Yves here. This Real News Network segment focuses on the media’s misconstruction, or more accurately, misrepresentation, of what superdelegates mean for the Sanders campaign.
JAISAL NOOR, TRNN: Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders squared off in three Western states on Tuesday, with Clinton winning Arizona and Sanders taking Idaho and Utah, sparking latest round of debate over the Democratic primary, with many saying Clinton has secured the nomination. CNN, for example, gives Clinton a 97% chance to win the nomination. But new polls of potential November matchups heavily favor Sanders, and could swing the tide of the Democratic primary in his favor.
ROBERT MCCHESNEY: Well, I think the idea that Clinton’s lead is insurmountable is based on the idea that the superdelegates who have informally committed to her will not change their vote, and no matter what happens in the primaries they are locked into voting for Hillary Clinton.
NOOR: Clintons current lead of 300 awarded delegates jumps dramatically if superdelegates are added to the mix.
MCCHESNEY: Nancy Pelosi, among others, made it pretty clear that if Bernie Sanders wins the majority of the elected delegates, the idea that the unelected delegates would throw the election to Hillary Clinton, well, that would be a very controversial and dubious move for the party to make. It would in all likelihood to great damage to the future of the Democratic party, really destroy its chances of winning in the November election.
NOOR: With superdelegates off the table, a different picture emerges.
MCCHESNEY: If you look at that picture, Bernie can certainly catch up. It won’t necessarily be easy, but his chances are closer to 50/50 than they are to 20/80.
NOOR: To catch up to Clinton, Sanders would need to continue winning states by wide margins like he did in Idaho and Utah Tuesday night. Some new polls show Sanders closing in on Clinton nationally.
MCCHESNEY: He’s still getting massive support. People are just learning about Bernie Sanders in large parts of the country. It’s their first introduction to him. And it’s a very positive one. So the future, the immediate future, looks great. Saturday he will likely win blowout wins in Hawaii and Alaska, and Washington State, which is a large state. So then he’ll have five consecutive blowout 20, 30, 40-point victories over Hillary Clinton in races going into the all-important Wisconsin race.
Wisconsin has always been a bellweather state for Democratic politics going back to 1960. It will be again this year.
NOOR: Clinton does hold large leads in states with upcoming primaries and large delegate count, according to Real Clear Politics.
MCCHESNEY: We have to take Real Clear Politics, what they are doing, with a grain of salt. Because if you look at where Bernie Sanders was in Utah, or Idaho, or even New Hampshire a month before the election, it didn’t show him winning by blowout victories, it showed him losing by landslides. So he has come a long way in all these states. And I think New York State will be interesting because really it’s going to test out a crucial hypothesis. The working hypothesis has been that the more people see Bernie Sanders the more they like him. That’s been true his entire political career, and that’s been true this year. It was striking that recent focus group work done by Frank Luntz, the guy who does all the work for Fox, who’s the Republian–of Republicans and Democrats just this week showed that the one candidate that both members of both parties respected the most was Bernie Sanders, the more they got to see him.
NOOR: Which does help explain why Sanders has consistently out-performed Hillary Clinton against Republican challengers, including Donald Trump. A recent CNN poll found Sanders beating Trump by 20 points in November, and according to the newest Reuters polling data, Trump has been gaining on Clinton in a matchup, and is now beating her head-to-head.
MCCHESNEY: What Hillary Clinton is closer to is money and power, like the Republicans. But when people abandon the Republicans, Donald Trump or any Republican, they aren’t looking for a pro-money candidate who’s pro-Wall Street. They’re looking for oftentimes a candidate who’s got honesty and integrity. And the sort of issues that Bernie Sanders has signaled as the issues that are important to him, single-payer health insurance, free college tuition, making wealthy people pay their taxes, these are issues that appeal across the political spectrum. These are issues that people who call themselves conservatives, and certainly independents, they respond to. They are much more attracted to Bernie Sanders than Hillary Clinton.
NOOR: This year, a record 43 percent of the country’s voters identify as independents. They have been favoring Sanders by large margins in the primary, and would flock to Sanders if he faced Trump in November, argues McChesney.
MCCHESNEY: Well, Bernie Sanders is going to grab most of those. Hillary Clinton is very unpopular with the Republicans, much moreso than Bernie Sanders, and has no appeal particularly to independents, either. No known appeal. Certainly not compared to Bernie Sanders. So I think that explains why in the polling, repeatedly, of all American voters, Bernie does much better than Hillary, usually, and at least as good a job, generally, in head-to-head matchups for November.
NOOR: One big question remains: How much of the big money behind the Democratic party actually prefers Trump over Sanders? In a similar way, many of the billionaires in the Republican party would favor Clinton over Trump, because they consider Trump a loose cannon and don’t like his opposition to free trade. Sanders poses a greater threat to the interests of Wall Street than Trump does. This may also shape how corporate media covers the election; why they seem in such a hurry to write off the Sanders candidacy. Corporate America really does not want a president Sanders, and it appears mostly to be prepared to bury Sanders long before he’s dead.
End
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Even Jan Wenner of Rolling Stone has flopped his lot in with Hillary. I wonder what happens if Trump is forced out by the Repugnants and Shillary gets the nomination from the democrats?
What are the chances of both Trump and Sanders crying foul and running as independents. How many votes does a presidential candidate need to be elected? Is it simply more than any other candidate? Or is there a runoff until one gets over %50?
Wikipedia
The candidate who receives an absolute majority of electoral votes (currently 270) for the office of president or of vice president is elected to that office. The Twelfth Amendment provides for what happens if the Electoral College fails to elect a president or vice president. If no candidate receives a majority for president, then the House of Representatives will select the president, with each state delegation (instead of each representative) having only one vote. If no candidate receives a majority for vice president, then the Senate will select the vice president, with each senator having one vote. On four occasions, most recently in 2000, the Electoral College system has resulted in the election of a candidate who did not receive the most popular votes in the election.
I’m not so sanguine that the super delegates wouldn’t throw the nomination to Hillary Clinton. It is my belief that the party establishment would rather see Donald Trump be elected President than Bernie Sanders. If Clinton wins the nomination and the Presidency, they get to keep doing what they’re doing. If Trump beats Clinton, they can raise money off Trump, and blame any loss on the Sanders voters not showing up. If Sanders wins, they lose their jobs.
I agree, I think the party establishment would rather lose an election than give up their grip on the party. Bernie is a bigger threat to them than any Republican candidate.
Agree.
Agree
Apparently, little birdies too!
This little bird clearly looked up the definition of DEMOCRACY in the Merriam Webster Dictionary
ie.
– a form of government in which people choose leaders by voting
– an organization or situation in which everyone is treated equally and has equal rights
– government by the people; especially : rule of the majority
– : the absence of arbitrary (something done without concern for what is fair or right) class distinctions or privileges
ie. in a democracy you fix things……not votes.
See TIME or POLITICO for the beautiful video:
http://time.com/4272885/bernie-sanders-bird-podium/
I’m not so sanguine that the super delegates wouldn’t throw the nomination to Hillary Clinton
snip…
the party establishment would rather see Donald Trump be elected President than Bernie Sanders
Interesting points. I think the establishment feels strongly about getting Clinton in office. On that one point, they are in over-drive. I suspect, however, they are not very worried about Trump. They assume he, plus fan base, will burn out, but if not, there are always electronic and other methods in their sham-democracy tool box to get what they want. Also, I’m not too sure we would see Trump take down Hillary a la meat grinder in the general the way he has done to his Republican running mates, though that is just a hunch.
It may be, not so much that the establishment would rather Trump than Sanders, as that they simply haven’t seriously considered the possibility of Trump winning. But yes, Sanders is a threat they DO take seriously.
As to the super delegates supporting Hillary at all costs, If Sanders comes back strong enough between now and the convention, it would get to be a pretty steep cost (even now), but you may have a point. The establishment has breathtaking control over the national media and the media in turn seems able to dictate reality (even 180% opposite of truth) real-time.
It’s pretty stunning what Hillary has gotten away with (Irac, Lybia, Syria, to name a few) and what she is currently getting away with. We keep hearing rumors about how the FBI email-gate investigation is very serious, and so on, yet Hillary marches on as if nothing was happening. It would seem she could have human babies in her freezer for public snacks, and we would hear nothing other than that it’s perfectly normal to do so..
Of course it’s likely a super delegate nomination for Hillary would cost more than her corporate backers and the political establishment have bargained for; but apparently they are quite insulated from such possibilities, so their decision making is coarse at best. Public opinion reaches a point where it freaks out even the media, this has been clear over the last couple of months, so if Sanders continues to do really well in catching up, even the media will have to take note and everything can change.
Given all this, I can’t help but imagine that voter suppression by any and all means possible (as in Arizona) is going to be front and center of the remaining primaries where ever humanly or electronically possible. That and a media blitz that the Senator who can not be named in public, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, can’t possibly win so the DNC HAS to select Clinton and we will all be better off the sooner we come around to it.
The ‘establishment’ DNC under estimates Trump at its peril. It’s specifically his supporters that they should be most concerned about. Even Trump can not control them. Just my two cents.
Gotta disagree here. The reactions of the Republican establishment clearly show they view Drumpf as a loose cannon. They’ll take psychopath Cruz over narcissist Drumpf any time (So please clarify, is that being poisoned or shot, Lindsey?)
Bernie has done a lot of deals within the establishment politics in Congress, he’s a known quantity to them.
This has been my contention for months. In fact, if Bernie actually wins the nomination, I fully expect the DNC/Clinton Machine will actively work to defeat Sanders in the general. For most of them, as you say, it will be about their jobs. For the Clintons however, it will be about power. Both of them are drunk with it.
I think from their narrow perspective, Hillary is a Democrat and Bernie is not.
They are not thinking, ‘how does the Democratic Party put a non-Democrat in the White House?”
So, if their aim is to put a Democrat in the white house, they have go only one option.
And that’s what has to account for, in order to prevail over one’s adversary.
“Know thine own opponent.”
If the super delegates will vote for the candidate who wins the popular vote, then why do they exist?
They exist for one reason only, to make sure the riff raff don’t choose the nominee.
That’s essentially what DWS said.
I agree that their primary purpose is to vote for a candidate who did not win the popular vote. However, to play devil’s advocate, in a 3 way race the superdelegates would also prevent a second ballot at the convention if the frontrunner (or anyone) was below the majority needed for the nomination. That would have the benefit of wrapping up the nominee before the floor vote and showing some party unity. That’s the same motivation that the Romney folks had in implementing Rule 40. In a 2 way race the superdelegates can only thwart democracy.
I’m pretty sure it was the odious Donna Brazile described the “need” for super delegates along these lines: We believe in democracy but the super delegates are there to add a bit of spice.
Sounds to me like: I’m going to weigh that sack of apples on my precision scale here, but I might just put my finger on it if need be.
Just a reminder Brazille was a member of the right wing group Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.
It’s undemocratic like the United Nations, and the upper chamber of the US Congress.
Small nation/states get to have ‘super-delegates,’ as do permanent members of the security council.
Bingo! Yes, that’s why the Super Delegates we created in the first place. Heaven forfend that the serfs have a say. Voting is for the 1%, doncha know?
Wrong! Voting is for the 99%, vote counting is for the .001%
The issue of super delegates, in the democratic party, is an example of the use of seniority within the party to determine delegate status, as opposed to other qualifying criteria, such as sex, ethnicity, religion or age. The 1968 Democratic Party Reform Commission changed the way that the party convention should chose its delegates, which are organized state by state. Without the rule for an exact percentage quota, there was a rule that a state delegation should reasonably be composed base on its constituent population diversity. After the 1972 convention, when it became apparent that long standing party members could be shut out of the decision making process of presidential nomination, George McGovern, who headed up the earlier reforms, along with other party members passed a compromise concession, granting the long standing party members, elected officials in the Senate, Congress, Governors, etc an automatic delegate status.
In the following Democracy Now interview in the middle of the Obama/Clinton primary from 2008, Amy Goodman questions McGovern, who presents the history of the convention reforms that came about from the disastrous 1968 Chicago Democratic Convention. At the apex of political explosions across the nation, including within the ranks of the radical protest movements with women splintering based upon a nascent Feminist Analysis and Black Power seeking self determination without any white approval, critiques or interference, the Democratic party set out to reform the convention delegate nomination process, to open it up as a more democratic process. Here is an excerpt and a link to the entire interview which sheds light on why delegates and super delegates are present in democratic party national conventions today. It provides the critical understanding and what it can mean for Sanders. The senior super delegates are not bound by pledges or commitments for any candidate and can change their support from early on in the primary process. This is not a big secret, as it is exactly what happen to get Obama the nomination.
The idea is simple enough, about 1/4 of the party members who given their lives to the party are granted unpledged delegate status. They can go on record as supporting whoever they want during the nomination primary elections, but they are not bound by their public statements. The idea is that the political landscape can change making their previous support of candidate doubtful and maybe better off with a candidate that now looks to be a clear winner of the nomination and the general election. What happens early in the year can be upended by June. A better candidate may prove out. Pledged delegates are stuck until the convention is held and the rules of the nomination process are played out. Unpledged or super delegates can shift their allegiances if they see a winner emerge that was not the case early. This is want Sanders is basing his entire argument on. That he will have the clear support of the majority of the electorate when the convention convenes in July. But without the super delegates flexibility, he may not have as strong an argument. Adding 700+ super delegates who believe him to be the winner in a general election maybe his only chance to catch up with and go ahead of Clinton. It will not be clear for maybe another month from now, April 26.
——————————————————————————————-
“AMY GOODMAN: And so, compare it to what we have today and the situation now with delegates and superdelegates, which you didn’t decide on in 1968.
GEORGE McGOVERN: No, the superdelegates were not part of the McGovern reforms, but they were a concession some years later to the party regulars who thought that certain people should automatically be delegates. If you were the governor of a state, if you were a United States senator, if you were the state chairperson, you should automatically be a delegate, up to a percentage of one-fourth of the total number of delegates. There always had to be three-fourths of the delegates going to the national convention who were elected according to our reform rules, but we made that one concession.
I think one of the things that produced it — we discovered in ’72, for example, that a nineteen-year-old McGovern young woman defeated Tip O’Neill in his home district of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Well, Tip O’Neill should have been at the Democratic National Convention. Averell Harriman, running in New York, was defeated by another young person, a McGovern delegate.
AMY GOODMAN: And what’s wrong with this?
GEORGE McGOVERN: Nothing wrong with it, but we thought maybe as a concession to age and wisdom and stature and all of that business, that we should make a one-fourth concession. So we said one-fourth of the concession can be what we now call superdelegates. ”
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/3/11/fmr_presidential_candidate_george_mcgovern_on
NPR has proven to be part of corporate mainstream media in their treatment of Bernie as well. The only place without an anti- Bernie spin are web news like Young Turks.
I’ve taken to reading the local media wherever Bernie is speaking. Yesterday, Bernie had a rally in Yakima, WA (population 92,000) that was something of a last-minute decision. Coverage in the Yakima Herald was excellent, including a live blog of the rally, local broadcast media gave plenty of pre-rally information, and 7000 enthusiastic people showed up. (This compares with 12,000 people at the recent San Diego rally, a city with over 1 million inhabitants.) Where the local media isn’t owned by the large corporate cartels, you can still find some decent reporting.
Several shirt-tail relatives — who could not remotely be described as flaming libs — were at the rally in Yakima on Thursday. I will carry a fond spot for Bernie forever for respecting hard working conservatives enough to go to Yakima ;-)
I have not had a full report about their reactions, but we are all of us fed up with Pay-to-Play-Politics.
Agree with your views on the coverage at the Yakima Herald – it was nice to see such complete coverage.
I think the larger media have had so many cutbacks, and are so owned by corporate interests, that their coverage is too often becoming simplistic and they are missing some deeper trends.
NPR IS the corporate media. It was taken over by the corporations some years ago. It was never ever particularly leftwing, although the PTB love to say it is. It was always more corporate leaning than not, but it used to be a bit more objective.
Nowadays, about the only value to NPR is that it’s less shouty than the rest of the corporate own M$M. Be aware that at least one of the main commentators, Mara Liason, also works for Fox. There used to be more of them; not sure these days.
I listen to NPR nooz very sparingly bc it’s so slanted to the right/corporations.
Yes, they’ve kept Sanders behind the black out curtain as much as possible.
They don’t slander Bernie Sanders like the rest of the media does, but they black him out just as much.
They proved that long ago. If you think their Bern reporting is disconnected from the reality in front of you, you should be aware that it extends to ALL their reporting. Horrible mis- and disinformation, delivered in a tone that makes the listener feel smart.
Right. Neo-Propaganda Radio is essentially “slickly” engineered radio with generally affable voices. Notice how many stories are of the “smarmy” type.
I find it difficult to listen to NPR for even 20″ in the evening, due to the tone of the reporting. The newsreaders’ demeanor and (quite often) inquiries are so intensely patronizing. They dictate a narrative that you — the mere listener — is supposed to accept. And they do so in a distinctly ham-fisted, arrogant way.
Worse though, they are simply not very informative. Not compared with what is available free on the web, and certainly not compared to what is available via subscription.
It’s not interactive.
You can’t shout back.
Well, you can, but communicating is all about getting your listener to register your message, and they won’t hear you shout.
in NPR space, no one can hear you scream…..
Teh Revolution will not be televised.
The media blackout of Sanders has revealed the MSM is a propaganda outlet for the owners. Even NPR, which has had political commissars imposed to censor and manage the message.
Nice to see enough people saying fuck them to cause panic among the oligarchs and their operatives.
Bern one down! It’s my fervent hope to see Trump v. Sanders in the general – whoever wins they are not owned by the filthy corrupt moneybags and their airbrushed plastic surgery Marie Antoinettes on the teevee.
Just an update from here in Wisconsin:
Cruz is blanketing the TV. He’s on all the time. Super pac ads too. They’re just hideous. His voice is instantly abrasive & annoying. Mrs. Weinerdog and I race for the remote as soon as we see his hideous apparition. “He’s going to provide jobs in Wisconsin, yadayada…” Nothing from Hillary. Nothing from Trump. Kasich has a nice (if that’s possible) ad, but I’ve only seen it once. Bernie, believe it or not has been on the 2nd most after Mr. Ooze. Only 1 ad I’ve see so far, but it’s pretty good. I’m not so sure about the hand waving thing though… Lots of Germans, Swedes, Norwegians, Poles & Slovenians around here, and we don’t do that. The accent shouldn’t be a problem. We have our own language issues too dontchaknow. Happy Easter everyone!
If he can drop in a couple of “uff das,” he just might seal the deal in that part of the country.
“Mrs. Weinerdog and I race for the remote as soon as we see his hideous apparition.” — Cruz has a face that makes Richard Nixon look like Rock Hudson. He looks more like something Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) would be dealing with in “Alien” than a presidential candidate. I can’t stand to see him, especially when he “smiles”.
does he really breath heavy while dripping saliva ??
I came across a word used to describe Cruz, backpfeifengesicht, in an article discussing the creative use of compound words in German. It means something like ‘a face that invites a slap’.
Ah believe the Murcin translation is ‘punchable face.’
Cruz has a Gary Hart/John Edwards problem: http://www.conservativeoutfitters.com/blogs/news/94574273-8-things-you-need-to-know-about-ted-cruzs-sex-scandal
Yup, he’s a done dog.
Oh I dunno. I saw that, but there is always the Get Out of Jail for Free Pass: IOKIYAR.
Time will tell.
One of’ems Trumps spokesperson.
As soon as that happened, Cruz knew he was done. He’s just been milking the cow until it dies.
he’s gonna get hand rot if he holds that udder much longer….now about that cow ??
Constipation consternation.
Here in Madison it is Cruz, Kasich, and Bernie on the TV. Cruz’ ads are, as said above, stomach churning. Not sure they are going to help. Katich’s are OK; again not sure they will move the needle. Bernie is the only one running several different ads. Presumably, HRC will be up on TV any moment. Not sure what The Donald has in store.
On a different note, Chelsea was here in town yesterday. My college-age daughter, a Bern supporter home on spring break, went to see here with some of her buds that attend the local Big 10 U. She said Chelsea did a good job, was much more personable that she would have expected.
One note many here on NC might find disturbing: she reports that she, and virtually all of her friends, will have no trouble voting for HRC in the general if she wins the nomination. What I see is that the young people have no sense of history; no do they see why voting for lesser of 2 evils is unhelpful. A direct quote: “I’m with her on 75% of the issues.”
This is the problem with the lack of on-going left organization: All the young people see are elections every four years and if all you see are elections, then lesser-of-two-evils is a reasonable electoral strategy. The (non-poor) young people do see college debt – I am reasonably confident it is their number one issue. They also are willing to vote left on economic issues, in the “everyone under 40 should be a socialist” kind of way. And big supporters of BLM. But they know ABSOLUTELY NOTHING of foreign affairs or US imperialism. So explaining HRC to them will requires LOTS OF TIME AND EDUCATION and may well not be successful this voting season.
LiW, thanks for the update, downstate. In your daughter’s defense, until about 5 years ago, I was exactly in the same boat… lesser of 2 evils and all that. I think it just takes a while to get this cynical about the nominal ‘Liberal’ party. You just don’t want to believe they are really that bad.
I think it takes a few years, at least, to begin to tie together what the media presents as world events, into some coherent pattern. When that starts, people can more easily spot the propaganda coming at them.
But when the media, the political establishment, and most of the candidates are pulling in one direction, it takes a) correct information, lots of it b) some kind of peer group that is informed and has integrity and of course, c) courage, to adopt a world view that counters everything the mainstream is trying to sell you.
In other words, when you get to where you can see the lies, you should give yourself some credit, because it’s not that easy.
The only reason they let us vote is because it doesn’t mean anything. Democracy equals insurrection. Any populous movement is held in high distain. Rather than recognize the movements that Bernie and Trump represent, the MSM focuses on them literally fighting one another in the streets. The message is clear: both movements could use a little prison time to think things through.
After the triumph of Phoenix, the Hildaborg is issuing a new line of “Votebusters” T-shirts.
“I waited in line for five hours, and all I got was this lousy T-shirt,” reads one of them.
Har har har! That’s a good line for the Gridiron dinner.
The Hildaborg couldn’t have done it without the aid of her master plumber, Debbie Wasserman-Sucks.
Together they can “vacuum the vote” like rats in a cheese drawer.
More at
“Hilldaburg”
Damn the vowels…
Remake that “Hillderberg”
as in “Bilderberg” for the uninitiated…
The way to address a meaningless ballot is to VOTE !!!! …. but leave the ballot empty.
Did no one else notice the headlines yesterday regarding Clinton projected to wallop Trump in a general election? It flies in the face of the many surveys that show Sanders as being the only Dim capable of beating Trump, that in fact Clinton would be the wallopee?
Mainstream media simply changed the narrative–pretty dramatically–yesterday. Desperate times call for desperate measures…
Link?
The more I think about it, the more I agree with the MSM. If it gets to this (go Bern), I think Trump will crush her with men and I think HRC will crush him with women and young people (see my comment above on young people). And she will win.
I don’t think anyone can honestly predict what is going to happen with this other than Trump has the white male vote sewn up and Clinton will win a majority of the African American vote. Other than that it is all for up for grabs – including women. Clinton while more popular among women in general is also hated by Republican women and distrusted by a majority of women period. Trump has been pulling in working class voters who largely distrust Clinton, and is likely to win with them regardless of gender and possibly even race. And her record on more than a few Latino interests – which Trump will get out there far better than Bernie has, will probably split or depress that voting segment.
She is also probably going to run to the right of him on Trade (for it), war (for it), and yes civil liberties (against them). If she doesn’t start talking reasonable ‘entitlement reform’ in order to save Medicare and Social Security I will eat my hat. (I will also say to anyone retired or close to retirement to take Clintonian Welfare Reform as a warning about what that reasonable reform will look like and do.) She is also going to support ACA.. And this during a period when people when once again need to go ‘shopping’ for insurance or be being told by their HR departments how much more they will be paying for how much less.
Meanwhile both of them will be fighting dirty and the mud and crap will be, frankly, above our heads, even if Clinton will pretend to be above the fray.
All three possibles could happen here – democratic turn out is depressed and Trump wins in a landslide, Republicans really do flock to Clinton and the left stupidly holds their nose and turn out for her and Clinton wins in a landslide, or the sane/not purchased faction of both parties are depressed and stay home, and it is a squeaker that probably is not known for days it is so close.
I should add on possibility three, “stay home or vote third party or write in”.
I think Clinton gets older women and younger women. Older women will not be hit by SS/MCR cuts and don’t care about the next generation (my mother shrugs/smiles when told of the devastation) just wants any woman. Youngers are indoctrinated to vote against the evil other and young women will follow their forebears. It usually takes getting effed over 3 times to realize it’s all bulls**t so by the 30s you stop reflex voting.
Clinton will lose some women 30-50s (my family/friends) but not enough to lose.
My guess is Hillary doesn’t do much for the young women vote beyond the bare minimum that Team Blue would get. In 2014, she didn’t drive turnout for female Senate candidates despite heavy campaigning. Democrats blamed a bad year, but the Democrats are the party of yuppies and even older yuppie types. Fear is a terrible motivator, and people motivated by fear tend to be conservative already. The dead lines for registration are from October 1st to October 18th. By then people will be tired of a race between fear mongers. The youth vote will set record lows.
If you think the registration and voting situation is a clown show now, wait until the general.
I work with women, many are not a Clinton fan. Young or old. It seems it is Bernie or Trump that people are talking about. The only people I know that will vote for Hillary are afraid of the repub candidates or do not think Bernie can win. Not because they want to vote for her or her ?policies.
There will be no flocking to Clinton. She’s too despised. The GOP voted for McCain/Palin and Romney/Ryan. Any anti-Trump campaign in the general would earn the ire of Republican rank and file, and they don’t forgive their traitors.
Turnout is the key. The Clintons will swing hard right as soon as they can. They will trash Obama for the wrong reasons. They can’t help themselves. It’s who they are. Even now their underlings are openly complaining they have to focus on Democratic voters and can’t move to female suburban Republicans.
The question is will fear work for another election. Unfortunately for Team Blue types, Hillary might be the lunatic in the race. All Trump has to do is to respond with Hillary’s litany of failures and accuse her of cavorting with the Sauds just like 43.
An interesting historical rewind.
The unintended consequences of how the Democrat Party forsook it’s root word democratic with “reforms” and subsequently degenerated into having it’s election process gamed by the messaging of an aggregated and homogenized Corporate media organ ( on 8/4/’74 whodathunk that would happen??).
So, insert Abbie Hoffman, the Yippies, Weathermen et al. in 1968 and output ~48 years later a dynastic Neocon candidate, looking very much like a breezily unindicted serial felon in the tank for a Perpetual War-Corporate Socialism MIC based Financialized economy that upwardly biases wealth stratification , while simultaneously externalizing real wealth creation via TPP! Yeeeah! Fighting for You, and stuff!
Map that Black Box in a 3D graphic!
No kidding. For those of us around in the ’60s, Clinton is the ultimate slap in the face as a so-called “Democratic” candidate.
But then again, I forget that I am “f*cking ret*rded” and I clearly need a drug test.
So there’s that.
Why do you call it “corporate” media? with but few exceptions, it is controlled by the Democrat Party.
It is too funny. You thought that the democrats were “the people’s party”. You have been had.
cause the media is corporate owned just like the democratic party elite, and the republican party elite. don’t tell me you fell for the “liberal media” scam?
For your convienince, here is a link that will outline a bit of American history that you apparently missed in high school. Take a read, then we can have a better informed interaction.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_media
That this also happened in 2008, to Obama of all candidates, is a pretty damning summary of what passes for representation these days.
Increasingly annoying to hear laments of this sort. The corporate media are hostile to people who want to rein in rent extraction by their corrupt buddies. And? Fine to point it out, but please, what is the point of the indignation? Bernie & the popular revolt have to rely on agitation and direct action, along with the electoral game, because it is not a fair fight and was never going to be.
What are we going to do?
That should be the focus.
“Shocked, shocked at the way the main stream media is behaving.”
Agreed. I think the indignation comes from the very tenuous assumption that journalism can approach abstract truth any better than other mechanisms. All lenses distort; we can deal with that if we accept the fact, and we’ll always be vulnerable to those distortions if we forget it or believe in exceptions.
If we are clear on our goals and their importance, we have to be prepared to move towards them without relying on outside encouragement or support.
My progressive Democratic friends are so disgusted with the Wasserman-Schultz Putsch that they are prepared to vote for Trump is Bernie is denied the nomination.
Trump is more Leftist on war, the economy and foreign policy than is Bernie or certainly the warmonger Clinton. Strange times, these.
I know that Trump is not to the left of Sanders on the economy, and I strongly doubt that this is true of the military or foreign policy issues, either. Could you please provide some evidence for your assertion?
He said Iraq was a trillion dollar mistake, We’re paying for everyone else’s security over there and getting nothing back for it, he’ll be neutral on Israel and the Bush Family was responsible for 9/11 that happened on their watch.
His trade policy is protectionist and therefore more pro-union than the NAFTAtization of our manufacturing plant.
One thing’s for sure, that’s diametrically opposed to Hillary’s Crony Capitalist pandering. Sanders? Maybe not so different. All other policy issues are, of course, up for grabs.
Sanders voted against the Iraq adventure, as well as against the Patriot Act. Sanders is also against the “free” trade agreements, such as the TPP (NAFTA on steroids). And Sanders has criticized the behavior of the Israelis towards the Palestinians. I’m not disagreeing with your comparison of Trump to H. Clinton, but I don’t think that Trump is to the left of Sanders on anything.
Well, OK, he’s definitely to the left of Hillderberg. Why is it that the Republicans are so against Trump, but are happy with Hillary?
She’s one of them basically.
TRUMP’S BLACKWATER EXEC FOREIGN POLICY ADVISER
AMY GOODMAN: Jeremy Scahill, I wanted to ask about Donald Trump. He originally said on MSNBC, when asked about who his foreign policy advisers were, “I’m speaking with myself, number one,” he said, “because I have a very good brain.” But then, with The Washington Post, he talked about his top foreign policy advisers and named Joseph Schmitz as one of them. Talk about who Joseph Schmitz is.
JEREMY SCAHILL: Yeah, Joseph Schmitz was the Pentagon inspector general under Donald Rumsfeld, and he didn’t really inspect much of anything. He was a big cheerleader, actually, for many of the most kind of excessive policies of Rumsfeld and the Pentagon in the post-9/11 world. And when Schmitz left the DOD, he became an executive at Blackwater. And Joseph Schmitz is a—you know, is a radical Christian supremacist. He is a member of the Sovereign Order of the Knights of Malta and really is sort of a—you know, has a neo-crusader worldview. And I’m choosing those words carefully. I mean, that’s—he is definitely a radical Christian supremacist.
And he was an enthusiastic fan of Erik Prince and Blackwater, and he goes and he joins that company. And, you know, this is a guy, though, who—when I was researching him for the Blackwater book, he wrote a series of letters to the editor of conservative newspapers—Washington Times and others—in the ’90s. He was a fanatical opponent of abortion. And in one of the letters, he—I actually want to quote this correctly, because Joseph Schmitz threatened to sue me once—and, of course, he couldn’t, because everything I said was true. But he said, “As a former fetus the plight of aborted innocent human life is as real to me as rape is to most women.”
http://www.democracynow.org/2016/3/25/donald_trumps_top_foreign_adviser_joseph
If Mr. Schmitz doesn’t think it was a mistake to go to Iraq, being a cheerleader and all, will Trump still go to him?
Because Trump really doesn’t know anything, he is relying on advisers, most of whom seem to be crazy right-wingers. He’s already said he would have no idea whom to nominate for the Supreme Court and would ask some think tank like the American Enterprise Institute or the Cato Institute (both Koch Bros. groups, I think) to give him names. His foreign policy adviser is a white supremacist lobbyist for the defense industry. Any Bernie supporter who votes for Trump is deluded.
Well he is running as a *Republican* if he choose Republican advisers from mainstream “credible” Republicans (and why not, what does Trump know?) they will tend to be neocons (anyone mainstream anyway, he’s not being advised by Ron Paul or probably even Pat Buchanan)
After his claims about going to Iraq being a mistake and about Putin, the neo-cons are rightly alarmed to desire to infiltrate Trumps’ foreign policy team.
If HRC gets the nomination, I will officially quit the Democratic Party and register as something else. And I’ll vote the straight Republican ticket in 2016.
The Democratic Party’s super-delegate system exemplifies the US’ view of Democracy around the world.
Democracy is good only if you elected leader does what we, the US wants as a Dictator. Otherwise it is a tyrannical, communist regime.
Democracy in name only.
And now I’m off to the Caribbean to laze on a beach, to adjust my attitude and watch the people walk by.
Say Hi to the remit folks down at the ‘Pink Elephant Bar’ on Bay Street (if it’s still there.)
Since Bernie’s landslide March 22nd victories in Idaho and Utah I’ve noticed some media outlets double down on their freeze-out of the Sanders campaign (especially positive news or news conveying he has any support at all) but more disturbingly I’ve noticed some media outlets move from distorting the truth about Sanders support or his record to flat-out lies. I read stories on CNN, and surprisingly Bill Moyer’s website, that stated despite losses in the smaller ‘inconsequential’ states of Utah and Idaho Clinton expanded or held her delegate lead over Sanders Tuesday night. Yes ‘expanded’. According to the anti-Sanders NYT delegate count widget (yesterday) Sanders picked up 73 delegates this past Tuesday to Clinton’s 55. She lost the delegate battle for the night, and Sanders chipped into her delegate lead that the media claimed she expanded or held. False reporting concerning simple, factual, bedrock democratic data in a supposedly free and open democracy is disappointing and concerning to say the least. If the media can’t be trusted to report the true results of elections/primaries can they be trusted at all? Regardless of what the media reports since March 15th Sanders is right on his “impossible” 58% delegate win target he needs to edge Clinton before the convention and his results look to improve in the next string of contests. Watching the news try to spin, lie, and bury the candidate Sanders story should yield some outrageous propaganda moments over the next few weeks.
Did Sanders lose Arizona or not? No one can know, because there is absolutely no legitimacy to the Arizona results, let alone the argument that the vote effectively never even happened there, given all of the disenfranchisement and magically changing affiliations. That were even talking about it as “complete” is ridiculous.
Using my handy Berlitz translator, the message to Latinos is:
“Hillary ha cagado en Los Latinos de Arizona.”
“Echen su voto Al Viejo.”
“Hillary crapped on Latinos in Arizona.”
“Vote for the Wise Old Man.”
Sure, Arizona. I heard. Total scam, hundreds of thousands likely robbed of their right to vote. Sanders almost certainly suffered grievously due to the dirty tricks of Arizona Republicans and very likely the Arizona DNC. My point however was in spite of the political establishment sabotaging Sanders in Arizona, he still managed to carry the day, win the most delegates and trounce Clinton in two other states. The media’s response? Blackout the overwhelming Sanders margins of victory in Idaho and Utah then claim Hillary won more delegates on Tuesday when the exact opposite was true. Scary police state style propaganda right here in the land of the free. Down is up, and Clinton wins even when she loses.
Here in Tucson, the Clinton campaign set up shop in the Pima County Democratic Party HQ. OTOH, the Sanders HQ was shared space with Congressman Grijalva’s re-election campaign.
So, @Jerry Denim, I agree with you. I think that the AZ DNC was playing some dirty tricks on Tuesday.
Yes the idea was Arizona was the big haul of delegates but what Sanders won in combined Idaho and Utah was more than Hillary in AZ. But everywhere just the headline “Hillary wins AZ”.
It does distract us from anticipating the hard work Hillary and her team will be putting to ensure victory in California.
With every primary, they show they can be just as creative as the Republicans.
Have you checked to see who owns those media outlets?
For those interested here’s a link to the transcript of Bernie Sanders talking to the LA Times Editorial Board.
Some good stuff.
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-bernie-sanders-editorial-board-20160323-snap-story.html
Two points:
1) Just as much as the media blackout, the Sanders campaign will be challenged by the election fraud tactics with which Clinton’s campaign is surely far more experienced than Sanders. Keep in mind that voting by mail is extremely vulnerable to fraud because there is no chain of custody for how ballots are handled on the post office side;
2) Regarding the media blackout, why are we surprised, since Sanders getting money out of politics would be mean that MSM would be deprived of their billions of revenue from election advertising. You don’t expect turkeys to vote for Thanksgiving, do you? MSM have a strong vested interest in Sanders not being the Dem candidate.
Assuming Trump vs Clinton, when was the last time the US elected a President as little liked as the lucky winner of this spectacle? I wouldn’t be surprised if a sizable portion of the electorate ends up boycotting, with a turnout so low it indicates more than half the country views the winner as borderline illegitimate, even while both candidates believe themselves to be so uniquely gifted as to be evidently entitled.
This is going to be an incredibly tough four years to take – including the impeachment.
We are an unfortunate country. We teach our children to go along to get along. We practice conformity to propaganda and silence in the face of bullying to protect our jobs, our families, our status in our ‘communities”, such as they are. So, if Bernie can win the nomination in the face of party corruption and media prostitution, then win in November against an onslaught from both parties, the media, and Wall Street/Koch-paid BS, the war between the rich and poor will only have BEGUN at that point. Sanders will need the full weight of the population behind him to take down that opposition, and, frankly, the population has been running on lies, comfortable myths, and trickle-down corruption long enough to be fearful, not brave. I could be wrong (I pray mightily that I am), but I don’t see anything but fear and its twin cynicism down to the grade-school level.