Interesting history on super delegates www.dailykos.com/story/2008/2/15/457181/- Carter and McGovern ****ed it up. In the best of spirits, Bernie has to win convincingly the rest of the way through to roll over the superD.
It's empathy and trust versus self-interest and mistrust. It's just where your personality falls in the spectrum of human behaviour. The two oddities to me are that Christianity preaches the former but has been somehow hijacked by the latter, and the people that mistrust government relinquish any influence on the private sector that doesn't have any consideration for their long term interests other than deriving profit. The whole thing has become an Orwellian twist of concepts, like 'small government' supporters intrusion into women's health decisions and tax rebels supporting humongus military spending. Bernie at least has a consistency of rhetoric, philosophy and actions. That's why he is an Independent, he doesn't make political contortions.
You've argued that Sanders supporters are fed up with condescension but frankly this sounds very condescending to the voters in the Super Tuesday states. Yes Clinton won those overwhelmingly yet you are downplaying those with excuses that Sanders didn't have name recognition, corporate influence, media bias and etc... Sanders knew the campaign schedule and he tied Clinton in Iowa and won overwhelmingly in New Hampshire. He clearly got coverage and momentum out of those early successes yet fell flat when it came to Super Tuesday. Further on Super Tuesday II after winning a surprising victory in Michigan still lost in neighboring states of Illinois and Ohio. Are you going to claim that he couldn't repeat because voters in those two states were duped even though by then Sanders name was very well known and the demographics in those states were very similar to Michigan? These arguments sound very similar to arguments you hear in basketball. Consider a game where you have a team that plays tough D and runs a very boring offense versus a team who runs a flashy offense with a lot of dunks and exciting plays but doesn't play that well fundamentally. The boring team locks down the 2nd quarter and takes a big lead. In the 3rd quarter the flashy team comes back and makes a lot of big plays with exciting dunks yet they don't cut into the lead. The frequent cry of the fans of the exciting team is that their team has momentum and that they are the better team. For that matter you frequently hear from the losing team that the refs are biased and the rules don't favor their style of play. The problem is that a game is played 4th quarters and a dunk counts the same as a midrange jumper or two free throws. The points scored early in the game are as important as the points scored late while learning to play within and use the rules is part of the game. Now I stopped it the metaphor at the 3rd quarter because there still is a4th quarter to be played and yes Sanders could still come back and win it. That said like a basketball game where the team with the lead still continues to score the team team trailing won't win no matter how impressive their dunks might be. Historically no Sanders isn't an extremist but everything in politics is relative. I agree the country has changed but this isn't the 1964 election.
Yet he's chosen to run as a Democrat and is now chafing under what he and his supporters are feeling are restrictions of that party.
To me, this is the salient point. The rules are the rules, and like you, I dislike the "super delegate" rules as well, yet there they are, known by all the candidates long before a single caucus or primary was held. The Sanders camp hated the rules regarding delegates when they were seen as a disadvantage, and now embrace those same rules when they see them as possibly enabling Senator Sanders to defeat Secretary Clinton at the convention. Looks like "politics as usual" to me. I know his supporters hate that description applied to the actions of their guy's campaign, but if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, the odds are excellent that yes, the damn thing is a duck. Quack quack.
because we live under a two party tyranny, er. system though never intended by the Constitution and running as an Independent would promote the election of the furthest opposite candidate.... exactly the rationale behind having only two parties. But, he is just playing the politics game. Advocates on all sides say what serves their political purpose. It would be a failure of effort not to push the party on 'rules'. And, it actually plays to his theme of insurgency against corporate control, inflaming passion from the marginalized sectors of voters. just good politics
the indignation over the superdelegates, who would likely vote for the candidate with the most pledged delegates, popular vote and states won, is an interesting distraction from the fact that Sanders is unlikely to win the most pledged delegates, the popular vote or the most states. So he hasn't put himself in a position to be screwed by the establishment, but his vocal supporters are convinced that's what's holding him back.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/sanders-campaign-tries-to-have-1404877438296118.html Sanders campaign tries to have it both ways on superdelegates Even as Bernie’s supporters continue to inundate superdelegates with their anti-elitist arguments, Sanders and his top campaign officials are now arguing that superdelegates should back Bernie even in states where he didn’t win — and even if he doesn’t win a majority of the popular votes cast.
I'd like to see some proof of this. The article goes on to try to substantiate it: The problem is this is an outright lie. Here is what Bernie said, from the transcript linked to within that very same article.
$15 minimum wage is very extreme. Its 86% of what the median wage is in this country. His tax plan will raise your taxes by thousands a year. That's extreme.
...You know what us dumb-as-a-post, spoon-fed,liberal-no-nothing Negroes say about all this, right Deckard? ..."you don't hate the player...you hate the game"... ...but like I felt from the very beginning (even before Senator Sanders submitted that he would support the Democratic nominee in any eventuality) that the purpose of Bernie Sanders' run was to try to move the Democratic party as a whole a bit more to the left...because too many surface similarities politically now exist (or can at least be referenced) between the Democrats and the Republicans... ...which in and of itself (if the idea of having two political parties is to highlight differences)...was necessary, and almost certainly overdue. Too many people (whether they lean "left" or "right" politically), have been mostly ignored economically for the last 40 years or so...and that right there...more than anything else, is what's birthed this giddy madhouse of a primary election season. Sometimes, it's hard to "compromise" and come together...when nobody is for-sure what the devil it is that's keeping so many people apart...
I agree. It's perfectly normal, and expected for Sanders to suggest the unpledged delegates may rethink their position if he's winning. I suspect it's a response to how he'll overcome her endorsement lead -- and essentially saying not to count him out based on the Supers' current leanings. That's totally reasonable. But the moaning from his supporters is like complaining about the reffing in the second round when the game hasn't been played yet, and he's unlikely to make the playoffs.
Well then **** why don't we make it $30 minimum wage? The consequence of the minimum wage is the number of jobs destroyed from its existence. That's why you compare it to median wage. If you raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour (very close to the current median wage) then you are making a majority of jobs not economically sustainable. This is moronic. Specifically you are hurting small businesses. and the poor. This doesn't even begin to address the stupidity of implementing a minimum wage at the federal level.
Donny: I'm not decided on the min wage, but per that chart it seems in constant dollars its only been over $8 for a very short spell. So why $15? Wouldn't $10 be a significant bump (25% higher than its' normalized peak). Wouldn't $8.50 be higher than its ever been in inflation adjusted dollars? (I think the answer lies in state minimums. But the narrative that inflation has eaten into the absurdly low minimum wage isn't supported by that chart, unless I'm not reading it correctly).
