Tuesday Reads: Super Duper Tuesday
Posted: March 15, 2016 Filed under: morning reads, U.S. Politics | Tags: 2016 presidential primaries, Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump, Florida, Hillary Clinton, Illinois, Marco Rubio, Missouri, NEGATIVE campaigning, North Carolina, Ohio, Super Duper Tuesday March 15 47 Comments
Voting day is coming up soon oh boy, Richard Hubal
Good Day!!
Sorry to be so late in posting today. I’m really struggling with a sinus/chest cold and I don’t have much energy these days.
Today’s primary elections will actually be bigger for the Democrats than Super Tuesday was. The media is playing up the possibility that Sanders could win in Ohio, Illinois, and Missouri; but even if that happens, which I think is doubtful, Clinton should win handily in Florida and North Carolina. She will most likely end the night with an expanded delegate lead.
Trump will probably sew up the Republican nomination, especially if he beats Marco Rubio in Florida, which looks likely.
The attacks on Hillary Clinton are escalating as she gets closer to becoming the first woman presidential nominee of a major political party.
It’s kind of difficult to remember now, but at the beginning of the primary campaign, Bernie Sanders promised to run a positive campaign focused on the issues. It’s been quite awhile now since he switched to attacking Hillary Clinton personally and using innuendo to question her integrity. NBC News examines his move to negative campaigning.
Election Day 1944, Norman Rockwell
A Month on Offense: How Sanders Upped His Attacks on Clinton.
The candidate who went out of his way to avoid attacking his rival throughout the summer, fall and winter has relentlessly unleashed on Clinton for three straight weeks, focusing on familiar talking points now strung together as a fixture of his stump speech.
“Now let me say a few words about some of the strong differences of opinion that I have with Secretary Clinton,” he now normally begins one portion of his speeches before hitting her on a litany of issues. The go-to critiques include trade, the Iraq War, and Clinton’s use of Super PACs.
Boos and heckles quickly arrive from his supporters as they outwardly delight in hearing the differences between their candidate and the Democratic frontrunner.
Chairing the Member, Hogarth 1755 (London)
Sanders no longer makes any effort to tone down his followers’ abuse of Clinton and her supporters–whether in rallies or on social media. Instead, he encourages it.
Depending on the day, Sanders also has dinged Clinton on her and her husband’s support of the “homophobic” Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and her support from former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.
“I do not want Henry Kissinger to ever praise me!” he roared during a Michigan rally at Grand Valley State University near Grand Rapids.
The shift in tone has been drastic. In 2015 and early 2016, even uttering Clinton’s name would draw headlines—then unwanted by the candidate himself.
“I cannot walk down the street—Secretary Clinton knows this—without being told how much I have to attack Secretary Clinton,” Sanders told NBC News’ Andrea Mitchell during the NBC’s January Democratic Debate, “Want to get me on the front page of the paper? I make some vicious attack. I have avoided doing that. I am trying to run an issue-oriented campaign.”
He still emphasizes issues, but things have changed since that debate.
They certainly have. Sanders has become just another dirty politician shouting lies and half-truths about his opponent. In on-line forums, his followers have taken his behavior as encouragement for stunningly sexist and racist attacks on Clinton. The similarities between the Trump and Sanders campaign are growing as time goes on. I don’t like to think what will happen if Sanders loses in Illinois or Ohio tonight.
Go to the NBC link to read the rest. It’s a long piece.
Philadelphia Election Day 1815, John Lewis Kimmel
The media has found another gaffe to hang on Hillary. In her “town hall” with Chris Matthews on MSNBC last night, she said that “we didn’t lose a single person” in the 2011 Libyan intervention. Naturally, that is being interpreted to mean that she has forgotten the deaths of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and four others in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2012. Politico:
“Libya was a different kind of calculation. And we didn’t lose a single person. We didn’t have a problem in supporting our European and Arab allies in working with NATO,” the former secretary of state said during an MSNBC town hall on Monday night.
Clinton may have been referring strictly to the U.S.-backed overthrow of Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi in 2011, which indeed saw no loss of American lives and cost just around $1 billion. But her comments ignore the 2012 attacks at the U.S. mission and CIA outpost in Benghazi, which killed four people including U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens.
Right. After years of being attacked and blamed for the deaths of four people, Clinton has probably just forgotten all about them. Good grief.
The Sanders campaign committed a far worse gaffe yesterday.
Jane Sanders appeared with racist, anti-immigrant Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Arizona and actually let him lead her on a tour of his “tent city.” It’s not clear the campaign planned this meeting, but why didn’t they hustle her away immediately when Arpaio showed up?
Channel 12 News: Jane Sanders meets with Sheriff Joe Arpaio, tours Tent City.
Jane Sanders wasn’t planning a tour of Tent City on Monday, but Sheriff Joe Arpaio made her an offer she couldn’t refuse.
Sanders planned to view Tent City from the fence, with the help of Puente leader Carlos Garcia. But Arpaio hustled over here from another news conference and the two of them talked policy, politics and Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream. Sanders also asked inmates about the conditions and why they were in Tent City.
The County Election, George Caleb Bingham
And of course, we know that Sanders surrogate Ben Cohen told Fox News he didn’t know if he could vote for Hillary Clinton in November. Jane Sanders later tweeted that she wasn’t expecting Arpaio to show up, but the damage was done.
As an antidote to the Clinton bashing from Sanders and the media, I suggest reading this post by Peter Daou at Blue Nation Review: Hillary Clinton Is (By Far) the Most Trusted Candidate in 2016.
Let’s define “most trusted” in its literal — and most measurable — sense: More people trust X than anyone else.
And let’s further refine that definition to an act of trust, such as a vote or public endorsement….
Hillary has been endorsed by a greater number of respected public figures and organizations than any other candidate. And more importantly, she leads all other candidates in the popular vote….
Take Bernie Sanders. He had the opportunity to vote against Hillary’s nomination for Secretary of State. After all, he voted against Tim Geithner for Treasury Secretary. Instead, he voted to confirm her, an affirmation of his trust in her ability to represent America to the world….
Think about the numerous political leaders, public officials, organizations, and labor unions who trust Hillary with their future. President Obama, John Lewis, Emily’s List, Lilly Ledbetter, Dolores Huerta, Jim Clyburn, Planned Parenthood, Human Rights Campaign, Julian Castro, Brady Campaign, Eric Holder, League of Conservation Voters, Tammy Baldwin, Kirsten Gillibrand, Claire McCaskill, Cory Booker, Sheila Jackson Lee, Bernice King, and countless more….
Most significantly:
NEARLY 5 MILLION VOTERS HAVE PLACED THEIR TRUST IN HILLARY.
That’s more than any other candidate in the 2016 election.
Let’s see what the media is saying about the possible outcomes of today’s primaries.
Graffiti in the central square of Tixtla, home of the rural normal school at Ayotzinapa, reads “Ayotzinapa lives. Voting causes death. Cursed government,” in Tixtla, Mexico, Saturday, June 6, 2015. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
The Guardian: From Ohio to Florida, your cheat sheet for the next crucial primaries.
Although this Tuesday will be less frantic than Super Tuesday two weeks ago, when 12 states and one territory held primary elections, it’s just as important. By 16 March, the race for the White House could look very different depending on how Florida, Illinois, Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio vote.
That’s partly because the delegate numbers in those states are so high – in total, 367 Republican and 792 Democratic delegates are available on 15 March. That brings us significantly closer to the finish line of having just two presidential candidates: at the moment, 33% of Democratic delegates have been pledged but by the time the polls have closed on 15 March, that number will rise to 50%. For Republicans, pledged delegates will jump from 46% to 61%.
Those percentages just mean that playing catch-up gets harder from here. Hillary Clinton is still on track for the nomination – to change that, Bernie Sanders needs to pick up at least 326 of the pledged delegates (in the Democratic race there are also 712 “superdelegates” who are not pledged to a specific candidate based on primary results, so they’re less relevant here).
On the Republican side:
The Republican contest is also likely to change significantly. If, for example,Marco Rubio fails again to pick up a single delegate (and polling suggests that’s a real possibility), his pursuit of the 1,237 delegates needed to win the Republican nomination becomes futile – even if he were to win every single remaining delegate after 15 March. That’s partly because, unlike Democrats, Republicans do not always distribute delegates in proportion to votes. In fact, four states holding Republican primaries on 15 March will be the first in this election to assign delegates on a winner-takes-all basis, which is why this date is such a turning point in the 2016 political calendar.
Check out some interesting charts as well as detailed discussions of each state’s demographics at the link.
Election day graffiti in Afghanistan, 4/4/2014
The Washington Post: March 15 primaries: Will voting in 5 states cement front-runners?
Voters are casting ballots in the five states across the Midwest and Southeast holding primaries Tuesday — contests that could shore up the two front-runners or breathe new life into the lagging campaigns of their challengers.
On the Democratic side, Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.) was working to pull off more come-from-behind wins in states where voters feel damaged by globalization, allowing him to claim momentum from Hillary Clinton. The former secretary of state enjoys a sizable lead in delegates but has not been able to seal the nomination.
The contests are especially important on the Republican side, offering a chance for billionaire Donald Trump’s remaining rivals to finally slow his march to the nomination with two winner-take-all contests that have particularly high stakes for a pair of favorite sons, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida and Gov. John Kasich of Ohio.
This one is a long and interesting read. I suggest you check out the whole thing at the link.
CNN: What’s Next if Marco Rubio Loses Florida?
Rubio, who began his White House campaign 11 months ago as a hero of Florida Republicans, now faces the prospect of defeat in his home state. For years, Republicans believed that Rubio was destined to be a presidential nominee and that even if he fell short in 2016, he would be well-positioned to run for governor in 2018.
But polls suggest Rubio might not just lose Florida — but get thumped here. A Quinnipiac survey released Monday found Rubio trailing Trump by 24 points in his home state.
A loss of that magnitude could be devastating to Rubio, and leave him in a tough spot if he ever wanted to seek public office again.
Quite a comedown. It will be interesting to see what happens when the polls close in Florida.
Florida’s polls close at 7PM ET (8PM in the Panhandle), North Carolina’s and Ohio’s at 7:30 ET, and Illinois’s and Missouri’s at 8PM ET.
So . . . what are you hearing and reading? Let us know in the comment thread, and please stick around for an exciting day! I’ll add a live blog later on for discussion of the returns.
peej
Carissa
bostonboomer
ecocatwoman
grayslady
mablue2
JJ Lopez aka Minkoff Minx
peggysue22
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
Wonderful wonky goodness! Hope you feel better! Really hoping we can get rid of that hypocritical Sandersbagging soon!
Thanks! Don’t work too hard today.
So far it’s really quiet. Bernies’ comments on why he’s running as a dem are really getting some bad press.
http://gawker.com/bernie-sanders-is-running-as-a-democrat-for-media-cove-1764884078?utm_medium=sharefromsite&utm_source=Gawker_facebook
tweet from “rules committee” maven Donna Brazil https://scontent-dfw1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpf1/v/t1.0-9/1916993_10154036186824187_3423372846892278392_n.jpg?oh=362c3960d9ad4063d14f4f15f4758ac1&oe=575C02AB
WaPo: How Bernie Sanders is hijacking the Democratic Party to be elected as an independent
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/03/15/how-bernie-sanders-is-hijacking-the-democratic-party-to-be-elected-as-an-independent/
ooo that’s a good one
Trojan Bernie
I am glad that is getting coverage as I thought he genuinely changed over (believed in the party principles/platforms etc) and as someone that spent years doing voter registration I was feeling miffed by ppl calling me a ‘uterus’ (other names too) while using OUR TREASURED DATA LISTS.
I as an elected party member only got to hold ‘The List’ while doing statistical Data Phone Banking…and Bernie Sanders also has Hillary’s lists 😦
“To run as an independent, you need—you could be a billionaire,” he said. “If you’re a billionaire, you can do that. I’m not a billionaire. So the structure of American politics today is such that I thought the right ethic was to run within the Democratic Party.”
Am I completely off-base on the definition of the word “ethic”? Or does BS really believe he is so morally superior that anything he says or does is righteous? Yeeush!! To me he is an unmitigated opportunist with no moral compass at all. For most of us, if you don’t pay your dues, you don’t expect to enjoy the benefits of membership!
Except, of course, you’re BS and full of yourself!!
Yeah there seems to be a bit of a disconnect there. When it’s his concerns at stake, there is ideological flexibility. It’s only when it’s OUR concerns at stake that all has to conform to his ideological purity.
This is a great example. When it came to HIS job, compromising his principles to run as a Democrat was fine. When it came to the Export-Import Bank, then it was fine for thousands of people to lose their jobs so Bernie could reject “corporate welfare.” IOW, his job = important, our jobs = not so important.
Ugh I just lost my comment!
Anyway, this is a really good example of one standard for him and another for the rest of us. When it’s about HIS job, he’s ideologically flexible. But when it’s about OUR jobs, then we can be sacrificed on the altar of his privileged ideology. Eg, he’s okay with running as a Democrat now, but he was willing to risk thousands of job in order to stick it to the Export-Import bank so he could reject “corporate welfare.”
I have no idea why spammy ate it. I slapped his ass and released it.
Hope you feel better BB! Home remedies and sleep? I’m all set for another exciting night and am somewhat hopeful.
Thanks, Purplefinn. I get these nasty colds that settle in my chest every winter it seems. But spring is coming soon and I’m looking forward to it.
Yes, the sunshine cure is best!
I’m a little anxious about tonight, but not worried. I think FL will be a big win as well as NC. Regardless of what the talking heads say, I think she will win OH, although MSNBC is reporting that the Clinton campaign said it “feels” a lot like Michigan. I think downplaying expectations is a strategy, although it’s not one I like. I think the two States where she is most vulnerable are IL and MO. Again, as BB and Dak and everyone else has been saying, without a BIG win in some of these States, pulling even or going ahead in the delegate math is tough for Bernie Fife. I listened to Bernie’s campaign manager this morning and he’s an arrogant ass. He truly believes Bernie is going to get big wins in the West including AZ, CA, WA, OR. I’m not so sure that’s a possibility. He also thinks he will win NY. I totally disagree with all of his assessments although I do think he can do well in OR & WA, but I think AZ & CA will be a tough slog for Bernie Fife.
And Hillary needs to start calling out Bernie, relentlessly, for his ongoing assaults against her integrity and his accusations that she’s dishonest. Being silent is not a good tactic. I know they don’t want to draw attention to Bernie’s accusations but at this point that would be impossible, it’s out there.
GO HILLARY!!
I am rather worried about WA — the eastern side is far more conservative and gun-owning. Lots of techy programmer-bros types in the Puget Sound area with Microsoft and Amazon headquartered here. (Amazon warehouses are elsewhere.)
Hope you feel better soon, BB!
The Daou article has excellent points — Hillary has earned more votes this year than any other candidate. And I’m definitely going to be reminding people that Sanders did indeed vote to confirm Hillary as SoS.
WaPo: Mother of Michael Brown, the teen killed by police in Ferguson, endorses Clinton on Missouri’s primary day.
Mother of Michael Brown, the teen killed by police in Ferguson, endorses Clinton on Missouri’s primary day
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/03/15/mother-of-michael-brown-killed-by-police-in-ferguson-endorses-clinton-on-missouri-primary-day/
dak and bb: Sometimes you two are scary. 😀
lol. yup!!!
lol
I hope you feel better, bboomer!
After today, there is a stretch of caucuses which Bernie is likely to win. Fortunately, with the exception of Washington, not a lot of delegates. And just as with the delegate count, Hillary will still be adding to her overall vote count. Bernie may be able to misleadingly tout his caucus wins, but they have such low turnout that they are dwarfed by the overall vote totals Clinton picks up in big primary states. She has started quoting her vote totals more and I’m glad because finally, some pushback to the ridiculous count of states won per candidate pushed by Sanders and the media. People forget that the delegate numbers aren’t just some arbitrary number; they represent (roughly) the popular vote and Clinton’s lead in delegates ALSO represents a huge lead in overall votes — in other words, THE fundamental measure of democracy.
Oops – sorry, didn’t mean to go on about that, I’m just steeling myself for that stretch of caucuses.
I decided to have as few hopes and expectations for tonight’s results as a possibly can.
It’s seriously time for Bernie to start on his exit strategy. He’s moved from advocate to spoiler.
Unless Bernie somehow wins Florida, Hillary will add to her delegate lead.
BB,
Some on Twitter are saying Jane Sanders was courting Trump voters by going to Joe Arpaio’s Tent City. The prisoners were treated like animals at the zoo, with photographers clicking away, without even asking permission or speaking to them (wearing pick underwear & socks in the hot heat). :8
Not sure how that would cause Trump voters to switch to Bernie. I’m pretty sure it’s only Bernie voters that would cross over to Trump, not the other way around. Trump is winning. Bernie isn’t.
Ditto, I concur with you BB. Feel better!
See, it is all about the Data file, which gives them access to Democratic donors.
The DNC owns the data. I assume they can choose the candidates they want to help.
Only available after primaries. I think this candidate is imaging things.
The Sanders campaign and Clinton campaign paid the DNC for access and then created their own campaign data from the raw data. I think this guy thinks he should get it for free. At least, that’s how I’m reading it. I don’t think it has anything to do with incumbency. I’ve spoken to other down ticket Dems who have weighed paying, and have chosen not to do so.
However, he can ALWAYS request (and pay for) a voter file from the state and go from there. Which is what a lot of candidates do.
Why Bernie Sanders Decided To Run As A Democrat | MSNBC https://youtu.be/2rl0uD-UXaU via @YouTube
Apparently it is not popular to tell Bernie Bros about Sanders own words. Better get my blocking fingers in shape….
Good grief!!
Ted Cruz super PAC donors tied to company accused of stealing seniors’ Social Security http://huff.to/1RMf4ZJ
Wow. That’s creepy.
Time: Bernie Sanders Is a De Facto Millionaire.
http://time.com/money/4235986/bernie-sanders-millionaire-finances/
I hate to sound like a broken record here, but my God what happened to MSNBC? Afternoon Joe? Why do we have to put up with those 2 execrable creatures (joe and Mika) for hours and hours every day? Who’s the genius behind this programming decision?
Lol-sad, I thought Morning Joe was on Fox!
I hear you. I can’t think of any worst than snot in the morning, now in the afternoon, and all night long.
I don’t know. I stopped watching MSNBC.
and now for your moment of levity
and I just heard Illinois is close from folks on the ground
Close is all I need. I Hills can survive the Rahm guilt by association, I am happy. Close works for us. I’d love to win Ohio, but close is good there too. FL and NC are where a bad showing would hurts us.
By the way, I’d like to know why Hills is expected to pay a price for Bill , Barack and Rahm?
I don’t remember Bill or Barack every paying much of a price for their mistakes (excepting the impeachment thing….and I am not complaining that much, the Big Dawg is my boy) and Rahm will pay up at re-election time.
My point is I am sick to death of this BS excuse “she is paying a price for this or that.”
NAFTA was over 20 frakking years ago. Every Prez since has had the opportunity to drop the thing if it was so rotten, and it wasn’t Hills idea to begin with. If Obama’s trade deals are so egregious, how the hell did he get re-elected?
I think all this Bill and Barack talk is cover for A-Holes looking to screw a woman candidate.
Happy Super Duper Tuesday, Sky Dancers!
Live blog is up!