Well, that was ugly. Another caucus, another controversy. Between the Democratic Party invention known as the “Super Delegate” and the insane caucus process, this Democratic Party is decidedly UN-democratic.
There were so many problems with Saturday’s Nevada caucus that I don’t even know where to begin. The biggest problems surfaced in Las Vegas where there was a misunderstanding about whether or not a Clinton surrogate should be allowed to act as translator (more on this story tomorrow), and with sleazy, backroom, old-school politics changing the entire game.
Jon Ralston has been covering Nevada politics better than anyone else called out Harry Reid for his slimy, underhanded machinations that gave the win to Hillary Clinton:
Last Saturday may well have been the day that altered the course of the Democratic presidential race — when Hillary Clinton blunted Bernie Sanders’ campaign. After she was forced to work as hard as she ever has for a week (with a little help from a lot of friends), she was sling-shotted with new momentum into South Carolina’s primary this Saturday and Super Tuesday on March 1. Nevada could indeed prove to be the contest that saved Clinton’s campaign.
But the caucuses, which Clinton won by about 5 percentage points, also cemented Prince Harry as a man Machiavelli would have bowed to, a man with one eye who still sees the field better and is still more dangerous, effective and cunning than any pol the state (the country?) has ever seen. Clinton might not have won Nevada if Reid had not interceded last week, when the man feigning neutrality saw what everyone in the Democratic elite saw: Sanders erasing a once mountainous lead and on the verge of perhaps winning Nevada and rendering inoperative the “Hillary is more electable” argument.
The story of the Nevada caucuses is that a lame-duck senator and a self-neutered union conspired to revive the Clinton campaign in a remarkable bit of backroom maneuvering that helped Madame Secretary crush Sanders in Clark County, the key to winning almost any statewide election. Combined with a Clinton machine, erected last spring and looking invincible, that suddenly had to scrape the rust off its gears and turn out her voters, Caucus Day also was a remarkable story of an indomitable candidate, her nonpareil Nevada staff and a ragtag but committed Sanders operation that made them sweat.
