Clinton Hoping For Win In Kentucky To Blunt Sanders Momentum
Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic nominee regardless of what happens in Kentucky and Oregon today, but her campaign is hoping for a win in Kentucky that puts an end to the repetitive stories about Bernie Sanders continuing to win primaries.
Repeating a theme that has been part of the Democratic nomination fight this year, Hillary Clinton is fighting to fend off another win by Bernie Sanders even as it remains the case that she will emerge from this contest as the Democratic nominee:
HOPKINSVILLE, Ky. — Hillary Clinton raced on Monday to fend off Senator Bernie Sanders on the eve of Kentucky’s Democratic primary, hoping to avoid another show of weakness as she heads into an almost certain general-election fight with Donald J. Trump.
Mrs. Clinton snaked through a smoke-filled diner, and then she hopscotched around the state holding a series of rallies, where she urged Kentuckians to turn out to vote.
The fast-paced day, which included a combative exchange with an audience member who objected to her criticism of Kentucky’s Republican governor, might have suggested a candidate fighting for survival.
Instead, Mrs. Clinton is all but certain to claim her party’s nomination. But in the meantime, she would prefer to stop losing primaries, even if they are of little mathematical consequence.
Mrs. Clinton’s husband, former President Bill Clinton, won Kentucky in both 1992 and 1996, and Mrs. Clinton trounced Barack Obama here in the 2008 primary. But this year’s primary here is hard to predict: Polling has been scarce, and both she and Mr. Sanders have lavished attention on the state.
After visiting Kentucky last week, Mrs. Clinton on Monday wrapped up a two-day tour. She started her day in the western part of the state with a visit to the Lone Oak Little Castle restaurant in Paducah, where she was joined by Kentucky’s secretary of state, Alison Lundergan Grimes.
“I’m excited about the primary tomorrow, but we got to turn a lot of people out,” Mrs. Clinton said. “And I’ll tell you this: I’m not going to give up on Kentucky in November.”
Mr. Sanders campaigned in Puerto Rico on Monday, but over the weekend, he made several stops in Kentucky, including visits to Frankfort, Elizabethtown and Bowling Green.
At a rally in Paducah on Sunday, Mr. Sanders argued that he was the stronger candidate to defeat Mr. Trump. He also took aim at Kentucky’s governor, Matt Bevin, a foe of the Affordable Care Act, saying they had stark differences over health care and education.
“If anybody in this room or in this state wants to know what kind of president I will be, take a look at Governor Bevin and what he is doing,” Mr. Sanders said. “And then think about the exact opposite, and that’s Bernie Sanders.”
Mrs. Clinton, too, criticized Mr. Bevin, while showcasing the backing of his Democratic predecessor, Steve Beshear. At a rally here in Hopkinsville on Monday, she said Mr. Bevin was “just bent on destroying so much of what Kentucky has achieved.”
Not long after, when a woman in the crowd objected to her criticism, Mrs. Clinton held her ground. “You are entitled to your opinion, but you’re not entitled to your own facts,” Mrs. Clinton fired back, adding: “It’s time people stopped listening to Republican propaganda about the economy, education and health care.”
Kentucky’s primary is one of two Democratic contests on Tuesday. Oregon, which votes by mail, requires ballots to be received by Tuesday night, and the state’s demographics favor Mr. Sanders. Kentucky is more competitive, and it poses another test of how much Mrs. Clinton can attract white working-class voters, who have been receptive to Mr. Sanders’s populist message.
On Monday, Mrs. Clinton appealed to voters who have fond memories of her husband’s administration. “I want to help bring back the kind of economy that worked for everybody in the 1990s,” she said at the diner.
Losses in Kentucky and Oregon would not imperil her grip on the Democratic nomination, but Mrs. Clinton is in the awkward position of running two campaigns at once: urging voters to turn out in the primary while also laying out arguments geared toward a face-off with Mr. Trump in November.
The actual state of the race in Kentucky is anyone’s guess at this point given the relative lack of polling. The most recent poll in the state was conducted at the beginning of March and showed Clinton with a five point lead, but that’s hardly indicative of anything given the fact that it was taken so long ago. In the time since that poll was taken, Bernie Sanders has continued to stubbornly rack up wins even as Clinton inches closer to a delegate majority. Perhaps more importantly, it was after that poll that Clinton made her remarks about the coal industry that caused her so many troubles in last week’s West Virginia primary. Given the fact that coal is also an important part of Kentucky’s economy, it’s anticipated that voters will not exactly be turning out to vote for Clinton, although she probably won’t be harmed as much by the comments this week as she was last week. Notwithstanding those remarks, Clinton’s ties to the state, which go back to Bill Clinton’s victories there in 1992 and 1996, apparently have her campaign hoping that she can pull off a win there that will at least avoid another week of headlines about Sanders winning even as she gets closer and closer to achieving a goal that’s been within her grasp for the past decade. Clinton has spent the week fighting hard in Kentucky and that could help her pull off a win, but the coal comments will obviously hurt her so the outcome is likely to be close if she does.
There is similarly sparse polling in today’s other Democratic contest in Oregon, and one recent poll even shows Clinton leading Sanders by fifteen points, but the lack of any contemporaneous polling makes it impossible to tell is that poll is accurate or an outlier. Moreover, the general assessment seems to be that Oregon’s Democrats are more like other states that Bernie Sanders has won than states that Clinton has won both demographically and politically. Even the Clinton campaign appears to concede this since the candidate has spent very little time in the state and the campaign spent the week concentrating its resources on the race in Kentucky. For this reason, most analysts expect Sanders to win here. If Clinton does win, though, you can expect the pressure on Sanders to step aside to increase.
Regardless of what happens today, of course, Clinton will continue her march toward winning the nomination unabated. As thing stand today, she is a mere 142 delegates away from clinching a majority of convention delegates if you include Superdelegates and 666 delegates away if you don’t. Sanders, meanwhile, is 909 delegates away from a majority if you count Superdelegates and 949 if you don’t. Based on those numbers the outcome of the race is rather obvious, the only question is how quickly Clinton will get there. Even under the most difficult scenario for her, she will likely go over the top with the final primaries on June 7th, and that will happen whether she wins or loses going forward thanks to the Democratic Party’s proportional delegate allocation rules. Obviously, her campaign would prefer to go out on a series of wins rather than limping across the finish line. In the end, though, a win is a win and Clinton is going to win this race. The only question is when.
NBC latest tracking poll has Hillary leading Trump by three points, even though Trump wins Independents by eight points.
Just putting it out there so no one can say in November that “No one could have predicted…!”
Mike
And what will you write when she wins in November…perhaps you’ll then wait for her to be indicted…
Obviously you are a DNC tool, Doug.
I’m not sure that Kentucky matters at all.
in 2008, Obama lost 7 of the last 8 primary races to Hillary Clinton.
War is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is strength.
Sanders lagging Clinton in the popular vote by 14 points is momentum.
@OzarkHillbilly: Much less useful than a CNC tool!
@Pch101: With all due respect , almost any sports team down by a lot but catching up is said to have “momentum”. Of course my analogy isn’t perfect here, since it’s more of a race to the delegate threshold rather than the time limit of most sports. Not to mention that even if it was a time limit, time’s running out fast.
@Franklin: That ought to be understood by about three people on these threads.
@Franklin:
How does being too far behind to have any possibility of winning qualify as “catching up”?
The Sanders camp seems to be in denial of the fact that its candidate is losing by a landslide. Just because some states go against that prevailing trend does not mean that the overall trend has changed.
Sanders held a press availability in Puerto Rico and was asked a question about the events in Nevada. He walked away.
Sanders isn’t a leader, and he isn’t ready.
To put some numbers to this, the cumulative percentage of popular votes won by Clinton vs. Sanders as of these dates:
End of February: 60%
March 1 Super Tuesday: 61%
End of March: 58%
End of April: 58%
May 10: 57%
Sanders has gained only 3% over the period. He has consistently been 14-20+% behind throughout the entire primary season. There is no momentum.
@An Interested Party:
Eh. If Hillary wins, I’ll be a tiny bit relieved because who know what the bleep Trump will actually do. I’ll also be filled with dread because I think the assumption Hillary can do even half as good a job as Obama has done is a shining example of White Privilege.
And I’m putting it out there because even someone like Josh Marshal over at TPM, who has been more clear-headed about Trump than most, is practically beside himself with joy over the new ads being rolled out by Hillary’s chief super-PAC. He is 1000% convinced the ads are devastating to Trump, even though the ads haven’t even run and they’re just saying the same thing that was said about Trump in the primaries. And he’s practically getting aroused because he thinks the ads are “getting in Trump’s head” because he’s firing back about them on Twitter.
I mean, one of the few arguments Trump can legitimately win against Hillary would be about how her super-PAC attacking him is another example of corrupt, beltway business as usual.
Mike
@MBunge: “I mean, one of the few arguments Trump can legitimately win against Hillary would be about how her super-PAC attacking him is another example of corrupt, beltway business as usual.”
You seem to think that all Trump has to do is scream “business as usual” and everyone ignores everything but that. That did work in the primaries, but there is something called the law of diminishing returns, and I’m pretty sure Hillary is going to know how to make that work for her. In the debates he’ll claim he can create a zillion jobs. She’ll ask how. He’ll say he’s going to do it because he’s a job creator. She’ll lay out her plan and again push him for details.
And he’ll accuse her of being corrupt.
He can probably do that twice. Third time even the dimmest bulb can see through it.
And I think JM is right about getting into his head. Trump is incapable of accepting the tiniest bit of criticism from anyone without lashing out personally. First he demanded the mayor of London take an IQ test, then he called David Cameron stupid.
That worked in the primary because all his Republican followers care about is seeing him stick it to “da man.” But in the general, there are a lot of voters who actually want to see solutions to problems and are going to get worried if all he can do is scream “you’re a poopy head.”
Hmm…that could be turned around…the assumption that Hillary couldn’t do even half as good a job as Obama has done is a shining example of sexism…
While Clinton has done well in most Southern contests due to large Black populations, only two counties in Kentucky have Black majority populations. Sanders may be able to gain a little traction among workers wary of their jobs being lost to China in some manufacturing. If Blacks vote in huge numbers for Clinton, and White votes are more evenly split, then Clinton should edge out a win.
Oregon is a whole different contest. While Sanders won over 70% of the vote in Washington’s more open caucus, Oregon is a closed primary and Clinton has won eight of eight closed primaries so far. But, Oregon democrats tend to be very liberal, and the Black population small, where Oregon may be the first closed primary where Sanders might be able to garner a 53-56% win over Clinton. If Sanders can post big numbers in Portland and Eugene and garner many White democrats statewide.
The vote could be relatively close in both states, with Clinton maybe winning in Kentucky, but losing in Oregon. But, I doubt either candidate wins both contests.
@wr:
I don’t even think the Super PACs have to spend money at this time. Trump is so sensitive all they need to do is post it on You Tube and Trump will do his best to make sure everybody sees it. Not his intention but there it is.
About Oregon, there’s this:
So, I predict that we can all look forward to Sanders supporters crying about disenfranchisement.
Ron Beasley always offered insightful comment, now that he I specially miss his commentaries.
Nevada Convention – That utterly ironic moment when Berntards realize what Socialism really is…a corrupt elite few using people’s envy, stupidity, and desire for Big Daddy government to make thing “fair”…to enrich themselves and give themselves more power.
Yes, Berntards…your guy worked hard, and has done better than the other candidate in your state. Yet, all that work and success means nothing, because the corrupt leftists who run the Democrat party are “redistributing” votes as THEY see fit.
Isn’t that concept infuriating?
That is exactly what your candidate is proposing to do to every productive Americans money. It really sucks, doesn’t it?
By winning so many of these primaries, Sanders will have achieved a moral victory.
Regarding the Nevada Convention.
Who would have suspected that calling for a “political revolution” would NOT involve some threats, intimidation and perhaps some blood.
Revolutionists do what revolutionists have always done.
@Jack:
The 64 disqualified delegates should have done their paperwork in time and answered their phones:
“On the 64 delegates the Sanders campaign insists should have been seated, the Democratic Party post reveals only six showed up and:
The remaining potential delegates were ineligible for two main reasons: 1) They were not registered Democratic voters in Nevada by May 1, 2016, and 2) Their information — such as address, date of birth and name — could not be found or identified, and they did not respond to requests from the party and campaigns to correct it.”
I’m sorry but it’s not like they didn’t know this stuff needed to be done to be a delegate. To be blunt, they screwed the pooch in their laziness. They quite probably cost Bernie the caucus and should be the target of Sanders’ ire, not the DNC. His own people are screwing him but the Twitter death threats are going towards the innocent family of the party members. Disgraceful.
@Jack: I’d like to vacation in the world where that parallel made sense. Its surreal qualities might be relaxing.
@KM: Wow. I was not aware of that. Makes their complaints seem even more petty, juvenile, and without merit than I had originally thought.
Note to everyone in the Trump or Sanders camps: not following the rules does not mean a system is “rigged.” It means you didn’t follow the rules.
Sanders needs to bring this to heel, and quickly.
@wr:
Given that the best we’ve seen so far is taking Trump’s schtick of giving opponents pithy nicknames and giving Trump the stupidest one imaginable — Dangerous Donald — I think this faith is misplaced. (Deranged Don? Daffy Don, if you wanna go with mockery? Doddering Don with video of how often he repeats himself? C’mon.)
Further, the law of diminishing returns is not exclusively against Republicans. Clinton has used the same lines against Republicans since this past December (note how “Dangerous Donald” is just another version of the attacks she makes), and I’ve had no sense of a changing strategy since then.
@KM: Your source has some interesting observations:
Your source also misses that a good deal of the trouble was stirred up by the process of adopting temporary rules at the beginning of the convention:
You can find video of all this transpiring. It’s very reminiscent of the 2012 national convention where Villaraigosa asked for three votes on including language in the party platform because the first was ambiguous, except there was only the one ambiguous voice vote and Lange tried to move through it. None of this excuses death threats and harassment, but claiming this all is because Sanders supporters are juvenile and throwing a tantrum is ignoring what happened.
In the end, a lot of wasted and indignant activity over, what, three delegates? Yeah, those were important.
@KM:
…Twitter death threats are going towards the innocent family of the party members. Disgraceful.
The police need to follow up on this crap and put some people in handcuffs over it.
If doing this meant the police will be knocking on your door I’d hope it wouldn’t be as prevalent.
@Jack:
Concern troll is CONCERNED!!
@Jen:
Looking at Sanders and his supporters, I wonder if they even understand such concepts as being a good loser and making a graceful exit. They are so convinced that they are the Pure and that everyone else in the Party are corrupt that I now truly wonder if they will unite for the good of the party. I keep reminding myself that this is a tiny, loud minority, but boy howdy, they are annoying, if not outright frightening.
@stonetools:
We’ve had them before – SDS, Hippies, NaderNuts, Ronulans. This is nothing new beyond perhaps a matter of degree. The volume is a little louder this time out, but the song is the same one they’ve always sang.
@stonetools: I wonder if they even understand such concepts as being a good loser and making a graceful exit.
You mean like Hillary refusing to drop out in 2008 because Obama might get killed? You do remember her saying that?
Out loud.
To other people.
When she knew she was being recorded.
As for Sanders, he’s acting like a guy who genuinely believes our politics is corrupt and the Democratic Party is part of that corruption. And a good number of his current critics used to agree with him, to some degree, right up until Hillary Clinton announced her candidacy.
Mike
Like these freaks…gotta love the gal at the end that won’t get in the paddy wagon…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_9OJnRnZjU
Nothing like the Good Old Days ™…
1 – Bernie Sanders’s entire premise that corporate money controls elections has been effectively disproved by Bernie Sanders – the best-financed candidate on either side.
2 – The notion that he opposes all special interests is likewise disproved by one of his central proposals to funnel great wads of taxpayer money to college kids who by amazing coincidence happen to be his core supporters. Yes, college students can be, and are, a ‘special interest.’
3 – The reason Sanders does well in national polling is that Hillary has been incredibly kind and restrained in dealing with the old fraud. He attacks her, she attacks Trump. Trump would not be kind or restrained in dealing with Sanders.
4 – Sanders yelling that the Democratic Party needs to open itself up is a bit much coming from a man who was too simon-pure to label himself a Democrat until he decided for reasons of political expediency to join the party.
@MBunge:
Yep, it sucked when she did that- and she later redeemed herself. She went on to make a graceful exit, led the fight for party unity, and fought hard in Obama’s general election campaign.
Can Bernie follow that example? I have my doubts, but we’ll see. I certainly don’t remember her saying the Democratic nomination process was corrupt because Obama won, and don’t remember her supporters throwing chairs and issuing death threats.
@michael reynolds: He attacks her, she attacks Trump.
That’s not true. Hillary has attacked Bernie plenty.
Mike
@Stonetools: Can Bernie follow that example?
The difference is that Bernie believes, quite sincerely as far as we can tell, is that there is something fundamentally wrong with our political system. Hillary does not. Perhaps he’s wrong and she’s right and people are certainly free to criticize his behavior if they disagree with it but I don’t think it makes sense to expect him to act the way Hillary would act.
Mike
@MBunge:
“Perhaps he’s wrong and she’s right and people are certainly free to criticize his behavior if they disagree with it”
I think excusing your supporters’ thuggish acts can be criticized, whether or not you support his views. Sorry to see that you don’t agree.
“but I don’t think it makes sense to expect him to act the way Hillary would act.”
I expect people who get involved in the democratic process to respect the results of it. I do not expect that when they lose they resort to violence and death threats. Or as Josh Marshall put it:
“Sanders narrative today has essentially been that he is political legitimacy. The Democratic party needs to realize that. This, as I said earlier, is the problem with lying to your supporters. Sanders is telling his supporters that he can still win, which he can’t. He’s suggesting that the win is being stolen by a corrupt establishment, an impression which will be validated when his phony prediction turns out not to be true. Lying like this sets you up for stuff like happened over the weekend in Nevada.”
@Tillman:
Known temporary rules from early April that needed formal approval. This is basic convention stuff.
Why the Sanders group is pissed about the rules is because while Hillary won the Nevada Democratic Caucuses a while ago, Sander won the Clark County convention which decided which of their delegates would represent them at the State Convention. Then a petition started circulating around to essentially change the rules at the convention to help him win the state even if they don’t win on the caucus day. This petition was not voted on, thus leading to calls of “cheating”. It escalated from there. The below is an article from 5/13 noting the petition and the hopes of the Sanders group.
A group of Sanders supporters — who have called themselves “Nevada for Bernie” and “Clark County, Nevada for Bernie” at times — have been organizing since Sanders announced his candidacy last spring.
One of those supporters, Angie Morelli, started an online petition several weeks ago opposing some of the convention rules passed by the state party’s executive board and demanding changes. The petition now has about 1,500 signatures. Morelli says that though the state party has offered some of those rules to convention delegates, she and other Sanders supporters still have concerns about the way that business will be conducted on Saturday.
So you are right in saying claiming this all is because Sanders supporters are juvenile and throwing a tantrum is ignoring what happened. It’s because they tried to pull a fast one but got caught out by their own group screwing up basic registration. The petition is also mostly signed by non-Nevada citizens, indicating that is might not be valid. Not understanding the rules is not the same as being cheated. Not following basic registration is not being cheated. Not getting the amendment you wanted isn’t necessarily caused by cheating. Trying to get a petition adopted that would have taken delegates away from Hillary, the actual winner, and unfairly packing extra delegates for Sanders is cheating.
And why all this drama? So Sanders could eke out a few more delegates. That don’t matter because it’s not enough to give him ultimate victory. Burning down the house just to get a timber of wood. Then massively going off the deep end when it didn’t work.
@Pch101: You were arguing with the word ‘momentum’. How Doug used it is common usage and fits the definition.
If you wanted to say it’s not enough momentum to win, sure, everybody’s agreed. Evil Knieval might not have made it over Snake River, but he sure as hell had momentum before crashing.
It’s unfortunate that Sanders has doubled down and decided to go this route. He was in prime position to do a number of things: revise the process, get some of his ideas validated in the platform, and bring a number of Independents or prior non-voters into the process and get them accustomed to voting for someone with a (D) next to their name.
He’s dangerously close to throwing his leverage away because he refuses to allow his success to be conflated with the Democratic Party’s success. I suppose it shouldn’t be a surprise that someone who didn’t identify as a Democrat until it was in his interest to do so would be so reluctant to support the party. I originally thought that he was a value-add to the process, which was supported by polls that showed Democrats felt that the primary contest was “energizing” rather than “dividing” the party.
He now seems like the worst kind of opportunist, and the unfortunate lesson party leadership is probably taking from this is “if you aren’t already on the team, don’t expect an open door.” They could have made a bigger deal out of his not being a Democrat (there was even question as to whether or not he could be on the NH ballot, IIRC, until the DNC said it was okay for him to call himself a Democrat, despite not having been registered as one) but they chose not to. I wondering how much they regret that decision now.
@MBunge:
I think it’s reasonable, when death threats to party leaders are reported, when cell numbers and home addresses are being posted to social media, to come out and say “hey guys, cut this shit out!”.
Instead Bernie decided to accuse the party of cheating him and ignored it.
I don’t expect him to act as Hillary would act. But acting like a decent human being surely isn’t too much to ask.
@Franklin:
Sanders has gained 3%. That isn’t momentum.
You’re offering a classic example of selection bias. The totality of the result makes it clear that there have been no meaningful gains. But some folks look at certain anecdotes that are exceptions to the rule, and then wrongly conclude that the exceptions are the rule.
Sander is well behind and he isn’t doing anything to close that gap. There is no momentum.
@MBunge:
Well, actually I do expect him to act that way. If he truly cares about progressive issues and not only about his own self promotion, then I expect him to get behind the person who the Democratic Party chose, since the Democratic Party, however imperfect he thinks it is, is the primary vehicle for advancing progressive goals in the US.( Indeed, he recognizes this, since that is why he ran as a Democrat).
But if he is concerned only with his own image as the exemplar of the Pure, then of course he will simply walk away and take his supporters with him, even at the cost of a Trump victory.
@Moosebreath: I think excusing your supporters’ thuggish acts can be criticized
Do you mean thuggish acts, like when the threat of disruptive protests led to the cancellation of a Donald Trump rally? Or how about when that guy actually tried to rush the stage when Trump was speaking? Or when BLM hijacked that Bernie rally? I seem to recall people making a whole bunch of excuses for that.
And let me be clear about something. If you are a partisan Democrat and you think Bernie is hurting the party, that’s fine. Bernie, however, isn’t a Democrat.
What I object to is people like Paul Krugman who spent most of the Obama administration setting impossible standards of perfection on things like health care reform or the stimulus package and then acted like a little rhymes with witch when Obama fell short of that perfection. I just don’t want to hear a bunch of whining about Bernie and his supporters from folks who spent years complaining that Obama didn’t know how to negotiate and if he was just tougher with Republicans, we’d all have ponies.
If that doesn’t apply to you, rip away.
Mike
@MBunge:
“If that doesn’t apply to you, rip away.”
Consider yourself ripped. And put on the permanently ignore list.
@Pch101:
Not sure where you’re going with the selection bias argument. If you’re trying to say that each primary is independent of every other one and the month of May was just a biased selection towards Sanders, I wouldn’t really agree with any part of that statement. They’re not independent, as earlier primaries affect later primaries, and other than Oregon I’d hardly have expected them to break that way.
This appears to be an argument that it’s not statistically significant enough momentum for you to call it momentum. That’s okay, but people look at wins. A series of wins appears to most people to be momentum.
@Franklin:
As I said, you insist on confusing anecdotes with data.
The data says that Sanders is losing by a substantial margin, and that spread hasn’t changed much over time. Having a rally with a lot of attendees and winning some caucuses along the way does not change the spread or the trend.
That, of course, is exactly the point…since he isn’t a Democrat, he has no loyalty to the party and acts as if he couldn’t care less what happens to it, this, despite the fact that the Democrats are the only ones who will act on the progressive issues he cares about…
Actually, that is a great description of you and people like you regarding Hillary…she’ll never meet your impossible standards of perfection…
@MBunge:
So he’s lying? It was all just a show registering as a Democrat and running in the Democratic primary?
@MBunge:
I totally agree. Sanders isn’t a Democrat, has he never been, nor will he ever be.
His only reason for registering as a Democrat was to be able to run in the Democratic Party Primary, soon he’s going to do exactly the same as a lot of his supporters, and register as an Independent.
If he drags this all the way to the convention, then he should have no say about the future of the Democratic Party and he should not be allowed to speak at the convention, because you can’t trust what he would do.
I feel sad for any Sanders supporters who are unable to see the forest for all the trees and end up staying home, voting for the Green Party, or even vote for Trump. Much like Susan Sarandon, Sanders and his wife will have no problem living through a Trump presidency or the aftermath of having Trump pick people to replace Scalia, Ginsburg, and maybe also Kennedy, Breyer, and Thomas. But a lot of his supporters will. Will Obamacare survive? Abortion rights? Same-sex marriage? The EPA? And so on.
@Davebo: I am assuming you are aware that Sanders has run as and been elected Senator in Vermont as an Independent. He did register as a Democrat specifically to run in the Democratic primary for this presidential election, which we can assume he did because it is easier and quicker to do that than to try and navigate the rules to run as a third party–plus, those are generally viewed as Quixotic runs that aren’t covered by the media (see: Johnson, Gary).
He does generally caucus with the Democrats in Washington, and I believe gets his committee appointments from them too. So saying he’s lying is a stretch, but it also isn’t inaccurate to note that he’s not a Democrat–heck, even on the campaign trail he’s made an effort to point out he’s a democratic socialist.
@Jack:
Jack, didn’t the Surgeon General and the CDC warn you that posting political comment to a blog immediately after smoking Colombian weed and taking acid is not a good idea?