1.) Lizzie Warren took an ax and gave The Donald forty whacks:
That’s going to leave marks.
2.) It’s the Gig Economy, Stupid. In the last week, I have heard both Grover Norquist and Gary Johnson praising the Gig Economy or the 1099 economy as if it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread and everyone’s secret wish is to be a small business owner.
I don’t think anyone in the research industry really wants to be in the Gig Economy and be in a start up funded by vulture capitalists. Small businesses are great for people who are bakers or accountants. For scientists? ehhhh, not so much.
And then there is the paperwork and the taxes to manage. Plus, you lose your Obamacare subsidy and have to pay it all back if you underestimate your income. And income can be variable. Then there’s saving for retirement, saving for future bouts of unemployment, because most self-employed people do not get unemployment benefits.
The Gig Economy will ruin the middle class faster than anything. It leads to income instability. When you can’t count on your income, you can’t buy cars or houses. It’s hard to have kids because you may not be able to afford them throughout the 18 years of their early lives. The gig economy means having to pick and follow your job, something I saw happen to a lot of my former colleagues who had their jobs in one state and their families in another. In short, it sucks and very few people want to live this way.
I can’t imagine why Grover and Gary keep pushing this. It only appeals to young single guys. Well, there you go.
If I were Hillary, I would steer clear of praising the self-employed and small business person too much. Most of us don’t want to go there.
3.) I still like Bernie. Seriously. If I weren’t such a cold hearted pragmatist, I could have felt the Bern. I certainly got warm enough. He’s right on so many issues and that’s why he got so much support.
He went off the tracks by not realizing that the rest of us had a right to our own votes and opinions. Our votes are legitimate too. Delegitimizing Hillary’s voters has been a feature of Bernie’s supporters. They share that with the Obama supporters of 2008. Some of them are probably the same people. Bernie should ditch these people. They are ruining his reputation.
California is still counting but I think it’s over guys.
I know that you wanted a revolution but as Thomas Jefferson once wrote, “all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed”.
There’s a good chance that the people who voted for Clinton do not see her has the corrupt, deceitful, corporatist, neoliberal that you do. They see her has a person who has been thwarted for 25 years and has had to claw her way to this pinnacle with little or no help from anyone. And Bernie was good for her. The long, hard slog may have made her too practical. What Bernie gave her was a wake up call about where the country’s mood actually is.
But you know, you can not predict how this general election season is going to go. There’s a possibility that we could have a wave in the Senate. Is change likely in the House? Probably not, but I’m a Tolkienist, so anything is possible as long as we meet each new experience as it comes along without giving up hope.
Anyway, this is what *we* wanted but maybe not what *you* wanted. We aren’t going to apologize for it.
Best “How Did I Get Here?” Expression goes to Chris Christie
When I say that it is the worst, I mean overall, for both Republicans and Democrats. By the way, have you noticed that very few people are challenging Hillary’s right to challenge the nomination right until the convention in 2008? That’s what happens when beautiful theories are destroyed by ugly facts. She had the votes, delegates and right to do it in 2008. Bernie? ehhhhhh, not so much. But we will find out on Tuesday.
I just hope that the Bernie supporters in California sleep on their votes on Monday night. New Jersey is a semi-closed primary where you must declare for a party in order to vote in the primary, at least that is the way it worked when I lived there. You can wait right up to the day of the election to declare. So, it’s possible that independents can be Democrats for a day to cast a vote. California had a registration cutoff back in May, if I recall correctly. If you didn’t make the cutoff, you can’t vote. But I’ve heard that many independents were motivated to register for the primary.
The Children’s Table
Why Clinton is leading by 17 points in NJ but is inching ahead in California is puzzling. Maybe some of it is due to demographics, though the number of highly educated Asian STEM workers in New Jersey has probably decreased dramatically since 2008 with the collapse of the pharmaceutical industry. Maybe it has to do with California not really being a true blue state but one where coastals are balanced by more rural independents, conservative Republicans and libertarians. Who knows?
“Most Likely to Succeed”
If I were a Bernie supporter, I’d ask myself if I hate Hillary more than I hate Trump. If Hillary wins the nomination with NJ before the polls close in California, what message will be sent? That Bernie forced Clinton to hobble to the finish line? And if Bernie’s hoping to be given equal time at the convention after trailing Hillary by a significant number of delegates even after California, should he get more consideration than Hillary got at the 2008 convention? I’m guessing the guys will scream bloody murder if they get the same treatment that Hillary got in 2008. Let’s see whose side the party comes down on.
Bernie’s Filibuster- His Finest Hour(s)
Anyway, I’m glad it’s almost over. I’ve had enough of the penis wagging and the Bernie bros being nuisances. I really like Bernie and I stand with him on the issues but he’s let his supporters get into his head and may have damaged his legacy. His campaign has really pissed me off lately. I just want it to end before I lose all respect for him. Let’s get this over with already.
On another note, I was listening to Reliable Sources on CNN and one journalist was going off on the Obama administration for clamping down on the media and smothering whistleblowers and not letting them get anything to report on. I think it is now dawning on them that Hillary might use the same evasive tactics to keep the press guessing.
This is a good and a bad thing. The good thing is that we were not plagued during the last 8 years with a string of stupid, time-wasting congressional hearings and special prosecutors rifling through Michelle’s underwear drawer. They zipped it, zipped it good. There was nothing to grab onto. The Obama years were profoundly boring.
On the bad side, we have no idea how many times Jamie Dimon visited the White House. I’d like to know that kind of information, wouldn’t you? Who did Obama meet with on the financial bailout, the stimulus package and the affordable care act? What connections did Michelle bring with her to the White House where the hospital industry is concerned? How much or little did Obama expand the NSA creeping into our lives during his tenure? There’s lots of little things that we don’t know anything about and probably won’t until he leaves office and officials start spilling the beans.
The thing is, the clamp down is likely to continue in a Clinton administration. She is already notoriously reticent about speaking to the press gaggle that follows her campaign. I completely understand this. If all they are looking for is a confession of sins so they can force her to do a Cersei Lannister Walk of Shame on a regular basis, as has been their habit for the last 25 years, then why should she participate in her own self-destruction? A presumptive nominee and president has an obligation to her party to maintain a certain degree of dignity. If the media is always trying to undermine that, they shouldn’t be surprised if she cuts them out. She has to do it. They have brought it on themselves.
Going forward, she’s going to learn from her husband’s terms to button things up just to be able to do her job on a day to day basis without unnecessary distractions. But that means that we aren’t going to be aware of when things go off the tracks too. This level of vigilance will need to be maintained until the end of her term.
Rebecca Traister wrote that Hillary has to learn to get over her distrust of the media, even if this distrust is merited.I’m not so sure I see it that way. It used to be the media had an obligation to keep the public informed but these days, it seems like it’s more motivated by keeping the shareholders happy. If Clinton clamps down on journalists’ access because of their past behavior, as I expect she will, then what will they have to report? Well, I guess they could still create mountains out of molehills and make shit up but I think the public is getting really tired of that, especially when all the investigations result in big nothingburgers. How is that going to please the shareholders?
My prediction is that she’ll continue the Obama clamp down and they’ll be outraged by it. The question is, will they learn anything?? Sometimes, I get the impression that they took an oath years ago to never let Hillary become president or they will die trying to prevent it. It’s like some kind of Grover Norquist Club for Growth vow that has long outlived its usefulness. It’s just spite for the sake of spite, journalist “rebels” without a cause. And they really mean it. They just aren’t so clear about why anymore. None of it makes any damn sense. Unless there’s something radical about Clinton that they know that we don’t.
Happy Memorial Day everyone! Hope you are having a great day. The weather in Pittsburgh is perfect today. I’m going to do some yard work and painting and head on over to the other side of the river for dinner. Maybe relax in the cool breezes high above the river and watch the lights come on in the valley below. Ahhhh….
It’s true that her lead isn’t as big as it was before Mr. Trump clinched the G.O.P. nomination, largely because Republicans have consolidated around their presumptive nominee, while many Sanders supporters are still balkingat saying that they’ll vote for her.
But that probably won’t last; many Clinton supporters said similar things about Barack Obama in 2008, but eventually rallied around the nominee. So unless Bernie Sanders refuses to concede and insinuates that the nomination was somehow stolen by the candidate who won more votes, Mrs. Clinton is a clear favorite to win the White House.
Gosh, I know some of us were ‘silly’ for refusing to jump on the Obama bandwagon after the 2008 primary debacle. But Paul should know that I continue to run into die-hard, civil rights loving Democrats who absolutely could not, under any circumstances, vote for Obama in 2008 or 2012. The reaction to being pressured to vote for him is instant nausea, a rise in blood pressure and anger. Why?
It’s because Obama’s campaign made zero attempt to reach out to us. No, it was more like roll over us, back up, roll over us again, stomp on our heads, call us racists, threaten us, make fun of us, call us stupid uneducated losers and the people who were going to deprive women of reproductive choice. All this from the campaign of the guy who couldn’t be bothered to immediately rescind the Bush conscience rule when he took office. Was that so much to ask from the Feminist in Chief? They treated us so tenderly, those Democrats for Obama. Bernie supporters are going to get a lot more consideration from Hillary than we ever got from Obama.
The difference this year is, as Nate Silver writes, Bernie has had an unusual advantage in the nominating process due to open primaries and caucuses. He has been given every opportunity to win. And he simply hasn’t had the numbers. As Silver points out, the proportional distribution of delegates, open primaries and number of caucuses allows Bernie to pile up delegates from voters who are not all Democrats through a process that is pretty undemocratic.
By Silver’s logic, the same could be said of Obama’s win in 2008. He piled up a lot of delegates in caucus states and in the Republican states in the south. He won very, very few of the delegate rich solid blue Democratic states. The way the media portrayed it, you would have thought Obama won the primary nomination in a landslide when in truth, he barely squeaked by in delegates, lost the popular vote and was the recipient of a wholesale defection of superdelegates from Hillary to Obama in May 2008. Hmmm, right about now, eight years ago…
My point is, and I do have one, is that the count isn’t anywhere near being close for Bernie. I can see where his supporters see the same patterns of wins and think they can pull off an Obama. But even Obama couldn’t pull off an Obama without a lot of help (cough, *media*, cough). And that help cooled some Clintonista’s support for Obama- permanently.
In other words, stop trying to help, Paul. The only ones who are going to be able to help Bernie supporters to move on are Hillary, Bernie and the party, who needs to make a unwavering commitment to stand behind its nominee. It would be wrong to keep taking Bernie supporters votes for granted. That’s going to make them balk. Well, at least some of them. Just give them time to adjust to the numbers. This is not 2008. It’s not that close. Not even a little bit.
This part Krugman did get right:
And no, saying that the race is effectively over isn’t somehow aiding a nefarious plot to shut it down by prematurely declaring victory. Nate Silverrecently summed it up: “Clinton ‘strategy’ is to persuade more ‘people’ to ‘vote’ for her, hence producing ‘majority’ of ‘delegates.’” You may think those people chose the wrong candidate, but choose her they did.
She did it the same way she did it in 2008. She relied on the solid Democratic machinery, unions, hard work and by excelling in messaging and preparation over the other candidate. She is a good candidate. She knows how to win elections and has proven to win elections to the senate, twice, and in the 2008 primaries. The left blogosphere guys who are freaking out need to calm their tits already.
Let me make this absolutely clear about where we stand to those of you Bernie Bros (and right wing trolls) who can’t help throwing out word salad nonsense in our comments sections. The people on this blog are some of the most pragmatic voters you will ever meet. They have a set of standards and they challenge their candidates to meet them. They are enthusiastic about Clinton but they are also not carried away by emotion. You can’t win us over by the breathless panic you feel when the demon, female incubus mind controls us to vote for her. I assure you, we did this all on our own by researching the issues and weighing the pros and cons of both candidates. There was no electronic signal to the chips embedded in our brains.
Your attempts to highjack the nomination away from Hillary a second time and nullify our votes will provoke a very strong reaction in us. You really ought to think long and hard about this. I don’t think it’s something you considered. We are not going to just roll over and take it when we do not see Bernie as coming close to winning.
Also, you won’t find commenters here who use a lot of jargon. That’s because they prefer to do their own thinking and don’t want someone with an agenda substituting shortcuts to the thinking process. Try it sometime. I mean, try to write a comment that doesn’t contain the words authoritarians, DLC, neoliberals or corporatists. I challenge you to use real thoughts and words. I might even let some of you out of the spam filter where no one can currently hear you scream.
Otherwise, you are wasting your time here. This blog was created eight years ago so that Clintonistas could feel safe swimming against the tide and saying what they thought without someone bullying them or forcing them to shut up. We’d like to keep it that way. That doesn’t mean you aren’t welcome here but you need to realize where we are coming from. The vast majority of Clintonistas are no longer persuadable to abandoning her for another candidate. In all likelihood, most Clinton supporters in the remaining primary states are pretty much the same. We are sticking with her no matter what gets thrown at her.
What is important is whether your candidate is damaging his own reputation and legacy. I’ve noticed in the past couple of days that he’s backing off the scorched earth tactics. Probably because he’s a smart man and he also knows that there’s nothing hinky about this process this year and that he is simply losing in the old fashioned way like other people we liked. You know, like Paul Tsongas and Gary Hart. Ok, maybe some of you are too young to know. For some of us, those were our first crushes too.
We learned to love again.
In the meantime, it’s not over yet but this story has a somewhat predictable ending. You may find out that the nominee is better than you thought. I would only ask that you give her a chance with a more open mind.
What we need is to send a clear signal to the right wing extremism that is giving us Trump so that a landslide can bring him down.
1.)I’m a bit sad this morning over Bernie Sanders’ self-immolation of his brand. Bernie was on to something. His message resonated with me strongly. He made a strategic misstep when he identified too much with the more paranoid supporters in his constituency. Bernie supporters will always be welcome here. Your opinions *do* matter to us and your vote is still important if you haven’t had a chance to participate in a primary yet. You shouldn’t be ignored just because your champion temporarily lost his f&*(ing mind. (Just don’t expect us to argue every point with you. Our focus is forward, getting Hillary elected)
And anyway, no revolution is going to happen until we put more people like us in Congress, the Senate and statehouses. If Hillary is elected president, the tide of bad voting laws can be rolled back. That right there is a good reason to vote for her because you can’t change anything if you can’t vote. So, I hope we can concentrate on downticket Democrats that both sides of the party can get behind. (Yeah, we don’t like Debbie Wasserman-Shultz and her student body president types either)
2.) We had a sustained attack on this blog on Friday. I have reason to believe it was not just a Bernie Bros production. The Bernie Bros are occasionally more earnest burning swamp monsters flailing and broadcasting high anxiety to the blog. (Calm your tits, guys, Hillary isn’t nearly as Satanic as you think). But I don’t think they are the most destructive trolls. I mean, who has the most to lose this election really? Who is more motivated to try to diminish and marginalize the pro-Hillary contingent?
Let’s just say that I’ve been tracing some of the commenters to their original sources and my curiosity is piqued. Would there be a concerted effort to bombard Hillary positive blogs with comments that looked like they came from unhinged Bernie Bros but are actually right wing disrupters who got their hands on what should be defunct domain addresses? I wouldn’t be surprised. Someone with more time and network skills on their hands should look into this. I can provide the information if you interested.
3.) Jane Caro, my favorite Australian, is writing a trilogy of books about Queen Elizabeth I of England and what sacrifices women in power have to make. She touches briefly on what Hillary is going through at about the 35 minute mark when she talks about how men are ok with women playing second fiddle. But the minute a woman politician decides to go for the top spot, she suddenly morphs into a “heinous bitch” in the media. There’s some speculation that there is an ancient physical taboo involved. Donald Trump has already tapped into this. I’m really intrigued by Jane’s hypothesis here.
Jane used to be in advertising and she’s very perceptive about what motivates people as well as what turns them off. Jane talks about why virgins are more powerful. We should probably try to understand this if we ever expect to make progress. Is she on to something? Discuss.
The whole video is really good. If I were Hillary, I’d add Caro to the campaign advisors.
4.) Ok, who out there hates to clean? Don’t be shy, raise your hands. I have some podcast gold for you that are truly sponge worthy and will take your mind off the chores that never end and don’t seem to stay done. These are about Hollywood’s early years and they are fascinating.
Stuart Waterman has two amazing podcasts. Pick one depending on your mood.
Attaboy Clarence podcasts are about an hour long and feature biographies of the stars, old timey ads and Lux Theater rebroadcasts of movies, along with Stuart’s sardonic commentary delivered in a Jude Law drawl.
The Secret History of Hollywood is more like an ongoing deep dyve narrative. These podcasts must take months to put together but they are so well done you can’t wait for the next one to come out. He has podcasts that cover Alfred Hitchcock, Universal Pictures’ horror genre and the beginnings of Warner Bros. and their gangster film franchise. I’m on part two of Bullets and Blood. Start with Bullets and Blood part 1. You won’t be sorry.
You Must Remember This is Karina Longworth’s podcast on the history of Hollywood. Her podcast also has biographies of the stars starting with the silent screen right up to Sharon Tate and Roman Polanski. These podcasts are shorter, about 30 minutes long. Karina always finds an angle that you might not have thought about and leaves you thinking long after the podcast is over. Hollywood has had an enormous effect on our culture.
Both podcasters discuss the pre-code Hollywood era. That was a revelation to me and may explain why your grandparents were so much cooler than your parents.
5.) Alright, on to what you really wanted to talk about: Game of Thrones predictions. To recap this season (don’t read if you haven’t seen season 6 episodes yet. Spoilers ahead.):
Jon Snow is not dead. Melisandre brought him back with a sponge bath, haircut and some funky prayers in what sounds like Hebrew. He executed the Watch brothers who executed him, which just goes to show you that characters are not dead until you burn the bodies, assuming they can be burned (I’m getting to that).
Sansa escapes with Theon’s help. She and Theon are rescued in the woods by Brienne who offers her sword to Sansa. This time, Sansa has finally bought a clue and accepts the help. Theon departs for the Iron Islands where he offers to help make his sister queen after their father’s untimely murder at the hands of his brother.
Sansa reaches Jon at Castle Black and there is a touching reunion. Tormund Giantsbane locks eyes with Brienne. It’s love at first sight. (Bow-chicka-bow) Ramsay Bolton has Sansa and Jon’s(?) little brother and sends a taunting letter to Jon and Sansa at Castle Black saying “Come and get him”. Sansa channels her inner badass and tells Jon that if he doesn’t help her take back Winterfell, she’ll do it herself. Jon and the Wildlings are all in.
Arya is still in Braavos training to become a faceless man. But is she really “no one”? By the way, did anyone else notice that during the “beat the confession out of her” scene the Waif got Arya to reduce the number of brothers she has? Has Arya always known in some instinctive way that Jon wasn’t her brother even though both Arya and Jon are the most Stark like of all the Winterfell children?
Bran has greenseer visions with Bloodraven about the Tower of Joy. We still have no confirmation that R+L=J but, c’mon, what else can these visions mean? Unless there’s something we don’t yet know…
Cersei and Jaime hatch a plot to get the Tyrell’s to take on the High Sparrow and the Faith Militant. Sparrow has Margaery, King Tommen’s wife, and her brother Loras. The idea is to bring the Tyrell army to King’s Landing. What could *possibly* go wrong?
Dany escapes from the Dosh Khaleen and burns the right wing trolls and Bernie Bros, the worst collection of obnoxious, threatening, small minded barbarians that ever gave rape culture a bad name and emerges from the flames as an unburnt fiery demi-goddess.
Predictions:
High Sparrow got Loras to crack. Loras told Sparrow that is grandmother had King Joffrey poisoned. Then, Sparrow tells Tommen this, and he tells his mother Cersei. Cersei and Jaime hatch a plan to pit the Tyrell’s against the Faith Militant and hope to take both of them out at the same time by having the Lannisters show up and clean up the aftermath. Not sure how the much anticipated Cleganebowl comes out of this but expect to see Mountainstein take on The Hound in about episode 7.
Sansa is going to lead the army to Winterfell. She’s going to be the one to make herself a widow by slamming one of her embroidery needles into Ramsay’s brain. Being eaten by wolves is too good for him. He’s got to die by Sansa’s hands. Die, Die, Die, Ramsay, DIE! Ahem, got carried away there.
Arya took an antidote before she drank from the cup that Jaquen H’gar offered her. She’s still Arya under there.
Bran is going to go diving too deeply under the sea and almost loses himself. He sees The Others coming and Meera helps him sound the alarm. Will Howland Reed deliver Robb Stark’s will to the other bannermen of the North in time to take back and fortify Winterfell in time for the onslaught?
Disclaimer: In the following, I’m not referring to all Bernie people. There are plenty of Bernie people who are pretty good people who just want to make sure their issues are addressed.
But Bernie should be aware that you *can* win California (NY, NJ, PA, OH, FL, MI, TX, MA etc), win the popular vote and still lose the nomination. Go ask Hillary.
Bernie wants another debate before the California primary. If I were Clinton, I’d give it to him. What I think some voters want to see is an anti-Dukakis moment from Hillary. I think she can do this.
Finally, the left has to step up and make the Bernie Bros behave. Yes, it’s time to cut the sexist shit out and step up and do the right thing guys. These assholes are out of control. They think that they can use intimidation and breath holding and harrassment and everyone is going to give into them because they infiltrated caucuses and flipped some delegates in an backdoor strategy and generally made a nuisance of themselves.
This is unrealistic.
It’s unrealistic because as I pointed out before, you can still win California by 10 points and lose the nomination. If the media is on your side, you can be carried to the nomination in a sedan chair. And although the media is having a field day watching this pie fight, I see no indication that they are backing Bernie the way they slavishly fellated Obama in 2008.
No, the media is saving its worst work for the general between Hillary and Trump.
Secondly, Bernie Bros need to realize that there are other people who exist who prefer their own candidate and it is not Bernie. Even if the party does decide to ditch Hillary- again- that doesn’t mean that her voters are going to pivot and support Bernie in the fall if he gets the nomination via a coup. They were asked to do that for a man they didn’t believe in for the 2008 campaign and they’re not going to do it again. These guys need to understand this. There will be a fury they won’t see coming. We do have feelings and anger is one of the ones they don’t want stir. Don’t even. I’m serious.
I’m calling on all left blogosphere guys to tell these assholes to stop. Stop the dehumunization of Hillary Clinton.
Stop the double standard.
Stop the stupid hand wringing about whether a senator who has been elected twice, can run a campaign.
Stop believing the crap about the 2008 campaign that doesn’t acknowledge the piling on, the media collaboration, the flood of Wall Street money to Obama and the party back stabbing.
Stop abetting the overt sexism.
Stop sitting on the sidelines without commenting on the truly bad behavior and ridiculous intimidation.
Stop pretending that this is the same crap any male candidate opposing Sanders would get.
It’s on YOU to rein in these assholes. Some of you were these assholes in 2008 and how did that go for you? Did Obama give you everything you wanted? Is it possible that you weren’t entirely accurate?
If you don’t rein them in and crack down, you bear some of the responsibility for what comes next.
For some incomprehensible reason, there is a left blogosphere that thinks that Hillary is going to blow this election. In fact, here is a Vox post on the subject by Alex Pareen called “Don’t Blow This”. It’s a mansplainy post in the style of “Ok, I’ll let you drive the car but I know how careless you are so don’t screw up”.
Alex, do you have any idea what an arrogant, stupid dick you sound like?
Dear Lefty Blogosphere who can’t get over Clinton Derangement Syndrome,
Did you forget that Hillary Clinton won two senate races by wide margins?
Do the 18,000,000 people who voted for Hillary in 2008 mean nothing to you? I realize this is a rhetorical question because you seem to think that all you need to do is insist dramatically and throw personal insults at her and her voters will once again step aside for you like indulgent grannies.
Seriously, just how old and stupid do you think we are?
You are getting all emo about the superdelegates who stubbornly refuse to flip to your candidate even though he might not have the pledged delegates he needs before the end of the primaries as if you are The Only Ones Who Matter. Did it ever occur to you that we might be extremely upset with such a scenario?
We must pay attention to you, you, you. And you don’t even have a reason to be angry with the primaries at this point. No one is halving your earned delegates in Colorado or Indiana. There aren’t a bunch of wild and aggressive Clintonistas shutting you down at the caucuses, locking you out of the venues or grabbing the sign in sheets. The party isn’t actively undermining every victory you have. It’s all been on the level.
But what the hell, guys? Seriously. If you don’t have a legitimate reason to protest the way the party has conducted the primaries this year, what makes you think we are just going to say, “Gosh, they are really insistent. Well, I guess my vote for Hillary is meaningless. Let’s let Bernie have all the superdelegates.”
Is that why we’re getting this crap from Alex Pareen? We’re unreasonably holding on to the idea that our candidate is probably going to win so you guys who got your way last time have to be all begrudging about it.
I don’t think we should be so deferential to you guys anymore. Go ahead and vote for whoever you like but it’s probably time we stopped giving you WATB so much attention.
We LIKE our candidate. We’re not ashamed of her. She’s as squeaky clean and honest as you’re going to get in a candidate. Your brain knows this. She doesn’t run bad campaigns or so many millions and millions (and millions) more people wouldn’t persist in voting for her. If you find her inability to transcend being human as cringeworthy, that’s YOUR problem. We are not going to apologize for the fact that you find women your mom’s age occasionally embarrassing.
You need to get over it.
Bernie’s a good guy and I really like him. But if he loses the primaries, Hillary Clinton is going to have to fight Trump, the media and you. She’s probably going to win. Don’t make it closer than it has to be by getting all “WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE!!!!” every time she does something that isn’t perfect.
Sincerely,
RD
As for the rest of us, party on, people! It’s time we celebrated our candidate and tell the world how excited we are for the election to come. Not just the election but giving Hillary the reins and seeing what she does with them. That, my friends, will be real change.
Cocktail Party Here Every Friday Until The Election.
Anyone interested? Should we google hangout it? Podcast it? Raise some money?
Yesterday, Twitter was all aflutter when someone who purports to be a Bernie supporter put out a #DropOutHillary hashtag up and it started trending. Then people started to take offense and Melissa McKewn started a #KeepWinningHillary hashtag up and it started trending.
It sounds very silly and juvenile and “I know you are but what am I?” but it’s really not funny.
For one thing, we don’t know who started it. Or what their motivation was. But back in 2008, it was very common for Hillary to kill Obama in a primary in say, Pennsylvania, and the next day, there would be headlines in some major paper quoting some Obama campaign flunky telling her to drop out because she couldn’t win (subtext, she couldn’t win without FL and MI which were being negotiated away by Obama and his backers with the DNC).
Some current Bernie supporters know this.
I also went to one of my first Hillary campaign meetings in Pittsburgh and there were some negative things said about Bernie people. But there were also many of us who publicly said we were not going to indulge in that because we have friends and family members who were decent people who didn’t want free stuff and were more issues oriented and it was wrong to paint all these people with the same brush.
Butcha know, Bernie people are starting to get a reputation for being messianic zealots. Samantha Bee did a segment on them recently and one of my favorite podcasters, Seth Andrews from The Thinking Atheist (who seems like the “I’m not taking sides sort”), came down equally hard on Bernie’s people as Trump’s.
I think Clinton people just want to get on with it. If they seem grouchy, maybe it’s because as jjintacoma said last night, Trump is negative towards her, the media is negative towards her and the Bernie people are against her. It gets old after awhile.
I’m not saying that she’s a “poor little me” type, quite the opposite. Because, you know, she keeps winning in spite of it all. So, clearly, there are many millions of people who see through all of the endless investigations that find nothing, and the accusations of dishonesty that are unfounded, and the crazy notion that she has ever traded her vote for contributions (ATT retroactive immunity bill? Hello!). There’s no conspiracy going on here to deprive anyone of votes.
She runs a clean campaign. If she didn’t, you can bet there would be yet another investigation about it.
She is possibly the cleanest candidate we have ever had run for office.
You may not like everything she says and I would agree that she took way too long this time to wake up to what’s really going on because it is really difficult to block out the constant cheering for Obama’s every thought, word and deed. But she is clean.
And some Bernie people should know it.
Chill out, people. This is a normal, no funny business primary season. There will be one winner and one person who will not win.
It’s not over yet. Not by a long shot. A lot could happen. Even the person who loses could make a huge difference. Let everyone vote and watch what happens. There’s no need for a protest vote yet.
Finally, if there are people who are sowing dissension between the two parts of the Democratic party, we need to consider who they are and who they are working for. Because they might be outsiders.
Regardless of how the nomination procedure turns out, I have to agree with this. It was one of my major concerns about Hillary this time around. She seemed to have gotten campaign advice from former Obama people who hadn’t been outside for awhile. They have no idea what has happened to us in the last 8 years. Or maybe they do and they think we’re all ok with being contractors with no benefits one layoff away from being entrepreneurs.
Hillary need to do another listening tour. I think she is hearing us now. That’s a good thing.
And unlike some Clintonistas, I think it would be a very good thing to push ourselves more in the direction of small, homogenous Scandinavian countries, which if you grouped them all together take up a whole lot of European territory (Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, I might be tempted to throw in the Netherlands).
One belwether that points to the level of discontent is the Senate primary in Pennsylvania where Joe Sestak, who would presumably be the party pick but oddly wasn’t, lost.
And John Fetterman, a very unlikely Senator, won almost 20% of the vote. John is the mayor of Braddock, PA, about 15 minutes from where I live. I used to pass through Braddock and think, you know what would improve this place? A bomb. But Fetterman had other ideas. He’s a big fan of urban renewal and community and the kind of things that one might do in Norway.
I don’t think anyone expected him to get 20%. That’s significant. We ought to think deeply about that. Why would the state of PA give up 20% of its vote to a giant who doesn’t seem to own a suit who is the mayor of a bankrupt steel town on the Monongahela?
The other thing we need to note is that Katie McGinty actually won the primary. She’s a former chemist (yay!) and a current lawyer with a work history in environmental policy. I’m really thrilled to be able to vote for her this fall.
But I have to admit, she had a really crappy ballot position.It was waaaaay down on the ballot where the nether world candidates usually live. I’m sure it was just the luck of the draw. But to find her name and vote for her, you needed to be very committed.
That, oh, best beloveds, may very well be Hillary’s coat tails.
I like Bernie. But I think he is beginning to listen too much to the same damn people we had to put up with in 2008. This is what they think:
Hillary is evil. She has The Ring. Her voters are unimportant. She must step aside.
I would go even further and speculate that many of Bernie’s middle aged male Democratic supporters are suffering from what I call The More Deserving Man Syndrome. That is, no matter what over accomplished woman is competing for what has been an exclusively male position before, there will always be that one more deserving man out there that only other men can see. But I digress.
Getting back to the title.
Rachel Maddow destroyed Bernie’s argument (post from BlueNationReview) for why there should be a contested convention by taking away one of the pillars of the “Obama ran a great campaign!” argument. She pointed out just how close the convention was in 2008. Actually, I think her estimate of a 4% pledged delegate difference is too high. It depends on how she is counting the Florida and Michigan delegations. If she is counting them as only half strength and Obama getting all of Michigan’s uncommitted delegates from a primary in which he wasn’t even on the ballot, then it was much, much closer than 4%. It was statistically insignificant.
Nevertheless, almost all of the superdelegates switched from Hillary to Obama. I say there was money involved, filtered to down ticket races from Obama’s Wall Street donors. But whatever.
Here’s the bottom line: Obama “won” the nomination from:
1.) Winning mostly caucus states. He lost most of the big Democratic prizes like CA, PA, NY, NJ, MA, FL, OH, TX, MI, NJ, just go look at the primary map
2.) Gifts of uncommitted delegates in MI plus a halving of FL and MI delegates by the fiat of the Rules Committee in May 2008.
3.) Superdelegates
That’s it. There was nothing magical about Obama’s campaign. He wasn’t that successful. If it weren’t for the media helping him but constructing a false narrative about *his* inevitability, he could have been subjected to a legitimate floor flight from a opponent who had far more reason to contest his appointment. In short, he would be where Bernie is now.
Do you hear what I’m saying Emily Bazelon, David Plotz and John Dickerson?? Obama did not win in a landslide. It wasn’t even close to a landslide. He won because you guys helped him and gave his crazy ass supporters a lot more legitimacy than they deserved. Now, it is coming back again full circle because those same crazy ass guys think they can do it again.
And the reason we know just how ridiculously close the 2008 delegate count was is because Hillary was pressured to concede the nomination before the first ballot roll call ended and before California had to commit its delegates, by law, to Clinton. Pelosi et al wanted to hurry the whole thing along and flip the states without the legal requirement of a first ballot commitment before anyone caught on.
I can never listen to Love Train again without wanting to throw up.
You would think that the first female candidate to get that close to winning the nomination would be accorded the honor of a full first ballot roll call vote. How does that make you feel, Rachel Maddow? Her pledged delegates were bullied and harassed in some cases, and many states didn’t get an opportunity to vote for her during the first ballot. We’re not talking about the second ballot where they could switch. We’re saying that some states were forced to switch during the first ballot. And the vast majority of the media was totally onboard with robbing the first female candidate of a first round roll call vote that she was going to lose anyway by less than 100 votes if we count all the delegate reassignment.
The first female candidate with legitimate claim to the nomination was ordered by her party to step aside.
Does that sound cool to you now eight years later? Because it wasn’t to us.
But if the party had gone ahead with a regular roll call vote, just like every male candidate would have demanded, the vote would have looked way too close and might have roused the attention and enthusiasm of the voters who were not enamored with Obama and thought he didn’t have the experience to take on what the Bushies and the financial industry were going to leave him. And they would have been right.
But Hillary graciously stepped aside. Just like Al Gore graciously stepped aside. Just like John Kerry graciously stepped aside.
Three points. Hmmmm, there’s a trend there… It’s almost as if someone wants a relatively weak and easy to control Democrat in the White House or a right wing Republican…
But Bernie wants to contest the convention. His supporters would like for Hillary to graciously step aside — again.
Really? I’m talking to all you issues oriented Bernie supporters out there. Do you really want Bernie to push aside this female candidate who is winning in a legitimate, clean primary season without any hinky rules crap? Is this really what you want?
She’s winning fair and square. It’s not up to you to substitute your judgment for the judgment of other voters no matter how stupid, mislead or uninformed you may think they are. If you were able to tolerate the least prepared Democratic president, you can tolerate the most prepared. Yes, there will be people who will make her look like Satan incarnate. It’s going to be hard for her. But if she couldn’t challenge in a year when she had every right to do it, then Bernie should accept the will of the voters after everyone has had a vote, and concede graciously.
Nobody gets exactly what they want in an election year. There is no perfect candidate who will say all the right things and is certified and guaranteed to do exactly what you want once they get into office. Do you want that anyway? What if something really important comes up and that president has to do something they thought they’d never do? All you can do is look at their records, look at their accomplishments, see if they are learning as the campaign proceeds and vote accordingly.
That’s what Clinton’s voters have done and they will not step aside this year.
Happy Memorial Day everyone! Hope you are having a great day. The weather in Pittsburgh is perfect today. I’m going to do some yard work and painting and head on over to the other side of the river for dinner. Maybe relax in the cool breezes high above the river and watch the lights come on in the valley below. Ahhhh….
Disclaimer: In the following, I’m not referring to all Bernie people. There are plenty of Bernie people who are pretty good people who just want to make sure their issues are addressed.
For some incomprehensible reason, there is a left blogosphere that thinks that Hillary is going to blow this election. In fact, here is 
The New York Times editorial yesterday was about how the 
The Confluence 