March 2, 2016

Guardian: It's time for the haters to get behind Hillary Clinton

Tuesday 1 March 2016 12.32 EST
Rachel Sklar

But haters: the moment has come to start putting our differences aside. Hillary Clinton is a vetted, tested candidate. She and Bernie Sanders have had numerous debates filled with intelligent exchanges on policy and principle and their respective records and proposals and visions for the country. They have pushed each other to the left where it’s counted for progressives (Keystone pipeline, Hyde Amendment, gun control) and have both been united in their conviction that the clown show on the other side of the aisle must be defeated at all costs.

They have both emerged from the fracas a little bruised – it’s the primary after all – but as the dust has cleared it is evident that the Democrats have two strong, smart, principled and dedicated public servants running for the leadership of this country. That’s no small thing. (See: aforementioned Republican clown show.)

By the end of today, though, the writing will be on the wall. The Democrats will have a pretty good idea about which candidate their party prefers for the presidency and it seems fairly likely that person will be Hillary Clinton. This is not to suggest that Sanders should drop out of the race – that would be premature, and rude – but it does suggest that the time to come together as a party behind a strong, supported nominee is nigh.

(snip)

I’m not going to hammer you with article after article after article after article about how terrific and qualified Hillary Clinton is, or even about how she’s actually pretty nice, and even cool. (You can read them when you’re ready. Grief is complicated.) I’m just going to say, it’s time to stop hating on Hillary Clinton. Because she’s probably going to be the Democratic nominee.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/01/its-time-for-haters-get-behind-hillary-clinton-super-tuesday-vote

March 1, 2016

New Yorker: What Hillary Clintons's Huge Win in SC Means

FEBRUARY 28, 2016
What Hillary Clinton’s Huge Win in South Carolina Means
BY JOHN CASSIDY

But the sheer scale of Clinton’s victory in South Carolina suggests that Sanders is now facing a monumental task. Almost certainly, she will sweep six of the seven Southern states that are set to vote in the so-called “S.E.C. primary,” on Tuesday: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Oklahoma, Texas, and Virginia. She may also win Oklahoma, where Sanders has been campaigning hard. And there are also questions about whether Sanders will be able to carry states he has targeted further north, such as Massachusetts and Minnesota.

As he has done elsewhere, in South Carolina Sanders did much better among white voters than among minority voters. But he didn’t win that population segment either. According to the exit polls, Clinton got fifty-four per cent of the white vote, and Sanders got forty-eight per cent. If Clinton can replicate elsewhere this pattern of splitting the white vote and doing extremely well with minority voters, she will eventually get all of the delegates she needs to earn the nomination.

In terms of strategy, the South Carolina result was a vindication of Clinton’s decision to concentrate on core Democratic voters, and to try and re-create the Obama coalition that swept the Democrats to victory in 2008 and 2012. A key part of that coalition, obviously, is black voters. Even before she had made her candidacy official, Clinton was cultivating black leaders, visiting black churches, and embracing issues that matter to black voters, such as the police shooting of black youths and the Black Lives Matter movement. In her victory speech, Clinton saluted five mothers—including the mothers of Trayvon Martin and Eric Garner—who had accompanied her around South Carolina in recent days. She also appeared to invoke Obama’s legacy, saying, “When we stand together there is no barrier too big to break.”

(snip)

Black churches and pastors, one of whom Clinton cited in her speech, were also part of the story. According to the exit polls, fifty-seven per cent of the South Carolina voters attend church weekly. Evidently, not many of them warmed up to Sanders, at least not sufficiently to abandon Clinton for a left-wing insurgent from Vermont. Despite the fact that South Carolina is a poor state, and particularly so in areas where black people tend to live, his message didn’t resonate as much there as it has elsewhere. Just twenty per cent of the voters said that inequality was the most important issue to them, versus forty-three per cent who said that the economy and jobs were.

http://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/what-hillary-clintons-huge-win-in-south-carolina-means
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My word!

February 28, 2016

Sometimes people aren't at their best on the tarmac.

The headline says "Democratic Primaries: Hillary Clinton won SC"



http://www.france24.com/fr/20160228-primaires-democrates-hillary-clinton-remporte-caroline-sud

February 28, 2016

Sanders did not talk to reporters on his plane.

Just landed in Minnesota - nothing. Via NPR live.

February 28, 2016

Don't cry for me Carolina

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note to alerter/jury: this is a pro-Clinton post

February 27, 2016

Quinnipiac: Hillary Clinton Holds Big Lead Over Bernie Sanders in Florida

Feb 27, 2016

THE CAPITAL, TALLAHASSEE, February 26, 2016………. Buoyed by support from women and older voters, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton holds a comfortable lead over Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders in the Democratic presidential primary in Florida, a new poll shows.

The Quinnipiac University poll, released Friday morning, found that Clinton leads Sanders by a margin of 59 percent to 33 percent among likely Florida Democratic voters. The new numbers come less than three weeks before Florida’s March 15 presidential primaries.

http://naplesherald.com/2016/02/27/quinnipiac-hillary-clinton-holds-big-lead-over-bernie-sanders-in-florida/

February 27, 2016

SC Primary: Turnout high in downtown Greenville - 2:27 p.m.

Voter turnout was particularly high in downtown Greenville on Saturday during the Democratic Primary.

At 2 p.m., 31 percent of voters in Greenville's precinct 10 had visited Springfield Baptist Church and cast a ballot.

That's well above the 2008 Democratic primary turnout record for Greenville County, about 19 percent.

That number is an outlier statewide.

"Overall, it would be low or light – slow," said Chris Whitmire at the State Election Commission.


Longtime Hillary Clinton supporter Georgia Gamble cast her vote in the South Carolina Presidential Preference Primary on Saturday.

http://www.greenvilleonline.com/story/news/local/2016/02/27/live-blog-south-carolina-democratic-primary/80987478/
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February 27, 2016

HuffPo: Sanders Fans Think He'll Lose SC Because of Bill Clinton

COLUMBIA, SOUTH CAROLINA -- On the eve of South Carolina’s Democratic presidential primary, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) spoke in a mostly empty gymnasium at the historically black Claflin University in Orangeburg. It was an unusual sight for those accustomed to massive rallies for Sanders packed with thousands upon thousands of screaming supporters.

Sanders, as candidates tend to do, spun the appearance as an auditorium-half-full, rather than half-empty, moment.

“When we first came here, we knew very few people,” he said. “But in the last nine months, we have come a very long way, and that’s because of your support.”

(snip)

“All of our parents grew up with President Clinton,” Bradley said. “We don’t really know (the Clintons) the way they know them, we just know what we hear on social media.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/bernie-sanders-south-carolina-bill-clinton_us_56d1d0b8e4b0871f60eb9d9e
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moral: you can buy a tweet but you can't buy truth.

February 27, 2016

Bernie Sanders, 1994: "horribly violent ... deeply sick and sociopathic ... must be put behind bars"

and more, from "Crime Bill Politics: A Flash Point In Democratic Race," NPR, February 26, 2016. Bernie on the 1994 crime bill he voted for :

http://www.npr.org/2016/02/26/468297933/crime-bill-politics-a-flash-point-in-democratic-race

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So it appears that Bernie voted for this package of police state measures, and Hillary did not.

Am I missing something?

February 27, 2016

Nevada: AmericanCrossroads "ran ads branding Sanders as the only true progressive in the race."

http://www.npr.org/2016/02/26/468216156/conservative-superpacs-ads-take-aim-at-hillary-clinton