Congrats you picked up a point from the Hillary campaign to justify 3.2 millions New Yorkers not being allowed to vote this week if they got excited about Bernie and decided to vote for him, but not six months ago when omg!! they were not aware of him or his positions six months ago. As usual you miss the big picture. Why is it so crucial to have a 6 months rule to change your party affiliation? Why not allow voters to decide after a few months of campaigning which leads to more info: "hey this candidate in the other party than the one I usually support is great, let me vote for him/her. " Why stupid voter ID laws or the GOP voter fraud scam that study after study puts in the roughly 1 million to one occurence. Why voting on work days, often at the sufferance of your boss? etc. etc. The whole voter process for president and federal elections is the laughing stock of the world and so obviously flawed if you can look beyond each individual tree. The answer is the same for new registrations or the ridiculous 6 months to change parties. These rules are designed not by Hillary (so no straw man) but designed by the same type of establishment types (read the 1%) to keep control of the process and make it less small d democratic. Pie in the sky? Unrealistic? Un American? oops http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-oregon-automatic-voter-registration-20150317-story.html ********** Americans are required to register if they want to vote; as of this week, Oregonians will have to register not to. In front of a packed and cheering audience Monday, Gov. Kate Brown signed a first-in-the-nation bill to automatically register all eligible Oregonians to vote when they obtain or renew a driver’s license or state identification card. Those who are registered through the new process will be notified by mail and will be given three weeks to take themselves off the voting rolls. If they do not opt out, the secretary of state’s office will mail them a ballot automatically 20 days before any election.
It's Sanders, but anyway, I wanted to emphasize and re-iterate your good point about Pell Grants. People away from college don't know how important these are to whatever shreds of class mobility we have in the US. Hell, if a president can just protect them from proposed congressional cuts that would be a win. That's reality. Free college in this country anytime in the next 25 years is not reality.
It's so easy to register to vote throughout the year in NY. So many ways. I moved and didn't report it to any agency and still they had me registered and my name in the roll for the polling station right around the corner from where I lived - and I just moved 7 months ago! So really if you wanted to vote but could not, there's no excuse for it to be because you haven't registered.
Ah yes, all the Bernie supporters just learned he existed this week! If only all these people could vote, Bernie would have won. It's always everyone else's fault. But, good job, good effort trying to change the subject from the fact that you and no idea that the rule didn't apply to people who just moved to NY and young people just getting interested in politics. Keep staying uninformed and then moving goal posts to get the results you want. Very Trump-like. Because voters rolls are often done in a crappy way, for whatever reason, and the two parties need to coordinate. If you change party affiliation this week, there's a decent chance the GOP and Dems would have completely different lists of voters. And yet, you only complain about whatever the Bernie Sanders campaign complains about. Where were you complaining about these rules before this week?
Can we agree: 190 days is nuts. But the date that affected most Sanders supporters was March 25. On to Pennsylvania. (and that's 1600 Pennsylvania Ave for Hillary ).
Voter access is obviously an important issue but we need to consider that the primary and caucus system is larger a party run system. To that extend I'm less concerned about who has access as long as in the general election there is more access. Regarding the complaints in particular by the Sanders' camp consider that even if more voters in NYC had access that wouldn't necessarily mean a Sanders victory. Judging by voter breakdown Clinton still won Brooklyn handily and further did well among the demographic where most of the questions about voters not being on the rolls was. If those voters votes get counted it very possibly leads to a bigger Clinton win. This issue regarding voter access seems kind of ironic when the Sanders camp has been trumpeting his wins in caucuses which are far far less open than primaries and more partisan exercises. Yet there wasn't any complaint from them about how partisan and restricted state caucuses are.
Sanders spent almost double what Clinton did on advertising in NY http://time.com/4300272/new-york-primary-bernie-sanders-hillary-clinton-campaign-ads/ [rquoter]By contrast, Sanders spent more than $6.8 million on television and radio ads in New York, according to data provided to the Center for Public Integrity by The Tracking Firm — about $3 million more than Clinton.[/rquoter] Further as Sanders supporters noted he had some rallies with large crowds. So it's not like there was very little awareness of him.
I supported Bernie on the Nevada Caucus, so it pains to say that he and Weaver are wrong if they think they can persuade the superdelegates to flip to his side EVEN IF ends up losing the pledged delegates contest. Bernie is on Vermont now, and he should rethink this through. He can still have a significant influence at the convention, but he would be smart to get whatever concessions he get from the Hillary camp in writing.
I am pretty much about here in my thinking at this point. Things could change, but I believe I echo your sentiments.
But not before 6 months ago. 3.2 million voters including a couple of million independents who usually break 65 to 70% for Bernie vs Hillary could have watched 100 million ads and gone to many rallies of 100 k in the last month to no avail. 65% vs 35% of say 2,000,000 is 1.3 million vs 700,000. According to Major is you did not switch parties 6 months ago and did not decide to register before the election day (as allowed in a number of states) you do not deserve to vote. It will be interesting to see if any of these disenfranchised voters and the tens and tens of millions who think this was unfair will hold this against Hillary or the Dems in the fall. I certainly don't think it will help.
OMG the Fabric of time and space were rigged against Bernie! And again this was the Democratic primary. I've noticed you haven't complained about the caucus system which is even more rigged for party loyalty. At the Minnesota one you had to sign a pledge to support Democrats, so officially independents weren't welcome, yet I've yet to hear a Sanders supporter complain about that. First off independents who couldn't vote in the party primaries aren't disenfranchised because they can vote in the general. Second. You're counting that these independents would vote for Sanders when a lot of polling shows that Trump is attracting people outside of the GOP. How do you know that many of them wouldn't vote in the GOP primary instead of the Democratic? Next the voters who actually could claim disenfranchisement (ones who had been registered and found they couldn't vote at the polling station) according to the polling those voters were largely in Brooklyn which Clinton carried soundly. Following that trend it's more likely those people vote for Clinton and her margin of victory might've been even larger. This is yet in another long line of excuses instead of considering that just maybe your candidate and his issues isn't as strong as you think.
I apologize for the harshness of my tone. As I've said before I actually think it has been a good thing that there has been a primary battle rather a coronation for Clinton. Given how much energy there has been in recent years on the Right a challenge from the Left is something the country needed. That said what I find tiresome is this whine that everything is fixed. Sanders won a lot of races and raised a lot of money. They very party rules and system that the Sanders camp is complaining about has helped to keep him in the race. If not for proportionate delegates this race would've been over long ago since Clinton won almost all of the major delegate rich states. For that matter if not for arcane party rules Sanders wouldn't have been retroactively been declared the winner of the NV caucus. Sanders has and continues to be given a fair shot under the Democratic Party rules. If now Sanders' supporters are claiming it isn't fair they should direct their anger at Sanders for choosing to run as a Democrat than as a Socialist, some other party, or independent.
Reality is, the movement will take time, but giving up on something as important as healthcare just because it is feasible with today's Congress doesn't mean somebody should just give up on it like Hillary Clinton.
I don't think the system is rigged against Bernie. I think it's rigged against the people. You shouldn't have to belong to one party or the other to vote. The 2 party system is fixed to keep the power in the hands of the establishment and out of the hands of the people. To bad the only people who could fix the system are the people who rigged it in the first place and they have zero interest in making the system for the people and not for the party elite.
I don't think the system is rigged against Bernie. I think it's rigged against the people. You shouldn't have to belong to one party or the other to vote. The 2 party system is fixed to keep the power in the hands of the establishment and out of the hands of the people. To bad the only people who could fix the system are the people who rigged it in the first place and they have zero interest in making the system for the people and not for the party elite.
Exhibit 1,346: "Not grounded in reality" is a pretty generous way to put it. I hear the Bernie Bros are up in arms today because David Plouffe accurately called the Sanders campaign's continued fundraising in light of the current situation as fraud. Feel the Bern! Revolution!!!111eleven!! Go on, send in another $27!
