UT/TexTrib poll: Clinton 54, Sanders 44

A consistent pattern: the numbers close up as Election Day approaches.

Hillary Clinton’s lead over Bernie Sanders has narrowed considerably in Texas but remains in the double digits among the state’s likely Democratic primary voters, according to the latest University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll. 

[...] 

“This race is narrowing, but not narrowing in a way for the lines to actually cross — especially in Texas,” said Jim Henson, director of the Texas Politics Project at UT-Austin and the poll’s co-director. Clinton will win, he said, but the question mark, is the state’s Hispanic voters and their relatively low propensity to vote. “This will be a double-digit race, but I don’t think it’s going to be a 20-point race.”

Mrs. Diddie reported seeing four Clinton teevee spots during the course of last evening, all the same, very positive: one on MSNBC and three on the Travel Channel.  Like Nevada, her campaign is going to leave it all on the field.

“It’s her state to lose,” said Daron Shaw, co-director of the poll and a professor of government at the University of Texas at Austin. “Whether this race is 10 points or 18 points rests almost entirely on your opinion of whether Hispanics are going to turn up to vote.”

The Adrian Garcia/Gene Green Congressional 29th race takes on added significance in this light.  Houston's East End turnout in EV locations might be a barometer, but to this point Harris County turnout overall for Democrats is underwhelming.  That may hurt Garcia but it probably won't damage Clinton; voting in the RGV is what to watch for.  As Charles has provided and noted, Texas Democratic votes in the fifteen largest counties (with the exception of Hidalgo) is down about 50% from 2008, but way ahead, almost double that of 2012.  There are no tea leaves to read in this data, beyond what I mentioned yesterday.

Update: Stace has some observations and a suggestion for the Sanders campaign.

For Texas Republicans, Ted Cruz still holds a 37-29 lead over Donald Trump, but it might not matter if he finishes first.  Second place should be enough for Trump to declare victory.

"If he (Cruz) can't win Texas, where does he win?" asked Trinity University political scientist David Crockett, who counted Trump's primary victories in New Hampshire and South Carolina as carrying more weight than Cruz's win in the Iowa caucuses. 

"Caucuses are weird animals," said Crockett, pointing out that they require energy and a big commitment from voters. "Most of the contests are primaries, and Trump has won the first two, in both cases by double digits. That's a recipe for victory in the end if that dynamic doesn't change." 

With Texas considered not only a must-win but a must-win-big state for Cruz, Republicans concerned about Trump's rise are looking closely at the Lone Star State. 

"Trump's got momentum. He's got a lot of support. He could do well in Texas," said Republican consultant Brendan Steinhauser. "Personally, I'm worried about it. I think a lot of Republicans are."

Fear is a primary motivator for conservatives, after all.  To that end, I have seen much discussion among my Republican friends and family about moving to Marco Rubio.  The establishment is also pushing all in on The Robot.  If Rubio closes the gap between himself and the two Texas front-runners, that will be the story next Tuesday night.

Let's stand back and see if things get interesting.  At the moment, they're not.

Low Democratic turnout finally gets noticed

Vox blames it on Bernie Sanders.

It was bad news for Bernie Sanders that he lost in Nevada Saturday. But there may be a bigger crisis embedded in the loss: It suggested he isn't delivering on a key ingredient needed for his "political revolution." 

On Saturday, about 80,000 voters participated in Nevada's caucus — roughly two-thirds of the total that came out in 2008. 

Sanders's reason for running, as he describes it, is to upend how money and special interests shape American politics by empowering voters. This means bringing out an unprecedented number of people on Election Day. 

So as bad as it was to lose Nevada on Saturday night, the tepid voter turnout in itself is almost a more significant problem for him.

Yeah, not going to be Bernie's problem much longer.  He's leaving that soon to Hillary.  nailbender at Daily Kos faults the chair of the DNC.

The bad news (and yes, it is bad) following the first three Dem presidential primaries of this cycle, is that Dem turnout is lower than it was in the wave election year of ‘08, and (this is the really bad part) that the GOP turnout is commensurately higher. This, indeed, does not bode well. 

But to attribute the problem (and yes, it is a problem) totally to the incompetence of the two remaining Dem candidates’ campaigns is an extremely blinkered notion, especially since this very outcome was predicted months ago, based on the strategic idiocy of the Debbie Wasserman Schultz-led DNC.

He (or she) goes on a quite a rant directed at Wasserman Schultz there, so I'll leave it for you to finish.  It may or may not be DWS's fault, but Hillary Clinton is the one -- the only one -- who's going to have to answer for it.

She's as big a part of the problem as Bernie or Debbie, after all.  "Those mean Sanders people do it too!" is the wrong and juvenile response.  Again, why Clintonistas would still be throwing the kitchen sink full of lies at her almost-vanquished opponent remains a mystery to me.  It's almost as if the model for success they are employing is Ted Cruz's.

This bodes poorly for Democrats in November.

Update: This is essentially the reductio ad absurdum that the Democratic primary has come to.  Two links: The Hill, with Hillary asking herself a question -- and not answering it directly -- about trust...

“I understand that voters have questions,” Clinton said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “I’m going to do my very best to answer those questions."

"I think there’s an underlying question that is really in the back of people’s minds, and that is, you know, ‘Is she in it for us or is she in it for herself?’” she added.

“I think that’s, you know, a question that people are trying to sort through."

... and Ron Fournier at The Atlantic, clarifying it.

Voters learned not to trust Bill Clinton to tell the truth about his private life. But they believed him when he said he got up every morning determined to work for them. “Is he in it for us or is he in it for himself?” Even when Bill Clinton disgraced himself and faced impeachment for lying about sex with an intern, most voters believed he was still in it for them. 

Most voters don’t feel that way about Hillary Clinton, and it’s a dangerous matter of trust. She can’t convince voters that she’s always been honest—not in an era that equips people to be their own electronic fact-checkers. She can’t give today’s voters the authenticity they crave. 

Her challenge is to convince them that even if she’s mendacious, she’s their liar—she’s on their side—and the other side lies almost as much. 

Hillary and her people need to be certain that the definition of 'the other side' they're using is the Republicans ... and not Bernie Sanders.

The Weekly Last of the EV Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance reminds you that early voting for the 2016 primaries continues through Friday as it brings you this week's roundup.

Off the Kuff looks at how cases involving Texas may be affected by the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

Harold Cook sees no winning scenario for Republicans in the SCOTUS vacancy.

Libby Shaw, contributing to Daily Kos, urges Bernie and Hillary supporters to kiss and make up. Don’t be Swindled by a Ham Head.

Not understanding the vitriol of the Clinton campaign's supporters toward their primary challenger, PDiddie at Brains and Eggs provided the polling numbers for the ten states voting on March 1 in hopes that Clintonoids might be able to calm down a little.

Meanwhile, Ted at jobsanger doesn't understand what Bernie Sanders' campaign is all about.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme says buckle up for a gay-bashing, theocracy-pushing Texas legislative session.

As Apple debates whether to give in to the FBI and supply programming code to unlock an iPhone, Socratic Gadfly moves past the company's civil liberties PR claims to take a skeptical look at its past and its hypocrisy.

TXsharon at Bluedaze suggests that choosing not to have one more fracked gas power plant is not a hard choice to make.

The Lewisville Texan Journal reports that two city council incumbents drew no challengers for the upcoming municipal elections there.

Neil at All People Have Value took a good picture of colorful things in Newport, Kentucky. Everyday life has a lot of value. APHV is part of NeilAquino.com.

=======================

And here are some posts of interest from other Texas blogs.

In GOP primary news, Trail Blazers  notes that Marco Rubio picked up the endorsements of two former statewide Texas officials. And Texas Freedom Network hears Pastor Robert Jeffress' call for an apology from the Pope to the 'martyr' Donald Trump.

David Ortez contends that Antonin Scalia would support President Obama nominating a new Supreme Court justice in his last year in office, while Steve Russell at The Rag Blog runs down some of the conspiracy theories surrounding the SCOTUS justice's demise.

Kathy Mitchell calls for transparent policies regarding police body cameras.

Progress Texas gives three reasons why the Railroad Commissioner race matters.

Primo at Juanita Jean's gives an overview of the Democratic presidential primary in Texas, Prairie Weather identifies the 'dirty trick' that gives Hillary an edge and insults Democratic voters, and Somervell County Salon adds a Sanders-Clinton brain dump.

Mark Reynolds advocates for finally putting a price on carbon.

Paradise in Hell is unimpressed with UT's campus carry compromise.

The Texas Observer attended a symposium on campus sexual assault hosted by an Austin right-wing think tank, and the takeaway was: sex is risky, rape is bad, and be safe. Also, underage drinking might be a problem.

Finally, Dallas Morning Views wants the over/under on the number of days "affluenza" teen Ethan Couch can stay clean and sober while out on (now-adult) probation.

The morning after Nevada and South Carolina

-- Progress.

Jeb Bush's campaign and Justice Scalia buried on same day, allowing the country to part ways with 2 guys who got George W Bush elected.

— Paul Lander (@paul_lander) February 21, 2016

Harper Lee was also laid to rest yesterday.

-- Delores Huerta got Snoped on her "English-only" chanting smear and failed the truth test.

I don't understand why people say they don't understand why Clinton is accused of lying when there's so much videotape evidence of it, and when her surrogates also lie repeatedly for her.  Just this past week, John Lewis claimed he met the Clintons in the '60s and implied Bernie Sanders was never present during the decade's most seminal civil rights activism, when he was.  WaPo reporter Jonathan Capeheart continues to insist that a photo of Bernie Sanders during the time period isn't him, when it quite clearly is.

Is this 'ends justify the means' politics?  Is it "just" politics?  Is winning the only purpose of all of these lies?  Does it depend on what the definition of the word 'lie' is?

I suppose making up lies is better than what Barney Frank is doing: scapegoating people who aren't voting for Hillary eight months in advance for her (potential) November defeat.

Clinton's going to move to her right in order to capture the voters she perceives she will need to win the fall election.  All of the effort people made in terms of "pulling her to the left" is set to be flushed, in about three weeks, shortly after March 15 when her nomination appears more inevitable than it does today.  Will Bernie Sanders' supporters meekly fall in line, threatened into submission with the "Supreme Court" whip?

There's a conversation people need to be having with themselves.

-- Jon Ralston, the big dog in Nevada politics, gives the credit for Clinton's win to Harry Reid and the Culinary union workers.  Lots of people rightly share kudos, however.

Sanders outspent Clinton 2 to 1 on TV ads in the state, and managed to build up his campaign operation to rival hers in size. But Team Clinton, which had been in the state since April under the direction of Barack Obama campaign alum Emmy Ruiz, was better organized. Clinton’s female-focused outreach strategy in Nevada paid off, with exit polls showing Clinton winning among women by 16 percentage points, reversing the embarrassing New Hampshire trend of women choosing Sanders. Clinton once led the state by large margins, but a poll last week showed she and Sanders in a dead heat. The former secretary of state canceled a campaign rally in Florida this week and spent an extra day campaigning in Nevada. 

Her high-profile surrogates, including actress Eva Longoria and Cabinet member Tom Perez, flooded the state and held multiple events every day, out-campaigning Sanders’ team.

There was also longtime Clintonite America Ferrera, who raised eyebrows when she said she wanted to "Netflix and chill" with Hillary (if you don't get why that's eyebrow-raising, then Google the phrase and read the Urban Dictionary's NSFW listing), and Will Ferrell, who until yesterday morning was listed on Sanders' website as a supporter but was out encouraging caucus-goers for Clinton.

Total team effort IMO.

Clinton finally arrived at Texas Southern University after midnight, rallying her Houston troops.

-- Can Cruz stop either Trump or Rubio?  Doubtful.

Now the GOP establishment looks fearfully forward to a new phase of the primary contest. It moves to Nevada in just three days, and then to a slate of a dozen states on March 1, 10 days from now. Of those March 1 states, seven are in the South or Midwest, and are likely to tilt strongly toward Trump 

.
Trump, with 33 percent in South Carolina, cleared the 30 percent bar that many had pegged as a barometer for showing whether or not he had lost momentum over the last few days. Rubio and Cruz were locked in a dead heat for second place, at 22 percent each, before Rubio was projected as the second-place winner by less than two-tenths of one percentage point after midnight.

Rubio probably inherits the bulk of whatever Bush's campaign has to give.  He may get oodles of money from every establishment source.  But Bush didn't make that work for him, and Rubio is wet behind the ears for a Republican presidential contender.

Cruz can regain some momentum from a Texas win and perhaps a few other states on March 1, but he's still Plan B behind The Donald for the anti-establishment caucus.  His best shot is continuing to hope Trump implodes, and that looks less likely every day.

-- So for today's prognostications, let's call it Clinton-Castro versus Trump-Rubio in the fall.  Unless the GOP establishment can tube him at the convention with someone other than Ted Cruz, whom they also despise.  The only man left standing for that job is John Kasich.

On the chance that I have called it correctly, we'll see a vice-presidential debate (heck, maybe more than one) in Spanish, and a record-low turnout for Democrats across the nation, which may or may not mortally wound Clinton's presidential prospects but is likely disastrous for down-ballot Democrats in red states like Texas.  Harris County (unofficially the fifth-largest city in the country, right behind Houston incorporated) is looking ominous for Harris County Dems.

Sunday Supremely Funnies

Really.

A suicide hotline operated by the Department of Veterans Affairs allowed crisis calls to go into voicemail, and callers did not always receive immediate assistance, according to a report by the agency's internal watchdog. 

The report by the VA's office of inspector general says calls to the suicide hotline have increased dramatically in recent years, as veterans increasingly seek services following prolonged wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the aging of Vietnam-era veterans. 

The crisis hotline — the subject of an Oscar-winning documentary — received more than 450,000 calls in 2014, a 40 percent increase over the previous year. 

About 1 in 6 calls are redirected to backup centers when the crisis line is overloaded, the report said. Calls went to voicemail at some backup centers, including least one where staffers apparently were unaware there was a voicemail system, the report said.

Sometimes the Funnies are no laughing matter.

Scattershooting while we wait for Nevada caucus and SC primary results

More on that if you need it here.

Update, 5:15 p.m. CST: About an hour ago the networks called it for Clinton, who at this posting leads 52-48 with 80% reporting.  She's currently giving her victory speech.  She's still scheduled to be speaking in Houston in a few hours.

Update, 7:40 p.m.: Jeb Bush brings an end to his White House campaign after finishing fourth in South Carolina, well behind Trump, Rubio, and Cruz.

==============

-- Bad news for Hillary Clinton: Chris Bell has endorsed her.

So as Democrats, can we maybe try to take advantage of the situation — even here in Texas? We have become the mainstream party, and it’s time to start acting like it. If we nominate Bernie Sanders, we will forfeit any advantage we might have gained. While he has certainly struck a populist nerve and I appreciate many of the positions he has taken, the American people are not going to elect a socialist as president. It’s that simple.

Bell -- like almost all Americans -- is a card-carrying socialist himself.

I am certain he does not realize it.  There's a lot of things Chris Bell doesn't get, though, much like his fellow traveler, Ted at jobsanger.  In 2006 Ted spent a lot of time and effort promoting Kinky Friedman for governor and attacking both Bell, the Dems' nominee and the Democratic Party ... the same party he vigorously defends today from the evil, Not-A-Democrat Bernie Sanders.

You cannot plumb the depths of this hypocrisy with a nuclear submarine.  Like Clinton herself, both men have "always tried to" tell the truth, at least in their own minds.  (I thought Hillary was a Stars Wars fan.  Did she miss Yoda's exhortation to Luke Skywalker during his Jedi training on Dagobah?)

The only question I have left is: why didn't the Houston Chronicle run Bell's op-ed?

-- I'm not sure I understand how Bernie Sanders is going to be able to ask his support network to line up behind Hillary Clinton after this:

"I chose to run proudly in the Democratic primary and caucus and look forward to winning that process. But clearly, as a nation, I think we flourish when there are different ideas out there," Sanders said during MSNBC's Democratic presidential candidate forum in Nevada on Thursday.

"Sometimes the two-party system makes it very, very difficult to get on the ballot if you are a third party, and I think that's wrong. I think we should welcome competition."

That, as loyal readers know, is what I have been saying for some years now.  It's just not what the DNC or the TDP is willing to acknowledge.  They seem to be hoping that people won't remember their cyclical, abject, repeated failures to motivate their base to turn out.

Is Steve Mostyn still paying BGTX's bills, and if so ... why?

-- Donald Trump has to hold off a hard-charging Ted Cruz in the Palmetto State (just as Hillary is "trying to" do with Bernie in the Silver State).  Those apes have been throwing their feces at each other for a week now, since last Saturday night's debate.  Where Marco Ruboto and John Lobster Hands Kasich and Jeb Zombie Walker Bush finish will allegedly be a story.  Do you care?  I don't.

Clinton and Sanders on immigration

Clinton's Latino Congressional surrogates -- Luis Gutierrez, Julian Castro, Delores Huerta -- are doing her dirty work this week in Nevada.  When I first read the accusations against Bernie, dug out of the ten-year-old archives of Senate voting records, it sounded pretty harsh.

On a call with reporters Thursday organized by the Clinton campaign, Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.), Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julian Castro, and civil rights organizer Dolores Huerta slammed Sanders' record on immigration, particularly his vote against the failed 2007 immigration reform bill. 

"He really set us back, you might say, a decade by not supporting us on the immigration bill in 2007," said Huerta, a who led the United Farm Workers alongside Cesar Chavez in the 1960s. "His reputation as being a super liberal, many people followed his guide on that. That was just a devastating blow for all of us who were fighting for immigration reform and for immigrants' rights." 

Gutierrez stressed the 2007 vote as well as the fact that Sanders appeared on the television show hosted by Lou Dobbs—a prominent anti-immigration hardliner. "In 2007, when there was a way forward…he stood with the Republicans and went on Lou Dobbs' program," said Gutierrez. 

Sanders was one of several liberal senators who opposed the bill. Some labor unions opposed it, as well. At the time, Sanders described the bill as a threat to wages for American workers. More recently, he has justified his opposition to it by citing the bill's guest worker provisions, which have been described as exploitative. Sanders has repeatedly pointed to a Southern Poverty Law Center report that said the working conditions in those programs would be similar to slavery.

More recent statements by Sanders provide a clearer picture. This Politico article describes the relationship as 'complicated'.

For all his rhetoric in 2007, Sanders didn’t oppose a pathway to citizenship or efforts to boost border security. That chapter in Sanders’ immigration record reflects less on his support for the issue and more on his alliance to labor — and key unions also opposed the 2007 legislation.

“Sanders was basically one of our only allies … especially for low-skilled workers” in 2007, said Ana Avendano, a former top immigration official at the AFL-CIO. “He adamantly put his foot down and said these kinds of programs [allow] employers to bring in more and more vulnerable workers.” 

In fact, many immigration activists were themselves conflicted over the legislation.  To her credit, Clinton has promised to be a better advocate for immigrant families than the night-time raider Obama ... though that hasn't been her recent position.

When reporters asked about Clinton's record—and specifically about her recent support for sending immigrant children who fled violence in Central America back to their home countries—Castro repeated his belief that Clinton would be most likely to actually move forward on immigration reform if elected president. Sanders brought up this issue during the last Democratic debate and argued that the child migrants should be allowed to stay in the United States. 

Are the accusations made by Clinton's surrogates similar to Bernie's calling Clinton out for her 15-year-old Iraq war vote (for which she has now apologized)?  Are these John Kerry-styled "I voted against it before I voted for it" flip-flops by both candidates?  With respect to "sending the children back", is Clinton criticizing the president, of the kind she has attacked Sanders over?

What's true and what's campaign bluster seems to be in the eye of the beholder.  Stace had a good post six months ago about this.  It seems we're still not having the right conversation about the many complicated facets of US immigration policy.

Update: If you needed additional role reversal, then Clinton is cast as the idealist and Sanders the pragmatist as a result of the exchange in last night's town hall.

Update II: Ted being shallow and awful again.