National

The Democratic Primary for President is over. The winner is Hillary Clinton. She will be the nominee. Remember what I said on Sunday: "[B]est case scenario for Sanders on Tuesday: He wins Ohio, Illinois and Missouri. Those three wins, and the margins he wins them by, would give Sanders the first real momentum of this campaign, and first real panic in the Clinton camp. Worst case scenario: five losses to Clinton, which would end his campaign for the nomination. One win would keep him alive, on life support. Two wins would keep him alive as a competitive challenger, though with Clinton still in control of the race." So we have the worst case scenario for Sanders. I'm not going to pile on here, because I know the stages of grief a passionate supporter of a candidate goes through on days like this. I have been one, I am one, and I have been there. So take your time, BernieBros and BernieGals. There will be no demands of loyalty from me today. And you should be proud of Bernie. You and he confounded expectations, and you took a 73 year old cranky socialist from Vermont and made him lovable, endearing, and most importantly, a credible competitor for the Democratic nomination for President. And you and he did a valuable service: you mainstreamed the left again. You made the Democratic Party proud to be liberal, by showing that's where the votes are. So this is all great work by you. What you, and Bernie, should do know is, yes, continue the campaign. BUT! Not for President. Sure, sure, he will still be running for President, his name will still be on the ballot, but the efforts and fundraising should be aimed towards identifying and electing and contributing to Revolution Bringers down the ballot. Bernie should travel the country in the months ahead and campaign with liberal and progressive candidates for the House, Senate and State House and Senate. He needs to take his army of passionate supporters and focus on building up the Democratic Party from the bottom up, rather than the top down. You want to make a President Hillary Clinton do what you want? Force her to by electing Revolution Bringers to Congress.

Does the GOP Primary end tonight or is it just beginning? “The Republican presidential campaign will not end next week, or even next month. But voters in the five states casting ballots on Tuesday will go a long way toward determining whether Donald J. Trump can win the 1,237 delegates necessary to claim the party’s nomination,” the New York Times reports. “If Mr. Trump loses Ohio (possible) or Florida (less likely) and wins less-than-commanding victories in Illinois, Missouri and North Carolina, he would face the strong possibility of falling short of a delegate majority and entering a contested Republican convention this summer. But with victories in the home states of two of his rivals, he could end the campaigns of Gov. John Kasich and Sen. Marco Rubio, leaving Sen. Ted Cruz as the only candidate still standing in his way.” I think Cruz will win Illinois and Missouri, Trump will win Florida and North Carolina, and Kasich will win Ohio. Contested open convention here we come!

Because I set up a uniquely glitchy system for picking, I ended doing some auto picking for Delaware Dem based on the chalk last year when we made our picks. Surprisingly Jeb! remained on the board late into the drafting. Less surprisingly, so did Donald Trump. Nobody paid much attention to Trump back then as the result of his threats to run in three prior Presidential races. My hand hovered over my keyboard and I literally said, "I can't do that to him" when I passed on Trump and gave Del Dem Bush instead. Sorry about that DD, but who knew? Flash forward 12 months and Trump is about to wrap up this thing up and if picked, would be sitting on 365 points. Crazy old world. I'll update the standings sometime tomorrow. In the meantime, if you want to sit on the edge of your seat, consider this: If Rubes crashes and burns in Florida (as expected) and quits prior to (around) March 29th - then I win. If he drags his ass into April, then Newton wins.

A week of Trump's lies: a brutal takedown from Politico.

“With the GOP front-runner scooping up delegates in a march toward the Republican nomination, Politico subjected a week’s worth of his words to our magazine’s fact-checking process… The result: more than five dozen statements deemed mischaracterizations, exaggerations, or simply false – the kind of stuff that would have been stripped from one of our stories, or made the whole thing worthy of the spike. It equates to roughly one misstatement every five minutes on average.” “From warning of the death of Christianity in America to claiming that he is taking no money from donors, the Manhattan billionaire and reality-show celebrity said something far from truthful many times over to the thousands of people packed into his raucous rallies. His remarks represent an extraordinary mix of inaccurate claims about domestic and foreign policy and personal and professional boasts that rarely measure up when checked against primary sources.”

When Trump follows up a statement with "It's true," and he does that often, it is guaranteed he just lied to you.

[Editor's Note: I floated this idea on my FB page last night.  I grant that is it naive, so it is abundantly trollable.  But my question is an honest one. …

The New York Times says Trump decided to enter politics after Obama mocked mercilessly at the White House Correspondent's Dinner back in late May 2011. That night was also the night Obama personally ordered the mission to kill Bin Laden. “That evening of public abasement, rather than sending Mr. Trump away, accelerated his ferocious efforts to gain stature within the political world. And it captured the degree to which Mr. Trump’s campaign is driven by a deep yearning sometimes obscured by his bluster and bragging: a desire to be taken seriously.” “That desire has played out over the last several years within a Republican Party that placated and indulged him, and accepted his money and support, seemingly not grasping how fervently determined he was to become a major force in American politics. In the process, the party bestowed upon Mr. Trump the kind of legitimacy that he craved, which has helped him pursue a credible bid for the presidency.” Mein Fuhrer Trump is a very vain man, and he has very little to be proud about, what with his small hands and many failed businesses and many bankruptcies.