More broadly, Mrs. Clinton’s campaign is repositioning itself, after a year of staking out liberal positions and focusing largely on minority voters, to appeal to independent and Republican-leaning white voters turned off by Mr. Trump.
With the Democratic nomination in sight, Mrs. Clinton has broadened her economic message, devoted days to apologizing for a comment she previously made that angered working-class whites, and has pledged that her husband, former President Bill Clinton, who remains widely popular among the blue-collar voters drawn to Mr. Trump, would “come out of retirement and be in charge” of creating jobs in places that have been particularly hard hit.
Friday Reads: Weapons of Mass Disruption
Posted: May 6, 2016 Filed under: 2016 elections | Tags: Campaign Ads, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, The Republican Establishment 91 CommentsGood Morning!
I had a lot of work to do on Wednesday so I spent most of yesterday relaxing which in my world means I’m reading a lot and walking Temple around the hood. I tried to spent my reading time on things a bit more uplifting than politics but this year is so fascinatingly and abjectly horrid that it’s hard to turn away. I may actually pick up the Game of Throne books again just as a contrast to these real-life machinations.
I managed to tune in to Rachel Maddow long enough to watch her perform “anti-Trump Republican anguish” as beat-style poetry. Real quotes from Real Republicans Since Donald Trump was nominated is a total gas to watch. I laughed so hard that Temple nearly got a red wine shower. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan has withheld his support for Trump. Mary Matalin has jumped parties and is re-registering down here in the Big Easy as Libertarian. The entire krewe of Red State has entered a period of mourning and disgust. It’s hard to fight back smugness at this point.
House Speaker Paul Ryan’s extraordinary statement Thursday that he’s “just not ready” to support Donald Trump highlights a challenge for the real-estate developer and TV personality on the week that he unexpectedly eliminated his rivals and cementedhis status as presumptive Republican presidential nominee.
Ryan joined a growing list of Republican elites who have resisted supporting their new standard-bearer and made a variety of vague demands of him, such as proving he’s committed to conservatism and is White House material, before offering their support. Republicans have refrained from handing down straightforward ultimatums, which suggests many will ultimately get behind him. But the dissent from within is highly unusual for a major-party candidate who has locked up the nomination and is shifting into general-election mode.
“I hope to and I want to” support Trump, Ryan said on CNN. But he said the billionaire “needs to do more to unify this party” by demonstrating to conservatives that he “shares our values” and “bears our standards.”
Trump fired back by questioning Ryan’s fitness to be Speaker.
Roughly 90 minutes later, Trump came back with a sharp critique of another comment Ryan made Thursday.
“Paul Ryan said that I inherited something very special, the Republican Party. Wrong, I didn’t inherit it, I won it with millions of voters!” Trump wrote on Twitter.
The subtle difference Trump highlighted was a piercing remark that speaks to the rift between mainstream Republicans and the polarizing, unconventional candidate who has risen to become the face of the party. His proposal to ban Muslims from entering the U.S. and refusal to disavow David Duke and the Ku Klux Klan led to Ryan’s implicit rebuke of the candidate throughout the primary, but Trump’s rhetoric has resonated with millions of voters, who have come out in droves across the country to support his candidacy.
Trump spokeswoman Katrina Pierson went a step further than her boss, suggesting that the Wisconsin Republican is unfit for his leadership role if he can’t support the party’s presumptive nominee.
Asked plainly by CNN’s John Berman whether Ryan is fit to be speaker if he can’t come around to supporting Trump, Pierson responded, “No, because this is about the party.”
Ryan suggested the onus was on Trump to show he can unite the different wings of the Republican Party, but Pierson disagreed, noting that since Trump has yet to clinch 1,237 delegates, he’s only the presumptive nominee.
This should make all the Republicans crazy go nuts since Ryan is the party’s boy wonder atm. Trump has announced he will be fundraising a billion dollars to take on Hillary Clinton in the General. Sheldon Addison has decided to back Trump. I’m not sure if any of his other fellow billionaires will follow suit. The amount of stunned establishment Republicans Rejecting Trump the last two days is pretty jaw-dropping.
CNN reached out to 16 Republican elected officials, leaders and major fundraisers associated with former Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush and former Vice President Dick Cheney. Speaking on background, none of them said they were planning to go to this summer’s Republican convention. They didn’t say they would vote for Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton. But they said they were not yet supporting Trump.
2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney declared he’d skip the convention, joining at least three prior Republican nominees — John McCain and both Presidents Bush — in declining to attend the event.
Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake told CNN’s Manu Raju that “some of Trump’s positions” make it “very difficult for me” to support him.
Meanwhile, Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse went on a lengthy Facebook diatribe against Trump and conservative blogger Erick Erickson said some members of Congress have joined his effort to recruit a third-party candidate.
BB’s post yesterday had more information on the Bush rejection of Trump. Certainly, his behavior towards Jeb is a good rationale of the cold shoulder treatment. But so are the continual attacks Dubya for not preventing 9-11 and for the Iraq War. McCain may actually lose his Senate Senate over this.
The odd assortment of religious freaks, neoconfederates,greedy ass country clubbers, intellectually and emotionally stunted libertarians, and angry working class white men put together by the party to win elections from Nixon forward is coming
completely unglued. Watching all of this come to this year’s election–which I can only characterize as a bunch of white straight men throwing toddler-like temper tantrums for not getting their way on everything–has been enlightening.
Hillary Clinton is already making hay from Trump quotes and from quotes about Trump by fellow Republicans.
Talk about putting the opposition to work for you.
Hillary Clinton‘s latest campaign ad is the ultimate #TBT – to the past eight months of the Republican primary campaign and the GOP’s own most biting comments about its freshly minted presumptive nominee, Donald Trump.
The web ad that Clinton tweeted out Wednesday night showcases insults from the likes of Mitt Romney, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and Jeb Bush to argue that Trump is anything but the party “unifier” he now claims to be.
“Con artist,” “phony” “know-nothing candidate,” “bully” and “the most vulgar person to ever aspire to the presidency,” are just a few of the disparaging namesTrump’s Republican critics call him in the clip.
“He would not be the commander-in-chief we need to keep our country safe,” says Bush, pointing to what he calls Trump’s “deep insecurity and weakness.”
Some think this actually helps Trump since it actually quotes mostly the Republican establishment that the Trumpsters hate. However, I’m not thinking the die hard Trumpsters are the targeted voters right now. I think it’s the huge huge number of Republican voters that haven’t been paying real attention to what the party’s has been about for years.
The media is full of examples today of talking heads mansplaining to Hillary’s campaign how to deal with the Donald. I would like to add that they sure didn’t do a great job of dealing with The Donald before he metastasized into the Republican Presidential candidate for 2016 so why should we take any of them very seriously?
Now, with regard to the tough guy stuff. The way to shred that calling card is with the military. This may surprise you at first blush. Surely, you think, military types will prefer Trump to Clinton! He’s a man. He talks tough. He’s not gonna pussyfoot around with ISIS the way those Democrats always do.
If you think this, I implore you to read Trump at War by Andy Kroll. It’s about how military people are terrified at the thought of Trump becoming their commander-in-chief, because they think he knows nothing about their line of work and they fear that someone who talks like he does without understanding the consequences will start World War III. Some people quoted in the article spoke openly of having to disobey President Trump’s orders, which is not only permissible but called for when an officer believes that a president’s orders violate code and law.
“You bet your ass” I’d reinstitute waterboarding, Trump has said. Military and intelligence professionals are the last people in the world who want that. It violated international law, which most of them actually care about. And the controversy over it crushed morale. A former CIA general counsel told Kroll that if President Trump ordered water-boarding and other forms of torture, staff would abandon the agency. “At a minimum,” the lawyer said, “people would refuse to participate in anything resembling the former interrogation program and insist on a transfer to another part of the agency where they wouldn’t be involved in these things.”
Conversely, more military people than you’d expect kind of respect Clinton. No, not because she voted for the Iraq War. Because she sat on the Senate Armed Services Committee and got to know their issues. Knows the difference between a brigade and a regiment. Put in ample face time as senator at New York’s military bases. They respect her.
There’s even a more brutal ad that lets Trump be Trump. It’s like a montage of his most sexist, racist, idiotic
statements. I think it’s absolutely funny that it came out on Cinco de Mayo given some of the worst quotes in it are about Mexicans and Mexican-Americans. You can see the ad directly on BB’s post yesterday.
This is just a Web ad, but as Josh Vorhees notes, it’s reasonable to see this as a template for the massive onslaught of paid ads to come. And this ad also highlights a key dynamic in this campaign that continues to go under-appreciated.
As I’ve argued, the general election will differ from the primaries in an important sense: Unlike Republicans, Democrats will not be constrained from brutally unmasking the truly wretched nature of his racial appeals. Trump’s GOP rivals had to treat his xenophobia, bigotry, and demagoguery with kid gloves, because many Republican voters agreed with his vows to ban Muslims and carry out mass deportations. But the broader general electorate does not agree with those things. Indeed, many voters that populate key general election constituencies are likely horrified by them. As a result, Democrats will be able to prosecute Trump mercilessly in ways his GOP rivals simply could not — with a relentless, non-diluted, non-euphemistic focus on his white nationalism.
Cook Political Reports just released its first look at the Electoral Vote for the 2016 General and you’ll be surprised at the number of states that are in play that are usually solidly Republican. This general is shaping up to be an incredible state of affairs in many ways. Humor me for quoting this Joe Klein piece at Time Magazine that beckons’ with this bit of clickbait: “Hillary Clinton’s ultimate trump card will not be her gender but her relative humanity.”
In some ways, Hillary faces an easier task. Donald Trump is an implausible President of the United States. But she has a problem that Bill never had. He swept to the presidency on a wave of pure energy and enthusiasm–this was something new, the baby boomers were taking over! Hillary is the George H.W. Bush of this campaign, selling stability–which may prove to be a marketable asset, given the craziness on the Republican side–but momentum feeds on excitement. Core polling perceptions like “trustworthiness” can turn, but they need some impetus.
Her vice-presidential choice will be important. A traditional pick would be someone young and Latino and male, but Hillary’s equivalent of an Al Gore would be … Elizabeth Warren. Another woman, but an outsider; a candidate who could rally Bernie’s legions of new voters, and who would be an excellent attack dog (a crucial vice-presidential function). I know, I know: the Clinton camp mistrusts Warren. She’d be a loose cannon, a risk. Her presence on the ticket might limit Hillary’s attempts to woo moderate Republicans and foreign policy hawks, which raises another possibility: Why not pick a moderate Republican woman–Condoleezza Rice, South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley–to stem the barbarian tide? That would be unthinkably new.
Inevitably, the vice-presidential selection will take a backseat in the general election. The presidency is won in discrete moments, as the public gauges the humanity of the candidates. Donald Trump is more a brand than a person; given the spray tan and egregious comb-over, he looks more like a panjandrum in The Hunger Games than a regular guy. How many spontaneous, empathetic human interactions has he had with individual voters? None that I can remember. He is all facade.
There is a basic rule of politics in the television age: warm always beats cold (with the exception of Richard Nixon). Hillary Clinton’s ultimate trump card will be not her gender but her relative humanity–an ironic twist given her public awkwardness. Her decision to sit down with West Virginia coal miners and apologize for her harsh, but realistic, prediction that they’ll be losing their jobs is the sort of thing that would be unimaginable for Trump. In the amped intimacy of a presidential campaign, such moments matter.
I’m sure we’re in for quite the bumpy ride so buckle up and buckle down. Hang in here with us because we’ll be hanging in there with and for Madam President. There’s bound to be many revoltin’ developments in the near future and we won’t shy from them.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Open Thread for the Time Being
Posted: May 4, 2016 Filed under: 2016 elections, open thread | Tags: Bernie "the fiinger" Sanders, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, John Kasich 33 Comments
Hi there!
Just thought I’d stick this up until JJ gets through working her Wednesday magic!
Some things to think on:
It’s mathematically impossible for Bernie to win with pledged delegates
Here’s how it works: After winning Indiana, Sanders has 1,399 pledged delegates and superdelegates to his name, according to the Associated Press’ count. That means he needs 984 more to reach the threshold of 2,383 needed to win.
The remaining contests, however — Guam, West Virginia, Kentucky, Oregon, Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, California, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, and the District of Columbia — only have 933 pledged delegates to offer.
So even if Sanders were to win 100 percent of the pledged delegates in each of those states, he wouldn’t make it past the mark.
Hence his efforts to win over superdelegates, the party leaders and elites who can choose their candidate regardless of how their states vote. That strategy is a long shot at best for Sanders: of the 719 super delegates, Clinton leads 520 to 39.
John Kasich suspended his campaign today.
The decision comes one day after Kasich finished a distant third in the Indiana primary. Top campaign aides had vowed that the governor would stay in the race, even after Ted Cruz, who formed an informal alliance with Kasich, suspended his campaign.
Kasich will end his run with just one primary victory, which came in his home state of Ohio. He remained in the race long after he was mathematically eliminated from clinching the GOP nomination, arguing that no candidate will earn a majoirity of the delegates ahead of the convention in Cleveland, Ohio, this summer.
Kasich’s role in the rest of the 2016 race is unclear. Though he has repeatedly and unequivocally said that he was not running to be vice president, Trump on Wednesday said he would consider the Ohio governor as his running mate.
“I think John’s doing the right thing,” Trump told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer in an excerpt of a larger interview, in discussing Kasich’s reported plan to drop out of the race later in the afternoon in Columbus, Ohio.
Here is an update on the election including Indiana results. Again, it’s mathematically impossible for Bernie to win with pledged delegates (e.g. voters).
Popular Vote:
Hillary’s Popular Vote: 12,437,785
Trump’s Popular Vote: 10,056,690
Sanders Popular Vote: 9,301,749
Hillary has 2,078,419 or 20% more votes than Trump and 3,167,700 or 34% more votes than Sanders
Delegate Math:
Trump has 1,047 delegates – he needs 1,237 to win Republican primary or 190 more delegates
Hillary has 2,202 delegates – she needs 2,382 to win or 180 more delegates to win Dem primary
Bernie has 1,400 delegates – he needs 2,382 to win or 982 more delegates**
Hillary has 802 or 57% more delegates than Bernie
**there are only 933 more delegates to be awarded in the Dem race, so Bernie cannot win
In the 2008 Dem Primary:
By the time Indiana voted (Calif had already voted on Super Tues) Hillary had 1,789 delegates and Obama had 2,072. Obama had 283 more delegates or 16% more than Hillary.
Obama had 16,928,142 popular vote and Hillary had 16,697,380 popular vote, 230,762 or 1% difference.
Obama went to the convention with 2,158 delegates, not the 2,382 needed to win. Hillary did not contest the convention, she nominated him and gave her delegates to him.
Hillary WILL HAVE 2,382 delegates BEFORE the convention; therefore Bernie cannot contest it. Yes, this includes super delegates (just like Obama’s did) – and even though they can change their mind, there is no compelling reason to do so when Bernie does not have the votes or delegates to contest it.
Hillary is outpolling Trump by Double Digits for the General. Although my basic argument for her beating his ass badly is demographics. There aren’t enough angry, christian white people out there in states with a large contribution to the electoral college to bring him to the White House. It’s the same demographics that are troubling His Loserness Bernie Sanders. America is a gumbo pot. The days of nothing but straight up and bland Yankee Stew are over.
Talk amongst yourselves!!!
Next few caucuses will occur in white outback states so be prepared for the BernieBot Swan Songs!!!
Live Blog: Indiana Votes
Posted: May 3, 2016 Filed under: 2016 elections, Hillary Clinton, Live, Live Blog | Tags: Indiana Primary 2016 193 Comments
Good Evening!
We’re still hanging in here with the primaries given that this year’s Most Delusional Campaign and Candidate award has three contenders still vying for trophy. Maybe it has something to do with the vast level of ignorance when it comes to math, science, and basic recognition of facts and reality that permeates the country. I know that I’ve seen an appalling increase in lack of math, statistics, and basic knowledge since my undergrad days.
Five-Thirty-Eight argues there could be three possible outcomes tonight for the GOP, Well, yes, that’s true. But, which will it be?
Donald Trump may be a runaway train. He has blasted through his 50 percent “ceiling,” outperforming his polls and winning a clear majority in the last six states to cast ballots. All that success occurred in the Northeast, however, so here’s the question: Is Trump wrapping up this nomination, or is he just really strong in the Northeast?
We’ll get some answers in Indiana on Tuesday. It’s a culturally conservative state where many political observers (including yours truly) thought Ted Cruz had a good shot at coalescing the anti-Trump vote. Indiana is also, in terms of demographics, slightly below average for Trump. In other words, the #StopTrump movement, if it’s at all serious, should win the Hoosier State. And yet, Trump leads in most of the polling there.
Clinton has no party scheduled tonight and is clearly focused on the General Election.
Hillary Clinton is ready to put the Democratic primary in her rear view mirror and get to work on Donald Trump.
She made that abundantly clear in an exclusive interview with MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Tuesday in West Virginia. Clinton also said that the FBI has still not contacted her regarding her private email server, and the Democratic front-runner detailed under what circumstances she would release transcripts of her paid speeches.
“I’m really focused on moving into the general election,” Clinton said when asked about the primary election Tuesday in Indiana. “And I think that’s where we have to be, because we’re going to have a tough campaign against a candidate who will literally say or do anything. And we’re going to take him on at every turn on what’s really important to the people of our country.”
Clinton shrugged off questions about Bernie Sanders, who is vowing to challenge Clinton all the way to the Democratic National Convention in July.
“We’re going to unify the party, and we’re going to have a great convention and we’re going to be absolutely focused on making our case to the American public against Donald Trump, and I think he will be a part of that,” Clinton said.
Giving the most clear picture of her campaign’s general election strategy from the candidate’s own mouth, she said she will try to avoid getting into the mud with Trump and keep her attacks focused on his policy and fitness to do the job.
Exit poll information has begun to be released.
Preliminary exit poll results from Indiana’s Democratic primary show a contest with turnout that’s higher than usual this year among liberals (notably strong liberals), young voters, whites and those focused on a candidate who’s honest or cares about people like them – all some of Bernie Sanders’ better groups to date.
…
Clinton’s ideas are seen as more realistic by Indiana voters – nearly eight in 10 vs. more than six in 10 for Sanders – but the gap’s a bit smaller than usual in preliminary exit poll results. It’s been 76 to 57 percent in the nine states where the question’s been asked before.
Clinton’s also done well so far by linking herself with Barack Obama. More Indiana voters think the next president should continue Obama’s policies, half, while fewer, just more than a third, prefer a more liberal direction. But, again, the gap’s smaller than usual. Supporters of more liberal policies are more numerous than average in Indiana, a group that’s voted heavily for Sanders in past contests.
Meanwhile, back in Bernie Land we see more talk about a contested convention. Some of the press aren’t so enthusiastic. Some of them are.
What Sanders is proposing is a necessary quest—and a realistic one. Already, he is better positioned than any recent insurgent challenger to engage in rules and platform debates, as well as in dialogues about everything from the vice-presidential nomination to the character of the fall campaign. As veteran political analyst Rhodes Cook noted in a survey prepared for The Atlantic, by mid-April, Sanders had exceeded the overall vote totals and percentages of Howard Dean in 2004, Jesse Jackson in 1988, Gary Hart in 1984, and Ted Kennedy in 1980, among others. (While Barack Obama’s 2008 challenge to Clinton began as something of an insurgency, he eventually ran with the solid support of key party leaders like Kennedy.) By the time the District of Columbia votes on June 14, Sanders will have more pledged delegates than any challenger seeking to influence a national convention and its nominee since the party began to democratize its nominating process following the disastrous, boss-dominated convention of 1968.
I prefer Michael Cohen’s take at the Boston Globe.
The same candidate who has been railing against independent voters being disenfranchised, who has called the primary system undemocratic, and who has complained about superdelegates, in general, is now calling on those same superdelegates to vote against Clinton (that would apparently include delegates from the states Clinton has won), even though she will almost certainly have the most pledged delegates and the most votes. In head-to-head general election polls, Clinton trounces Trump, but since Sanders trounces him by a bit more, he argues that he should be the nominee.
In the realm of illogical, self-serving, hypocritical, intellectually dishonest political arguments, this is practically the gold standard. But with six weeks to go until the last primary, I have great confidence that the Sanders campaign will find some way to top it.
So, join us as we count down to California by watching the returns from Indiana tonight!!
Monday Reads: The Tell-tale Heart
Posted: May 2, 2016 Filed under: 2016 elections | Tags: Bernie Sanders, contested convention, Hillary Clinton, institutional racism 64 Comments
No change of circumstances can repair a defect of character.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Good Morning!
Back in the days of radio there was a show called “The Shadow” that started out by asking “Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?” My mom and dad used to listen to it back in the day and would talk about it ever so often. When they started releasing what few tapes they had of the shows I ordered some from the Minnesota NPR catalog to hear the answers for myself. I used to listen to them in the car when I was driving about the Midwest on my way to some consulting gig in a small town. It was better than what passes for music in the middle of no where.
My mother always used to use a series of pop references from radio/TV shows or some old Irish wives’ tale and missives to shame me into good behavior. When I used to ask about that evil lurking in the hearts of my playmates I would frequently get this one. “Character wills out, Kathryn Jean. Character always wills out.”
We Americans have all kinds of sayings that come from pop references and all kinds of family backgrounds that basically demonstrate that you can tell a lot about a person not only by what emanates from their heart and out of their mouths but also what’s clearly demonstrated in their actions. The reason that I’m remembering all of this at the moment is the current state of affairs in the Democratic Primary campaign for the Presidency this year. I’m going to start out with something BB sent me because it’s a pretty good example of how to judge hearts by listening to a long list of actions.
Hillary Clinton spoke last night at the 60th annual NAACP Fight for Freedom Fund dinner near Detroit Michigan. The program opened up with young people holding signs that reading “America looks like me” while reading a Langston Hughes poem “Let American be America Again”.
O, let America be America again— The land that never has been yet— And yet must be—the land where every man is free. The land that’s mine—the poor man’s, Indian’s, Negro’s, ME— Who made America, Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain, Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain, Must bring back our mighty dream again.
A preacher introduced Clinton by listing her long and lengthy history–starting at her time at Wellesley–actively fighting for racial justice and equality. Her speech was filled with wonky and inspirational goodness. She even referenced the poem.
“We have to face up to a painful reality. More than a half a century after Rosa Parks sat … race still plays a significant role in determining who gets ahead in America and who gets left behind,” she told the crowd of nearly 10,000 people at the 60th annual NAACP Fight for Freedom Fund dinner at Cobo. “I want you to know that I get it and I see it. And it’s important that we have this conversation. For many white Americans, it’s tempting to believe that systemic racism is largely behind us. But anyone asking for your vote has a responsibility to see things as they actually are, not as we wish them to be.”
You can listen to her speech here. Hillary Clinton’s list of activism and achievements on the social justice front is really impressive. Any reference to anything she has accomplished is impressive which is why I still reel at the idea of a gadfly senator from Vermont publicly announcing that she has bad judgement and is not qualified for the office she now seeks. This comes from a man that was unemployed way into his 40s and living off his wife until he was elected mayor of a backwoods city in a backwoods state. His words echo that of Carly Fiorina which doesn’t surprise me at all. Clinton has a long list of accomplishments and a long list of living her values as a social justice advocate. The preacher mentioned her decades of actions for racial justice.
“Character, not circumstance, makes the person.”
Booker T. Washington
I always ask Sanders supporters why they think that he is the voice of the powerless when the current voting records show exactly who votes for him and who votes for her.
It’s obvious that the most disenfranchised in our country back Hillary Clinton. It’s not because we’re Southern or low information. If we’re women, it’s not because of our vaginas. It’s not because we’ve been misled because of our race or circumstances or because we’re some how confused. It’s because we look at the history of actions and try to match them to the words.
It’s extremely weird that we do know what Hillary Clinton was paid in speeches as well as every other detail of the Clinton’s personal finances and foundation’s finance. All of these things have been publicly reported. What we know about the Sanders family fortune–and he’s a millionaire so in my poor ol’ southern white woman ways that’s a damned fortune–is clouded behind failure to disclose. We’ve heard some really hinky stuff. Some of it has been dug up by right-leaning sources because no one else will do it openly. First, we know that the Sanders campaign does the old small town political grifting trick. He puts his family on his payroll. The source is spurious but the campaign finance records from which it was gleaned is not. Also, this link is from Vanity Fare who quotes the r-w site.
According to an investigation by the right-leaning Washington Free Beacon, Sanders’s spouse of 27 years, Jane O’Meara Sanders, and his stepdaughter, Carina Driscoll, both drew sizable salaries from Sanders’s House campaigns between 2000 and 2004. Public records examined by the online paper reportedly show O’Meara Sanders was paid “more than $90,000 for consulting and ad placement services” between 2002 and 2004, while Driscoll received $65,000 from the campaign over the course of four years.
But while it’s not unheard of for campaigns to bring family members on board, the Free Beacon’s revelations about Sanders’s wife’s tenure as the president of Burlington College will certainly raise eyebrows. During her time there, the college paid nearly $500,000 to the Vermont Woodworking School, run by Driscoll, for classes, according to the Free Beacon. The college also reportedly paid tens of thousands of dollars to an all-inclusive Caribbean resort run by Jonathan Leopold, the son of a family friend, for a study-abroad program. Between 2009 and 2011, when O’Meara Sanders stepped down, Burlington College paid around $68,000 to the resort. The Free Beacon reports that payments to both the woodworking school and the resort stopped soon after she left.
It sort’ve makes one wonder wtf are in those detailed taxes that we never see and also wtf is in the now stalled FEC reports? Let me use this Fortune article to show this man basically doesn’t have the same problems as you and me. Bernie Sanders is in the top 4% of income earners. Do his poor donors know this? Also, his donations represent a huge, cumulative amount and he’s outspent every one in the race for mostly rallies and ads. Who is against using big money in campaigns?
What qualifies as big money exactly? I’d argue that no matter what the source, spending an obscene amount of money to include trips to Rome for friends and family on a private plane, hiring your wife as a campaign adviser, and enriching your campaign staff’s ad placement service to be freaking shady. I don’t care where you got your damned money. It went out there and it was in amounts that blew every one out of the water while enriching your damned family and friends. What kind of freaking socialist does that?
And yet, by dint of his success as an anti-capitalist politician, Sanders has managed to make a quite comfortable living. While Sanders wouldn’t describe himself as rich, the scourge of the 1% has income that puts him in the top 3.8% of American households, according to CNBC.
Just as Sanders has managed to accumulate significant assets and pull down a six-figure income while being hostile to business and capitalism, his campaign has done the same. Eschewing PACs and high-dollar fundraisers on Wall Street, Sanders has managed to raise a stunning $95 million, from a virtual army of 3 million small donors.
I care not what others think of what I do, but I care very much about what I think of what I do! That is character!
Theodore Roosevelt
Then there’s money coming in from this Toxic Waste Dumping Scheme from the 90s. It’s still coming in and it’s for something really not in keeping with progressive goals and values.
In the late 1990s, when now-U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont was a member of the House, he supported a compact between Maine, Vermont and Texas thatoriginally proposed dumping low-levelradioactive waste in a small minority community in far-West Texas, putting him at odds with other progressive congressmen.
Though the waste never made it to Sierra Blanca, a low-income, largely Hispanic town in Hudspeth County, Sanders’ efforts have attracted renewed attention online in the lead-up to Tuesday’s Texas primary. Critics suggest that the candidate’s role in promoting the compact — which ultimately brought the waste to a different site in West Texas — undermines his otherwise progressive record.
“It reflects very poorly on him,” said longtime environmental justice activist Dr. Robert Bullard, dean of the Barbara Jordan-Mickey Leland School of Public Affairs at Texas Southern University and the author of Dumping in Dixie. “Shoving this down people’s throats is not progressive politics. It was business as usual. It’s a classic case of rich people from a white state shifting something they don’t want to a poor minority community somewhere else.”
And yes, the lone Sanders 2014 tax statement that we’ve seen shows they’re still making money off that hypocrisy.
Bernie Sanders released his 2014 tax returns this weekend, and in addition to having claiming massive mortgage interest and property tax deductions vastly outstripping the average American – and certainly the average Vermonter – the tax returns seem to confirm a dark open secret in the Sanders family: Jane Sanders personally financially benefits from shipping Vermont’s toxic nuclear waste to be dumped elsewhere.
For a quick refresher, refer back to our coverage of Bernie Sanders’ eager support for Congressional legislation to expedite movement of Vermont’s nuclear waste to Texas as well as his cavalier disregard for Texans and Vermonters who opposed the dump. We reported then that though Congress did not designate a specific site, the Congressional record was abundantly clear on where the likely site of the dump would be, near the low-income Latino community of Sierra Blanca. The protests of many progressives, including Paul Welstone’s, fell on Bernie Sanders’ deaf ears. The community, however, stood up and fought back. And, they won.
Besides from being eager to make his state’s nuclear waste someone else’s problem in a hurry, TPV writer Kris Jirapinyo noted that Jane O. Sanders, Bernie Sanders’ wife, conveniently sat on the Board of Texas Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Authority, or TLLRWDA, the entity which technically held the power to designate the dump site.
That much we already knew. Now, in light of Bernie Sanders’ release of his 2014 taxes, we know that that Bernie and Jane Sanders financially benefit from her position on a Board that participates in willful poisoning of communities despite ample warning. According to their own tax return, Jane Sanders “materially participated” in the board, and received compensation.
So, character meet speech meet actions. So this is the gang that wants to contest the Democratic Convention because they can best represent the folks that really need representin’ or so they say. There were so many things standing in his way–establishment things like closed primaries–that they have to contest the primary at the 2016 Democratic Convention.
There’s no reason to deem this demand self-serving; at 74 years of age, Sanders will not be running for president again and he apparently wants to create a process in which candidates who follow in his footsteps will have a better shot.
Although he has every right to pursue that goal, he’s wasting his time, and squandering his leverage, by focusing on closed primaries. Yes, he was swept in the closed states. But he also lost the open primaries by a 2-to-1 margin.
There have been 40 state contests so far, 27 primaries and 13 caucuses. Nineteen of those primaries were accessible to independent voters. Yet Sanders only won six of them, and two were his home state of Vermont and neighboring New Hampshire.
He’s got a load of excuses for not winning things. Too many Southerners vote first. Too much establishment politics. Ya da ya da ya da. The deal is he’s lost. He needs to go quietly into the night. Also, he may create chaos which may be his goal but he may not necessarily win a contested convention. Remember, this is the Democratic Party. He’s not been a cooperative, useful and productive member in any sense of the word. He’s even indicated that he’s used the affiliation for media access so I wouldn’t expect Party hardliners and loyalists to flee to him under any circumstances but a massive win in pledged delegates which is impossible at this point.
The Democrats are a different story. Despite the fact that Bernie Sanders’s path to the nomination has been all but closed off, he is now insisting there will be a “contested convention” for the party’s superdelegates. Sanders told reporters in Washington, D.C., yesterday that those superdelegates should be in play if Clinton cannot win the nomination with an outright majority of normal pledged delegates.
Is Sanders serious? There are hundreds of superdelegates, which means it is actually quite difficult to get to the magic number of 2,383 without them. Sanders himself seemed to suggest that his campaign’s goal is merely to win a majority of pledged delegates, which is what Clinton is in the process of doing (and quite handily). She is also beating him in the popular vote by some three million votes.
Paul Krugman says the Sanders campaign has devolved into “an epic descent into whining.” But perhaps of greater cause for concern is that Sanders is setting up Clinton’s nomination as illegitimate, which is not only false, but potentially dangerous when you consider the system-is-rigged beliefs of his most ardent supporters. Even Ted Cruz is prepared to admit that Trump is beating him fair and square.
Phillip Bump writing for WAPO argues Sanders can’t win.
One of the things that Sanders has been very good at, though, is conveying a convincing depiction of a guy who’s going to come from behind and win this thing, even as he has continued to trail badly or dropped further behind. During a news conference in Washington on Sunday marking the first anniversary of his campaign launch, Sanders insisted that the math above means that the Democrats were headed to a “contested convention,” leveraging the now-common language of the ferocious (and unsettled) Republican contest to paint his own contest as similarly unsettled.
“It is virtually impossible for Secretary Clinton to reach the majority of convention delegates by June 14 with pledged delegates alone,” he said. “She will need superdelegates to take her over the top at the convention in Philadelphia. In other words, the convention will be a contested contest.”
That’s true — mostly because, unlike in 2008, Sanders will contest it. Eight years ago, Clinton conceded the race before the convention, recognizing that trying to fight her way to victory on the convention floor was likely to fail, despite her having a slight lead in the popular vote. But Clinton realized the damage that could be done to the party — and perhaps herself — so she didn’t.
Sanders doesn’t share the former sentiment, as he has made clear. He was an independent until he decided to run for president, and his goal during his campaign has been to upend the system, into which a convention floor fight fits neatly.
But that doesn’t mean he has any real shot at winning.
Bump has made a pretty long list of why superdelegates are unlikely to support the Sanders Sore Loser Campaign at the Convention. His conclusion is that Sanders can raise a stink and list all of his reasons but it won’t change the outcome.
“The true test of character is not how much we know how to do, but how we behave when we don’t know what to do.”
–John W. Holt, Jr
I have to admit to finding the entire Sanders’ campaign and arguments vile and basically racist. We continue to see him mention his crowd of young white minions over the concerns of every one else. We continue to see his excuses for losing. What we don’t see are his taxes and press coverage of his many hypocritical actions.
Sure, call me any ugly name you choose— The steel of freedom does not stain. From those who live like leeches on the people’s lives, We must take back our land again, America!
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
And he still won’t just go away …. the math of the delusional
Posted: May 1, 2016 Filed under: 2016 elections | Tags: Bernie Sanders, contested convention 87 Comments
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders held a presser today and made an argument and pledge to make the DNC Philadelphia Convention a contested one. The quote below comes direct from the CSPAN site. It’s all caps so that’s how I brought it over. You can go watch the tape on the link.
I’m not sure what’s going on in his pointed little head. Maybe he still wants the money. Maybe he’s deluded. All I know is that he seems to be willing to ignore the broad constituency and number of votes achieved by Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
I bolded the most germane part. The rest is the usual drivel. This isn’t the entire speech and he did take a few questions. I thought you’d probably want to know about this and would have some comments to make.
IN THIS CAMPAIGN WE HAVE TAKEN ON THE ENTIRE DEMOCRATIC IT ESTABLISHMENT IN STATE AFTER STATE. WE HAVE TAKEN ON THE SENATORS, THE MEMBERS OF THE CONGRESS, THE GOVERNORS, THE MAYORS. WE HAVE TAKEN THEM ALL ON AND IN THE CLINTON ORGANIZATION HAVE OBVIOUSLY TAKEN ON THE MOST POWERFUL POLITICAL ORGANIZATION THIS COUNTRY. THEY RAN A VERY STRONG CAMPAIGN WITH EVERY CLINTON IN 2008. THAT IS WHAT WE WERE UP AGAINST. THAT WAS THEN. TODAY IS TODAY. AS OF TODAY WE HAVE NOW ONE — WON 17 PRIMARIES AND CAUCUSES IN EVERY PART OF THE COUNTRY. BY THE WAY, WE HOPE TO MAKE INDIANA OUR 18TH VICTORY ON TUESDAY. AND WE HAVE RECEIVED SOME 9 MILLION VOTES. IN RECENT NATIONAL POLLS, WE ARE NOT BEHIND SECRETARY CLINTON BY 60 POINTS ANYMORE. IN THE LAST FEW WEEKS A COUPLE OF POLLS HAVE HAD US IN THE LEAD . OTHER POLLS HAVE US SINGLE DIGITS BEHIND. IN TERMS OF FUNDRAISING, WE HAVE RECEIVED MORE INDIVIDUAL CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS — 7.4 MILLION — THAN ANY CANDIDATE IN PRESIDENTIAL HISTORY AT THIS POINT IN THE CAMPAIGN. WE DO NOT HAVE A SUPER PAC. WE DO NOT GET OUR MONEY FROM WALL STREET OR THE DRUG COMPANIES. OR FROM POWERFUL CORPORATIONS. OUR MONEY IS COMING FROM THE MIDDLE CLASS AND WORKING CLASS OF THIS COUNTRY, AVERAGING $27 PER CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTION. I AM VERY PROUD OF THE FACT THAT WE HAVE JUST RAISED IN THE LAST — LOOK, WE HAD A PHONE ON MOLLY GOOD LUCK DESK OF MONTH. WE RAISE $25 MILLION, DESPITE THE FACT THAT 85% OF THE PRIMARY AND CAUCUSES ARE BEHIND US. WHAT THE POLITICAL REVOLUTION HAS SHOWN IS THAT WE CAN RUN A STRONG, WINNING CAMPAIGN WITHOUT A SUPER PAC AND WITHOUT BEING DEPENDENT ON BIG-MONEY INTERESTS. AS OF TODAY — AND I DON’T KNOW IF ANYONE ELSE HAS DONE IT. MAYBE THEY HAVE, AND THEY HAVEN’T. I DON’T KNOW THAT. BUT WE HAVE ROLLED OUT OVER 1.1 MILLION PEOPLE TO OUR RALLIES, FROM MAINE TO CALIFORNIA. THAT NUMBER WILL GO UP VERY SIGNIFICANTLY BECAUSE WE INTEND TO HAVE A NUMBER OF MAJOR RALLIES IN THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA. VERY IMPORTANTLY, WE HAVE ONE IN STATE AFTER STATE A STRONG MAJORITY OF THE VOTES OF YOUNGER PEOPLE. VOTERS UNDER 45 YEARS OF AGE. IN OTHER WORDS, THE IDEAS THAT WE ARE FIGHTING FOR OUR THE FUTURE OF THE DEMOCRATIC ALREADY AND, IN FACT, THE FUTURE OF THIS COUNTRY. AGAIN, I’M NOT JUST TALKING ABOUT PEOPLE 23 YEARS OF AGE AND YOUNGER. WE ARE DOING PHENOMENALLY WELL AND VERY PROUD OF THAT. WE ARE TALKING ABOUT PEOPLE WHO ARE 45 YEARS OF AGE AND YOUNGER. THE REASON FOR THAT, I BELIEVE, IS THAT THE ISSUES WE ARE TALKING ABOUT ARE THE ISSUES THAT ARE ON THE MINDS OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. WHETHER YOU ARE CONSERVATIVE OR PROGRESSIVE, PEOPLE KNOW THAT A CORRUPT CAMPAIGN FINANCE SYSTEM UNDERMINING AMERICAN DEMOCRACY, THEY UNDERSTAND THERE IS SOMETHING FUNDAMENTALLY WRONG BOUT AVERAGE AMERICANS WORKING LONGER HOURS FOR LOWER WAGES. THEY UNDERSTAND THAT WE HAVE A BROKEN CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM, WITH MORE PEOPLE IN JAIL THAN ANY OTHER COUNTRY ON EARTH. THEY UNDERSTAND THAT WE HAVE TO DEAL WITH THE PLANETARY RISES OF CLIMATE CHANGE AND, AMONG OTHER THINGS, IMPOSE A TAX ON CARBON. THAT IN A TIME WE HAVE A MAJOR GROWING CRISIS WITH REGARD TO CLEAN WATER. WE NEED TO END FRACKING. THEY UNDERSTAND THAT IN A COMPETITIVE GLOBAL ECONOMY WE NEED TO MAKE PUBLIC COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES TUITION FREE. THEY UNDERSTAND THAT WHEN YOU HAVE THE GROTESQUE LEVEL OF INCOME AND WEALTH INEQUALITY, YES, LARGE PROFITABLE CORPORATIONS ARE GOING TO HAVE TO PAY MORE IN TAXES. LET ME NOW JUST SAY A FEW WORDS ABOUT DELEGATE MATH AND OUR PASTOR IS VICTORY. AS ALL OF YOU KNOW, THERE ARE A TOTAL OF 4766 DEMOCRATIC DELEGATES. 4047 OF THEM ARE PLEDGED. THEY COME OUT AS A RESULT OF THE CONTEST IN THE VARIOUS STATES. 719 ARE SUPERDELEGATES. SUPERDELEGATES. A DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE NEEDS 2383 VOTES IN ORDER TO WIN THE DEMOCRATIC NOMINATION. LET ME BE VERY CLEAR. IT IS BITTER — VIRTUALLY IMPOSSIBLE FOR SECRETARY CLINTON TO REACH THE MAJORITY OF CONVENTION DELEGATES BY JUNE 14. THAT IS THE LAST DAY THAT A PRIMARY WILL BE HELD. WITH PLEDGED DELEGATES ALONE. IN OTHER WORDS, ONCE MORE, IT IS VIRTUALLY IMPOSSIBLE FOR SECRETARY CLINTON TO REACH THE MAJORITY OF CONVENTION DELEGATES BY JUNE 14 WITH PLEDGED DELEGATES ALONE. SHE WILL NEED SUPERDELEGATES TO TAKE HER OVER THE TOP OF THE CONVENTION IN PHILADELPHIA. IN OTHER WORDS, THE CONVENTION WILL BE A CONTENT — A CONTESTED CONTEST. CURRENTLY SECRETARY CLINTON HAS 1645 PLEDGED DELEGATES. 55% OF THE TOTAL. WE HAVE 1318 PLEDGED DELEGATES, 45% OF THE TOTAL. THERE ARE 10 STATES REMAINING, WHERE WE ARE GOING TO BE VIGOROUSLY COMPETING. PLUS THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, PUERTO RICO, THE VIRGIN ISLANDS, AND GUAM. WE BELIEVE THAT WE ARE IN A VERY STRONG POSITION TO WIN MANY OF THESE REMAINING CONTEST AND WE HAVE AN EXCELLENT CHANCE TO WIN IN CALIFORNIA, THE STATE WITH FAR AND AWAY THE MOST DELEGATES. FOR US TO WIN, THE MAJORITY OF PLEDGED DELEGATES, WE NEED TO WIN 710 OUT OF THE REMAINING 1083. THAT IS 65% OF THE REMAINING PLEDGED DELEGATES. THAT IS, ADMITTEDLY, AND I DO NOT DENY IT FOR A SECOND, A TOUGH ROAD TO CLIMB. BUT IT IS NOT AN IMPOSSIBLE ROAD TO CLIMB. AND WE INTEND TO FIGHT FOR EVERY VOTE IN FRONT OF US AND FOR EVERY DELEGATE REMAINING. IN TERMS OF SUPERDELEGATES, I WOULD LIKE TO JUST SAY THE FOLLOWING. OBVIOUSLY WE ARE TAKING ON VIRTUALLY THE ENTIRE DEMOCRATIC ESTABLISHMENT. AND IT’S AMAZING TO ME — AND I JUST HAVE TO THANK OUR VOLUNTEERS — THAT WE GO INTO STATE AFTER STATE. YOU’VE GOT THE SENATORS, GOVERNORS, MAYORS. ALL OF THEM KNOW HOW TO GET OUT THE VOTE. YET IN 17 PRIMARIES AND CAUCUSES DESPITE THAT POLITICAL ESTABLISHMENT SUPPORT, WE HAVE ONE — WON. OF THE 719 SUPERDELEGATES, MANY OF THOSE DELEGATES COMMITTED THEMSELVES TO SECRETARY CLINTON EVEN BEFORE WE GOT INTO THIS CAMPAIGN. IN OTHER WORDS, WAY BACK THEN SHE WAS THE ANOINTED CANDIDATE. THEY SAID — WE ARE WITH HILLARY CLINTON. WHILE SHE HAS 520 SUPERDELEGATES , WE HAVE ALL OF 39 SUPERDELEGATES. IN OTHER WORDS, WHILE WE HAVE ONE 45% OF THE PLEDGED DELEGATES IN REAL CAMPAIGN, FOR THE PEOPLE HAVE SPOKEN, WE HAVE ONE ONLY 7% OF THE SUPERDELEGATES. TWO POINTS REGARDING THAT. FIRST, THOSE SUPERDELEGATES, IN STATES WERE EITHER CANDIDATE, SECRETARY CLINTON ON MYSELF, HAS WON A LANDSLIDE VICTORY, THOSE SUPERDELEGATES OUGHT TO SERIOUSLY REFLECT ON WHETHER THEY SHOULD CAST THEIR SUPERDELEGATE VOTE IN LINE WITH THE WISHES OF THE PEOPLE OF THEIR STATE. LET ME JUST GIVE YOU AN EXAMPLE OF WHAT I MEAN BY THAT. IN THE STATE OF WASHINGTON, WE WON THAT CAUCUS WITH ALMOST 73% OF THE VOTE THERE. 73% OF THE VOTE THERE. IN ANYBODY’S DEFINITION THAT IS A MASSIVE LANDSLIDE. AT THIS POINT SECRETARY CLINTON HAS 10 SUPERDELEGATES FROM THE STATE OF WASHINGTON. WE HAVE ZERO. I WOULD ASK THE SUPERDELEGATES FROM THE STATE OF WASHINGTON TO RESPECT THE WISHES OF THE PEOPLE IN THEIR STATE AND THE VOTES THEY HAVE CAST. IN MINNESOTA, WE WON THE CAUCUS THERE WITH 61% OF THE. HILLARY CLINTON HAS 11 SUPERDELEGATES. WE HAVE THREE. IN COLORADO, WE WON THAT STATE WITH 59% OF THE VOTE. PRETTY STRONG MARGIN. SECRETARY CLINTON HAS 10 SUPERDELEGATES. WE HAVE ZERO. NEW HAMPSHIRE, WE WON THAT STATE 60% OF THE VOTE. SECRETARY CLINTON HAS SIX SUPERDELEGATES. WE HAVE ZERO. THAT PATTERN CONTINUES IN OTHER STATES WHERE WE HAVE ONE LANDSLIDE VICTORIES. I WOULD HOPE VERY MUCH THAT THE SUPERDELEGATES FROM THOSE STATES , WHERE THEY HAD — OR WE HAVE ONE WITH BIG MARGINS OR WITH SECRETARY CLINTON HAVING BIG MARGINS, TO RESPECT TO THE WISHES OF THE PEOPLE OF THOSE STATES AND VOTE IN LINE WITH HOW THE PEOPLE OF THAT STATE VOTED. SECONDLY, AND EXTREMELY IMPORTANTLY, SECRETARY CLINTON AND I OBVIOUSLY HAVE MANY DIFFERENCES OF OPINION ON SOME OF THE MOST IMPORTANT ISSUES FACING OUR COUNTRY.
I’m not sure there’s much to see here because I seriously doubt it will be the least bit successful. But, seriously, someone needs have a serious conversation with this guy. He seems to be really into creating chaos at all costs.
Here’s a few links and punditry on this presser.
From The Hill: Sanders: ‘The convention will be a contested contest’
From TPM: Sanders Predicts That There Will Be A Contested Convention
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