Missouri, the “Show Me” State, the state of President Harry Truman, has been a bellwether state since 1904.
From 1904 to 2004, Missouri voted with the winner every time except 1956, when Adlai Stevenson defeated Dwight D. Eisenhower by 4,000 votes.
In 2008, like in 1956, they voted for the losing Presidential nominee, John McCain, over Barack Obama, but again by only about 4,000 votes.
In 2012, however, the bellwether reputation was harmed when Mitt Romney won over Barack Obama by 259,000 votes!
Presently, Hillary Clinton is shown as leading Donald Trump for the election in Missouri, so if they end up as the nominees of their parties, and the polls stay consistent, then Missouri will return to being a bellwether state, assuming that Clinton wins the Presidency, which is highly likely!
Missouri is not considered a “swing” state, but it could be part of the winning party’s majority for the 26th out of the last 29 national elections for the Presidency!
Trump’s latest whopper is that there’s going to be a massive recession and he’s going to eliminate debt in 8 years. As the Washington Post fact checker puts it, “We regret we have only Four Pinocchios to give for this whopper.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/in-turmoil-or-triumph-donald-trump-stands-alone/2016/04/02/8c0619b6-f8d6-11e5-a3ce-f06b5ba21f33_story.html?hpid=hp_rhp-top-table-main_trumppresidency-7pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory
Trump wants Kasich out of the race. http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/04/03/trump_says_kasich_shouldn_t_be_allowed_to_run.html
A new climate change study that has barely been reported in the news. http://pilotonline.com/opinion/editorial/editorial-sea-level-rise-twice-as-severe-as-previously-thought/article_10e93102-e280-55d7-829f-3909e2ca73ee.html
FYI: CNN is now showing The Eighties. It comes on Thursdays at 9 pm. First episode was last week and was about TV in the eighties.
Pragmatic Progressive – I’ve noticed that since John Denver’s death, you rarely hear much news concerning the need to take care of the environment.
Andrea Mitchell mentioned last night that Bernie had some trouble answering some domestic and foreign policy questions in a recent interview. http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/05/politics/bernie-sanders-interview-new-york-daily-news/index.html
Another thing she mentioned about is that Bernie’s record on guns is drawing criticism from of the senators representing the families of the 20 children killed at Sandy Hook elementary school in Connecticut in 2012. http://www.rawstory.com/2016/04/senator-for-sandy-hook-families-attacks-bernie-sanders-record-on-guns/
That should read:
Another thing she mentioned about is that Bernie’s record on guns is drawing criticism from one of the senators representing the families of the 20 children killed at Sandy Hook elementary school in Connecticut in 2012. http://www.rawstory.com/2016/04/senator-for-sandy-hook-families-attacks-bernie-sanders-record-on-guns/
Princess Leia,
My favorite Hillary Clinton surrogate is Missouri’s own Claire McCaskill.
Since around June 2015, the Show-Me State’s senior United States senator has been red-baiting against Bernie Sanders, every so often, by attempting to portray the Vermont U.S. senator as a 2016 version of a 1972 George McGovern.
(In 1972, McGovern lost nationally by over 23 percentage points. By today’s standards, that’s about 30 million raw votes. But, based on McCaskill’s assessment, there would be a 30/31 million raw-vote difference, between the two, if Hillary were to be the nominee because she would win.)
Claire McCaskill has been of great service in encouraging me to support not Hillary Clinton but Bernie Sanders.
Very interesting assessment, D!
Bernie has amazed all of us, but I still do not see a path to his being in the Oval Office, and wonder how anything would get done, as he would have greater difficulties than Obama has had with Republicans.
In an ideal world, he would win and accomplish, much like i hoped for and wished George McGovern would have achieved, as he was one of my heroes all these years until his death in 2012, and I have a McGovern shirt I proudly wear that says: “1922-2012 We Remember Senator George McGovern” with a photo of this great man above the statement!
This is the problem with Bernie’s revolution: How one down-ticket election in Wisconsin shows the flaw in his political movement: http://www.salon.com/2016/04/07/this_is_the_problem_with_bernies_revolution_how_one_down_ticket_election_in_wisconsin_shows_the_flaw_in_his_political_movement/
Bernie Sanders: Hillary Clinton not ‘qualified’ to be president: http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/bernie-sanders-hillary-clinton-not-qualified-be-president
((I like Bernie, but just…no, this is utterly ridiculous.)
Pragmatic – I very much agree his comment about her being unqualified is ridiculous.
Here is a key quote from the article about the problem with Bernie’s revolution:
“But even beyond that, there is another point that has always been the flaw in the Sanders model: It does liberals no good to turn out all these voters for a presidential election if they are not going to educate themselves about who else on the ballot they need to vote for.â€
That’s not just a problem with Bernie’s campaign of course. It is a chronic problem for the Democratic Party.
Turnout in the mid-terms and voter engagement in the down ticket races. How do we fix those two problems?
I agree with all of you that Bernie is sadly going off the rails, so to speak. And you are all correct that just voting for Bernie is not enough, and intelligent voting is essential!
I also agree with you Pragmatic. His sounds like a cranky old man resorting to GOP tactics.
Excellent Open Letter to Bernie on the BPI Campus. He’s definitely crossed a dangerous line. http://bpicampus.com/2016/04/07/morning-feature-an-open-letter-to-bernie-sanders/
I quite agree with what was said at the end of the BPI Campus letter. I’m currently supporting Hillary but was going to support Bernie if he turned out to be the nominee but his remarks lately are making it difficult.
“When this primary campaign began, I said that I supported Hillary Clinton but would happily campaign for you if you were our party’s nominee. Like my colleague, I am a big-D Democrat who believes in small-d democracy … so I would still support your campaign if you win the nomination.
But remarks like yours and Weaver’s yesterday make that increasingly difficult.”
Neither Democratic candidate should be supplying the Republicans with any ammunition that could be useful to the Republicans in the general election. Bernie Sanders last night broke that rule when he said that Hillary Clinton is “not qualified†to be president.
http://bluevirginia.us/2016/04/bernie-made-mistake-last-night-correct-without-delay
NY Times article says that the Sanders campaign has brought out a lot of idealism and energy that the progressive movement needs but that it has also brought out a streak of petulant self-righteousness among some supporters and maybe that streak is in Bernie as well.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/08/opinion/sanders-over-the-edge.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-right-region®ion=opinion-c-col-right-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-right-region&_r=1
I’m in agreement with one of the comments in the article that Former Republican posted. Here’s the comment: I believe that, overall, Bernie’s conduct has been exemplary. He has been serious, he’s been honest, and I see him as caring about fairness. But there is something a whole lot better for him to be doing than going after Hillary in ways that could hurt her in the fall. Or even going after Hillary at all, if you ask me. I think they both should be campaigning against the Republicans, and building party unity. We simply must win this election, and we need to have the best campaign possible.
I second that Rustbelt.
I second that too.
I’m in agreement with that as well.
Quite right! Democrats and the Left need to be united or else we’ll wind up with a Fascist (Trump) or a Theocrat (Cruz)!
Just like the article that Former Republican posted predicted, Trump is twisting Bernie’s comments out of context. http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/09/politics/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-bernie-sanders-qualified/index.html
The progressive blog, Horizons, has a few articles about the Bernie and Hillary dispute.
First one, showing the Daily News interview: http://immasmartypants.blogspot.com/2016/04/sanders-talks-to-daily-news-about-wall.html
Second one, showing what Bernie and Hillary did and didn’t say about each others qualifications. http://immasmartypants.blogspot.com/2016/04/what-clintonsanders-diddidnt-say-about.html