Sanders Calls for Kentucky Vote Review, Clinton Nixes California Debate

Both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are revving up their campaigns in anticipation of the California primary, which will be held on June 7. This week, their pre-California strategies are growing clear: Sanders is attempting to engage with Hillary and create campaign momentum, whereas Clinton is continuing to go after Trump while trying to ignore any hindrances to her own campaign. Midway through this week’s madness, let’s look at what’s happening with both the Democratic nominees.

On Monday, it was announced that Sanders would pick members for the platform-writing portion of the Democratic Party. The Washington Post reports that of the 15 members in the body, Clinton will appoint six and Sanders will appoint five. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the Democratic National Convention’s chair, will appoint the remaining four.

“The math is based on the number of popular votes each has received to date,” the Post writes, noting that Sanders’ “influence” on the committee is the result of “an agreement worked out this month between the two candidates and party officials.” While past conventions have given all of the appointment powers to the DNC chairperson, this new arrangement perhaps reflects the DNC’s hope for peace (many Sanders supporters have called for the resignation of Wasserman Schultz and accused the DNC of being rigged.)

Also on Monday, the Clinton campaign announced that Hillary would not accept a Fox News invitation to debate Sanders prior to the California primary, The Associated Press reported. It explains that Clinton is focused on campaigning in California as well as “turning her attention to presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump.” According to a Clinton campaign spokeswoman, this is how Clinton’s “time is best spent.” Both Bernie Sanders and Fox News expressed their disappointment in Clinton’s refusal, especially considering that Sanders and Clinton agreed on a May debate back in February.

The same day, Sanders was interviewed by the AP and made headlines for saying that July’s Democratic National Convention could be “messy.”

From the AP:

“I think if they make the right choice and open the doors to working-class people and young people and create the kind of dynamism that the Democratic Party needs, it’s going to be messy,” Sanders said. “Democracy is not always nice and quiet and gentle but that is where the Democratic Party should go.”

Asked if the convention could be messy, Sanders said: “So what? Democracy is messy. Everyday my life is messy. But if you want everything to be quiet and orderly and allow, you know, just things to proceed without vigorous debate, that is not what democracy is about.”

Then, on Tuesday, Sanders held several rallies across California, including one in Anaheim, where he attacked the Walt Disney Company for corporate greed. Clinton, who held two fundraisers the day before, joined Rep. Karen Bass, D-Los Angeles, in South Los Angeles to discuss foster care. Bill Clinton attended fundraisers in San Francisco as well as Fremont on Tuesday.

This brings us to Wednesday, when both candidates made headlines on the theme of transparency. First, The New York Times broke the news that the inspector general of the U.S. State Department had “sharply criticized” Clinton’s use of a private email server. The scandal surrounding her emails has plagued much of her campaign.

The Times wrote:

In a report delivered to members of Congress on Wednesday, the inspector general said that Mrs. Clinton “had an obligation to discuss using her personal email account to conduct official business” with officials responsible for handling records and security but that inspectors “found no evidence” that she had requested or received approval from anyone at the department to conduct her state business on a personal email. …

It also added new detail about Mrs. Clinton’s motivation for using the private server, which she has said was set up for convenience. In November 2010, her deputy chief of staff for operations prodded her about “putting you on state email or releasing your email address to the department so you are not going to spam.” Mrs. Clinton, however, replied that she would consider a separate address or device “but I don’t want any risk of the personal being accessible.”

Meanwhile, the news broke that Sanders had called for a recanvass of the Kentucky Democratic Primary in a letter given to his traveling press on Tuesday. As NPR explained, a recanvass is not the same as a recount, because “individual ballots will not be checked.” Instead, “[a]s NPR’s Asma Khalid noted on air — a recanvass will ‘entail checking all of the voting machines and absentee ballots in all each of the state’s counties to verify the accuracy of the vote totals.’ ”

The Kentucky primary race was extremely close — CNN noted that Clinton led “by 1,923 votes.”

While many of these stories are still developing, it’s no secret that both candidates are working extremely hard in anticipation of California’s primary. The sheer volume of rallies, fundraisers and interviews show that neither candidate plans on slowing down, regardless of the odds in their favor.

—Posted by Emma Niles