Endorsements from Trey Gowdy and Nikki Haley didn't save Marco Rubio in the GOP's crucial South Carolina primary. Trump won the multi-candidate contest comfortably and beat Rubio by ten points. He won all 50 delegates to the Republican Party convention. In fact, in Greenville and Spartanburg counties-- Gowdy's district-- Rubio came in a miserable third. Friday, on Meet The Press Daily, Gowdy, the failed Benghazi Committee extremist, petulantly endorsed Trump. "I was a Rubio guy and Marco lost, but I will enthusiastically support the Republican nominee." That's because Gowdy puts his crackpot party before his country. Gowdy didn't go as far as the unemployed/unemployable Rick Perry-- who once diagnosed Trump as "a cancer on conservatism"-- and is now openly sucking around to be Trump's running mate. Why would anyone want to be the Chief Mate on the Titanic?Well, it isn't so clear that Trump is going down as some anti-Trumpists predict. In fact, polling shows him generally in a decent position to win in November if the Democrats are stupid enough to nominate a candidate disliked and distrusted by so much of the electorate. Trump is gaining on Hillary. The Washington Post/ABC News poll released this morning reports that "Never in the history of the Post-ABC poll have the two major party nominees been viewed as harshly as Clinton and Trump. Nearly 6 in 10 registered voters say they have negative impressions of both major candidates. Overall, Clinton’s net negative rating among registered voters is minus-16, while Trump’s is minus-17, though Trump’s numbers have improved since March." Overall, Trump is beating her 46-44%. This morning Bernie told George Stephanopoulos that "We need a campaign, an election, coming up which does not have two candidates who are really very, very strongly disliked. I don't want to see the American people voting for the lesser of two evil. I want the American people to be voting for a vision of economic justice, of social justice, of environmental justice, of racial justice." Hillary-campers claim that once the primary is over and the Bernie backers coalesce around the nominee, everything will be fine. I wonder what they're smoking? Bernie's movement isn't a beauty contest about who has a better personality. The issues he raised during the campaign preclude large segments of his coalition from voting for Hillary or Trump. I'm sure many will get hoodwinked into voting for Hillary as "the lesser of two evils," but I suspect many will stay home and many will vote for Jill Stein. I ran this unscientific little twitter poll Friday and Saturday:Those same Hillary-campers who insist-- don't worry-- everything is going to be fine when Bernie gets out of the primary, don't seem to comprehend the degree of disdain his supporters have for everything Hillary stands for. Sorry, it's not Obama vs Clinton 2008 again. This one's about values.Saturday, Bernie's campaign released a polling memo from Tulchin Research, one I'm sure Bernie hopes the super-delegates will consider seriously before they nominate a candidate who is so weak that she can be beaten by Trump.
Democrats seeking a presidential nominee to lead their party to victory in November should take notice of the overwhelming preponderance of data demonstrating that Bernie Sanders is the strongest Democratic candidate to defeat Donald Trump. For months, public polling has found Sanders running consistently better than Hillary Clinton against Trump both nationally and in key swing states across the country and that trend remains very much in tact today.The most recent Real Clear Politics (RCP) polling averages over the past month find Sanders leading Trump by a 11.2 percentage point margin (50.6%-39.4%)-- more than three times the size of Clinton’s 3.3-point average lead (45.8%-42.5%). Here we present some of the most recent national polls which all find Sanders running stronger than Clinton against Trump.That Sanders runs better than Clinton against Trump is largely due to Sanders’s superior standing with independents as well as his strong base of support among younger voters, who back him in greater numbers against Trump than they do Clinton.Also driving Sanders’s stronger showing against Trump is that he is by far the most popular candidate for president remaining in the race. According to the most recent CBS News/New York Times poll, Sanders is viewed favorably by voters with 41% favorable to 33% unfavorable for an 8-point margin. This positive profile stands in stark contrast to both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, who are both deeply unpopular. Clinton’s favorables are 31% to 52% unfavorable (-21) while Trump is slightly more unpopular (26% favorable to 55% unfavorable, -29).Additionally, Sanders runs markedly better than Clinton against Trump in many key battleground states. In fact, Sanders leads Trump by wider margins than Clinton in all of the public polling that has been conducted in swing states over the past few months.
Krugman's cute Sanders dead-enders phraseology couldn't have been more effective to guarantee there would be inadequate post-convention unity than if Trump invented the term himself. But as everyone knows now, poor ole Paul has deluded himself into believing that Obama has ended inequality and Wall Street excess with (ever so slightly) higher tax rates, (an inadequate, compromised) Dodd-Frank Act and the (fraction of a loaf) Affordable Care Act. He should get out more and, you know... meet real people. Like Krystal Ball who, although she once worked for MSNBC, apparently is listening and hearing and understands that hand-wringing over party unity misses the point; no one cares about your precious parties.
As Hillary Clinton joylessly stumbles her way to the Democratic nomination, calls have increased for Bernie Sanders to either drop out of the race altogether or, at least, to stop fighting so darn hard. We’re told that Bernie should drop out for the good of the party. Bernie should drop out so that Hillary can make her general election “pivot” (which presumably means she can be free of the burden of pretending to be a liberal). Bernie should drop out so that Hillary can focus on Trump. According to this logic, Bernie and his band of loyalists need to get pragmatic, face the music, have a reality check. Hogwash. Doesn’t anyone see what I see? Bernie Sanders is our best chance to beat Donald Trump and to prove to the young voters backing him that the Democratic party actually stands for something.
Hillary dead-enders-- from Biden, Reid, Feinstein and Debbie Wasserman Schultz down the food chain to the corporate media shills at MSNBC-- want you to believe it's all over. It isn't. It never will be. Because of us.
