Kilgore in the piece also comes to the same conclusion I do, that the R result in WI mattered more than the D result.
WaPo:
After his most convincing victory yet over Donald Trump in Wisconsin, Ted Cruz sought on Wednesday to shed his reputation as a divisive bomb-thrower and position himself as the candidate who can bring the Republican Party together.
But it wasn’t clear whether it was working. In Washington and across the country, many mainstream Republicans who despise Trump — including many supporters of former candidate Marco Rubio — are still declining to support the senator from Texas, whose antagonism toward GOP leaders has been the centerpiece of his political rise.
CNN with the coverage of the Bernie Sanders rally last night:
Bernie Sanders said Wednesday that Hillary Clinton is not "qualified" to be president, a sharp escalation in rhetoric in the Democratic primary.
"Secretary Clinton appears to be getting a little bit nervous," he told a crowd in Philadelphia. "And she has been saying lately that she thinks that I am 'not qualified' to be president. Well, let me, let me just say in response to Secretary Clinton: I don't believe that she is qualified, if she is, through her super PAC, taking tens of millions of dollars in special interest funds. I don't think that you are qualified if you get $15 million from Wall Street through your super PAC."
CNN has reached out to the Clinton campaign for comment, and its surrogates responded quickly on Twitter.
A brief note on yesterdays APR, wherein I spend a good deal of time on the NYDN Bernie Sanders interview (which sparked some reader protest, see comments): turns out, so did the nightly news shows. A pretty good summary of the campaign “back and forth” is here, and note the NYDN reference. Note also that we are moving to closed primaries (no independents), and it’s changing the tenor of the conversation.
Amy Goodman talked to one of the NYDN editors, who, while acknowledging the bad reviews Bernie got, thought that overall Bernie did a good job, and defended his performance. Also, this bit of wisdom from Van Jones:
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Oh, right, who would have the jurisdiction, and—but, overall, I thought his performance was excellent.
VAN JONES: Can I say a couple things here? New York City is the war to settle the score inside the Democratic Party. The Clinton forces understand there is a rebellion in this party. Under ordinary circumstances, it would already be over, because the big donors would have taken the checks back. There are no big checks. This is a people’s movement. They are going to have to bury this movement in New York City, and they know it. You’re going to see a vetting of Bernie Sanders like you’ve never seen. You’re going to see the mainstream media go after him. Now there’s blood in the water on specifics. They’re going to go after him on specifics, you know, way beyond anything any candidate has had to address. And people are going to have to—I mean, he’s going to have to step up his game, because you can’t, you know, write excuses for people. He’s got to be able to answer those tough questions.
But also, if you want for this Democratic Party to take progressive causes seriously, now is the time to speak out and get engaged. And for African Americans in particular, I want to say something. We are the only part of the so-called Obama coalition that has to give not 50 percent of our vote, not 60, not 70, not 80, not 90, but 92 percent of our vote in every presidential election, in order for Democrats to win. So, we are beyond a base vote. We are the decisive vote. If we give 85 percent of our vote to the Democrats, Republicans win. And so, we deserve to have a full hearing on all the issues that affect us, and hear from both candidates. And all of the history needs to be on the table to be vetted, for both candidates.
As I noted yesterday, they can play rough in NY. And as Van Jones notes, no whining, just be prepared to step up your game.
Last night this happened:
We’ll see how it plays out. I’m guessing it was not a good move. But it was no accident.
This will be messy until the NY primary is over. And let me say again, I like Bernie but I have a very poor opinion of his campaign team. I think this was a big mistake, poorly received comments on the heels of a poorly received interview. The last 48 hours is not going to help him win NY, and he needs to if he wants to be the nominee. Otherwise, what is he doing?
Here’s more Panama Papers coverage as it makes its way into US newspapers. These pieces stick to the facts and stay away from the conspiracy theory stuff. Keep in mind there’s tons of material and a long way to go before we are done with this, but at the same time, there’s likely no US smoking guns.
Monkey Cage:
The Panama Papers made Iceland’s prime minister resign. Here’s why.
Vox:
How the Panama Papers brought down Iceland's prime minister
NY Times:
The Panama Papers: Here’s What We Know
• Relatives of President Xi Jinping of China and two other members of the Communist Party’s most powerful body were linked to offshore companies incorporated by the Panamanian law firm, Mossack Fonseca.
• On Wednesday, the Swiss authorities raided the headquarters of the European Football Associations.
• The prime minister of Iceland, Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson, stepped aside on Tuesday.
• Gonzalo Delaveau Swett, the president of Transparency Chile, a branch of a global anti-corruption group, stepped down on Monday.
A look at Trump in PA via Q-poll (poster is a conservative):
And remember, after NY is April 26 and CT (along with PA, MD, DE and RI):
This is going to be a big deal in CT. You heard it here.
BTW, TV ad campaigns in NY are going to cost 10x what it cost in WI. Let’s see who goes for it.
Josh Kraushaar ($$ but interesting points about Cruz campaigning in the Bronx despite some hostile reception):
The path to the Republican presidential nomination will be running through some of the most Democratic neighborhoods in the country—Harlem, the South Bronx, Berkeley, and South Central Los Angeles. It’s another odd quirk of the Republican primary process that some of the most liberal congressional districts in the country will play an outsize role in determining whether Donald Trump will be the GOP nominee or not.
In the vote-rich states of New York and California, each congressional district allocates three delegates apiece. That means that conservative districts in Staten Island (New York) and Orange County (California) carry as much importance as heavily-Democratic districts in New York City’s inner boroughs or the densely packed liberal neighborhoods in Los Angeles. Ten of New York’s 27 districts and 13 of California’s 53 districts have a Cook Political Report rating of D+20 or greater, and allocate 69 delegates in total. The success of Trump’s rivals in these districts will likely make or break Trump’s campaign.
Reuters: