Tonight is the second-to-last (good God, who's last?) round of Primaries for the major parties, and while the Republican campaign was already called about five six weeks ago the Democratic campaign has pretty much gone to the wire.
But tonight is a big one: Two large population states including AT LAST CALIFORNIA (also New Jersey) from which Hillary Clinton can secure enough "hard pledge" delegates among the "soft" delegates to pretty much clinch the nomination.
Although the AP Newswire claimed last night that enough Superdelegates came out in favor of Hillary to cross the threshold, it matters more that the threshold be claimed tonight by the ballot counts, so yeah, New Jersey is going to be the wafer thin mint that tips the scales. Hillary's got 62 percent of the vote with 88 percent of the precincts reporting: at this rate she's got Joisey in the bag, man.
And with that, Hillary's got 2469 soft delegates (with a 1825 hard count, 400 ahead of Bernie) where the cutoff to win is 2383. She's there.
Hillary won the delegates, Hillary will earn the party's nomination in Philadelphia next month. It's done. Anybody arguing for shifting the Superdelegates around, or talking the normal delegates into bolting from any pledge to vote Hillary on the first ballot, is just in painful denial right now.
Still and all: it'd be nice to see if Hillary can dominate this night with winning the rest of the roster. Getting a majority of states looks good heading into the convention as well as the delegate count.
Hillary's leading Bernie in South Dakota at the moment: it's too close to officially call, but barring a massive outburst for Sanders in the bigger precincts it's gotta be going for Clinton.
Lets see about New Mexico: Hmm, Hillary's up 53 to 47 percent over Bernie, it's still too early to call but it's getting there.
North Dakota: Bernie's winning that with a wide margin of 62 percent to Hillary's 26 percent... which is odd except for this being another crazy Caucus where the rules are whack. 10 percent haven't committed, which means the final results might not be known until 2018. And what the hell, Dakota: 253 people TOTAL for Bernie, with 101 for Hillary? We're talking hundreds, not thousands, and I'm pretty sure you Dakota states have more people than that. Where the hell are they? Seriously folks, Caucuses have to go.
It's too early to call Montana even with Hillary in a decent-sized lead there, but then again it's Montana, I never been there so who cares? :) UPDATE 6/8: Bernie wins Montana. Congratulations. I'm sure it can fit somewhere on the trophy case...
All that's left is California, and there's no results in yet for that (West Coast votes are SOOOOOO late in the evening). UPDATE 6/8: Morning has revealed that Hillary dominated Cali 56 to 43 percent over Bernie. That is a double-digit win in the largest state of the nation.
What does all this mean?
It means Bernie needs to bow out gracefully and let Hillary (and Obama, who's itching to get out campaigning for his successor) run the national campaign to the general election now.
No more back-biting... no more questionable accusations about "stolen" elections... no more dissing southern states for "not counting"... no more sore loser stuff.
Let it go, Senator Sanders.
Work on this: You've got access towards setting the Democratic Party's platform, which you can use to set key agenda points on economic policy and Congressional reforms. No, you'll probably not get your universal healthcare idea approved, but there's a lot of other things Hillary and the Centrist factions of the party will back.
This doesn't have to be a divided Party, Senator.
I understand - I sympathize a little - that your Progressive idealism makes it hard for you and your followers to support a "moderate" Center-Left candidate like Hillary. That you don't trust her enough to even placate you on issues. I understand you hate her for being too cozy with Wall Street and the Banks, and granted that is a troubling relationship considering how much more work our nation needs to prevent those same banks and investors from causing another crippling economic collapse.
But here's the deal:
TRUMP IS A GODDAMN MANIAC ONE STEP AWAY FROM DESTROYING ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING.
I am not exaggerating.
The Democrats as a whole need to unite as one party now... The Democrats need to appeal to the Independent voters with coherent policy points and common sense and confidence... The nation, the entire world needs the Democrats to present a solid, worthwhile choice for a majority of voters to ensure the likes of Trump does not win in November (or EVER again).
You can disagree with Hillary. You can argue for the need to keep her honest especially if she wins the White House, you can push for enough Left-leaning Liberals and Progressive allies into key Cabinet positions to make sure Hillary stays honest enough to your measures.
But you gotta let go of that hate, BernieBros. You gotta recognize that we've got a lot of elections to win, not just the Presidency but the US Senate and the US House and a ton of state-level elections as well. The whole ticket needs your vote, needs your support, needs you period.
Let go of that hate, and look to hope. Hope that you can get enough Moderate and Independent voters to side with you against Trump and his tainted, dying Republican Party.
Hope that this nation can unite behind the first serious woman candidate from a major political party to officially run for President. Under this banner, the Democrats can rally to wins in the Senate and break that logjam... and if the Republicans implode as predicted there's a good chance of turning the power of the US House back to Democrats too.
This is a major election. All hands on deck, get the vote out, and do what we can to Stop Trump and Save America.
That means voting for Democrats all across the board. That means voting for Hillary.
Update: so of course Bernie is saying he's gonna fight this all the way to Philly. /headdesk
5 comments:
Great post! Hillary's speech tonight left Trump's impotent ramblings earlier in the evening in the dust. The sooner she has a clear field to battle Trump the better.
Who's last? Washington D.C., at least on the Democratic side. The Republicans had theirs so early Marco Rubio won it.\
As for me, I'm taking my Bernie magnet off my car in the morning. I'm ready for Hillary.
She won California handily. I agree with your post, and after watching her victory speech, I might have figured out her plan, and I think it's a good one. She may be gunning for the female vote. If there are any peelable republicans, it seems to me they are most likely women. That's the impression I got. She mentioned her mother and daughter, but not her husband (who was there and apparently mobbed at the rope line) and talked about how her mother was born on the day congress passed the 19th amendment...
Even Merkley, Bernie's only endorsement in the senate has said that starting tomorrow, it's Hillary all the way.
We can do this, people, let's get to it.
-Doug in Oakland
Thank you, Pinku-Sensei. Let's focus on the big picture here: Stop Trump, keep a Dem in the White House, help the Dems win the Senate back, and do whatever's possible to weaken the GOP control of the House (if not flip it altogether).
Here's hoping Hillary is up 55 to 38 over Trump by early August. It should scare the Senate into accepting Garland to fill that SCOTUS seat.
Doug:
I have been saying for years now that women voters are THE key voting bloc - they are the largest demographic overall - and yet neither party's done a good job courting them (as they've been spread out over different issues to where they merged into more marketable demographics like ethnicity or income levels).
But now, with an open misogynist in Trump leading a Republican party that is clearly against women's issues (health care, birth control, pay equity, better schools for kids) and with Hillary standing strong for certain women's issues (and as a reflection of the struggles women have had the last 40 years in the workplace), there is a good opportunity here for Democrats to blow up the GOP reliance on White voters by having that bloc split over gender, while retaining the other demographics as part of a broad coalition of voters.
Nate Silver wrote awhile back that if women in general voted at the same percentages they hate Trump, the Dems would win all 50 states. That's likely impossible, but it's one hell of an objective within reach.
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