For the Record: Friday, Friday, talking debate on Friday
It's Friday, Friday, talking debate on Friday. Everybody's looking forward to next Tuesday. Primaries, primaries, yeah. Primaries, primaries, yeah. Fun, fun, fun, fun, looking forward to next Tuesday.
When last night's Democratic debate and this Tuesday's New York primaries prompt us to make an extended Rebecca Black reference, you know that we, we, we, we so excited.
(Which seat can you take? I don't know. This isn't a car. It's the politics newsletter from Paste BN.)
Live from New York, it was a Democratic debate!
Last night's showdown in Brooklyn saw Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders take the stage for the ninth time, where they put their latest attacks under the spotlight. Sanders was asked about his line last week that Clinton wasn't qualified to be president. "I do question her judgment," Sanders said, pointing to her vote for the war in Iraq. Clinton questioned Sanders, too, citing his botched New York Daily News interview in which he struggled to explain how he'd break up big banks—a central theme to his campaign. "Talk about judgment," Clinton said.
It wasn't all fresh lines, though. Clinton was asked, yet again, whether she would release those transcripts from all the paid speeches she gave on Wall Street. Yet again, Clinton said she'd release her transcripts when everybody else did. Yet again, Sanders said he'd happily do so, since he'd never given speeches to Wall Street. So that went nowhere.
Catch up on all the highlights here.
Meanwhile, Michigan's most codgery former congressman, John Dingell, zinged himself and Sanders during the debate. "Old Guy Who Yells A Lot Sick Of Listening To Old Guy Who Yells A Lot," he tweeted.
New York, state of primaries
New York native Donald Trump looks set to wallop his GOP rivals in Tuesday's New York Republican primary. Polls show Clinton, an adopted New Yorker, edging out Sanders, a Brooklyn native, in the Democrats' contest there.
But for future winners and losers, the Empire State has proven a tough place to campaign. Sanders got grief for thinking the subways take tokens. Clinton caught flack for joining a joke referencing "colored people." John Kasich ate pizza with a fork and got jeered accordingly, then had to eat more Italian food to make up for it. Ted Cruz's Spanish came off rusty there, and Donald Trump found his fellow New Yorkers protesting him.
This ain't Iowa anymore, people (although Kasich ate a lot in that state, too).
Ted Cruz and delegates: Gotta catch ‘em all!
Sure, Trump's won (way) more primaries than Ted Cruz, but Cruz knows what matters more is delegates—sweet, sweet delegates. And so for the past year, Cruz has been plotting. He placed people in far-flung U.S. territories and had them learn weird, obscure delegate rules. He put his people at the right meetings in places like Guam and Puerto Rico and has stirred up controversy in the Virgin Islands. It was a long con with one goal: sweet, sweet delegates that could let Cruz cut into Trump's once-solid lead.
And as our own David Jackson explains, everything's coming up Cruz. Cruz aims to snag more delegates than Trump in Louisiana, even though he lost to Trump there. He swiped 34 delegates from under Trump's nose in Colorado last weekend, which left the Donald fuming. Sure, Trump's good at winning primaries, but that's not how all delegates are won. Many places assign their delegates at conventions as well. Cruz knows this, and he thinks he knows this far better than Trump. “Donald’s ground game is nonexistent,” Cruz said this week.
More from the campaign trail
- George Pataki endorses John Kasich ahead of N.Y. primary (The Cincinnati Enquirer)
- Prosecutor drops simple battery case against Trump aide Lewandowski (Paste BN OnPolitics)
- Sanders, Verizon CEO spar over striking workers (Paste BN)
- Clinton, Sanders join Democratic Party to sue Arizona over voter access (Paste BN)
- John Kasich orders ice cream and eats it ... with a spoon (The Cincinnati Enquirer)
Please help us find this video of Cruz in a pink boa and goofy underwear
Dear reader: We learned this week via Ted Cruz's own daughter that video allegedly exists of Cruz wearing a pink boa and "big goofy-looking underwear." For the sake of journalism, if you or someone you know knows the whereabouts of said video, please get in touch. All sources can be kept anonymous. Thank you, and enjoy getting down on Friday.