Comments

1
MSNBC: When Sanders hears the news onstage.
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Wow, I amazed that every county except Whatcom (not yet reported) caucused for Sanders! What's happened to those counties E of the mountain? Looks like Trump/Cruz did us a favor by being so vile! W😊😆H😅😆. BEST thing is, no stories and pics of Trump/Cruz to make me heave! THANK YOU ALL!
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Thanks for working/updating on the weekend Heidi! Your contributions are always even-handed & refreshing. Take the News Editor job, please.
5
In my precinct, it was something like 43 votes for Bernie and 2 votes for Hillary, so Bernie got 3 delegates and Hillary got none. Unlike previous caucuses I've been to, I didn't spot any people who seemed like they might be Republican cross-voters, voting for the most beatable Democratic candidate, so it seems this was probably an honest, non-tactical representation.

One thing that struck me as curious was the caucus organizer's insistence on the primacy of the Party's sex-parity rule for delegates/alternate delegates. We were told there had to be an equal number of males and females in each precinct's delegation to the district caucus and county convention and that if this could not be achieved by voting, it would be achieved by striking delegates of the over-represented sex. For example, if we had ended up with two male delegates, one female delegate, two male alternative delegates, and one female alternate delegate, for a total of four males and two females in the delegation, and we could not achieve parity through additional rounds, two of the males would be struck and we would lose one of our three delegate votes at the district caucus and county convention. Technically, if no women had shown up to my precinct's caucus, we would have been completely deprived of representation.

Leaving aside the question of whether a strict sex-parity rule is democratic in principle, there is a troubling aspect to its application in this particular election: the state's Democratic Party bigwigs are heavily pro-Hillary and (as far as I know) Hillary has been polling (still somewhat) stronger among women than among men. So in this election, giving the sex-parity rule primacy over voting results would, in theory, slant the outcome in Hillary's direction. That's our state's Democratic Party leadership for you.

My father lives in a richer, older part of town than I do. His precinct is sending three Bernie delegates and one Hillary delegate to the district caucus and county convention. (His precinct apparently had a bigger turn-out than mine did.) He doesn't recall that the sex-parity rule was mentioned, although his caucus staging area was apparently such a cacophonous zoo that it's possible he was simply unable to hear. Or, if the rule wasn't applied at the precinct level, maybe it will be used to strike delegates at the district level, depending on results.

Caucuses are a sometimes fun, sometimes tedious way to meet neighbors you didn't know and talk politics with them, but they are a terrible way to conduct "primaries." Only a small number of eligible voters know to, are able to, or are willing to show up and participate; the venues are often inconvenient and extremely noisy; and the organization is often chaotic. My venue was 15-minute walk from where I live; my 89-year-old father's was a 15-minute drive in light traffic. The caucuses at my venue started on schedule at 10 and we were done by around 11:30. The caucuses at my father's venue were just starting when mine let out. He said that even if he's still around four years from now, this was his last caucus -- it was just too physically taxing. And then there's the workers at the local diner where I had lunch after getting out. They cheered when I told them about the Bernie landslide in my precinct, but they never had the opportunity to vote themselves, since they were working when the caucuses took place. As I said, caucuses are a terrible way to conduct primaries.

My biggest regret about the caucuses is that I didn't get a chance to hear Hillary voters defend their choice, because I am unaware of anything that would make Hillary a better candidate in the general or a better president than Bernie. I think she's probably technically "smarter" than Bernie but that her smarts have always been nearly exclusively in service to herself and the 0.1%. She takes America's plutocratic corporate oligarchy as an immutable given and has never lifted a finger to challenge it. She's the trickle-down, crumbs-for-the-poor candidate par excellence. Major national polls still show Bernie as beating Trump and Cruz by significantly more comfortable margins than Hillary, so I'm really being honest when I say that I would have liked to hear what, other than ignorance, could possibly induce someone to vote for Hillary.

It's going to be interesting to see what happens if Hillary manages to eke out or steal a win at the national convention. Bernie recently listed a series of demands in exchange for his support -- consisting essentially of most of the major policies of his platform. Personally, I wouldn't trust Hillary or the DNC to hold to a single promise. I'm a "Bernie or Bust" voter. If Bernie doesn't win the nomination, I think he should form a new progressive coalition party and run as an independent. The Democratic Party hasn't represented the 99% for decades. Hillary Clinton hasn't represented the 99%, ever. This election is the Party's last chance to reverse course and reform from within. If it doesn't, it needs to die. As Hunter S. Thompson wrote 44 years ago:

I have never been much of a Party Man myself… and the more I learn about the realities of national politics, the more I’m convinced that the Democratic Party is an atavistic endeavor - more of an Obstacle than a Vehicle - and that there is really no hope of accomplishing anything genuinely new or different in American politics until the Democratic Party is done away with. It is a bogus alternative to the politics of Nixon.

---- Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail ‘72
This was written 13 years before the formation of the Democratic Leadership Council and 20 years before the takeover of the Party by "New Democrats." If Thompson saw what the Party had become today, he'd shoot himself. Oh, wait, he already did ... apparently for personal reasons, but there were certainly no promising political developments to help stay his hand.

Final Note: Keep tabs on who the Party's ex officio superdelegates cast their votes for at the national convention, and if they vote against the elected delegates' choice for Democratic Party presidential nominee, hold it against them in future elections.
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Everyone step to the left
9
@5 that logic + Ralph Nader = George W Bush

This is the situation oversimplified:
Bernie~ Hillary >> any R
for non math types: Bernie similar to Hillary who is much much better than any Republican.

I have trouble believing Paul Krugman is an establishment tool of the 1%. Why o why would he endorse Hillary if what you say is true?

Is Bernie George Mcgovern? I am sure the R strategists have a set of ads against him that will leave him staggered.
10
How many times has this state gone with the eventual presidential winner? I don't believe our support has historically been a favorable indicator.
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@9 (Christopher J):

Bernie~ Hillary >> any R
No. The difference between Bernie and Hillary is greater than any difference between Hillary and any Republican. Based on her long, indisputable, unspinnable record, Hillary is a Republican on virtually everything but a handful of social-wedge issues. And on those social-wedge issues, I'm confident she'd change her stance depending on the polls. She once vigorously supported the Defense of Marriage Act; now that public opinion has shifted, she thinks marriage equality is the cat's meow. Given changing circumstances, I've no reason to think she wouldn't flip on contraception, abortion, and school prayer. The only consistent thread in Hillary's history, from Goldwater girl to Walmart director to Iraq-invading senator to Libya-destroying Secretary of State to fancifully self-styled "progressive" presidential candidate, is that she has never served anything but her own ambition and whoever has the most money.

The Pentagon Papers were a long, long time ago. The New York Times is a tool of the 1%, justifying recent régime-change wars like Iraq and Libya long past the time it was clear they were based on false evidence and counterproductive to boot, and its columnist Paul Krugman is apparently a tool of the 1% as well. Krugman's baseless attack on Bernie's national single-payer health insurance plan is refuted not just by macro-view comparisons with foreign healthcare systems but by detailed economic analyses of specific single-payer plans done by the Kaiser Family Foundation, the Commonwealth Fund, and UMass-Amherst economist Gerald Friedman. It's the rare journalist or economist who is principled enough to bite the hand that feeds, and it's fairly clear now that Paul Krugman -- who advocated for single-payer before Obama, Rahm Emanuel, and the New Dems threw it to the wolves -- is not among them. Of course the New York Times and Paul Krugman endorsed Hillary. I don't think the Times' biggest shareholder, Mexican multi-billionaire Carlos Slim Helú, would have it any other way.

Equating Bernie Sanders to George McGovern? Frankly, I don't think "Acid, Amnesty and Abortion"-type attack ads are going to find much traction with formerly middle-class people whose manufacturing jobs have been shipped overseas, with African- and Hispanic-American former home owners whose home equity was stolen by Wall Street, with tech workers whose jobs have been outsourced or given to lower-paid H-1B workers, with people who still don't have health insurance or can't afford to use the grossly overpriced underinsurance they have, or with young people who can't afford rent on subliving minimum-wage jobs, let alone contemplate ever being able to pay back skyrocketing college tuition. Bernie calls himself a democratic socialist -- God alone knows why; in general aspirations, perhaps? -- but he's a solid FDR/LBJ social democrat who has a lot in common with Dwight Eisenhower in the taxation and infrastructure arenas. And even so, with the country's unabated rise in inequality and poverty, red-baiting doesn't work like it used to. Inverted fascism and crony capitalism haven't worked out well for most of the electorate and "socialism" isn't as scary as it was in the 50s. Bernie's popularity is increasing despite the concerted efforts of conglomerate media to ignore, marginalize, and sideline him, so good luck with the attack-ad fear-mongering.

Finally, would Bernie running as an independent throw the election to Trump or Cruz? Maybe, maybe not. There are rumors that Bloomberg might run as an independent and spoil the election on the Republican side. And to be honest, if the choice is between Hillary and whoever the Republicans end up nominating, I'm not sure I'd care. In the medium and long term, Hillary is not the lesser of evils. Ruling unopposed from the left, she might even be the more effective evil. I've seen what happens when a fake progressive gets elected. Obama's record was sparse and ambiguous enough that he could fool me and get my vote in 2008 (but certainly not in 2012). Hillary won't get it a first time, under any circumstances.
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@11"The difference between Bernie and Hillary is greater than any difference between Hillary and any Republican"

to use your favorite paragraph starter:
No. compared to "any Republican", take: Cruz or Trump. On any issue (no matter whatever the hell you deem a "wedge social" issue, like Women's biological rights??) Hillary is so far to the left there simply no space left between Bernie and Hillary. You will not see this, but the rest of us who have fought for all the progressive rights, both for minorities and women, that you'd deem "wedge" are not to be so reduced to everything Hillary has stood for is the same as Cruz.

I'm sure you can't be convinced to shift a whit. But you ought to at least consider Bernie on the issue of guns versus Hillary and various other "to the lefts". None of them are perfect. But they're so far superior than the "take any Republican" that you'd compare to Hillary that you are clearly way off base (and i fear will remain there)
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@12 "Hillary is so far to the left there simply no space left between Bernie and Hillary"

That is clearly false if you actually take their records into account. Clinton is basically a right winger whether or not she is also some brand of feminist. In turn, Bernie is an old-style social democrat, i.e. squarely on the left.

Clinton is a hawk who believes in American exceptionalism and manifest destiny. Sanders is a dove who went to Nicaragua because he thought Nicaraguan citizens should be free to govern themselves.

She is a pro-NAFTA outsourcer who served for 6 years on the board of Walmart without emitting a sound about anything wrong. He is anti neoliberal "free trade" agreements and against NAFTA from the get go.

She is pro health insurance that amounts to coverage for catastrophic occurrence. He is pro-health care as in single payer for all.

She is a deregulator (anti glass-steagall) and pro-big banks. He was against financial deregulation as it occurred and wants to break up large banks.

She is pro-fracking. Bernie actually believes that we need to phase out fossil fuels.

etc.

It's not even close.
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@13: You still like Trump even though he advocates nations doing their own nuclear deterrent? See this.

@11: After all that rather interesting commentary, you didn't seem like the person who would sanctimoniously sit home and pout on election day if it didn't go your way. But I guess you will.
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@16: In other words, you may cast your vote based on raw emotion and spite rather than on reason and intellect.
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@16

Seems like you'd like some of Gary Ridgway's characteristics, too.
21
@ PCM, Thank you for honestly saying what needs to be said.
23
He looks and sounds like he'll drop dead from a heart attack any moment.
24
The reason that Bernie is winning caucuses is because people like me, who don't support him, are frightened by such a righteous and powerful movement. And we are weak and cowardly in the face of the true believers - the people who show up at these dreadfully boring, undemocratic and pointless non-events - and bring word of the latest messiah - Kucinich, Nader, whoever.

We know that you're more evolved, wiser and purer than those of us who actually decide elections, the ones who have worked for years, often successfully, on many of the things your particular messiah repeats ad nauseum but never seems to do squat about. And so we hide. And wait for the next messiah to come along, knowing that the current will very very shortly be the Dennis Who? of the 2016 elections.
25
The reason that Bernie is winning caucuses is because people like me, who don't support him, are frightened by such a righteous and powerful movement. And we are weak and cowardly in the face of the true believers - the people who show up at these dreadfully boring, undemocratic and pointless non-events - and bring word of the latest messiah - Kucinich, Nader, whoever.

We know that you're more evolved, wiser and purer than those of us who actually decide elections, the ones who have worked for years, often successfully, on many of the things your particular messiah repeats ad nauseum but never seems to do squat about. And so we hide. And wait for the next messiah to come along, knowing that the current will very very shortly be the Dennis Who? of the 2016 elections.
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@24 & 25 (mfg5000):

We know that you're more evolved, wiser and purer than those of us who actually decide elections, the ones who have worked for years, often successfully, on many of the things your particular messiah repeats ad nauseum but never seems to do squat about.
Please identify what parts of Bernie's platform he has never tried to do squat about but that through your diligent work over the years you have been successful in achieving. Not all of Bernie's supporters think he's the messiah. I certainly don't -- ask me what I think of his older state-by-state single-payer bill or his vote for the Affordable Care Act or his long history of supporting the military-industrial complex -- and I didn't see or hear a single speaking-in-tongues true believer among the hundreds at my caucus venue. They mostly seemed to be calm, ordinary, non-frightening people who were aware of the true legacy of the Clinton and Obama administrations. As for placing yourself amongst "those of us who decide elections," national polls (CNN, Gallup, Quinnipiac) project Bernie beating Trump and Cruz by wider and safer margins than Hillary (who is only within the margin of error versus Cruz). So, since you're not a Bernie supporter and you decide elections, what mainstream media outlet or electronic voting machine company do you work for? Are you a Democratic Party superdelegate? Are you a member of Congress (in case there is no absolute majority of electoral votes) or a Republican Supreme Court Justice (in case you want to throw the outcome in a given state)? As for caucuses being boring and undemocratic, conceded. But in a country that permits election campaigns to be funded by unlimited, unequal, partially untraceable private money and that doesn't guarantee equal access to debates and equal time in media to all registered candidates, it's only one of many very undemocratic things.

Anyway, nice attempt to paint Bernie as another Nader or Kucinich, and his supporters as holier-than-thou purists who eschew the realities and hard work of governance, but the fact is, he's a mainstream candidate with a long, consistent political record who has been narrowing the gap with the Democratic Party Machine's anointed insider -- the preferred candidate of Wall Street, military contractors, the for-profit health sector, and at least five of our six media conglomerates -- and he has a chance at beating her for the Democratic Party nomination and, if he does, a very good chance of winning the election.

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