The generational divide in Democratic politics is exploding into public view these days. Last week, the Congressional Black Caucus PAC endorsed Hillary Clinton in a display of unity. Inside the CBC, there’s less unity — some young staffers like Bernie, or don’t like the attacks on him, or have questions about the

Several thousand Democrats stood in a line wrapped around a high school football stadium on Sunday, in hopes of seeing Bernie Sanders speak in west Las Vegas.

<snip>
Rohan Ramadas, 26, and his friend Pear Wilson, 30, had driven from Los Angeles to canvas for Sanders in pivotal Clark County, which is home to 2 million of Nevada’s 2.8 million residents. It was the first time either of the college graduates had donated time and money to a political campaign.

They decided to get involved this past summer, Ramadas said, when it became clear Sanders “wasn’t just a protest candidate”.

John Major, 57, who spent 23 years in the US coast guard, arrived by himself.

“I’m worried about the status of the country,” he said. “The infrastructure falling apart, the student debts that kids are building up because of the system now. It wasn’t like that when I grew up.”

A waiter on the Las Vegas Strip, Matthew Safran, 34, was supporting Sanders in part because he wanted a higher wage for service industry employees.

“Clinton supporters seemed to be a lot more vocal eight months ago,” said Safran. “Now it seems that they’re almost embarrassed to be Hillary supporters since [Sanders] has shined a light on a lot of stuff … They say it’s 50-50 in Nevada, but it’s a lot more vocal from the Bernie side.”

Clinton tried to shore up support in Las Vegas’s minority community at a rally on Saturday.

“Not everything is about an economic theory,” she said, echoing a new attack ad portraying Sanders as a one-issue candidate. “If we broke up the big banks tomorrow … will that end racism? Will that end sexism? Will that end discrimination against the LGBT community?

“Will that make people feel more welcoming to immigrants overnight?”

It seems like yesterday.

The Hillary Clinton juggernaut arrived in Nevada last spring, making all the right moves. She hired Emmy Ruiz, a skilled operative who worked for Clinton and Barack Obama here in 2008 (Clinton won the popular vote but lost the delegate fight), to helm her effort. Ruiz brought a Nevada-centric team together, people who knew the state and its burgeoning Latino community, which made up 15 percent of the caucus universe eight years ago. And in May, Clinton held a memorable event, a roundtable with DREAMers, who just recently endorsed her for the nomination.

Nevada was Clinton Country, mostly because of her organizational strength designed to construct a firewall should Bernie Sanders do well in New Hampshire. Indeed, Sanders apparently couldn’t place Nevada on a map – he had no offices, no staff, no footprint at all.

Race? What race?

Now, one week before Nevada Democrats break the tie between Iowa and New Hampshire and decide if the Sanders Surge is real, yesterday has vanished and Hillary Clinton can’t stop thinking about tomorrow.

No, not the way the Clintons meant it in 1992, with optimism and hope. This campaign is filled with dread and fear; you can feel it.

In a poker game, they are what is known as “tells,” some giveaway to what cards a player holds, some sign of whether he has the flush or has a busted hand. As Team Clinton focuses on the state where gambling dominates, their tells are showing.

But all of that stuff was asked after the initial horse race question, and even if the poll were somehow skewed, I’d guess the Sanders Surge is real, if only from the Clinton tells. Just last month, the Clinton campaign was touting a 25-point lead in Nevada.

You don’t need to be a pundit to discern this is not the behavior of a campaign with an insurmountable lead.

You know that the Clintons will do everything they can in this last week to tilt the scales into their favor, including, I’d guess, trying to get the Culinary union to endorse. The union has stayed out of the fray so far, but I don’t know how long that can last. I’d guess some phone calls are coming into union HQ with 202 area codes.

Clinton was so remarkably facile, so seemingly empathetic with those DREAMers last May, so eager to get to the left of Obama on immigration (“I’ll take your executive order and raise you three more.”)

Yes, that seems like yesterday. But now, after Feb. 20, Team Clinton has to be worried there may be no tomorrow.

Flint is experiencing a disaster — and there isn’t anything “natural” about the circumstances that have left the city’s drinking water poisoned with lead.

The situation in Flint is what happens when public officials who, in their reckless zeal to slash government spending, jeopardize the health and well-being of the residents they are entrusted with keeping safe.

In April 2014, Flint’s water supply was switched from Detroit’s system to its own system using Flint River water — notoriously a dumping ground for industry. The move was a temporary change until the city joined a new regional water system. The switch took place when the city was under the control of state-appointed emergency manager.