the First and 14th Amendment rights of White House contenders who have since ended their campaigns.

“The Court concludes that Plaintiffs and Plaintiff-Intervenors have shown a clear and substantial likelihood of success on the merits of their claim that the Democratic Commissioners’ April 27 Resolution removing Yang, Sanders, and eight other Democratic presidential candidates from the ballot deprived them of associational rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution,” Torres ruled, referring to entrepreneur Andrew Yang, another former presidential candidate who filed the lawsuit against New York. 

On principled judicial grounds, it was the right call, because cripes, calling off an election is banana-republic stuff, in this case, another power-overreach by Gov. Andrew Cuomo. And New York was already in the miserable position of being one of the last primaries. Calling off an election just because you think you already know the result is not only bad in itself, it opens the gates to some Hugo Chavez-style abuses of power. Hugo, by the way, never called off any of his pre-rigged 'elections.' 

That's bad news for Biden because it highlights how little he's consolidated his position in the party.

All the other candidates, who are nominally out, are still looking to pick up delegates, the better to force Biden, the party figurehead, to drive the platform leftward, as they dictate. No leftward drive, no donated delegates to put Biden over the top on the delegate count. Biden's got about a dozen of these back-seat drivers, and even though they're nominally out of the race, actually, they're still in. Bernie Sanders, Andrew Yang, Elizabeth Warren, Julian Castro, they're all still in and Joe's got to keep fighting them off for the next three or four months instead of use his energy to square off against President Trump.

The judge's ruling signals that he's going to have to earn New Yorkers' votes, even as he thought it was time to kick back and wait for the coronation. 

Which highlights what a shambles the Democratic Party is in. Joe Biden was basically the last leftist standing in that race, the only one who commanded the power of the Democratic establishment, which explains why it all came together for him by Super Tuesday.

But he was also the guy with the most baggage and the least charisma. He's corrupt as heck, he paws little girls on camera, he says racist things, he's grown rich while in public office, he's addled and nearly senile, and he has absolutely no new ideas. He's so bad Bernie Sanders refused to leave the race until last month out of a belief that Biden would eventually be knocked out on some ground or other, while female candidates now circle him like vultures, hoping for a vice presidential placement from him, not because they're fangirls, but the better to get positioned for the inevitable post-presidency takeover, even though they'd be pairing with a pervert who's been credibly accused of sexual assault.

For the angry Bernie-ites, that's reason enough for some not to vote for him and some 10% to 15%, according to polls, plan to outright vote for Trump. But they have their primary now, to make their statement.

Joe's going to be comical indeed as he attempts to placate them, Mr. Square Establishmentarian with decrepit ideas, trying to woo the slick hipster Bernie bros, or 'brothers' as he puts it, over to his side.

If Biden really did have solid support behind him, there would be no such battles in the courts such as we have just seen. But he does. And it highlights what a weak candidate he is. New polls show that Trump is gaining on him. Maybe voters can smell blood in the water, too.

Image credit: Obama White House archives // public domain