Bernie Busted

[dales]

[BoSoxGal]

Been walkin' the talk his entire adult life . . . no wonder we love him! Not me, US!

[Lord Jim]

Bernie's big problem now is cracking the African-American vote...

He's made some progress with Hispanics, but the black vote put Hillary over the top in Nevada. They were only 15% of the electorate, but they stuck by Hillary 76%-24%...

If those kinds of numbers continue, Sanders cannot possibly win the Democratic nomination. He doesn't need a majority of the black vote, but he'll need to at least get up into the 35-40 percent range.

So far there's no indication he's going to be able to do that.

[Lord Jim]

no wonder we love him! Not me, US!

That's funny...

Last time I checked I live in the US, and I'm not feelin' the love...

[rubato]

Bernie has street cred. More balls than Bush/Cheney combined.



yrs,
rubato

[Big RR]

I don't know, Cheney shot someone. And a lawyer at that.

[Lord Jim]

and in the face no less...

[RayThom]

[Lord Jim]

If the polls are correct, Sanders is headed for a major ass kicking today in South Carolina...

Despite a very concerted effort and some high-profile endorsements, Bernie has simply not been able to make any significant inroads into the African American vote, and black voters make up more than 50% Demo primary voters in SC...

If he simply can't get more than a quarter of the black vote, he can not win the nomination, period, end of story....

He's raised enough money to go on pretty much as long as he wants, and with proportional distribution he might be able to rack up as much as 40% of the delegates and be a significant presence at the convention, but actually winning the nomination will be impossible.

[MajGenl.Meade]

Well, as expected, he got trounced. It's a pity that a group consisting of 12% of the population should have such a lopsided affect on a democratic race. Clearly, all these states need to have their borders changed significantly. I bet Trump's already considering how that can be done.

[Lord Jim]

It turns out the polls were wrong; Clinton's margin was much larger than predicted....

Hillie opened up a king-size can of industrial strength Whupass on Bern:

Hillary Clinton rolls to victory in South Carolina primary

OLUMBIA, S.C. — Hillary Clinton scored a resounding victory over Sen. Bernie Sanders in Saturday's South Carolina Democratic primary, a rout expected to create a glide path for her through a number of southern states that vote on Tuesday.

Her overwhelming triumph in the Palmetto State, where African-Americans made up a larger percentage of the electorate than they did in 2008, gives Clinton a significant boost heading into March 1, when a number of states with large black populations cast their votes. Clinton's win over Sanders in South Carolina was dominant, with her margin of victory approaching 50 points.

Clinton's win is her third of the campaign. A week ago, she captured the Nevada caucuses and won the Feb. 1 Iowa caucuses by a razor-thin margin.

"Today you sent a message," Clinton said during a victory speech in Columbia. "When you stand together there is no barrier too big to break," she said. "Tomorrow, this campaign goes national."

South Carolina Rep. James Clyburn, who introduced her, called it a significant victory that "starts Hillary Clinton on her way" to the presidency.

In a statement after Clinton's win was announced, Sanders said, "This campaign is just beginning. We won a decisive victory in New Hampshire. She won a decisive victory in South Carolina. Now it’s on to Super Tuesday."

Bracing for the loss, Sanders has been hitting Clinton on issues important to African Americans. With merely days before larger, delegate-rich states like Texas and Georgia vote on March 1, the Vermont senator needs to expand his support among minorities.

Early estimates based on CNN exit polls show Clinton with as much as a 3-to-1 lead over Sanders. While those exit polls show that Sanders still won a majority of South Carolina's white voters (by a 20 point margin), support from 80% of African-Americans who turned up at the polls on Saturday helped hand Clinton her overwhelming victory in the state.

Yet exit surveys show why South Carolina is emblematic of Sanders' challenge ahead. Six in ten South Carolina Democratic primary voters were African-American, the exit polls indicated, breaking the state's 55% record from eight years ago, [this is because most of the mad-at-the-world type white independents who otherwise might have helped him, chose instead to participate in the GOP primary and vote for Trump.] when then-Sen. Barack Obama was on the ballot. Clinton dominated among black voters, capturing the support of more than four out of five.

“This is, in hindsight, going to be a turning point in the campaign,” Columbia, S.C., Mayor Steve Benjamin said in an interview following Clinton's win.

Obama's big margin of victory in South Carolina eight years ago was critical in putting him on a path to the nomination. Clinton made a significant investment in the state, appealing in particular to African American women with her campaign's "barber shop" strategy.

I knew Sanders was in serious trouble when an exit poll came out showing that only 13% of primary voters were under 30...

Hillary won the African American vote by a whopping 84-16, and lost overall 73-27...(the polls understated the margin of her victory be cause the polling models didn't account for the percentage of the black vote being as high as it was, with so many fewer whites voting.)

Despite all the highly-publicized butt kissing that he did to self-appointed black leaders like Al Sharpton, Sanders did even worse among Black voters than he did in Nevada a week earlier.

I had thought there could be some merit to the argument that once Sanders began to focus on SC his numbers would improve, but despite spending a lot of time and money in the state, that didn't happen; if anything he went backwards...I had thought that Hillary's support among African American voters might be pretty soft since it had evaporated in 2008, and that once a lot of the voters saw the size of the government goodie bag Sanders was proposing that his standing would improve.

But that simply didn't happen...

I don't know what more Sanders could have done. He kissed all the right butts, he embraced the cop bashing agenda, he promised a bonanza of government money...But all of that and endorsements from some high profile black left wing celebrities (like Harry Belafonte and Danny Glover) didn't make a dent.

At some point, (probably sooner rather than later) Bernie is going to have to decide whether it's worth continuing a campaign just to make a point and "raise issues" because it's looking increasingly unlikely that he's ever going to be able to make the inroads into the Black community that he would need to have a real chance to win.

[Econoline]

At some point, (probably sooner rather than later) Bernie is going to have to decide whether it's worth continuing a campaign just to make a point and "raise issues"

I'm guessing--and hoping (as long as he continues not to tear down Clinton, and eventually winds up endorsing her)--later rather than sooner, because (1) both of those things are worth doing, (2) they're also things Bernie has been doing his entire political life, and--perhaps most importantly--(3) his campaign still has plenty of money with which to proceed.

[RayThom]

One word: "SUPERDELEGATES."

Poor Bernie, he's shoveling sand against the tide.

I'm now convinced more than ever there will be a 3rd Party candidate in the mix. Who will it be... Trump, or Bloomberg?

[Scooter]

Hillary won the African American vote by a whopping 84-16

That is apparently larger than Obama's margin among African American voters in the 2008 SC primary.

If Trump supporters really believe that he is going to be able to take 50% of the African American vote against Clinton in the general, as one deluded soul asserted here, then I definitely want some of whatever they have been smoking.

[Lord Jim]

That is apparently larger than Obama's margin among African American voters in the 2008 SC primary.

I saw that on the news this morning; that's pretty amazing...

[rubato]

"...

I'm now convinced more than ever there will be a 3rd Party candidate in the mix. Who will it be... Trump, or Bloomberg?

Trump is the nominee-apparent which opens it up for Rubio to be a 3rd party candidate. Although it it just so gosh-darn difficult for a Republican to without the hard-shell cracker faction.

Yes,
Rubato