Last week Sanders was 3-1 to win the Dem nomination. If you have some confidence, today you can get 14-1.

And you're further correct that we should all be disturbed and even alarmed by what happened in Anaheim on Saturday, because it is a harbinger of a very dark and sinister road upon which we should not be traveling. Decades worth of the GOP's scorched-earth politics of endless confrontation is now taking a serious toll by bringing out the very worst in all of us.

My point was that the SoCal media blatantly exploited the public appearance of a truly vile and despicable -- but otherwise very much marginalized -- right-wing organization, for no other purpose than increased ratings and circulation.

They goaded members of the community into responding with public expressions of outrage and contempt, and duly recorded and reported it. And then, they disingenuously expressed shock and dismay at the resultant altercation, which took place thanks in no small part to their own provocations, regardless of whether or not their pre-brawl coverage was ever intended as such.

And in that regard, the SoCal media mirror their east coast counterparts, who are presently in a lather over the fact that a particular candidate, whose presence they had previously sought to exploit for crassly commercial reasons, has found a lot of political traction as a direct result of all that earlier fawning coverage.

In both instances, the media can't now just step away and start finding fault with others for a thoroughly distasteful and potentially disastrous situation which they themselves played a huge role in creating. They've long since forfeited their standing to do so.

Central Mass around Worcester (where I am) is similar, except the rural communities are NOT like Vermont rural or Western Mass rural.  It was largely Scott Brown territory.  I'm actually more comcerned that Trump may bleed off potential unaffiliated Clinton voters than Sanders.  Clinton's economic messaging really spoke to this area in 2008, but she has not been emphazing that part of her campaign as much up until now.  And people like Trump because of the impression he gives of not being beholden to mealy mouthed politicians, as well as having clear cut, direct solutions to our country's ills.

I think what you have here is the perfect storm of Trump support.

The republican base is not religious, it's more moderate, it's more populist, and lets face it, MA has a certain reputation with regards to racial relations that is not unfounded.

This is Sanders's best chance to win a Southern state. Oklahoma has a lot of the lower-income, white voters with whom Sanders has excelled in early primaries. Although African-Americans were a small part of the 2008 electorate in Oklahoma (American Indians might have been a larger share), most of the polling this year has found Clinton with a small, though not insurmountable, advantage. The biggest complicating factor for Sanders is that Oklahoma Democrats are not very liberal. Like in Alabama, self-identified conservative Democrats outnumbered very liberal Democrats in the 2008 primary.

  His robotic manifestation of panic disorder triggered by Trump's new apprentice, Christie, essentially, did him in, not only on the gravitas score, but also, his ability to engender confidence or, even a capability for same. The fight-back-at-the-bully strategy was his best shot at re-entry. And, witty attacks and a little self-effacing humor is better than what he has offered.