The Bernie juggernaut can be stopped

HERE we go. The conventional wisdom got it wrong again, and perhaps the time has come to ditch it for the views of your friendly cab driver, who can provide you with more accurate political predictions, including about who the next US president will be.

So until last week's Nevada Democratic presidential caucuses, pundits (including yours truly) assumed that Candidate Bernie Sanders' electoral support was confined mostly to lefty or "progressive" young Democrats, many of them millennials. With such a narrow base - one without the backing of Hispanics, African-Americans, Asian-Americans and older voters, there was no way he is going to win the Democratic presidential nomination.

But in the aftermath of last Saturday's Nevada caucuses and a stunning win by the 78-year-old self-proclaimed socialist (who marshalled 25 percent of the vote - and this, after ending on top in the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary) - things are beginning to look quite different for Bernie.