Today Is the End of the Primary Season, or as Sanders Calls It, ‘the Middle’
This is it, the last primary day. If you’re a resident of California,
New Jersey, or one of the other states voting last this year, at least you get to
cast a somewhat meaningful vote in the Democratic primary. The argument for nominating
Bernie Sanders isn’t likely to persuade the superdelegates, but it’s simple: Hillary
Clinton is damaged goods. She’s running close, or in some polls, trailing, an enormously
flawed Republican nominee. She may or may not get indicted by Obama administration’s
Justice Department, but the State Department Inspector General Report makes it tough
for the FBI to declare “no harm, no foul.” A sudden resignation by FBI director
James Comey in protest could be almost as bad as an indictment; there’s no way to
get an FBI director’s resignation appealed or overturned.
Last night Sanders issued
a statement indicating we will see no concession this evening:
“It is unfortunate that the media, in
a rush to judgement [sic], are ignoring the Democratic National Committee’s clear
statement that it is wrong to count the votes of superdelegates before they actually
vote at the convention this summer.
“Secretary Clinton does not have and
will not have the requisite number of pledged delegates to secure the nomination.
She will be dependent on superdelegates who do not vote until July 25 and who can
change their minds between now and then. They include more than 400 superdelegates
who endorsed Secretary Clinton 10 months before the first caucuses and primaries
and long before any other candidate was in the race.
“Our job from now until the convention is to convince
those superdelegates that Bernie is by far the strongest candidate against Donald
Trump.”
Whatever you think of Bernie Sanders’ judgment, it is clear his
campaign has difficulty spelling it.
Why It Pays to Have a
Nominee Who Pays Attention to the Details
If you suspect Donald Trump doesn’t
pay too much attention to the details, you’re probably right.
Donald Trump has inserted himself into
one of the most contentious House primaries in the country this weekend, endorsing
GOP Rep. Renee Ellmers in her member-versus-member race in North Carolina.
Trump makes a personal appeal to voters
to back Ellmers in a robocall released Saturday.
She was “the first congresswoman to endorse me and she really was terrific and boy,
is she a fighter,” Trump says in the call. It is the first time this election that
Trump has picked sides in a congressional race.
“I need her help in Washington so we can work
together to defeat ISIS, secure our border and bring back jobs and frankly, so many
other things,” Trump continues. “And Renee knows how to do it. She gets it. And
together, we will make America great again.”
People who don’t know the details often insist that it’s not
important to know the details. You can hire staff for that sort of thing. The problem
is, if you don’t know the details, you end up endorsing someone who disagrees
with you on just about every detail of the issue of illegal immigration.
Representative Renee Ellmers of North Carolina
was one of 10 Republicans who voted with Democrats on Wednesday against legislation
that would roll back President Barack Obama’s executive actions on immigration.
The immigration provisions were attached
to a bill that funds the Department of Homeland Security. The House of Representatives
passed the bill, 236-191 along party lines. All but two Democrats voted against
it.
While Ellmers criticized Obama’s executive
actions, saying she would “fight tooth and nail to put a stop to his amnesty plan,”
she said in a statement that the bill was “overly broad in scope, as it has the
potential to have a real negative and lasting impact on jobs and families in North
Carolina.”
“There are businesses in the Second
District who contract with Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and many
of these jobs could be put in jeopardy with the passing of this legislation,” Ellmers
said in a statement.
She also was one of 26 Republicans who
voted against an amendment that would eliminate the 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood
Arrivals program, or DACA, which has granted work permits and stopped deportation
of 600,000 immigrants who arrived illegally as children.
And she was one of just two Republicans
who opposed a measure that objected to the exemption of DACA immigrants from the
employer mandate in the Affordable Care Act.
Right now, there’s some Trump defender who’s insisting that the
candidate just got bad advice, and that defender is probably right. There’s a good
chance this same defender insisted earlier in the primary that Trump will hire the
best people. That’s the consequence of nominating someone who has little familiarity
with Washington or Republican lawmakers -- he has no inherent knowledge or common
sense to save himself from staff mistakes. He doesn’t even know to check into the
record of the lawmaker he’s endorsing. After all, Googling “Renee Ellmers immigration”
would take up valuable milliseconds.
You may remember Ellmers as the nurse who
replaced the North Carolina strangler, Democratic Representative Bob Etheridge in the Tea
Party wave of 2010. But she’s changed a bit in Washington, disappointing quite
a few folks who were early fans.
Last month
the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List endorsed Representative George
Holding over “our former ally Rep. Renee Ellmers.” The group contends Ellmers “betrayed”
the pro-life movement in January 2015, when she led the effort to derail the Pain-Capable
Unborn Child Protection Act, the group’s our top legislative priority to stop abortion
after five months. The group’s canvassing team knocked on more than 12,500
doors in the last few weeks, reaching conservative, pro-life primary voters.
The Not-Too-Subtle ‘Outreach’ to David French’s
In-Laws
Our Eliana Johnson gives you the story of the short-lived David
French presidential boomlet, from
start to finish.
A detail I did not know:
The prospect of a French candidacy did
get the attention of serious conservatives, who were quick to offer their support.
“I know David French to be an honorable, intelligent and patriotic person,” Romney
wrote on Twitter. “I look forward to hearing what he has to say.” [Senator Ben]
Sasse told National Review last week, “David French is a serious, trustworthy man
who has served his country with honor. I’m interested to hear what he says in the
coming weeks.”
It was enough, apparently, to spook
the Trump campaign. Sources say that on Wednesday, influential supporters of the
campaign, prompted by the campaign itself, began reaching out to the Republican
National Committee, to Kristol, and to French, attempting to quash the bid. One
Trump operative reached French’s wife’s family in Tennessee and told them, according
to French, that he was “instructed to call and deliver a message that the race would
be very difficult for me.”
“It was a pretty big assault that really put pressure
on David that this not happen,” says a source familiar with the communications.
Subtle, huh? “Nice family you’ve got there, shame if something
happens to it.” (I’m sure at this moment some Republican who’s talked himself into
defending every aspect of the Trump campaign and movement will insist, “Hey, the Clintons killed Kathleen Willey’s cat! This is just normal politics! Threats are part
of the game!’
What an awful party. The nice thing about being #NeverTrump is
that you never have to defend, explain, justify, or excuse any of this crap.
ADDENDA: Today’s Jolt is written on the Amtrak Acela, where I
plan to start a major rumor, likely to be reported by Politico, by talking loudly into my cell phone and saying, “Donald,
Donald, don’t worry, everything’s going to be fine. Once you announce in Cleveland
that Kanye is your running mate, everybody’s going to forget all about this other
stuff.”
I’m heading up to New York, scheduled to appear on State of the
Race, airing on CNN International in the 2 p.m. hour.
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