Thats followed by prime ministers questions from the british house of commons. Then, joe biden, winter in South Carolina on saturday, campaigns in norfolk, virginia, ahead of tuesdays primary. Nearly a third of democratic president ial delegates will be chosen this super tuesday. 14 states, democrats abroad and American Samoa will all be voting. Carl cannon, how decisive do you think super tuesday will be . You have one third of the delegates that will be at the Democratic Convention in milwaukee that will be chosen on tuesday. We will not know all of them. California is going to take a while to count. But you start to think about, in a crowded field, if one person can win most of those states, the advantage they have may be insurmountable. Im talking about a specific candidate now. Who are you talking about . Im talking about Bernie Sanders. This could be decisive. Maybe not. You saw on the debate stage every democratic candidate except Bernie Sanders would not commit to the idea that the person with the most elegant going into milwaukee would be the nominee. I do know if it will be decisive. But it will be quite a story the day after super tuesday, when you have all of these states picking all of these delegates. 1357 pledged delegates are up for grabs on super tuesday. 1991 are needed for nomination on the first ballot. California, 415 in that state alone. And that word used is a keyword. Committed delegates. Committed. They cannot vote. They have to vote for who they are supposed to foot four when to vote for when they get there. Even the superdelegates. They have to vote for, if they are on the slate that Bernie Sanders carries and california has complex rules, they have to vote for that person on the first delegate. There is no smokefilled rooms. Democrats do not even smoke anymore. [laughter] even if there were, this thing is not going to be done in secret. These delegates on the first ballot will have to vote for who they are pledged to vote for. Peter here are some numbers. There are4750 total delegates. 3979 are pledged. 771 superdelegates elegance needed for a win on the first ballot, 1991. Subsequent ballots, 2375. And super tuesday delegates, 1357. It gets complicated it goes past the first ballot, doesnt it . Carl yes and every journalist of my generation has been longing, praying really for a brokered convention. We may get one this time. We say that every time. The way the democrats have set up the rules and the field is so large, getting to 50 of the delegates is going to be difficult. Perhaps Bernie Sanders can do it. If joe biden caught fire or Mike Bloomberg caught fire and ran the table perhaps they could do it. As a betting man i would say the odds are that the leader will not have 50 going into milwaukee. Peter you mentioned Mike Bloomberg. He has spent 200, 300, 400 Million Dollars so far on Television Ads but he skipped the first four states. Carl they all have a theory. On the debates they are bickering and acting like children but privately they have a theory that is rational, how they can get there. Mike bloombergs theory of the case is that joe biden would founder. And that then the Party Establishment and rankandfile democrats who are not democraticsocialist or not the left quarter of the party would look for an alternative and he would be that alternative. Now did biden flounder . He did not do well and i will or New Hampshire, but he is not dead yet. And it turned out that the person who floundered was Mike Bloomberg in the first debate. He did not plan on being there. He was not competing in the vat up. But he did so well with the ads that he got on stage. He did not seem quite ready. But we are going to find out on super tuesday, if the kind of money he spent on these ads can really sway an electorate, because they are very good ads. And he spent a lot of money on them. It is a test case. I think political scientists will be studying this for years, how well those ads helped him on super tuesday . Peter and whether or not they can help overcome his debate performances. Carl and the first debate really. The second debate, none were very good. They were interested in bickering. The first debate, he did not seem prepared. Attacked him, which he should have anticipated and he did not. And he did not do well. The second debate was a wash. I do not think the South Carolina debate helped any of them. Are the debates more important than ads . These are interesting questions. We will get some answers tuesday. Peter does Bernie Sanders have a ceiling . Carl im hesitant to say that. The reason is it depends in a way how you define that. I learned this four years ago. Donald trump was said to have a ceiling. He was winning all these primaries. But whoever he was not getting 50 of the boat, he was getting 30 or 40 of the field was crowded. The reason it was crowded as the same reason as this year. All of those other republicans thought, if i can just get all these other guys to quit, i can get a go against donald trump oneonone and can beat him. Theres no evidence of that without thought that. Because they all thought that they were slow getting out. Meanwhile, trump is racking up delegates. He is getting under the skin of the others. In may in indiana, by that time there is only two or three he is winning anyway. So i have learned to be modest about this. The establishment views the center as the ceiling but im not sure that is true. Peter the secondbiggest prize, texas, 228 delegates at stake. Texas has morphed politically, has it not, over the last 10 years . Carl it has, like everywhere in the country, a rising latino population. And for a generation has been a republican state. But there are people old enough to remember when it was a democratic state. The state is getting closer. There are not statewide democrats elected there, but the margins have been getting closer in president ial elections. This year the democrats said they carried texas. I dont see that, but in terms of the primary electorate, we do not quite know where texans are. There used to be an old split back in the days of john f. Kennedy, john connolly. It is not that clear cut. You have progressives in austin and latinos all over the state. There are populists. Young voters, millennials. Heres one thing to remember because this is true in texas and everywhere else, peter, millennials are the largest generation of voters in american history. That is new this time. Last time they were on the cusp of overtaking baby boomers and now they have. If Bernie Sanders is doing good with young voters, that used to be a throwaway line. That is not anymore. That is his base and it is a good base to have even in texas. Peter are these winner take all primaries . Carl no and they have outlawed them. Again, heres the problem with the super tuesday. When i was a kid california was winner take all and it was held in june. If you can hang on until then you could show the part you are really the person who should be the nominee. That is gone now. It is gradual. George mcgovern started that. The progressives did not want this. They wanted their strengths to be reflected. But now, no state is winner take all. It is not even winner take all by congressional district. If you are well organized or have a strong core of support like Bernie Sanders, as long as it is more than 15 , you will get delegates everywhere. California has moved up to super tuesday. It has done away with winner take all. In a crowded field it helps a candidate who has a committed cadre of supporters even if the supporters are only 20 . Peter lets say joe biden or Amy Klobuchar pick up 15 of the vote. Does that keep them alive . Carl 10 , no. 15 . That is good. There is a 15 threshold that applies to all of them. In california we have a story in real clear politics this week written by a wellknown journalists, lou cannon, you may be familiar with him. Who points out that you put all of these ranked candidates together and get 20 40 of the votes and they wont get any delegates. It will only go to those candidates with 15 or more in these places so who does that help . The candidates with strong name identification, probably biden. And those with a committed core, like sanders. It hurts candidates like klobuchar. She has done well in the debates but she is not well known in california. She has not had money to compete on the airwaves the way she would like. It is the law of unintended consequences squared. That is what california has this year. Peter carl cannon, you mention two things. Number real clear politics. One, and lou cannon. Lets talk about your history. First, what is real clear politics and what is your role . Carl real clear politics and i say this even when i am not on cspan. In a way it is like cspan. We are nonpartisan. We present all of the views. It is a free website if youre unfamiliar with it. I think people who watch this program are. But if you are not, we got our start in 2000. The two things, one was brandnew and one was so old it was new, the new thing was the average polls and the rcp poll average of the Gold Standard and there are other people doing it. And doing it well. We did it first. I still think we do it best. Take that with a grain of salt because i work there. The other thing is, we aggregate. We curate the best arguments left right and center on our front page. That is a model of journalism that goes back to Benjamin Franklins day but i am sorry to report it is not followed very much anymore. So whatever your own views are of politics, you will find them reflected on our page. The hope is you will expose yourself to another view and maybe open your mind and see there are merits to other arguments you may not necessarily realize. Im in charge of the original content. We have reporters, phil wegman covered South Carolina and Susan Crabtree covered nevada. Howard feynman is a new contributor and he was in New Hampshire for us. We try to be nonpartisan. Everybody says that but i think we do a good job. Peter and your title is Washington Bureau chief at real clear politics and you are executive editor at the real clear media group. Carl we have a polling unit now. John della volpe runs our polls. We have a publishing unit. We have real clear science. Real clear history. Real clear defense. Real clear markets. We have these things. I am nominally over those editors but they really do their own thing. Peter who founded it in 2000 . Carl John Mcintyre and tom bevan. They were not friends, they both went to princeton. John played lacrosse and tom played football. They did not know each other but they met in chicago and were political junkies. I tell people they do not know that much about Data Journalism but it was a good time to not know much because people like me who were born and raised in it, a lot of the things we took for granted or believed in were about to be blown up, mostly by the internet but by other forces. They started this website. It did not happen in Silicon Valley but in chicago. Out of the garage they started the site and it has taken off. I joined about 10 years ago. I had a long career in newspapers. And in magazines. With the national journal. And we spoke of lou cannon earlier. I was born and raised in the news business. My father, lou cannon, was reagans best biographer and covered reagan. He has written many books and lives in california now. Peter where did you get your start . Carl i grew up in california and my first newspaper job was paperboy, a profession that barely exists anymore. We would get on bikes and deliver newspapers. I delivered the San Francisco chronicle. You would go to peoples houses and give them the paper. I went to Journalism School at the university of colorado and started my career at a small virginia newspaper and worked in georgia and california newspapers. I was sent here by the San Jose Mercury news. I thought i would be here a couple of years and go back to california. Reagan was president when that happened and i have been here all that time. Peter you have written a couple of books. Carl my first book was called the pursuit of happiness in times of war. I spoke on this network about it with brian lamb. It is how leaders use the language of the declaration, the preamble to rally americans in times of war or other crisis. My most recent book is called on this date, discovering america one day at a time. It is a series of events, 368 of them. There is leap year, and a couple i did twice. A little vignette about something happening in the United States on that day. Peter carl cannon, what is the effect of President Trump holding rallies in a lot of the primary states right before these primaries . Have you seen that before . Carl yes but the old days of the president standing down during the Opposition Party convention, that was a civility. You can tell people in the white house would not even believe that ever happened. We are a lot beyond that point now. Trump is trying to show his strength. The state of iowa, and early caucus state, is a state he things he can carry. He wanted to remind people of that. He would like to carry New Hampshire. He plans on carrying South Carolina. These early states are places he can show he can flex his muscle. Remember we have never had a president impeached in the first term like this. He is feeling put upon. He wants to sort of get back at the democrats. He is not over it yet, lets just say. [laughter] peter how did this all begin . Where did super tuesday come from . Carl i was thinking about this. The first time i heard the phrase was in 1976. I was not covering politics yet. I was right out of college. There were three primaries on the last day, june 8 i want to say. Im doing this from memory right now. It was new jersey, ohio and california and that is how i knew about it. This was a lot of delegates. Jimmy carter had stolen the march on the democratic field that year in iowa. By the end of it, he was an outsider, not to the extent trump is, but he challenged the establishment. And the establishment is thinking what are we going to do to stop them . They did not really have a candidate. They had a couple of candidates, skip jackson and mo udall. Jerry brown the new governor of california entered late. He was young. This is the first time he was governor, very young. He won four the last six primaries. He won maryland. And then he won new jersey on the last day an uncommitted one, that was his slate. Won california and it came down to ohio. It partly came down to ohio because jody powell who worked for carter convinced people high with the real referendum. New jersey uncommitted, california, he is from california. Ohio is where it is at. That was pretty good spin. They had an operation in ohio. They had ohioans on their staff, jerry austin and snyder and the governor was for carter. And they pulled it out. That was kind of the first super tuesday. There were some primaries early in the season in may, three primaries on the same day, maybe six of them. On the republican side. And reagan was challenging ford, remember . And they split those two. So it was not really that super. The first super tuesday really is the day carter loses but wins by winning ohio. After that and then it took off as a term. It had a real southern flavor. In the early days, didnt it . Carl thats right. The super tuesday the way we think of it now started in 1980 when alabama, georgia and florida decided they were going to band together on the same day and give themselves more influence. If you think about it, two things are going on. One, states want power. Everybody wants to have their voice heard. And Party Leaders want to help get the person who would be most tough to beat in october or november. That is selfserving. But the southerners want a moderate. That was the first super tuesday. Reagan lost to ford in 1976 and by 1980 theres no stopping him. And jimmy carter is the incumbent. But the southern democrats ted kennedy was challenging carter and they thought they will help carter by having the early primaries in the states and it did help carter. Peter march 8, 1988. 21 states held primaries and mostly in the south. Washington and hawaii as well. Massachusetts. Was it decisive in 1988 . Carl it was decisive, but it backfired. It did not happen the way they want it to happen. These Southern Party chairman on the democratic side in 1980, they looked at 1984 where Walter Mondale carried one state. That was the First Campaign i covered. He went into georgia and the governor would not be seen with him. So the southern democrats said we need a more moderate person. We are going to have this super, super tuesday. Other states said maybe we should go that day as well . The idea is, youre going to not get a guy like michael to Michael Dukakis. But you got Michael Dukakis so how did that happen . In my view that there was wrong the theory was wrong to begin with. In 1984 Walter Mondale, he got a hearing. They had Jesse Jackson ran that year. John glenn ran that year. But it came down to gary hart and mondale. The moderates had their say, they just cannot win. The primary calendar was not the problem. The other thing was, they lost to ronald reagan. Anybody would have lost to ronald reagan. For the democrats to beat ronald reagan, Franklin Roosevelt would have had to still be alive. He was not. T