Monthly Archives: August 2015

Clinton claims huge superdelegate haul

By Matt | Published August 31, 2015

Guess there’s no reason to track them this cycle:

At the Democratic National Committee meeting in Minneapolis, where Clinton spoke on Friday, senior Clinton campaign officials are claiming that she has already secured one-fifth of the pledges needed to win the Democratic presidential nomination. They come from current and former elected officials, committee officeholders, and other party dignitaries.

The campaign says that Clinton currently has about 130 superdelegates publicly backing her, but a person familiar with recent conversations in Minneapolis said that officials are telling supporters and the undecided in the last few days that private commitments increase that number to more than 440—about 20 percent of the number of delegates she would need to secure the nomination.

Final numbers are still in flux, but current estimates peg the total number of delegates to next summer’s presidential nominating convention at about 4,491, meaning that a candidate would need 2,246 to win. The Clinton camp’s claim to more than 440 delegates means she’s already wrapped up the support of more than 60 percent of the approximately 713 superdelegates who, under party rules, are among those who cast votes for the nomination, along with delegates selected by rank-and-file voters in primaries and caucuses beginning next February.
…
To be sure, Clinton had a superdelegate edge early against Barack Obama in 2008, and superdelegates are free to change their allegiance at any time between now and next summer’s convention. But Clinton is ahead of the pace she had eight years ago in securing these commitments, and her support from the core of the establishment represented by these superdelegates is arguably the most tangible evidence of the difficulty Biden would have overtaking her with a late-starting campaign.

This is not 2008. But it’s not about being ahead of the pace. It’s about the fact that Biden has 2 supers (both from DE), O’Malley 1, and Sanders has 0. Clinton continues to have the nomination locked up.

Posted in DNC | Comments Off on Clinton claims huge superdelegate haul

Pre-Labor Day Reflection: The State of the Presidential Race — Democratic Primary

By tmess2 | Published August 30, 2015

Presidential primary races follow a somewhat predictable path.  We are nearing the end of the first stage of the race for both parties — the stage in which candidates enter the race or decide not to enter the race (or leave the race when their initial efforts as a candidate prove underwhelming).   Time is starting to run out for candidates to enter the race as the last time a candidate won their party’s nomination while skipping the early primaries is 1968.

Right now the field can be split into three tiers.  In tier one, there is Secretary Clinton.  Even in the most unfavorable polls, she is getting near 50% of the vote nationally (roughly the same numbers that she got in 2008).  As long as Secretary Clinton is getting near 50%, it will be very difficult for another candidate to win the nomination given the Democratic proportionality rules.

In the second tier, you have Senator Sanders and Vice-President Biden.  Both are polling well enough that they will get some delegates.  Senator Sanders is more the anti-Clinton candidate and appeals to those who think that the party needs to run a more liberal candidate.  Vice-President Biden is more the not Clinton candidate, appealing to those who think that Secretary Clinton has too many vulnerabilities to win the general election.  Of course, Vice-President Biden has not yet entered the race.  If he decides not to run, some significant portion of those currently supporting him will decide to hold their noses and support Secretary Clinton.  While it is too early to project individual states, Senator Sanders appears to be competitive in Iowa and New Hampshire.  His problem is that both states are likely to be narrow wins.  While there are some other early states that Senator Sanders might narrowly win (although he may comfortably win Vermont on March 1), Secretary Clinton is favored to win other states by large margins.  Vice-President Biden does not currently have any early states that appear to be places where he can win.  Slightly over half (2,050 out of 3,760) of the pledged delegates come from states that hold their first tier (either a primary or local caucuses) by March 15.  While delegate counts from the caucus states are tentative, if Secretary Clinton is at or over 1,000 delegates, and neither of the other two candidates is over 800 delegates, there will be pressure for Senator Sanders and Vice-President Biden to suspend their campaigns. Continue Reading...

Posted in Bernie Sanders, Democratic Debates | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

A Musical Interlude

By DocJess | Published August 30, 2015

This week, I’ve been reading some of the European articles on Donald Trump. Let’s just say that they’re unimpressed. Very offended by his words on Mexican people. And yet, across Europe and in the Mediterranean, there are thousands of dead: all people struggling to escape war and oppression and make it to Europe. A wall going up in Hungary. All incongruous. Better we should follow JT:

Posted in Civil Rights, Music | Comments Off on A Musical Interlude

The Democratic Debates

By DocJess | Published August 17, 2015

The schedule has been set by the DNC for most of the presidential debates.  The participants at this writing will be Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Martin O’Malley, Lincoln Chafee and Jim Webb.  The first four are:

  • 13 October in Nevada and televised on CNN.
  • 14 November in Des Moines, Iowa, with CBS, the Des Moines Register and local television station KCCI as media partners.
  • 19 December in Manchester, New Hampshire, with ABC and WMUR as media partners.
  • 7 January 2016 in Charleston, South Carolina, co-sponsored by NBC and the Congressional Black Caucus Institute.

The other two are amorphously planned: maybe February, maybe March – one in Miami as a cooperative effort with Univision and the Washington Post, and one in Wisconsin with PBS as a media partner.

Do you think it is reasonable to hold some of the debates until after the primaries and caucuses have started? Some people, including Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley, have publicly called for an earlier schedule with more debates.  The feeling is that knowing more about the candidates will enable people to make better choices, not just in terms of primary/caucus voting, but also with respect to political contributions. On the other hand, some feel that it’s better to spread out the schedule as many voters aren’t that interested too far in advance of their primary/caucus. Continue Reading...

Posted in Democratic Debates | 2 Comments

Two Views of Foreign Policy

By tmess2 | Published August 15, 2015

Living in a swing state, the local coverage of national news events tends to get comments from both sides of the aisle.  Yesterday’s opening of the U.S. Embassy in Cuba was one of those events that placed the approaches of the two major parties to foreign policy in crystal clear perspective.

The Republicans were, of course, outraged that we would re-open our embassy in Cuba before they have taken solid steps toward democracy (ignoring the fact that we have embassies in dictatorships around the world).  To them, normal diplomatic relations and normal trade relations are a stick and carrot to use to coerce other countries around to our point of view (with military options always on the table for the worst offenders).  Change only comes in response to persistent U.S. efforts to force change or the other side cracking under economic pressure.

The Democrats, on the other hand, note that fifty years of sanctions and pretending that the Cuban government is not a “legitimate” government have not helped.  While there is no need to ignore the problems in Cuba, a U.S. presence in Cuba (beyond our continued lease on Guantanamo Bay which is if anything an offense to the average Cuban) gives us a greater opportunity to interact with all Cubans.  Cutting off diplomatic ties and closing embassies is not a tool to be used as a sanction (except in the most extreme circumstances), but rather is a security measure for our diplomats (i.e. why we still have not gone back to Iran).  Similarly, economic sanctions is a tool to be used to respond at very precisely calibrated levels to specific violations of human rights.  Engagement is what leads to change. Continue Reading...

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Two Views of Foreign Policy

It’s the money, kids

By DocJess | Published August 12, 2015

Right now, people are looking at polls, but there is another issue to be considered: the money. We know that there are regular contributions, with legal limits, and dark money, with no limits.

If you want to see how much money is being contributed to campaigns, click this link, and download Greenhouse. Then, on any website, when you see a candidate’s name, you’ll see how much money they are taking in by cycle. It’s AWESOME! You’re welcome.

Posted in Money in Politics | 1 Comment

Bernie Sanders’ Black Problem

By DocJess | Published August 12, 2015

Last weekend, Bernie Sanders drew more people to events in Seattle and Portland than all the other candidates in both candidates combined for all events over the same time period. We’re talking more than 25,000 people in Seattle and Portland, and then again a few days later in Los Angeles. You may have heard that at an earlier Portland event, Sanders was unable to speak due to the stage being taken over by a BlackLivesMatter activist. BlackLivesMatter is not really a Bernie Sanders problem, but he does have a major black problem.

Polls from last night indicate Bernie Sanders currently besting Hillary Clinton in the NH primary 44-37, which is outside the margin of error. It’s been my estimation that Bernie can beat Hillary in both Iowa and New Hampshire, and probably will. But because of his “black problem”, he cannot win South Carolina or other states where the black vote is the deciding factor. When I first heard about the BlackLivesMatter dust-up in Portland, I wondered “why Bernie?” It initially seemed that the people who don’t get their heads around the concept are Republicans — so why go after someone like Bernie, who’s got more than 30 years of civil rights legislation under his belt? It turns out there are two reasons. First, one of the women who stormed the stage is a Sarah Palin supporter, and it turns out the real BlackLivesMatter people want her to apologize.

The second reason is that Bernie Sanders does have a black problem, and it’s obvious in a lot of polling. He polls well in both Iowa and New Hampshire relative to favourable/unfavourable. But that is in two lily white states. Overall, among African-Americans, Sanders trails Clinton 64/11. In North Carolina, Clinton pulls 70% of the African-American votes. The list goes on, but Sanders doesn’t do well amoungst black voters. Continue Reading...

Posted in Bernie Sanders, Civil Rights, Politics | 9 Comments

CBS says they are changing convention coverage

By Matt | Published August 10, 2015

But it’s not clear at all what they are actually doing differently:

CBS News will overhaul its coverage of the 2016 Democratic and Republican conventions to emphasize participants “on the ground” rather than chatter in the network’s skybox, CBS News President David Rhodes said.
…
He said his bias is toward coverage of what they are doing and saying as opposed to putting resources into the “air-conditioned skyboxes” above the convention floor that typically showcase network reporters and analysts.

Traditional keynote speeches and other major scheduled events will be aired, he said.

So what exactly is CBS changing? Interviewing newsmakers somewhere other than the convention? Doesn’t sound so groundbreaking to us…

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Why The Donald is Creaming the GOP

By DocJess | Published August 8, 2015

Below is a video from this morning’s Up with Steve Kornaki. It’s Omarosa Manigault-Stallworth, who was on The Apprentice for three seasons making mincemeat of Beltway insiders, politicos and pundits alike. It’s spectacular.
She’s right in everything she says. After the jump, more analysis.

Posted in Politics, Republican Debates, RNC | 1 Comment

The Uncomfortable Defense of Donald Trump

By DocJess | Published August 8, 2015

Sadly, I must defend Donald Trump’s comments on Megyn Kelly. Trust me, this hurts me more than it does you. Basically, The Donald felt that he was treated unfairly by Kelly, and his step over the line was to intimate that she had her period. Thus, the misogynistic idea that monthly flow makes women stupid, confused, angry and all the rest of the lies that men have used against women over the years.

It used to be that it was a thing. That the fact that women bled regularly and men didn’t meant they could be treated differently in business environments. As in: don’t hire women because they’ll get pregnant and leave. Mothers miss time from work for their kids. Etc.

BUT let’s compare his ACTIONS toward women compared to the rest of the Republican field, and to the Republican platform. When you do, you’ll see that if actions speak louder than words, The Donald comes off better than all the rest of them. Sad but true. Continue Reading...

Posted in Politics, Republican Debates, RNC | Tagged | Comments Off on The Uncomfortable Defense of Donald Trump