Good Josh Marshall rant about Bernie or Bust, published even before the Susan Sarandon interview from Monday night. (Sarandon was a Nader advocate in 2000, so no surprise she made some controversial remarks, not reflective of most Bernie voters.)
Bernie Sanders had a terrific Saturday, best delegate haul in the campaign but had a bad PR stretch starting with brutally mocking reports of the campaign phone call like this from the LA Times:
As the Bernie Sanders campaign accepts the reality that securing enough votes at this point to win the Democratic nomination outright is impossible, it has moved on to a new phase in its long-shot bid for the White House: hijack Hillary Clinton’s so-called superdelegates.
Still, Bernie looks poised for a big Wisconsin win next week.
John Cassidy:
“One of our campaigns has created an enormous amount of enthusiasm and energy that will lead to a large voter turnout in November,” Sanders added. “That campaign is our campaign.”
At this stage, even the most loyal Clinton supporter would have difficulty disputing that claim, which has implications for both the general election and the remaining primaries. The young voters and progressive voters who have flocked to Sanders are key components of the Obama coalition. If Clinton does get the nomination, she will desperately need their backing. And she will also need to tap into some of the enthusiasm and commitment that the Sanders campaign has engendered.
Should Donald Trump become the Republican candidate, it would certainly help unite the Democrats. But, going into a general election, Clinton would also want to obtain the vigorous endorsement of Sanders. And that means her campaign, even as it tries to defeat the Vermont senator over the coming weeks, also needs to avoid alienating him.
It is nearly impossible to discuss Bernie not winning or being behind without alienating some Bernie voters (at least I haven’t figured out how). To me, the key player is going to be Elizabeth Warren. She’ll have to play peacemaker. Trump is another factor, but first he has to win his nomination, or finish destroying his party, or both.
The above tweet is especially funny because Mark Salter is john McCain’s ex-speechwriter. Politico:
Trump is, by far, the GOP delegate leader — and the only candidate with a realistic shot at winning a majority of delegates before the July convention. But at the same time, nearly two-thirds of Americans view Trump unfavorably — and his image rating has declined since Republican voting began in February.
The danger for Trump is two-fold: His declining popularity is taking a toll on his standing in the 17 states that will hold primaries between now and the end of the process in early June. Losing some of these states — or even winning fewer delegates in proportional states — makes it more difficult for Trump to secure a pre-convention majority of 1,237 delegates.
The question for the GOP is whether Trump will wreck the party by winning or by not winning?
John Harwood:
The closer Donald J. Trump draws to winning the Republican presidential nomination over opposition from party leaders, the more his detractors ask: How can this happen?
There’s no singular answer.
One part of the explanation lies in the modern evolution of presidential competition, another in the special talents of Mr. Trump, and a third in the contours of the 21st-century Republican Party…
As the nation grows more ethnically diverse, Republicans remain overwhelmingly white. Nine of every 10 votes Mitt Romney received in 2012, exit polls showed, came from whites. Nearly half came from whites without college degrees, the Americans feeling most aggrieved by recent economic and cultural trends.
Mr. Trump has topped the Republican field by making himself their champion. Within the more diverse Democratic base, there’s no single constituency of a comparable size to lift an iconoclast to the nomination
Pay attention to that third part. Trump is leading because he speaks for and to the Republican party in ways op-ed writers do not. Don’t blame media for that.
We’re exploring twitter and tweet storms today. You can read them here or at Storify by clicking where you see “Storify by Greg Dworkin”.
Speaking of Trump voters, Republican strategist Rick Wilson had a great rant about the Trump con here:
And speaking of whether or not media created Trump, here’s David Folkenflik:
Finally, a terrific article and tweet storm from Rukmini Callimachi on ISIS:
Megan McArdle with a libertarian look at income inequality and privilege:
Listen to the Victims of the Free Market
Any government policy creates winners and losers; that is simply unavoidable. That’s why I am always leery of articles about policy that consist of saying “This person has been helped” or “This person has been hurt.” Even the Soviet economy worked well -- for the commissars. But you cannot run a nation of 300 million people by competitive anecdote.
Market liberalism is no exception to this problem. The dynamic forces of creative destruction make many people better off, especially the descendants who will inherit the collective fruits of generations of American ingenuity. It also makes some people indisputably and permanently worse off, as previously stable and profitable careers are made obsolete. Those people are not going to accept that they’ll just have to lean into the strike zone and take one for the team, no matter how logically elegant your arguments.
That said, the arguments for market liberalism are bound to sound a lot less convincing when they invariably issue from the folks who aren’t expected to take one for the team -- who are, in fact, being made better off, thanks to skills that are prized by the global market and thanks to trade, automation and immigration that have put more goods and services within their reach.
David Byler with different Trump November scenarios:
Right now most analysts seem to think the real estate tycoon has a demographic problem. The thought process typically runs something like this: Trump might be able to turn out and win working-class whites at greater rates than past GOP nominees, but his less than sensitive rhetoric on race and immigration, his populist positions on taxes and trade and his general bombast would likely cause other large groups (e.g. Latinos, blacks, college-educated whites) to vote against him at higher than usual rates.
This analysis seems right to me, but it’s still early, and there are some voices of dissent here. So rather than trying to predict what will happen in November, I thought it would be more productive to look at some different scenarios to get an idea of just what would have to happen in order for Trump to win. Specifically, I generated four general election scenarios using the RCP Demographic Calculator (the third of which is interactive – it lets you play out your own customized scenario) to give readers a sense of how difficult it would be for Trump to put together a winning coalition under various conditions.