Donald Trump swept last night’s Primaries in Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Delaware, Connecticut, and Maryland. Hillary won Pennsylvania, Maryland, Connecticut, and Delaware. As far as I’m concerned it’s Game Over. Hillary’s delegate count is insurmountable by Bernie Sanders. He should stay in the campaign but turn his jabs at Trump. The Cruz-Kasich “alliance” is too little, too late. Trump should be able to win the 1237 delegates he needs for the Republican nomination. Bring on the Conventions in Cleveland and Philly! What do you think?
Everybody I know over here in Europe is shocked by the idea that Trump might become POTUS …
Are the States really on a journey backward in time? The news that we get (of course it’s only a selction …) seems to say so:
North Carolina, Utah etc look like Medieval States to us – as bad as the image of some islam Caliphate that’s promulgated by the right wingers.
Wolf, the U.S. is split politically. The Republicans want to turn back the clock. Trump is tapping into that segment of disaffected voters. Don’t underestimate the power and appeal of a billionaire.
Wolfe, not sure that it’s a journey backward in time as much as stupidity. This is the country that made millionaires out of the kardashian family, among others. Our forefathers came here for religious freedom, and now we have gone in the opposite direction, though thru history religion has been the reason for many wars. Our revoluntionary war wasn’t about religion as much as economic freedom. Now we have the 1% vs the 99%, with many of the 99% too stupid to see what is happening. I always get a laugh when I see a tea party supporter need help from the government, as many did during natural disasters. I guess they don’t mind “big government” when it helps them, but want to put up roadblocks for helping others. Children (or anyone) should not go hungry, vets should get assistance over and above what was promised, first responders and enlisted military personnel should be among the best paid in our country, as should teachers.
I’m not so sure trump can’t win. I no longer feel confident in the mental stability of the voters in this country.
Wolf, relax; Trump will never be elected unless Hilary is convicted of murder 2 weeks before the election, in which case they might have to have a run-off.
George, Trump may get the delegates, but that doesn’t mean he gets the nomination. the Republican establishment figures are out there laying the groundwork, talking about “rules that have been a part of our democratic tradition for 200 years” and the importance of “Organization” and “Grass roots support,” by which they mean the Old-Boy Network. They even have some convoluted argument about how since most voters don’t do the primaries, that means that most Republicans don’t support Trump, and they–the wise men who gave us Bush, Cheney, Romney and Sarah god-help-us Palin, know what their people really want.
George, as we Schwabs say:
Your word in god’s ear …
Of course I also believe/ hope that the voters will stop Trump (though he’s of German even ). But as some SF author (?) once said:
Predictions are difficult and unreliable, especially when they concern the future.
Wolf, everyone has underestimated Trump right from the beginning. And, it looks like he’s going to find a way to win the Republican nomination.
Dan, I had no idea you were such an optimist! Yes, I’m expecting some skulduggery in Cleveland.
Wolf, things could be worse. I don’t know how, but I’m sure they could be.
Jerry, just wait for the Trump vs. Hillary Presidential Debates!
Wolf–I think it was Nils Bohr who said, “Predictions are hard–especially when they’re about the future.” So, with that in mind, I predict that if Trump has the delegate count, despite dissatisfaction with their nominee, the GOP will line up behind him, if rather unenthusiastically.
One of the Koch brothers said in an interview last week that “Hillary might not be so bad as president.” I think this was a notification to the GOP that they should not expect too much Koch money this time around (although I’m sure they’ll still donate millions) and they should lick their wounds this time around and go rest up for 2020. Otoh, all this nonsense about what public restroom you can use (honestly, did you ever worry about that once in your life before that crazy NC law was passed?) seems to have energized the right-wing culture warriors, so if Trump can promise to station a birth-certificate checker at every public restroom in the country, he might get the ultra-conservatives to the polls come November.
Deb, the Koch brothers will spend their money on Congressional and Senate races. Trump won every county in Pennsylvania and 57% of the Republican votes. By any measure, that is an impressive win. Trump will have money to burn and will attack HIllary asymmetrically. The Democrats will need to get their coalition voters out in November if they hope to win against this unconventional opponent.
Listening to Trump after his victories, I think he believes himself to be the winning contestant in THE AMAZING RACE. And that is incredibly scary. That’s the only issue he speaks to: his winning.
Patti, the people voting for Trump watched him on THE APPRENTICE for years. He’s practically part of their families! The same dynamic worked for Ronald Reagan.
What amuses me (something has to) is pretending that Trump is just playing this role and will turn “Presidential” once he has the nomination sewed up. Then he calls Kasich “disgusting” and calls Hillary names. Face it, people, this is who he is and he is not going to change. And yes, he will throw more mud and make more sleazy innuendos than anyone since Richard Nixon and Joe McCarthy. There is literally nothing Trump will not say, no matter how low. That is where the Republican Party has sunk to over the last 20-35 years. And I’ve been saying the same as Deb. They may squawk now, but I guarantee John McCain and most of the other “elders” of the party will bite the bullet and line up behind Trump, even if they aren’t happy about it. The Red Badge of Courage Award will be awarded by me to any Republican leader (sic) who stands up and says “No!” to supporting Trump.
On the other side, I am tired of the whining by Bernie Sanders and his supporters (like Susan Sarandon, who helped get W. elected with her support of Ralph Nader). You knew the rules and the game going in. It’s “not fair” to have closed primaries? Since when? They talk about 8 wins in a row but 7 were in small caucus states. In head to head primaries, Bernie has lost most of them. It’s over. It is also, sadly, an ego trip and he is not ready to come off it.
Jeff, you’ve seen what Trump has done in NYC over the years. He has reached the point where Big Money donors are willing to shower him with money (not that he needs it). But everyone is angling for “influence” with Trump now. Trump announced on MSNBC’s MORNING JOE this morning that he’s the “Presumptive Nominee.”
He can insult Hillary all he wants, but she spent 8 years in the Senate and 4 years as Secretary of State. What has he ever done other than run a cheesy reality show, sleazy beauty contests, and run casinos, a university, and other businesses into the ground? Only someone stupid believes he is a master of “the art of the deal” as he claims.
There are a lot of stupid people in this country, apparently.
Jeff, never underestimate a billionaire. A Trump campaign will be like guerrilla warfare!
Jeff, I’m sorry, but this is simply stupid:
“I am tired of the whining by Bernie Sanders and his supporters (like Susan Sarandon, who helped get W. elected with her support of Ralph Nader).”
It’s less a matter of closed primaries than of closed and constantly resettled voting places (they’re playing musical booths in California in advance of the primaries there), sudden purging of the voter rolls, and of course the way that delegates are byzantinely reshuffled so that even when Sanders wins a state, the pledge delegate count somehow seems to favor Clinton…leaving aside “coin tosses” settling some caucus contests. The fix was in well beyond front loading the primaries in the relatively right-wing and machine Democratic states (the southeast, Massachusetts).
But all that is arguable. What is inarguable, and I’m frankly sick of Democratic whining about this beyond any polite tolerance, Ralph Nader’s campaign had Nothing to do with George W. Bush being installed as president despite losing in the popular vote, and in the correctly adjudged electoral college travesty we are plagued with…if indeed the Supreme Court hadn’t voted along party lines to stop the recount in Florida, for which Sandra Day O’Connor should always be remembered (her later apology for doing so notwithstanding). Even in Florida, votes clearly for Gore were instead registered for Pat Buchanan as the Reform candidate, and even Buchanan at the time noted that he was sure he wasn’t the intended choice of all the voters credited to him. Gore won, the SCOTUS overrode the win, and Gore breathed a sigh of relief and gave up and went on to collect money lecturing when not apparently enjoying harassing masseuses. Get over it, and quit offering up jackass neoliberals, Democrats, and we might actually have a better world for it.
I remember when he first decided to run, I thought of changing my registration to rep. to vote for him, figuring he could never win. He’d then run as an independent and split the rep. vote. when he started winning, I was shocked, for a split second, until I realized the sort of people who were behind him for the most part.
Now it seems the GOP may not give him the nom., and he still may run as an independent.
I’m not a big Hilary supporter, but she’s better than any rep. out there. I remember almost hating Nader after the 2000 election, as his ego left us with bush2. I hope sanders doesn’t do the same thing
Maggie, third party candidates can cause havoc. Ross Perot helped Bill Clinton’s Election. Ralph Nader messed up the Florida vote so Bush (with the help the Supreme Court) won even though Al Gore had more votes.
No, George, Nader’s campaign DID NOT. The votes in question on the ridiculous Florida ballot were credited to Buchanan.
Todd, Buchanan and Nader both get blamed for the Florida mess. But I BLAME the Supreme Court for putting Bush in office.
And George, your comment here seems to buy into the notion, rather precious to the Democratic and Republican parties, that they Deserve all the votes that are cast. I think the current candidates demonstrate how untrue that is.
OK, this Big Lie is clearly quite pervasive. Here’s a NEW YORK TIMES account, after the recount was halted, which succinctly explains much of the Florida problem:
“The majority of those ballots were spoiled because multiple choices were made for president, often, apparently, because voters were confused by the ballots. All were invalidated by county election officials and were excluded from the consortium count because there was no clear proof of voter intent, unless there were other clear signs of the voter’s choice, like a matching name on the line for a write-in candidate.
“In Duval County, for example, 20 percent of the ballots from African- American areas that went heavily for Mr. Gore were thrown out because voters followed instructions to mark a vote on every page of the ballot. In 62 precincts with black majorities in Duval County alone, nearly 3,000 people voted for Mr. Gore and a candidate whose name appeared on the second page of the ballot, thus spoiling their votes.
“In Palm Beach County, 5,310 people, most of them probably confused by the infamous butterfly ballot, voted for Mr. Gore and Patrick J. Buchanan. The confusion affected Bush voters as well, but only 2,600 voted for Mr. Bush and another candidate.”
Meanwhile, here’s the pretty good survey of the Florida debacle in WIKIPEDIA, which also demonstrates no attempt to pin the chaos on Nader or the Green campaign.
So unless you have some hidden evidence somehow missing from the public records, pleas quit whining about the Greens’ Daring to Steal Democratic votes.
“The Florida election had been closely scrutinized since the election. After the election results were announced, charges were raised that some irregularities favored Bush. Among these was the Palm Beach “butterfly ballot,” which some pundits claimed produced an “unexpectedly” large number of votes for third-party candidate Pat Buchanan. Conservative opinion commentators countered that the same ballot was successfully used in the 1996 election with no post-election protests.[4] Progressive commentators also claimed that there was a purge from the Florida voting rolls of over 54,000 citizens identified as felons, of whom 54% were African-American, and that the majority of these were not felons and should have been eligible to vote under Florida law.[5] (The presumption was that had they been able to express themselves at the polls, their likely choice would have been the Democratic candidate.[6]) Additionally, there were charges that there were many more “overvotes” than usual, especially in predominantly African-American precincts in Duval county (Jacksonville), where some 27,000 ballots showed two or more choices for President. Unlike the much-discussed Palm Beach County “butterfly ballot”, the Duval County ballot spread choices for President over two pages with instructions to “vote on every page” on the bottom of each page.[7] On the other side of the ledger, conservatives and Republicans charged that Democrats had registered non-citizens to vote, deliberately suppressed the overseas military vote, and arbitrarily changed vote-counting criteria after the election.[4]
Controversial issues[edit]
Following the election a number of studies have been made of the electoral process in Florida by Democrats, Republicans, and other interested parties. A number of flaws and improprieties have been discovered in the process. Controversies included:
All five major US TV news networks (CBS, NBC, ABC, Fox and CNN) made the incorrect assumption that all of Florida’s polls closed at 7:00 p.m. EST. All five of them reported this incorrect information at the top of the 6:00-7:00 hour. In fact, the westernmost counties in Florida had polls open for another hour, until 8:00 p.m. EST, as they are in the Central Time Zone. This region of the state traditionally voted mostly Republican. Because of the above mistaken assumption, some media outlets reported at 7:00 p.m. EST that all polls had closed in the state of Florida. Also, significantly, the Voter News Service called the state of Florida for Gore at 7:48 p.m. EST. A survey estimate by John McLaughlin & Associates put the number of voters who did not vote due to confusion as high as 15,000, which theoretically reduced Bush’s margin of victory by an estimated 5,000 votes;[8] a study by John Lott found that Bush’s margin of victory was reduced by 7,500 votes.[9] This survey assumes that the turnout in the Panhandle counties would have equaled the statewide average of 68% if the media had not incorrectly reported the polls’ closing time and if the state had not been called for Gore while the polls were still open. This opens the possibility that Bush would have won by a larger margin and controversy would have been avoided if the networks had known and reported the correct poll closing times and called the state after all polls were closed. In a 2010 issue of TV Guide, the premature calls for Gore’s victory ranked #2 on a list of TV’s ten biggest “blunders”, and were blamed for ushering in a new era of public distrust of the media.[10]
Supreme Court of Florida.
Democratic State Senator Daryl Jones said that there had to have been an order to set up roadblocks in heavily Democratic regions of the state on the day of the election.[11] This charge, however, has never been substantiated.
Democratic lawyer Mark Herron authored a memo distributed to Democratic election canvassers on how to invalidate military absentee ballots. The Herron Memo stated postmark and “point of origin” criteria Herron maintained could be used to invalidate military ballots. But the Herron Memo was in line with a letter sent out by Secretary of State Katherine Harris stating that if a postmark was not present on a military ballot, it had to be thrown out. On November 19, 2000, Democratic vice-presidential candidate Senator Joseph I. Lieberman appeared on Meet the Press and said that election officials should give the “benefit of the doubt” to military voters rather than disqualifying any overseas ballots that lacked required postmarks or witness signatures. Until that point, the Democrats had pursued a strategy of persuading counties to strictly enforce those requirements by disqualifying illegal ballots and reducing votes from overseas, which were predominantly cast for Bush.[12] Florida Attorney General Bob Butterworth, a Gore backer, later told the counties to go back and reconsider those ballots without a postmark.[13]
Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris became a controversial figure during the Florida electoral recount.
A suit by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP v. Harris) argued that Florida was in violation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the United States Constitution’s Equal Protection Amendment. Settlement agreements were reached in this suit.[14] A systematic investigation by the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice found no evidence of racial discrimination.[15]
Democrats claimed that between May 1999 and Election Day 2000, two Florida secretaries of state, Sandra Mortham and Katherine Harris, contracted with DBT Online Inc., at a cost of $4.294 million, to have the “scrub list”s reworked. Nearly 1% of Florida’s electorate and nearly 3% of its African-American voters — 57,746 citizens — were listed as felons and removed from the voting rolls. (For instance, many had names similar to actual felons, some listed “felonies” were dated years in the future, and some apparently were random.) It was contended that in a small minority of cases, those on the scrub list were given several months to appeal, and some successfully reregistered and were allowed to vote, but most were not told that they weren’t allowed to vote until they were turned away at the polls, with the company directed not to use cross-checks or its sophisticated verification plan (used by the FBI).[16]
People like Washington County Elections Chief Carol Griffen (1 p.25) have argued that Florida was in violation of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 by requiring those convicted of felonies in other states (and subsequently restored their rights by said states) to request clemency and a restoration of their rights from Governor Jeb Bush, in a process that could take two years and ultimately was left to Bush’s discretion. (In 1998 Schlenther v. Florida Department of State held that Florida could not prevent a man convicted of a felony in Connecticut, where his civil rights had not been lost, from exercising his civil rights.)
The Brooks Brothers riot: Democrats claimed that Republicans brought in outside, paid activists to hinder the manual recount in Miami-Dade County, which was allegedly shut down “shortly after” screaming protesters arrived who were allegedly Republican Party members flown in from other states, some at Republican Party expense.[17] Republicans, conversely, contended that their peaceful demonstration (which involved chanting and requests for media attention) was in response to the Miami-Dade election board’s unlawful decision to secretly recanvass ballots without Republican observers present. The Republicans noted that the election board was not bipartisan (as it was run by Democrat members – Myriam Lehr, Lawrence King and David Leahy) and that the ballots sought to be recanvassed were fragile (with their perforated “chads” that would designate which candidate was selected being able to be easily removed to “cast votes” and not “count votes”). This demonstration by Republican supporters, which took place in view of multiple national network television cameras, resulted in the election board reversing their earlier decision to recount ballots without representatives of both parties present. The Republican representatives involved in the recount effort, attribute this demonstration, pejoratively dubbed by the Democratic operatives as the “Brooks Brothers Riot”, as a key factor in “preventing the stealing of the 2000 presidential election”.[18][19]
The suppression of vote pairing. In brief, websites sprang up to match Nader supporters in swing states like Florida with Gore supporters in non-swing states like Texas: the Nader supporters in Florida would vote for Gore and the Gore supporters in Texas would vote for Nader. This would have allowed Nader to get his fair share of the vote and perhaps get into the Presidential debates while allowing Gore to carry swing states. Six Republican state secretaries of state, led by Bill Jones of California, threatened the websites with criminal prosecution and caused some of them to reluctantly shut down. The ACLU got involved in a legal (not political) effort to protect the sites, and the Federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against Jones two years later, but by then the election was over. The vote-pairing sites allegedly tallied 1,412 Nader supporters in Florida who voted for Gore.[20][21]
The actions of the Florida Supreme Court. It was argued, particularly by Republicans, that the court was exceeding its authority and issuing rulings biased in Gore’s favor. The court acted “on its own motion” to stop the official certification of the election while specifically allowing the recount to continue. The Gore legal team never requested that court action, but the contention was that Florida law gives the court the right to take action without such a request.[22] Similarly, the court’s December 10, 2000 ruling ordered a statewide counting of undervotes, which the Gore team had also not requested.[23] James Baker, among other Republicans, accused the court of violating longstanding Florida law, on which basis Bush appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.[24] Democrats argued that the Florida Supreme Court was simply trying to ensure a fair and accurate count.[25]
Adding to these controversies was the fact Bush’s brother, Jeb Bush, was the governor of Florida at the time, although the governor recused himself from the recount process and there is no evidence to suggest he acted improperly during the recount.
I never mentioned a word about Florida, did I? Where Nader made the difference – you can look it up – and cost Gore the electoral votes that would have made Florida irrelevant – was in New Hampshire.
Nope. Gore cost himself votes in New Hampshire, by being the kind of neoliberal who tracked so far to the right of the Democratic Party that he could only find one Democratic Senator to his own right to choose as his running mate–Lieberman–and did so. Nader got his votes. Gore never made enough of a play for his.
As the potential leader of the country, Clinton is the best of the lot. If only there was a Democratic congress to back her up.
Rick, we’ll have to see how that shakes out. Congress is a huge problem. The Democrats might win the Senate in November.
I’m still likely to vote for the current best of the lot, Jill Stein of the Green Party. Unless Clinton’s brittleness somehow manages to crack in the face of Trump’s bluster, if indeed he isn’t manipulated out of the nomination in Cleveland and doesn’t run indy and thus split the reactionary vote, she’s likely to take New Jersey, as the Dem candidate has done in every election since 1992. I shall enjoy seeing the paradise Clinton will establish for us all, or at least her Wall Street drone son-in-law and her extended family, if indeed we aren’t mired further in the wars she’s so frequently enthusiastic about.
Todd, I’m not talking about Florida re: Nader. More like WA and OR. He took votes away from the democratic candidate, not from the rep. one. that influenced the voters who would never have voted for bush and (with the supreme court) gave the election to bush.
unless sanders runs as an indep., or gets lots of write in ballots, he wouldn’t cause the same type of election result. Saying that, he’s lost and should start supporting the front runner, and they both should go back to having mutual respect
Clinton and Sanders were apparently attempting to Make Nice last night. We’ll see how it goes. Clinton does need to make an appeal to Sanders voters, which will be difficult given her record, but not making that kind of effort is why Gore won insufficiently.
As I just noted to Jeff, Nader won Nader votes. Gore ran a weak-tea, right of center campaign that was like a pale carbon of Bill Clinton’s neoliberal appeal, and that cost him votes…Nader didn’t. Had Gore bothered to appeal to liberals, he might’ve done better in states such as those in the Pacific northwest.
It still comes down to Democrat whining about Nader rather than putting the blame where it properly rests.
Anybody but Hitlery! ANYBODY!
Well, why , say, Cruz would be preferable to Clinton escapes me.
Bob, now that Cruz has chosen Carly Fiorina as his Vice Prsident he’s sure to win.
andy borowitz had a very humourous column about how beloved Carly Fiorina is. I had to remind myself he wasn’t serious as if you don’t know Andy it would sound like an endorsement.
We in Calif. were lucky she didn’t prevail in her try for office. H-P employees really spoke up about her and her policies. I think that did good.
I don’t think ANY Nader supporters would have voted for Bush, but I do believe they would have voted for Gore rather than W.
And to the extent that last is true, it’s Gore’s fault rather than Nader’s. Gore didn’t sell himself as good enough to draw non-neoliberal voters.
And he won. Till the SCUSA had their final say. So Nader and the Greens deserve none of your contempt…Gore, SCUSA, Florida’s government, the Democrats and of course George W. Bush deserve it so much more.
The only candidate I like is Sanders! If he’s eliminated it comes down to who I hate the least! Since I detest, loathe, and despise Hitlery, that leaves one of the Republicans! I don’t like them, either, but I don’t abhor them as much as I do Madam Square Pants!
Nope. You can vote for Jill Stein, probably Gary Johnson, and a slew of others, as well., Bob. Actually helping Trump or whoever the GOP coughs up, as a Sanders supporter is the definition of cutting off your nose to spite your face.
Maggie–Well, no. As a Nader voter, I would not’ve voted for Gore. Because Gore was presenting himself as the even more Republican Lite heir to Clinton, whose presidency was the worst Democratic regime we’d seen, even given Carter’s thrashing about and Johnson’s Vietnam mire, since at least Wilson. Yes, Bush was even worse…so take that up with Sandra Day O’Connor well before you take it up with Nader or the Greens generally. Because Gore won.
George–it’s clearly true that Nader is blamed for Florida. It’s just as true that that blame is at best termed ill-informed.