April 24, 2016

Bernie can't decide whether the Democratic Party has been fair to him.

"Do you think this process has been fair to you? The Democratic nomination process?" moderator Chuck Todd asked the Vermont senator in an interview filmed Saturday in Baltimore and aired Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press."

"Yes and no," Sanders said, going on to criticize the role of the media for neglecting to focus on "real issues facing America." The media, he said, emphasizes "political gossip" rather than "issues that affect working people."

"So it sounds like the party, though, you feel like's been fair to you?" Todd asked Sanders.

"No," Sanders responded. "I think we have— look, we're taking on the establishment. That's pretty clear."

Pointing to the Democratic debate schedule, of which three of the first four took place on weekend nights, Sanders said they were "scheduled — pretty clearly, to my mind, at a time when there would be minimal viewing audience— et cetera, et cetera."

"But you know, that's the way it is. We knew we were taking on the establishment," he said. "And here we are. So [I'm] not complaining."

Todd then asked Sanders if he felt he was "given a fair shot" at the Democratic nomination.

"Yeah, we took advantage of the opportunities in front of us. We are in this race. We are not writing our obituary," Sanders said. "We're in this race to California, and we're proud of the campaign we ran."



http://www.politico.com/story/2016/04/bernie-sanders-democratic-party-fairness-222355#ixzz46llwjEM0
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April 24, 2016

Sanders keeps hands clean as Rosario Dawson does the dirty work.

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) avoided saying Sunday whether he thought it was fair game to talk about Monica Lewinsky on the campaign trail.

Actress Rosario Dawson, a Sanders' supporter, mentioned Lewinsky, who has taken on anti-bullying efforts, during a campaign event.

"We are literally under attack for not just supporting the other candidate," Dawson reportedly said. "Now I'm with Monica Lewinsky with this: Bullying is bad."

Sanders was asked on CNN's "State of the Union" if it was appropriate to talk about Lewinsky on the trail.

“We have many, many — Rosario is a great actress, and she's doing a great job for us," Sanders replied. "And she's been a passionate fighter to see that we see the increase voter turnout, that we fight for racial, economic, environmental justice."


CNN host Jake Tapper interrupted Sanders and asked "yes or no" if his surrogates should be talking about Lewinsky.


“I have no idea in what context Rosario was talking about her," Sanders said. "But I would hope that all of our people focus on the real issues facing working people and the massive level of income and wealth inequality that we have.”


http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/sanders-sidesteps-talking-lewinsky

April 24, 2016

Wang: Trump is on path to more than 1,237 delegates.

Today’s update: Trump median 1285 delegates (IQR: 1239-1320). Probability of a pledged majority is 75%.

Despite the usual complaints, primary polls do reasonably well when aggregated. To understand a state, it is far worse to have no polls at all. As the joke goes, “That restaurant’s food is terrible. And such small portions!”

Unfortunately, we have no public polls for the Republican primary in Indiana (update – just in, we have Trump +6%, very close to both of today’s estimates, Trump +7% and Trump +5%). Indiana is pivotal to whether Donald Trump can get to a majority of pledged delegates. You’d think data pundits would rush to fill this void. But that has not been the case.

For any data pundit, the absence of polling has been a serious problem if the question is anywhere close to a tie. At the New York Times, The Upshot has made a demographics-based effort, but I believe that calculation missed Wisconsin (and lacks details). The Great Argental Satan seems to favor Cruz for Indiana in a fairly vague way. He and his staff make extremely weak use of demographics-based analysis, perhaps appropriately so; as far as I am aware, their approach is not strong enough to repair inaccurate polling (for instance, the Michigan Democratic primary). For better performance, there is a need for a method that uses state-level information that is more specific than general demographic composition.

Which brings us to today’s topic. I will show you two independent methods for estimating Trump/Cruz/Kasich support without demographics or polls. This is a long post.

Bottom line: the two methods agree in all important respects. Trump is favored in the remaining Eastern states, including Indiana. Cruz is favored in the remaining states west of the Mississippi (Washington, Oregon, Nebraska, and South Dakota). The only point of disagreement is New Mexico. Both methods indicate that Trump is on a path to more than 1237 pledged delegates.


http://election.princeton.edu/2016/04/22/two-ways-to-estimate-primary-outcomes-without-polls/#more-15154

April 24, 2016

Former Senator Harris Wofford Comes Out, Announces Upcoming Marriage

It was three years before I got the nerve to tell my sons and daughter about Matthew. I brought a scrapbook of photographs, showing Matthew and me on our travels, to a large family wedding. It was not the direct discussion the subject deserved. Yet over time my children have welcomed Matthew as a member of the family, while Matthew’s parents have accepted me warmly.

To some, our bond is entirely natural, to others it comes as a strange surprise, but most soon see the strength of our feelings and our devotion to each other. We have now been together for 15 years.

Too often, our society seeks to label people by pinning them on the wall — straight, gay or in between. I don’t categorize myself based on the gender of those I love. I had a half-century of marriage with a wonderful woman, and now am lucky for a second time to have found happiness.

For a long time, I did not suspect that idea and fate might meet in my lifetime to produce same-sex marriage equality. My focus was on other issues facing our nation, especially advancing national service for all. Seeking to change something as deeply ingrained in law and public opinion as the definition of marriage seemed impossible.

I was wrong, and should not have been so pessimistic. I had seen firsthand — working and walking with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. — that when the time was right, major change for civil rights came to pass in a single creative decade. It is right to expand our conception of marriage to include all Americans who love each other.


http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/24/opinion/sunday/findinglove-again-this-time-with-a-man.html?_r=0

April 24, 2016

Delegate math: How Tuesday could close door on Sanders

WASHINGTON – Hillary Clinton can’t win enough delegates Tuesday to officially knock Bernie Sanders out of the presidential race, but she can erase any lingering honest doubts about whether she’ll soon be the Democratic nominee.

After her victory in New York this past week, Clinton has a lead over Sanders of more than 200 pledged delegates won in primaries and caucuses. As she narrowed Sanders’ dwindling opportunities to catch up, Clinton continued to build on her overwhelming support among superdelegates – the party officials who are free to back any candidate they choose.

In the past two days, Clinton picked up 11 more endorsements from superdelegates, according to an Associated Press survey.

Factoring in superdelegates, Clinton’s lead stands at 1,941 to 1,191 for Sanders, according to the AP count. That puts her at 81 percent of the 2,383 delegates needed to win the nomination.

At stake Tuesday are 384 delegates in primaries in Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island. This group of contests offers Sanders one of the last chances left on the election calendar to gain ground in pledged delegates and make a broader case to superdelegates to support him.

Yet it appears Clinton could do well enough Tuesday to end the night with 90 percent of the delegates needed to win the nomination, leaving her just 200 or so shy.

The Sanders campaign knows a tough battle awaits in those five states and says it will reassess its campaign after Tuesday. If Sanders fails to win significantly in the latest primaries, he won’t have another chance to draw closer in a big way until California votes on June 7.

Clinton is on track to already have hit the magic number of 2,383 by that point.



http://www.nwherald.com/2016/04/24/delegate-math-how-tuesday-could-close-door-on-sanders/arm2y02/

April 24, 2016

Tad Devine sees the writing on the wall.

Depending on the outcome of Tuesday's five primary contests, voters could see a shift in Bernie Sanders' critical tone toward rival Hillary Clinton, according to a senior adviser for Sanders' presidential campaign.

When asked by NPR if Sanders would ever consider toning down his harsh critiques of the Democratic front-runner, adviser Tad Devine said it's a possibility that the Vermont senator could "re-evaluate" after Tuesday.

"If we think we've made enough progress, then we'll keep on the path that we're on," Devine said in an interview published Saturday. "If we think we have to, you know, take a different way or re-evaluate, you know, we'll do it then."

But, Devine added, "right now, we think the best path beyond is the one we laid out months ago."

Devine's comments come more than a week after the two Democratic candidates clashed in a fiery debate in Brooklyn before New York's primary. At that forum, Sanders repeatedly struck out against Clinton's policy positions, including her relationships with Wall Street and her Senate vote for the Iraq war. The Brooklyn brawl, however, didn't do much for Sanders' standing in the state, which Clinton won by 16 points.


http://www.cbsnews.com/news/bernie-sanders-adviser-campaign-re-evaluate-tone-tuesday-primaries-election-2016/

April 24, 2016

Sanders finds a new excuse for losing.

WILMINGTON, Del. — White House hopeful Bernie Sanders said Saturday that many of his losses to Hillary Clinton in Democratic primaries were because “poor people don’t vote.”

The senator from Vermont, who has made fighting income inequality the rallying cry of his campaign, was asked during a taping of NBC’s “Meet the Press” why Clinton had prevailed in 16 of 17 states so far with the highest levels of income inequalilty.

“Well, because poor people don't vote,” Sanders told host Chuck Todd. “I mean, that's just a fact. That's a sad reality of American society.”..........

Sanders has lost Democratic voters with household incomes below $50,000 by 55 percent to 44 percent to Clinton across primaries where network exit polls have been conducted. (He has lost by a wider 21 percentage-point margin among voters with incomes above $100,000, and by 9 points among middle income voters.)




https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/04/23/sanders-says-he-has-lost-primaries-to-clinton-because-poor-people-dont-vote/

April 24, 2016

The Problem With Bernie Sanders’ Polling Argument

For months, Bernie Sanders has been pointing to polls that show him performing better in general match-ups against Republicans than Hillary Clinton.....

General election polls taken months before voting day have a history of being wrong. According to data compiled by FiveThirtyEight, general election polls taken a year in advance have been inaccurate by more than 5 percentage points in the last 10 out of 14 elections for which there is data.

Even polls six months out are inaccurate, too. For example, at this point in the 2000 election, late April polls showed then-Gov. George W. Bush with a strong national lead of five points over then-Vice President Al Gore. Bush lost the popular vote to Gore by half a percentage point that November.

Part of the discrepancy has to do with the early unfamiliarity of the candidates. This year, despite months of frequent coverage on television, social media and the press, Sanders is not as well known as Clinton. A recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll showed that 56% of Americans say they know Clinton “a lot” while just 38% say the same as Sanders. And while Clinton’s negative ratings may be baked-in after decades in the public eye, Sanders has not received that kind of scrutiny.

In politics, familiarity breeds contempt. If Republicans viewed Sanders as the likely Democratic nominee, he would face negative advertising and intense scrutiny of his record, on everything from his honeymoon in the Soviet Union to his large spending programs. Like any less well-known candidate, Sanders’ unfavorable ratings would rise as people became more familiar with him, pollsters say.

For now, Sanders serves as a kind of stand-in for the Democratic Party, a lesser-known candidate whose popularity reflects the overall favorability of the party, says Stan Greenberg, a veteran Democratic pollster. The Democratic Party is viewed more favorably than the Republican Party, with a favorable-unfavorable rating of about 45-47 compared with 31-58 for the Republicans, according to poll averages. That suggests that in a national race between a generic Democrat and a generic Republican, the generic Democrat would win. At this point in the race, that “brand advantage” benefits Sanders.


http://time.com/4305514/bernie-sanders-hillary-clinton-general-election-polls/

April 24, 2016

Jane Kim Vs. Scott Wiener for CA State Senate (D). I am truly undecided.

Both have strong points and glaring weaknesses. Has anyone taken a side yet? What convinced you?

April 23, 2016

Yeah, this'll flip a superdelegate.

NOTE: I'm not sure it's even legal to talk about the campaign in a Federal government office.


A Bernie Sanders supporter was arrested Thursday during a protest against U.S. Rep. Jim McDermott’s refusal to shift his vote as a Democratic superdelegate from Hillary Clinton to Sanders.

Wesley Irwin, one of the organizers of the Thursday protest, said the arrest had been planned as an act of civil disobedience. Sanders supporters have been angry over the refusal of superdelegates to back him, despite the Vermont senator’s big win in Washington’s caucuses last month.


The woman arrested was among a group of about a dozen Sanders supporters who showed up at McDermott’s Seattle office to demand a meeting with the longtime Democratic congressman, who is retiring this year.

Irwin said Sanders supporters feel stonewalled by McDermott, who has not agreed to a meeting despite two other visits by activists to his office. This time, he said, the congressman’s staff told the group the superdelegate issue was a campaign matter and therefore inappropriate to discuss at his official office.



http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/bernie-sanders-supporter-arrested-in-seattle-protest-over-superdelegates/