Fog-bound again this early Monday on California’s north coast as we work our way toward summer, with a certain cool apparently only allowed in our local environs.
Triple-digit temperatures inland, and big heat southward, but all is good here.
Tomorrow is the last hurrah for this insane presidential election cycle, especially with the Democratic contest, and for some people also end of the line — considering Bernie Sanders recent toast to reality: ‘“California is the big enchilada, so to speak.”‘
And a big turnout expected, too. Secretary of State Alex Padilla says 72 percent of the eligible California population is set to vote — biggest ever.
(Illustration found here).
In more digits, that’s 17.9 million Californians are registered to make a decision in tomorrow’s primary, up 761,000 voters since the one in 2012. Breakdown: Democrats make up supposedly 45 percent of voters, Republicans at 27 percent, while those without a party preference (about 60,000) at 23 percent.
Reportedly, nearly 650,000 people registered in the last 45 days before deadlines.
Hence, the ‘enchilada’ reference — John Cassidy yesterday in the New Yorker:
Sanders, for his part, is still hoping that a come-from-behind victory in California will help him persuade large numbers of superdelegates to switch sides, enabling him to capture the nomination in Philadelphia.
“If the voter turnout is high, we will win California, and we stand a chance to win it with a big margin,” Sanders said at a press conference on Saturday.
He went onto say, “The Democratic National Convention will be a contested convention.”
Yet we’re just one of six states with primaries tomorrow — Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Dakota, and South Dakota, the others — and Sanders is playing dangerous. A Demo party fuck-up could shove the US into a nightmare, a President Donald.
However, Sanders does have his moments. He attended Game 7 of the NBA Western Conference a couple of weeks ago between the Oklahoma City Thunder and San Francisco’s Golden State Warriors, and capitalized on the uptick-narrative of the Bern.
From Politico:
“We came in the second half and the Warriors turned it around,” Sanders said, according to a pool reporter’s account.
Asked whether the Warriors’ comeback could be attributed to his attendance, the Vermont senator remarked, “Absolutely. No question about it … What other explanation is there?”
If, on the other hand, Golden State’s second-half climb had fallen short, Sanders suggested that it was all in the game.
“Hey, in politics,” Sanders said. “You gotta take your shots.”
…
“Last week, Golden State was down three games to one,” the Vermont senator tweeted afterward.
“Tonight, they finished off a great comeback in California. I like comebacks.”
Comeback to what, though?
Throwing a monkey in the wrench. Sanders hasn’t said much about Hillary Clinton’s strong win yesterday in Puerto Rico’s Democratic primary (694 delegates will be at stake altogether tomorrow, 475 here in California) and I hope this is true:
As she barnstorms California in advance of Tuesday’s primary — where she is seemingly neck and neck with her populist challenger, Bernie Sanders — Clinton appears to be an almost different woman: a candidate who, nearly 14 months after announcing her bid for the Democratic presidential nomination, has finally largely found her footing.
Although both Clinton and Trump are the worse-viewed candidates in US presidential campaign history — the analogy is would you rather hit your thumb with a hammer, or savagely drive a nail into your kneecap?
(Illustration above is a drawing my youngest daughter, Melissa, made sometime during the early 2008 campaign, and it’s been attached to the refrigerator door ever since — not just because it’s Clinton, but it’s a good likeness, and my kid did it).
And finally this morning, some way-black political humor — from the always delightfully-insane Andy Borowitz at the New Yorker last week:
LONDON — The theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking angered supporters of Donald J. Trump on Monday by responding to a question about the billionaire with a baffling array of long words.
Speaking to a television interviewer in London, Hawking called Trump “a demagogue who seems to appeal to the lowest common denominator,” a statement that many Trump supporters believed was intentionally designed to confuse them.
Moments after Hawking made the remark, Google reported a sharp increase in searches for the terms “demagogue,” “denominator,” and “Stephen Hawking.”
“For a so-called genius, this was an epic fail,” Trump’s campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, said.
“If Professor Hawking wants to do some damage, maybe he should try talking in English next time.”
Later in the day, Hawking attempted to clarify his remark about the presumptive Republican Presidential nominee, telling a reporter, “Trump bad man. Real bad man.”
Real Trump in real time in real words, addressing Clinton’s observation The Donald has ‘thin skin‘ (via Reuters): ‘“I don’t have thin skin. I have very strong, very thick skin,” Trump said.
“I have a strong temperament, and it’s a very good temperament, and it’s a very in-control temperament, or I wouldn’t have built this unbelievable company.”‘
A small pie of jalapeno peppers with that enchilada, too, please, and thank-you…