#FeelTheBern or feel the scorched earth from the #DemCaucus after the #IowaCaucus?

Bernie Sanders, as anybody who was alive, awake and following American politics last night knows, got a tie and a moral win out of the Iowa caucuses, despite desperate mainstream media spinning, including huge chunks of spinning and framing from allegedly neutral — but not really so — data-crunching analysts, above all Nate Silver and his gang at 538.

None of this should be a surprise; I called out Silver, and his chief rival, Sam Wang, in advance of the Iowa caucus. And, in its aftermath, Wang is STILL spinning. And, he deleted the post to which I originally linked. No worries, Sam; I found the cached version. Disgusting.

So, folks, now that we've made clear that the data crunchers are actually data massagers, let's look on to New Hampshire.

The Bern is there to be felt. And, as I noted in the blog post where I called out Silver and Wang before seeing that Wang had deleted that post, Sanders has the chance to build momentum. Per that piece, he's already starting to poll better among African-Americans, doing a fair amount of gap closure. And also per that piece, Democratic superdelegates are not locked in stone. Both Silver and Wang were claiming Sanders had to "win big" because of all the delegates she already had.

And, in spite of me Tweeting that to 538, it's STILL spinning about "only whites are supporting Bernie."

Well, both of them, and others, are either ignorant, forgetful, or lying. And, frankly, I'm saying that it's lying with both of them. Also per that same link, Clinton had a lead of more than 100 superdelegates over Obama going into the 2008 Iowa caucus, and that was with her being less of a quasi-incumbent than now, and with Obama in far stronger standing coming into Iowa than Sanders was this year.

And, yet, the Clintonista spinning, and outright lying about who spent more in Iowa, continues, from ground-level Clintonists, not just the MSM.

For the reality, rather than the lie about outsider money collected so far, see that image at left, from an Open Secrets spreadsheet. For related info, including about MSM Clintonista spinning on the money issue, go here.

For the fact that Clinton spent $1.5 million more than Sanders on Iowa advertising, go here.

In other words, rank-and-file Clintonistas are spreading and exacerbating, to the point of outright lying, about both spending and fundraising in Iowa.

This is why I blogged yesterday morning about how many Clintonistas think her shit (and apparently theirs) don't stink.

Let's get back to the bigger picture of the slog Sanders faced, compared to 2008.

Bernie Sanders does not come from a state neighboring Iowa, unlike Barack Obama.

Bernie Sanders was not "anointed" and given a prime speaking spot at the 2012 Democratic National Convention, unlike Barack Obama in 2004.

Bernie Sanders was not a presumed presidential candidate at the start of 2015, unlike Barack Obama at the start of 2007.

And yes, Sanders did what he did in Iowa last night.

Don't let the Silvers and Wangs of the world try to spin this.

Remember that Nate Silver is very much MSM. Worked at the New York Times for years, then went to ESPN, which is part of the Disney/ABC empire. Not much more mainstream media than that, is there. Wang works at an Ivy League university, the academic equivalent of MSM-dom.

I've called Silver out in the past for other things, too. That started shortly after he opened his 538 luggage at ESPN, when he hired Roger Pielke Jr., a known climate change skeptic, as a contributing writer, and Pielke did just what you thought in such a position, as I detail here. Silver then claimed to be listening to his critics, which I took with several skeptical grains of salt, and do so even more, now. He's never really apologized for that piece, and never really turned his data crunching to the seriousness of climate change. I then slapped him over a writer's inflation piece that sounded very Clintonista.

In that blog post that he hauled down, before he hauled it down, Wang responded to me, and said that "win big" was by 10 percentage points. It's clear that he's spinning even bigger than Silver, if that's possible.

So, yes, remember that, as we move ahead, that the data crunchers are data spinners.

Speaking of, that might be why Millennials (which make up a large chunk of Sanders support) are growing more distrustful of news media. (That said, from what I've seen, many can still be suckers for corporate branding on social media.)

Now, back to feeling the Bern, or feeling the scorched earth.

We've got a town hall on Wednesday, then a debate on Thursday. Especially with Martin O'Malley dropping out of the race, and this, like 2008, a two-person contest from here on out, Clinton's going to go scorched earth in some way, shape or form. It will be through surrogates as much as possible, but she'll do some of it at the debate. Bernie, whether it's getting blunter about issues with her private email, or whatever, needs to be ready to fire back, and to do so beyond his 1-note trumpet, IMO.

Meanwhile, one scene from Clinton 2008 may already be surfacing again: sniping within the campaign. Shades of 2008 again, the sniping also includes Bill.

And, in non-partisan news within the Democrats, the Iowa Democratic Party looks like kind of a clusterfuck right now. Temporary precinct chairs? Precincts still not called?

Update: One caveat, beyond minority polling. Ronald Brownstein, usually a pretty insightful guy, and I'm not seeing him spinning in this, notes that Sanders pulled a lot of his votes from independents. Both the Iowa caucus and the New Hampshire primary allow crossovers. How Bernie does in straight-up Democratic primaries, so-called closed primaries?

TX Progressives offer #IowaCaucus political thoughts, state overviews, more

The Texas Progressive Alliance is ready to be able to ignore Iowa again as it brings you this week's roundup.

Off the Kuff highlighted how the tables got turned on the video fraudsters who tried to sting Planned Parenthood.

Libby Shaw is quite pleased to learn that in Texas justice can trump politics, in the most ironic way. South Texas Chisme knows Texas Republicans love business owners way more than citizens.  Why else do they allow dangerous companies operate next to schools?

With the Iowa caucuses looming, a pair of Clinton-supporting bloggers played the "soshulist" card.  PDiddie at Brains and Eggs is at least glad to see that some Democrats know how to find -- and push -- the panic button.

From Bay Area Houston Can the Party carry Sanders' socialist message? And win?

With words like "pragmatism" now on the table, SocraticGadfly looks at who the more "can-do" Democratic presidential candidate is, and shows that it's Bernie Sanders.

Neil at All People Have Value considered both everyday life and the full picture at the intersection of Main & Cosmos in Houston. APHV is part of NeilAquino.com.

Texas Sharon talks about how Denton needs to learn new paradigms on natural gas.

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And here are some posts of interest from other Texas blogs.

Harold Cook reviews Jay Newton-Small's book Broad influence; How Women Are Changing the Way America Works.

Keep Austin Wonky interviews Travis County Commissioner candidate James Nortey.

Raise Your Hand Texas quantifies Texas school enrollment.

Raj Mankad rides along on a driverless car test drive.

Rainey Knudsen pens an open letter to the other 49 states.

Grits for Breakfast wishes he had been wrong about the effect of a new law allowing police to use license plate readers. He also assesses use of force by major Texas police departments.

Francisca Ortega reports that many child brides are still being forced to marry in the United States.

Rick Campbell tells of a quest to help Houston preserve its music history.

Katharine Shilcutt sets the record straight on Texas food.

The Makeshift Academic explores ways to limit the potential damage of the Friedrichs decision.

Millard Fillmore's Bathtub notes democratic socialism is always about democracy first.

Off Cite test "drives" a driverless car.

Quick thoughts on #IowaCaucus as we hit #IAToday

First, the Democrats. My prediction is Sanders 50, Clinton, 46, MOM 4.

A Quinnipiac poll shows Sanders has moved in front. (I know Bernie's not a classic retail politician in some ways, but even if he's not a great schmoozer, his staff could learn to play the "manage expectations" game better.) Surges are often good. Signs of momentum. (More on that later.) And, per the poll, more Sanders backers than Clinton backers are "locked in."

Can it actually happen?

Per the Economist, Iowa favors Sanders in another way, namely in that the harder-liberal Dems (and harder-conservative GOPers) turn out more strongly for the caucuses than the general election.

Speaking of momentum, a Sanders win refudiates both Nate Silver (a refudiation of him is almost always good, in my book) and Sam Wang as well.

And, the momentum issue could raise his win in New Hampshire — which then addresses the "superdelegates are all for Clinton" problem.

More good news elsewhere in polling, too. Sanders is above 25 percent now, nationally, with African-American voters. Still plenty of room for growth, but that figure, and the fact that it has a "surge" as well, may at least ease the "connecting with blacks" concern. (It would be nice to see something similar on Hispanic polling numbers pre-Nevada.) Dick Morris says the surge in Sanders' black numbers may be part of why Clinton is tying herself more closely to Obama.

Looking ahead in other ways? Just to New Hampshire and not Nevada or South Carolina, the DNC and Dancing With the Schultz have agreed, as the three candidates have already done, to both a town hall (Wednesday, 7 p.m. Central) and a debate (Thursday, 8 Central). Maddow (or a nickname I won't yet put here) could add a bit of spice to the debate, but only if — without any public endorsing by her, of course — if she's one of the feminists who in no way would vote for Clinton.

No matter, in general, though. Maddow was instrumental in getting more debates, not just now, but further out. And, that's what Democrats need. It also surely is what Sanders needs. But, that name recognition is already starting to boost; the momentum could boost more tonight.

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GOP side? Let's call it a semi-draw.

Trump 29, Cruz 27, Rubio 16, Carson 8, Bush 4, Paul 4, Kasich 3, pocket lint after that. I don't think Trump will do better until I see that he's mastered the Iowa caucuses turnout.

Morris offers other insight, per my blogging that this isn't (yet) a two-person race. He notes that it starts becoming that on Super Tuesday, where half the available delegates come from states with 15 percent or 20 percent vote thresholds to get any delegates at all. (This winnowing is only on the GOP side, and is kind of like the superdelegate tool on the Dem side.) It rises to 60 percent of available delegates for the rest of March, after Super Tuesday.

Flip side is that the anti-Trump hatred is so high among so many that his bubble could still easily burst, and fringe-pollers have motivation to stay in if Trump shows any signs of trouble.

Many #Clintonistas seemingly think Hillary's shit doesn't stink

Riffing on Doug Henwood's book cover,
no, Hillary, it's not your turn, and also no,
neoliberal gender feminism Clintonistas,
it's not your token's turn, either.
Book for sale here, with other swag.

After yet another few days of "fun" on Facebook, which have me close to using FB Purity filer setting, that's my conclusion.

(Update: Per lies being spread around, mainly by the various kitchen sinks being thrown at Bernie Sanders, plus commenters on websites lying, claiming not to recognize the term Clintonista and more, many Clintonistas think their own shit doesn't stink either. The latest evidence is a screed from a long-time Harris County, Texas Democratic volunteer activist, whom I have blasted out of the water, along with Phil Bump of The Fix. More below.)

Per a Facebook status update of mine late in January:

I loooovvveee (the subset of) Clintonistas who appear to:

1. Assume that I think Sanders is perfect, which as all the blog post below, or this one about his big Georgetown speech, will show is untrue;

2. Think I'm unaware of some parts of Sanders' voting records, like the gun lawsuit immunity. Since I've blogged about this, even calling him a gun nut (later nuanced to being a gun nut on the left side of the aisle), then called him Just.Another.Politician.™ for how he said he'd support revising that bill, but only with amendments, that's obviously not the case.

2A. Don't know that I'm aware of ALL his history, going back to when he was a real socialist and how he's not so much today, that he's really no more than a left-side Democrat, and how I'm more socialist than he is on health care issues;

2B. Don't know that I know he's a semi-warhawk, just less of one than Clinton, when I've blogged about his sucking on the military teat, or how I've detailed how he's a semi-warhawk;

3. Come off as patronizing, even if they don't mean to, and never accept that they might appear to be patronizing, even if they aren't actually;

4. The usual, who don't know that my support for Sanders, at least as of now, is limited to the Democratic primary season only, and then, IF they realize what that actually means, raise the usual scare tactics about third-party voting.

Two other notes.

A. I'm not calling all Clinton backers "Clintonistas." For some, it's shallow support based on name recognition of her among Democratic candidates. For other backers, it may be more serious, but without the invective against Sanders backers, nor the near-total unwillingness to dialogue about anything negative, from negative polling numbers to negative email server news, and in between.

B. I'm not denying that "Berniebros" exist. However, I think they're a smaller set of Sanders' backers than Clintonistas are of hers. Also, if "vocal" or even "voluble" includes Inside the Beltway pundits and their "framing," and not just a Sanders site on Reddit, then Clintonistas are certainly more voluble. Besides, some alleged Berniebros either don't exist or are actually women.

I've already moved one in-the-tank Clintonista who will deny it, but is a diehard Hillaryite because of the "it's her turn" argument, from "friend" to "acquaintance." That is a minimum step with others, including secularists like the person above and a scientist who says, when presented with data contrary to his Clinton claims, that he doesn't know why people need to put Clinton down. 

All of this leads me to believe that a certain, and fairly large, subset of Clintonistas think her shit doesn't stink, that their arguments for her shit not stinking also don't stink, and that they assume every single Sanders supporter is a 19-year-old Berniebro living in his parents' basement while going to community college, and whose level of political information comes from little other than Sanders press releases.

And, Clintonistas who cite "Mr. X says this" or "Ms. Y who says that" then don't like to dialogue when their statements are put into context, including me pointing out how many of the Inside the Beltway crowd are wrong, often with clear neoliberal leanings, who pretend that the DNC isn't trying to stack the deck against Sanders.

Per these later paragraphs and bullet point No. 3, I think many Clintonistas don't care that they are patronizing, or when they're not actually patronizing, that they look that way.

And, especially for the "it's her turn" subset of Clintonistas, I do think there's a mix of desperation and anger in the air, anger such that, beyond a certain point, arguments against, or jokes about, Clinton, are inevitably going to be called sexist. I've already been on the receiving end of that.

There's certainly desperation behind the "he's better qualified" claim. First, it's just not provable. Second, if we go by years of service, Sanders has more years of service, in more different offices (mayor, Representative, Senator vs. Senator and Secretary of State). Plus, Sanders as a mayor has held elective executive office.

It's also intellectually dishonest to claim that, just because she hasn't been indicted, that Hillary Clinton doesn't have ethics issues. It could simply that both Hillary and Bill are "too big to indict." Ken Silverstein recently examined just how skeezy the Clinton Foundation is, for example. Of course Obama's DOJ wouldn't touch it, if it had done anything rising to the level of financial criminality. Indeed, Silverstein notes that Dear Leader gave part of his Nobel money to the foundation for Haiti relief. And a GOP prez likely wouldn't, either. That said, the foundation DID refile wrong tax forms. And, yes, Clintonistas, they were wrong. And, no, that didn't happen by accident.

Beond that, on the "no indictment" claim? Per a Tweet of mine, if that's the case, then one Richard Milhous Nixon was an ethical politician.

But, criminality isn't the only case in which a politician can be unethical.

Along this line, per Doug Henwood, it IS fair to blame Hillary for Bill's unethical politics. And, per an old cliche, which I've used before, Dick Morris noting she became "the manager of their joint political career" part illustrates well that Hillary Clinton wore the pants in that family.

When I first started this blog post, I said I wasn't at the point of unfollowing on Facebook those who are otherwise at least vaguely liberal, and/or secularists or alleged skeptics, but I'm getting closer to moving more and more of you to "acquaintance" level on Facebook, at a minimum.

I now change that, as I just did that. I've now blocked a friend of a friend, for either being an online troll in general, or else a Clintonista troll in general, and telling blatant lies even after being called out on them. Per this blog post, I've called out others on the latest lie, that Sanders took in more and/or spent more in Iowa.

Per a new, Feb. 10 discussion on Facebook, another Clintonista is now claiming equivalence between Iraq and Afghanistan, followed by the claim that Iraq was justified at the time. Well, in reality, 21 Democratic senators not named Clinton, along with Independent Jeffords and even GOPer Chafee, weren't hypnotized by Shrub, unlike Hillary, who is now claiming that. I expect to be blocking another Clintonista soon.

I think beyond the "it's her turn" take of some subset of feminists, that there's tribalism galore here. Is there tribalism among Sanders supporters? To a fair degree, yes. However, there's no 'it's her turn" subcurrent.

Next, of course, is the claim that Clinton is the most likely to win the general election. This is wrong, at least of this moment. Sanders outpolls her, in an average of polls, in competitions against, Trump, Cruz or Rubio. Yet, even a physicist at Sandia claims Hillary's the best candidate to defeat the GOP. That just shows that even scientists and "scientific skeptics" can be just as tribalist as anybody else, something I've said more than once before here.

Not every Clintonista is of this nature, though. Other Clinton backers, with or without that handle, have made "pragmatism" into a shibboleth, in place of substantive, consistent campaign positions. 

This even extends to Krugman, as even he is talking of the stereotypical "Berniebro" while becoming ever more an Inside the Beltway tool of Team Clinton. Thank doorknob I stopped regularly reading ANY of the NYT columnists, even him, on anything near a regular basis, though.

And, as far as their claims to pragmatism, they ignore that Sanders as mayor, AND also as Representative/Senator, whether pragmatic or whatever, has gotten a lot accomplished.

In contrast, Hillary Clinton as senator has a relatively thin track record. (Not as thin as Barack Obama, but, Clinton wasn't making the "pragmatism" or "get things done" in 2008.) Twenty Dems responded to a "takedown" rhetorical question from Carly Fiorina about what Clinton had done in general. Almost all talked about her time as either Secretary of State or as First Lady. Few talked about her time as Senator, and even when they did, it was more in terms of platitudes than actual legislation.

This all extends to Clintonista, or establishmentarian, media coverage, too.

First, it's arguable, per a bar graph about halfway down this piece, that there's been big media coverage bias against Sanders in some ways.

Some specific examples come not just from the establishmentarian punditry, but the neo-establishmentarian data crunchers.

Nate Silver tries to throw cold water on Sanders' chances, but take note that with all of his accuracy, Nate also has a whiff of Inside the Beltway cologne about him at times.

Throwing shade back at Nate, per NPR, Clinton had a 100-plus superdelegate lead on Obama early in the 2008 cycle. Yet more on that, with specific numbers, here. We know how that ended. Clinton's lead is bigger now because she announced earlier to what seemed less formidable opposition. (Remember how 2004 VP nominee John Edwards was the big tout before Babygate hit.)

Meanwhile, Silver's main polling analysis rival, Sam Wang, is claiming Iowa is must-win for Sanders. (Silver does, elsewhere, too.) He not only doesn't make that claim for Clinton, he makes it for no GOP candidate, either.

And, he goes beyond that to claim that Sanders must win by "a fairly large margin," essentially rejecting everything that Goodman and Jacobin state will happen, especially with good performances in both states. This simply isn't true, I don't think.

Sanders, per a post of mine yesterday about superdelegates, momentum and exposure, does need to win one of the two. (If he lost New Hampshire, it would be bad anyway.) But, no, he doesn't have to win Iowa, IMO. He does have to finish respectably second if he doesn't win, though.

But, let's say Sanders wins Iowa. Just wins it, but not by a huge margin. And then strongly wins New Hampshire.

Suddenly, in such a scenario, South Carolina is must-win territory for Clinton. I expect her to win it anyway, but ... it becomes a must-win state for her.

So, even the data crunchers will engage in "framing," folks, and don't forget it for a second.

For more on this issue, see what I eventually broke out into a separate piece, that Sanders, not Clinton, is the "can-do" candidate.  

In any case, remember that I'm only a Sanders supporter right now for the Democratic primaries.

And, for people on this blog, Facebook, or whatever, individually, I'm pretty anti-tribalist, unless there's a tribe of anti-tribalists.

But, I am a deliberate contrarian who likes giving you Clintonistas more and more of a smackdown the more and more you yawp (directly or indirectly, consciously or subconsciously) about it being "her turn."

And, thanks to Blogger's "featured post" option, I think this baby is going to stay featured for a while, just to piss off the Clintonistas even more.

And, given that active or inactive members of a current group of "progressive" Texas bloggers include a bankster in love with Clinton, and an old-hippie atheist who was OK with Kinky Friedman supporting school prayer, this is why I"m not only a Democrat, I'm also not a "liberal" or a "progressive." Look to the top to see how I self-identify, if I need a label.

Three dumb Republicans for the #IowaCaucus

Well, actually, there are many more than three, but there are three particular ones that I have in mind.

Per a poll at top left of this blog, and the screen shot embedded here after it comes down, those three are Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum and Carly Fiorina.

The two men are especially shameless, joining Trump last week when he was too chickenshit to show up at the final pre-Iowa GOP debate. As one commentator put it, it looked like an ancient Roman triumph, with both of them being vanquished foreign generals being paraded around by Trump. Sounds about right.

But, it was more than just shameless on their parts. There was a clear whiff of cowardice, too.

The press has been pushing Trump more and more on his sometime ardent pro-choice background, and he's been more and more bluntly dodging and non-answering. Given that, outside of Ted Cruz, the Huckster and the sound of Santorum have been the two GOPsters most explicitly focused on religious right voters, they demonstrated their cravenness in spades when they not only showed up at Trump's event, but refused to push him on the issue.

Fiorina? Maybe she's smoking Hillary Clinton's "It's her turn" crack or something. That's the only reason I can figure she's still around.

A word or two with you about Democratic superdelegates

Friend Brains thinks that Hillary Clinton is a sure winner of the Democratic nomination, and that Bernie Sanders may not have serious hope much beyond Super Tuesday, in part because of the superdelegate math.

But, is that really true?

First, the basic math of the Democratic nomination process. The party has 4,764 delegates, requiring 2,383 for nomination. Of these, an estimated 713 are superdelegates, or 15 percent of the total.

And, so far, many of them have already committed to Clinton. NPR, two months ago, said she already had 359. But, does she?

Well, for now.

But, is this guaranteed?

No.

H.A. Goodman addressed a number of questions about superdelegates already last October.

The biggies are that superdelegate endorsements are  not "locked in," and that superdelegates, as head honcho types, like a winner.

In relation to Iowa, yes, Sanders winning the caucus delegates is the bottom line, per NBC. But, winning the popular vote over Clinton, even without that, is big enough. That's doubly true if he can get Republican and independent cross-overs in New Hampshire.

South Carolina, two weeks later, will be his first real test with black voters. But, even with Clintonista black surrogates like Ta-Nehisi Coates already focusing heavy fire on him, if he wins the popular vote in one or the other of the first two states, let alone both, he'll be getting better known by South Carolinians. And, in Nevada, the Democratic side skews younger, which will help.

That leads to "Super Tuesday," the single biggest day of the primary calendar.

Clinton is already on record as having little ground operation in most these states, even to the point of saying she'll be depending on the likes of union officials. Given that several unions have endorsed Sanders, and that some that have endorsed Clinton seem to have gone against their rank and file's wishes, this is kind of dicey.

Colorado, Minnesota, and Massachusetts, let alone Vermont, all look favorable to Sanders. Virginia might be, if party regulars in the Beltway are unenthusiastic. Georgia might be.

Two weeks later comes a semi-Super Tuesday. Five states here put the Dems at the halfway mark on non-superdelegates. Sanders' goal, at a minimum, is to win enough on both these dates to at least keep any more superdelegates from going Clinton. If he can get some of them to actually endorse him, all the better, in addition to actual delegate wins.

Beyond the momentum of some wins, the increased visibility of some wins can't hurt. Nor can it hurt when more and more people recognize that Sanders, not Clinton, is the "can-do" candidate. (Eventually, even a few superdelegates may admit that.)

Brains may still be right. But if Super Tuesday plays out as I note, especially if Sanders gets, say 30-35 percent of South Carolina's black vote (still a high "get" at this point, I'll admit), this race is going to be a definite contest through semi-Super Tuesday at least.

Jacobin tackles the minority support, or relative lack of to this date, for Sanders, in a definite read. It's basically saying in terms of minority voters what I say, and what Goodman has said about superdelegates. Sanders wins, he'll get more attention. Plus, Jacobin adds that Sanders has had to focus on the leading two states so that he can get those wins, and that bounce. Related? Though he's not yet caught her nationally, nationwide, Sanders has steadily been closing the polling gap.

Nate Silver tries to throw cold water on this, but take note that with all of his accuracy, Nate also has a whiff of Inside the Beltway cologne about him at times.

Throwing shade back at Nate, per NPR, Clinton had a 100-plus superdelegate lead on Obama early in the 2008 cycle. Yet more on that, with specific numbers, here. We know how that ended. Clinton's lead is bigger now because she announced earlier to what seemed less formidable opposition. (Remember how 2004 VP nominee John Edwards was the big tout before Babygate hit.)

Meanwhile, Silver's main polling analysis rival, Sam Wang, is claiming Iowa is must-win for Sanders. He not only doesn't make that claim for Clinton, he makes it for no GOP candidate, either.

And, he goes beyond that to claim that Sanders must win by "a fairly large margin," essentially rejecting everything that Goodman and Jacobin state will happen, especially with good performances in both states.

Rather, let's say Sanders wins Iowa. Just wins it, but not by a huge margin. And then strongly wins New Hampshire.

Suddenly, South Carolina is must-win territory for Clinton.

Finally, throwing further shade at both Silver and Wang, it's arguable, per a bar graph about halfway down this piece, that there's been big media coverage bias against Sanders in some ways.

(Brains believes I'm too optimistic on Democratic superdelegates. I noted back to him that my angle is they "may" shift somewhat to Sanders. It's not a "will." No, I'm not that naive. I added that this is just part of another medium-small blogger's efforts at, to use a hoops analogy, working the refs. And there's two sets of refs here — the Democratic establishment where the supers are, and the MSM.)