2016 elections - because it's never too early

[alfred russel]

Fox News and Rasmussen...the only two polls showing Trump ahead of Clinton in months. 

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_clinton-5491.html

[Barrister]

Fox News and Rasmussen...the only two polls showing Trump ahead of Clinton in months. 

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_clinton-5491.html

They're also the most recent polls.

I believe I previously said Trump would get demolished in the general.  I now retract that statement.  I think this election is going to be tight.

[Admiral Yi]

Hasn't he outraised Clinton thus far?

I believe he has only spent 1.2 million of other people's money in the primary.  Up to now he has been spending his own.

[Barrister]

Hasn't he outraised Clinton thus far?

I believe he has only spent 1.2 million of other people's money in the primary.  Up to now he has been spending his own.

Out by a factor of 10 - he's fundraised $12 mil from other people, about 25% of his total spending.

https://www.opensecrets.org/pres16/candidate.php?id=N00023864

And note that his "self-financing" has been by a loan to his campaign.  Lots of speculation that he's going to pay himself back if fundraising goes well.

[Eddie Teach]

The fun part about Bernie is there is no way he can fund a general election run without doing the same. If he thinks hes going to run a national election on 27 dollar donations the man is more delusional than I thought.

Hasn't he outraised Clinton thus far?

[Admiral Yi]

White guys all look the same to me.

[alfred russel]

And note that his "self-financing" has been by a loan to his campaign.  Lots of speculation that he's going to pay himself back if fundraising goes well.

He was "self financing"* in the primary bragging that he couldn't be bought like the other guys taking donations, but apparently is up for sale now. So...hope no one voted for him on that basis.

*he was never self financing.

[jimmy olsen]

Hasn't he outraised Clinton thus far?

I believe he has only spent 1.2 million of other people's money in the primary.  Up to now he has been spending his own.

Sanders?

[jimmy olsen]

Wow

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/05/18/dying-gop-senator-apologizes-to-muslims-for-donald-trump.html

Dying GOP Senator Apologizes to Muslims for Donald Trump

Bob Bennett spent his last days letting Muslims know how sorry he was that an Islamophobe had become his party's all-but-certain nominee.

Former GOP senator Bob Bennett lay partially paralyzed in his bed on the fourth floor of the George Washington University Hospital. He was dying.

Not 48 hours had passed since a stroke had complicated his yearlong fight against pancreatic cancer. The cancer had begun to spread again, necessitating further chemotherapy. The stroke had dealt a further blow that threatened to finish him off.

Between the hectic helter-skelter of nurses, doctors, and well wishes from a long-cultivated community of friends and former aides, Bennett faced a quiet moment with his son Jim and his wife Joyce.

It was not a moment for self-pity.

Instead, with a slight slurring in his words, Bennett drew them close to express a dying wish: "Are there any Muslims in the hospital?" he asked.

"I'd love to go up to every single one of them to thank them for being in this country, and apologize to them on behalf of the Republican Party for Donald Trump," Bennett told his wife and son, both of whom relayed this story to The Daily Beast.

The rise of Donald Trump had appalled the three-term Utah senator, a Republican who fell victim to the Tea Party wave of the 2010 midterms. His vote for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, had alienated many conservative activists in his state, who chose lawyer Mike Lee as the GOP nominee for Senate instead.

But as Bennett reflected on his life and legacy in mid-April, following the stroke, he wasn't focused on the race that ended his political career. Instead, he brought up the issue of Muslims in America—over and over again.

He mentioned it briefly in a hospital interview with the Deseret News, a Utah news outlet. "There's a lot of Muslims here in this area. I'm glad they're here," the former senator told the newspaper in April, describing them as "wonderful."

"In the last days of his life this was an issue that was pressing in his mind... disgust for Donald Trump's xenophobia," Jim Bennett said. "At the end of his life he was preoccupied with getting things done that he had felt was left undone."

Trump's proposal to ban Muslim immigrants from America had outraged the former senator, his wife Joyce said, triggering his instincts to do what he could on a personal level. They ultimately did not canvass the hospital, but Bennett had already made an effort in his last months of life.

As they traveled from Washington to Utah for Christmas break, Bennett approached a woman wearing a hijab in the airport.

"He would go to people with the hijab [on] and tell them he was glad they were in America, and they were welcome here," his wife said. "He wanted to apologize on behalf of the Republican Party."

"He was astonished and aghast that Donald Trump had the staying power that he had... He had absolutely no respect for Donald Trump, and I think got angry and frustrated when it became clear that the party wasn't going to steer clear of Trumpism," his son relayed.

Bennett's Mormon faith also played into his beliefs on Trump and Muslims: the billionaire's proposal to ban Muslims prompted the LDS Church to issue a statement in support of religious freedom, quoting its founder saying he would "die in defending the rights... of any denomination who may be unpopular and too weak to defend themselves."

"That was something my father felt very keenly—recognizing the parallel between the Mormon experience and the Muslim experience. [He] wanted to see these people treated with kindness, and not ostracized," Jim Bennett said.

His concern for Muslims was not the only issue he raised in his last days: to his brother-in-law, he spoke urgently on plans for low-income housing in Salt Lake City; to his son Jim, he mentioned a land management plan to mitigate the effects of drought.

"His sense of humor was still there," his wife recalls, as the former senator lay bedridden, unable to swallow or stand up. At the end of his days, Bennett cried out, "Procrustes!"—a reference, and a joke about, the Greek mythological figure who stretched or cut off people's legs in order to force them to fit on a bed.

As this all occurred, letters flowed in from former staff and friends from a long career in politics. One former aide recalled an incident in which she had lied to a television producer to excuse her boss's lateness for an interview. Outed by the producer, the senator had found out about the fib.

"'I never want you to lie for me, and I'll never ask you or any of my staffers to lie for me,'" the staffer, who asked to remain anonymous, recalled Bennett saying to her. "I realized that I was working for a man of great integrity. It was something kind of stuck with me."

At his D.C.-area funeral—he had two, the second in Utah—there was an outpouring of grief from both sides of the aisle. Both Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid spoke at the service.

"As someone who worked hard to bring both sides together to solve problems, it was only fitting that Bob Bennett brought together the Senate Majority Leader and Senate Minority Leader to deliver remarks at his memorial service," Tara DiJulio, a former Bennett spokesperson, told The Daily Beast. "When there was a problem before us, he always worked hard and challenged his staff to find common ground between both parties without wavering on his core principles."

The Tea Party wave that ousted Bennett from the Senate in 2010 was one of the first signs of popular discontent that has arguably led to the tsunami of support for Donald Trump. As that initial wave receded, it swept away many of the values that Bennett cherished: bipartisanship and concern for vulnerable refugees among them.

But even as he was passing away, Bennett struggled to press the issues—to ensure that though his life was ending, the ideas he held dear would not go with it. He died Wednesday, May 4.

[Eddie Teach]

Wasn't he Bush the Elder's Education Secretary?

[jimmy olsen]

Looks like Sanders is going to the leverage to make demands at the convention

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-hidden-importance-of-the-bernie-sanders-voter/

The Hidden Importance Of The Sanders Voter

Many of them are independents, and they could be key to Clinton's general election success.

By Nate Silver

Filed under 2016 Election

  Donald Trump has gained on Hillary Clinton in recent national polls after becoming the presumptive GOP nominee this month. But Trump may also be helped by the ongoing primary battle between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. Although Clinton's substantial lead in pledged delegates (and larger lead in overall delegates) makes her the all-but-certain Democratic nominee, her lack of support from Sanders voters is harming her general election numbers.

According to the most recent YouGov poll, 61 percent of Sanders voters have an unfavorable view of Clinton, against just 38 percent with a favorable one. YouGov has been tracking these numbers for several months,1 and they've gradually gotten worse for Clinton:

GRAPH

The good news for Clinton is that she has the opportunity to gain ground among Sanders voters if and when she officially wraps up the nomination, just as Trump did among Republicans. Although many Sanders supporters will start the general election campaign with a negative view of Clinton, they aren't necessarily eager to vote for Trump. In the YouGov poll, just 55 percent of Sanders supporters said they'd vote for Clinton over Trump in November. However, only 15 percent said they'd vote for Trump. That leaves 30 percent of Sanders voters who say they are undecided, would vote for a third-party candidate or would sit out the election.

There's a key twist, though, in tracking how Sanders voters are affecting Clinton's general election prospects. Unless you break out the numbers for Sanders voters specifically, as YouGov does, you may miss their importance.

That's because a lot of Sanders voters don't identify as Democrats. Exit polls have been conducted in 27 primary and caucus states so far, and Clinton has won among voters who identify as Democrats in all but Vermont, New Hampshire and Wisconsin (where she tied Sanders). But she's won self-identified independents only in Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi. (I keep using that term "self-identified" because the exit poll asks voters how they "usually think of" themselves — Democrat, Republican or independent. A voter's self-identification may differ from her party registration, and some states do not have party registration at all.)

STATE
MARGIN AMONG DEMOCRATS
MARGIN AMONG INDEPENDENTS
INDEPENDENT SHARE OF DEMOCRATIC ELECTORATE

Alabama +73 Clinton +8 Clinton 20%
Arkansas +58 Clinton +19 Sanders 24
Connecticut +21 Clinton +51 Sanders 20
Florida +42 Clinton +13 Sanders 17
Georgia +55 Clinton +3 Clinton 20
Illinois +15 Clinton +39 Sanders 21
Indiana +6 Clinton +44 Sanders 22
Iowa +17 Clinton +43 Sanders 20
Maryland +39 Clinton +12 Sanders 17
Massachusetts +20 Clinton +33 Sanders 33
Michigan +18 Clinton +43 Sanders 27
Mississippi +75 Clinton +32 Clinton 13
Missouri +11 Clinton +34 Sanders 24
Nevada +18 Clinton +48 Sanders 18
New Hampshire +4 Sanders +48 Sanders 40
New York +24 Clinton +44 Sanders 14
North Carolina +32 Clinton +25 Sanders 27
Ohio +29 Clinton +33 Sanders 24
Oklahoma +9 Clinton +48 Sanders 27
Pennsylvania +24 Clinton +46 Sanders 15
South Carolina +60 Clinton +7 Sanders 16
Tennessee +48 Clinton +9 Sanders 23
Texas +50 Clinton +6 Sanders 26
Vermont +64 Sanders +84 Sanders 41
Virginia +42 Clinton +16 Sanders 22
West Virginia +4 Clinton +37 Sanders 34
Wisconsin  Tie +44 Sanders 27
National +27 Clinton +31 Sanders 24

Clinton dominates among Democrats, Sanders among independents
Source: National Exit Polls

Overall throughout the primaries and caucuses, I estimate, Clinton is beating Sanders by 27 percentage points among self-identified Democrats but losing to Sanders by 31 points among voters who call themselves independents but voted in the Democratic primaries.2 This might be confusing because we usually think of independent voters as being moderate. Sanders voters, however, are definitely to the left of Clinton, but a lot of them don't like to call themselves Democrats. (Sanders himself, of course, has repeatedly been elected to Congress as an independent and did not officially declare himself to be a Democrat until November.) As a result, about 40 percent of Sanders's primary and caucus voters identify as independent, as Republican or with some party other than Democrats, according to my estimates.

Thus, citing Clinton's reasonably strong general election numbers among self-identified Democrats — she had the support of 87 percent of Democrats in a recent NBC News/SurveyMonkey poll in her matchup against Trump, for instance, and 83 percent in a Fox News poll that showed her behind Trump nationally — may miss her problems among liberal-leaning, Sanders-voting independents. In the Fox News poll, only 30 percent of independents went for Clinton, and in the SurveyMonkey poll, just 36 percent did. But both surveys showed a large pool of undecided independents, potentially the Sanders voters that YouGov identified.

If Clinton wins over those voters, she'll gain a few percentage points on Trump in national and swing state polls, and the race will potentially look more like it did in March and April, with Clinton having a fairly comfortable lead over Trump. If not, the general election could come down to the wire.

[jimmy olsen]

Trump wanted a black vs. white season on the apprentice. 

https://www.buzzfeed.com/mckaycoppins/donald-trump-wanted-a-white-versus-black-season-of-the-appre?utm_term=.eayjjxzyP7#.ssz44RL9zA

[CountDeMoney]

The Fix
Hillary Clinton sent a very clear message to Bernie Sanders today: Enough is enough
By Chris Cillizza May 19 at 4:48 PM
Washington Post


Hillary Clinton has been waiting (relatively) patiently for Bernie Sanders to recognize the mathematical and political realities of his current situation and either end his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination or heavily scale back the rhetoric he has been using against her.

He has done neither. And in an interview Thursday with CNN, Clinton made clear that she's had enough.

Here's the key piece of what she said to CNN's Chris Cuomo:

    I went all the way to the end against then-Senator Obama. I won nine out of the last 12 contests back in '08. I won Indiana, Kentucky, West Virginia. So I know the intense feelings that arise, particularly among your supporters as you go toward the end. But we both were following the same rules just as both Senator Sanders and I are following the same rules, and I'm 3 million votes ahead of him and I have an insurmountable lead in pledge delegates and I'm confident that just as I did with Senator Obama, where I said, you know what? It was really close. Much closer. Much closer than it is between me and Senator Sanders right now.

The not-so-subtle message? Look, man, I've walked in your shoes. It sucks.  But I did the right thing for the party. Time for you to do the same.

On the merits, Clinton is absolutely right.  Her delegate lead over Sanders is both considerable and considerably larger than Obama's was over Clinton eight years ago.

And no matter how you count it, she has a 2.9 million raw-vote lead over Sanders.

These numbers -- in terms of delegates and popular vote -- haven't changed all that much in the past few months. (Sanders's inability to beat Clinton in New York or Pennsylvania effectively ended any realistic chance he had to win.)  What has changed is that the Republican race is now over, meaning that Donald Trump is now free to go after Clinton day in and day out while she remains at least somewhat distracted by Sanders's ongoing challenge.

It's not just that. Sanders, after a brief rhetorical respite from direct frontal attacks on Clinton, appears to have been re-emboldened by his recent series of victories. (Sanders has won three of the four states that have voted this month.) Those wins, coupled with a high-profile confrontation between Sanders and Clinton supporters during the Nevada Democratic Convention last weekend, seem to have convinced the senator from Vermont that the fight is still very much worthwhile.

The best evidence of his re-commitment to it came earlier this week with a VERY strongly worded rebuke of the Nevada Democratic Party over allegations of shenanigans at the convention. He wrote, in part:

    The Democratic Party has a choice. It can open its doors and welcome into the party people who are prepared to fight for real economic and social change — people who are willing to take on Wall Street, corporate greed and a fossil fuel industry which is destroying this planet. Or the party can choose to maintain its status quo structure, remain dependent on big-money campaign contributions and be a party with limited participation and limited energy.

Tough language, bordering on a threat that he and his people will either continue to create problems for Clinton or abandon her entirely if she is the nominee.

Clinton, judging from what she told CNN's Cuomo, doesn't like to be threatened.  She told Cuomo that while she was committed to doing her part to reunify the party, "Senator Sanders has to do his part" too.  She added: "That's why the lesson of 2008, which was a hard-fought primary, as you remember, is so pertinent here. Because I did my part."

Later in the interview, Clinton reiterated that Sanders "has to do his part to unify. He said the other day that he'll do everything possible to defeat Donald Trump. He said he'd work seven days a day week. I take him at his word."

Message sent. Now we wait to see how Sanders and his loyal supporters react. My guess? Not well.

[Admiral Yi]

I was confused on the Nevada convention, so I read up on it, and all that sturm and drang was over 3 fucking delegates.

[jimmy olsen]