clinton vs. sanders your vote? — Page 130

For a moment of levity in here tonight, this is Stephen Colbert and "Bubble Burst Bernie"...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehLzo8UoU4w

(His writers are still the best!)

Things are likely to get much worse for Sanders very quickly. There are 384 pledged delegates available on Tuesday the 26th, and Clinton is favored in the three largest states (PA, MD, CT), and Maryland may be a rout. There is no polling available in RI or DE, but you'd expect them to be in line with neighboring states, which all favor Clinton. She could easily net another 30 to 40 delegates, which would require him to win somewhere around 80% of the remaining delegates to catch her.

I actually feel sorry for the Sanders surrogates who have to defend their strategy. The bottom line should be: "Just give us a little time to wind this down," but no one can say that out loud. Instead, they have to create totally preposterous scenarios to justify their continuation.

^That is exactly the big point here, thank you. The very people who carried torches and sang La Marseillaise in defense of this non-traditional alternative candidate and his democracy-driven election are revealing themselves to be cynical political operatives who will play the system any way they must to win. I believe Sanders should run to the end, per the NY Times editorial yesterday; but this new suggestion that he should steal super delegates based on match-ups with Trump, popular vote and delegates earned be damned, only reveals they are fundamentally business as usual. I read countless posts saying "the system is broken, why shouldn't Bernie push through so he can fix it?" It's a sort of "Let's loot the delegates" attitude that is offensive.

It strikes me as a rather cynical attempt to continue raking in donations.

I agree Sanders should stay in to the end. Keep the pressure on Clinton, keep the conversation going, keep energizing people. But not at the expense of the party and not while perpetuating delusion.

But if he's going to stay in, his surrogates need to find an acceptable, consistent tap dance when they appear on cable news. With the delegate math, they can't really make a case (and they will get worse on Tuesday). That leaves them with superdelegates. Frankly, I don't care about their justification for staying in, but I do care about their tone going forward. Bernie seemed to tamp down his rhetoric after her super Tuesday wins, but became more aggressive after his run of caucus wins. He needs to simmer down.

Updated On: 4/21/16 at 10:32 AM

I have no clue what Steve C. is going on about. ¯\_(?)_/¯.

NPR has this interesting (but very geeky) article on who's winning in the states with the most income inequality.



http://www.npr.org/2016/04/19/474835424/sanders-has-been-losing-in-states-where-income-inequality-is-worse

Steve C.'s making reference to Mr. R&b*t on USA Ne!tw*rk$.

Jeff Weaver announced last night that Sanders would remain a Democrat and not go back to being an Independent, post-primaries, and he will definitely support Clinton if she's the nominee, which is all but certain.



http://www.politicususa.com/2016/04/20/bernie-sanders-stay-democrat-life-support-clinton-nominee.html

If/when Clinton successfully implements her policies perhaps the nation will be ready in 8 years time to take it a step further with a Sanders-type candidate. It's a bit sad that he is probably too old to run again, but the strength of his campaign was the content/message rather than any individual characteristics, so someone can pick up where he left off.

The Bros. are the future and you are lame.

I agree with the consensus view that it will be good for Hillary if Bernie stays in the race until June for a couple of reasons:



it will keep her on her toes and encourage her to continue campaigning aggressively;



it will allow her to - subtly - position herself as a moderate-to-left candidate in contrast to what many view as Bernie's far-left candidacy;



it will give Bernie's superfans time to come to the realization that Hillary will be the nominee while minimizing the feelings of disenfranchisement and disappointment that an abrupt end to the Bernie's campaign would generate;



and, it will keep Hillary's name present in the constantly churning media cycle—which would otherwise be totally dominated by Trump and the RNC war.



You could argue that the media coverage already favors the Republican circus, but imagine how much more dramatically uneven that coverage would be if Hillary became an unchallenged candidate for another 2-3 months.

Updated On: 4/21/16 at 08:23 PM