“Pondering the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.
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Katrina vanden Heuvel: Before ‘unity,’ Sanders must stay in the fight
A year ago this week, when Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) announced that he was running for president, his campaign was widely dismissed as nothing more than a protest candidacy.
Over the past 12 months, Sanders has defied the expectations of many in the political and media establishment. He has proven that there is a vast constituency of voters who are hungry for the progressive ideas at the heart of his campaign. And he has pushed Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton to take bolder positions. But now, as the delegate math for Sanders grows more daunting, some Clinton supporters and pundits are calling on him to drop out of the race. Sanders should ignore them.
Clinton is almost certain to be the Democratic nominee, but those demanding that Sanders drop out are once again underestimating what he can accomplish by staying in the race. By continuing through the final primaries in June, and entering the July convention with more delegates and primary victories than any true dark-horse candidate in modern history, Sanders still has an opportunity to both influence the direction of the party and increase its chances of victory in the general election.
Eugene Robinson: The Cruz-Kasich Tag Team Is No Match for Donald Trump
Don’t call it strategy, call it strategery: Ted Cruz and John Kasich are going to cooperate to deny Donald Trump the Republican nomination. Also, I don’t know, maybe a hurricane will dishevel Trump’s comb-over and reveal his bald pate, causing such mortification that he quits the race. Or maybe there will be an earthquake next week in Indiana, affecting only precincts where Trump has a lead.
The Cruz-Kasich pact comes at the 13th hour. Its announcement Sunday seemed orchestrated to distract attention from the fact that Trump is expected to sweep five more primaries Tuesday—in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, Connecticut and Rhode Island—making a contested GOP convention even less likely.
That Cruz and Kasich have joined forces merely illustrates what a paper tiger the “Never Trump” movement has been. Trump is right—I hate when I have to write those words—to call the arrangement an “act of desperation” by two candidates who are “mathematically dead” in the quest for a majority of delegates.
Richard Wolffe: Donald Trump is back to bullying. What if that’s how he acts presidential?
Presidential campaigns are like fish: they rot from the head down.
At least that’s the view of the hired guns and political hacks who have toiled inside them and lost. So what happens when the rotten, stinking fish ends up winning?
Donald Trump’s clean sweep of the primaries on Tuesday night flies in the face of political fisheries. It also destroys his newfound political guru, Paul Manafort, who made the rookie mistake of trying to advise the candidate on, um, politics.
Manafort had the temerity to suggest that maybe now was the time to act presidential as the candidate was, you know, on the verge of seizing the presidential nomination. A political hack-turned-lobbyist for dubious countries, Manafort was promptly pushed overboard.
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