Thoughts on Warren, Sanders and the Convention: The Choices Facing Elizabeth Warren

Elizabeth Warren talking at SXSW about the now-famous private conversation with Bernie Sanders

by Thomas Neuburger

Much has been written about the Warren-Sanders-CNN confrontation at the most recent debate, both the conflict at the debate itself and hot-mic conversation afterward (excellent contextual rundown here).

For the record, here's what was said at the debate:

CNN Moderator: Let’s now turn to an issue that’s come up in the last 48 hours, Senator Sanders. Seen and reported yesterday that … Senator Sanders, Senator Warren confirmed in a statement that in 2018, you told her that you did not believe that a woman could win the election. Why did you say that?

Sanders: Well, as a matter of fact, I didn’t say it, and I don’t want to waste a whole lot of time on this, because this is what Donald Trump and maybe some of the media want. [...]

CNN Moderator: Senator Sanders, I do want to be clear here. You’re saying that you never told Senator Warren that a woman could not win the election?

Sanders: That is correct.

CNN Moderator: Senator Warren, what did you think when Senator Sanders told you a woman could not win the election?

[Audience reaction; gasping and laughter at the question.]

Warren: I disagreed. [...]

Note that the disagreement is stark. Though both candidates backed away from further accusations, their positions remain as stated above.

Next, here's what was said after the debate while the mics were still live. Sanders moved to Warren and held out his hand for a handshake, which Warren refused to take. She then said the following:

Warren: I think you called me a liar on national TV.

Sanders: What?

Warren: I think you called me a liar on national TV.

Sanders: You know, let’s not do it right now. If you want to have that discussion, we’ll have that discussion.

Warren: Anytime.

Sanders: You called me a liar. You told me — all right, let’s not do it now.”

The dialog didn't appear angry, though it was clearly tense.

This disagreement could have resulted from a misunderstanding of what was said at the meeting, but the accusation and the denial are too clear-cut, not nuanced enough, to allow for that interpretation. As we have it from the participants, only one of them can be right.

Why Is This Coming Out Now?

Several explanations have been offered as to why this story is emerging now. One is that Warren's side of the "he's a sexist" story was leaked strategically by Warren or her staffers, many of whom are Clinton and Obama alumni. Another is that one of the reporters to whom Warren herself told the story "off the record" spoke to CNN or spoke to people who spoke to CNN. Or it could be a combination of the two.

About the latter possibility, Ryan Grim writes, "Additional news in the story: A year ago, Warren told a group of journalists at an off-record dinner about her conversation with Sanders about whether a woman could win in 2020. That appears to be how the news got into the bloodstream."

Additional news in the story: A year ago, Warren told a group of journalists at an off-record dinner about her conversation with Sanders about whether a woman could win in 2020. That appears to be how the news got into the bloodstream. pic.twitter.com/z75iz5NjNj

— Ryan Grim (@ryangrim) January 18, 2020

Grim says neither he nor any of his colleagues at The Intercept was at the dinner.

It's also been rumored that CNN had the story for a while, ready to go, and that they were just waiting on confirmation from someone closer to Warren — or waiting for a strategic moment, for example the week before their own hosted debate — to let it drop. None of the latter speculation, however, has been confirmed.

In any case, the story is out there, the fires have been lit, and we are where we are.

What Happens Now?

Both campaigns are backing away from greater public conflict. Whether that holds true in the long run is anyone's guess, but my guess is that it will. Still, the following is clear:

• Warren has been damaged, perhaps permanently, in the eyes of many Sanders supporters who have considered her a good, and perhaps equivalent, second choice. Her favorability has gone way down in their eyes and may never recover.

• Warren's charge of sexism has inflamed the existing anger of many Democratic and liberal-leaning women and relit the wildfire that coursed through the Sanders-Clinton primary and beyond.

• Rightly or wrongly, Warren's polling numbers among voters have fallen, while Sanders' support has held steady or improved. It's yet to be seen if the incident alters long-term fund-raising for either candidate, but it might. For his part, Sanders has seen a post-debate surge in funding.

So far, in other words, most of the damage has been borne by Warren. She may still recover, but this could also end her candidacy by accelerating a decline that started with public reaction to her recent stand on Medicare For All. This could change in the future, but these are the trends today.

What Happens Later?

This whole national exercise has a much greater purpose, to put a progressive in the White House in 2021 — not just a Democrat, a real progressive. Doing that requires securing the nomination on behalf of progressive voters at the 2020 convention.

To do that, one of the following events must occur:

• One of the candidates who appeal to progressives — Warren and Sanders both make this claim — must win the nomination on the first ballot by winning a clear majority, 51%, of pledged delegates beforehand, OR

• Warren and Sanders must find a way to combine their delegates and their supporters prior to the convention to achieve a majority for one of them on the second round of voting. 

If Warren and Sanders both enter the convention with healthy delegate totals — as long as both are gaining supporters and not at the other's expense — the contest can and should continue, for now at least, as it has. And if they enter the convention with, say, 60% of the pledged delegates between them, the case for nominating a candidate who appeals to progressive voters is strong.

But if Warren's candidacy becomes unviable, as it seems it might — and if the goal of both camps really is to defeat Joe Biden — it's incumbent on Warren to drop out and endorse her "friend and ally" Bernie Sanders as soon as it's clear she can no longer win. (The same is true if Sanders becomes unviable, though that seems much less likely.) The longer she delays after that point, the more she hurts the progressive cause.

Ms. Warren can do whatever she wants, certainly. But if she does anything less than help elect the last and only progressive with a chance, she damages them both to Biden's benefit, and frankly, helps nominate Biden. She has the right to do that, but not to claim at the same time that she's working to further the progressive movement.

We'll know about the consequences of this conflict soon enough. Perhaps she'll rise again, or at least triage her decline.

But if she doesn't, if she falls to the bottom of the top tier or into the second and stays there, her endorsement — or non-endorsement — of Sanders will be watched and noticed, closely and widely, and she will be defined, probably permanently, by her response.   
 

The Many Ways Sanders and Warren Are Different & Why It Matters

Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren (Mary Schwalm / Reuters)

by Thomas Neuburger

One of the more likely outcomes of this season's primary race is that either Warren or Sanders will be the nominee. Not because either will get a majority of first-ballot votes at the convention, though that's possible, but because it's entirely likely that one of the two of them will enter the convention with the greatest plurality.

If that occurs, all signs point to the "loser" of the two in the plurality contest adding his or her votes to the winner's total, creating a classic "unity candidate" — and a dicey-to-overcome-with-superdelegates majority candidate — when the second round ballots are cast. It doesn't matter whether they both finish above the rest, just so that one of them does.

To see how this works, let's say Sanders enters the convention with 38% of the pledged delegates, Biden (or some other centrist somebody) enters with 30%, and Warren enters with 28% — made-up numbers for sure and not a prediction. If Warren tells her pledged delegates to vote for Sanders on the second round, Sanders will have 68% of the ballots (assuming the follow her lead), a total more than enough for Sanders to claim the nomination.

The same is true if they finish one-and-two and the delegate counts are close. Let's say Warren enters the convention with 42% of the pledged delegates, Sanders enters with 40% (again, made up numbers), and the remaining 18% are split in various ways.

In that case, it makes sense for Warren to be the nominee with Sanders' second-ballot support — which is how I'm sure Sanders will see it. Thus the alternative isn't worth talking about — a fight between the two that would only open the door for superdelegates to do as much anti-progressive damage as they can.

Even if you think Warren is only halfway between Sanders and Biden on the progressive scale (domestic policy only; see below for her domestic policy), halfway is better than no way at all. It's certain at least that Sanders will see it that way.

This is not to say that primary voters should be sanguine about the Sanders v. Warren contest. On the contrary, Sanders and Warren are not only not the same, but they are very different in striking and important ways — which means that it matters which of them enters the convention with the most delegates. And in my view, it matters a lot.

How Are Sanders and Warren Different? Counting the Ways.

The person who's done the best job of laying out all the ways it does matter is Current Affairs contributing editor Eli Massey in a recent series of tweets. I want to extract what he wrote so his list can be put on one place. Here's Massey's opening tweet:

Loads of pundits have opined that the differences between Warren and Sanders are minor, cosmetic, or don't really exist. In reality, I think there are many good reasons to prefer Sanders over Warren. To highlight a few:

— Eli Massey (@EliJMassey) November 9, 2019

The following is his list, with links where he includes them (bolded emphasis mine, lightly edited for clarity and to correct errors):

1) Sanders supports national rent control, Warren does not.

2) Sanders has a plan to end homelessness in the U.S., Warren does not.

3) Sanders says there should be no billionaires, Warren says there should.

This one requires some discussion, but not for now. The issue is usually put as, "Should the hard-working retain their wealth? versus "Is a society with billionaires a fair or safe one for the rest of us?" — bypassing, of course, the question "How many billionaires earned their wealth in the first place?"

After all, as a wise man once wrote, "Behind every great fortune is a great crime."

4) Sanders IDs as a Democratic Socialist, Warren is a "capitalist to [her] bones."

5) Sanders was endorsed by 3/4 of the Squad (AOC, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar), Warren by 1/4 (Ayanna Pressley).

6) Sanders voted against all of Trump's military budgets, Warren voted for some.

7) Sanders called for former Brazilian President Lula da Silva to be freed from prison, Warren did not.

8) Sanders has a long, proven anti-war record, Warren does not. Article detailing some of the differences:

• When It Comes to U.S. Militarism, Elizabeth Warren Is No Progressive
  
  There’s one important issue on which Warren has not veered far from the Democratic establishment.

9) Sanders has called for cutting military aid to Israel and redirecting it to provide humanitarian assistance in Gaza, Warren has not.

10) Sanders has the superior environmental policy and approach to combating climate change. This article from @CarlBeijer gets at some of the differences:

• The Sanders Climate Plan Can Work. Warren's Can't.

11) Sanders will cancel all student debt, Warren will not.

12) Sanders will cancel all medical debt, Warren will not.

13) Sanders supports universal franchise, Warren was unwilling to commit.

14) Sanders calls for abolishing ICE, CBP, and USCIS, plus the full demilitarization of the border, Warren does not.

15) Sanders has made labor rights & growing unions a central part of his campaign in a way that Warren has not. Sanders has pledged to double the number of workers that belong to a union during his 1st term. Here's an article detailing some of his labor plans:

• Bernie Sanders Unveils Sweeping Labor Plan With Sectorwide Bargaining

On foreign policy, where the differences are massive, Massey adds:

Foreign policy and environmental policy alone are reason enough to back Sanders over Warren, given the monumental stakes for each.

Despite the understandable obsession with domestic policy, historically foreign policy is where presidents are able to do as they please, e.g., without oversight from congress. It is for this reason that I think foreign policy ought to be weighted significantly.

His conclusion: "I should add that I think Warren is the second least terrible viable presidential candidate, but her differences from Sanders are, in my opinion, significant." I echo that.

My conclusion: The future of this country for the next generation will be written at the 2020 Democratic convention, either because the nominee chosen will be unable to defeat Donald Trump, or because the nominee chosen — Sanders, Warren or someone like Biden — will take the country down definably different paths, each of which will persist until the next great crisis, which is coming sooner than anyone admits.

These are urgent times. Two violent tsunamis — extreme climate disruption, which has already started; populist revolt against bipartisan neoliberal rule, which almost brought us Sanders and did bring us Trump — are already misting our faces. We may have just one more shot at getting the whole thing right.

Getting the whole thing half-right may be better in the short term than getting it entirely wrong, but our grandchildren won't praise us for saving our own futures at the expense of theirs.
 

Could the Democratic Convention Nominate Someone Who Didn't Run In the Primary?

Richard J. Daley, legendary boss of the Democratic Party machine in Chicago (source: Chicago Sun Times)

by Thomas Neuburger

We're still more than half a year from the 2020 Democratic National Convention with the entire voting part of the primary race ahead of us, yet fears of a dramatic, brokered and broken nomination process are already entering the conversation. "It’s hard to ignore the potential for a first-round deadlock at the Democratic National Committee (DNC) convention next July," writes CNN, and they are not alone.

Those fears are likely to be confirmed; it's improbably in the extreme that one candidate will enter the convention with a majority of pledged delegates, which means that some later round of voting, which will add in the superdelegates and a lot of horse-trading, will pick the nominee. What happens then, and how the outcome is viewed by voters, may well determine which party occupies the White House in 20201.

Most game-theory analyses see these as the branches to consider, assuming no majority winner in round one:

1. What happens if Biden is the round one plurality winner?
2. What happens if Warren is the round one plurality winner?
3. What happens if Sanders is the round one plurality winner?

Given that Party leaders would much prefer Biden to Warren, appear to find Warren acceptable (but we may find out otherwise), and will never allow Sanders to hold Party power if they can possibly avoid it, the alternatives seem clear.

If Biden wins round one with a plurality, the superdelegates, who will vote in every round afterward, will support him. Biden will then be the nominee.

If Warren wins the first round with a plurality, will the superdelegates and Party movers and shakers put their money where their mouths have been and support her in round two? The jury's out on that. Warren may be the nominee, or Party leaders may balk and look elsewhere.

And if Sanders is the round one plurality winner, will superdelegates and Party leaders dare nominate someone else instead, a "unity candidate" (who could do anything but unify Sanders supporters with the Party base)?

They might, but I doubt it. The Party hates Sanders and will tank him at the convention if they can, just as they and their media ecosystem have done throughout the whole of the rest of process. On the media's contribution to the "stop Sanders" effort, see Ryan Grim's comment at 2:29 in the embedded clip on what he calls the widespread Sanders "media blackout" and I call its conspiracy of silence.

But that route is risky, both in fact and perception. If Sanders enters round two with the most pledged delegates, would they dare support someone else?

The Smell of Outright Theft

All of the analyses so far suggest that if Sanders leads in round one but doesn't win the nomination, Democratic Party leaders are faced with just two choices — confirm the will of the people and nominate Sanders anyway, or reach down into the candidate pool to nominate someone who received fewer votes.

They can do this, of course, and perhaps even try to sell it. Let's say that Biden, Buttigieg and Harris together have a delegate count that's greater than Sanders' total, with Biden in the lead. Party leaders could then "convince" enough Biden, Buttigieg and Harris delegates to support Biden in round two and declare him the "unity candidate." This allows superdelegates enough logical cover to give Biden the nomination with their added votes.

"Convince" in this case is a euphemism for a deal no one who wants a future in the non-Sanders Party can refuse, as Ryan Grim explains below:

Interesting. @RyanGrim at abt 5:00 in the clip re campaign staffing:

“You’re not supposed to work for Sanders if you want a future in the Democratic Party.”https://t.co/7btnFXA3EC

— Thomas Neuburger's errant politics (@Gaius_Publius) October 22, 2019

But the stink of corruption, the smell of outright theft, would be all over that deal, since Biden (or whoever) would not alone have had a delegate total greater than Sanders' total, and that person would immediately lose the claim of legitimacy in the eyes of most Sanders supporters, regardless of Party leaders logic.

A Biden or Buttigieg nomination, even if majority-supported, already has the look of general election failure painted on it. The same nomination, if stolen from Sanders by Party leaders, would sink like a twenty-pound stone, weighed down by the anger of millions of potential, now lost, Sanders supporters.

What's an entrenched political elite to do? There seems no easy answer.

The Party's Knight on a White Neoliberal Horse

This leads us to an unexplored possibility — that Party leaders might coalesce around, and nominate, someone who didn't run in the primary. The list of these people is great; there are far more people in fact who didn't run in the primary than did, unlikely as that may have seemed while watching the debates.

I've seen every name from Michael Bloomberg to John Kerry to Oprah Winfrey to Hillary Clinton (also here) and more suggested as the Party's Knight on a Great White Horse. Of course, the person they choose would have to be both credible as a potential president and garner enough enthusiastic support — genuine support, not purchased or threatened — to actually look like the "unity candidate" she or he would be claimed to be.

The obvious choice, of course, is Barack Obama. The neoliberal majority of the Democratic Party — and even many who call themselves progressives — would support him in a instant if they could.

Unfortunately, they can't; he's constitutionally ineligible, so I'll leave it to others to populate the list of alternatives.

My own candidate for the next obvious choice is his wife, Michelle. (For more, see here: "Poll: Michelle Obama Would Be Frontrunner in 2020 If She Ran.") Reporting has said for years that she doesn't want to run, which is likely why she's never included in these lists. But if the Party were desperate enough, would they sell her hard on the idea? And if they do, would she accede for the "good of the nation"? We'll have to see.

In any case, it's not beyond Sanders' reach to place first the first round of voting and put Party leaders in a deep existential bind. And it's not beyond thinking that Michelle Obama might actually win in against Trump.

Is It Legal For the Party to Nominate Someone Who Didn't Run In the Primary?

Yet even if the Party wanted to nominate an outside-the-primary candidate, could they do it? The DNC rules are ambiguous on that. Of course, we already know what the DNC thinks of their rules, but this may be a special case given how public the choice will necessarily be.

Thanks to a friend who did this research, these are the applicable paragraphs from the DNC rulebook (pdf):

Eligible delegates may vote for the candidate of their choice whether or not the name of such candidate was placed in nomination. Any vote cast other than a vote for a presidential candidate meeting the requirements of Article VI of this Call and Rule 13.K. of the 2020 Delegate Selection Rules shall be considered a vote for “Present.” [Page 16]

This appears to say that delegates may vote for anyone, even if the name has not been placed in nomination, so long as the candidate meets the "requirements of Article VI of this Call and Rule 13.K."

Here is Article VI (emphasis and square brackets mine):

VI. Presidential Candidates

The term “presidential candidate” herein shall mean any person [1] who, as determined by the National Chairperson of the Democratic National Committee, has accrued delegates in the nominating process and plans to seek the nomination, [2] has established substantial support for their nomination as the Democratic candidate for the Office of the President of the United States, [3] is a bona fide Democrat whose record of public service, accomplishment, public writings and/or public statements affirmatively demonstrates that the candidate is faithful to the interests, welfare and success of the Democratic Party of the United States, and [4] will participate in the Convention in good faith. [...]

The key words here are "and" and "delegates". If my reading is correct, the first sentences lists four "and" conditions, all of which must be met. That's a fair reading of this complex sentence, though I have seen it disputed. Does the "and" highlighted above join only conditions [3] and [4], with the [1] and [2] stating OR-conditions instead? It would be really picky (and violently ungrammatical) if Party leaders were to argue this way, but I've seen worse done.

The other key word, though, offers more hope for Party neoliberals. Does "any person who as accrued delegates in the nominating process" include only those who have accrued pledged delegates — or does "accruing" superdelegates count as well?

If the latter, accruing superdelegates, is all it takes to make a person eligible for nomination, all bets are off and the list of potential "unity" (i.e., non-Sanders) candidates widens far beyond the primary field.

The Station This Train Is Headed For

This is speculation, of course, but we're headed straight toward that station, straight to the moment when supersdelegates have to decide whom to back and how to sell their decision. Do they send Sanders to defeat even if he has a first-round plurality? Do they really like Elizabeth Warren enough to nominate her if she has a first-round plurality, or will they look elsewhere after all? Do they really trust Biden or Buttigieg with their electoral hopes against a vigorous and vicious Trumpian campaign?

Is Hillary Clinton (she's obviously eager to run) worth a second go?

And more critically for the Party and the nation: If the chips don't fall their way, what matters most to them? Could it possibly be true that their number one goal is simply that Sanders not win, and the rest will be left to chance, the gods, and their next best efforts after that?

It's a reasonable question. After all, given the construction of our rural-favoring electoral process, a party that doesn't have a plan to save left-behind America — and doesn't nominate a candidate with appeal beyond the bicoastal professional class — may not be playing its strongest cards for a reason.
 

Imagine What A Landslide It Would Be If The Democrats Nominated Someone Other Than Hillary!

Friday, writing for the NYTimes, Maggie Haberman asserted that Trump's response to his collapsing poll numbers is that he "hasn't started yet." When asked about fears that he's dragging Republican candidates up and down the ticket into an unprecedented disaster, "he dismissed concerns from Senate Republicans that he may be a drag on their candidacies in the fall. 'And I have tremendous Republican support,' Mr. Trump said. 'Unfortunately they never talk about that, they talk about the few rebels... I think I’m going to help,' Mr. Trump said of the Senate candidates. And he suggested that senators who were lagging in polls themselves had troubles long before he became the nominee. 'Certain of these senators you’re talking about are not doing well,' Mr. Trump said, referring to a group who are being aided by former President George W. Bush with fund-raising. 'Then, if they lose they’ll pin it on Donald Trump,' he said. 'But I don’t let that happen easily.'"

I was on a long train ride yesterday thinking about how this clown could be so close to becoming president of the United States. It's beyond disappointing. It's a huge, almost unthinkable system failure by the establishment-- not that the establishment hasn't earned it-- and the blame, at least for now, rests firmly with the Republican Party. How did they let this happen? They got taken to the cleaners by a low-grade New York street hustler. That "Deep Bench" of theirs certainly turned out to be a colossal bust, but now they seem to be making a half baked effort to stop Trump again, despite the fact that the public sees no conceivable way to deny him the tattered party's near worthless nomination. Yesterday Reince Priebus was reported by CNN to be sniffing around state parties looking for people willing to get behind a serious anti-Trump push. "Priebus," CNN reported, "has spoken with GOP party chairmen in multiple states in recent days in part to get a better sense of how large the anti-Trump faction is among their convention delegations, according to two people familiar with the conversations... [S]ome anti-Trump forces are hoping to garner enough support to press the convention's rules committee to alter the rules governing the convention and open a path for a different candidate."

One warning signal Trump must be noticing is that Priebus appointed former Congresswoman Enid Mickelsen of Utah to chair the convention's rules committee, the committee that has to be on-board with dumping Trump if the rebels are going to have any chance at success. If she can persuade the committee to unbind the delegates for the first ballot, Trump isn't likely to be the nominee. She has publicly said that "Neither Hillary or Donald Trump are going to be the people that we point our children toward and say, 'I want you to be just like them when you grow up.'"

Ed O'Keefe, writing for the Washington Post, reported Friday that "dozens of Republican convention delegates are hatching a new plan to block Donald Trump at this summer’s party meetings, in what has become the most organized effort so far to stop the businessman from becoming the GOP presidential nominee... Given the strife, a growing group of anti-Trump delegates is convinced that enough like-minded Republicans will band together in the next month to change party rules and allow delegates to vote for whomever they want at the convention, regardless of who won state caucuses or primaries... 'This literally is an "Anybody but Trump" movement,' said Kendal Unruh, a Republican delegate from Colorado who is leading the campaign. 'Nobody has any idea who is going to step in and be the nominee, but we’re not worried about that. We’re just doing that job to make sure that he’s not the face of our party.' The new wave of anti-Trump organizing comes as an increasing number of prominent Republicans have signaled that they will not support Trump for president. In addition, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (Wis.), who is slated to chair the Republican National Convention next month in Cleveland, said in remarks released Friday [in advance of his Meet the Press appearnace today] that House Republicans should follow their consciences on whether to support Trump."

Eric Minor, a GOP delegate from Washington state, said that he felt compelled to join Unruh’s group because “I hear a lot of people saying, ‘Why doesn’t somebody do something about this?’ Well you know what, I’m one of the people who can. There’s only 2,400 of us. I’m going to reach out to us and see if there seems to be momentum for this. And if there is, we’ll see where it goes.”

Steve Lonegan, a veteran GOP operative from New Jersey, is not a delegate but is advising the group and building financial support through a super PAC, Courageous Conservatives, that backed Cruz in the primary. The group has said it is willing to spend money on advertising and to help delegates across the country find one another.

Ever since Trump reached the threshold for claiming the GOP nomination last month, “I’ve woken up every day struggling to accept that he’s going to be our candidate,” Lonegan said. “He’s spent more time talking about getting Bernie Sanders voters to vote for him than conservatives. What do you think he has that Bernie Sanders’s supporters would like? A secret socialist agenda?”

Unruh, Minor, Lonegan and a number of others involved in the effort are former Cruz supporters, but they insist they are not working on his behalf. Cruz has said he would not accept the presidential nomination as a result of an attempt to strip Trump of the prize.

Other top Republicans, including Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan and Rep. Fred Upton (Mich.), said this week that they will not back Trump. Ohio Gov. John Kasich said he’s not ready to support Trump. And Richard Armitage, a deputy secretary of state in George W. Bush’s administration who is close with other members of the party’s national security establishment, announced that he plans to vote for Clinton if Trump is nominated.

Their convention is just a month away and even though Clinton is still viewed as a horrible canddiate, in the battle of the two evils, she's viewed as the lesser evil by the great number of people. Trump is handing her the White House. Other than Wall Street predators and dumb Democrats-- and obsessed women-- no one is for her; they're just against him... and his popularity with voters is diminishing rapidly the more they see of him. Maybe it really was prescient of Ryan to have guns banned from the Republican Convention in Cleveland, an open-carry state, despite the claptrap about how everyone is safer if everyone is packing heat.

Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin is salivating at the prospect of a "partnership" with Trump... I wonder why. As horrible as Hillary is, let's keep focused on #NeverTrump, not for the GOP-- they deserve him-- but for our country.

2,000 Sets Of State Of The Art Riot Gear Have Been Ordered By A Wary Cleveland As More Republicans Back Out

With crackpot Trumpsters Roger Stone and Alex Jones calling on 5 million Trump fans to show up in Cleveland in July to teach the establishment a lesson, I don't care how much money law enforcement is spending on riot gear, I'm staying away from Cleveland in July. Nor am I the only one who has come to that decision. Plenty of lobbyists will go, but Jeb Bush has already announced that he's staying away. There's a feeling of "anxiety, uncertainty and unease" among Republicans already, many cognizant that Stone has been threatening to report their hotel rooms to the Trump mob if anyone tries to steal the nomination from him.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) has been hinting he may be cruising somewhere else instead of Brookside Park, Big Creek Reserevation or the Great Northern Mall. And Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) has told friends that there is no where on earth she wants to be less than her party's convention this year. Richard Burr (NC) has also been hinting he has a previous appointment that week and can't make it. Sen. Mark Kirk (IL) has just been confiding in friends he might not go, he's been telling the media back home, he's too busy to attend.

Kirk is considered tied with Ron Johnson (R-WI) as the #1 most likely Republican to lose in November. Both have stated that if Trump wins the nomination they intend to put party over country and vote for him in November. Kirk's opponent's campaign has pointed out that even if Kirk avoids the convention itself, "no amount of physical distance will separate Sen. Kirk from his Republican roots, nor from Donald Trump's circus."

There could be as many as two dozen Republican congressmen and senators who avoid that circus, especially if it starts to look more likely that there will be violence and bloodshed. Potentially, though, the biggest loser isn't the GOP but tragically, the city of Cleveland which has been wishing it had lost the bid for the convention. What was supposed to be an opportunity to show off to the country how far it had come since the bad old days of default and urban blight.

Thanks to Donald Trump, Cleveland’s first nominating convention since 1936 might not be the customary coronation and infomercial, despite a $64 million corporate fundraising pledge and $50 million in federal assistance to assure all goes smoothly.

“This has the potential to be very, very good for the city,” said Stephen Loomis, president of the Cleveland Police Patrolmen’s Association. “It also has the potential to be very, very bad for the city,”

The prospect of a fight for the Republican nomination, bolstered by Trump’s warning of riots if he doesn’t get the nod, has evoked memories of raucous conventions from long ago when backroom deals by kingmakers often determined the nominee. Those featured fistfights on arena floors and, in Chicago’s 1968 Democratic gathering, violent street disturbances that stained the city as images were broadcast worldwide.

The risk attached to the July 18-21 convention has revived the debate over the economic benefit derived from mega-events such as Super Bowls, NATO summits and the quadrennial gatherings to nominate Republican and Democratic presidential candidates.

“For Cleveland, the name recognition and having a chance to tell the turnaround story of downtown brings the potential reward of changing perceptions of the city,” said Ned Hill, an Ohio State University economist. “If it turns out there is blatant Trumpism in the streets, then the good news story will disappear.”

...The possibility of turmoil wasn’t imagined two years ago when the city of 390,000 people beat out Dallas for the right to host the event. Conventional wisdom then suggested former Florida Governor Jeb Bush would coast to the nomination, giving Cleveland the chance to bathe in the positive light of national television exposure.

Trump’s stunning rise, accompanied by violence at his rallies and his own bellicose remarks, has fueled an expectation of disorder. Roger Stone, a Republican operative and Trump ally, invoked the 1968 “days of rage” when he tweeted April 2 his plans to organize protests in Cleveland if Trump isn’t nominated.

...“What you hear from Trump increases the level of anxiety, but we’ll be prepared for whatever happens,” said City Councilman Matt Zone, who heads the safety committee.

About 600 officers from Cleveland’s 1,500 member police force will be on duty for the event, Loomis said, aided by as many as 2,500 security personnel from outside the city. Using $50 million in federal grants, Cleveland will purchase barricades, batons and 2,000 sets of riot gear.

Recent terrorist attacks in France, Brussels and San Bernardino, California, have added to the security concerns. The equipment hasn’t been delivered, Loomis said, and his officers haven’t been thoroughly trained.

“We were excited when we first heard about this,” Loomis said. “But I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was very concerned.”

Trump's OpEd in yesterday's Wall Street Journal wasn't meant to smooth anything over with the party establishment. It was meant to rouse fear and loathing among an already paranoid and conspiracy-happy GOP Base raised on simplistic Hate Talk Radio. "A planned vote had been canceled," he wrote. "And one million Republicans in Colorado were sidelined." Gone are the days when he used to brag onstage at the debates how he would buy the politicians with campaign contributions so he could have his special interests attended to. Now he's one of the aggrieved fighting "the system" instead of manipulating it. Or... well, he's just using a different tactic of manipulation, a more dangerous one.

In recent days, something all too predictable has happened: Politicians furiously defended the system. “These are the rules,” we were told over and over again. If the “rules” can be used to block Coloradans from voting on whether they want better trade deals, or stronger borders, or an end to special-interest vote-buying in Congress-- well, that’s just the system and we should embrace it.

Let me ask America a question: How has the “system” been working out for you and your family?

I, for one, am not interested in defending a system that for decades has served the interest of political parties at the expense of the people. Members of the club-- the consultants, the pollsters, the politicians, the pundits and the special interests-- grow rich and powerful while the American people grow poorer and more isolated.

No one forced anyone to cancel the vote in Colorado. Political insiders made a choice to cancel it. And it was the wrong choice.

Responsible leaders should be shocked by the idea that party officials can simply cancel elections in America if they don’t like what the voters may decide.

The only antidote to decades of ruinous rule by a small handful of elites is a bold infusion of popular will. On every major issue affecting this country, the people are right and the governing elite are wrong. The elites are wrong on taxes, on the size of government, on trade, on immigration, on foreign policy.

Why should we trust the people who have made every wrong decision to substitute their will for America’s will in this presidential election?

...The great irony of this campaign is that the “Washington cartel” that Mr. Cruz rails against is the very group he is relying upon in his voter-nullification scheme.

My campaign strategy is to win with the voters. Ted Cruz’s campaign strategy is to win despite them.

What we are seeing now is not a proper use of the rules, but a flagrant abuse of the rules. Delegates are supposed to reflect the decisions of voters, but the system is being rigged by party operatives with “double-agent” delegates who reject the decision of voters.

The American people can have no faith in such a system. It must be reformed.

Just as I have said that I will reform our unfair trade, immigration and economic policies that have also been rigged against Americans, so too will I work closely with the chairman of the Republican National Committee and top GOP officials to reform our election policies. Together, we will restore the faith-- and the franchise-- of the American people.

We must leave no doubt that voters, not donors, choose the nominee.

How have we gotten to the point where politicians defend a rigged delegate-selection process with more passion than they have ever defended America’s borders?

Perhaps it is because politicians care more about securing their private club than about securing their country.

The state of Ohio doesn't allow candidates-- even self-funding ones-- to bribe delegates at conventions. Watch how Maddow explained it Thursday evening:

No Republican Is Going To Win The White House In November, But Which One Will Do The Most Severe Damage Down Ballot?

Some say the presidential push that Paul Ryan is making now is actually to set him up for a 2020 run after this year's GOP Dunkirk (see video above, which I found on Donald Trump's Twitter feed yesterday). After all, Bernie would be 80 when he starts his second term and Hillary would be 74. I suppose Ryan could still be presented as a "fresh face," although I suspect 4 years as Speak will tarnish him unredeemable with his own base-- or make him anathema to independents.

In recent days, we had far right pundit Charles Krauthammer predicting that the Republican Party would disintegrate if Trump is denied the nomination in Cleveland. "A parachute maneuver," a cute way of referring to Ryan's campaign to be this year's nominee, "might be legal, but it would be perceived as illegitimate and, coming amid the most intense anti-establishment sentiment in memory, imprudent to the point of suicide. Yet even without this eventuality, party suicide is a very real possibility. The nominee will be either Trump or Cruz. How do they reconcile in the end? ... And if Trump loses out, a split is guaranteed. In Trump’s mind, he is a winner. Always. If he loses, it can only be because he was cheated. He constantly contends that he’s being treated unfairly. He is certain to declare any convention process that leaves him without the nomination irredeemably unfair. No need to go third party. A simple walkout with perhaps a thousand followers behind will doom the party in November."

Yesterday, Tim Carney, a rightist, asserted outright, no frills attached, that "If Republicans nominate Donald Trump, they nearly cede the White House to Hillary Clinton. Trump wouldn't merely be an underdog in the general election. He would be the worst Republican nominee since Alf Landon 80 years ago.

The polls show Trump would be a disaster. To date, Trump's message control has been a disaster, and it would be a disaster in the general election. His political inexperience, which has hamstrung him in the primary cycle, would be a disaster in the fall.

All indications suggest a Trump versus Hillary battle would be a one-sided affair. [Those same polls show an even worse donnybrook for the GOP if Democrats wake up and nominate Bernie, who kills Hillary among independents.]

...Clinton leads Trump by double digits in most recent polls, with an average of 10.6 percent according to RealClearPolitics. She has led Trump in the RCP average for the entire campaign. That lead grew steadily throughout March, ever since Clinton and Trump became the clear front-runners for their party nominations.

Compare that to past elections. In the first half of April 2012, President Obama's lead over Mitt Romney hovered between 2.3-5.3 percent. Obama's largest lead in the RealClearPolitics average at any point in 2012 was 5.9 percent. Obama held a double-digit lead over Romney in only one poll after March 1, 2012.

Obama's largest lead over John McCain was eight points.

The problem isn't just Clinton's lead. It's Trump's apparent ceiling: His average in head-to-head national polls against Clinton has never climbed above 44 percent, and he's been hovering around 40 percent since Super Tuesday.

No Republican has ever won the White House without carrying Ohio, and Trump is looking bad in Ohio. Clinton beat Trump in all three Ohio polls conducted in March, by an average of six points.

Any review of the Electoral College looks ugly for Trump. [And they can kiss Rob Portman's Senate seat goodbye. The incompetent DCCC isn't contesting a single House seat in Ohio, but a Trump-led ticket could end in victories for Keith Mundy against Jim Renacci and for Michael Wager against David Joyce.]

The website "270 to Win" looked at polling averages and found Clinton carrying 260 electoral votes to Trump's 115 votes, with 165 up for grabs. Clinton's vote total on the site doesn't include Minnesota, Iowa, Ohio or Florida, all states where Clinton has to be considered the favorite. If Clinton carried Minnesota, Ohio or Florida-- any one of those-- she would win.

Look at every other swing state. In New Hampshire, Trump trails in every poll this year, most recently by eight points. In Florida, Clinton leads by eight in the latest poll and 2.2 percent in the RealClearPolitics average. Clinton beat Trump in the only Iowa poll. Clinton beat Trump by 17 points in the only Virginia poll this year.

Trump says he can expand the electoral map and win in places Republicans haven't won in decades, such as Michigan and Pennsylvania. The polls don't concur.

Trump trails Clinton in Michigan by double digits in two polls conducted in late March. Every Michigan poll this year has shown Trump losing to Clinton significantly, and the margin grew after the Michigan GOP Primary, which Trump won.

Clinton led Trump in every Pennsylvania poll in March, most recently by 13 points. Trump hasn't cracked 40 percent in a single Pennsylvania survey this year.

...First, we should expect Trump to flop in the debates. Trump had success in GOP primaries, but there was a reason he called them off-- refusing to participate in a post-Florida Fox News debate and ignoring Ted Cruz's calls for one-on-one debates. Trump thrived in crowded debates where all he had to do was rudely put down Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio and where he could get away with always changing the topic.

In the less-crowded debates after South Carolina, Trump looked worse. Rubio exposed Trump's utter shallowness on healthcare policy, and Trump found himself flailing in policy areas where he was way out of his depth. Recent interviews, in which television journalists Anderson Cooper, John Dickerson and Chris Matthews pressed Trump on abortion or nuclear proliferation, exposed his incompetence.

In a one-on-one debate against Clinton, Trump's lack of policy knowledge and critical thinking skills would be glaring.

There's also the boorishness problem.

Despite all the talk about equality and equity, and treating women the same as men, we don't really live that way. Men are still expected to treat women with more courtesy than men treat other men. Put another way: You can be a boorish bully toward men in ways you can't toward women.

Trump probably helped himself by interrupting, insulting and sneering at Bush and Rubio. It may have been deliberate on his part, but it's also his personality. When he behaves that way toward Clinton, he will accomplish the incredible: making Americans feel sympathetic toward her.

...He lacks the political skills, the likability, the public support and the fundraising ability to beat Hillary Clinton. That's why he won't even come close.

Here at DWT we've been warning that neither Trump nor Cruz was the likely nominee but that Ryan would be. No one agreed, until a few weeks ago when Ryan started getting pretty blatant. And now, even the last-on-the-block-for-news, the NYTimes, is-- albeit half a year late-- whispering that it could be Ryan. Why else would be be bothering heads of governments in the Middle East and Europe and trying to demonstrated his presidentialness, discussing two topics he's utterly clueless on, security and intelligence. And then the campaign video puffing him up while "deploring identity politics and promoting a battle of ideas-- set to campaign-style music."

While Mr. Ryan has repeatedly said that he has no intention of becoming his party’s nominee this year, he is already deep into his own parallel national operation to counter Donald J. Trump and help House and Senate candidates navigate the political headwinds that Mr. Trump would generate as the party’s standard-bearer-- or, for that matter, Senator Ted Cruz, who is only slightly more popular.

Mr. Ryan is creating a personality and policy alternative to run alongside the presidential effort-- one that provides a foundation to rebuild if Republicans splinter and lose in the fall. “He is running a parallel policy campaign,” said Senator Tim Scott, Republican of South Carolina.

He is shaping an agenda that he plans to roll out right before the convention, a supplement of sorts to the official party platform. He gives regular speeches on politics and policy-- particularly on poverty and economic issues-- then backs them up in the news media.

It is not a move without risks. His policy positions on immigration and trade, which have contributed to his mirage candidacy, are in great tension with the views of many Republican primary voters.

“I’m a big fan of Paul,” said Senator Jeff Sessions, Republican of Alabama and one of the very few Trump supporters in Congress. “He’s a good person and he’s smart, but issues like trade and immigration are going to be important, and I don’t think anybody gets the Republican nomination that’s not in sync with a substantial majority of the American people on those two key issues.”

...“There is no question that Ryan is operating in a very ambitious way,” said Peter Wehner, a former director of the White House Office of Strategic Initiatives under President George W. Bush who has known Mr. Ryan for two decades. “He is trying to set forth a path for the party with ideas and policy proposals and principles,” he said. “That is unusual for a speaker in an election year, but Ryan himself is a very different person, and this is the product of this very unusual presidential year.”

Mr. Ryan’s parallel track is intended largely to counter Mr. Trump, who stands apart from him and many of the party’s policy traditions. While Mr. Ryan is a vocal advocate of trade deals and wrote legislation that gave President Obama expanded authority to negotiate them, Mr. Trump is equally vocal in opposing free trade.

Mr. Ryan is the architect of his party’s plan to rein in spending on entitlement programs, while Mr. Trump has vowed to leave such spending untouched. Mr. Ryan has also been a leader in his party in supporting an overhaul of the immigration system; opposing this is at the center of Mr. Trump’s campaign.

...[W]hile Mr. Ryan’s positions remain popular with many Republicans in Washington, they are out of step with the white-hot populism that has fueled this year’s campaign. He remains a proponent of changes to the immigration system even though some Republican voters have been attracted to Mr. Trump’s plan to ban Muslims from entering the country and force Mexico to pay for a wall at the border.

Even within the House, Mr. Ryan’s ideas have met with resistance. He cannot get a budget passed, largely because he will not support the deep spending cuts favored by conservatives like Mr. Cruz.

Mr. Ryan has long said that he will support the party’s nominee, even as he has taken frequent shots at Mr. Trump’s comments. But many Republicans expect that if Mr. Trump prevails, Mr. Ryan will avoid directly helping him, choosing instead to shore up vulnerable House Republicans, particularly those who may be running away from Mr. Trump.

“I don’t think he would use his position as the stick in the eye of Trump or taunt him,” Mr. Wehner said.“But I don’t think Ryan would be at all shy about laying out the agenda of the Republican Party, because, remember, there are a lot of people voting against Trump out there.”

Little Chucky Schmucky and The Donald

The Democrats will probably win back the Senate in November; the big task is to bank enough seats so that when the GOP has a huge year in 2018, the Dems still hold on. That isn't how Schumer and Tester are gaming this out. A Democratic wave election could mean lost Republican seats not just in Illinois, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Ohio, New Hampshire, Florida, North Carolina (the 7 relatively easy ones), but also in Iowa, Missouri, Arizona, Arkansas, Indiana and even Kentucky, enough states to hold the GOP at bay when the electoral map makes the Republicans competitive in red-leaning states with very weak incumbents-- Indiana (Joe Donnelly), Montana (Jon Tester), North Dakota (Heidi Heitkamp), Missouri (Claire McCaskill), Virginia (Tim Kaine)-- and possibly even in Florida (Bill Nelson or his open seat if he retires), Wisconsin (Tammy Baldwin), Pennsylvania (Bob Casey), West Virginia (Joe Manchin) and Ohio (Sherrod Brown), not mention the New Jersey seat, which will depend when Robert Menendez's trial happens and if he resigns or goes to prison, etc. That's a lot of risk and the Democrats should be stocking up on Senate seats now, which makes it all the more frustrating that Schumer has blackballed Democrats who can win this year and make a difference rebuilding a tarnished brand-- like Sestak in Pennsylvania, Grayson in Florida and Edwards in Maryland-- in favor of his brand of corrupt conservatives (Schumercrats), Katie McGinty, Wall Street errand boy Patrick Murphy and Chris Van Hollen. When Obama attacked Trump last week, it was to get hyper-partisan anti-Obama Republicans to rally towards the banner of the weakest Republican candidate in anyone's memory.

Help elect real progressive, values-oriented Democrats to the Senate this year by clicking on the thermometer; no Schumercrats on this list, I guarantee you that:

New Polling Shows That Not Just Bernie, But Even Hillary Would Beat Paul Ryan If He Steals Trump's Nomination

I know, I know-- Ryan just wants to be a simple House Budget Committee Chairman (on the receiving end of that nice $6,008,853 from the Wall Street banksters he works so hard to accommodate) but... magically, he just happened to survive a tank filled with great whites and starving barracudas to wind up as Speaker of the House. It's the same strategy he's using the guarantee his coronation as a gun-free-zone in Cleveland in 3 little months.

Ryan took his presidential campaign from Israel to Egypt yesterday, while the full force of the actual Republican political establishment manned the walls for his fresh face back here in America. Top Republican politicos are putting odds on his Quicken Loans Arena coronation already.

One of the nation's best-wired Republicans, with an enviable prediction record for this cycle, sees a 60 percent chance of a convention deadlock and a 90 percent chance that delegates turn to Ryan-- ergo, a 54 percent chance that Ryan, who'll start the third week of July as chairman of the Republican National Convention, will end it as the nominee.

"He's the most conservative, least establishment member of the establishment," the Republican source said. "That's what you need to be."

Ryan, who's more calculating and ambitious than he lets on, is running the same playbook he did to become speaker: saying he doesn't want it, that it won't happen. In both cases, the maximum leverage is to not want it-- and to be begged to do it. He and his staff are trying to be as Shermanesque as it gets. Ryan repeated his lack of interest Monday morning in an interview from Israel with radio host Hugh Hewitt.

Of course in this environment, saying you don't want the job is the only way to get it. If he was seen to be angling for it, he'd be stained and disqualified by the current mess.

Not all Republicans, though, see him as "conservative" enough. He's certainly no Ted Cruz and he's not likely to be embraced by the crowd of extremists who have their hearts set on a genuine fanatic. Is that his general election strength though? It's certainly why he can't participate in a primary contest. He's more like Rubio than Cruz or Trump when it comes to comprehensive immigration reform. And he's as avid a "free" trader as Hillary-- at a time when the GOP electorate has come to understand that the trade policies of the Bush and Clinton (and Obama) years are catastrophic for them and their families. Trump and Cruz are against the TPP and now that Bernie has forced Hillary to at least pretend to be against it too, Ryan would stick out as a sore thumb on an issue that is finally being publicly debated.

So-- FINALLY-- the pollsters have come around to understand that, press release or not, Ryan is a candidate. Ryan's not happy about it, but even GOP polling firm Rasmussen has tossed him into the match-ups now. And it isn't just Bernie that would beat him; even Hillary might be able to! "The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that Hillary Clinton tops Ryan 40% to 34% among likely U.S. voters," they wrote but a sizable 22% prefer some other candidate given that matchup... Similarly, Senator Bernie Sanders posts a 41% to 34% win over Ryan, but 20% like another candidate. Five percent (5%) are undecided in both cases."

A closer look at the numbers, however, suggests the danger to Republicans of a brokered convention that denies Donald Trump or Ted Cruz the nomination. Ryan earns GOP support only in the high 50s against both Democrats. If Ryan is the GOP’s choice to run against Clinton, 28% of Republicans opt for someone else. If Sanders is Ryan’s opponent, 24% of GOP voters like another candidate. Twenty-four percent (24%) of GOP voters said last month that they are Very Likely to vote for Trump if he runs as a third-party presidential candidate.

Ryan is viewed favorably by 59% of Republican voters. That’s little changed from last October and includes only 27% with a Very Favorable opinion of him. But 30% now share an unfavorable view of the House leader, including 14% with a Very Unfavorable one. Unfavorables are up noticeably from 16% and three percent (3%) last fall. Eleven percent (11%) remain undecided.

Among all voters, Ryan is seen favorably by 39% and unfavorably by 44%. This includes 15% with a Very Favorable view of him and 21% with a Very Unfavorable one. Sixteen percent (16%) are undecided.

...Just over half (51%) of GOP voters oppose a brokered convention and think the party’s nominee should be the candidate who arrives at the convention with the most delegates. Two-out-of-three Republicans (66%) believe delegates should be required to support the candidate they were elected to support.

Ryan is viewed unfavorably by 64% of Democrats. Among voters not affiliated with either major party, 30% have a favorable opinion of him; 38% do not, but 21% are not sure.

Voters under 40 prefer Clinton by 20 points over Ryan, while Sanders holds a 34-point lead. Ryan has a slight edge among older voters, although Clinton is the favorite among senior citizens.

The race is close, too, among men, but women give both Democrats a double-digit lead over Ryan.

The speaker holds small leads over Clinton and Sanders among whites but trails by wide margins among blacks and other minority voters.

Going To The GOP July Convention Will Mean Taking Your Life In Your Hands

As the RNC gets ready for the July Paul Ryan coronation in Cleveland, the Trump forces are threatening for violence. Ryan-- one of the biggest NRA shills in Congress-- was smart-- albeit hypocritical-- to ban guns and then to respond to the petition to allow guns with a diktat from the Secret Service saying no guns would be tolerated.

As we explained Monday night, Alex Jones and Roger Stone are asking for Trum-pests to show up ready for a fight. Jones called for 5 million of them to descend on Cleveland. Cash-strapped Cleveland has been forced to spend millions of dollars on heavy duty riot gear and the GOP is refusing to reimburse them. Stone's latest ploy is to threaten to release to the Trump storm troopers the hotel room numbers of anyone who crosses the boss and participates in trying to steal "his" nomination.

"We’re going to have protests, demonstrations. We will disclose the hotels and the room numbers of those delegates who are directly involved in the steal," Stone said Monday in a discussion with Stefan Molyneux on Freedomain Radio, as he alleged that Trump's opponents planned to deny the democratic will of Republican primary voters.

"If you’re from Pennsylvania, we’ll tell you who the culprits are. We urge you to visit their hotel and find them. You have a right to discuss this, if you voted in the Pennsylvania primary, for example, and your votes are being disallowed," Stone said.

Stone, a Nixon acolyte and master of political dirty tricks, has claimed at various points that the political establishment is trying to steal the Republican nomination from Trump, with whom he formally parted ways last summer but remains an informal adviser of sorts. He's now vowing "days of rage" on the banks of Lake Erie if the Republican Party tries any funny business at the convention in Cleveland.

“They’re trying to steal it in two different ways. It is interesting to me that in every primary or caucus where Ted Cruz won, we have certified, proven, sworn evidence of massive voter fraud, which will later be presented to the credentials committee in Cleveland in an attempt to unseat delegates who were illegally elected," Stone claimed.



The other way method of theft, Stone elaborated, is "the phenomena of the Trojan Horse delegates, where Trump has won a primary, let’s take Texas for example — or he’s won a share of the votes in a primary. Trump got 40 percent of the vote in Texas; he’s entitled to 40 percent of the delegates. There’s 100 delegates from Texas. That’s 40 delegates. And they are pledged by party rules to vote for Trump on the first ballot."

"But the actual people in those delegate seats will be anti-Trump party hacks who will vote against Trump on procedural matters such as the seating of delegates or the rules under which this convention will be conducted," Stone said, pointing to the example of Louisiana, where Cruz's allies in the local GOP muscled out pro-Trump delegates even though Trump won the popular vote.

Trump initially threatened to sue the Cruz campaign, Stone noted, though he quickly realized he would have to seek redress through the Republican National Committee's internal procedures.

Laying out what he thought would happen, Stone continued: "Either Trump will have 1,237 votes in which case the party will try to throw out some of those delegates in a naked attempt to try to steal this from Donald Trump, or he will be just short of 1,237, in which case many of his own delegates, or, I should say people in his delegate seats will abandon him on the second ballot."

"So the fix is in," Stone concluded. "If Trump does not run the table on the rest of the primaries and the caucuses, we’re looking at a very, very narrow path in which the kingmakers go all out to cheat, to steal and to snatch this nomination from the candidate who was overwhelmingly selected by the voters, which is why I have urged Trump supporters: Come to Cleveland, march on Cleveland, join us in the Forest City."

One got a taste of Trump's fury at the GOP Establishment Tuesday night in his mean-spirited, graceless "concession" statement after being pulverized by Cruz, an incredibly weak candidate himself.

Markos Moulitsas: "The Backup Nominee Is Joe Biden"

Markos Moulitsas says these are your Democratic choices unless Sanders wins the pledged delegate count (Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP Photo; source)

by Gaius Publius

I didn't mean to do this twice, but events compel a few questions. Markos Moulitsas, a strong Clinton person, is apparently a strong anti-Sanders person as well. Either that or his friends-with-connections whispered something into his ear that he repeated out loud. Or both.

"The Backup Nominee is Joe Biden"

Note this brief exchange on his own site, Daily Kos. Moulitsas wrote a piece about how Bernie Sanders' campaign manager was "delusional" if he thought Sanders was going to win the nomination by using super-delegates to upset the pledged delegate vote, which he assumes will be Clinton's. No problem; it's his right to think and say so.

In particular, he wrote this (italics in original; my underscores):

There are two candidates. No one else has delegates. By definition, someone will have a majority of pledged delegates. What that candidate won’t have is a majority of all delegates, including the supers. But who cares? The only count that matters is pledged delegates. And if Sanders stages the biggest comeback in anything history to win a majority of pledged delegates? Kudos to him! He will have earned the nomination!

But pretending that 1) we’re going to have a brokered convention, when the math literally says it’s impossible, and 2) pretending that the super delegates would abandon Clinton for him despite his historical and current antipathy toward the Democratic Party is simply delusional.

Now to the comments section. One writer, ManhattanMan, added a reply that included this (bolding in original; my underscore):

If (God forbid) something happens to seriously damage Hillary’s electability, we’ll be thankful to have a backup nominee with a few million votes to his name. Ya never know. Safe is better than sorry.

To which Markos responded:

kos > ManhattanMan

The backup nominee is Joe Biden. Not sure why Bernie people think it would go to their guy…

Let's unpack that.

Would the Democratic Super-Delegates Nominate Biden Over Sanders?

I think, putting it all together, Markos is saying:

1. Clinton will arrive at the convention with a majority of pledged delegates.
2. The super-delegates will add to her total. 
3. But if Clinton is suddenly seen as unelectable ... what?
    
4. She would instruct her delegates to vote for Joe Biden, and
5. The super-delegates would follow suit?

I think that's what he's saying. So three questions for Moulitsas:

• Is he really suggesting that should "something" damage her electability, the convention would nominate Joe Biden instead of Bernie Sanders?

•  How does he know this? (Oh please, do share!)

•  Does this remark — "Not sure why Bernie people think it would go to their guy" — sounds as sneering as it seems to sound? 

After all, there's a small matter of Sanders winning all those states and delegates, against Biden winning exactly zero of each. Maybe that's why Bernie people might think "it would go to their guy."

Two from me and I'm done. First, I really would like an answer to those questions, all three of them. Second, if this ever occurs, that Biden is the annointed nominee, Moulitsas can kiss the Party goodbye. Sanders supporters are its future. All Joe Biden can be is the Hubert Humphrey of 2016, his last act as a politician and his legacy.

Have You Helped Your Candidate Yet?

Blue America has endorsed Bernie Sanders for president. If you agree with his policies, is it:

• Time to contribute?
• Time to phone-bank for Bernie?
• Time to make sure all of your friends come out to vote?

Seems so to me (but only if you agree). And thanks!

GP