Hope you're going to the BBQ cookoff or doing something else fun on this glorious weather weekend, but for those of you who can't put down your politics, here's a few things to read ahead of tonight's election returns.
-- Bernie Sanders needs to slow Hillary Clinton's roll to the nomination, but the polling gives no positivity to that. Ted has the truth (a rare thing, credit where it's due).
Clinton is widely expected to win -- and potentially win big -- in the Palmetto State.
Her margin of victory, though, is the crucial number to watch in order to forecast what lies ahead on Super Tuesday, when 11 states vote -- turning what had been a state-by-state slog into a truly national contest.
Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia are all Southern states with large portions of African-American voters, just like South Carolina. That makes South Carolina a critical test of Clinton's strength in those places.
Sanders is focusing his efforts on five Super Tuesday states where he stands a better chance of winning: Colorado, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Oklahoma and Vermont.
If she wins in a blowout, Clinton can expect a big Super Tuesday. If she just ekes out a win, that would be more troubling for her campaign.
Four more things to watch for, from CNN: African American voter turnout, Slick Willie's redemption, Bernie's message, and the Big Mo.
The upshot of that is that expectations for Sanders are now low enough that if he even gets somewhat close to Clinton, the press will cover it as a surprisingly strong result for him. The polls show such a blowout that even, say, a 13-point win by Clinton might be viewed as good news for Sanders. And there's some logic to that — Democrats allot all their delegates proportionally rather than just to a state's winner. So it's not just about whether Sanders wins or loses, it's about how close the margin is.
But if Sanders does lose in a landslide, that's not a great headline three days ahead of "Southern Super Tuesday" on March 1, when Texas, Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, Virginia, Oklahoma, and Arkansas will all go to the polls (as will a few non-Southern states). So we'll see how he and Clinton do tonight.
The Salon of Somervell County has a brain dump on Sanders-Clinton developments from the week just passed.
-- Melissa Harris Perry is finished with MSNBC. And I don't blame her.
In an unusually public flare-up, one of MSNBC’s television personalities clashed with the network on Friday in a dispute about airtime and editorial freedom and said she was refusing to host the show that bears her name this weekend.
The host, Melissa Harris-Perry, wrote in an email to co-workers this week that her show had effectively been taken away from her and that she felt “worthless” in the eyes of NBC News executives, who are restructuring MSNBC.
“Here is the reality: Our show was taken — without comment or discussion or notice — in the midst of an election season,” she wrote in the email, which became public on Friday. “After four years of building an audience, developing a brand and developing trust with our viewers, we were effectively and utterly silenced.”
She experienced a horrifying incident in Iowa earlier this year, as you may recall. That may be impacting her decision, along with all these microaggressions from the suits at Comcast in rehashing MSNBC as "the place for politics".
The former liberal talk bastion has been silenced, shedding Keith Olbermann and Ed Schultz and now MHP in recent years. In their places, the rise of Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski and the shilling for Trump has reduced my personal teevee news option down to CNN.
-- But it's allegedly not a systemic racial thing, like the Oscars or Flint.
Ava DuVernay, the critically acclaimed director of Selma, will be in Flint, Michigan this Sunday and will not be attending the Academy Awards. Instead she’ll joined in Flint by a group of artists to lend their voices to the #JUSTICEFORFLINT concert and event. DuVernay spoke to Yahoo Global News Anchor Katie Couric on Yahoo News Live to talk about the event and the need to raise awareness around the water crisis in Flint. She also discussed the fact that it’s happening on the same night as an Oscar Sunday where, for a second year in a row, all 20 acting nominations went to white actors and actresses.
... DuVernay said: “I guess I can see how people are making the connection, but we didn’t have anything to do that night. We were free. We are basically saying on this night, there are other things going on around issues of justice and dignity.”
Ryan Coogler, director of the Academy Award-nominated film Creed, singer Janelle Monae, actor Jesse Williams, and comedian Hannibal Burress will also be joining DuVernay in Flint. On the purpose of the event, she said: “This is a trauma that has been going on there for several years now. We want to continue to shed a light and amplify the voices on the ground there in Flint. We are bringing in some of our friends, to come and perform for a night of empowerment and enlightenment and community-building and togetherness. It’s free for them, but we are asking people who watch on the live stream at revolt.tv.com to donate. Those funds will go to the people of Flint.”
DuVernay agreed with director Michael Moore, who is from Flint and called the crisis a “racial crime.” DuVernay told Couric: “I think its environmental racism, absolutely. We wouldn’t have seen this problem if this was in a community with more voice.”
Nothing to add here.
-- "#NeverTrump trends worldwide in revolt against Donald Trump":
Donald Trump has won three straight election victories, secured a major endorsement from Chris Christie, and appears to be moving toward the Republican presidential nomination. But on Friday, thousands spoke out on Twitter, vowing to never vote for him.
The #NeverTrump hashtag grew rapidly Friday evening, eliciting tweets from across the political spectrum to become the top trend on Twitter in the U.S. and one of the top trends worldwide.
Indeed, after I tweeted it to my 2000+ followers at 4:41 a.m today, I got reTweeted over four dozen times in half an hour, by far the most responses ever for my participation. From Rubio lovers to Sandernistas, it was still Twitching uncontrollably as day broke.
Probably doesn't mean much.
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