Hillary barely holds off Bernie, 52.2-47.8, in her 'firewall' state of Nevada

Inevitable

, --February 21, 2016

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Publicly the Hillary campaign is going to try its hardest to treat this like a big victory. The truth is that they had invested a lot of time and money trying to make sure Nevada was Hillary's "firewall," which means in politicoese that no matter how many problems she may have had with Bernie Sanders prior to Nevada, those problems crash and burn when Hillary takes Nevada and takes it big. So, yeah, about that:
With 72 percent of the precincts reporting, Clinton was leading with 52.3 percent of the vote to Sanders' 47.6 percent. Television networks Fox News and MSNBC projected Clinton would win. Vote counting was delayed in Nevada by heavy turnout. "This is your win," Clinton said in a tweet, thanking supporters for her victory. Sanders' strong performance in a state with a heavy minority population, where Clinton was once expected to win by double digits, suggested the Democratic nominating race could be long and hard-fought. But Clinton's victory buoyed worried supporters and gave her fresh momentum as she heads into the next contest in South Carolina on Feb. 27, where polls show her with a double-digit lead largely as a result of heavy support from black voters.
The Reuters story offers the usual nonsense about how the win gives Hillary "momentum." There's no such thing as momentum in a political race - only fawning media coverage that you can enjoy as long as you win. But let's not forget the fundamental fact here: Hillary is supposedly the inevitable, most qualified nominee ever with the world most famous political name (or one of the two anyway), and she's barely scraping by against a wild-eyed, septugenarian socalist in a state where she was supposed to win big. Now as Rob pointed out on Friday, none of this may end up mattering, as they DNC has largely rigged the nomination battle by empowering so many "superdelegates" who are not bound by primary or caucus results. (Actually I do not think that is such a bad way to pick a nominee, but I don't like it being rigged in favor of this particular candidate for obvious reasons.) But so far Hillary has just barely won two caucuses (and Iowa can't even clearly be called a win) and got completely bazooked in the New Hampshire primary. Against a socialist. Even if it doesn't cost her the nomination, it certainly demonstrates how little enthusiasm there is for her candidacy - and if Republicans can't come up with a winning strategy against a Democrat opponent this unappealing, I'm having a hard time seeing how they ever win the presidency again.

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Dan Calabrese——

Dan Calabrese’s column is distributed by HermanCain.com, which can be found at HermanCain

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