Ralston Reports: 'Reid-Culinary bond' won Nevada for Clinton

[noretreatnosurrender]

I’d like to congratulate the winner of the Nevada Democratic caucus: Harry Reid.

What’s that, you say? Reid wasn’t running? What am I talking about?

Saturday may well be the day that altered the course of the Democratic presidential race, when Hillary Clinton blunted Bernie Sanders’ campaign, when she was forced to work as hard as she ever has for a week (with a little help from a lot of friends) and slingshotted her with new momentum into South Carolina and then Super Tuesday. Nevada may indeed prove to be the day that saved Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

But the caucus, which Clinton won by about 5 percentage points, also cemented Prince Harry as a man Machiavelli would have bowed to, a man who with one eye who still sees the field better and is still more dangerous, effective and cunning as any pol the state (the country?) has ever seen. Clinton may 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.

http://www.rgj.com/story/news/politics/2016/02/20/ralston-reports-harry-reid-culinary-union-bond-won-nevada-caucus-hillary-clinton/80685878/

The Machine Won This Round

[link:https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=7&v=C9voK2NSHnE|

[noretreatnosurrender]

1. They Want to See Dirty?

But the story here is about the Culinary and especially Harry Reid, who helped steer the state to Clinton. They gave a whole new definition to neutrality (they will both endorse soon, I’d guess) and may have changed the course of history.

I wasn't going to work this election (I'm old) but I am now. Rat Bastards

I worked on the Clinton campaign in '92. Worked on Kerry Edwards campaign as a moderator on their website. I traveled to Ohio to help them because it was a swing state. I've worked on other Democratic campaigns, as well (Obama was the last). I've voted for a Democrat in EVERY presidential election. I've been a registered Democrat my entire life. I will be organizing in my state and any close by state I can travel to. I'm sick of this.

[MohRokTah]

2. This is what 40 years of networking inside the party gets you.

The Clintons helped out Harry Reid BIG TIME in 2010.

[noretreatnosurrender]

4. Lying and Double Dealing

This represents everything I'm against.

[MohRokTah]

7. No lying. No double dealing.

There is a reason they are called political PARTIES.

Membership, loyalty and networking are highly valued.

[noretreatnosurrender]

8. Oh yes - LYING

Lying about being neutral?

[MohRokTah]

10. No lying

Simply no endorsement.

Those Nevada grapes would have been sour any way.

[frylock]

3. The Machine BARELY Won This Round

They have to be shitting themselves.

[noretreatnosurrender]

6. They should

They are rolling around in it enough.

[SoLeftIAmRight]

11. We need to be kind to them and sending laxatives

they are shitting bricks

[madfloridian]

5. Wow, first I'd heard that.

That's really true insider stuff.

[askew]

9. I like Ralston on a lot of stuff but he has an insane grudge against Reid and has for years.

He's full of shit on this story IMO.

Reid held an event after the caucuses and everyone thought he was going to endorse Hillary and he declined to do so. He easily could have. There are even reports that he pushed a Bernie supporter to not waiver and stay committed to Bernie during the realignment. Reid cacucused uncommitted.

He is no big Clinton fan. He pushed Obama to run against Hillary in 2008 and he said in 2015 that he wasn't going to even think about an endorsement until he found out what Biden was doing.

Reid is doing this right and it would be a mistake for Bernie supporters to take this story as an excuse to attack him.

Sanders got beat on the strip because the Clintons out worked him. Hillary was down there talking to employees at the hotels multiple times a day. Bill did the circuit too. Bernie showed up briefly a couple of times. The strip is about retail politics and Bernie didn't get it done this time.

I wish Jane was more comfortable doing events on her own. Hillary has the benefit of using Bill and Chelsea to do these retail events. Bernie doesn't have anyone else to do this for him and it is hurting him.

[AZ Progressive]

12. Reid is very powerful in Nevada

Don't act like party members aren't corrupt.

“You don’t go far in Nevada before you run into Harry Reid, or one of his people, or somebody who he’s helped come along, or someone he’s helping come along,” explained Steve Sebelius, a Nevada political journalist and longtime Reid-watcher. “His reach is pretty far. … He’s at the top of the heap.”

“It’s like an iron fist inside a titanium glove,” said Sebelius of Reid’s control over the state’s Democratic Party. “His people are firmly in control. Who runs is who he wants to run, and who doesn’t run is who he doesn’t want to run. There’s no one on the Republican side with that kind of influence and control.”

Damore suggested that Reid -- because of his extensive in-state political network and status as Senate majority leader -- may be “the most powerful politician in Nevada state history,” an assertion that several other state political experts agreed with (or at least saw some merit in). But Nevada politicos don’t really debate about the degree of Reid’s power. Rather, the question is whether he has always used it appropriately.

-http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2014/04/24/harry_reids_long_steady_accretion_of_power__wealth.html#ixzz40l9KzDWd

[w4rma]

14. Reid is a lame duck. He won't be on the Nevada ballot to help anyone in the general election. (nt)

[Punkingal]

18. Ralston is not wrong on this.

I lived in Las Vegas for 9 years and was involved in politics. Reid did just what he always does...controlled everything, snapped his fingers and they fell in line. He got the win for Hillary.

[Ken Burch]

13. "a self-neutered union"

Most Painful Metaphor of the Year award!

[giftedgirl77]

15. So Harry Reid calling up the headshed's & getting them to let

their employees off to caucus is a bad thing? You know they can't tell ppl who they have to vote for, right?

Hell there's another OP on DU complaining bc the primaries interfered with Sabbath & that somehow it discriminated against Sanders bc he's a Jew.

Please get together & figure out which lane to take.

[UglyGreed]

16. So much support

for a person that claims not to be a part of the establishment.........

[itsrobert]

17. Oh no,union members took part in Democracy

We can't have that.

[noretreatnosurrender]

19. Pretend all you want

That's not the problem and you know it and so do we.

[azmom]

20. Don't forget these are caucuses; where

Union worker's votes are out in the open for all to see. There is no privacy.

[azmom]

21. Check this out from 2008

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/jan/18/barackobama.uselections20082

The allegations of dirty tricks came only hours after a judge threw out an attempt to block the Nevada Democratic Party from convening caucuses at nine casinos on Las Vegas's famous gambling strip.

The suit, brought by a teachers union allied with the Clinton campaign, argued that it would constitute an unfair advantage to Obama by making it easier for hotel workers to take time off from work to attend the caucus.

[Paka]

22. Zing! Good point.