Day: April 16, 2016

Some food for thought:

A March 2008 Gallup poll shows that 28 percent of Clinton supporters say they would vote for John McCain over Obama, and 19 percent of Obama supporters say they would vote for McCain over Clinton. A 2016 Marist poll asks Sanders and Clinton supporters if they would vote for the other candidate in the general election. A New York Times/CBS poll from this year finds that 40 percent of Democrats think the tone of this primary has been more positive than previous primaries, and 48 percent think it’s about the same.

While our little "civil war" may seem nasty now, it is nothing compared to 2008. But in 2008, if my memory serves, we all supported Obama, I believe. At least all the front page contributors. The divide among contributors and commenters this time around may make our primary seem worse than 2008, more divided, but it is really not.

Earlier this week we learned that Sean Barney Sean Barney raised $150,148.75 in the first quarter of 2016, for a total of $231,000 for the entire campaign, and has $171,263.30 in cash on hand. We also learned that Lisa Blunt Rochester raised $134,770.74 in the first quarter, for a total of $256,293.15 for the entire campaign, and has 284,873.06 cash on hand, though that includes a $128,000 loan that Lisa has made to her own campaign. Last night the Townsend campaign announced that it raised $145,747.34 for the first quarter, $358,423.38 for the entire campaign, and $192,545.04 cash on hand. However, a key question needs to be made about each campaign's fundraising: how much of it was raised for the primary, and how much for the general? Because if the money was raised for the general, it cannot be used in the primary.