Subject: Stitch — Hoosier Choice, Newsmaker of the Week Kevin Bleyer on Writing for the WHCD, Donors are Berned Out and More
From: Jonathan Allen <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 1 May 2016 16:20:54 +0000
List-Id: dff5dea186e38c29c57ca6f8fmc list <dff5dea186e38c29c57ca6f8f.326717.list-id.mcsv.net>

** THE BIG QUESTION

What was your favorite moment from last night's White House Correspondents Association dinner?

TURNING TO INDIANA
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GREG GIROUX sends in a gem of a cheatsheet on Tuesday's Indiana presidential primaries.
Here's the basic rundown on its contents:
* Demographic and political information by county (tab 1) and congressional district (tab 2).
* Maps
* Summaries of each party's delegate-selection process.
* For context, results by county for the 2012 GOP Senate primary won by Richard Mourdock over Dick Lugar, the 2010 Republican Senate primary won by Dan Coats over Marlin Stutzman and the 2008 Democratic presidential and gubernatorial primaries.
* Indiana results for the Reagan-Ford contest in 1976, the last time there was a competitive Republican presidential primary in the Hoosier state.

Click here (http://bit.ly/1YYe1Lf)  for Greg's Indiana cheatsheet.

JANET HOOK reports on a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll (http://www.wsj.com/articles/donald-trump-holds-15-point-lead-ahead-of-republican-rivals-in-indiana-poll-1462107603)  that shows Trump up 15 points, 49 percent to 34 percent, over Ted Cruz in Indiana. The same poll has Hillary Clinton leading Bernie Sanders, 50 percent to 46 percent, in the Hoosier state.

It would take more than just an upset in Indiana to derail either Trump or Clinton. Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion, said last Tuesday's primaries cemented the status of the two parties' favorites.
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“After the Acela primary, there is an aura of inevitability surrounding the Trump and Clinton candidacies.”

—Lee Miringoff/WSJ (http://www.wsj.com/articles/donald-trump-holds-15-point-lead-ahead-of-republican-rivals-in-indiana-poll-1462107603)

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** NEWSMAKER OF THE WEEK: KEVIN BLEYER
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KEVIN BLEYER, a veteran of "The Daily Show" who works on the team that writes the president's speech for the White House Correspondents Association dinner, is Sidewire's Newsmaker of the Week. He's also written for Bill Maher and Dennis Miller, authored books and even helped start a comedy program in Kyrgyzstan.

This morning, as he came nearer to capping off his WHCD post-party experience, Kevin answered a few questions about politics, comedy and what drew him to the funny side of a serious subject.

Click Here (https://sidewire.com/politics/dashboard/articles/54088e6a43fa656e0a7d8cacc2f54947)  for the full Newsmaker of the Week interview.

HERE ARE SOME OF THE HIGHLIGHTS:

On what made him a political junkie
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"Honestly, I'd have to say Bill Maher. Long before I joined Jon Stewart, I wanted to be a real honest to goodness journalist. A war correspondent in some far flung hotspot. Instead I got a job writing jokes for Bill on Politically Incorrect. ... Journalism with laughs. Seems a safer route. Sometimes."

—Kevin Bleyer/Sidewire (https://sidewire.com/politics/dashboard/articles/54088e6a43fa656e0a7d8cacc2f54947/commentary/df8c2872-24af-43d3-a887-da31dcf13f4c)

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On whether there's a difference between writing for a liberal comedian and a conservative comedian
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"Oh, not as much as people might expect. But to borrow from some genius Colbert (and from his genius writers) I suppose it might be said that a joke, like reality, has a known liberal bias."

—Bleyer/Sidewire (https://sidewire.com/politics/dashboard/articles/54088e6a43fa656e0a7d8cacc2f54947/commentary/7f7b9124-4d8a-4e67-886d-a3d04917c1bf)

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On Obama's strength as a comedian
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"He does one thing effortlessly that's vital: his demeanor suggests he's having a hell of a time up there too. He knows it's a great opportunity to settle a few of the more harmless scores under the cover of comedy."

—Bleyer/Sidewire (https://sidewire.com/politics/dashboard/articles/54088e6a43fa656e0a7d8cacc2f54947/commentary/7c3409f0-9bae-4664-a4cd-66e4214429c0)

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On the challenges of starting a comedy show in Kyrgyzstan
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"I helped launch a political satire show in Bishkek not too long ago. It was simple: fewer references to John Kasich, more references to former soviet leaders, and about the same number [of] references to Kim Kardashian."

—Bleyer/Sidewire (https://sidewire.com/politics/dashboard/articles/54088e6a43fa656e0a7d8cacc2f54947/commentary/bf9a0834-0023-4189-a37e-7922f239316c)

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Click here (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/reliable-source/wp/2016/05/01/the-complete-transcript-of-president-obamas-2016-white-house-correspondents-dinner-speech/)  for the Washington Post's transcript of the dinner.

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**
TRIVIAL PURSUITS
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ABOUT TODAY
It's been five years since President Barack Obama told the American people Osama bin Laden had been killed in a raid in Pakistan.

YESTERDAY'S TRIVIA
GREG GIROUX was the first to correctly respond that it was Indiana that gave Robert F. Kennedy his first primary victory in 1968.

TODAY'S TRIVIA
Courtesy of Greg: Who came in second, behind Kennedy, in the 1968 Democratic primary in Indiana?
Send answers to [email-masked]. The first person to respond correctly wins a shower of accolades and the right to ask tomorrow's trivia question.

PLEASE SEND TIPS, suggestions, comments, complaints, corrections and photos taken by celebrities at the White House Correspondents Association dinner to [email-masked]

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**

#BERNED-OUT DONORS
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WHAT BERNIE SANDERS DID THIS YEAR WITH GRASSROOTS FUNDRAISING is nothing short of jaw-dropping. But, as JOHN WAGNER reports for the Washington Post, April was the cruelest month in a while for Sanders' fundraising: He pulled in $25.8 million in April after stocking his treasury with $46 million in March.

It's still a lot of money — about what Hillary Clinton raised in March — but Wagner points out why the decline is a problem (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/05/01/bernie-sanderss-fundraising-drops-off-sharply-in-april/) .
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"But Sanders has emerged as the biggest-spending candidate in the race, and his April total is not enough to maintain his pace of spending on television ads and other facets of the race. Last week, the campaign announced that it was shedding 225 staffers to 'right-size' its personnel heading into the final nominating contests, including Indiana on Tuesday."

—John Wagner/WaPo (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/05/01/bernie-sanderss-fundraising-drops-off-sharply-in-april/)

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** REPUBLICANS JOCKEY TO AVOID BEING NAMED TRUMP'S VP
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That's the essence of a story (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/01/us/politics/donald-trump-vice-president.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news)  by PATRICK HEALY & ASHLEY PARKER in this morning's New York Times. John Kasich? No. Jeb Bush? No. Scott Walker? No. Nikki Haley? No. Susanna Martinez? No. And so on and so on, Patrick and Ashley write.

BUT they also use former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who is considered to be a possible ticket-mate for the Donald, to make the point that it's one thing to say you'd turn down the No. 2 spot on the ticket and quite another to actually do that.
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"If a potential president says I need you, it would be very hard for a patriotic citizen to say no. ... People can criticize a nominee, but ultimately there are very few examples of people turning down the vice presidency.”

—Newt Gingrich/NYT (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/01/us/politics/donald-trump-vice-president.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news)

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—30—

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