As the Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus becomes more of a target for abuse and a figure of fun each day, you have to wonder how long he can survive. I speculated on that subject a bit at New York earlier this week:

As recently as the beginning of last year, Reince Priebus was riding pretty high as chairman of the Republican National Committee. He was reelected with little opposition to a third term as chairman, the first to do so with a Democrat controlling the White House. Republicans had made big and historic gains in the 2014 midterms. Party finances were looking good. Priebus’s famous 2013 “autopsy report” after the 2012 presidential loss, with its call for a more diverse and less angry GOP, was still the prevailing wisdom in the GOP.
Now, 15 months later, you get the sense Priebus is going through the motions, sure to be replaced the next time his party reaches a resting point. To the Trump and Cruz partisans dominating the GOP presidential nominating context, Priebus is the face of the hated Republican Establishment, eyeing their presidential candidates with bad intent and doing what he can to set the stage for a stab in the back in Cleveland or soon thereafter. Just yesterday Trump called Priebus a “disgrace” who “should be ashamed of himself” for the “rigged” rule of the nomination process. But to anti-Trump and anti-Cruz Republicans, Priebus is an empty suit babbling about party unity when he should be taking a stand. Today’s Washington Post has not one but two columns kicking the man in the slats.
First there is journalist and snark-master Dana Milbank, who acidly notes that the more Priebus’s party sinks into the mire of Trumpism, the more its chairman engages in vapid uplift:

Priebus failed to act to stop Trump when he could have, or to coordinate Republicans to clear the field for a mainstream alternative. And now he compounds the damage by sticking with the same moral neutrality and happy talk of GOP unity that allowed the situation to develop.
After the Jan. 14 debate, in which Trump said he would “gladly accept the mantle of anger” and traded charges with Cruz about their constitutional eligibility for the presidency, Priebus tweeted: “It’s clear we’ve got the most well-qualified and diverse field of candidates from any party in history.”
In the Feb. 13 debate, Trump blamed George W. Bush for the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and said Bush “lied” about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. Trump, Cruz and Marco Rubio took turns calling one another liars, and Rubio ridiculed Cruz’s Spanish skills. “Our well-qualified & experienced candidates continue to put forth serious solutions to restore prosperity & strength to America,” Priebus tweeted.
And after the March 3 debate, in which Trump spoke about the size of his genitals, Priebus tweeted that “Republican candidates are the only ones offering the course correction voters overwhelmingly want.”

At this rate, if the worst happens and Cleveland is a bloodbath of historic dimensions, you figure Priebus’s joy at GOP unity will know no bounds.
Similarly, conservative blogger Jennifer Rubin is enraged at Priebus’s refusal to flat-out oppose Trump. Damning with the faintest of praise the chairman’s refutation of the Trump camp’s claims of being robbed in Colorado this last week, which she attributed to Priebus being “momentarily roused from his stupor,” Rubin cuts loose:

What is missing here — as it has been for months now — is any principled defense against the man threatening to replace the conservative movement’s political apparatus with one that is nothing more than a cult of personality. In the latter, any outcome other than one favoring Trump is “crooked” or “rigged.” Acceptable rhetoric is defined as whatever he says; any efforts to present the party as inclusive go out the window.
Priebus continues to passively allow Trump’s torrent of deception, threats and out and out lies to wash over the party, treating him as just another candidate. It was this attitude that sent Priebus scurrying to Trump Tower with the pledge, now shown to be entirely worthless. Priebus’s collapse into moral relativism led him to forgo speaking out against the vast majority of Trump’s outrageous comments, and to only cryptically frown on violence in the race, which Trump alone has instigated and condoned. Worse yet, without an operative moral compass, Priebus again and again praised the entire field and provided assurance that no matter who got to 1,237 delegates, the entire party would get behind him. In short, he offered Trump carte blanche and now stands accused of running a corrupt and undemocratic outfit. You would think he would show a smidgen of indignation.

There’s an informal bipartisan tradition that a party’s presidential nominee — if it’s not an incumbent president who’s already been running the show — is given the opportunity to name her or his own national chairman. No matter who finally claims the tarnished prize in Cleveland, it’s hard to imagine Priebus will be kept around unless it’s to serve as a scapegoat if things go south.

Nice work, Reince.

While most of the carping about nominating process rules is emanating from the Republican side of the partisan barricades, there’s some interest in reforms in the Democratic ranks as well, as I discussed at New York.

Earlier this week, the Washington Post‘s Greg Sargent wrote a stimulating post on the possibility of Bernie Sanders using his leverage over Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party to demand changes in the process that will determine future presidential nomination processes. Aside from the pros and cons of such “reforms,” a more basic question is the extent to which the national parties are in a position to implement them. To a surprising extent, they are not.
Nominating-process guru Josh Putnam of the University of Georgia made this clear in his comment on Sargent’s piece at his Frontloading HQ site. After noting that Democrats typically punt rules changes to a post-convention commission, Putnam gets to the heart of the problem in promoting nominating-process “reforms”:

The problem, as always, is that the national parties have only so much control over the presidential nomination process. The system started out and has evolved into a patchwork of overlapping national party rules, state party rules and state laws. In attempting to fix the perceived problems of any given cycle, the national parties have to navigate that patchwork.

Take the question of whether to use primaries, as Sargent prefers, or instead the less “democratic” caucuses. Primaries cost a lot of money. As a result, they are generally financed by state governments, which in turn means that state legislatures, not state parties (much less the national parties), decide whether and under what circumstances to hold them. If a given legislature doesn’t want to use tax dollars for primaries, odds are high the state parties will resort to the much-less-expensive alternative of caucuses. Could the national party play chicken with the states by demanding primaries? Yes, but are they really going to disenfranchise a state if it doesn’t comply? So far, no one has been willing to find out.
Then there’s the whole open-versus-closed primaries issue (again, Sargent thinks “reformers” would prefer open primaries to encourage engagement with indies). The practical implications of this decision depend heavily on state laws governing party registration. Some states make primary- (or caucus-) day changes in party affiliation very easy. Where that’s the case, making a primary formally “open” doesn’t add a lot of value. Conversely, there are 19 states that do not register voters by party. They are automatically going to be “open primary” states.
“Reforms” in the nominating-contest calendar have been a constant issue in recent years, but all the controversy has showed the limited power of the national parties in this area. It has required ever-more-severe sanctions to keep states from moving themselves up on the calendar, and the Democratic Party’s strong preference for proportional allocation of delegates has meant that it cannot offer the inducement of making winner-take-all (or winner-take-most) systems available to states that agree to hold their contests later in the year. And to the extent that state-financed primaries are utilized, changing dates often requires the cooperation of the opposing party since legislatures aren’t generally going to authorize two separate events.
As Putnam notes, one popular Democratic “reform” doesn’t run afoul of state prerogatives, but encounters another problem:

The problem with eliminating superdelegates is a little different. There is no overlap with state party rules or state laws, but nixing those unpledged delegates is an idea that requires superdelegates — members of the DNC — to vote to strip themselves of that power. It is not a nonstarter, but that idea is a long way from being enacted.

The bottom line is that the presidential nominating process isn’t a national contest with some state rules but a largely state-controlled system. If Democrats want to change that they need to deal with it comprehensively.

Greg Sargent’s Plum Line considers “How GOP convention chaos could help Clinton win the White House” and notes that “convention craziness could conceivably hurt the GOP in two ways. First, it could create impressions of a party in chaos even as Clinton (should she win the nomination) begins laying out her general election agenda. Second, even if that blows over, intra-GOP bitterness and recriminations could continue to divide the GOP after the convention has come and gone.”
At Rothenblog Nathan Gonzales reports that Democrats blew a good chance for a pick-up of a U.S. House seat (VA-2) — by failing to field a candidate. Please explain, Virginia Democratic Party.
Could this be the beginning of a right to left party-switching trend? Read “Kirk goes full RINO to save Senate seat” by Seung Min Kim and Bergess Everett at Politico.
The American Legislative Exchange Council has been extremely effective in blocking and undermining needed progressive reforms, like early voting, environmental protection, greater Obamacare access and a modest minimum wage increase, to name just a few causes they have blocked with ‘template’ legislation in the nation’s state legislatures. If you google for a few minutes, you can find some good print reports on ALEC here, here and here, for example. And here is a list of ALEC’s member corporations, and here is a list of companies that have quit ALEC, mostly because of public pressure.
Yet, overall, the mainstream media, particularly television news, has failed to adequately educate the public about the destructive effects of this secretive organization. There are a few exceptions. In national media, Moyers & Company has an excellent 1-hour report on ALEC’s agenda and effects. One exemplary exception at the local level is chief investigative reporter Brendan Keefe of ’11-Alive,’ an Atlanta NBC affiliate. Credit Keefe with a gutsy effort to inform the public about ALEC’s activities in this video:

John Oliver gets medieval on ALEC and does a great job of informing his audience in this short clip. And here’s a good example of a media-savvy citizen’s creative video clip on ALEC, which delves more extensively into ALEC’s issues and activities:

American Prospect Senior Editor Eliza Newlin Carney explains why “Chaotic Primaries Signal Voting Trouble Ahead.” Her lede: “If the long lines, ballot shortages, technical glitches, and poll-worker errors plaguing this year’s presidential primaries are any indication, Election Day 2016 could prove mighty chaotic…the polling place breakdowns in recent primaries, which have drawn just under 30 percent of voters, bode poorly for a general election that is expected to feature double that level of turnout.”
Sanders supporters, please take note: Bernie and Jane Sanders will vote for Clinton, if she is nominated. “If Bernie wins, hopefully Secretary Clinton’s supporters will support him,” says Ms. Sanders. “and if she wins we hope our supporters will support her.” It would be good if both candidates affirmed that they would not only “support” the other Democratic candidate; they would also campaign vigorously for the Democratic nominee. A spirit of Democratic unity at the top could help down-ballot candidates.
At Democratic Underground a poster named “eridani” notes that “Ironically, in 2008 it was Clinton supporters vowing to stay home–or vote for John McCain–if Obama became the nominee. At the time, that same HuffPo columnist warned that “balkanized Democrats could give the White House to John McCain.” That May, primary exit polls found less than half of Hillary Clinton’s supporters in Indiana and North Carolina saying they’d consider voting for Obama in the general election. Even in early July, after Obama had secured the nomination, only 54 percent of Clinton backers said they planned to vote for him…Those self-described “PUMAs”–“party unity my ass”–may have stayed home by the dozens that November, but at the end of the day nine out of 10 Democrats supported Obama in an election that featured the highest turnout in 40 years. A similar dynamic played out with Howard Dean supporters in 2004.”

It doesn’t do one’s state a lot of good when top entertainers, like Bruce Springsteen, boycott it because of homophobic policies rammed through the state legislature at the behest of wingnut evangelicals and signed by the Governor.
It makes even less sense when your state is a possible beachhead for Democrats in the South, since Obama won it in 2008, especially in a pivotal election year in which Democrats are gaining momentum and a U.S. Senate seat now held by Republican Richard Burr is vulnerable. As Crystal Ball’s Larry J. Sabato, Kyle Kondik and Geoffrey Skelley recently wrote,

Having easily dismissed a trio of primary challengers on March 15, Sen. Richard Burr (R) can now focus on the general election, where he will face ex-state Rep. Deborah Ross (D), who won her party’s nomination to take on the incumbent. To a greater extent than Missouri, the new rating in North Carolina comes down to basic coattail math: If the GOP presidential nominee falters, the Tar Heel State will likely be the first red-state domino to fall because Romney only carried it by just two percentage points in 2012. With Trump or Cruz as the nominee, it’s possible that Democrats could carry North Carolina in November, boosting Ross’ chances.

And that was written before the latest jobs meltdown. As you might imagine some NC Republicans are shrugging it off, with a “who cares about Springsteen” attitude. But now the stakes are considerably higher, as David Bracken and Paul A. Specht write in “Economic impact of HB2 mushrooms in the Triangle” in the News and Observer,

The economic impact of the state’s controversial House Bill 2 continued to mushroom Tuesday, as Deutsche Bank announced it was freezing plans to create 250 jobs in Cary and a top Wake County economic development official said that five companies since early last week have canceled or postponed efforts to bring jobs to the county.
“We’ve had some companies choose to suspend their site selection search in North Carolina and consequently in Wake County,” said Adrienne Cole, executive director of Wake County Economic Development. “Some have said they’re taking North Carolina off the list, others have said they’re postponing things to see what happens.”
The economic development projects included an IT company and a clean energy company and ranged in size from 75 jobs to one that could have brought 1,000 jobs to the Triangle, she said.
Cole said that, after Deutsche Bank’s decision, she’s also worried about economic development projects that the area has already secured. The German bank in September announced plans to add 250 jobs in Cary by the end of next year.
But it halted that expansion Tuesday, saying in a statement that HB2 “invalidated existing protections of the rights of gay, bisexual and transgender fellow citizens in some municipalities and prevents municipalities from adopting such protections in the future.”

The authors add that “Deutsche Bank is the second major corporation to halt expansion plans in North Carolina because of HB2. Last week, PayPal scrapped plans for a new Charlotte operations center that would have employed 400 people. Two other companies, Red Ventures and Braeburn Pharmaceuticals, have said they are re-evaluating expansion plans because of the law.” Further,

The legislation also has led some municipalities and states to ban nonessential employee travel to North Carolina. The Greater Raleigh Convention and Visitors Bureau released a report Monday saying that Wake County had lost out on an estimated $732,000 in economic benefits after four groups canceled plans to hold events in the county.

North Carolina’s Republican Governor Pat McCrory has chosen to learn his lessons the hard way. As Craig Jarvis writes in the NC News and Observer,

Gov. Pat McCrory on Tuesday issued an executive order that he said was needed to clarify widespread misunderstanding about the new North Carolina law regulating protections for gay and transgender people.
The governor’s order didn’t change the most controversial provision of the law: requiring transgender people to use bathrooms of their birth gender. Gay rights advocates criticized McCrory for not doing enough, while Republican leaders supported him.

McCrory is also up for re-election this year, and his prospects were rated a “toss-up” by Crystal Ball’s Sabato, Kondik and Skelly — also before the latest jobs meltdown.
Progressive who savor the spectacle of Republican leader squirmage and such poorly conceived and clumsy walkbacks should stay tuned. This show is just getting started and it will soon be played out in other southern states.
What we are seeing in the pushback in the southern states is a great victory for all those who are opposed to mean-spirited, homophobic state laws — and a showcase for the power of the boycott as the most effective form of citizen action. It is more than possible that such boycotts could be used to repeal and prevent other reactionary state laws, including ALEC’s voter suppression measures and other laws that abuse civil and hiuman rights.
It just may be that NC swing voters will soon tire of the GOP’s Keystone Kops routine and, if NC Dems play this hand well, decide that Republicans, who frequently brag about their party’s “pro-business” policies, are clearly clueless about what it takes to attract — and keep — jobs. November 8 would be a good time to send that message.

At Huffpo Daniel Marans discusses a debate between pairs of Democratic candidates in the primaries in their respective states over whether or not to cut Social Security benefits.
Marans writes that the debate is erupting in several key senatorial primarties, including Kamala Harris vs. Loretta Sanchez in CA; Donna Edwards vs. Chris Van Hollen in MD; Katie McGinty vs. Joe Sestak in PA; and Alan Grayson vs. Patrick Murphy in FL. Harris, Edwards, Grayson and McGinty are all oposing Social Security cuts. Their opponents are leaving the door open to discussing the proposals suggested by the Bowles-Simpson Commission, which Marans reports include “major cuts to Social Security benefits, including raising the retirement age and cutting the cost-of-living adjustment…”
If this debate seems a little backwards, you are thinking clearly. At a time when millions of elderly Americans who have worked hard for decades are retiring in poverty and economic hardship, Democrats should not cosider reducing these modest retirement benefits at all. And at a time when Democrats are losing the votes of millions of high-turnout senior citizens to Republicans, the Democratic Party should not risk being perceived as wobbly on Social Security benefits.
Rather, the debate should be about how much Social Security benefits should be increased and to what extent eligibility should be expanded. If Democrats truly want to win a stable majority, then the goal should be to make sure every swing voter understands that cuting Social Security benefits is off the table for Democrats, and Dems are the party that wants to improve retirement security, not flirt with undermining it.
Marans quotes some Democrats and progressives who get it:

“While some in Washington have voted to balance the budget on the backs of seniors, Kamala would oppose cuts to Social Security and Medicare, and believes we need to strengthen these safety nets…Elizabeth Warren’s impassioned November 2013 speech embracing benefits expansion became a turning point that helped move the idea into the mainstream. The New York Times editorial board endorsed Social Security expansion in January. And both Democratic presidential candidates have pledged to increase benefits, not cut them.

Marans notes further that Alex Lawson, executive director of Social Security Works, argues that “putting a political price on past support for Bowles-Simpson “is not an ideological purity thing. This is about millions of Americans somehow getting by on benefits of $14, $15, $16,000 a year and elected officials thinking they can cut benefits.”
Marans adds that “A Pew study released on March 31 found that opposition to Social Security cuts is the only position shared by a majority of the supporters of all of the presidential candidates in both parties.”
Further, top economists agree that the least painful way to insure the solvency of Social Security is to eliminate the cap on Social Security taxes. As The National Comittee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare explains,

Incredibly, most people still don’t realize that workers who earn more than $110,100 don’t contribute on their full income and that simply removing that tax loophole for high earners would close the vast majority of Social Security’s modest long-term funding gap. Legislation introduced by Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR) would apply the same payroll tax already paid by more than 9 out of 10 Americans to those with incomes over $250,000 a year. Making the wealthiest Americans pay the same payroll tax already assessed on those with lower incomes should be a no-brainer and it is the solution Americans prefer rather than cutting already modest Social Security benefits.

Nearly all Republicans in congress want to cut Social Security benefits, instead of lifting the cap. When such a simple — and popular — alternative solution to addressing the program’s future funding exists, Democrats should speak with one voice on this issue, as the unflagging champions of increased retirement security for working Americans. Making this principle a central and prominent component of the Democratic Party’s message will win enough votes from American seniors to secure a stable majority.

Laura Vozella reports at The Washington Post that “Nearly a third of Virginia Republicans will vote for Hillary Clinton, pick a third-party candidate or sit out the election if Donald Trump is the GOP’s nominee for president,” according to a newly-released Christopher Newport University poll.
Republican state legislators and governors in several southern states have stepped in it big time, with the growing reaction to a rash of their gay-bashing legislation in GA, NC, MS, VA and TN. Following threats of an NFL and NCAA boycotts, Georgia’s Republican Govenor Nathan Deal vetoed a bill that would have allowed faith-based organizations to deny services to LGBT citizens and VA’s Democratic Governor Terry McAuliffe also vetoed a bill passed by the GOP legislative majority that permitted businesses and individuals to “cite their religious beliefs as a reason for refusing services to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.” Springsteen has already cancelled a Greensboro, NC concert because of the “newly-enacted Public Facilities Privacy & Security Act, which prohibits transgender individuals from using the bathroom of their choosing.” UPDATE: Canadian singer Bryan Adams has cancelled his upcoming show in Biloxi, MS.
It’s one thing when a northeastern rocker boycotts your state. But TN Republicans ought to be a little worried when top country artist Emmylou Harris issues a statement saying “Those who love and make country music do so because at its best it speaks to the pain and suffering everyone shares in this life…Let’s not make that life harder still for some, with this mean spirited and unnecessary legislation” in response to a bill which “seeks to prohibit students in public institutions from using the bathroom that does not conform to their gender at birth” and another, which would let counselors refuse mental health services to clients based on their religious beliefs. Country music stars Chely Wright and Ty Herndon have also released statements condemning the legislation, as has TN-born Miley Cyrus.
“A new study out of the University of California at San Diego…found that the turnout gap between Republicans and Democrats in states with voter ID suppression laws jumped from 2.3 to 5.6 percentage points after those voter ID laws went into effect.” — from Truthdig’s “The GOP Is Now Bragging About Voter Suppression.”
WaPo’s Amber Phillips explains why “The Senate map is looking better and better for Democrats,” and provides an insightful look at key contests in 10 states.
At HuffPo Robert Reich writes, “The recent kerfluffle about Bernie Sanders purportedly not knowing how to bust up the big banks says far more about the threat Sanders poses to the Democratic establishment and its Wall Street wing than it does about the candidate himself…The biggest are far larger today than they were in 2008 when they were deemed “too big to fail.” Then, the five largest held around 30 percent of all U.S. banking assets. Today they have 44 percent.”
In These Times posts an interesting interview with Ian Haney Lopez, author of Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class and Matt Morrison, Matt Morrison, deputy director of the AFL-CIO’s 3.2-million member community affiliate, Working America on the topic, “Understanding What Makes Donald Trump Voters Tick: Is It Just Racism? In Trump’s appeal, the Left seeks clues on winning back the white working-class.”
Wilson Andrews, Kitty Bennett and Alicia Parlapiano provide some nifty graphics that illustrate the “2016 Delegate Count and Primary Results” at The New York Times.
But, if the delegate hunt strikes you as unseemly, and you think presidential elections ought not be decided by about seven states, check out the National Popular Vote initiative, which is moving forward, regardless of what happens this year.

With all the talk lately about the U.S. Supreme Court and its past, current, and potentially future composition, we’re beginning to hear more about what Republicans might do if they retake the White House and still have an opening to fill. I wrote about one scary possibility at New York earlier this week:

At present, there’s a major boom among conservatives for Senator Mike Lee of Utah.
Today the Washington Post‘s James Hohmann offers a rundown on all the reasons Lee is enjoying this attention. For one thing, the Utah senator has long been considered Ted Cruz’s best friend in the upper chamber, so if Cruz is elected, it’s a bit of a no-brainer if Lee wants a robe. For another, Lee would probably have an easier time getting confirmed by his colleagues in the clubby Senate than some law professor or circuit-court judge, and might even avoid a Democratic filibuster (assuming Republicans haven’t already killed the SCOTUS filibuster via the “nuclear option”).
But one of the two most important reasons for the Lee boom is buried pretty far down in the story:

Lee is just 44. That means he could squeeze four or more decades out of a lifetime appointment.

Yep. If nominated next year for the Scalia seat, Lee would be the youngest nominee since Clarence Thomas, who has now been on the Court for nearly a quarter of a century, with many years of extremism probably still ahead of him. Before Thomas, you have to go all the way back to Bill Richardson’s favorite justice, Whizzer White, in 1962, to find a nominee as young as Lee would be. As you may have noticed, life expectancy has been going up for Americans in recent decades. For conservatives seeking a permanent grip on the Court and on constitutional law, someone Lee’s age is money.
But the second reason Lee would be significant is only hinted at by Hohmann in the praise lavished on the solon by the Heritage Foundation and longtime right-wing legal thinker Senator Jeff Sessions (the two most likely sources for SCOTUS advice for Donald Trump, as it happens). Lee’s not just any old “constitutional conservative”; he’s a leading exponent of what is called the Lochner school of constitutional theory, named after the early-twentieth-century decision that was the basis for SCOTUS invalidation of New Deal legislation until the threat of court-packing and a strategic flip-flop resolved what had become a major constitutional crisis.
Lee has, on occasion, suggested that child labor laws, Social Security, and Medicare are unconstitutional, because they breach the eternal limits on federal power sketched out by the Founders. Like most Lochnerians, he views the constitution and the courts as designed to keep democratic majorities from stepping on the God-given personal and property rights of individuals and corporations alike. So it’s no surprise he’s been a bitter critic of the deferential view towards Congress expressed by Chief Justice Roberts in the decision that saved Obamacare.
In effect, Mike Lee could become a more influential successor to Clarence Thomas — after overlapping with Thomas on the Court for a decade or two.

Now that would be scary.

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders is taking some heat for his statement that Hillary Clinton is “not qualified” to be president. Here’s what NYT columnist Paul Krugman said about it:

Mr. Sanders wasn’t careful at all, declaring that what he considers Mrs. Clinton’s past sins, including her support for trade agreements and her vote to authorize the Iraq war — for which she has apologized — make her totally unfit for office.
…This is really bad, on two levels. Holding people accountable for their past is O.K., but imposing a standard of purity, in which any compromise or misstep makes you the moral equivalent of the bad guys, isn’t. Abraham Lincoln didn’t meet that standard; neither did F.D.R. Nor, for that matter, has Bernie Sanders (think guns).
…The Sanders campaign has brought out a lot of idealism and energy that the progressive movement needs. It has also, however, brought out a streak of petulant self-righteousness among some supporters. Has it brought out that streak in the candidate, too?

At The Daily Beast Michael Tomasky wrote:

…Sanders’s blunt statement Wednesday night that Clinton “is not qualified” to be president ratchets up the arms race considerably.
…Now–Sanders apologists will scream that she started it, and even neutral observers, if there are any, may be confused. But there’s a big difference between saying “raises serious questions” and “I’ll leave it to the voters to decide,” and saying flat out that one’s primary opponent is “not qualified.”
…At the end of the process, Clinton will be ahead, and Sanders will have to endorse her. Not certain, of course, but likely. So the question is, how can he endorse her after saying flat out that she’s not qualified to be president?…won’t it ring awfully hollow? For her part, Clinton, looking toward a future mending of fences, brushed off Sanders’s remarks. It’s worth noting, too, that back in 2008, Clinton gave up the fight in early June right after the primaries ended and endorsed Obama. One has trouble picturing Sanders doing the same, if it comes to that, and what he said Wednesday night makes it even less likely.

For Democrats that’s a worrisome scenario. The Sanders campaign has so far done a lot of good in advanciing the issues of Wall St. reform, reducing income inequality and restricting unfair trade as Democratic priorities. It has also mobilized younger voters, who could help defeat Republicans in the fall.
Until recently, the Clinton-Sanders contest has provided a model of civility, in stark contrast to the Republicans’ increasingly ridiculous mud-slinging. The value of being perceived as the party for grown-ups at a time when Republicans are acting like unusually-immature jr. high schoolers should not be underestimated. There are swing voters out there who are looking for evidence of maturity and wisdom. Let’s not make them stay home on election day.
Democrats have not had a better opportunity for a game-changing, landslide election in decades. To risk blowing it now with escalating intemperance would feed the meme that both parties are pretty much the same, even though the policy priorities are vastly different.
To be fair, the Clinton campaign has flirted with unduly harsh personal criticism of Sanders on occasion, but it has wisely stopped short of saying outright that Sanders is “unqualified” to serve as president. Going forward, the Sanders campaign should exercize similar restraint, and get back on track with the high road tone that has served it so well.
It is understandable that the Democratic presidential primaries would heat up at this juncture. But the Democratic party has two excellent presidential candidates, either one of whom has the record, policies and debate skills to beat Trump, Cruz or Kasich decisively. Let’s keep it that way.