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 Politics Archive 2016






Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are getting closer to being the presidential nominees
by Nathan'ette Burdine: April 30, 2016 
 


Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are getting closer to their respective parties’ magical numbers to become the presidential nominees.

Clinton’s four-state sweep and Trump’s bulldozering of his competition have made it smooth sailing for the two front-runners who need less than 300 delegates in order to be the only two standing on the start line in the race to the White House.

Recognizing that victory is ever so close, Clinton offered an olive branch to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT).

During her victory speech, she praised Sanders for shining a light on income inequality.

She told the crowd of cheering supporters and reporters, “And I applaud Senator Sanders and his millions of supporters for challenging us to get unaccountable money out of our politics and giving greater emphasis to closing the gap of inequality and I know together we will get that done. Because whether you support Senator Sanders or you support me, there’s much more that unites us than divides us.”

Unlike the former secretary of state, Trump was not as gracious during his victory speech. He made it clear that he is not only the Republican Party’s presumptive presidential nominee but that it is time for his opponents to take the first train smoking.

Or, as the Trumpster puts it, “As far as I am concerned it’s over, it’s over. These two guys cannot win. There’s no path.”

Needless to say, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Ohio Gov. John Kasich are keeping hope alive and promising to take their fight all the way to the convention floor.

The two have formed a pack and are determined to prevent Trump from reaching the magical number of 1,237.

Cruz and Kasich’s plan is to stay in the race so that they can take enough delegates away from Trump and therefor prevent him from becoming the party’s presidential nominee before the convention in July.

Unfortunately for the senator from Texas and the Ohio governor, their plan is dead on arrival. Polls have Trump winning in the remaining key states of Indiana and California.

Both states are winner-take-all. Indiana, which votes next Tuesday, has 57 delegates up for grabs.

California, which votes on June 7, has 172 delegates up for grabs. A Fox News poll has Trump beating Cruz by eight percentage points in Indiana and Kasich by twenty-five percentage points.

Another Fox News poll has Trump winning in California where he has a twenty-seven percentage point lead over Cruz and a twenty-nine percentage point lead over Kasich.

Not to be outdone, Cruz decided that he would try and pull a rabbit out of his hat. So on Thursday, Cruz named former Republican Presidential Candidate Carly Fiorina as his running mate.

Considering the fact that vice presidential candidates aren’t named until after a presidential nominee is elected, the announcement didn’t go over so well.

In fact, Cruz’s announcement was nothing more than an act of desperation in order to convince the Republican establishment that he should be what a majority of the voters don’t want him to be; the Republican Party presidential nominee.

As for Sanders, he is accepting his fate. He realizes that he won’t be the one running the race for the Democrats on the road to the White House.

And nowhere is this more evident than in the change in the Vermont senator's tone. Gone are the days of trying to win over Super delegates and having high hopes that the base of the Democratic Party will fall in line, as they did in 2008 with then Sen. Obama, to now realizing that none of the above will happen.

On Wednesday, Shepard Smith of Fox News played a clip of Sanders’ response to reporters who asked him about his path forward.

Sanders told the reporters, “We are in this campaign to win. But if we do not win, we intend to win every delegate that we can so that when we go to Philadelphia in July we’re going to have the votes to put together the strongest Progressive agenda that any political party has ever seen.”

California is the state where Sanders hopes he can gain enough delegates in order to convince the Democratic Party that his progressive vision should be written into the Democratic platform.

California votes on June 7. It has the most delegates, at 548. According to Fox News poll, Clinton is in a statistical tie with Sanders in the state.

Recognizing that he could possibly win the state, Sanders campaign announced that they were cutting back staff and focusing their attention on California.

If Sanders wins California, it will provide the political capital the senator needs in order to get his progressive plan written into the Democratic platform.

A decision, I’m sure, soon-to-be Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton will not object to.




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