As California primary nears, state Democrats are uniting behind Clinton and against a common enemy: Trump LA Times

While both Democratic camps focus on Wisconsin and New England before turning westward to California, the latest USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times statewide poll found "that just over half of Sanders’ supporters said they expected Clinton to be the next president. About a third of Sanders’ backers said they expected the Vermont senator to emerge the winner, and 12% said they thought Donald Trump would prevail."

Perhaps reluctantly, close to 8 in 10 Sanders supporters said in the California survey that Clinton will have their vote against Trump.

The rhetoric may be hot and aggressive coming after Bernie Sanders' weekend caucusus wins, but reality is that the country’s largest state have begun to coalesce behind their front-runner Hillary Clinton.

In the primary race, polls show Clinton holds a modest lead over Sanders, 45% to 37%, among all Democrats and independent voters eligible to vote. Her lead is slightly larger, 47% to 36%, among those most likely to vote. Either way, that’s a significant problem for Sanders, and a strong showing as expected in New York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and Maryland should increase that lead. Wisconsin, which will vote next week, appears to be a tighter race, with Clinton leading by six points in the most recent poll. A reputable poll update is expected on Wednesday.

Clinton's camp tries to shut down talk of Sanders hot streak Politico

Anne wrote on the HillaryWomen News Facebook page today:

"We totally support the response of the Clinton campaign regarding a debate with Sanders in New York. It's not as if large ‪#‎s‬ of New York State voters don't know Hillary Clinton. They elected her as their US Senator twice. Her re-election win was with 67% of New York voters.

Unlike Bernie Sanders who fled his Brooklyn roots for a progressive, but very quiet, white, small state of Vermont where he didn't need to get a paying job until age 40 as mayor of Burlington, the Clintons have maintained offices in Harlem and now lower Manhattan for the Clinton Foundation over many years. Their affiliations with the totality of New York is longstanding and multi-ethnic. As a Senator, Hillary Clinton had tremendous support from upstate voters.

Bernie Sanders says absolutely nothing new in his debates, as we wrote on Saturday when we heard that Bernie is crying foul that Hillary hasn't agreed to debate him in New York where she enjoys a 30-70 point lead, depending on the recent polls.

New Yorkers don't need Bernie Sanders to ride in on his white stallion as if he has the foggiest notion of how to deal with New York problems or New York voters. Bernie knows how to deal with Vermont problems, and there is NO record of him saying anything new that's relevant particularly to New Yorkers.

Destroy Not Debate

Bernie's sole interest in a debate is not to debate but to destroy. His campaign has made that very clear, as he distorts his momentum to the nomination based on every factual piece of data available. Bernie Sanders is not calling the shots here, so he can put his finger-wagging finger in his pocket for the timebeing.

Town halls are another matter, and I think the candidates can be interviewed multiple times in the more effective town hall format.

Bernie Sanders has made it very clear that his sole agenda now is to destroy Hillary Clinton and the Democratic party. The Clinton campaign referred today to the WaPo article that we posted at once on this wall Saturday night: "Sanders sharpens attacks for NY showdown that may dash Clinton's unity hopes. "

Politico wrote last night that the Sanders campaign refuses to even acknowledge Hillary's win and serious lead (almost 60-40) in won delegates. She's rolling into the Northeast where all polls have her dominating.

Bernie and his BernieBros seem to think that they can lie, curse, insult, finger wag, threaten and yell their way to a win against Clinton. Why are they now surprised that the Clinton campaign is calling foul? Bernie and his Bros have used every innuendo in the book to try to smear and destroy Hillary, and if this is their idea of running a campaign that isnt negative -- we can't imagine what a negative campaign would look like from Sanders.

Bernie's reputation is that it's his way or the highway. So let him play ball with the Clintons because Bernie brings no credibility to a possible debate. He is a one-trick pony with a foreign policy based on his vote against the Iraq War. Let his voters support him and we will support Hillary. And let the best person win the nomination.

Bernie Sanders has NOTHING to tell the voters of New York that they haven't already heard. A town hall format is much better for both candidates. ~ Anne "

Hillary Clinton Headlines March 28, 2016

The Long, Sexist History of 'Shrill' Women TIME

Bernie's math: Improbable, not impossible Politico

Sanders, Clinton forget their manners CNN

Bernie's team confronts tough questions Politico

Berned Out?

Denial is powerful. The extent to which the human mind can conjure up scenarios besides the one we don’t want to see is impressive, the result of some weird psychological glitch that probably evolved as a way of allowing us to keep our sanity. I don’t know; I’m not an evolutionary psychologist.

What I am is a dude who spends a lot of time looking at poll numbers, and particularly poll numbers related to the 2016 nomination contests. I am the author of various articles assessing the chances of Sen. Bernie Sanders in the Democratic iteration thereof; those articles come to the conclusion that Hillary Clinton is very, very likely to be the party’s nominee. It’s a simple function of math. Sanders needs to win a lot of states with a lot of delegates by a lot of points -- something that he’s so far shown no ability to do. He needs to win about three-quarters of the remaining delegates. Unless deus emerges from the machina, he will not.

But that’s me looking at things objectively. I suspect that Seth Abramson — a University of New Hampshire English professor and author of “Bernie Sanders Is Currently Winning the Democratic Primary Race, and I’ll Prove It to You” — is not considering the race from the same space.

"As of March 22, after votes were cast in Arizona, Utah and Idaho, Clinton has earned 1,223 pledged delegates to the convention while Sanders earned 946, a 277-point margin of deficit.

Clinton has won delegates in the fairest way possible. Party rules dictate that delegates are allocated according to the share of the win. This is a break from the past. Primaries used to run on a winner-takes-all system (sometimes called the “unit rule”), in which the candidate who got a majority (or plurality) of votes took all the delegates. The second-place candidate got nothing while the first-place candidate got the votes of the second-place candidate.

In 2016, the candidate in second place gets a percentage of the delegates she earned while the winner does not get delegates she did not earn. This is the case with every primary and caucus in every state. It’s hard to imagine a more meritocratic and thus progressive system."

( . . . )

Sanders response to this fact should give American leftists reason to pause. He is looking to the political press to give the impression that winning in caucus states like Utah and Idaho means the people are on his side. If the people appear to be on his side, the thinking goes, then the Democratic party’s “superdelegates” should back him.

In other words, the democratic socialist candidate hopes to create the illusion of winning in order to sway the very same Democratic elites that his coalition ideologically despises.

As Tad Devine, a Sanders strategist, said: “People will look at different measures: How many votes did you get? How many delegates did you win? How many states did you win? But it’s really about momentum.”

Yes, it is about momentum. Just ask Hillary Clinton."