RandySF
RandySF's JournalFormer intern for Bernie Sanders says he can no longer win, endorses Hillary Clinton
Now that Hillary Clinton has won the New York democratic primary decisively, using the state to widen her massive delegate lead and popular vote lead at a time when Bernie Sanders desperately needed to pull off an upset in order to justify the continued existence of his campaign, the question has surfaced: how many democrats and liberals will now defect from Team Bernie to Team Hillary this week? It turns out one prominent Sanders supporter is already doing just that.
“The political revolution Bernie Sanders began (or more accurately, uncovered) is not over,” declared political operative Christopher Nikhil Bowen late last night. “However, his campaign as a true contender to be our party’s nominee, is.” This is notable because Bowen used to work for Bernie Sanders. He’s from Vermont and he was an intern for Senator Sanders back in college. He goes on to explain that he’s still a big fan of Bernie, but he now believes that Hillary is the path forward in the general election and a much preferable choice over any of the 2016 republicans due to her favorable stances on a number of issues.
Hillary Clinton now leads Bernie Sanders by around 2.7 million votes nationwide. She also leads by 277 delegates, plus another 464 superdelegates. In other words, she’s winning in a blowout even without the superdelegates being a factor – and most states have now cast their votes. Sanders was counting on a New York upset victory to shake up the landscape near the end of the race, but instead Clinton won the state by a quarter million votes to pull even further ahead.
In Christopher Nikhil Bowen’s words: “I cannot afford a Republican presidency, we cannot afford to go back. I refuse to go back. Stand with me friends as we press forward for a better America with Hillary Clinton. I have endorsed Hillary Clinton for President tonight, and I urge you to do the same!” Read his full endorsement.
http://www.dailynewsbin.com/news/former-intern-for-bernie-sanders-says-he-can-no-longer-win-endorses-hillary-clinton/24546/
Bernie faces Southern revolt
NEW YORK — An influential group of Democrats is piling on Bernie Sanders for portraying Hillary Clinton's Southern victories as a product of a conservative region that is out of step with the rest of the country’s thinking.
When asked about his delegate deficit against Clinton, Sanders has on several recent occasions tried to explain away her lead as the result of wide margins of victory in deep red Southern states that rarely vote for Democrats in general elections. Those dismissals have irritated Southern Democratic Party leaders who insist their region is a growth opportunity for the national party, especially in the age of Donald Trump. And some are acutely sensitive to the racial dimension of Sanders’ remarks, since Clinton’s victories in the Deep South have been powered by her landslide margins among African-American voters.
In a stern, roughly 800-word letter sent Wednesday via post to Sanders’ Burlington, Vermont, headquarters, a high-profile group that includes the Democratic Party chairs of South Carolina, Louisiana, Florida, Georgia, and Mississippi expresses its concern about his characterizations of the South, which they contend “minimize the importance of the voices of a core constituency for our party”: African-Americans.
“We commend you on running a spirited campaign that has energized and mobilized a new generation of voters, but we are concerned about the way you and your campaign have characterized the South,” write South Carolina Democratic Party Chairman Jaime Harrison, Louisiana Democratic Party Chairwoman Karen Carter Peterson, Florida Democratic Party Chairwoman Allison Tant, Democratic Party of Georgia Chairman DuBose Porter, Mississippi Democratic Party Chairman Rickey Cole, former South Carolina Gov. Jim Hodges, and former Democratic National Committee Chairman Don Fowler, each of whom now supports Clinton.
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/04/bernie-sanders-south-black-voters-222220#ixzz46Ql7RlMg
IndyStar: Sanders' race becoming vendetta
It’s time for Sen. Bernie Sanders to step aside and allow the party to heal and unite under Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The emotionally charged state his supporters currently maintain against the now de facto nominee will make the defeat of Donald Trump an uphill battle.
Traditionally, when a path to the nomination is no longer viable, a candidate bows out of the race to give the presumptive nominee an opportunity to make their case. The supporters of Bernie Sanders consistently poll Clinton negatively, and over 50,000 have already pledged to vote Green or write the Vermont senator in should he not get the nomination.
A protracted race could only intensify Sanders supporters’ distaste for Clinton and in July she would have only a little over three months to heal the wounds, unify the base and woo Sanders supporters. That’s just not enough time.
The longer Sanders decides to stay in the race, the more divided the Democratic Party will become; and should Clinton miss out on the moderates, millennials and liberals because their dislike for her boils over, a case could be made that she could lose the election.
This is a curious decision by Sanders, whose race with Clinton appears to be becoming more of a vendetta for him against her personally rather than making the strategic moves needed to ensure the issues he fights for aren’t swallowed whole by a Trump presidency. Time will tell if he does the right thing for his policy ideals and the people of this country.
http://www.indystar.com/story/opinion/readers/2016/04/20/bernie-sanders-needs-end-campaign-unite-democrats/83321390/
Sounds like Cruz is conceding next week's primaries
I heard he bypassed the NE completely and headed straight to Indiana . Not exactly a winning strategy.
What will Bernie do with his leftover campaign money?
If he's really committed to being a Denocrat, he could help oir candidates retake the Senate and help out in those newly vulnerable Republican House Dstricts.
As far as I can tell, Bernie has two bad choices in front of him
He can be a statesman and walk away or he can be known as the guy who joined the party to vandalize it One involves a productive career in the Senate, the other does not.
Bernie Sanders Lost His Old Block in Brooklyn
Bernie Sanders is basically the emancipated soul of old Brooklyn. He grew up the child of Polish immigrants in an a small apartment in a heavily Jewish neighborhood that alternately gets described as Midwood and Flatbush. (These borders change with time and real estate trends.) So, you may be wondering, how did the native son do on his old block?
Well, Sanders grew up on 1525 E. 26th Street, which is between Avenue P and King's Highway.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/04/19/bernie_sanders_lost_his_old_block_in_brooklyn.html
Bernie Sanders Is Threatened By a T-Shirt
Bernie Sanders cares about the little guy. Except when the little guy disagrees with him.
That’s the message the Democratic presidential candidate sent when his campaign threatened legal action against a small t-shirt vendor who had dared to make fun of him.
Late last week, a Seattle lawyer representing Sanders’ campaign demanded that LibertyManiacs, a three-employee online merchandising shop, immediately take down t-shirts that humorously portrayed the Vermont senator alongside a pantheon of Communist figures, with the caption: ‘Bernie is my comrade’. (A red star replaced the dot over the ‘i’ in Bernie for emphasis).
Using high-priced lawyers to bully a small business that is making fun your campaign is an odd move for a politician who has built a grassroots movement on protecting average Americans from the whims of the rich and powerful.
?v=1446846968
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/04/20/bernie-sanders-is-threatened-by-a-t-shirt.html
Sanders’s campaign manager previewed a very undemocratic strategy for the Democratic primary
But later that same night, Sanders's campaign manager, Jeff Weaver, went on MSNBC and said that the campaign's plan is to win the election by persuading superdelegates to dump Hillary Clinton.
This isn't the first time the Sanders campaign has previewed this strategy. They began talking about it in March, arguing that if they could finish the primaries strong, then even if they trailed Clinton in delegates, they could use their strong poll numbers, tremendous small-donors fundraising, and general momentum to persuade superdelegates to switch sides and hand them the nomination.
And fair enough. It's an incredibly unlikely stratagem — superdelegates are the very definition of the Democratic Party establishment, which is why Clinton has an enormous advantage among them — but it's completely within the rules of the game.
It is, however, a bit unseemly for Sanders to blast New York's primary for barring independent voters only to have his campaign manager go out and say they're explicitly planning to use superdelegates to overturn the will of the voters.
But what turns this into an unusually difficult argument for Sanders is that, early in the race, Sanders's supporters feared this is how Clinton would steal the election, and so they mobilized their supporters to demand that the superdelegates abide by the will of the voters. Even today, some Sanders supporters (wrongly) think Clinton's lead is the unfair result of superdelegates ignoring the voters and backing her campaign.
http://www.vox.com/2016/4/19/11465392/bernie-sanders-superdelegates
Profile Information
Gender: MaleHometown: Detroit Area, MI
Home country: USA
Current location: San Francisco, CA
Member since: Wed Oct 29, 2008, 02:53 PM
Number of posts: 58,659
