And Here We Go Debate Blogging! Part #5

11:00 PM: I'm not sure I've heard two candidates yell at each other at such a sustained clip for two full hours. And they're both over 65. That's stamina.

And Here We Go Debate Blogging! Part #5

10:25 PM: What's Bernie Sanders' endgame here exactly? Did Senator Sanders watch what the Obama administration did on the Israeli/Palestinian front during its first term when Hillary Clinton was Secretary Clinton? This primal scream phase of Sanders campaign reminds me of Barney Frank's critique of Sanders as someone who spent all his time critiquing the inevitable compromises that go into actual passing laws rather than actually putting his shoulder on the back of the car and helping push.

10:34 PM: Sanders' surrogate ...

Rosario Dawson: Clinton's foreign policy "sounds kind of racist to me...seems kind of sexist and classist to me."https://t.co/9zYs5G3K3y

— jasonbellini (@jasonbellini) April 14, 2016

What's the endgame here exactly?

10:36 PM: It's notable that Sanders' proposals for single payer and free college education at public universities have barely been mentioned here tonight. It's now virtually all attacks on Clinton, in a lot of cases dumpster diving for phony issues.

10: 43 PM: Hillary now filibustering Bernie on his never-ending attempts to find an issue that he and Clinton disagree on.

10:51 PM: I will say that I find the question of who's a 'real Democrat' pretty lame. Track record of raising money and campaigning for Democrats, that's a bit different. But any thriving party is welcoming newcomers.

10:55 PM: Slaughtered in the Deep South, the most conservative part of the country, overwhelmingly with the votes of African American Democrats.

And Here We Go Debate Blogging! Part #4

9:57 PM: This argument by Sanders is just bogus. Even when he talks about lobbyists he's talking about lobbyists who have at least one client who is in the fossil fuel industry. It's the kind of willfully misleading argument we rightly condemn in others.

10:02 PM: This is another case where Sanders makes big claims about dramatic change with no clear or credible plan to actually follow through on it. Meanwhile, actually shutting down coal plants is meaningless, incrementalism.

10:07 PM: Sanders is inspiring when he talks about changing the realm of the possible and plausible, less so when he's more focused on attacking people who have actually implemented change while he was just talking.

10:10 PM: Clinton's response on Libya ... well, rather muddled.

And Here We Go Debate Blogging! Part #3

9:37 PM: ...

Old Guy Who Yells A Lot Sick Of Listening To Old Guy Who Yells A Lot

— John Dingell (@JohnDingell) April 15, 2016

9:42 PM: I feel like almost all of the Democrats' debates have been desperate efforts to find things these two disagree on.

9:43 PM: Hillary's actually wrong on this point. The states didn't follow in the federal government's wake. The federal government followed the states.

9:45 PM: I also think she's wrong to say these were unintended consequences. That's really not the case. It was a period of very high crime. People were scared. On top of that there was rank politicization and fear-mongering, efforts to use crime to win elections. The crime was real; the fear was real; the demagoguery was real. The country wanted to throw away the key for a lot of people. And no, it wasn't just whites. Most members of the Congressional Black Caucus voted for the bill. Now, I think you cannot take the 94 crime bill out of its historical and political context of the 94 crime bill. Law and order politics was a product of the right which Democrats were largely following. All that said, these weren't unintended consequences. Most of these consequences were intended. They just look very different now in an era of historically low crime rates.

And Here We Go Debate Blogging! Part #2

9:22 PM: Man, Snarkders.

9:24 PM: Sanders must be positively devastated when Wolf quotes CEO's attacking him.

9:25 PM: I'll give this one to Sanders. What on earth was Wolf thinking referring to Sanders "contempt for American businesses"? Good lord. That's an insane level of editorializing. Here's the exact quote. "Given your obvious contempt for large American corporations, hue would you as president be able to effectively promote American businesses around the world?" That was so over the top, I at first thought it was part of the quote from the Verizon CEO.

9:29 PM: Did I mention, good lord, what was Wolf Blitzer thinking? Sanders is obviously a critic of corporate America. And it might not be unreasonable to say that he sometimes speaks about corporate America with contempt, you could say that. But a moderator isn't supposed to make obvious and fairly invidious editorializing remarks.

9:31 PM: What is going on here? I feel like Trump's going to come on to the stage and ask these two to take a take a deep breath and think for a moment about civility.

And Here We Go Debate Blogging!

9:02 PM: So we're here at the Sanders campaign rally / AKA the Democratic debate.

9:06 PM: I can't believe Sanders is still hanging on the phony Washington Post headline.

9:07 PM: Okay, I guess we're basically in death match mode here. But hey, it's New York. That's how we roll.

9:09 PM: Okay Sanders has Clinton dead to rights on the Iraq War vote - a failing not so much of judgment but political courage. But he didn't "lead the opposition" to the Iraq War. Please.

9:13 PM: Interesting point by Sanders, basically making a vaguely Hayekian point that the government shouldn't be determining the structure of the successor mini-banks. I think I agree with that. But an interesting non-government intervention moment for him.

9:16 PM: Sanders simply ducked or fudged that question about what Clinton had done to favor the banks in the context of her campaign contributions. Certainly there must be various pro-Wall Street positions she took, even if they were meritorious in themselves. But he couldn't or wouldn't say one and made this muddled though perhaps damaging point about her speeches.

9:18 PM: I'm curious, how many of you prefer the current Angry Sanders versus the old Good Natured/Happy Warrior Sanders?

Dead Ted Bounce?

This article is pretty amazing. Basically, even though Ted Cruz is the only viable candidate in a position to deny Trump the nomination and basically the entire GOP elite is behind his effort to take as many delegates from Trump as possible, still basically no Senators will endorse him or in some cases even talk to him. Here's a run-down of numerous Republican senators who either politely or acidly said they're telling Cruz to go jump in a lake because they hate him so much.

Trump Camp: Don't Worry, We Got This Delegate Thing

Trump adviser on delegate math assures Trump-supporting members of Congress that he'll have the nomination wrapped up after California in June.

Trump, Cruz & Kasich Not Ever Very Popular in GOP

We're hearing a lot about Donald Trump's dismal favorability numbers, also about Hillary Clinton's and then finally a steady backdraft of commentary about how the Democrats aren't much more united than the Republicans. This is not accurate. Clinton's favorability ratings are not at all where you would want them to be right now if you're a Democrat. But a look at the polls shows how differently each party sees all its candidates.

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Rove Defects to #EventuallyTrump

Politico has an article today suggesting that Karl Rove - despite being or having been a hardcore anti-Trumpite - is warming to a Trump candidacy. That's not precisely what it says, when you read down into the piece. Or at least there's a good deal of hedging involved. What it seems to amount to is that the big SuperPac which Rove founded and remains the moving force of - Crossroads USA - is now telling donors that if Trump is nominee he can actually win so there's still plenty we can do with your money.

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Sad!

Back at the 2011 White House Correspondents Association dinner, President Obama beat Donald Trump like a protester. This year, when he's at the center of the political world, Trump is saying he won't attend.

On Some Issues, Moral Appeals Don't Seem To Work

It’s a good thing to see Deutsche Bank, PayPal, Bruce Springsteen and these other bigshots and big institutions boycotting North Carolina because of the state law overturning Charlotte’s law on which bathrooms transsexuals can use. And it's a good thing to see the state backtracking. But you wonder with Alec MacGillis why none of the high rollers thought of boycotting the seventeen states that have denied Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act to millions of their low-income citizens. Millions. And that includes North Carolina. I am afraid it goes back to something I wrote about twenty-five years ago: why social rights issues that cut across class and sometimes partisan lines (such as abortion and gay rights, e.g. Cheney family) can summon enormous influence on their behalf, while those that predominately affect the poor and low-income people cannot. Moral appeals are clearly not enough in these instances.

A Trap Of His Own Making

The deep enmity toward Ted Cruz within the Senate is coming back to bite him in new and maybe unexpected ways.

As Lauren Fox talked to GOP senators for this piece, one of the dynamics that emerged was that even if senators might be inclined to soften their loathing of Cruz as a way of heading off a disastrous Trump nomination, many of them had already endorsed other candidates earlier in the race who have since dropped out. The prospect of endorsing a second time and having that person lose, too, runs the risk of making individual senators look fairly ridiculous.

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Not as Crazy as It Sounds

A member of the Republican National Committee, who will sit on the convention rules committee, made a bit of a stir today when he said that 1237 wasn't the magic number for Trump. It was probably more like 1100 delegates. He wasn't saying that 1100 guaranteed Trump the nomination but that if he has more than 1100 he'll be in a strong position to convince the remainder to come over and back him. A lot of people reacted like Randy Evans, the RNC committeeman, is crazy. But I'm not so sure. I won't say that Evans has any special insight into the matter, at least not more than any other high ranking Republican. But I think he's got a better handle on things than a lot of people who are chattering about this at the moment.

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I'm Voting for Bernie, but on One Condition

“He’s not going to get the nomination, is he?” my wife asks anxiously as she gazes out of the kitchen window at the Bernie for President sign on our front lawn. No, I assure her, and he certainly won’t win Maryland on April 26. I’m voting for Bernie, and my wife may, too, but we’re doing so on the condition that we don’t think he will get the nomination. If he were poised to win, I don’t know whether I’d vote for him, because I fear he would be enormously vulnerable in a general election, even against Donald Trump or Ted Cruz, and I’m also not sure whether he is really ready for the job of president.

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