2016 elections - because it's never too early

[Berkut]

http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion?p1=BGHeader_MainNav

Some pretty interesting stories on there. I liked the one about the US military refusing to wipe out ISIS family members.

You know people in Germany at some point were all "Well, gee, we didn't think he would REALLY do the things he said he wanted to do!!!!"

http://www.breitbart.com/2016-presidential-race/2016/04/10/the-boston-globe-warns-america-if-trump-elected-trade-deals-and-immigration-laws-will-be-enforced/

WTF happened to you?

[Martinus]

I havent actually read the Breitbart article, just saw it referred the same story and posted the link while on a phone. 

[Zanza]

I read it and it's just low energy whining by some losers who don't understand satire.

[Valmy]

You know people in Germany at some point were all "Well, gee, we didn't think he would REALLY do the things he said he wanted to do!!!!"

I'm only voting for him because I want to hear those weak-kneed SPD members cry over the next four years.

[alfred russel]

Cruz just swept Colorado.

So since Rubio dropped out on March 15th, this is what has happened:

The Arizona and Utah primaries: Trump won everything in Arizona, Cruz everything in Utah. Trump scored 58 of 98 delegates.
The North Dakota conventions. While the delegates are unbound, Cruz proposed and pushed through his slate. Appears 0 of 28 delegates for Trump.
The Wisconsin primary. 6 of 42 delegates for Trump.
The Colorado conventions. Apparently 0 of 37 delegates for Trump. Cruz sweep.

In total: 64 delegates for Trump, out of 205.

Up next are the Wyoming conventions (29 delegates), where Trump looks to get clobbered again.

So even if Trump wins 100% of New York's 95 delegates, he still may not be winning over 50% of delegates post March 15th. And this was the time he needed to be making up ground.

[alfred russel]

I really wish I had the stamina to go back through the thread and pull up the quotes doubting me as I stood firm that Trump would not be the nominee even though Trump had won a couple states and had a big lead in the polls in a fractured field.

[Jaron]

Will Trump go third party ? I kind of doubt it because it doesn't seem like him to want to extend a reminder of his defeat on the GOP stage, but at the same time I could see him and his followers wanting to give a big F U to the GOP establishment if he isn't the nominee.

[Admiral Yi]

Will Trump go third party ? I kind of doubt it because it doesn't seem like him to want to extend a reminder of his defeat on the GOP stage, but at the same time I could see him and his followers wanting to give a big F U to the GOP establishment if he isn't the nominee.

Other folks have mentioned filing deadlines and sore loser laws.

[Jaron]

I don't think so.

[Savonarola]

Wyoming Democratic caucuses: Bernie Sanders picks up another win

(CNN)Bernie Sanders won the Wyoming Democratic caucuses Saturday, providing his campaign with one more jolt of momentum before the race against Hillary Clinton heads east.

Even so, he made no gains in Clinton's delegate lead, as each earned seven delegates as a result.

The Vermont senator was favored going into the caucuses. Wyoming is similar to other places he's won with big margins: rural, Western and overwhelmingly white. The victory is Sanders' eighth win out of the last nine contests -- including a contest that counted the votes of Democrats living abroad -- and a big morale booster heading into the crucial New York primary on April 19.
Sanders, speaking at a rally in Queens, New York, when the state's results were projected, announced the victory to his supporters after his wife, Jane, joined him on stage to say they had won.

"News bulletin: We just won Wyoming," Sanders said as the room exploded into cheers.

Sanders won 55.7% of the vote to Clinton's 44.3%, giving each candidate seven delegates. That helps Clinton maintain her pledged delegate lead over Sanders, 1,304 to 1,075.

A Clinton campaign aide said their "secret sauce" in Wyoming was the state's onerous vote-by-mail rules that required anyone voting by mail to have voted as a Democrat in the 2014 midterms.

"This is exactly the type of contest he needed to shut us out in," the aide said. "Not only did he not do that, he only netted two delegates, if that."

With 55% of remaining delegates in New York, Pennsylvania and California, one senior aide said "by the time we get to California, we will only need to meet threshold to win. He can win 85% and we're fine."

Sanders is banking on momentum to keep Clinton from officially clinching the nomination until the convention, when superdelegates will vote.

"If you look at the math, if you want to talk about math, the truth is is that it is very, very, very unlikely that either candidate, either Secretary Clinton or Sen. Sanders, will go into the convention with a majority needed of pledged delegates in order to win," Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver told CNN's Chris Cuomo on "New Day" Tuesday.

The Republican National Committee in a statement Saturday afternoon quickly noted Clinton's "embarrassing string of defeats," a sign, the RNC said, that Clinton will be beatable if she's the Democratic nominee.

Democrats turn out

Leaving nothing to chance, Sanders spent Tuesday night -- the evening he won Wisconsin's primary -- holding one of his signature large rallies in Laramie, a town of 30,000.

It could be all the attention Wyoming gets in the presidential contest. The rural, sparsely-populated state that's home to former Vice President Dick Cheney is solidly Republican, so Democrats don't spend time trying to win it in the general election.

Saturday morning, Wyoming Democrats jammed into Cheyenne Central High School to caucus.

"We're expecting a record turnout throughout the state. There's a lot of excitement," said Aimee Van Cleave, executive director of the state Democratic Party. "It's wonderful today. Everyone will be allowed to vote. They're not being stopped by an early spring blizzard."

One group of enthusiastic Sanders partisans broke into a Bernie Sanders song to the tune of "Yankee Doodle Dandy."
"Elections in America are brought by corporations / Bernie is the only one who uses small donations," they sang, to the accompaniment of an acoustic guitar.

Republicans, meanwhile, are in neighboring Colorado for a party convention where every delegate matters on the road to Cleveland's GOP convention and Donald Trump is trying to clinch the 1,237 delegates needed to win the nomination.

Keeping pace with Clinton

He has outraised Clinton, $109 million to $75 million, over the last three months, and wins along the way help him prime the small-dollar donor pump for the cash he'll need to compete in expensive, densely-populated East Coast media markets both in New York and the following week in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Connecticut, Delaware and Rhode Island.

The Democratic race has taken a sharply bitter turn in New York, where Sanders accused Clinton of "hustling money from the wealthy and powerful" on Thursday, and Clinton instructing Sanders: "Don't make promises you can't keep."

Sanders raised the stakes on Wednesday night, launching into a tirade on why Clinton is "not qualified" for the presidency by citing her positions on trade and her coziness with Wall Street interests.

"I'm not going to get beaten up. I'm not going to get lied about. We will fight back, but I do hope that we can raise the level and I do hope that the media will talk about real issues," he said Thursday in Philadelphia.

Clinton responded with a desire for unity -- to a point. She said that eventually, "we're going to have to unify Democrats," pointing to her own support for then-Sen. Barack Obama in 2008 after a hard-fought Democratic nominating contest.
Still, Clinton said she's going to "keep drawing contrasts" with Sanders.

"Because that's what elections are about," she said. "But I think it is important to tell people about what you're going to do for them, and how you can get it done -- how you can produce results that will make a positive difference in people's lives."

Boy, I bet Hil feels a little foolish now for railing against voter suppression.  Voter suppression seems to have worked out for her very well. 

Anyhow, I'm glad Bernie Sanders fight song is a tune in the public domain.  It seems fitting.

[Valmy]

Boy, I bet Hil feels a little foolish now for railing against voter suppression.  Voter suppression seems to have worked out for her very well. 

Yeah getting a few delegates in Wyoming totally makes up for hundreds of thousands of Demcratic voters being screwed in key states

[celedhring]

So is it gonna be Cruz vs Hillary now? Or will the establishment crown somebody else when the convention rolls around? I'm completely at a loss about how is this supposed to work now. Despite picking up a lot of steam, it's not like Cruz will be able to command anything near a majority either.

[Valmy]

So is it gonna be Cruz vs Hillary now? Or will the establishment crown somebody else when the convention rolls around? I'm completely at a loss about how is this supposed to work now. Despite picking up a lot of steam, it's not like Cruz will be able to command anything near a majority either.

Who the hell knows. This is going to get messy.

There seems to be some outrage amongst the rumbling conservative classes about how the Colorado thing went down. Sanders supporters have all but labelled Hillary worse than Trump. I don't know what is going to happen.

[Admiral Yi]

So is it gonna be Cruz vs Hillary now? Or will the establishment crown somebody else when the convention rolls around? I'm completely at a loss about how is this supposed to work now. Despite picking up a lot of steam, it's not like Cruz will be able to command anything near a majority either.

The delegates are not for the establishment (i.e. the Republican National Committee) to command.  And assuming they do have some degree of pull with state committees, I don't see them leapfrogging the first *and* second votegetters to "save the party."

[CountDeMoney]

Boy, I bet Hil feels a little foolish now for railing against voter suppression.  Voter suppression seems to have worked out for her very well. 

Yeah getting a few delegates in Wyoming totally makes up for hundreds of thousands of Demcratic voters being screwed in key states

Because party rules for a party vote in a party primary system is the same as, say, states closing DMVs in entire counties so niggers can't get an ID card.