Bernie Sanders

Clinton Wins 2016 Democratic Primary

RobotPirateNinja Uncategorized Tags: , , , , Leave a comment

I’m not one to be such a douchebag to never admit I was wrong.

In a recent heated discussion I mentioned, repeatedly, how Clinton would win the nomination after New Jersey, before California polls closed, on June 7th, 2016.

I was wrong. After the huge victory in Puerto Rico, a number of un-pledged delegates have announced their support for Clinton, giving her the necessary delegates to end this thing on the first ballot of the convention as of June 6, 2016.

So I was wrong. I thought it would be June 7. Instead it was June 6, eight years to the day she conceded the nomination to Obama. I apologize for my error.

I supported Obama in that primary, as he rose time and time again to the challenges of the campaign. From Reverend Wright to the “black” thing, Obama knocked it out the park, again and again.

This election cycle, as I’ve watched it play out, time and again it was Hillary who hit the right notes, on the beat. From her 11-hour shoulder-brush-off in front of the GOP Congress witch hunt, to the intense scrutiny of debates and campaigning, she had done everything she needed to in order to secure the nomination. Bernie missed the mark. Yes, the bird liked him, but the New York Daily News editorical board *exposed* him. When faced with adversity in the campaign, he went hugely negative, and got turned away in the red zone after an impressive drive.

For me, the support of Clinton now goes all the way *back* to 2008 and how I thought she needed more experience to really lay the claim to the Oval office. From that point she kept working as Secretary of State, and delivered again and again on the President’s foreign policy agenda…one that was face with historic external opposition at the start and unprecedented internal opposition throughout (the GOP’s “Letter to Iran”).

By the end of her service, and Obama’s term, we have done a great deal to restore our standing in the world. This is in no small part thanks to her efforts.

She will make a wonderful President, and I’m looking forward to watching the campaign unfold.

Our media faces a reality-show challenge now, and whether or not they can differentiate between a candidate who could maybe play a President on TV as a joke, and one who can step into the office ready to go with unprecedented experience on Day 1.

The choice is so easy here as to be laughable, which is why I will hold off on the real laughter until Mid-November, and she’s earned her placed in history.

The Five Stages of Accepting President Clinton

RobotPirateNinja Election 2016, Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , Leave a comment

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross gained some minor fame as a psychologist for studying the stages of grief.  She noted five major stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.   In watching the Democratic Primary (which ended roughly the moment NY polls closed), we have now moved well into the second stage of the model.

Anger:

In Nevada, however, that first day of voting was only the beginning. In an intermediary round of county caucuses, the Sanders campaign turned out greater numbers, which tilted the balance toward his side. At the state convention on Saturday, Mrs Clinton once again had the higher turnout – in part because some Sanders delegates showed up late, provided insufficient information or were not registered as members of the Democratic Party.

The Sanders team wanted the rules changed to accommodate their delegates. The Clinton team refused. Then all hell broke loose.

http://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2016-36291939

Anger is the second stage in the grief model.  A great many people were passionately attached to the Bernie Sanders campaign, and watching something you love die is never easy.

Next up is the bargaining stage that will come after Clinton seals it up *officially* in NJ.  The idea here being that Sanders will get to have/be bribed with more power in the Democratic party in exchange for not tearing it apart (he has bee a Democrat for about a year now).

Depression will set in during July when a lifelong independent fails to get permission to re-write the Democratic Party platform (especially considering the actual nominee is a hardcore policy wonk).

Acceptance comes in August with the convention, and the *start* of the mainstream campaign against Voldemort and the United States’ racist and bigoted past.

It’ll be a blowout by at least 10 points, barring some major act of God or jihad between now and then.

On Sanders the Socialist

RobotPirateNinja Uncategorized Tags: , , Leave a comment

Ya know…there’s a quick and easy conventional wisdom on the Presidential campaign of one Bernard Sanders, and it’s simply this….there’s no way a socialist can win a national election.

Oh, that’s also proceeded by, “I love the guy, don’t disagree with much he does, he’s honest, and does what he says he does.”

Also, he was born in 1941 and will have *just turned* 75 in the months leading up to the 2016 election.

We actually have a socialist running for President of the United States. A real one.  A “self-avowed” one, if you will.

This is going to have a number of interesting effects. First and foremost, in the primary season…folks are going to get to see *WHAT AN ACTUAL UNAPOLOGETIC SOCIALIST* sounds like.

And it’s going to be a crotchety, 75-year old man that thinks the system is unfair to young people and workers.

And knows how that system works.

It’s not going to be scary. It’s not going to be Stalin. Socialism, through the curious lens of American culture, is going to be cool again.

This will likely go down as (another) of the great mistakes of the GOP. You see, having cast *Obama* as a socialist, the GOP has already broken that ice. The latest 3 generations of Americans weren’t as programmed as the Boomers (and above) to hate the very notion of the sound of the word of “socialism”, so they see *and feel* the term much differently.

Particularly those who have spent their sentient years under the rule of a “socialist dictator” as so many on the right think of Obama (I’m not joking, this is a common comment on the President).

To see *an actual* socialist in campaign mode will no doubt be good for the country, as we get a chance to re-engage a term that is not actually political poison in the rest of the world, but simply a general term for a system of government that trends opposite of our current oligarchy, for better or worse as such trends dictate*

Do I think Sanders can win the upset campaign? I’m not so sure, if only because he’s waited so long to really start.

Going on the Sunday shows was not the strategy to lay the groundwork for a successful Presidential campaign at 75. Doing it at 63, and 67, and 71 was, as RON PAUL did for his own “ism” of the liberte variety.

I’m looking forward to seeing how Sanders fairs with the grueling pace of the campaign, and how he looks under the lights and the contrast he allows for Clinton. Where and how they disagree will be useful, if only as a lesson as to what words mean.

Like “socialism”, which we are about to get a solid dose of, one way or another.

* to be clear, I think income/wealth inequality is our biggest societal challenge, about to be made *MUCH WORSE* by automation, and as such, a healthy dose of socialism is exactly what we need to prevent (or merely push back) societal collapse.**

**. I say with my usual comic over/understatement.