RE-POSTED FROM RETIRED PAGE
To get this out of the way first and foremost. As I write this in early 2018, there are perceived to be two candidates for the Democratic Party’s election for 2020. They are Bernie Sanders and Oprah Winfrey. Given the experience and total platform of both candidates, Bernie Sanders will be my only choice.
First and foremost, he reminds me of the idealistic Liberal candidate that comes around every couple of election cycles with a group of core values that resonates with the electorate and motivates people to dram of something better. The difference is that I think that Bernie may have more staying power and I think that Bernie may be expanding his agenda beyond his key issues to the point that he has a whole policy.
In addition, if you thought that I was anti-Bernie in 2016 you are probably mistaken. My choice of Hillary Clinton was very pragmatic. This is what I will try to explain below.
Going into the primary season
His Motivation
I am going to surprise a lot of people but I think that the most surprised person regarding the viability of Bernie’s candidacy was Bernie Sanders. I think that Bernie expected, and planned, to fall flat much earlier than he did and the shortcomings of his campaign were because he did not plan on needing to go beyond his core issues and core competency.
His issues
His candidacy was based upon many of his ongoing populous issues and resonated with his core followers. I think that the most common theme that I heard during the campaign was his championing the $15/hour minimum wage. Ironically, if you listened to him talk even he admitted that it had zero chance of being implemented. And, post-election, when he introduced the bill the phase in was over seven years which seems like an empty promise.
My personal concern was that many of his platform issues were without much substance and were being created on the fly. Do not just take my word for it, the NY Times also had quite the article about this as well. I think that beyond his core issues, he was unprepared to have to create a complete campaign.
This may be because I suspect he was caught flat-footed and had to create a complete platform on the fly.
Starting from a deficit
Let us face it; Bernie did not have a chance. Hillary Clinton had been preparing for the primary season for six years, actively working on it for the previous two years. Bernie started late in the process and was working from a deficit from the very beginning. Why he did not even become a Democrat until just months before the primary season started.
Super-delegates
Much has been made of the fact that he did not get many super-delegates. Keep in mind that super-delegates are professional politicians that are active in the Democratic Party, holding down elected positions within the Party so that they can attend the convention without being chosen by the rank-and-file. This they have extraordinary voting power at the convention. This was known ahead of time so this is not a surprise. Two issues that affected Bernie. One is the Hillary Clinton tied them up early; and, second, Bernie, being and non-traditional Democrat (only changing parties at the last minute) did not cause any of them to jump on his bandwagon right out of the box.
Admittedly, he could have attracted super-delegates during the primary season but the performance just was not there for these super-delegates to see a reason to change their allegiance because frankly Bernie was never really a viable contender for the candidacy, regardless of what his supporters suggested.
The Primary Season
Caucuses
To this day, I do not know how he succeeded in the caucuses as well as he did. If someone knows, they are not saying. I am saying that they are not a true representation of his popularity but based upon his popularity in non-caucus states versus caucus states it does make you wonder. As I have written before there is a built-in discrepancy in the caucus system regarding its honest representation of the peoples will. Without rearguing this issue again, the most glaring aspect of the caucus misrepresentation is that caucuses are represented by people who are willing to commit multiple hours and are willing to shout the loudest (think about it).
This cannot be more emphasized than the situation that there are two states that have both caucuses and primaries. In those two states, Bernie won the caucus and lost the primary. Interesting, don’t you think?
While I am here, let us discuss the Nevada caucus. I will grant the Bernie Believers and Bernie Backers that they were screwed in the Nevada secondary caucus. You see in Nevada, because there are so many people working in casinos in Reno and Las Vegas, they have a secondary caucus to catch those people who cannot go home to vote in their caucus. Admittedly, this is also a way to stack a close caucus vote but I am not going there. Dem’s the rules. Except for this case. They changed the rules and did not let the entire delegation to vote for Bernie at the secondary caucus which could have changed the state to Bernie. While that did not, nor would not have, changed the convention outcome, it was wrong. To me it was another argument against the silly caucus system.
Primaries
Let us be honest, without the caucuses Bernie would have gone home early. He only won three; count them three; contested primaries. He garnered 43% to 56% of the votes between himself and Hillary Clinton. He was not a viable candidate if it were not for the caucuses. In fact, without the impetus of the caucus wins he would probably not have had enough financial support to keep running throughout the primary season. That is just a fact. Look into the history of primaries and you will see that I am right.
Oh, and I must bring up the so-called purge of voters in Brooklyn. There were 126,000 purged from the ballots; 12,000 moved out of borough, 44,000 mailings returned, and 70,000 because they hadn’t voted in two election cycles. Therefore, that is the great conspiracy. Let us say that every one of the purged voters would have voted for Bernie, all 126,000 (not just the 70,000 realistic ones who possible were still there and might have voted). Do you know what: Bernie would still have lost New York quite handily, Here are a couple of interesting thoughts to ponder: why were there not marches throughout Brooklyn of people who were not allowed to voted (I think we would have noticed 126,000 people marching for the right to vote); wasn’t it interesting that the percentages for Hillary and Bernie matched the voting percentages that they were getting nationally. Just saying.
Post Primary
Pre-Convention
Before Bernie’s supporters talk too loud about his 43% being viable, keep in mind that Hillary Clinton actually garnered over 50% of the popular vote in the primaries in 2008 and was not viable, conceding to Obama during the primary season. But not Bernie! He admitted that Hillary had won, but failed to completely concede until the convention.
I suspect that this was to position himself to have a better say in the future of the Democratic Party, possibly a position in the new administration. Well, we see how that worked out. Yippee Skippy.
Personally, I was so concerned about the candidacy of Donald Trump I wanted Bernie to fall in line behind Hillary so that the focus could be towards defeating Trump and not catering to Bernie’s issues and desires. Once again, that is just me.
Post-Convention / General Election
I am going to detail below the people who I call the Bernie Backers below that I think the Bernie had to know about and should have helped address running up to the General Election. I know he could not have done a whole hell of a lot about these idiots, but if he could have got through to a few of the Bernie Believers, who had fallen under their spell it may have been enough. After all, it was not that many votes that made Trump victorious. I am not blaming Bernie, by the way, just speculating.
Followers of Bernie
Bernie Believers
There is a group of people who call themselves Bernie Believers that I kind of admire. They are generally, but not always, younger voters who backed Bernie’s election because they idolized his ideals. I think that is great. It incents these people to be interested in people and the public well-being. They cared about a person who cared about them.
If there was a negative regarding the Bernie Believers, it was two-fold.
First, they were too willing to listen to Bernie Backers (see below) without filter. They believed bad and evil about the opposition because the Backers said it was so without checking the veracity of what was being said. Generally speaking, this would be bad enough but when Bernie was unsuccessful in his quest for the candidacy of the Democratic Party they did not know what to do because they thought that they had no alternative because they believed the lies about his primary opponent.
Second, they were not prepared to lose. It happens. When you lose, you put on your adult pants, dust yourself off, choose the best alternative, and prepare for the next race. You do not abandon the fight, which is what was done all too often.
This is where I think that Bernie failed miserably, He should have been able to reach out to his followers and rallied them. It would have taken some effort, but well worth it.
Bernie Backers
These are a type people who are insidious in our society. That they are backing Bernie Sanders is coincidental to their agenda. It could just as easily be “backing” some other candidate, it just happens to be Bernie.
What are they? They are liars who pretend to be supporters of a given candidate, who in fact have an agenda to perpetuate an agenda of spreading lies about someone else. They can take a semblance of a fact spin a farcical lie, although they are not bound by this at all.
What do I base this on? By the crap that some Bernie Believers passed on to me that they innocently got from Bernie Backers. For instance; did you know that Hillary Clinton was a stone killer – not figuratively but in actuality: that Hillary Clinton was an equal to Joseph Stalin: that it better for us to vote for Trump to protest against the (democratic) rejection of Bernie?
These pseudo backers of Bernie Sanders were doing so for the express purpose of passing on lies about Hillary Clinton. I often wonder if they were in league with entities in opposition to the Democratic Party. Before you call me too much of a conspiracy theorists keep in mind, who would have thought that the communists would be backing a pseudo-Republican like Trump?
And where was Bernie on this? He should have not only disavowed these assholes but done everything possible to distance himself and his candidacy, now and in the future, for them. He did not then and has not now, done so.
Conclusion
At present, in my opinion, Bernie Sanders has a leg up on the 2020 Democratic nomination. At present, he seems to be the only viable candidate that has any experience and qualifications.
He does need to do a few things however to mature his candidacy in order to become a candidacy that I can wholeheartedly support. He must make it a candidacy that disavows the childish garbage of the bottom feeders that he may have needed when he started out and take the high road. He needs to also develop a platform that address all issues, not just social issues but a wide compendium of issues in the domestic and international arena. Sadly, he also has address how we are going to mend the problems created during the Trump administration.
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