Tag Archives: Super Tuesday

Maybe It’s Not The Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy. Maybe It’s Just Your Candidate.

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I’m still seeing many people clinging to the argument that a lot of the stuff we see online that is critical of Hillary Clinton is either from sinister right-wing operatives or from gullible left-wingers who have been tricked by those operatives into not supporting the party-ordained candidate. Someone just posted a mini-rant (inspired by a New York Times piece) about Republicans posting anti-Hillary tweets so that liberals will repost them and be turned against Hillary…

Wait, what?

If the liberals are reposting these insidious tweets, they’re doing so because they agree with them already. They’re not being hypnotized by the totemic power of 140 well-chosen characters to achieve a sudden right-wing epiphany that Clinton doesn’t represent their views. If a GOP agent provocateur tweets “I love chocolate,” even if he doesn’t, it wouldn’t be at all surprising if some chocolate-loving Democrats agreed and retweeted.

Are there right-wing operatives out there in social media trying to manipulate voters? Of course. There are also confirmed accounts of the Clinton campaign using Karl Rovian tactics like push polls to try to dishonestly manipulate Democratic voters into believing false things about Bernie Sanders and his policies. That was the same tactic Rove used for Bush in South Carolina when the pollsters were telling racist voters John McCain had a little black baby. The Clinton camp and its surrogates have also, for months, tried tactics varying from implying that Bernie Sanders is just like Hugo Chavez, the ex- strongman dictator of Venezuela, to having the candidate herself lie straight in voters’ faces over and over again that Sanders plans to completely abolish Obamacare and then start all over on the healthcare issue. That simple lie — used constantly, the classic political “Big Lie” — has gone mostly unchallenged by the media and has misled many voters into thinking that their coverage is in danger if they vote for the guy who is actually trying to get them better, more affordable coverage.

This is, of course, the same Hillary whose campaign in 2008 released a picture of Barack Obama wearing traditional Kenyan garments, including a turban, in order to frighten voters into thinking he was a muslim, as well as resorting to other underhanded tactics designed to capitalize on white people’s base ignorance and xenophobia about foreigners and black people in general.

Which is worse? Republicans dishonestly trying to manipulate Democrats, or Democratic politicians cynically lying to manipulate their own voters?

How about when you see a liberal friend criticizing Hillary, or supporting Bernie, just give them the benefit of a doubt. Maybe, like you, they’ve come to their decision on their own terms, according to their own experience and values, and they have reached different conclusions than you have. Respect them, and engage them, and change their minds by reasonable sharing of information and ideas if you can. But stop projecting all this nonsense that if people disagree with you, it’s the Republicans’ fault.

Mostly, it’s Hillary Clinton’s fault.

Dear Progressives, It’s Time To Stand Up!

bernon

Dear progressives,

Time to put your money where your mouth is. Bernie can’t rely on Wall Street and Walmart; he needs us.

When he entered the race, only political junkies knew who he was. Even in the fall, nearly half of Democrats polled didn’t really know who he was. Now he’s tied one primary so tightly you’d need a quantum microscope to see the actual result, lost one by a handful of points, and won one by the largest numbers in history, all against a candidate who started the race as one of the most recognized politicians on the planet, a candidate with the full force of not only her own family’s political machine behind her but the Democratic establishment as well.

Nevada was a speedbump. The actual delegate numbers are what counts, and in that the race continues to be a dead heat with Clinton only a single delegate ahead. Nationally, Bernie polls either within single percentage points of her or (in the latest national polls) actually ahead of her by as much as 6% (a milestone he reached earlier than Obama did).

While the media and the establishment tell you that Bernie Sanders is “slipping” in the delegate race (as the NYT put it a few days ago) and his campaign is floundering, this is the actual situation.

They will show you delegate totals which put Hillary Clinton hundreds of delegates ahead of Sanders, and which don’t even give you the actual numbers for the pledged delegates gained through each primary in which they are almost tied with 52 and 51 respectively. Those extra delegates are superdelegates who have said that they will vote a certain way, but who will not vote until the end of July and can change their minds at any time. Those votes DO NOT COUNT until they are cast, and by that time they will amount to a very small segment of the total. Unless the race is still a tight one at that time, their impact won’t even matter.

Also, again: they can change their minds, and that is what usually happens as the race shifts. Most superdelegates will honor the popular vote out of some sense of decorum and honor and utter democracy. So if Bernie Sanders manages to outpace Hillary Clinton in the long fight — which he stands a very good chance of doing, if the voters don’t allow themselves to be disheartened and disillusioned by a media that is actively providing them inaccurate information on behalf of the establishment candidate — many of those superdelegates will actually vote for him.

At this point in 2008, Hillary Clinton also allegedly had more superdelegate votes than Barack Obama. How’d that work out for her?

As people learn more about Bernie Sanders, they start to support him. His likeability and trustworthiness scores in the polls are in the 80-90% range, while Hillary Clinton’s hover down around 10%.

Ten. Percent.

People don’t trust her, even many people who are voting for her because “I love Bernie, but she has a better chance of winning.” And do you really think a candidate who 90% of the population doesn’t think they can trust is going to do well in the general? The polls indicate no: according to the latest polls, Bernie Sanders beats all possible GOP opponents by a much safer margin than Hillary Clinton does, and she actually loses to some of them.

And you know what? Clinton won Iowa and Nevada in a couple of disastrously sloppy caucuses, and the caucus system provided her her narrow victories. But the actual popular vote in all three states so far, the actual number of voters voting one way or the other, broke 55% for Bernie to 45% for Hillary. The caucus system, anti-democratic by nature, hides the fact that more people actually voted for Sanders so far in this race.

Simply put, Bernie is our best chance to win in November by every current objective metric. Our best chance against the theocracy and rampant greed and fascism offered up by the entire Republican party.

So stay in the fight. Spread the word. Feel the freakin’ Bern. VOTE, for fuck’s sake. And contribute. I just donated again, for the fifth time.

David is facing the Wall Street Goliath, and stones for his sling are damned expensive.

Bernieguthrie

This Is Me Snarkily Telling You About The Democratic Town Hall Tonight On CNN!

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Not seeing much about this, so in case you didn’t know, it’s TONIGHT (2/23/16).

It will be moderated by Chris Cuomo, who lives in Clinton’s toy chest and comes scurrying out if she throws him snacks. He will act like she’s the Beatles and he’s a teenybopper in 1964. He will also very aggressively grill Bernie on how sinisterly socialist he is and ask why Bernie has the gall to think he should continue his campaign even though Hillary has such a huge lead in the delegate race (she has 51 delegates, Bernie only has 51 as well).

Bernie will go first, allowing Hillary the last word and strategic advantage of being able to tailor her answers to address things he says, because that’s the tradition in these things now. Establishments gonna establishment.