Bernie Sanders “victory” string in obscure caucuses is coming to an end, and it showed in Thursday night’s debate with Hillary Clinton.
Sanders lost it so often he appeared to be imitating the Muppets’ Oscar the Grouch, though he was not standing in a trash can. The media has hyped the lightly attended caucuses, in mostly white, smaller states, to keep the campaign alive. Even if the polls prove even slightly accurate in next week’s New York primary – showing Clinton leading by 17 percent – it will take all of the pundits’ 24-hour coverage to resurrect Sanders. The public may be losing interest, even when the yelling starts. Clinton’s lead has risen to 17 points despite being accused by Sanders, for a day or two, of not being qualified to be president. “As the primary approaches, the back and forth between Clinton and Sanders hasn’t dramatically changed the New York contest for the Democrats in the last few days,” said Lee M. Miringoff, director of The Marist College Institute for Public Opinion. The media has already started shifting the narrative to focus on whether Bernie supporters will stay home on election day. Expect a series of polls taking virtually every possible position. Some of the same writers have pushed the line that Sanders is bringing out people who don’t usually vote. That could mean Clinton won’t be losing much if they do stay home. The chance of them voting for Donald Trump is virtually zero. If someone else gets the nomination there will be a feast for all writers. What it would mean is entirely unpredictable. If it is Trump it could be the Republicans are serving the presidency up to the Democrats on a plate. The combination of support from women, who outnumber and outvote men, could hand one or both houses of Congress over to the Democrats. Hillary would benefit from the prospect of becoming the first woman president. Daily Show comedian Trevor Noah, commenting on more than 70 percent of women hating Trump, said that included all women, “living and dead…”
0 Comments
Op ed: Sen. Bernie Sanders mastery of caucus races is raising hopes among his followers that he can someone defeat Hillary Clinton. The fact that he has stumbled in primaries and trails Clinton badly in raw votes, is ignored. “Including caucus results, Clinton leads Sanders by almost 2.4 million raw votes, 9.4 million to just more than 7 million,” according to the Green Papers. Who understands caucuses better than Sanders? The website 538 reports less than 4 percent of voters in states with caucuses turned out. He realizes, that as in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, a caucus race has no end because it has no beginning. Alice tries several methods to get her animal friends after they went through a storm in rough water. This causes “the Dodo to suggest a Caucus race. The Dodo marks out a course, sets everyone in place, and yells ‘go.’ The animals run around haphazardly until the Dodo declares half an hour later that the race is over. The Dodo says that all of them have won the Caucus race and elects Alice to confer prizes. Alice passes mints to all the animals, leaving herself without a prize. Finding a thimble, she hands it to the Dodo, who in turn presents it back to her as her prize. Alice solemnly accepts the thimble but cannot help feeling that the gesture is absurd.” Sanders idea is just as absurd. Somehow he can grab a hold of “super delegates” and defeat Clinton despite her lead in the popular vote; 538 finds it unlikely that Sanders can catch up let alone overtake Clinton in votes. Perhaps Sanders can emulate George W. Bush’s victory over Al Gore in 2000. The former vice president got half a million votes more than Bush. Bush had more votes in the Electoral College. That took a Supreme Court intervention to declare a winner. With the court equally divided among conservatives and liberals that solution might not work this time. Op Ed: Voters in Wisconsin are unlikely to decide anything in their primary Tuesday. There is no way Sen. Bernie Sanders can deliver a knockout blow. Sen. Ted Cruz is in the same position, unless the unpredictable Donald Trump decides the presidential race is boring him. “Mr. Sanders might still pull off a big win. Barack Obama won the state by 17 points in 2008, after all. But a big win for Mr. Sanders would not necessarily put him on track to win the nomination. Even an overwhelming victory for the senator might only narrow Mrs. Clinton’s lead by 20 delegates,” the New York Times reported. The TV pundits, and to a certain extent, newspapers and news agencies, are loathe to lead a story by saying it really means nothing. Polls at present show Hillary Clinton likely to win Pennsylvania and New York by big margins, whether there is another debate between the two are not. Debates haven’t shown that they moved previous sessions between the two. Clinton also is ahead in California. The sideshow that has been kept alive by the media on Clinton’s email also is unlikely to change anything. But the media these days is 24/7 and needs to say something. These often unscripted sessions bring out claims that are as off the wall as something Trump would say. In past years writers loved expressions like “it raises the question.” Trump learned, and has his own version. He will say “people are saying” Cruz is not qualified to be president because he was born in Canada. After Trump has said it enough times it becomes accepted that there is a legitimate question. Trump’s daily blathering isn’t concealing that his campaign is close to being in tatters. “Donald Trump’s campaign is increasingly falling into disarray as the Manhattan billionaire braces for a loss in Wisconsin that could set him on course for an uncertain convention floor fight for the Republican presidential nomination. Since March, the campaign has been laying off field staff en masse around the country and has dismantled much of what existed of its organizations in general-election battlegrounds, including Florida and Ohio,” Politico reported. Even if Trump manages to win the nomination he will have to rebuild his campaign staff while under fire from the Democratic nominee. A Mason-Dixon poll this week found Clinton was within three points of winning Mississippi, the first time a Democrat has won it in 40 years. A series of polls indicate Trump’s position on issues affecting women, as well as his highly publicized insults, will make it hard for him to win a national election. There are two other possibilities: Trump could withdraw from the race, or decide that he should run as a third party candidate. Op Ed: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump gave the nation his “Scarlet Letter” on Wednesday. He said abortion should be outlawed and women who have them punished. The New York Times said Trump declared his support for abortion and “there has to be some form of punishment” for women who have them. Trump, as usual tried to back off, but his Republican opponents reportedly reacted by further hedging their guarantees to support Trump if he wins the nomination. Trump said he didn’t need the support of Sen. Ted Cruz or Gov. John Kasich. "Just when you thought it couldn't get worse," Hillary Clinton tweeted Wednesday, sharing a tweet about what Trump had said regarding abortion. "Horrific and telling,” the Hill reported.” The Times quoted from an exclusive interview Trump had with MSNBC. The news network brought a Trump spokeswoman on to explain what was going on but she said she had not been fully informed. Trump also has been criticized by the other Republican candidates this week for refusing to fire his campaign manager, who was accused of assaulting a woman reporter. Trump’s comments criticizing individual women have already caused his popularity among women to decline. Trump also criticized Sen. John McCain, who was imprisoned by the North Vietnamese for seven years when his plane was shot down. He said people who are captured are not heroes. The “Scarlet Letter,” by Nathaniel Hawthorne in 1850, tells the story of a woman required to a dress with the letter “A” on it because she had committed adultery. Op-Ed: Hillary Clinton outdid her wildest expectations during Tuesday’s voting, with the counting not ending until Wednesday morning as two races were so close. Winning Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, Illinois and Missouri was like a hydrogen bomb compared to the IED Bernie Sanders surprised her with in Michigan. Donald Trump did well also, but Gov. John Kasich slapped him in the face in Ohio. It didn’t stop the reality show carnival barker but makes a brokered convention more possible. It’s hard to imagine his poor showing – he only got pluralities not majorities – weren’t at least partly a result of the bad publicity he has gotten for the violence at his rallies. One sheriff considered arresting him for inciting violence. That charge was dropped. And his outrageous xenophobic, anti-women, racist and anti-Muslim charges may play a factor. The race caused Florida Sen. Marco Rubio to suspend his campaign. Even those who are not Republicans or not a fan were impressed by a speech that reminded people that the American nation is more important than any one candidate. “I ask the American people: Do not give into fear,” he said. The remark was aimed at Trump. The two candidates have exchanged insults about their urination problems. Things were going well for Clinton, who made a cameo appearance on the widely popular “Broad City,” a favorite of millenials. She showed she could blink either eye. Sanders made clear he was not going away, though he would be getting less airtime. “Our plan on this is we’ve got a long way to go, and we’ve got to demonstrate that Bernie’s the strongest candidate,” said Sanders strategist Tad Devine. “We believe that slowly we can win support for people who aren’t for someone, or who are softly for her, and then we can reach out more.” Op Ed: If you get all your news from cable you might believe that Donald Trump has tapped into a vast reservoir of anger. And there is plenty of anger. But there are multiple possible reasons. Despite what news networks report over and over it is not just anger that people have to get by on less money, assuming they have jobs at all. Network polls don’t ask about many of the other issues driving anger. Some of the people attracted to Trump may be angry that the Supreme Court has protected abortion and gay rights. Polls show a majority support these rulings, but plenty of people are very angry. They would support reversing these decisions if their candidate got into the White House. People also are angry that local governments have to pull people over and give them tickets because tax cuts have governments with too little money to provide services expected by these same citizens. Parking tickets are eagerly issued, and cars towed. Owners sometimes have to pay $100 or $200 to retrieve them. Though it is not related to income, widely publicized killings of unarmed civilians by heavily armed police has angered some people, and not just the black community that is so often the victim. Governments at all levels caved in to pressure from the Tea Party to reduce taxes at the same time we were fighting wars and expected to provide health care for wounded veterans. Many of these veterans are still waiting. And Trump is not the only one benefiting from anger. Bernie Sanders is getting thousands of donations from people angered by what Wall Street did to America’s economy and neighborhoods. There is a widespread feeling they largely got away with it without being punished. Sanders has been able to win some support by linking Hillary Clinton to the banks. Usually being considered a socialist is enough to turn off American voters. Not this time. Sanders won a surprise victory in the Michigan primary on Tuesday, at least partly because independents chose to vote in the Democratic primary and because some Democrats were detected voting in the Republican primary, for reasons that can only be guessed. That Trump, who has ripped so many people off with his private businesses, some of which then declared bankruptcy, is ironic. Funny, journalists are often taught not to use that word. Never in my lifetime has it seemed so appropriate There is an expression in America, often used in song lyrics and movies: be careful what you wish for you may get it. For followers of the Netflix series “House of Cards” everything Trump has done has already been done by Kevin Spacey. Wikipedia is the last place to look for breaking news. But today the New York Times chose to publish a list of polls since 2014 in all 50 states. Hillary Clinton was the winner. Bernie Sanders led in his home Vermont, neighbor New Hampshire, Alaska and Maine. All the rest went to Hillary. A few of the polls were taken in 2014, but a majority in 2015 and a significant number this year. The winners were the ones who led in the last poll taken in a state. Clinton not only led in the vast majority of polls, she took all 10 of the most populous states: California, Texas, Florida, New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Georgia, North Carolina and Michigan. Polls of Democrats Clearly, things may have changed since some of these polls were taken. Network television has been taken over by non-stop coverage of Donald Trump, plus claims that Hillary is a liar, dishonest, shouts, killed soldiers at Benghazi, cozies up with Wall Street, and that husband Bill was promiscuous. Yet some polls, and in big states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida and California, show Clinton still ahead. Pundits begun last year declaring that Clinton was unstoppable. Then they began trying to stop her. There is no story, and thus no work for them, if the race is over before it began. It was somewhat pathetic that two almost lily-white states, with a combined population of less than 5 million, Iowa and New Hamsphire were seen as ways to give evangelicals control of the nation. Seen many of these zealots lately. Not in my town, Denver. Of course much can happen between now and next November, and I may decide not to vote for a Clinton for the first time in life. But the shrieking of Trump won’t be a factor. Whenever he is on I turn the channel as fast as I can. And most people, even old fogies like me, do get all that much content off commercial television the days. Thank heavens for Netflix, Amazon and the others. Also by Robert Weller: Donald Trump threatens to take his ball back Iowa rejects Trump and his extremism |
Robert Weller
2016 US election news and other news from the USA
Bio
Worked in journalism, including on the Internet, for more than 40 years. Started as a news editor at the Colorado Daily at the University of Colorado, joined a small Montana newspaper, the Helena Independent-Record, and then United Press International. Archives
November 2016
Categories
All
|