Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

I was confident that someone would point it out and thought why not me.

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

Sadly, media malpractice has become standard practice.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

Come on, man.

People really shouldn’t expect the government to help after they watched the GOP drown it in a bathtub.

Every reporter and pundit should have to declare if they ever vacationed with a billionaire.

We won’t go back.

“But what about the lurkers?”

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

We will not go quietly into the night; we will not vanish without a fight.

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

Hey hey, RFK, how many kids did you kill today?

… pundit janitors mopping up after the gop

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

“I was told there would be no fact checking.”

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

You are here: Home / Politics / Politicans / Bernie Sanders 2016 / Wednesday Morning Open Thread: Congratulations, Sen. Sanders!

Wednesday Morning Open Thread: Congratulations, Sen. Sanders!

by | 204 Comments

This post is in: , , , , ,

Yeah, the MAJOR! BREAKING! news from the Tuesday primaries is that Bernie Sanders won Michigan, which a lot of very smart well-informed people (as opposed to Very Serious People) said was impossible. So the #Berniacs get bragging rights on that one. Political horse-race tout Chris Cillizza in the Washington Post:

… [I]n the bigger and high-profile state of Michigan, Sanders heavily overperformed polling that showed Clinton ahead by 20 points or more. Winning a big Midwestern state is of deep symbolic importance for Sanders, who was on the verge of being cast as a nuisance candidate by many Democrats.

Sanders may have also found an issue where he can do real damage to Clinton as the campaign goes forward. Almost six in 10 Michigan Democratic primary voters said international trade takes away U.S. jobs, according to exit polling. Among that group Sanders won by roughly 20 percentage points over Clinton. That could — and should — bode well for his efforts in Ohio, Illinois, Wisconsin and other states where international trade has ravaged the economy. “What tonight means is that the Bernie Sanders campaign … is strong in every part of the country,” Sanders said in brief remarks in Florida Tuesday night. “We believe our strongest areas are yet to happen.”

Sanders had previously pledged to stay in the race through the June 7 primaries and, as I’ve noted, he has plenty of money to do so. Now he has even more reason to do so…

Apart from the anti-trade-agreement voters, Sanders won about twice as many Arab-American votes as Clinton. (I think we can safely assume those voters will *not* throw their support to Trump in the general, be they never so disappointed in Clinton’s foreign policy ideas.) There was also anecdotal discussion of Democratic voters satisfied with either Clinton or Sanders in the general election “crossing over” to cast spoiler votes for Kasich against Trump. The nut graf remains: Sanders got the win, and he’ll do his best to parlay that in future primaries.

Meanwhile, in the Repubs in Disarray! clown show…

Reader Interactions

204Comments

  1. 1.

    JPL

    Congrats to Bernie. I had hoped that the nominee of the party could wrap things up early on, but that doesn’t appear to be the case.

  2. 2.

    Keith G

    So many of my fellow Hillary supporters talk about their feelings regarding Hillary thusly, “I will vote for her but there’s so many things about her that I find troubling.”

    That type of support leaves the door open for events like the Michigan primary. Without the ability to foster an emotional connection with voters and potential voters Hillary has her work cut out for her both before and after the convention nominates her.

  3. 3.

    Patricia Kayden

    While I am leaning towards Secretary Clinton, I am okay with Senator Sanders winning a hard fought victory in Michigan. He’s a great candidate and has a done a good job pulling Secretary Clinton to the left. We have two great candidates this year as we did in 2008. I’ll proudly vote for either in November.

    The other side cannot say the same. Trump’s victory speech last night was cringeworthy with him hyping his products and defending himself against the “University” lawsuit. He was so nasty to the press, that my jaw dropped open at how he spoke to some of them.

  4. 4.

    paradox

    I’m in line with Keith, I want this over and settled. Why can’t we have four regionals?

    I’m perfectly fine with either Bernie or Hillary, both have severe weaknesses but in this election it appears not to matter a whit, not if the GOP commits suicide with Trump. Look at both carefully, in the traditional sense neither of them are conventional, Jesus, not hardly.

    I made my choice based upon very personal variables and then shut up, I’m in California, what the fuck can I do? Nothing. Who listens to me? Nobody.

    For this all my liberal friends at the great orange satan shunned me, what fun.

    [sigh] What the fuck ever, okay, just give me an answer and I will serve as best I can. It was never up to me, god I resent this berating from the bros to get it. I get it, all right, and here I sit, still waiting.

    [looks at John] It’s a good day, eh?

  5. 5.

    TheMightyTrowel

    @Keith G: trigger warning: gender and feminism talk. The thing that kills me is that even beyond the purity unicorn bullshit,* people say this so frequently about women because we are goddamned forced to compromise, to negotiate lesser evils and to work in coalition just to maintain our place at the table. I see this dynamic play out constantly in academia. Men wander into meetings, declare their positions and everyone nods. Women in those same meetings need to have at least three people speak up with them in order for the chair (of any gender) to even register they’ve spoken. Then, 5 years down the line all anyone remembers is that Bob is a straight shooter while Lucy spent a lot if time currying favor from various interests and can we trust her? It just does my head in.

    *fyi: no politician is perfect. Hil was for the catastrophe that was Iraq war, Bern was literally ‘states rights’ on gay marriage like the talibanglicals. This is not an endorsement post just a comment on how structural sexism plays out.

  6. 6.

    Mustang Bobby

    @TheMightyTrowel: This.

    I also chuckle sardonically when I hear people — especially Republicans — say they think Hillary Clinton is “untrustworthy,” as if their candidates — any of them but especially that orange-tinted gonif — were paragons of virtue and veracity.

  7. 7.

    Applejinx

    @TheMightyTrowel:

    Bern was literally ‘states rights’ on gay marriage like the talibanglicals.

    Vermont was the first state to introduce civil unions in July 2000, and the first state to introduce same-sex marriage by enacting a statute without being required to do so by a court decision.[1] Same-sex marriage became legal earlier as the result of court decisions, not legislation, in four states: Massachusetts,[2] California,[3] Connecticut,[4] and Iowa.[5] -wikipedia

    I do not think it’s honest to compare Bernie and Vermont with talibangelicals. We are god damn proud of our leadership here. I have voted for gay rights every single time I got a chance to do so, in Vermont, which is earlier than most people got to.

  8. 8.

    Keith G

    @TheMightyTrowel: It seems to me that Hillary was in a unique position to break out of the mold that you so accurately describe. Women politicians have done so in the past and Hillary did not have to be governed by the conditions you mention.

    There was a thread a short while back that focused on an episode of Hillary’s lawyerly parsing of an answer to a question. That type of behavior is great for winning the kindness of intellectuals, but it is often a bit lacking for winning the type of emotional support that is needed to energize a campaign for the Office of President.

  9. 9.

    Baud

    I was getting disheartened, but it appears my strategy of keeping Bernie and Hillary engaged in mutually assured destruction is bearing fruit.

    Baud! 2016! lives to fight another day.

  11. 11.

    CarolDuhart2

    And to be fair, back then, nobody thought that Doma was going to be repealed, let alone soon, so I’m not surprised that some took a more “states rights” approach to this. Let more liberal enclaves have something at least on the local level.

    About last night. I remember when Obama had some surprises too along the way to a win-like Pennsylvania or California. So Hillary has hers.

  13. 13.

    amk

    What exactly is the difference between the bw hack cillizza and the other bw hack hackperin?

  15. 15.

    Ultraviolet Thunder

    Woke up for the results. Congrats to Bernie.
    I’ll be interested to read Nate Silver’s explanation of 538’s ‘99% win’ prediction for HRC.
    Going back to sleep until it’s light out

  16. 16.

    Mustang Bobby

    @OzarkHillbilly: To quote E.K. Hornbeck (H.L. Mencken) in the film “Inherit the Wind,” “He has no enemies; only his friends hate him,” and “He’s the only man I know who can strut while sitting down.”

  17. 17.

    TheMightyTrowel

    @Keith G: when? As a governor’s wife getting attacked for the temerity of keeping her maiden name? As a first lady demonized in the media and to her face for 8 years? As a senator who was elected after over 10 years of a steady drum beat of ‘scary untrustworthy bitch’ from the right?

    Of all women she’s been most constrained by her treatment and her frequent characterization as a scary feminist bitch.

    There’s also of course the question of whether any woman in power who also doesn’t rigidly conform to retrograde ideas of proper feminine behaviors will ever be ‘likeable’ to the masses. Again the forces of structural sexism and examples from numerous countries including the us suggest not.

  20. 20.

    Gimlet

    Huffington Post

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/why-michigan-polls-were-wrong_us_56dfaa6ce4b0b25c91801d95

    Michigan saw a record number of voters.

    Sanders, who struggled to make any inroads among black voters in the South, fared significantly better in Michigan. Exit polls show him winning 30 percent of the state’s black vote, compared with just 10 percent in Mississippi.

    That same NBC/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll showed 18- to 29-year-olds making up 15 percent of the electorate, whereas the exit poll showed 20 percent of the electorate in that age group. In the pre-election poll, Sanders won the age group 74 percent to 25 percent; in the exit poll, his margin was bigger — 81 percent to 18 percent.

    The biggest difference seems to be among white voters and gender,” he said in an email. “We had 49/48 Clinton among white voters compared to 42/57 in the exit polls. We had women at 59/36 versus 53/46 exit poll. We had men at 48/49 versus 44/54.

  21. 21.

    gene108

    : @Keith G:

    I was tepid about Hillary initially, but she has a grasp of issues that no other candidate seems to display.

    We saw this with her answer about the need for lead contamination remediation in the Flint, MI debate.

    I want a President that understands the scale of problems beyond what the media is hyping at the moment, as well as the nuance of issues such that they can be solved from multiple angles.

    @TheMightyTrowel:

    Hil was for the catastrophe that was Iraq war,

    To be fair to Congress, Bush & Co. did not sell the Iraq AUMF as “hey, authorize this on Monday, we’ll be in Baghdad on Friday”, but rather “give us this ‘stick’ to threaten Saddam, we’ll get weapons inspectors back in or else”.

    And Saddam let the IAEA inspectors back in. This was a big policy win for Bush & Co.

    A “not arguably the worst President in American history” would have been honest with Congress and let inspectors do their jobs.

    I do not want to take the blame for the Iraq war off of the Bush, Jr. Administration, because they pulled the trigger, when there was no need – based on their logic about Saddam having WMD’s – because inspectors were on the ground verifying Saddam’s WMD capability.

    A lot of complaints about the Clintons’ policies, to me, comes down to not idiot proofing the Presidency for Bush, Jr., because a lot of the problems that occurred could have been avoided or mitigated by a competent President.

    A President, who invested the budget surplus in infrastructure rather than tax give aways to the rich, would have boosted the economy enough to avoid the need for a housing bubble to spur growth, for example.

  23. 23.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Mustang Bobby:

    “He has no enemies; only his friends hate him,”

    My preferred framing (self deprecatingly) goes like, “I have no friends, only lesser enemies.” I rather suspect that in Cruz’s case that would be a factual statement.

  24. 24.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Adding insult to injury:

    —The costs of the Flint drinking water crisis continued to climb Tuesday as Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder asked the State Administrative Board to approve contracts worth up to $1.2 million to cover his outside legal bills …

    Snyder’s request Tuesday increases the estimated cost of his outside legal fees from just under $500,000 to more than double that, with up to $400,000 going to civil attorney Eugene Driker and up to $800,000 going to Brian Lennon, a criminal defense attorney who Snyder officials say has been hired in an investigative role to research and process emails and other records.

  26. 26.

    Gimlet

    Different article on Huffington Post

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/elizabeth-warren-agenda_us_56ddfc85e4b0000de4058e83

    Barring an act of God, Clinton will be the party’s standard-bearer in November. Economic populists may have inflicted enough pain on Clinton over the past several months to force her to take their concerns seriously in office. But there’s a very real danger that Clinton is simply showing the world she doesn’t need them. Sanders is crushing her with small donors. She’s winning anyway. She has attacked single-payer health insurance and assailed tuition-free college. She’s winning anyway. She has belittled the very basis for campaign finance reform in order to defend her paid speeches to Goldman Sachs. She’s winning anyway. At Saturday’s debate, she twisted her vote for the bank bailout into a dishonest attack on Sanders’ commitment to manufacturing workers. And she’s winning anyway.

  29. 29.

    satby

    My section of (SW) Michigan had people displaying two yard signs, either Sanders or Trump. It’s normally strongly Republican and I’m pretty sure Trump actually would carry the surrounding countries in the general. So this doesn’t sit comfortably with me, because it feels more like a “fuck the establishment” win than votes for Sanders progressive agenda.

  30. 30.

    Keith G

    @TheMightyTrowel:

    Of all women she’s been most constrained by her treatment and her frequent characterization as a scary feminist bitch.

    Undoubtedly that is an issue. And I would further submit that another issue that has constrained Hillary is her own recent choices. She has become one of the most powerful Statespersons and politicians in the world.

    Now, she has a full compliment of her own agency. When folks state that “……., but I’ll support her in the general election anyway” that is a result of her conscious choices being a recent political leader and decision maker as an establishment insider.

    It’s both a blessing and a curse. Her job as a candidate for president is to build on the former and mitigate the latter.

  31. 31.

    Gimlet

    @Baud:

    This implies that the “silent majority” really wanted Hillary, and the victory by Sanders is a fluke.

  33. 33.

    satby

    @satby: And I wouldn’t put it past a number of my Republican neighbors to cross vote for Sanders when they really prefer to have Trump face him than Clinton… this area seethes with resentment against”others”.

  35. 35.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Ultraviolet Thunder: Trump doesn’t really believe his own hype, hence his sensitivity to criticisms of his business acumen and his pen!$ size. Cruz really does think God has taken a special interest in his candidacy and appointed himself as the New Messiah. YMMV.

  36. 36.

    Gimlet

    @Baud:

    I feel certain that if the pollsters had talked to Tom Friedman’s taxi driver their predictions would have accurately described the primary vote.

  38. 38.

    paradox

    I will say one more thing, reading the comments again I am struck at how causally sexism is accepted in our society and the incredible harm it causes, well, never mind. We have never had a woman President, I would like the see the model run in real time and then look at the results.

    Jesus folks say sexism like it was the flu or a sun spot pattern, my god it beats and maims and kills our women every day, fuck you for sniffing at what women go through just for trying to have a career, can’t you see the violence and the mayhem and the smashed kids?

    My life started with my mother fleeing to her parents because my drunk father was beating her. While you were in your highchair getting the best start possible I was exposed to a filth of violence and emotional mayhem. Lemme fuckin’ tell you, the story gets worse after that. A lot worse.

    I just cannot believe how society blithely accepted this when something was so terribly wrong. My poor scared mother had nowhere else to go, her culture and society gave her no options but to stay. She perverted herself, it’s a manifestly sad story.

    So I see sexism a little fuckin’ differently than you, okay? Do you get my choices and perspective now? Oh? Does that mean you’ll finally shut the fuck up and stop judging me? [spits] Yes, I know very well how the economy is rigged, but some of us have life experiences that grant a wider wisdom and vision.

    No matter what happens, still I will serve. Fuck you, primary season.

  41. 41.

    Kay

    New CNN polls:
    Ohio:
    Trump 41%
    Kasich 35%

    Obviously polls may not be so great an indicator after last night but if Kasich loses Ohio he’s out leaving Trump and Cruz, which means “Trump”

    That is insane.

  43. 43.

    Gimlet

    @BillinGlendaleCA:

    Some of the voter suppression efforts in the deep south have targeted the “liberal” college student population and made it difficult for them to vote in the primary and general election.

    This population tilts more to Bernie and may have contributed to the lopsided Hillary numbers.

  46. 46.

    Baud

    @BillinGlendaleCA: He obviously did. I was responding to Gimlet’s suggestion that the polls may have been more accurate of Michigan voters true feelings than the election result.

  48. 48.

    Anne Laurie

    @Michael Bersin:

    All this means is that Mtt Romney will want to run, because, you know, the polls are wrong…

    You do not exaggerate! If this post hadn’t already run so long, I was gonna include Jim Newell being gleefully cruel to Willard.

    Romney, even though I suspect he’s a sociopath, is nowhere near as dangerous as Trump or Cruz. But he’s the one I’ve met in person (very very briefly) and been repulsed by, so he’ll always have a special place in my… spleen.

  51. 51.

    Baud

    @Kay: If it comes down to Cruz and Trump after Ohio, it’ll be interesting to see how that affects the dynamics in the Dem primary.

  52. 52.

    Temporarily Max McGee (Soon Enough to Be Andy K Again)

    No one’s mentioning the weather. It was 70 degrees and sunny yesterday in the lower half of the Lower Peninsula (aka: Where the Votes Are). Last year we got 14″ of snow in Grand Rapids and didn’t hit 20 degrees. I’m writing this loss off as people walking to their polling places overcoming Clinton’s GOtV infrastructure.

  53. 53.

    Gimlet

    @Mustang Bobby:

    “Old” CNN article

    http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/15/politics/45-times-secretary-clinton-pushed-the-trade-bill-she-now-opposes/

    President Obama has been pushing hard for the deal, while Democrats in the House of Representatives on Friday revolted and voted against a key part of the legislation. One told me, “there was a very strong concern about the lost jobs and growing income inequality,” adding, pointedly: “Ms. Clinton should take notice.”

    As members of the Obama administration can attest, Clinton was one of the leading drivers of the TPP when Secretary of State. Here are 45 instances when she approvingly invoked the trade bill about which she is now expressing concerns:

  55. 55.

    Temporarily Max McGee (Soon Enough to Be Andy K Again)

    @Gimlet:

    Right. Because when your running an insurgency campaign, naturally EVERYONE is out to get you.

  57. 57.

    Hal

    My trepidations about Sanders being a less viable candidate than Clinton are starting to fade. If Hillary Clinton does win picking Sanders as her vp would not be such a terrible idea. I think.

    My one wish is that dems had younger candidates. Maybe Obama’s post presidential gig can be head of the DNC.

  59. 59.

    Temporarily Max McGee (Soon Enough to Be Andy K Again)

    @Baud:

    Here in GR, a lot of African-American churches work the GOtV effort by getting parishoners to the polls. College students don’t have any on-campus polling of which I can think. Little old church ladies are going to get driven to the polls, by hook or by crook, while college kids have to hunt for their off-campus polling places. The latter group just doesn’t get out and vote when the weather is shitty. The former group does.

    Either way, Baud ’16 has a chance in MI because in November, a snowball does have a chance in Hell, MI.

  60. 60.

    danielx

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    You can trust Cruz to be the biggest, most narcissistic, dick in the room every time.

    Cruz is a colossal putz, but as whether He, Trump or Cruz is the most narcissistic human in the room? Kind of a tossup, although I’d give Cruz the edge on being the most detestable. From what I can tell the only people who don’t actively dislike Ted Cruz are the ones with whom he hasn’t yet come in contact.

  61. 61.

    Gimlet

    @Temporarily Max McGee (Soon Enough to Be Andy K Again):

    University of Alabama student newspaper

    http://www.cw.ua.edu/article/2015/10/voting-restrictions-on-college-students-the-quiet-disenfranchisement

    For a few years now, the voting rights of college students have been quietly whittled away. Since 2010, many states have passed laws restricting voting rights, and the publicity associated with these laws has largely pointed out the racial implications they have. While allegations of the racial discrimination posed by these new laws are serious and important, the effects the laws have had on college students’ voting rights ought to be discussed as well.

    The U.S. Supreme Court has held that out-of-state students are entitled to vote in the state of their respective colleges, and instead of laying out the welcome mat, many states seem to be trying to make it harder for them to actually do so. For example, the controversial North Carolina voter ID law – passed after Barack Obama carried the state in 2008, despite losing every single age group except 18-25 – disenfranchises students by deeming student IDs unacceptable identification. The law also eliminates high school voter registration.

    The North Carolina law is one example of the subtle, but effective tactics that are being used to quiet the voices of young Americans. Texas allows handgun licenses to qualify as voter ID but not a Texas student ID. The Maine secretary of state sent letters to hundreds of resident students informing them they were being investigated for fraud because their cars weren’t registered in Maine.

  62. 62.

    Princess

    Off this morning to early vote for Hillary, for Duckworth, and against Anita Alvarez. I am going to be out of town, returning the dat of the election and was going to vote then, but have decided not to chance something going wrong with my travel plans. I think I, like a lot of Hillary supporters have been fairly casual about this race.

    And if you plan to ratfuck because you “know” that Trump or Cruz would be a worse president than the other, or because you “know” one or the other would be easier to beat, may I respectfully suggest that you don’t know at all, and you are better off voting for your preferred Dem candidate and letting all the chips fall where they may.

  64. 64.

    debbie

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    i think you have to put Kasich in the same narcissistic territory as Cruz. Last night, he proclaimed that the GOP race was virtually a 3-person dead heat. Voodoo math all over again.

  66. 66.

    Temporarily Max McGee (Soon Enough to Be Andy K Again)

    @Baud:

    Re-read my last comment, because I updated it just for you and your insane base of support. :D

  67. 67.

    Iowa Old Lady

    Congrats to Sanders for surprising them in Michigan. The delegate count is getting worse for him when you combine LA and MI, but the emotional lift of Michigan has to feel great for him and his supporters.

    @BillinGlendaleCA: What drove Morning Joe away from Trump? Wasn’t it just a couple of weeks ago that he did that fawning “town hall” with Trump?

  69. 69.

    Applejinx

    @Mustang Bobby: That isn’t a valid objection, this is Clinton.

    Means nothing if she was for it and praised it 45 times if in 2016 she can be VERY SERIOUSLY against it and stay that way. There’s no reason to expect that if she started by praising it 45 times, but if she is losing to Bernie Sanders and works out it’s because of that damn trade bill, and that actually registers, I can think of no politican more prepared to throw the trade bill under the bus and be like ‘what trade bill?’

    But she has to believe it’s electoral poison, both now and in 2020, and there’s only one way to establish that: vote against her, for somebody who’s almost a cartoon of ‘hate that trade bill’.

    And this is happening, so she needs to pay attention if she intends to win and/or govern. She must out-Bernie Bernie. The South has primary-voted already.

  71. 71.

    magurakurin

    @Ultraviolet Thunder: Nate uses the polls to make predictions. He doesn’t conduct the polls. I’m sure Nate would tell you if you asked him, the polls were wrong, so his prediction was wrong. He’s not a fortune teller, he’s just a numbers cruncher. His predictions will only be as good as the numbers. And he stated pretty clearly when he started this project of predicting primaries that he didn’t have a lot of confidence in his models, as polling for primaries is much harder than for the general election. It will be interesting now to see how things play out next week. Will the polling be as equally wrong or will it prove to be more accurate? A very interesting primary this is shaping up to be.

    but, whatever. Vote for the Dem nominee whoever it is. Vote twice if you can.

  75. 75.

    satby

    @Baud: @BillinGlendaleCA: I don’t know the eastern 1/2 of the state at all and I didn’t see indications of lines at polling places I passed, but it was a beautiful day. I also have no idea of the GOTV for any candidates here, I should have been contacted by the Dems but wasn’t (very weak in this area) and also was ignored by the Repubs, but I’ve been clear to previous R GOTV canvassers that I will never again in my life vote for a Republican, so that didn’t surprise me. Anecdotes aren’t data, but I expected Clinton to win MI too. The Arab vote for Bernie surprised me quite a bit.

  76. 76.

    cokane

    looking at realclearpolitics delegate tracker and having a hard time seeing how trump gets the necessary delegats pre convention. he’s almost sure to have the lead. will be an interesting summer!

  77. 77.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @danielx:

    From what I can tell the only people who don’t actively dislike Ted Cruz are the ones with whom he hasn’t yet come in contact.

    And he could.not.care.less. In fact, with Ted, it’s a point of pride. But Trump’s ego is so fragile that he has to constantly reassure himself of how much everyone loves him. “Those Mexicans are all rapists and murderers but Hispanics love me and will vote for me by the trillions.”

    One is all bravado trying to cover up his all too obvious inadequacies with bluster and bullying, while the other really truly believes his inadequacies are what make him a superior being and “Fvck you.” too.

  78. 78.

    Temporarily Max McGee (Soon Enough to Be Andy K Again)

    @Gimlet:

    Yeah, and in Michigan your address on your voter registration card must match the address of your domicile.

    My problem in’t that I don’t think there are some shitty voter registration laws out there- FFS, MS and the rest of the Confederacy makes it harder for all black people to vote. My problem with your statement is that you seem to think that some GOP-passed law favors any Democratic Party candidate unless he’s Bernie Sanders. That’s cuckoo bananas.

  79. 79.

    Temporarily Max McGee (Soon Enough to Be Andy K Again)

    @Baud:

    “…behind my banner.”

    Which, I assume, reads, “Serving the Lower Muddy River Valley’s Favorite Frozen Yogurt Since 1986”.

    That’s a banner I can get behind.

  82. 82.

    Iowa Old Lady

    @OzarkHillbilly: Cruz scares me, but it’s really hard for me to believe he could win a general election. Of course, I can’t believe Trump would either, but he’s killing it in the primaries so there you go.

  83. 83.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @debbie: I think Kasich is just simply delusional. With proper medication and intense counseling he could get better. The only thing that will cure Cruz is death.

  85. 85.

    Bobby Thomson

    This was such a massive failure of public polling that I really don’t know what to think. And polls in other states were more or less accurate – the winner sometimes overperformed, but that’s not at all unusual or surprising. This is the kind of disparity between polls and actual results that had Ohio Democrats calling foul in 2004.

    There are a lot of strengths for Sanders in Michigan that I should have seen coming – the biggest was the open primary votes from independents and cross overs, without which he would have lost handily. He also was undeniably strong in rural counties. The biggest surprise was that he apparently contained the damage in Wayne County. Bottom line is this gives Sanders the right to be taken seriously as a candidate. This wasn’t yet another small state. He apparently did expand his demographic appeal just enough to eke out a win, and that was always the missing ingredient.

  86. 86.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @satby:

    The Arab vote for Bernie surprised me quite a bit.

    I think her pro-Israel positions hurt her there.

  89. 89.

    Temporarily Max McGee (Soon Enough to Be Andy K Again)

    @Gimlet:

    And other laws they have make it tough for everyday, down on the farm African-Americans- Hillary’s crowd- to vote. But that just slipped your mind, right?

  92. 92.

    C.V. Danes

    @Bobby Thomson:

    Bottom line is this gives Sanders the right to be taken seriously as a candidate

    Sanders always had the right to be taken seriously as a candidate. What he has earned is the right be taken seriously by the establishment :-)

  94. 94.

    Fred

    If only Elisabeth Waren had run we wouldn’t need to listen to all the railing about the sexist MAN mistreating poor Hillary. The discussions could have been all about the issues. And we could have had one candidate who is really charismatic.
    Yeah I think it’s disgraceful how Hillary has been abused by the GOP, Rightwing Hate Radio and the Press through the years. She has a right to be bitter and sensitive.
    But the truth is that she does hang out with banksters and coservative shysters. She does take inordinant pilens of cash from said sleezoids. She was really wrong to even think of trusting Bush. Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
    Ability aside, Bernie can be trusted to have the right intentions and to pick advisors who are looking out for the people. Hillary will need to be watched like a hawk and howled at from the galleri and it still probably won’t do that much good.
    Yeah I’ll vote for her in the general but just once in my life I would like to have a President I know has my back instead of having to watch out for a knife in my back.

  95. 95.

    amk

    @Baud:

    The guy who has got zero wins so far? If he cannot excite his own base to eke out a single win, how is he a threat in GE?

  96. 96.

    Ultraviolet Thunder

    @magurakurin:
    538 had a 99% chance of a HRC win and Sanders squeaked it out by 1.7% of the votes cast. The polls were badly off, and effectively useless. Nate’s methodology uses a lot of careful weighting to get a prediction. But garbage in, garbage out.
    In this age of people not answering land lines and cell phone area codes no longer predictive of residence maybe phone polling is basically over as a predictive tool.

  97. 97.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Iowa Old Lady: At this point I am done with electoral predictions (I don’t care how much ketchup and mustard one uses, crow tastes horrible). I can’t see either of them winning, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t equally dangerous persons should either of them come to inhabit 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. I just think they would be disasters in entirely different ways.

  98. 98.

    Baud

    @Fred:

    If Bernie wins the presidency, I will enjoy going back to Daily Kos and posting about TRIANGULATION and HE SOLD US OUT every time he has to compromise.

  100. 100.

    ellennelle

    AL, thx so much for your gracious congrats! that is the tone i’ve come to expect and appreciate from you (tho sure wish it were reflected more in the comments).

    quick inside note, from my bernie phone banking work: tuesday evening, early (6:30 CDT), our packed donated restaurant (with a dozen donated PCs plus others with their own machinery) came to an unexpected halt. we were getting error msgs saying there were no more numbers. the random phone number generator had run out of numbers to generate; they had all been called.

    a bit like that ad from a while back of the guy at the computer screen with the voice telling him he’d cruised to the end of the internet. he was done.

    so, from here in our wee little coastal MA town, on the eve of the MI primary, we started calling IL, OH, FL.

    and our tech/fearless leader explained the following to us. in a conference call on phone banking, he was told by central cmd that now 9 weeks ago, there were 20K bernie phone banking volunteers signed up. that broke obama’s final record, and far earlier than it was set.

    the kicker was this: over a week ago, the night before super tuesday, that number had exploded to 120K.

    yup. big number. so big, the potential for hourly calls runs over a million.

    there has been no indication of slide or disillusionment for the campaign, that i can see. folks are as psyched as those 10s of thousands showing for rallies suggest. the daily events and press etc. appear to only feed the fire. er, bern.

    fwiw.

    thx again; you’re such a treasure. and congrats to hillary for her showing, as well. as she has noted, this is a real, civil and civilized debate.

    forward!

  102. 102.

    Temporarily Max McGee (Soon Enough to Be Andy K Again)

    @Gimlet:

    It refers to student voters, a group that reportedly favors Sanders. But you knew that.

    Let’s take a look at that to which I originally responded:

    This population tilts more to Bernie and may have contributed to the lopsided Hillary numbers.

    See, you couched this as not a matter of college students rights- and you certainly didn’t reference any outside source which suggests that any college students were actually kept from casting their votes- but in terms of how it effected Sanders, if it effected him at all.

    And as much as other restrictive voting laws suppressed part of Clinton’s vote, you didn’t address at all. You cherry-picked that which might and that which might not fit your argument. If you want to play this game, I’ll suggest that she should have won by more than 69%-70%.

    It’s your go now!

  103. 103.

    Chyron HR

    @Fred:

    If only Elizabeth Warren had run you wouldn’t need to denounce her as an enemy of the revolution for her insufficient Feeling of The Bern.

  104. 104.

    yellowdog

    @CarolDuhart2: There is a difference between doing it on a local level as a stop-gap measure and advocating that it should only be done at the local level. I don’t know if Sanders expressed support for the first or second method.

  105. 105.

    Kay

    @debbie:

    I don’t know. I asked two lawyers. One lawyer said “the statute is clear” meaning Kasich can’t disenfranchise 17 year olds, and another said “courts stay out of primaries because they’re Party decisions”. Both of those things could be true but I think the first lawyer has the better side of this because of course the Sec of State is a state actor, not a Party rep.

    The INTENT of the law was so young people could participate in the primary that selects the candidates they will then be old enough to vote for in the general, which makes sense to me.

    One of the reasons I want Kasich out is I cannot imagine how insane the general will be with Kasich as the nominee and a S of S who is as politically ambitious as Husted.

  106. 106.

    C.V. Danes

    @Hal:

    If Hillary Clinton does win picking Sanders as her vp would not be such a terrible idea. I think.

    My one wish is that dems had younger candidates. Maybe Obama’s post presidential gig can be head of the DNC.

    Not to offend, but I think selecting Sanders as vp would be a terrible idea. And I say that as a Sanders suporter. As you implied, we need some young blood. I suggest someone like Cory Booker, who could then be set up as Hillary’s successor. Keep Sanders in the Senate to work with Warren on strengthening the liberal coalition.

  107. 107.

    Applejinx

    @BillinGlendaleCA: I think her pro-Israeli-hardliner friendships hurt her there.

    It’s just possible that Arab-American voters are quick to hear about things like the billionaire Haim Saban, backing Hillary and the DNC with tens of millions of dollars in contributions (and yes, buying the Onion for Hils) and saber-rattling. Just because _my_ Facebook feed isn’t full of Haim Saban doesn’t mean Arab-American voters’ facebook feeds aren’t crammed with everything he does. ‘news you’ll be interested in’, FTW.

    And there’s one Democrat deeply deeply indebted to Saban’s saber-rattling support, and it’s not the old Jewish guy.

  108. 108.

    magurakurin

    @Baud: That would be one of the best parts. And they would be calling him a sell out.

    And to tell the truth, I won’t be sad or angry if Sanders becomes president, I’d just be shocked in disbelief. But it would be a good disbelief. Funky ole Bernie Sanders as president…never saw that one coming. I don’t think he will, though. Maybe if he could have had this sort of MI breakthrough in the South on Super Tuesday, but he is just too far behind.

  111. 111.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Baud: I agree, but Kasich’s political career is at an end. Expanding Medicaid so that more of his poorer constituents could access health care killed it.

  112. 112.

    Iowa Old Lady

    @Fred: My “just once in my life” president is Obama and I’ve been voting a long time. He spoiled me.

    I used to think that it didn’t make much difference who was president, mostly because I wasn’t paying attention, but also because there was so much inertia in the system that it didn’t seem possible for one person to affect mulch. Then W came along. He was disastrous by any accounting, but he looked particularly so coming after Bill Clinton’s administration, which had its problems but was at least mostly peaceful and mostly prosperous. W blow that up so thoroughly that I’m not sure the country will ever recover.

    You can trace the roots of that disaster back at least to Reagan and probably further, but W made it impossible to ignore.

    Now I just hope for competence and minimal hatred of … well anyone not in the demographic group to which the president belongs.

  116. 116.

    Ultraviolet Thunder

    @C.V. Danes:

    Not to offend, but I think selecting Sanders as vp would be a terrible idea. And I say that as a Sanders suporter.

    Agreed. I can’t see Bernie happily attending funerals and state dinners for 4 years as a representative of the White House and the Democratic party. That’s a non-starter.

  118. 118.

    magurakurin

    @Baud: I’m with you. As long as we win. And whoever does win the nomination…they damn sure, I mean DAMN sure better not fucking lose. If they do, seppuku, baby, seppuku…

  119. 119.

    NotMax

    Didn’t Jesse Jackson get over 50% of the votes in the Michigan caucuses in ’88?

  120. 120.

    JPL

    @Iowa Old Lady: For most of the electorate, Cruz is an unknown. The billions in losses he caused to the economy by shutting down the government is forgotten. Both Bernie and Hillary will have negatives going into the fall. It’s not a given that they can win. I for one, am scared. At this point, I’m cheering for Frank Underwood, because he is not as dangerous as Trump or Cruz.

  121. 121.

    Gator90

    @dr. luba: I think most Arab-Americans have no enmity toward Jewish Americans and are perfectly capable of rationally evaluating a Jewish politician on his or her merits.

  124. 124.

    Temporarily Max McGee (Soon Enough to Be Andy K Again)

    @Gimlet:

    And I look forward to Sanders taking Kansas. Maybe he can win Idaho, too, and Wyoming.

    Now let’s talk about North Carolina…

  126. 126.

    AMinNC

    @Gimlet: While some of the voter suppression efforts absolutely do affect college students who may not have an ID issued for their college addresses (but, rather, where they grew up), the laws have a far greater impact on black and hispanic voters (far less likely than whites to have a state ID) and women (whose names change through marriage and divorce, and thus might not match their names on the voter rolls). I don’t see these laws as hurting Bernie’s cohort more than Clinton’s. But they are all clearly aimed at Democratic-voting groups. Which is why we must drive a stake through the heart of the GOP.

  128. 128.

    Temporarily Max McGee (Soon Enough to Be Andy K Again)

    @NotMax:

    First, it was a primary. And yes, he won 55% of the Democratic ballots cast tht year. IIRC, that ws the first year we had to register as an affiliate to one party or another to vote that party’s ballot. A lot of indies ended up not voting that year.

    And that was a year where weather most definitely played a role in the vote. THere was a big nor’easter that blew off of Lake Huron that day. It hit the east side of the state hard, but was so big tht it hit us on the west side of the state in the early afternoon, and earlier than forecast. I was wearing Chuck Taylors that day, and no winter coat when I walked to my polling place. Comfy walking there, but the storm whipped up as I was casting my vote. The walk home was 10 minutes of brutal punishment: Got caught in a very windy sleet storm.

  130. 130.

    Anya

    @Gimlet: This is the most inforiarating argument to come out of Sanders supporters. WTF! What is the solution here, not to allow red state dems to pick their nominee?

  132. 132.

    Temporarily Max McGee (Soon Enough to Be Andy K Again)

    @Anya:

    Pardon me for being so bold, but right now I wanna kiss you on the lips. ;)

  133. 133.

    Ultraviolet Thunder

    @Matt McIrvin:

    What’s for Silver to explain? It was a poll-based prediction and the polls were wrong.

    I’d like an explanation of why they were wrong in this case, what that means and how it affects the predictive accuracy of future polls. A 15-25% error is significant no matter the cause.
    See above; no conclusion yet.

  135. 135.

    MomSense

    After work I spent all evening applying for jobs. Ugh. Woke up to hear the robot takeover is GOing apace.

    After seeing the Trump infospeechomercial, robot overlords may not be the worst possible outcome.

    Hope everyone has a great day.

  136. 136.

    gogol's wife

    Forgive me if this has been discussed, but I read in the Times that Bernie said something in the debate about how poor innocent gun manufacturers shouldn’t be held liable, and then he was commended by the NRA. Did this help him in Michigan?

  138. 138.

    magurakurin

    @Anya: The really silly thing about it, is that the delegate allocation actual takes into consideration the vote in the previous three elections. So, states that voted more heavily Democratic, blue states, have more delegates than red states. And states with more EV have more delegates than those with less (big versus little).

    1. State’s Democratic Vote (SDV): The jurisdiction’s popular vote for the Democratic candidate for President in the last three Presidential Elections

    2. Total Democratic Vote (TDV): The total popular vote for the Democratic candidate for President in the last three Presidential Elections

    3. The state’s Electoral Vote (SEV) averaged over the last three Presidential Elections

    4. The total Electoral Vote of all jurisdictions (538).

    The formula for determining a jurisdiction’s Allocation Factor is:

    Allocation Factor = ½ × ( ( SDV ÷ TDV ) + ( SEV ÷ 538 ) )

  141. 141.

    Chris

    @satby:

    The Arab vote for Bernie surprised me quite a bit.

    Bernie gets a lot of shit (occasionally, from me) for having the most vague, generically and unspecifically dove-ish foreign policy out there. But guess what? As far as a lot of Arab Americans are concerned, that’s still the best thing on the menu.

    Whether or not it’s fair, Hillary Clinton is seen as a hawk. Her vote to authorize the 2002 AUMF doesn’t look good compared with Bernie Sanders’ opposition to it – hair-splitting about what the AUMF did or didn’t authorize doesn’t cut it when Sanders explicitly said he opposed it because he considered it a blank check to launch a unilateral invasion, and was proved entirely right within a few months. Sure, Sanders is biased towards the Israeli side of the Israel/Palestine conflict; so is Clinton, and so would any American president who made it to the White House, whether they wanted to be or not. I think most Arab Americans learned long ago that expecting America to be an honest broker in that war is a fool’s errand. They’ll take what they can get.

  143. 143.

    AxelFoley

    @Hal:

    My trepidations about Sanders being a less viable candidate than Clinton are starting to fade. If Hillary Clinton does win picking Sanders as her vp would not be such a terrible idea. I think.

    My one wish is that dems had younger candidates. Maybe Obama’s post presidential gig can be head of the DNC

    Hell, no. Neither Hillary nor Bernie should be the other’s running mate. Whoever wins the nomination needs to have a younger VP candidate.

    And President Obama has more important things to do post-Presidency than to take over the DNC.

  144. 144.

    Chris

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    I agree, but Kasich’s political career is at an end. Expanding Medicaid so that more of his poorer constituents could access health care killed it.

    I agree – and more than that, wasn’t he the guy who got pissed off enough to say “I am doing this because I’ll be able to look my creator in the face and tell him what I did – what about you?” That was such a blatant attack, not just on the party establishment as a whole but on the personal honor of its members, that I don’t see him ever living it down. They’ll forgive Trump long before they forgive Kasich.

  145. 145.

    Michael Brown

    @TheMightyTrowel:
    She is a lying, duplicitous scum-bag. Her record is demonstrable of this. She has already told you she doesn’t plan on changing shit….and why should she? The system as is has made her obscenely rich. This has fuck all to do with her being a woman.@Ultraviolet Thunder:
    All the statistical analysis in the world is not going to help you predict what will happen when you are working with shit sampling. The quality of the data here is what matters most.

  146. 146.

    Chris

    @Iowa Old Lady:

    Yeah… Without wanting to delve into “Great Men” theories of history, I think the Bush years were a useful reminder that there are still times when a hell of a lot hinges on the decisions of one person or handful of people. Bush, after 9/11, probably had more of a blank check from the public than any president since FDR to change the country as necessary to react to the crisis. He chose to exercise that blank check consistently in the worst possible ways.

  148. 148.

    Ultraviolet Thunder

    @Michael Brown:

    All the statistical analysis in the world is not going to help you predict what will happen when you are working with shit sampling. The quality of the data here is what matters most.

    Agreed. And Nate Silver is the one most qualified to figure out what went wrong with those polls. I want to see what he has to say about it. Because it’s important and his analysis is valuable.

  149. 149.

    Temporarily Max McGee (Soon Enough to Be Andy K Again)

    @NotMax:

    No, it’s been a primary state since at least ’84, when I cast my first ballots.

    I believe you’re referencing the fact that Micigan tried to jump ahead in line of New Hampshire and maybe even Iowa in 2008. The state Dems did this to make our primary more relevant.

  150. 150.

    Temporarily Max McGee (Soon Enough to Be Andy K Again)

    @Anya:

    Woman, you are so hot when you’re infuriated….DAMN!

  151. 151.

    NotMax

    So is anyone going to point out that Trump Steaks went bye-bye in 2007?

    Either he was hawking 9-year-old hunks of beef or what he was showcasing were not what he said they were.

    Ah, here we go.

    Even better, they’re Bush steaks (see link).

  152. 152.

    AxelFoley

    @JPL:

    @Iowa Old Lady: For most of the electorate, Cruz is an unknown. The billions in losses he caused to the economy by shutting down the government is forgotten. Both Bernie and Hillary will have negatives going into the fall. It’s not a given that they can win. I for one, am scared. At this point, I’m cheering for Frank Underwood, because he is not as dangerous as Trump or Cruz.

    You don’t think that if Cruz is the GOP nominee, that Bernie or especially Hillary won’t remind the American people who the muthafucka was that caused the shutdown and cost us billions?

    If I were the nominee, I’d be licking my chops at possibly facing Cruz’s punkass.

  154. 154.

    Patricia Kayden

    @JPL: Lucky you. I decided to bite the bullet and watch at least one of his victory speeches and that will be my last time watching him boast about all of his many accomplishments such as selling steaks, running a University, and just being a generally awesome person. His ego couldn’t have been bigger. I can just imagine how he is going to gloat on March 15th if he sweeps most of the states.

  156. 156.

    satby

    @gogol’s wife: I expect it did in my area. Everyone here is armed to protect against the hordes that are sure to swarm over from “urban” areas.
    Yeah, living in a red part of the state is hugely depressing. But I think in a throw down between Trump and Sanders, MI turns blood red. I wasn’t worried before, but I’m starting to.

  157. 157.

    Elizabelle

    @AxelFoley:

    Hell, no. Neither Hillary nor Bernie should be the other’s running mate. Whoever wins the nomination needs to have a younger VP candidate.

    I disagree. Biggest factor is boosting turnout and winning the general election.

    Can always get a do-over on VP after the election (he/she can step down to pursue other opportunities). Winning is the biggest factor.

  158. 158.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Michael Brown: Why don’t you stop beating around the bush and tell us what you really think? What do you expect, she’s a politician. Guess what, so is Bernie. I guarantee that if someone really looks they will find more than a few untruths exiting his mouth and more than a few duplicitous actions in his past.

    But if it’s purity ponies you are interested in, you’ll find them in aisle 3.

  159. 159.

    Anya

    @magurakurin: Taking all of that into account, I am still angry at how these douchebags are invalidating actual voters whose crime is that they were unlucky to live in a hellhole red state with racist ass whites who are always stupidly voting against their own interests. So, sure, let’s punish them and forbid them from participating in the democratic process. Or let’s continue to belittle their votes because Sanders campaign couldn’t win their votes.

    Also, too, Obama won these same red states and ended up winning big in the general election.

  160. 160.

    japa21

    I will also say congrats to Bernie and his supporters. I expected it to be much closer than the polls predicted but did expect Hillary to pull it out. Next week will be very telling.

    All that said, I remain a Hillary supporter and am not one of those who find many things about her troubling.

    And as to Bernie’s integrity, forget it. In Illinois he is saying that Hillary is controlled by Wall Street and uses the speaking fees as proof of that. That is a dishonest thing to say, and I expect he knows it.

    And I am equally upset with people who ding Hillary for being against single payer. First of all she hasn’t specifically said that, in the long term, she is against it. And secondly, so what. Single payer is not the cure-all some people think and may, in fact, be one of the worst ways to get to universal affordable health care in this country.

    The fact that Bernie is against the Import-Export Bank really bothers me. It seems like if the word bank comes up he is against it. If the term Wall Street comes up, he is against it.

    Sorry folks, both banks and Wall Street are necessary in our world. There should not be a knee-jerk reaction against them. Hillary has spoken about tighter regulations to avoid the excesses that caused the 2008 recession. She has spoken about extra taxes which would slow down some of the trading techniques which make things so volatile.

    I think a lot of people are still focused on the Hillary from 2008. Watch her, listen to her. This is a different person. I think she has learned a lot since then.

  162. 162.

    WarMunchkin

    @Gimlet: This is a relevant takeaway to me. Someone in a prior thread was talking about Sanders getting goodies at the convention, but I don’t understand this. Politics is zero sum, and if he loses, he gets nothing.

  163. 163.

    WaterGirl

    @TheMightyTrowel: We must have worked at the same university. Thanks for describing that so well. It’s maddening. We may have “come a long way, baby” but I don’t think we’ve even made it to the halfway point.

  164. 164.

    Kay

    No big turnout difference GOP/Dem in Ohio yet:

    Over 173K Ohioans have already cast a ballot in #2016Primary, more than 328K requested. 84K Republican and 84K Democratic cast so far

    OTOH, it’s from the S of State and it seems weird that it’s exactly even, w/in 1000 :)

  165. 165.

    Thoroughly Pizzled

    @TallPete: She’s won outside the South too. Bernie is running out of states where he can absolutely crush Hillary and make up his delegate deficit.

  167. 167.

    NotMax

    @Kay

    84 + 84 = 168. The other 5k were cast by whom? Greens?

    Of course, at least some of those early ballots are marked off for someone who has already dropped out.

  169. 169.

    Ultraviolet Thunder

    One relatively good piece of news is that we seem to be past the point where a significant economic downturn could affect voter sentiment toward the incumbent party in the general election. At this time last year there was concern that economic growth had peaked and a recession could be under way in 11/2016. Typically this influences voters in favor of the party out of power (for a number of reasons). A recession affecting earning and jobs during the general election could have been a drag on the Democrats. But it hasn’t materialized and if one did start this year (still possible) it’s unlikely to have much influence in November.

  170. 170.

    Chyron HR

    @Thoroughly Pizzled:

    Well, obviously if Sanders starts to make stronger showings late in the primary season the party should recognize that he has momentum and would have won if there were hypothetically more states to award delegates. If they don’t just give him the nomination regardless of delegate counts it’s a CORONAAAAAAAATION and we should start setting cars on fire.

  172. 172.

    hueyplong

    It’s always a good idea to divorce our candidates from their a-hole internet fanboys/girls (or those who pretend to be same). The GOP race will come down to a choice between the two most narcissistic candidates in American history, so I’ll have little difficulty voting for the Dem winner, regardless of who that might be.

  173. 173.

    chopper

    @Thoroughly Pizzled:

    Bernie has only crushed hilz in one state, vermont. this is the reason why hilz has a big lead in delegates. her wins are bigger than his and it adds up.

    look at yesterday – Bernie beat her in MI by a point. big state but he only walks away with +7 delegates. in mississippi hilz almost kept him below the threshold for winning a single delegate. so overall her delegate advantage increased.

    that’s to me why bern is so lucky to have won michigan yesterday. the news isn’t going to be mentioning the drubbing he took in miss.

  174. 174.

    Irony Abounds

    The obvious answer to Bernie’s victory: Cole endorsed Hillary and a massive shift to Bernie occurs in Michigan. Coincidence?

  177. 177.

    magurakurin

    my bets for the 15th.

    fairly large Sanders win in MO
    very close Sanders win in OH
    close Clinton win in IL
    fairly large Clinton win in NC
    fairly large Clinton win in FL

    Clinton walks away with another 50+ delegates for the night.

  180. 180.

    Joel

    @magurakurin: This isn’t true, though. Nate uses a whole bunch of demographic information to inform 538 predictions. And history has shown that in the absence of polling, those predictors are pretty weak.

    Right now, the polling in the primaries is very sparse.

  181. 181.

    Sloegin

    The MI vote is interesting, due in no small part to Clinton’s dishonest attack on Sanders regarding the auto bailout vote. A 20 point turnaround that no polling foresaw means that attack blew up in her face.

    It’s a misstep for Clinton that probably doesn’t harm her in other states down the road.

  183. 183.

    What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?

    @OzarkHillbilly: Jesus Snyder has an estimated worth of $200 million. If I were the State I’d tell him to pony up and pay his own legal bills. He can afford it.

  184. 184.

    Eolirin

    @Sloegin: This assumes the polling was accurate to begin with, which is not a fair conclusion to make. There may not have been any significant shift in sentiment at all, just systemic errors in the polling approach for the state.

  185. 185.

    ChrisH

    Last night, for the first time in history, a computer program defeated a top ranked go player. You can find the first game on youtube. The match is best out of 5 and the player, Lee Sedol, may still come away with victory. Interestingly, this has happened almost exactly 20 years since Deep Blue won it’s first match of chess against Garry Kasparov on February 10 1996.

    One some level this is just the next step as computers become even more capable at handling probabilistic problems through monte carlo calculations that humans deal with on an intuitive level, but it’s a huge achievement, as Go is orders of magnitude more complex than chess and considered a computing challenge that would take at least another decade. Hopefully I’ll be able to find a video of google guys giving a layman explanation of what they’ve done to better mimic human’s intuition.

    http://www.dailysabah.com/technology/2016/03/09/googles-alpha-go-software-beats-human-go-champion-in-first-match

  186. 186.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Joel: The primary polling in Michigan wasn’t that sparse, though; a lot of firms were jumping in right before the election. They all called it wrong, without exception. A few outliers had it close.

  187. 187.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Chris:

    Whether or not it’s fair, Hillary Clinton is seen as a hawk.

    You are right. I think calling her a hawk is one of the finest examples of bullshit narrative in action, but even most of her supporters seem to believe it. It surely affects voting.

    @japa21:

    It seems like if the word bank comes up he is against it.

    I don’t know which is more disturbing, that he might be lying to maintain his purity cred, or that he might actually think TARP was a bad idea. The banking system may be a mess, but I sure as Hell do not want a president who would be willing to let a recession turn into a depression just to stick it to bankers.

  188. 188.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Frankensteinbeck: TARP is fantastically unpopular, though, isn’t it? Both the left and the right regard it as a shameful handout to sleazy bankers, and the right blames Obama for it. Whether it was necessary or not, I think you have to pretend to be against it; actually advocating it is probably political poison.

  189. 189.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Matt McIrvin:
    That would make Bernie more dishonest than any change of position Clinton might have had about TPP. I can understand evading the topic, but he went straight for ‘EVIL BANKERS EVIL BANKERS AGLAGLAGLAGL’. Like I said, either as a lie or an honest statement, it disturbs the Hell out of me. It bothers me much more than anything else he’s ever done, and is the only thing that might make me think he’d be a bad president, as opposed to just ‘not as good as Hillary.’

  191. 191.

    liberal

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    The banking system may be a mess, but I sure as Hell do not want a president who would be willing to let a recession turn into a depression just to stick it to bankers.

    Yawn. Dean Baker’s pointed out repeatedly that the core functioning of the banking system could have easily been preserved without opening up the trough to the banksters.

  192. 192.

    liberal

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    I think calling her a hawk is one of the finest examples of bullshit narrative in action, but even most of her supporters seem to believe it.

    LOL. Hillary’s not a hawk? What about that whole Libya thing? Oh…let me guess…you’re probably one of the fools who buys into the “we prevented a genocide” shibboleth.

  193. 193.

    Bob In Portland

    @Gimlet: I suspect that on top of Hillary’s tight control of the Democratic Party in the South there is still a deep distrust of the word “socialism” down there.

  194. 194.

    Bob In Portland

    @Sloegin: Before the first primary vote was cast Clinton was deemed untrustworthy by a majority of voters. The only candidate who was considered more untrustworthy is Trump.

    I suspect that not being trusted will keep being a part of the the voters’ mindset. It’s hard to jiggle up your trustworthy ratings while having to constantly evade the truth.

    Over at Burdens of a Bachelor this a.m. Clinton is called ” a bloated political cadaver kept in a state of animation by untold millions in corporate cash.” That’s a bit extreme, but the love felt by Clinton here doesn’t much extend under 45. The Dearborn vote was especially telling.

    The picture in my mind is Napoleon marching on Moscow (with Clinton being Napoleon). After Florida and North Carolina things begin falling into place for Sanders. I don’t know and suspect that Sanders may not pull an upset, but those of you who wanted a quick dispatching of Sanders probably won’t get it.

  196. 196.

    Elie

    @Matt McIrvin:

    Its pretty hard to account for crossovers and my take is that there were quite a few. This was a tight victory for Bernie — not massive. Crossovers may have made the real difference..

  197. 197.

    C.V. Danes

    @Bobby Thomson: Sorry. If that’s all it took, you were never for him to begin with.

    Come election day I’m prepared to vote for your candidate should she win the primary. Are you prepared to vote for mine?

  198. 198.

    Paul in KY

    @C.V. Danes: If Bernie gets the nom, I will crawl over shit stained broken glass to vote for him.

    I hope you have that same level of commitment if Sec. Clinton gets the nom.

  199. 199.

    Robert Sneddon

    @ChrisH: The analysis of the game I’ve read suggests Sedol fucked up by overthinking the fact he was playing against a computer. He played an odd move as early as his 4th stone (Black 7). This is a regular manoeuvre used by chess players competing against computers in an attempt to break them out of “book” standard openings. As I understand it AlphaGo doesn’t use a book of standard openings (joseki in Japanese Go) so the wild play didn’t help Sedol.

  200. 200.

    Daulnay

    @AxelFoley:

    And President Obama has more important things to do post-Presidency than to take over the DNC.

    Like filling an empty Supreme Court seat that the Republicans wouldn’t let him fill. I sincerely hope this comes to pass.

  201. 201.

    Daulnay

    @Matt McIrvin:
    Something like TARP was necessary. There were other, better things we could have done, and they weren’t. TARP bailed out only the banks, instead of bailing out all the parties who got hurt by the collapse. The banks made a lot of mistakes, and took none of the pain for them; that’s a big encouragement for moral hazard. Banks should have gotten a haircut, and instead got a free ride.

    Obama unfortunately didn’t have much grounding in economics, and filled his administration with a wide range of opinions. Then he listened to the conservative, neo-liberal ones, some of whom were Clinton admin. people, instead of the Keynesians.

  202. 202.

    satby

    @C.V. Danes: I’ll vote for Sanders, but I dislike him almost as much as I dislike the Turtle. And I think he’d be an incredibly mediocre President, but the Republican nominee will be worse and evil as well.

  203. 203.

    Disgruntled former Baud supporter

    @Daulnay: Wasn’t TARP signed by GWB in 2008? I’m missing the connection with Obama’s administration and advisors that you are making.

Comments are closed.