The Political Week That Was – February 15, 2016

With the New Hampshire primary behind her, Hillary Clinton moved on to the friendly climes of South Carolina, which holds its primary on February 27. Polls continue to show Clinton with a substantial lead over Bernie Sanders in the Palmetto State, which bodes well for Clinton’s southern firewall strategy.

Indeed, Clinton was happy to exit New Hampshire, and it’s doubtful that she will want to return anytime soon. The voters were decidedly unkind to her campaign and have made a prolonged Democratic primary battle more likely. While no one in the Clinton camp is throwing in the towel, Iowa, and New Hampshire has made it clear that Hillary’s days of treating Bernie kindly have long since passed. At the end of the day, the vast majority of Democrats know that Bernie is unelectable as President, but his prolonged presence in the campaign not only pushes the country towards electing a Republican President, but also increases the likelihood that the Republicans could control both houses of Congress.

There were rumors of changes in the Clinton’s campaign staff and strategy after New Hampshire, and it seems overdue. Politico reported:

The Clintons are not happy and have been letting all of us know that. The idea is that we need a more forward-looking message, for the primary — but also for the general election too. … There’s no sense of panic, but there is an urgency to fix these problems right now.

New Hampshire served the function of clearing out the Republican field as Donald Trump scored an impressive victory. Chris Christie, Carly Fiorina, and Jim Gilmore announced their withdrawal from the race. Marco Rubio paid the price for his poor debate performance just prior to the primary and finished in fifth place.

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia died over the weekend. He was only the second sitting justice to die while on the bench since 1953. The Washington Post noted Justice Scalia death “plunged the Supreme Court and the nation’s politics into turmoil.”  Vox reported that Republicans were quick to call on the President to wait on appointing a new Justice until after the election, which would be a delay of a year or more. Under the Constitution, the U.S. Senate needs to consent to any nominee that the President proposes by a majority vote.

The Democrats held their sixth debate last week in Milwaukee, WI. As usual, there were differences of opinion on who won, but no one suggested that Hillary lost. CNN ran a story entitled Clinton embraces Obama and wins debate, which was representative of the press. Hillary Clinton continued pressing her point that Sanders’ ideas are unrealistic.

Not to be outdone the Republicans had their debate on Saturday. This marks the first debate where all the contenders appeared on the stage thanks to the field winnowing down after the New Hampshire results. It was a lively affair with plenty of fireworks emanating from Donald Trump. The Washington Post declared Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush as the winners of the evening while describing Donald Trump and the Republican Party as the losers.

Aware of his poor standing among African-American voters, early in week Bernie Sanders headed off to Harlem seeking the blessing of Rev. Al Sharpton. CNN reported the two men met for about twenty minutes and discussed affirmative action, police brutality and the water crisis in Flint, but Sharpton declined to issue an endorsement of Sanders.

A poll released last week by the right-leaning Washington Free Beacon/TargetPoint Consulting seemed to show Hillary and Bernie in a tie in the upcoming Nevada caucus and produced numerous stories of Hillary’s firewall crumbling. However, as Crooks and Liars noted the reliability of the poll is questionable. They pointed out that in addition to the conservative slant of the Washington Free Bacon the pollster, TargetPoint Consulting is a” GOP-linked firm that’s provided microtargeting data to the Republican National Committee, Bush-Cheney ’04, and Mitt Romney’s 2012 campaign. The Nevada caucuses are scheduled for next Saturday, a week ahead of South Carolina.