The Bernie Operatives protest too much, Methinks

Suddenly, there’s a bunch of posts and articles all over the intertoobz about why it isn’t right for Hillary people to tell Bernie people that it’s time to get out.

It feels a lot like, what’s that defense mechanism called again? You know, the one where you accuse someone of doing the very thing you would have done? Oh, yeah. Projection.

Then there’s this crap from David Axelrod via Greg Sargent:

“He’s pushed her on a lot of issues in a positive way, and I think that his young supporters will be bitterly resentful if anyone tries to shove him out of the race.”

Yes, they probably would be resentful. But it’s not like 2008 when the party will deliberately withhold delegates from his win column from two large states, gift uncommitted delegates to his opponent, re-engineer the rules so that he gets those delegates back but only at half strength until the Sunday before the convention so it looks like he’s always behind, and then doesn’t get a full first ballot roll call vote at the convention so that nobody knows how close the earned delegate count actually is so that it won’t provoke a justified floor fight.

If all that happened to Bernie, his young supporters would have a very good reason to be bitterly resentful.

Funny how David Axelrod was totally onboard with all of that when it happened to Hillary in 2008. He wasn’t overtly worried about her supporters being bitterly resentful. It probably had something to do with her being a woman and assuming she was ok with being shoved aside and not complaining about it. I’m not sure he gave a damn about her supporters’ feelings in the least tiny bit. That’s why some of them left to join the Tea Party. That went well. So, you know, David can piss off for all I care.

But I can’t see Hillary’s people treating other candidates’ voters like s^&*. It’s not what decent people do. It does not result in party unity. And if Hillary approved of that kind of thing that David Axelrod encouraged in 2008, I would very much question her motives. Is she so determined to win that she’ll risk destroying any sense of fairness? Would she be willing to completely discount the votes and sentiments and will of millions of voters (like her voters in 2008, made up over half of all the Democratic voters in all of the primary states including CA, MA, NY, NJ, PA, TX, FL, MI, etc, etc)? Because if she would do that, then what else might she ignore during her presidency? Long term unemployed people? Desperate homeowners? Working people in general?

I only ask.

Fortunately, there’s no reason for any of us to have to contemplate scenarios where Hillary and her people would scream at Bernie’s people to “GET OUT, YOU STUPID <fill in the stereotypical offensive epithet here>, YOU’RE RUINING EVERYTHING!!!”. (We have pictures, Greg)

The primaries are going well. Everything looks on the up and up and Bernie will have his say at the convention and a honest to goodness first ballot roll call vote.

In the meantime, it is very important that Bernie doesn’t sink to the level of a Republican and damage Clinton and the party just so he can stay in the good graces of his supporters who may or may not be some of the same obnoxious Obots who had to have their way in 2008, got it, and got burned because they weren’t paying any damn attention to the fact that their candidate’s favorite presidents were all Republicans.

They are allowed to be disappointed. I have been disappointed many times in Democratic primaries. I always got over it and voted for the nominee. But I drew the line in 2008 because of all of the nasty crap that happened with the full consent of the party, Obama, the media and DAVID AXELROD.

WE were cheated, bullied and disrespected. Bernie’s voters are simply losing. BIG difference.

This part was particularly offensive:

It’s not yet clear whether the Clinton camp thinks it will have to make any meaningful concessions to Sanders in order to unite the party and bring in his supporters. But during her victory speech yesterday, Clinton struck the right preliminary tone for navigating what’s ahead. She stopped short of declaring the nomination locked up, while suggesting that “more voices” across the country still deserve to “be heard,” and thus that the contest should continue for the foreseeable future. Her surrogates may be tempted to heap disdain on Sanders and his supporters for wanting him to keep going, particularly if her pledged delegate lead expands. The Clinton campaign should discourage that.

We don’t need a lecture from Greg Sargent. We had enough of that crap in 2008, along with the Convention media narrative, “Why is Hillary not releasing her delegates? Doesn’t she know she’s harshing Obama’s melloooooow??” (I was in Denver, Greg. I talked to “journalists”. They all parroted the same damn thing)

No one has to tell Clinton or her far more sensitive supporters how to behave towards our friends who are still feeling the Bern, especially not some tut-tutting male blogger at the Washington Post.

I have full faith in Hillary Clinton to do the right thing for the party, to which she has been far more loyal than it has been to her, and for all of the voters, both hers and Bernie’s.

When she wants your input, I’m sure she’ll ask for it.

Update: Why are Clinton people so cranky? Why don’t you put up with 20+ years of lies and innuendo from the nutcase right and then find that the guy you thought wasn’t going to hurt you is using the same personal attacks that could have been written by some back office flunky at Fox News.

And add to that the media is determined to never say anything nice about you. Even the surrogates of the most determined, successful, accomplished, over qualified candidate in the last 20 years would start to get a bit peevish.

Especially after having gone through it once before in 2008. It’s generally true that women have to work much harder to get to the same position as a man. But this is like asking her to run this gauntlet twice without any help whatsoever. It makes what Obama had to go through look like a cake walk.

The better question is, why is Bernie doing it? What can he possibly hope to gain by it?

 

 

Notes from a Primary Night

Was that fun or what? I was phone banking last night at Hillary HQ in Pittsburgh. There was pot luck. Someone brought Greek pastries. I might have had more than my share. Some highlights:

1.) Tom Vilsack, former Governor of Iowa showed up around 7pm and gave a pretty decent pep talk. Took questions. I could swear Hillary addressed at least one of them in her victory speech last night. It sounded very specific. Note to phone bankers- take a look at your candidate’s web site on issues to make sure you can address questions from the people you contact.

2.) My phone bank contacts were very positive for Hillary. There were only a few defectors to Bernie. Really looking forward to the primary next Tuesday. I hope she comes to Pittsburgh for her victory speech.

3.) I still love Bernie and have figured out that he attracts two groups of people. The first group is passionate about universal health care, the end to wars in the middle east, economic stability and income inequality. Katiebird is one of these people and I know that she is a very issues motivated person. The second group is passionate about themselves. They don’t see Hillary as a legitimate candidate and her voters are disposable. Many of these people are the same ones who voted for Obama back in 2008 and were not paying attention. Samantha Bee has a conversation with them on this week’s Full Frontal:

 

Ah, yes, we’re just feeble old geezers who can barely get the energy up to shake our Geritol bottles during Hillary’s speech. If only we had enthusiasm, pep and vigor.

{{rolling eyes}}

Look, I really like Bernie. But as Peter Daou pointed out last night on Twitter, his campaign has evolved from being about something to being about someone. And the idea that the pledged delegate count can be subverted by buying the superdelegates is not only undemoctatic, it’s just so 2008. I even heard CNN commentators admit last night that it’s essentially what Obama did back in 2008.Maybe we’re finally seeing the impermeable shell of media protection around Obama start to crack. Maybe pigs will fly out of my ass. Who knows.

Anyway, this is all to say that it’s beneath you, Bernie. The primary is tougher with you in it and Hillary runs better when she’s challenged. But this primary is clean, unlike 8 years ago. Let’s keep it that way and respect the will of the voters AND the candidates who earned those delegates. Introducing animosity at this stage when there’s no reason to feels like something a Republican would want us to do.

And who’s to say they’re not secretly goading us on.

4.) Speaking of Republicans, congrats to Donald Trump. This fall is going to be tremendous. YUGE!

{{Bwahahahahahahhahhhhhhhh!}}