Tag: Bernie Sanders

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Dr. Paul Song, Sanders’ Supporter, Refers To Hillary Clinton As “Corporate Democratic Whore”

While introducing Sen. Bernie Sanders at a rally in Manhattan last night, Sanders-supporter Dr. Paul Song referred to Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton as a “corporate Democratic whore.”

The full quote:

“Now Secretary Clinton has said that Medicare for all will never happen. Well, I agree with Secretary Clinton that Medicare for all will never happen if we have a president who never aspires for something greater than the status quo. Medicare for all will never happen if we continue to elect corporate Democratic whores who are beholden to big pharma and the private insurance industry instead of us.”

And here’s the video.

After taking the stage, Sanders thanked all of those who introduced him, including Song.

Social media took Song to task:

And it was only after comments like that that Song recanted (a bit) with the soft-pedal that he was talking about Congress, not Clinton – even though he had just mentioned Clinton in the same breath and not Congress:

You’ll note in the video, Song was speaking about Clinton and the presidency – not Congress. Go back and read the quote.

This morning, Sander tweeted this:

The fallout continued today as the progressive group Song chairs, Courage Campaign, moved to put distance between itself and Song’s language.

“Courage Campaign does not endorse political candidates. Dr. Paul Song, acting in his own capacity as a health care advocate, and separate from Courage Campaign, made comments at a rally in New York for Senator Bernie Sanders last night that are contrary to the values of Courage Campaign,” the statement said. “These comments were unacceptable and that sort of rhetoric has no place in our political dialogue.”

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Fox News Poll: Hillary Clinton Leading Bernie Sanders In New York

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton leads Sen. Bernie Sanders in New York state according to the latest Fox News Poll – 53%-37%.

The poll results also show in a hypothetical match-up, Clinton would win New York in the general election against Donald Trump by that same margin – 53%-37%.

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NY Times To Sanders: It’s Time To Engage In Some Citizenship

Pointing out that the math is simply not on Bernie Sanders’ side, the New York Times’ Paul Krugman suggests it’s time for Sanders to not drop out of the race just yet, but perhaps exercise some common sense and citizenship:

The first thing to say is that it’s still very unlikely that Sanders can win the nomination. Don’t tell me about national polls (and cherry-pick the polls that show your guy getting close); at this point it’s all about delegate counts, where Clinton has a substantial lead with the voting more than half over. The Times’s Upshot has a nice calculator that takes account of what we know about demographic factors – Sanders does well in very white states and in caucuses, not so much elsewhere – and lets you experiment with various overall leads in what remains of the race. To overtake Clinton in pledged delegates, Sanders would need to win by about a 13 point margin from here on in.

First, the Sanders campaign needs to stop feeding the right-wing disinformation machine. Engaging in innuendo suggesting, without evidence, that Clinton is corrupt is, at this point, basically campaigning on behalf of the RNC. If Sanders really believes, as he says, that it’s all-important to keep the White House out of Republican hands, he should stop all that – and tell his staff to stop it too.

[snip]

Oh, and the Sanders campaign is saying that it will try to flip superdelegates even if it loses the unpledged delegates and the popular vote. Remember when evil Hillary was going to use superdelegates to steal the nomination? Double standards aside, what makes the campaign think that he will get any backing from a party he refuses to lift a finger to help?

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Why Bernie Sanders Winning Wisconsin Is Not Like Winning New York

This isn’t an “anti-Bernie Sanders” post. It’s a post about math and delegates.

With Bernie Sanders leading in Wisconsin and Hillary Clinton looking to lead by 12 points in New York, the WaPo explores why a win for Bernie and a win for Hillary don’t serve up the same results.

From the Washington Post:

These states are not equivalent. This is not a tie, with Clinton winning one state and Sanders winning another. It is, instead, a clear demonstration of why Bernie Sanders almost certainly won’t be the Democratic nominee.

After all, it comes down to delegates. Wisconsin has 86 delegates; New York has 247. Since the party distributes its delegates proportionally, that means that Sanders’s slight Wisconsin lead would earn him a slightly bigger portion of the state’s small delegate haul. Clinton’s larger New York lead would earn her a larger portion of the state’s large delegate haul.

There are still a lot of states after New York for Sanders to make progress. Many of the delegates remaining though — more than half — are tied up in three large states: Pennsylvania, New Jersey and California. As we noted earlier this month, Clinton is leading in the most recent polling in those three states, too.

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Bernie Sanders: I Would Nominate A More Progressive SCOTUS Candidate

Rachel Maddow welcomed Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders to discuss not only his campaign, but also the current fight going on over Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland between President Obama and Senate Republicans.

Sanders was clear in saying he would definitely support Garland’s nomination, but added that the nominee is not as progressive as he’d like. Sanders went on to say that should be be elected president this fall, he would ask Obama to withdraw the nomination so that a more progressive candidate could be put forward:

“Yes, I would. I think I’m 100% prepared to support Judge Garland. I think he’s clearly very knowledgeable and can serve ably on the Supreme Court. But between you and me, I think there are some more progressive judges out there. I have said over and over again that I do have a litmus test for a Supreme Court justice, and that litmus test is that justice must be loud and clear in telling us that he or she will vote to overturn this disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court decision. I am very worried about the future of American democracy and about the ability of billionaires to buy elections. That is my litmus test, and that’s what I would insist on.”

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Pollsters Blindsided By Bernie Sanders’ Michigan Primary Win

The big story today is Sen. Bernie Sanders surprise win in the Michigan Democratic primary last night.

I say surprise because virtually every pollster and prognosticator in politics had pegged Hillary Clinton to win by double digits.

Check the screen capture above of the most recent polls aggregated by Real Clear Politics.

This morning, pundits are saying this will be remembered as one of the biggest upsets in electoral politics.