I donated to Sanders Campaign last week. I'm a Kasich guy, and have been since he declared and the first deabte. He's the most ready to run, has the best resume, and frankly, is more electable than these other "electable" folks out there. But I love teh Sanders vibe.

We are in full agreement. I never liked open primaries. The party members should determine who is the party representative.

So basically the Democratic elite just needs to dig up some disingenuous dirt on Sanders in order for a Clinton comeback.

I saw a little of this yesterday - read a story where a Democratic PAC was instrumental in the machinations in the background to get Sanders either elected or re-elected in 2006 (?).

I would think this wouldn't be too hard. Really, is it even possible to get as far a being a potential presidential nominee without taking some money somewhere from a PAC, lobby group, etc.?

Isn't it generally against the interests of the party to turn away voters? There's no hint Sanders was driven by a wave of GOP ratfuckers. He pulled in a lot of new voters and the party should look to finding a way to keep them on the D side in November.

Yup. The one I remember the most was the 2002 Democratic Primary, where Cynthia McKinney got kicked to the curb by large number of crossover voters. I just did a quick check: only 6,000 people voted in the R primary that year, compared to 29,000 in the previous R primary. McKinney lost by a little under 20,000 votes, and it is widely thought that the margin of victory was provided by people who normally voted in Republican primaries.

I suppose the counterpoint to Jon/Imran would be this: if your politics are in a strong minority in your district, realistically you have *no* voice in the general election. Being able to cross over does give you the chance to have *some* say in who represents you--something you would not have had otherwise.

I think the women voter breakdown was far more telling. Amongst women 18-29, Sanders beat Hillary by 59 POINTS! Sanders overall won the women vote 55-44. That's a huge problem for her in a voter block that swung her way last time she ran for the nomination.

Looks like a lot of women just reserved their place in hell.

:confused:

The Albright comments.

According to the CNN tracker, though Sanders completely trounced Hillary, she won the delegate count? WTF is going on with these weird primaries? Does that include these superdelegates who are apparently paid before the primaries?

Yes, superdelegates.

AP has it 13 to 9 Sanders. Must be 6 superdelegates.

NH has 24 pledged delegates (delegates who vote according to last night's vote). 22 of those have been allocated thus far, 13 to Sanders, 9 to Clinton. The last two are still not allocated. It's fair to assume Sanders will get at least one, if not both.

NH has 8 Superdelegates. 6 of these have declared for HRC. As noted, they are free to switch up until the convention.

So, of NH's 32 total delegates, HRC has 15 right now. Sanders has 13. Four (two pledged and two supers) are still in play.

Dola...

There are a total of 712 Democratic superdelegates. This represents about 15% of the delegate count. Right now HRC leads the superdelegate count of those who have publicly pledged support approximately 357-14 (you see slightly varied counts at different places).

If the convention were to get down to superdelegates overruling the voters, the superdelegates will switch. There's no point in nominating someone that would so fracture the party that the general would be a foregone conclusion. The superdelegates are the most engaged political folks in the party. Most of them aren't going to risk throwing their power and influence away.

That's basically what was happening with Obama, although he did eventually have a strong enough lead that it didn't matter.

Counterpoint: there's no point in an establishment Democrat who's been entrenched in the party long enough to become a superdelegate to ever throw their vote to a Socialist...someone who's not even a registered Democrat.

Yup

Madeleine Albright's Words Backfire With Hillary Loss | The Daily Caller

Ahh. Somehow I had missed that story.

NYT exit poll.

So old, well-off people love Hillary.

Sounds Republican, doesn't it?

At least in New Hampshire, yes. Sanders still his to deal with the minority factor soon, though--especially the black voters in the South. That will be interesting to see.

Every year I have my government class take the political compass test. Every year they end up in the same spot, socially and economically progressive. Unlike the past few elections there is actually a candidate in their quadrant, Sanders. Most of the time it's their stance and on the opposite side, Obama, Bush, et al.

So it makes sense the youth are into Bernie. He can appeal to expectations rather than experiences. Plus.. he uhmm... sees you when you're sleeping
He knows when you're awake He knows if you've been bad or good,
So be good for goodness sake! :D

It's got to be somewhat bad news for Sanders though that the 18-29 age range only made up 19%. In NH, he was going to get the older voters as well (aside from the really old ones), but that wasn't the case in Iowa (Sanders won 18-29 and 30-44, but lost 45-64 and 64+) and it won't be the case in the rest of the country.

Not really interesting. Clinton already has a 394-42 delegate lead and will absolutely crush it in the south. There is absolutely no contest. We just want to pretend that there is because that is more interesting.

I'm no longer certain this is the case, because Hillary is making a lot of mistakes lately. Plus, she still has to explain how emails made it from the state department's top-secret computer network to her home server without their security markings. While it seems certain Obama will protect her from prosecution, the fallout could be significant.

For some reason, she got it into her head that she had to out-left Sanders. So she's repudiating her husband's presidency - exactly the accomplishments that made independents like him. And now he's on the campaign trail with her. That's confusing.

Meanwhile, free stuff for everyone. Just add it to the tab.

No one really believes she's that far to the left. So young people aren't just embracing Sanders and the free stuff, they're to a point where they actually dislike Hillary because they know she was someone else before the campaign started. It's not just the email server she's lying about.

Sanders has tapped into a very real problem, however. College is more expensive than it was in the past. When my mom went to Cornell, she paid for most of it with a part-time job in the cafeteria. My dad's tuition at Yale was paid for under the GI Bill. Costs increased, and by the time I was a student I had to cobble together a couple of jobs and go in-state. But I got through without debt.

Could that work today? Forget it. Unless you're on scholarship, you're going to be deeply in debt after college. And if you don't have a useful major, you're going to have trouble finding a job anyway.

I completely disagree with Sanders' solution, but this is a problem that anyone under 30 can see a lot more clearly than the rest of us can. If you ask college professors, they'll blame administrative bloat and 100 other things. I think we need university reform just as badly as we need health care reform.

Well, let's not get too wrapped up in the powerful blue/white shading imagery there. Sanders won this whole state BIG with lots of inherent advantages...so the fact that he won most of the age/economic subgroups isn't itself a shock.

Another way to look at that breakdown is to realize that in the "middle" income group from $100-200K, Clinton OUTPERFORMED her statewide numbers (even while losing). Less interestingly, she did so with the second-oldest group as well.

He is unsurprisingly killing her with the young, and there are other factors we know are driving the race... but that $100-200K band is a pretty important demographic. And that's before you introduce the new (to New Hampshire) concept of "people of color."

If that's true, it's new information. Nothing has been released confirming the emails were top-secret at the time of initial transmission.

Pretty much this IMO.

She'll absolutely dominate the SEC primaries ... but it returns to interesting, at least on paper, since she appears to be in some trouble for the mid-March round.

There was some reference last night I caught, about her strategy basically being to build an insurmountable lead & render a lot of stuff moot. That still looks to me to be the most likely outcome by far.

I mean, last night's hoo-ha was only a +4 delegates to Sanders. For all the sound & fury, the significance ...

But, being deeply in the middle of this process right now ourselves, how many people that are going to make it to a degree aren't on at least some degree of scholarship.

I mean, the "list price" for college is absurd. But who the hell is paying list price? I just had this discussion last weekend with a couple of parents & a veteran educator, the standard opening offer these days is equal to roughly half at even most private colleges. That's the typical day one with admission acceptance number that is typical. Granted, rarified air set of students & all that jazz, but those are the kids that are getting into School X. Those are the kids that the school is definitely showing an indication that they want.

The leap from 50 percent (via scholarships and/or various cost waivers) to 60 or 70 percent isn't really that tough either. It's the next level above "the average freshman enrollee" but it's doable for many of those first round kids. Now the final portion, yeah, we're finding that to be where it gets a lot tougher. And the remainder isn't insubstantial, by any means ... but it's still a long way from MSRP too.

I'm probably as inclined toward the "name" school phenomenon as anyone but, realistically, if you aren't getting that sort of offer right off the bat then you may be reaching a tier above your grasp for school choice. To me any offer less than that is a strong sign that you might need to expand your horizons in terms of where to go.

There's always vocational jobs. Or going to a community college on a university-transfer pathway.

That's how European countries with "free" tuition handle this problem. But in the US, people don't accept that solution. Kids would rather be warehoused in majors that don't even qualify them for McDonald's than go to vocational school. The diploma has become more important than the future.

Average discount rates are in the mid-fourties for a lot of schools. We were at 44 the last I heard. That's a big problem, because there isn't much room left to discount.

Don't blame the students. A lot of them would be fine with vocational or two year degrees if they opened doors the way a four year degree does. They aren't stupid, they understand that the jobs they can get without a four year degree are dwindling every year. Even if that vocational degree works today, when they're unemployed later they won't have options. Many employers use the four year degree as a filter, and equate a vocational degree with a HS diploma.

Even community college is now somewhat ridiculous. I mean, I don't know what your definition of cheap is but if I were to go to the same community college I did years ago it would now cost in the range of 15-20K (Long Beach City College, CA) when you include the various fees. My daughter did JC for one semester just because she planned to leave on a mission and that one semester was around $3500 (that's in Virginia). If that's now the affordable option its pretty crappy.

I'd go so far as to make the argument that the 4 year degree is awfully damned close to what a HS diploma used to be.

Says much about how devalued a HS diploma has become.

Smells about right to my sniff test, there's enough that are far below that 50% mark for me to imagine the average being driven down in that range.

~$2600 for two semesters, I live in the RDU area of North Carolina. I know some people on this board live in Greensboro. I grew up there, tuition for GTCC is around $2000 for two semesters and the institution gives out merit/need based grant depending on the applicant.

This is all of course not considering living expenses (if any), cost of books, transportation, and assuming you don't qualify for pell grants.

We all have to pay in some way. I got a degree for "free" from the military by going to night-school (thank you greater University of Maryland school system) and still have about $100k in GI Bill (scholarship) funds waiting for me (or my daughter). But I had to give the government about 7 years to accomplish that.

Is that better or worse than not joining the military and just going to school and then getting a great paying job at ~24 and paying off $80k in debt? I think if we equate time/effort to money, it breaks even.

Well, that idea sure worked.

There are several issues here:

1). Many kids do not want to go into the labor sector. The easiest way until recently to earn six figures was to become a welder, and move to the Bakken Shale and you could write your own paycheck. However, the ratio of men to women was something like 20:1, and there is not much to do out there.

2). There are not a ton of jobs for vocational skills. Many of these jobs left the country. On top of that, many of the ones still here require a 4 year degree for some reason (I blame lazy HR people).

3). This ties back to #1, but many parents do not want their children in a blue collar job. They push their kids towards college rather than to a trade. For instance, in my industry there is a shortage of plant operators. Who tells their kids about all the great opportunities in waste water?

Change the names, and you could have plucked this from almost any Democratic primary from 2008. For all that Clinton was winning contests, she wasn't moving the needle on pledged delegates.

Some fairly big news, the Congressional Black Caucus is formally endorsing Hillary Clinton today:

Congressional Black Caucus to formally endorse Clinton on Thursday - The Washington Post

Apparently 90% of the 20 member CBC board voted to endorse Clinton, none voted for Bernie (the other 10% abstained)

Is this really big news? Bill Clinton is jokingly referred to as the first black president for a reason.

Yes. Sanders has been trying really hard this week to burnish his African-American credentials - meeting with Al Sharpton, getting some black intellectuals saying they've vote for him, or against Clinton (Ta-Nehisi Coates and Michelle Alexander) - and this endorsement kind of kicks that down.

It's really only significant because of 2008 when HRC had a lot of CBC support early but they faded to Obama. Sort of a making amends type deal.

It's important because...

Arkansas: Clinton 57, Sanders 25
Michigan: Clinton 57, Sanders 28
North Carolina: Clinton 55, Sanders 29
New York: Clinton 55, Sanders 34

Sanders has to turn these results around and the only way to do that is if the IA and NH performance helps make him more credible to minority voters.

He's dumber than I thought if he thought he would pull the AA vote from the Clintons.

Tough to go against the presumptive nominee at this point, especially one that is thought to hold grudges.

It's his only way to win, though. He has to try, or else he's completely toast.

Fixed that for you.

He's not turning that ship around in the Time left before March primaries

Wait, so he never met with John Lewis? Did he meet with any members of the CBC?

He tried. Only 6 showed up.


Bernie Sanders Meets With The Congressional Black Caucus — And Mostly Talks Policy - BuzzFeed News

I agree... but some still hold onto... something, I guess.

Let's not pretend that Lewis and the CBC aren't part of "The Establishment," now. It seems pretty safe to assume that the Clinton machine is preventing any meaningful dialogue there.

Sure, but just like Romney met with the NAACP, you still make the attempt. And the fact that he apparently hadn't already built up a good relationship with the CBC before even running for President kind of explains the demographic problems he's facing right now.

My take is that the NAACP and the CBC are two very different things, at least when it comes to the reach/influence of the Clinton machine. I think I recall that Sanders showed up at an NAACP event in the fall or winter, and I know that Ben Jealous (former NAACP president) endorsed Sanders a week or so ago.

As elected officials, they are pretty much all part of the establishment by definition. And, every member is a superdelegate, too. Assuming that some members that were on the fence are taking this opportunity to announce their own individual endorsements, HRC is also adding to her lead in delegates.

The endorsement was made by the CBC PAC, not the CBC.

The majority of the CBC PAC board members are lobbyists, not congressman.

Jim Webb rules out independent run for president - POLITICO

It's like Sage Rosenfels holding a press conference to announce he's not interested in the Broncos' starting QB job if Manning retires.

Are you assuming they are unrelated? CBC PAC is the CBC's political arm, and in response to the endorsement a half dozen CBC members are going to South Carolina to campaign for Clinton, including John Lewis. In fact, they held off endorsing anyone because they wanted to wait for SC Rep Jim Clyburn to endorse... and he's planning on endorsing Clinton, so they've gone ahead.

Sanders has a narrow path to staying competitive after Super Tuesday. It involves making states like Georgia, Virginia and Texas respectable (call it >40% results) and winning all of Minnesota, Vermont, Colorado and Massachusetts. If he can also stay close in Nevada and respectable in South Carolina, he could actually emerge from Super Tuesday in a slightly positive pledged delegate position.

Those are all big ifs, and I tend to side with the "there's not actually much of a race going on" contingent.

According to Rep Barbara Lee,

"Amy, first of all, I want to make it clear there’s a clear distinction between the Congressional Black Caucus and the Congressional Black Caucus PAC. We actually have a Republican in the Congressional Black Caucus. I don’t want the viewers, your viewers, to believe that the Congressional Black Caucus and the Congressional Black Caucus PAC are one and the same."

"Well, I am not a member of the CBC political action committee. And I think it’s important to discuss that with the PAC members. Once again, there’s a clear firewall. There’s a clear distinction."

As Congressional Black Caucus PAC Prepares to Back Clinton, Barbara Lee Withholds Endorsement | Democracy Now!

Uh... of course there is a firewall between the two groups - they are carrying on political action on behalf of Congressmen. However, they are clearly doing the work of the group they are associated with. Do you not understand how PACs work?

And remember what I said about the CBC PAC waiting for SC Rep Jim Clyburn to make a decision? He's not on the board of the CBC PAC... he is, however, a major member of the CBC proper.

Here's wiki:

Political action committee - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The non-connected part means there does need to be a firewall between the group and their PAC. And make no mistake, it is their PAC. See the picture on the "About" of the CBC PAC website (under "Who We Are")?

http://www.cbcpac.org/about-us

That'd be the Congressional Black Caucus... not the CBC PAC board, but the CBC proper.

They're still distinct entities. An endorsement from the CBC PAC is not an endorsement from the CBC.

Agreed here, except -- I think he has to win Nevada, period. That's his one chance to show some lasting power before he starts to fade out. A win, not a close loss, could stem that tide and uncork some more dollars to feed on. But I think he's all in there.

Yes, it's an endorsement from the political arm of the CBC... still a major deal. The CBC never endorses anyone as a group. Their PAC does. The resources of the CBC's PAC are now in service of the Clinton campaign.

Now Ellison saying something similar to Lee. Are they splitting hairs, or is there a rift here. I'm reading that the CBC is sending Representatives to SC to shill for HRC on one hand, and on the other some individuals are saying that the CBC hasn't endorsed anyone.

Cong'l Black Caucus (CBC) has NOT endorsed in presidential. Separate CBCPAC endorsed withOUT input from CBC membership, including me.

— Rep. Keith Ellison (@keithellison) February 11, 2016

Without input from "all" CBC members would be correct. They clearly had input from some members, and until we hear from more than 2 people questioning this endorsement, it's unlikely that a poll of all members would've changed anything.

There are always defections from endorsements. I doubt all Human Rights Campaign members will vote for Hillary, for example.

...

Bingo. It's not like union endorsements are made by a vote of the entire union, for instance. The CBC's political arm has endorsed Hillary Clinton (and as I point out, waiting for influential CBC member, Rep Clyburn, who isn't on the board of CBC PAC, at least not currently), but that doesn't mean that all the members of the CBC are necessarily in agreement. That'll happen with any organizational endorsement, as pointed out the Human Rights Campaign members aren't going to vote all en bloc.

So it appears that after the debate, journalists such as Jonathan Alter and David Axelrod (no conservatives) went to Twitter to say that Senator Sanders was full of it when he implied he didn't savagely go after President Obama. I think that's the first time Sanders has been caught like that before in this campaign.

The Sanders supporters on my FB feed have gone absolutely apeshit. They're attacking John Lewis of all people and using a photo that purports to show Bernie at the Selma March, which is almost certainly NOT Sanders. It's getting really tiresome. Love Bernie Sanders. His supporters? Not so much.

Did anyone else think that Clinton was like super close to Christi-ing (not in the bridge-closing way, the what-he-did-to-Rubio way) Sanders? I mean Sanders' response to him improving race relations over the Obama Administration was going to take tax breaks away from the rich!!!

What's a Super Delegate, and Why Did Clinton Win Them? - NBC News

Sorry, bub.

And according to NBC, Sanders did win 15-14 in delegates after the DNC Super Delegates re-arranged the outcome a bit...but I'm guessing he should've won by a bit wider of a margin.

Don't get hung up on super delegates. They don't have to commit until the convention. Whomever wins the voting is going to get the nomination. The world is too public to pull any shenanigans with super delegates.

Now, I'll agree the media should stop reporting the counts with super delegates or at least make clear the difference between earned and pledged delegates.

Yeah, if the super delegates ever wanted to flex their muscle like that, then 2008 would've been the perfect time. It was close enough for them to have given the edge to Hillary, but most ended up flipping to Obama to reflect the voters' choices.

So who invests in these irrelevant super delegates and what is it's purpose then?

It's all noise unless/until Bernie wins SC or NV. If he does, then it is panic time in Clinton-land. If he does not, then the superdelegates won't matter b/c Clinton will beat him in earned delegates.

They were created, IIRC, back in 1968 with the idea that if there ever was such a contentious convention again that threatened to break out into violence, the superdelegates could bring some order to the proceedings.

Also if there was a wide open field of 4 or 5 viable candidates and none of them could get the majority of pledged delegates, the superdelegates could come up with a victor, rather than going through multiple rounds of voting (as happened in the past).

This piece (from 2008) points to them being given such influence as a direct result of the McGovern & Carter defeats. Not a source I'd usually quote from frankly but the use of quotes & coverage from other sources seems legit enough ... fwiw

A Brief History of Superdelegates

Free Beacon Poll: Clinton and Sanders Tied in Nevada

I mean, if she can't put away Bernie Sanders, then how the hell is she going to beat whomever the hell the GOP puts up?

The GOP candidate will likely be much easier to beat than Bernie Sanders.

In the last month, the only thing I've heard about Hillary is that she put our national secrets at risk and that she has Madeline Albright stumping for her and demanding ALL women vote for her or they will go to a "special place in hell".

I seriously doubt people are dumb enough on a large enough scale, to vote her into office. She has to be the most worthless candidate of the entire bunch.

No, not even close. I'd go out & gather names on tombstones for her before I'd risk Sanders in office.

We the people allegedly voted in Bush twice so yes, the people are dumb enough to vote in Hilary.

Okay, hang on. She might be an undesirable candidate for any number of reasons, but you can't be seriously suggesting that she lacks the substantive qualifications to be a candidate?

It's hardly an unbiased source, but this poll, with a relatively large N, spells huge trouble for Clinton in Nevada:

http://freebeacon.com/wp-content/upl...v-toplines.pdf

(reading the questions asked, this is really a push poll, so I'd take the results with at least one grain of salt despite the larger N).

Clinton was +23 seven weeks ago in a much smaller Gravis poll.

If this is how she's doing with solid establishment backing, the wall could easily crumble just as quickly as it did eight years ago.

We can argue over her qualifications or whether she'd be good in office. I don't think, at this point, it can be argued that she isn't one of the worst campaigners we've ever seen. No matter whether her institutional advantages pull this nomination out for her or not, this is the second time she's blown what was thought to be an insurmountable lead.

You might be able to argue that Obama was a transformational figure. But Bernie Sanders... I've been a Sanders fan for years, and I scoffed when he announced his candidacy. I figured that the best he could hope for was to push her slightly to the left. As of now, the campaign is being fought almost entirely over his issues. It's truly amazing.

Yeah, but how many people even know what her issues are?

+1

They only need to look at the latest polling.

spoilered for size

I think what it shows is that there is a hunger out there among the populace for something completely different than the typical established candidate. The reason Sanders keeps trending up is because he offers a departure from the systemic buying and selling of candidates by big businesses, etc. He offers a departure from the nature of politics by not playing the attack ad game, coming off as very genuine (because in all likelihood he is very genuine) and just generally not being a typical politician. I think in much the same way, Trump has captured the same type of crowd from the opposite side. Maybe what they stand for as candidates doesn't play to everyone, but who they are compared to the traditional candidates is what makes people want to hear and see what they can do. The public pretty much knows what they can expect from the typical candidate by now. They're ready for something different.

Even if neither Trump nor Sanders was able to get their ideas through congress, I think this is a lasting push back we're seeing from the people. Typical candidates aren't going to find themselves being looked at favorably any more when an alternative makes itself available. This day and age it is easier than ever to prove you are not who you say you are, and I think that reflects in the polls. I hope it carries down through the house and senate as well, and I hope it results in the eventual face lift our lawmaking body needs in order to earn some level of trust among the people they govern.

No good polling out, but the signs are all pointing to Nevada being close.

I mean, if she can't put away Bernie in Nevada?

The Dems will either be stuck with Bernie or with a candidate who had a hell of a time beating Bernie. Neither bodes well.

I'm trying to think of the sports equivalent of Hillary's performances the last two cycles. The USA Men's basketball teams before Colangelo took over?

heh - that's really good.

Does it really count as "a hell of a time" if she destroys him on Super Tuesday?

Though three polls just came out in South Carolina, all of them have Hillary around +20. Southern firewall.

No, it doesn't. And if it happens that way, and then she rolls on to win the big midwestern states afterward, then it won't be much trouble in the final analysis.

But insiders forget just how many outsiders there are. Sanders won NH. Wow, big deal, we knew that. We immediately got into margin and message and money and so forth. But the headline was still SANDERS WINS in big letters.

Then, based mainly on the completely predictable outcome in NH, Sanders got momentum and money to go fight a legit fight in Nevada. And the "before things got hot" polling there was a Clinton landslide too. Now it's a toss-up. That's just how the state-by-state system works.

I still think she's the winner at the end. But if he wins Nevada by any margin at all, he could gain some momentum to not get completely flattened in the deep south, and he could make it a pretty substantive and possibly drawn-out race.