Monday Reads
Posted: February 22, 2016 Filed under: 2016 elections | Tags: Bernie Bros, Bernie Sanders, Dolores Heurta, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, March Presidential Primaries 2016, unions 92 Comments
It’s Monday!!!
So, most of my friends and family know that politics is my favorite blood sport. I’ve been at this since volunteering in high school for a friend’s father’s re-election to Congress. I also was forced to drop Nixon flyers along with knocking on doors for the Congressman which is something I may never forgive myself for doing. I did drop them a variety of places though, I might add. It was a different time back then as my “very flamboyant” friend Mark who was door knocking with me will tell ya. We didn’t quite have the right words for that sort’ve thing back then other than “very flamboyant”. My grandmother was still thrilled she been given the right to vote in middle age too. Who among us would want to go back to that?
Every wide open primary is like the Super Bowl/March Madness/World Cup all rolled into one big Shindig for me! They just have to put up with my normal issue-centered self and watch me go Super Fan until the nominations get sewed up. Then, there’s my deep hibernation until fall. You know my birthday is usually on an election day too. Maybe that has something to do with it!
So we’re headed towards a ton of primaries! Early voting is on here in Louisiana and many other places!!! Our Sky Dancers in Massachusetts, Georgia and Texas will be voting shortly too! Speak up and let us know what it’s like on the ground in your state!!! We’re going to have our usual live blogs and we just love hearing from every one!!!!
Turnout has not been high among Democrats compared to 2008. Turnout is high among Republicans. This is America folks! We invented democracy here!! Get out there and vote!!!! (Warning this goes to the Washington Times.)
Republicans’ turnout streak continued, with GOP voters shattering their South Carolina primary record Saturday night.
With almost all precincts reporting, more than 737,000 votes had been counted. That was more than 20 percent higher than 2012, when about 603,000 voted.
It follows record GOP turnout in Iowa’s caucuses and New Hampshire’s primary earlier this month.
By contrast, Democrats’ turnout has tumbled from its 2008 records in all three contests, including Saturday’s caucuses in Nevada. About 80,000 voters took part in the caucuses, with was 33 percent less than 2008’s level.
Republicans hold their caucuses Tuesday in Nevada, while Democrats shift to South Carolina next weekend.
Clinton leads in 10 of the 12 early March Primaries. Her win in Nevada was significant. It also looks like Trump is on the way to becoming the Republican nominee according to Mark Halperin.
Only suckers bet on presidential politics or professional wrestling, especially in this most tumultuous campaign cycle in recent memory. But if you were playing the odds, you would have to say that the weekend’s electoral results have, for now, put Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in extraordinarily commanding positions to become their parties’ de facto nominees as early as mid-March.
The two New Yorkers arrived here by different routes. For Clinton, her solid victory over Bernie Sanders in Saturday’s caucuses in Nevada provided a circuit breaker on her rival’s weeks-long run of momentum, punctuated by his landslide win in the New Hampshire primary.
Such is the inexorable power of the expectations game in determining the meaning of election results that what would have, only a few weeks ago, been seen as a miraculous showing by Sanders in Nevada (losing to Clinton by just 5 points) is now a potentially candidacy-ending loss. The Vermont senator’s campaign compounded some bad luck with some bad judgment. First, after a long period without any credible polling in the Silver State, a CNN survey released three days before the caucuses showed the race effectively tied. Then, Sanders’ team made it clear to reporters that they were playinghard to win on Saturday and their body language suggested they thought they would prevail. Thus, Clinton’s victory was seen as a reassertion of her hold on non-white voters, seniors, and other elements of a majority coalition that can be replicated in almost every upcoming contest.
It is crude and irrational, but the impact of the CNN poll and Team Sanders’ misplaced display of confidence was to take the full measure of his momentum and transfer it to the former secretary of state in one fell swoop Saturday night. Now, Clinton has regained the Big Mo just in time for a three-week stretch after South Carolina and created a potential killing field for Sanders.
So, a Trump nomination is really interesting for RepublicanLand. I guess the Southern Strategy really is biting the oldtimer’s country club asses. Nate Silver characterizes it as going to war.
If you think the arguments between the Republican candidates have been bad, well, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Pundits, reporters and political analysts are going to really have at it. Two competing theories about the Republican race are about to come to a head, and both of them can claim a victory of sorts after South Carolina.
The first theory is simple. It can be summarized in one word: Trump! The more detailed version would argue the following:
- Trump has easily won two of the first three states.
- Trump is ahead in the polls in pretty much every remaining state.
- Trump is ahead in delegates — in fact, he may win all 50 delegates from South Carolina.
- Trump has been extremely resilient despite pundits constantly predicting his demise.1 He’s been at 35 percent in national polls for months now. That’s as steady as it gets!
So, um, isn’t it obvious that Trump is going to be the Republican nominee?
Not so, say the Trump skeptics. Their case is pretty simple also:
- Trump is winning states, but he’s only getting about one-third of the vote.
- Trump has a relatively low ceiling on his support.
- Trump now has a chief rival: Florida senator Marco Rubio.
What did the Trump skeptics find to like about South Carolina? Quite a lot, actually. They’d point out that Trump faded down the stretch run, getting 32 percent of the vote after initially polling at about 36 percent after New Hampshire, because of his continuing struggles with late-deciding voters. They’d note that Trump’s numbers worsened from New Hampshire to South Carolina despite several candidates having dropped out. They’d say that Rubio, who went from 11 percent in South Carolina polls before Iowa2 to 22 percent of the vote on Saturday night, had a pretty good night. They’d also say that Rubio will be helped by Jeb Bush dropping out, even if it hadalready become clear that Rubio was the preferred choice of Republican Party “elites.”
“So what?” sayeth the Trump optimists. Second place means you’re a loser! There’s no guarantee that the other candidates will drop out any time soon. And as Trump himself has argued, it’s a mistake to assume that all of the support from Bush and other candidates will wind up in Rubio’s column. Some of it will go to Trump!
There’s still plenty of trouble coming from Bernie’s Thralls. Amanda Marcotte discusses the recent attacks on the integrity of Dolores Huerta who is a modern day working class shero for many of the left’s most precious causes. It seems that many of them have a complete misunderstanding of intersectionality and of outreach to minority voters.
Things are tense right now because the Nevada loss is starting to look like a devastating blow to the Sanders campaign. From the beginning, the biggest obstacle to the Sanders campaign was convincing voters that this was about serious change instead of a bunch of privileged people posturing about how radical they are.
It seemed, until Saturday, that the campaign had a real shot at this. Sanders is an articulate candidate who sells his ideas well, and the improved poll numbers and real inroads with voters outside of the privileged white guy tent were heartening.
Unfortunately, Nevada showed that the inroads just weren’t enough. “He lost among women, blacks, nonwhites, and self-described Democrats,” Charles Blow of The New York Times writes. Early reports that Sanders had outperformed Clinton with Latino voters proved unlikely, as caucus results show that Clinton won the more Latino-heavy precincts. The Sanders message of economic populism is not resonating with people of color, women, or union workers— the very people you need to convince people your campaign is a serious one and not the electoral equivalent of the white guy in dreads wearing the Che shirt playing guitar in the quad.
Under the circumstances, it’s understandable why Sanders supporters would be a bit touchy about Dolores Huerta accusing them of disrespect. Huerta sits right at the intersection of three demographics — labor, women, people of colo r— that the Sanders campaign needed, and failed, to win over in order to convincingly argue that this is a real political revolution instead of a social signaling opportunity for people who want to be seen as radical.
So it’s easy to see why Sanders supporters want to yell at Huerta. She’s an easy punching bag for those frustrated with voters they believe should vote for Sanders but stubbornly refuse to do what Sanders supporters want them to do. (It’s similar to way that older female Clinton supporters have gotten bossy with younger women who vote Sanders.) Painting Huerta as delusional, corrupt or a liar makes the loss of these voting blocs easier to swallow, because the alternative possibility, that Clinton voters know what they are doing, is too painful to contemplate.
I still continue to shake my head at the horrible treatment of Congressman Lewis by the Bernie Bros. This just sort’ve doubles down on those reactions. South Carolina does not look like it will be kind to Bernie even though he’s saying many things Black Voters want to hear. This could be because he frames much of his issues and candidacy as a criticism of President Obama.
There are lots of explanations, but the most important one is the most obvious. Sanders committed the cardinal sin for any Democratic presidential hopeful in 2016: He framed his candidacy as a critique of Barack Obama’s legacy. As much as conservatives revile the nation’s first African American president, the base of the Democratic Party reveres him — especially black voters, who can make or break a Democratic primary candidate’s campaign in many states.
What exactly did Sanders do? He suggested in 2011 that Obama needed a primary challenge from the left. He entered the 2016 race suggesting that the progressive agenda hasn’t been adequately advanced under Obama, and that he would do more to fight inequality and to take on the financial elites of Wall Street.
Clinton also has firm union support which was central to the Nevada win.
In an effort to dispute what they say is a false narrative that union voters are closely split between Hillary Clinton and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a group of more than 20 unions representing more than 10 million workers released a statement on Monday reaffirming support for Mrs. Clinton.
“Secretary Clinton has proven herself as the fighter and champion working people and their families need in the White House,” says the statement, which was embraced by several large unions, including the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, the American Federation of Teachers, and the Service Employees International Union. “That is why, of all unions endorsing a candidate in the Democratic primary, the vast majority of the membership in these unions has endorsed her.”
The statement is partly a reaction to the aftermath of the announcement by the A.F.L.-C.I.O., a federation of unions, that it would not vote during its executive council meeting this week on whether to endorse a candidate in the Democratic presidential primaries, essentially postponing an endorsement until the primaries are no longer competitive.
“I have concluded that there is broad consensus for the A.F.L.-C.I.O. to remain neutral in the presidential primaries for the time being,” Richard L. Trumka, the A.F.L.-C.I.O. president, said in an email to union officials last week.
The dissection of the now-dead Bush campaign is starting. Here’s the take from writers at WAPO.
At what would become a crucial moment, Bush’s team had no clear strategy for a rival who was beginning to hijack the Republican Party that the Bush family had helped to build, other than to stay the course set months earlier of telling Bush’s story to voters.
“There was no consensus,” senior strategist David Kochel said of the discussions about how to combat the threat of Trump’s candidacy. Other campaigns were wrestling with the same problems, but as the front-runner in the polls at the time, Bush would suffer more than the others.
The Republicans have become a party of insurgents and insurrectionists. Many of them also hold extremist religious views. It’s no wonder that the penultimate party insider was an easy target and never got off the ground despite scads of cash. Only Kasich and goofus Rubio continue to be the Great White Hope of the Country Club Set. My guess is that Rubio may get the Trump VP nod eventually. We’ll see how the Terrible Trio feeds on each other going into Nevada and March.
The photos today come via the dazzling Lynda Woolard who has started a twitter handle called @TweetsToHillary and featuring the New Orleans Krewe of Hillary. We’re GOTV for Hillary! How about you?
So, this has been a fairly political post today! What’s on your reading and blogging list?
peej
Carissa
ecocatwoman
mablue2
Mama Lopez
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/02/22/this-is-the-date-bernie-sanders-berns-out.html
That was an excellent piece by Goldie. Thanks for sharing it.
This is my favorite line:
“Ultimately, what Sanders does after he exits will reveal if the movement was about him or us.”
Needless to say, I’m a skeptic.
Same here.
It’s about him.
It’s always about Bernie
Sanders interrupts church ladies eating. Only gets an Amen when he compliments the POTUS.
Talk about tone-deaf!
That was such a great story by Yamichi Alcindor. It’s seems the audience didn’t respond very well to Ben Jealous either.
Yea. I’m glad you sent it to me.
Hillary won the 45-64 vote, the 65 and Older vote, People of Color vote, and Women. The 45+ demographic, especially the over 65 voter, is the most reliable of all voting groups. Bernie’s demographic, the 18-43 especially the 18-29 group is the most unreliable voter of every demographic. And I wonder if the Campuses hadn’t held their own caucuses, how many of those young people would have taken the time to leave campus to caucus? Not many I imagine.
FYI….I hobbled into to early vote wearing my Rainbow “Love Wins” T-Shirt. Go Hillary 2016.
Yay!!!
You should have seen the looks I got wearing my “Love Wins” t-shirt. I’ve been wearing my gay themed t-shirts to vote for about 15-16 years and they never fail to get a reaction, which is exactly what I’m aiming for. 🙂 The poll primary workers don’t even really ask me which primary I’m voting in anymore, they basically assume “Democratic Primary?” and I say “Of Course”. I can’t wait to cast my vote for Hillary in the GE!!!!! 🙂
🙂
Super Mouse
🙂 LOL…… I think I’m more like Shock & Awe Mouse. I love to see the look on the other old southern poll workers faces when I walk into the polls with my Big Old Gay T-shirt on and my wife standing right next to me with a matching t-shirt. It’s scandalous behavior down here in Bumfuckerville, and it’s especially scandalous coming from 2 old women.
Weren’t Republicans urged to go vote for Bernie in Nevada?
Can’t believe his supporters are attacking Lewis. They need to learn how to “right”, too.
I believe there was some talk of getting them to deregister as RS for the week to vote for Bernie. What was most telling was how Sanders outspent Clinton in Nevada.
Didn’t he outspend her 3-1? or was it more than that?
I don’t know about overall spending, but I read he outspent her two to one on TV advertising in Nevada.
He outspent her 2-1 in Nevada. He also outspent her in NH. He’s pretty deep in debt at the moment and she has plenty of cash on hand.
Thanks for the info. I was too lazy to look it up, but I knew he’d been outspending her.
Hey! You forgot to mention Virginia! lol! We are voting on March 1 and have an enthusiastic organization over here. I’ll be phone banking for Hillary tonight. The last time I went the place was mobbed with people ready to pitch in. Polls are showing Hillary around 12 points ahead here but it might be a little closer than that. Not to worry. We got this.
Great!
Great, glad your working it Janicen.
Joy Reid is saying that Hillary’s camp isn’t working and energizing the voters. That we expect her to win, so we just be like, sitting back eating bon bons.
Huhn?
Bullshit.
Poor Joy, she’s taken the MSNBC gig so seriously she has become one of the MSNBC Berners. BTW Fannie, I shot Rachel another email today criticizing her hyperventilating over the Super Delegates during her interview of Debbie Wasserman Shultz. I’m going to burn down her inbox until Hillary wins the nomination.
When did Joy say that? I read her twitter feed every day and she has been quite supportive of Hillary. She’s definitely fed up with Bernie.
It was quite a crowd. Blacks, whites, olds, middle aged, college kids and 20 somethings! People are pretty jazzed!
Good for you Janicen! Keep up the good work for our Gal.
http://www.salon.com/2016/02/22/john_kasich_makes_play_for_the_misogynist_vote_he_wants_women_out_of_the_doctors_office_and_into_the_kitchen/ Kasich’s Misogyny Monday: Women in kitchen rhetoric, backed by signing a bill to deprive women of contraception.
And he is supposedly the most moderate of the GOP field… Maybe he thinks that this will help him with the pro-life crowd vote?
I love those photos!!! Wonderful tribute to Hillary.
Lynda is so creative! She thought they’d be fun and attention grabbing!
They’re great! You look so cute.
They are really fun!
Oh, wait….Hillary supporters are not supposed to be energized, fun-loving people, eh?
/s
I love the pictures! What fun!!
We had fun on Saturday! Sushi next Saturday!
Bernie Sanders is in Boston today and he has a rally at U. Mass. Amherst tonight. CNN and MSNBC cut away from his “press conference” to cover Ted Cruz, because they said Bernie was just giving a speech. I haven’t been able to find about much about it yet. Supposedly he was going to attack Hillary on 5 issues.
It’s pretty telling that he’s in MA today instead of SC.
Yeah. He’s supposed to win MA. Hmmmm. Think he might be a little worried?
No. I just think he has given up on SC. I don’t think he’ll win MA either. See poll results below from today.
I heard Mass was a tied up.
Last week’s PPP poll showing Sanders up by 7 was likely a post-New Hampshire bump. The Sanders celebratory madness was all over the place in MA; you couldn’t get away from it. And that was after weeks of polls and buildup saying what a blowout it would be for Sanders.
Mass. went for Clinton by 15 points in 2008. Now NH is in the past and Hillary has momentum off Nevada and will have more after SC. If Sanders manages anything close to a tie here he should be grateful.
I agree, as I said below. After Sanders’ snotty attacks on Hillary today, I think a lot of people will be turned off.
What did he say BB?
BTW, the new poll of MA today shows them tied 46-46. I’ll be surprised if he wins.
http://www.lowellsun.com/breakingnews/ci_29547345/emerson-poll-has-clinton-sanders-dead-heat-mass
And BB for the win! A source!
From what I’ve been able to glean on twitter, it looks as if Bernie didn’t take any questions at his so-called “press conference.” He did attack Hillary and claimed she has parroted his ideas and stolen his lines.
Like the debate where he repeated her line about how the situation in Flint could never happen in a white wealthy suburb? Then he had the nerve to say he thought she might agree with him. When she had said that in a previous debate and in several speeches!
To me, that was my realistic expectation for his candidacy – to get Clinton embrace his ideas and nudge her to the left before she moves toward the center in the general election.
It would be better if he embraced her ideas about how to get things done, down to the detailed and wonky specifics. Ideas don’t turn into real projects and processes all by themselves.
As for moving to the “center” … not going to happen. As Senator she was always in the top 3 or 5 most liberal senators.
She was #11, which is not top 3 or top 5, but still better than I expected:
http://m.dailykos.com/story/2015/3/31/1374629/-Hillary-Clinton-Was-the-11th-Most-Liberal-Member-of-the-Senate
Wonder if one if the issues is keeping gun manufacturers from any product liability.
This is pretty sick.
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Sure sounds like he’s been influenced by his gun lobby.
“We can’t hold manufacturers responsible…mental illness…we’re going to have to do something…blah blah blah” All Republican talking points. I wonder how many true believers he has when you strip away the ratfuckers and the sexists? If you listen to what he says, how could a liberal fall for that crap?
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Beyonce is supporting Hillary
Heh. This is and will backfire hugely on Bernie.
For JJ:
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I just saw Sanders on the CBS Evening News brushing off what four liberal economists said about his plan, saying “check out who’s funding them.”
Wow. He is incapable of listening or learning.
It starts at 1:10 in this report by Nancy Cordes.
http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/hillary-clinton-back-on-top-heading-into-south-carolina-democratic-primary/
Well, we know Bernie is incapable of “listening” because we’ve seen in the Town Hall events that he won’t even allow the questioner to finish their question before he begins his stump speech answer. Bernie is today, what he was yesterday, last year, last decade, four decades ago, a pontificating one trick pony. Mix that with the moderate success he’s had so far in this campaign and you see a guy whose head is too big for his body. I’m surprised he can walk his head has gotten so big.
Yeah, everyone is corrupt but Bernie Downer.
Is there any doubt that this vanity project is all about Bernie? Just like Diogenes, Bernie has spent a career convincing everyone else they were looking for him. Few remember that the Diogenes syndrome is a very real thing and exhibits itself through a lack of shame. Bernie is textbook.
That’s his stock line to any criticism. “Wall Street!” or some variant thereof. He sure dances away from answering questions in any detail.
ya gotta read this!!
http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/2016/02/22/why-i-surrender-to-donald-trump-menon.html
and then, an offer you just can’t refuse …
Jackyt,
What a pitch-perfect article on Trump – so many quotables there!
My favorites:
“If there are hiccups in construction — if there’s no way to actually build a wall or bring China to the bargaining table by declaring it a currency manipulator or remove from the income tax rolls more than 50 per cent of all U.S. households — well, too bad, his four years are up.
You should have read the fine print before signing.”
also:
“He’s become a leader to people who, on balance, wouldn’t be allowed in his servant quarters.”
If he does get within bellowing distance of the Presidency, could we please take the Canuks up on their offer?
Here’s an article from a straight-man (as opposed to a top-banana) reporter. He’s worth following. It’s so refreshing to read straight, unbiased reporting these days!
http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2016/02/22/bernie-who-sanders-is-a-phantom-to-black-voters-in-south-carolina.html
Oh… and Skydancers are welcome here anytime!
I love this!
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Dak, I finally found that video of the little girl who cried when she found out Obama wasn’t going to be president anymore.
“I’m not ready for a new one!”
So cute.
http://m.aol.com/article/2016/02/09/this-sad-little-boy-is-absolutely-devastated-he-couldnt-vote-for-hillary/21310292/
That’s adorable. Thanks for finding it!
Aiden’s mom had to pretend to call the polls and change her vote to make him stop crying.
From The Root: President Obama posted a comment for the little girl on her grandmother’s Facebook page:
That’s so sweet!
Precious little girls……….a young girl just about her age, saw me walking my Murphy today, and she ran out to the drive way, and yelled at me, “I really like your dog”, and ran as fast as she could back to the front door. Next time I am going to walk on her side of the road, so they can become friends. Murphy likes kids, it’s just that he is so big, I’ve got to watch him carefully.
Awww. That’s sweet.
Love the “TweetsFrom” motif – right down to the shades & smartphone.
It was a great idea and we’re having fun with it!
Great post today, loved it all, photos, and all the reads. Thanks for sharing Amanda Marcotte article, and for all the union information.
Moveon has a petition out to force Dolores Huerta to say she is sorry, and try to get her fired. LOL with that, what they going to do call the UFW Union, UFCW, or Mecha, or LaRaza, that’s a damn laugh. Maybe call the Republican Union Busters. I was in contact with her staff, and shared some information, hoping to hear back, if she wants our help.
I read up on how poor the democrats seems to be doing, and went back to NH showing republicans beating dems, but not a shattering record, and with Bernie’s win, was short 30,000 votes than in 2008. So the turnout is low for dems all the way around.
Trump is still at the 35% mark, and Rubio coming up on 30%………there’s a group of people who would never vote for Trump. I can’t help but wonder if the establishment who runs the convention will pull a fast one.
I am having a little bit of surprise from some older women. I get messages saying they can not say anything, or show who they support because of their family/community/religious/connections? Then I have those on the other side of fence with Bernie, and they keep far away from me. Yikes.
I sure am glad I’ve been here for long time and sticking with Hillary. I hope to work here in Idaho, but it’s a hell of a battle. I have supported several groups, and they seem to be feeling the bern, so now I can’t go eye ball to eye ball with them, and that bothers me.
Hillary’s in Texas, I remember her blue plate special, and tonight I am wondering what size cowgirl boots she’s wearing.
Link to a very good analysis of the race going forward.
http://www.tsu.co/AlGiordano/114412434
She’s Got This !
I joined that site a couple of weeks ago. The guy is great. Al Giordano.
It took video to make the media wake up to Bernie Bro bad behavior.
I just got an update that Big Dawg is coming to Richmond tomorrow. Details have not been released.
Go hear him speak if you can! He’s great!
It’s tempting but I’m busy tomorrow. 😦