Bernie Sanders beat Hillary Clinton by double digits in the Wisconsin primary last night. Whoo-hoo! The media will continue to remind us of the daunting delegate math and an interview in the New York Daily News that the Washington Post says makes Sanders sound uninformed on major issues (Ryan Grim of Huffington Post offers this analysis of the transcript and defense of Sanders), but as long as Sanders keeps hitting a chord with over two million donors, he’ll be able to stay in the race all the way through South Dakota (Aberdeen! Senator Sanders! You need to come to Aberdeen!) on June 7.
Yet on a morning when I should be celebrating Bernie Sanders’s fight for the working class, I notice some pro-labor brimstone coming from his smarting antithesis, Donald J. Trump:
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Tuesday slammed Ford Motor Co.’s decision to build a $1.6 billion assembly plant in Mexico as an “absolute disgrace” that would not happen if he becomes president.
“Our dishonest politicians and the special interests that control them are laughing in the face of all American citizens,” Trump said in a statement on the day of the presidential primary in Wisconsin — a rust-belt state that, like Michigan, has lost manufacturing jobs. “These ridiculous, job-crushing transactions will not happen when I am president.”
Trump reacted hours after the Dearborn automaker confirmed plans to build small cars at a new plant in the Mexican state of San Luis Potosi. The announcement prompted a similar scathing reaction from the leader of the United Auto Workers union [Michael Martinez, “Trump: New Ford Mexican Plant ‘Disgrace’,” The Detroit News, 2016.04.05].
Trump made Ford’s Mexico move an issue the day he announced his Presidential bid last June, vowing to impose a 35% tariff on every car, truck, and auto part that Ford tried to bring through his giant Mexican border wall. Such a tariff would depress GDP 0.8%, crush Mexico-dependent U.S. automakers, and violate NAFTA. (And the Washington Post complains that Bernie Sanders doesn’t know enough about the issues? Please: if we Dems nominate Sanders, we’ll still be 30 policy IQ points ahead of what the Republicans offer.)
But on the bright side, Trump’s pro-labor protectionism could give Republicans the handle they need to pull him down. Republicans have failed miserably to challenge Trump for bringing out the fascism and fiscal fantasy that their own anti-Obama politics have fomented. If they can use the Ford-Mexico gambit to paint Trump as a pro-labor union dupe, maybe they can scare their true believers back into buying the line that Trump is really a liberal Trojan horse.
Not that I should be spending any more time than I have to telling Republicans how to save their party from disaster. I’ve got a democratic socialist from Vermont to make the winner of South Dakota’s Democratic primary!
After the HillBillary wins in New York (April 19) and Pennsylvania (April 26) you can put a fork in Ol’ Snowball. He’s done. South Dakota will just be a postscript for the Dems.
A contested Republican convention will be awesome – both for Republicans and the whole country. More than a rejection of the frontrunner, Trump, it sould be a rejection of the WHOLE slate of primary candidates, their methods, their hate mongering . . . If there is not a candidate chosen from the primary process, then it should be time to the GOP to order something not the menu (the self-selected primary menu put before the voters these long, long months). If the GOP cannot get a candidate from the primary process, then throw ALL the bums out and start over.
Then we should look at how ridiculous the primary process is.
BTW, Trump is right about Ford.
I like Bernie, but he’s pretty much a one note candidate. He’s been saying the same thing for 15 years. I’ve heard it many times before as he’s visited Wisconsin a lot since I moved here in 2001. Even though to me Bernie is a “been there, done that” kind of candidate, Bernie’s one note struck home in Wisconsin. I think he took every county.
I voted for Hillary. She has more substance in her platform. The problems we face are much deeper and more difficult to deal with than Bernie’s pat prescriptions.
Curious when will Trump apologize about his own company makIng his clothing line in Mexico and China? That probably wouldn’t fit into his demagoguery though.
Even with Bernie’s Wisconsin victory, he still ended up splitting the delegate count to Sanders 47 and Clinton 36.
Clinton leads the delegate count to 1,748 to Sander’s 1058.
By splitting states that share their delegates to proportional votes, Hillary inches closer to securing the nomination before the convention.
From what I understand, Hillary pretty much has a lock on the super delegates.
Admire Sanders but USA won’t elect a non-Christian.
Just to reinforce that there is diversity of opinion among SD liberals, I’d like to state that I’m among those looking forward to voting for Hilary in June. That said, Cory, I think you’ll find the task of making SD go for Sanders is not a hard one. Demographics wise, its very likely that SD will go for Bernie.
It would be nice to see Bernie care more about the party altogether. I just don’t agree with Bernie’s views on down ballot Democrat races, in contrast to Clinton’s (e.g.,-ballot-democrats). Down-ballot races matter more than the Presidency itself, something that Democrats at large seem to not pay enough attention too, given how we’ve steadily lost both congressional and state legislature seats. I really think the most pressing issue facing Democrats is the GOP stranglehold on legislatures, the ones who actually make law. And I think Bernie’s view really hurts him in his arguments towards attracting unbound delegates to his side. It just doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.
What is not to like about Clinton? She knows all the bankers by name, can count on the oil companies for moolah with the snap of her fingers. The only thing missing with her right now is that little trust and integrity issue. Maybe just maybe the good folk of South Dakotan have had enough of big business and big money interests destroying our state with corruption. Bernie likes cows too, just ask Ben and Jerry, so he would be cool to COOL for the ranchers. Where does NOem, Thune and Rounds sit on the COOL issue, I don’t think they are for it so why do ranchers think they should get their vote? Go Bernie Go!
Sanders 49 Clinton 47 nationally! http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/election/article70202867.html That is yuuuuuuuge!
I first heard that it was bad that we made car factories In China. Now China has lots of cars. Why not build the plants were the car buyers are. Mexico is a growing economy. True we should tariff the cars coming out of Mexico but they should build their own cars and we should build ours.
The super delegates are the party leaders and they start out with the proven and trusted campaigner. But if Sanders keeps winning and the party leaders do not see it, that would be tragic. It is a democracy and we should elect who the people want. I think Sanders momentum is significant and should not be ignored. What if he won New York, would you still say that it is just those voters that like Sanders and we should ignore him just because we thought the people would like Hillary? Sanders has a chance and should get support from Super delegates especially from states that went hugely for him.
Hillary seems always first wrong…
and last right.
Hillary has real problem among true liberals. They can’t stand her and I can see young people not bothering to vote at all this Nov. if it’s between her and Trump. Hardcore Sanders people will leave the ballot blank or vote for Trump as a protest vote. Yes, it is that bad.
What is really sad about this whole (big “D”) Democratic presidential process is that the Democratic Party is the one with the “Super Delegates” and the Republican Party is the one without them. You would think the Republicans would be smart enough to have build into their party political apparatus a somewhat guaranteed outcome with positioned “Super Delegates” to guarantee a particular presidential nominee and or to prevent a potentially damaging brokered convention. But oh no, it is the Democratic Party which instead has the political mechanism within its presidential nominating process which empowers and protects the ruling class or should we say the establishment of the Democratic Party.
The concept of “Super Delegates” needs to go within the Democratic nominating process. The concept is a slap in the face to democratic values (small “d” this time) and everything which the McGovern/Frazer committee back in 1971 had envisioned. I realize the “Super Delegates” are a result of the establishment trying to rebound in the 1980s from the loss of power it realized in the 1970s due to the McGovern/Frazer reforms, but a Democratic Party should really be both small and big “D”…. and I might also add, that “Super Delegates” are not only undemocratic, but they also drive a political narrative of who is ahead in the delegate count which is unfair and quite frankly a “Big Lie” strategy removed often from the realities who is really winning the primaries and caucuses, which further emboldens and empowers the establishment at the expense of the will of the people….”Super Delegates” need to go……
Hey, Porter, we once said America would never elect a non-Protestant President… then we got JFK. Change happens!
kingleon: Sanders and support for down-ballot candidates—that’s a pertinent issue!
Clinton is emphasizing that she is already raising money for state parties and down-ballot candidates; Sanders has raised no money for state parties or other candidates and has offered nothing more than “We’ll see.”
Bernie hasn’t sent me any money, but yesterday my Senate campaign received $100 from a donor two states away whom I’ve never met but who found my name on a list of pro-Bernie candidates.
I do agree that supporting down-ballot candidates needs to be a part of the revolution Bernie wants. Taking the Presidency won’t win the war against corporate power if ALEC is still buying up state legislatures.
Perhaps in Bernie’s defense, he may never have expected his campaigning and fundraising to get beyond the point of his own candidacy. Did any of us? Seriously, one year ago, Bernie Sanders was just the next Dennis Kucinich, a man I love but whom I should know better than to think he’d last past February, right? And now here Sanders is winning 15 out of 33 state primaries and caucuses, getting plenty of non-afterthought press, and raising tens of millions of dollars. The original Sanders strategy was nothing more than shout really loud and pray for luck. Now they can realistically talk about mobilizing their donor army to do some good in down-ballot races in a way that Dennis Kucinich never could have.
But I agree with kingleon that Sanders needs to pivot to that down-ballot strategy PDQ. Clinton will buy and hold superdelegates with her down-ballot largesse; Sanders needs to identify local allies and do the same. Plus, the Sanders balloon is always on the edge of bursting. He needs to whip his crowds into a frenzy about state-level candidates and issues so that if his nomination bubble finally bursts, the Bernie-maniacs have already invested in local races that will keep their fires burning even through the disappointment of not realizing the dream of nominating Bernie. If he wants the revolution and not just the nomination, that pivot—actually, that expansion, a down-ballot outreach right alongside his national campaigning—has to happen now; the energy won’t be there if he calls his troops to the state battle after he has definitively lost.
When the Super Delegates are not counted Hillary is only about 220 real delegates ahead of Sanders. Hillary was for the TPP trade deal before she was against it (because of Sanders). She was for the KXL pipeline before the authority to approve the pipeline was taken away from the State Department, and Obama decided he would approve or reject it himself. She has proven herself to be too close to big oil. Now she says she is against the KXL also because of Sanders stand on the issue. This is just a couple of reasons why she cannot be trusted.
If you will recall the 2007-2008 Democratic presidential primary Hillary pulled out shortly after the June Super Tuesday election. You should also remember that South Dakota Democratic election was relevant for about the first time.
Even though it looked like Hillary was a contender going into Super Tuesday she did the arithmetic and concluded she could not beat President Obama primarily because of the super delegates.
People cheered when Hillary withdrew and President Obama claimed the Democratic Party for himself.
We can conclude that we don’t like how the process works and it should be changed, but as of today this is the way it works.
Hillary accepted in 2008 and we should accept as well, regardless of who you support.
Drumpf has some beauties working for him. Citizens United-the authors of the Willie Horton ad, Roger Stone-worked with CU and then they spent the past couple decades trying to literally destroy the Clintons. They are still at it. Is this what America needs? Check out the kristian rightwing groups formed to take over the country. They are out there,everywhere and they don’t much care for Libs. Stone is a master of dirty tricks and might be worse then Lee Atwater. Stone is a Drumpf consultant.
well said, Roger. http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/hillary-clinton-for-president-20160323
I tend not to trust anybody using the word “trusted”. sounds a lot like “benhgazi”, or “emails”. GOP is a complete and total spin machine manipulating voters with words.
jenny, I know u feel strongly about Hillary, but trump is unlikely to be the nominee. it’ll be cruz. imo
the world needs the dems to win 2016. this isn’t about winning, though. it is about survival of the weaker instead of the stronger (vast minority) plutocrats.
I love Bernie. I’ve spent a lot of time in Vermont and have followed him for a very long time. A recent poll showed that 67% of America’s youth believe that socialism is the most fair and proper way forward for USA. (15% chose communism ahead of capitalism) That tells me that the future holds tremendous promise to detrench the billionaires from power and install a European style democratic socialism. To those on the right who puke a little in their mouth when they read this, socialism isn’t what you were taught during the cold war misinformation campaign. Socialism is a group buying things (that most of us need) as a group and getting a lower price. Think COSTCO. Think public schools. Think cops and fire fighters. Think properly priced medicine. Think properly priced college … maybe free. What a wonderful gift to our children to offset the global climate crisis they’ll inherit. “Who’s gonna pay for all this free shit?” mouth the knuckle dragging Trump/Cruz chatterers. It’s called a “peace dividend” and it won’t be free. It will be bought instead of the wars which get us little except sorrow and debt … and retired military cops who have no validity in politics. [As an aside, psychologists agree there are three categories of candidates who make incredibly poor politicians. Ex-military, preachers and cops. All three were trained to be unresponsive to the group, unwilling to compromise and unable to look beyond themselves to form a world view.] I hope you’re correct, Mr. Heidelberger, should the nomination go to Sanders. I find negativity highly distasteful especially involving predictions. However, Romney lost because he’s Mormon and Mormons are as Christian as Catholics. I just don’t see USA electing a Jew; especially with the fundamentalist Muslim presence as an enemy whether we choose them to be or not.
>But for now the goal is to get Cory Heidelberger to Pierre to begin to right the good ship South Dakota and mitigate the tilt that one party rule has inflicted on your playing field. Personally, I’m going on a pop bottle drive and donate all the pennies to his campaign. How about you, friends? Talk to y’all later this summer. PEACE
Leslie, that Rolling Stone article really sums up well my support for Hillary over Bernie.
mormans, jews? how about scott prouty and the “47%” video? try to keep the peace, please. otherwise, good post. and how about safe harbor vs. playing field?
yup
Roger, good comparison to 2008. Consistency here is no hobgoblin of small minds.
Pennies and pop bottles? Porter, there’s a campaign theme there. Load me up! (By the way, Porter, thinking of religious persuasion, which do you think is harder: getting Sanders into the White House or me into the South Dakota Senate? :-D )
I’ve thought of that and hoped you’d ask. I really no longer have a strong connection with Aberdeen as I did in the early 70’s. Remember Michael’s and the Silver Dollar? Of course you don’t, young gentleman. I do know that whatever the constituents of District 3 need will be what your mission is. Contrasted by your opponent who believes that cutting his summer payroll will be “helping the kids”. Cory will help the kids by helping their parents and helping District 3 be all it can be.
Tsitrian posted a great Trump history, including some other tidbits:
in the aftermath of WWI, the US passed the National Origins Act to stop them [immigrants] from coming.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_Act_of_1924
and:
‘when people say Trump “tells it like it is,” this is what they mean.’
and:
you see less racism in those areas
and:
it’s a good historical understanding of how things that happened over 150 years ago still affect us in concrete ways today. I’d love to teach that in a classroom, but it’s a little too radioactive for that. I’ll just have to settle for sharing it with you. ?
Cory,
I’m a life long Clinton supporter, so when Hillary announced in 2007 I was with her and did what I could to get her elected.
When she was forced to concede to Barack Obama I was totally pissed off.
The next morning when I turned on my computer and went to my email, it was full of messages from both Hillary and Barack.
Barack was very gracious to Hillary on her campaign and Hillary was fully accepting of Barack as our party’s candidate. It didn’t take me long to get on board with Barack.
It bothers me to end that voters will pout like a child and say they won’t vote for the party candidate because their candidate lost.
Democrats do very well nationally and I expect they will do well with either Hillary or Bernie.
Whoever that candidate is, they need to work and finance other Democratic candidates in state races, particularly in states where we have a chance of winning.
This article by a Finnish American did a good job of explaining why socialism is in your best interest. He dispels American’s false notions to say it’s a more efficient way to get the services you want. His description of Nordic socialism is not what most people think when they think socialism, I’ll say that.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/03/bernie-sanders-nordic-countries/473385/
Just in passing, here’s a popular bill we’re working on in Colorado. Might not be applicable to SoDak but if you make the state more attractive to business, who knows?
– Making Employers Pay Up
Bill would levy fees on big firms offering low wages, no health insurance
Most Colorado voters support legislation that would impose fees on large employers that pay low wages and provide no health insurance. The money would go into a fund to support the state’s growing Medicaid costs. The legislation would apply to companies with 250 or more workers who earn less than $12 an hour. A news conference, held at the Capitol, featured legislators, workers and a small-business owner who contend that large companies gain a competitive edge by letting governments cover their employees’ medical expenses.
“Unfortunately, too many people working for large companies have to get onto government assistance through Medicaid,” said Democratic Rep. Crisanta Duran of Denver, the House majority leader. “The rest of us are picking up the tab.”
Mr. C, you may be a young fellow, yes, but you’re not that young! A life-long Clinton supporter?
You guys are all suckers. Hillary is part of the problem and this rigging of the primaries is as bad as Florida stealing the election from Gore in 2000. I think you all have become immune to how corrupted our political system has gotten. Our presidents don’t really run the country, it is the insiders -the powerful elite.
Skull and Bones and the Bilderberg group, anyone?
Jenny,
I strongly resent being called a “sucker”, it just so happens that I am politically astute and do know how the game is played.
Grudz, I actually can go back beyond the Clinton years, not that I care to.
jenny, as much as I like Obama, if you can cite anything showing his influence by S&B/Bilderbergs, i’ll eat my hat. I know Kerry, is it, is a member, I think? hard to stay on top of this pseudo-conspiracy stuff. not saying there is no “there” there, given the fact that the 1% fricken own every fricken thing!
(fricken is a form of fried chicken-I do not wish to be banned like larry, whom I for one, miss here. I think he kept the conservative barrys, daniels, spencers, sibbys, grudzniks and lynns down to a more manageable level)
science, I need science. this is all too emotional!
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/glenn-grothman-voter-id-helps-gop
Straight from the whoreses arse. Voter ids help wingnuts steal elections.
@Mike … mail in ballots mitigate voter disenfranchisement (it works in CO … no fraud reported in two nat’l elections)
(I love arguments that involve eating my hat. [D:-) )
From Hap’s link:
A Madison businessman once said something very similar to me: I’m a socialist because it’s in my best interest.
Cory, you should write a piece sometime about why you switched from being a republican and listening to Rush Limbaugh to turning liberal. I’ve always wondered.
Roger, I agree that the 2008 post-primary unification is exactly what we need in post-primary 2016, and in every election (although even as I say that, I’m wondering what I’ll say in 2018 if Mike Huether wins our Democratic gubernatorial primary). I want Bernie to win. I believe he can better lead the conversations and push the policies America needs. But if Bernie doesn’t win the nomination, he can’t give up the chance he has to continue pushing his revolution by making sure his supporters translate their passion into supporting Hillary and all the down-ballot Democrats who can make that revolution happen. Democrats who win in 2016 are more likely to stand up for the interests of voters who show up on November 8 and help them win. Democrats who lose on November 8 because Bernie backers don’t vote won’t be in a good position to stand up for anyone’s interests.
Porter-wingnuts in Wisconsin and other red states scream about fraud, but, can’t find any. They still set about making it hard for Democrat leaning voters to vote in the name of protecting elections. It is all right wing BS and everyone, including the wingnuts, know they are lying. They don’t care because they control the state and do whatever they want.
Research shows … contrary to popular opinion and the lack of “contrary” anywhere in his DNA, it’s now determined that Heidelberger is NOT a German name but a French nom de plume. Alsace, France, home to some of the best French cuisine with Swiss undertones. Alsatian cuisine, somewhat based on Germanic culinary traditions, is marked by the use of pork in various forms. It is perhaps mostly known for the region’s wines and beers. Traditional dishes include baeckeoffe, flammekueche, choucroute, and fleischnacka. Southern Alsace, also called the Sundgau, is characterized by carpe frite (that also exists in Yiddish tradition). PS … Pizza Ranch would do well to offer a flammekueche.
https://www.geni.com/people/Marie-Eva-HEIDELBERGER/6000000005379747348
French?! I’ll be darned. Hail, Flammekueche!!
Jenny, I’ve got you covered: try this brief description of how Mike Rounds made me a Democrat:
http://madvilletimes.com/2012/11/two-anti-norquist-candidates-contend-for-sd-senate-seat/
http://www.txdemocrats.org/press/breaking-perry-friends-caught-red-handed-election-law-broken-investigation-called-for
Just had to post this. Former guv Perry commits Texas voter fraud.