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Good News for Dems

After a few days that gave Dems plenty of heartburn, there's more positive news from the Republican side of the aisle. The appointment of Charles Manafort to run the delegate operation for the Trump campaign strikes me as an unqualified plus for the Democrats. Manafort is a storied, decades-long player in high level GOP politics. He's close to Trump advisor/gadfly/eminence semi-grise Roger Stone and actually Stone's former business partner. The idea is that Corey Lewandowski is still Trump's campaign manager and still running strategy. But that seems like a stretch given how central the delegate wrangling process has now become and how total Manafort's hold on that process appears to be. In any case, it's not clear to me that Lewandowski has ever been 'campaign manager' in any real sense. To the extent anyone is really calling the shots in Trump's campaign it seems to be Trump. I am not familiar with any major national campaign where the campaign manager traveled with the candidate and acts like a body man. In any case, Manafort is now a big player in the operation and here's why that's good news for the Dems.

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How Can Mr Trump Allows This?

New Jersey patriot may be fined $2k for flying Trump flag on his lawn.

Lewandowski in for Promotion like Tommy DeVito

Trump's new delegate capo Paul Manafort says he reports directly to Trump, not nominal wartime campaign manager Corey Lewandowski.

Not Good, Not Good At All

As you no doubt saw, last night Bernie Sanders launched a pretty blistering attack on Hillary Clinton, calling her unqualified to be president because of various past positions, relationships and votes. The attack was premised on Sanders' claim that Clinton had said that he was unqualified to serve as president. Only she didn't say that. The sorry tale tracks back to what was simply a false story in The Washington Post. The Post published a story that put together various Clinton interviews and recent statements and summed it up as 'Clinton questions whether Sanders is qualified to be President.' As I said last night, I'm willing to believe, actually assume that Sanders was told the story was true. But the fact is that it wasn't.

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Losing the Magic

You know Trump's fading when he starts telling rally supporters not to assault the protestors as they're being dragged out of the arena.

You Should Read This

A disillusioned ex-staffer explains how Wisconsin Republicans were giddy at how their voter ID law would knock down minority and youth voting in their state. This is what this is about. “It just really incensed me that they started talking about this particular bill, and one of the senators got up and said, ‘We really need to think about the ramifications on certain neighborhoods in Milwaukee and on our college campuses and what this could do for us." Read it here.

Welcome To America, Ted

Cruz cancels school visit in the Bronx after students threatened walk-out.

John Judis Joins TPM as Editor-At-Large

I'm pleased to announce that my friend John Judis is joining TPM as an Editor-at-Large.

John, who's currently at work on his next book, will become a presence in the Editor's Blog and involved in our coverage of the 2016 election and other topics in a variety of ways. Mainly, I'm just terribly pleased to add John to our masthead because there are few political journalists or writers in the last several decades who've more ably and insightfully fused historical erudition with journalistic reporting to illuminate and explain the great issues of politics, economics and public life in the United States.

Answering Ross Douthat

Ross Douthat has an interesting piece in the Times looking at the slow motion train wreck heading into Cleveland. Particularly, he disagrees with a post I wrote a week ago ("Hell to Pay") in which I said that whatever the technicalities and bylaws of the nomination process, these paled in the face of the legitimacy iceberg Republicans would face if they essentially tossed out the primary and caucus voting process in favor of an establishment figure like a Paul Ryan or Mitt Romney. Now, I'd quibble a bit with Ross's suggestion that I'm 'surprised' by this turn of events. That's not what I said. But the core point of disagreement is a valid one and one that's worth exploring.

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Yep. That's the Idea

GOP rep from Wisconsin is pumped about November, says Wisconsin's new voter ID (voter suppression) law will help Republicans win.

Clinton Needs Sanders

From John Judis ...

One clear lesson from yesterday's results in Wisconsin. It's time for Hillary Clinton and her boosters in the commentariat to stop calling on Bernie Sanders to withdraw. Agreed that he has a very small chance of winning the nomination, but he has some, and he and his supporters are entitled by the American system to get their message heard until the clock really strikes 12. (See Clinton vs. Obama in 2008.) More important, Clinton herself needs to keep campaigning against Sanders. The Wisconsin primary removed the main rationale for Sanders to drop out -- that Clinton needs to focus on Donald Trump. After Wisconsin, we don't know anymore who the Republican nominee is. It's a moving target. If anything, the Democrats might consider secretly boosting Trump, because he would be a lot easier to beat in the fall than a candidate like Paul Ryan or even Ted Cruz (who, believe me, will shift to the center if he gets the nomination).

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Live chat with Ryan Johnson, $15 minimum wage expert, Friday 4/8 at 2 p.m. ET

Ryan Johnson, executive director of the Fairness Project and expert on economic inequality, is joining Hive members for a live chat on Friday at 2 p.m. ET. Have questions about the $15 minimum wage battle, the wage gap, etc.? Drop them in here and join us on Friday afternoon for the chat.

Blowback

Predictions from political betting sites are very much 'take them with a grain of salt' things of course. But I'll note that as of this moment, BetFair.com is showing Donald Trump with a 40% chance of winning the GOP nomination and Ted Cruz with a 32% chance. (This site converts the current odds to percentages.) Again, there's no magic to these sites. They're best seen as accurate projections of what we might call informed conventional wisdom.

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Trumpian Reckoning?

Polls close at 9 PM eastern. Join us for the results as they come in.