POLITICAL JUNKIES

So many fascinating angles to this campaign.

There is much complaining by candidates of the unfairness of rules, regulations and laws when they don't swing in their favor. I think Sanders is frustrated at this point because NY voter laws affected those who wanted to vote for him but could not. Perhaps when he has time to think things through, to right his ship, he will begin to back HRC. Let's hope.

And now that Trump has won so openly in NY, he's not griping about unfair delegate counts.

I always survey the big picture, and by that, I really do mean the visual snapshot of what's happening with the candidates. While Donald made his victory speech last night, in the crowd behind him was Tiffany and a couple other unknown women with long blonde straight hair parted down the middle. Ivanka was off to the side and could been seen when the camera zoomed out. But where was Melania? I wonder how much of the process she understands.

I look forward to seeing who the nominated candidates select as their running mates.

I've never understood the mentality of beating someone up because the person is gay, and am sorry to learn of your experience, ksusan. I grew up in the Ohio Vally, very straight laced. Hardly anyone was openly gay around here until the past decade. Before that, many people who wanted to live an openly gay lifestyle moved far away. There seemed to be more scandal involved with interracial couples that gays around here, and I knew many girls who moved away because they had black boyfriends and it was so unacceptable. Now there is much more tolerance of many lifestyles.

We have a gay couple who live across the street. My husband is friends with one of the guys, and that's a big breakthrough for hubby. He's got s a little of that (straight) white male entitlement mixed into his personality so it's telling to me that he's gradually become more open minded on these things. I believe it is due to the influence of me and our son as we tend to be more liberal

Divine, truer words have not been spoken. He never says the "how" part, just that he "will" and "it will be great." Oh well, if he is the nominee, I have a feeling the questions will get tougher and he will be forced to answer them or he will lose all credibility.

Word is that the scrutiny into his financial life will increase if he is nominated and lots of people will lose faith if he was less than honest about his personal net-worth and/or how many times he has had a business go belly-up or lose a lot of money. Stories abound on the net about condo projects, shopping centers, attractions etc. started and never completed with many of them never getting off the ground. Many angry folks out there on this issue.

Hydranne - we need a LIKE button around here! Spot on!

HomeMom, if you click on the smiley, you can get the thumbs up. I am giving this post an enthusiastic thumbs up! Edited to add that I meant Hydranne's post. Hell, you all get a thumbs up from me! Intelligent and wonderful women, the lot of you.

ksusan, what I see and hear when talking to younger people (DS, nephews, nieces, their friends.....all in their 20s), is that the sexuality of their friends is not something they even think about. They just accept people as people (and in doing so are dragging their older family members along.......it's harder to stick to a prejudice when you know the real people you think you don't like.....for whatever reason). Here is a cute story about my 90 year old friend.....one of her sons lives on the West Coast with another man. One day we were talking about her family and she commented, "Maybe his friend IS just a roommate, who knows? Maybe they are married." Then she laughed and shrugged. And I was delighted.

Ha ha, that's a great poster and adorable story about your 90 year old friend, Ruth.

Greg Palast reports that up to 125,000 voters (mostly Democrats in majority-ethnic minority precincts) in Brooklyn had to vote via “provisional" ballot because their names had been removed from the rolls for no apparent reason. (Good luck getting a provisional ballot counted). I was amazed to learn that Brooklyn was subject to the Voting Rights Act's extra-scrutiny requirements, along with Southern states. And this purging goes on all over the country, in blue as well as red states. At a meeting recently, he asked how many have ever had to cast a provisional ballot. Only two hands went up--both black. He cited a statistic that black voters are 900% likelier to have had their names stricken and forced to take provisional ballots than are white. Pretty sobering, even considering the source (Palast is so far left he makes Michael Moore sound like Michael Medved).

Sanders' campaign confirmed today that it was still looking to win as many pledged delegates as possible (and the e-mails claimed it could be done with some more, and repeated, $2.70 donations). IMHO, he made two huge mistakes--first, by underestimating how much his platform would resonate so for too long he ran his campaign like the quirky near-third-party guy the DNC viewed him to be at the outset; had he gotten more serious much earlier, the race could have been realistically neck-and-neck by now. Second, he failed to do early enough what Obama's first-run supporters did: parallel (or even preface) campaign efforts by digging deep and registering enough new voters (and getting those in closed-primary states to register as Democrats--or switch affiliation to Democrat--sufficiently before deadlines). He might have done far better in NY, especially in the cities, had he done that, and garnered more pledged delegates. A third, smaller mistake (but one that might torpedo his one remaining last-minute Hail Mary pass--I realize the religious irony--strategy) was to alienate or at least fail to engage party-regular superdelegates and convince them that he was not out to oust them but rather to open their minds to his platform. There is no way on earth for him to capture all remaining pledged delegates in the upcoming primaries & caucuses; and his only hope of snagging enough superdelegates to make it more of an even battle was essentialy hoist on his own petard of “politcal revolution:" a phrase that scares the bejeepers out of the very people he's going to need on his side.

Granted, hindsight is powerful and he has done far better than anyone (including he) expected. If he wants to keep running, that's his prerogative--over on the other side of the aisle, Cruz and (especially) Kasich are proceeding with lower odds than Sanders at this point. But he has to realize--assuming his principles are more important to him than the nomination--that none of those goals will ever be achieved without a Democratic Congress & White House; and that the few ultra-progressive outsider down-ticket candidates he's telling his followers to support, even if they get elected, will be powerless in a GOP-dominated Congress and a Trump White House. He can keep running, but still save face (and his agenda) by beginning to urge his supporters to donate to and vote for the party's nominee and all Democrats running for Congress.

And for good measure (and HRC realizes this), to support Democrats in state and local elections, too. That's where most of the laws that affect the fabric of this country are enacted, and that's who will be drawing district lines after the next census.

Rachel Maddow just interviewed Sanders' senior strategist Tad Devine, and while he appeared more measured and rational than Jeff Weaver last night, he is just as delusional, as evidenced by his insistence that Sanders could still clinch the nomination before the convention by winning the caucuses and most of the remaining primaries and then--this is the truly incredible part--getting the Democratic Party to coalesce and unite behind him. (I am reminded of a certain quote by Wayne & Garth about monkeys, flying, and butts). He also said, when confronted with the fact that HRC has garnered more popular vote in primaries than either any one candidate, or all this year's other candidates combined, “popular vote doesn't nominate Presidential candidates--delegates do; and it's states that elect a President." He claims he can win most of the upcoming states and win more total states than HRC. (Of course, unlike Congressional districts and delegates, different states have different amounts of electoral votes). He said that “Caucus states are front-loaded, while the primary states are rear-loaded" (I think he may have meant the reverse, using “front-loaded" to mean “prospective" rather than in the usual sense of “front" being earlier).

Devine said the party will coalesce behind the candidate with the best chance in the general election. In an ideal universe, it would--but in reality the more electable candidate loses the primary, whereas the one who best resonates with the base gets the nomination and then goes down in flames in November. (On the GOP side, many races since the advent of the Tea Party; on the Democratic side, the example of Joe Sestak winning the 2010 Dem. Senatorial primary over Arlen Specter (who polled far higher in a hypothetical Nov. contest) and then losing the general. And right now the only evidence we have of Sanders having the best chance of beating a Republican is polls--polls taken before the conservative dark-money Koch-addict super-PACs have had a chance to attack him on the national stage. Look--in that regard, HRC's been field-tested since her first Senate run in 2000 (and before that as First Lady). She beat Whitewater, Benghazi, and E-Mail-Gate: by now she's faced everything the GOP can throw at her and is basically bulletproof. Bernie's fresh out of the wrapper and has never had to run against a conservative except in Vermont.

HOW on earth can Sanders--an independent who caucuses with Democrats in the Senate but doesn't seem to support the party in any other way--get the party to unite behind HIM when he hasn't raised a cent for it or endorsed any of its nominees this year except for a couple of extremely progressive (a la Nader) Congressional candidates (one of whom has yet to win her state's primary)? He trashed the DNC the other day over its funneling money to Clinton & vice versa (something it has done for all candidates for years); it also endorsed him in his Senate election and most of his House elections before that. You don't bite the hand that feeds you and then insist it will caress you (and stop feeding the one who doesn't bite).

Look, I understand he has started a movement and raised millions in tiny donations from loyal and passionate supporters and, as Devine said, believes it's only fair to give them a chance to vote for him. But there comes a point when one has to recognize that continuing a failing quest will ensure not just the continuance of the very system he wants to defeat but perhaps reinforce it and make achieving his vision that much harder for the next candidate to come along. If he stays in this race much longer, he'll have Berned his bridges behind his dream for America.

Prepared. Polished. Presidential. That's what Hillary Clinton is. She's been taking notes her entire political life, with the advantage of being her husband's understudy, so to speak, when he was President. She's also learned from her own previous campaigns and applied that knowledge to this one.

Sanders was out-maneuvered and out-strategized. So just as Hillary had to take some lumps and coalesce with the Obama campaign of eight years ago, putting the Democratic Party first and her desire for the presidency on hold, Sanders is going to have to face the same music. Maybe he didn't realize the power Clinton had and her ability to put into action everything she's learned. He didn't fully grasp her all-encompassing clout. This isn't her first rodeo.

I think HRC made backroom deals before she threw her support behind Obama. Could be that Sanders is wanting to make a deal with the Democratic Party and HRC before he backs Her as their nominee

I was thinking about why I have switched my vote to HRC from initially supporting BS and I realized they really are similar in most ways despite the differences they battle about during debates.

They both have the best interests of the USA at heart. They have both served their country in some way their entire adult lives and have put up with a lot of divisiveness to do so. The public is very fickle and as such, one minute they love ya, the next you are fodder for jokes and cruel jabs to your integrity. They both put up with that and soldiered on to reach the goals and vision they had for their constituents. Both of them are very much "for the people."

I saw just how committed Hillary is when she lost the nomination (which she truly expected was hers) to the young upstart, Barack Obama in 2008. When later on she was tapped to be his Secretary of State, she dove in head first and whole-heartedly served her country in that capacity with no malice against her once rival Obama. I have read that they have become quite close in real life and share a lot of the same goals for this country which is mostly all good from where I sit.

I think Bernie is a wonderful dreamer who has not waivered for eons on his commitment to seeing equality on all fronts and wanting a better life for the poor and middle class. His views on how to get there often strike me as idealism with no real path to achieving his goals but his idealism and care is infectious so I was absolutely "feeling the Bern" for a good long time. He did turn me off a bit when he got a little nasty of late. I did not like seeing this side of him and it made me uncomfortable.

As Divine said above "Prepared. Polished. Presidential" is how I am seeing Hillary and I must also admit to a little excitement at the thought of back to back history being made. The first black President followed by the first woman President? I must be dreaming!

We sure have come a long, long way to the "Help wanted Male, Help wanted Female" days of my youth. That always disturbed me, even as a young girl when I looked in the newspaper and saw those ads! I asked my Mom "why can't a girl be an auto mechanic?" My mom's answer was priceless - She said "They can! It is just that men don't want us to be because it pays better than being a secretary does." How true was that!!!

Ok, done rambling my thoughts today.

Oh wow, what a shock!

I have a couple of thoughts about Sanders --- no one may see it, but I felt like I did. I liked Bernie all along, but truthfully felt more convinced from the start it should be Hillary. One of the things I noted ( and I need to put a disclaimer here as I no longer have links for it ) is that Bernie most often votes up or down depending on how it will hurt Wall St. Just saying that in some of the debates when Hillary could point a finger at him for his "vote" I had a feeling that causing disruption or destruction was more important to him. Just didn't seem to be looking at the BIG picture during these votes.

Also, when Bernie was ranting about super delegates and the DNC and rigging issues --- if I hadn't been aware that it was actually him talking --- I would have thought I was listening to RINO Trump. I am much more annoyed with Bernie as of late and think his advisors are too eager to HELP him stay in what is a losing proposition for him I do believe. ChiSandy had it all laid out well. Bernie just seems to be almost a one-issue candidate -- like income inequality and big banks.

As someone said --- Hillary has been tested over and over. She made the grade a long time ago. Just my fairly humble feelings.

Jackie

It's even more important for Bernie to get his supporters to “hold their noses" to vote Democratic for downballot (not just Congressional but state & local) elections as well. Remember, it wasn't Congress who enacted HB 52 in NC, abortion restrictions in TX & MS, and severe voting restrictions in a host of states.

The newest issue of Time analyzes what the candidates say they'll do about the budget deficient and what it might actually do to the debt:

*Trump-his current tax & spending plan could actually set us back an additional $30 trillion by 2026

*Clinton-would up spending by 2%. Analysts say her tax hikes would add $498 billion in revenue after 10 years but could reduce GDP growth by 1%

* Cruz-his plan to cut taxes & boost military spending could add an estimated $12.5 trillion to the debt

* Sanders- would levy $15.3 trillion in new taxes, but his new health plan could still add $2 trillion to $15 trillion to the debt & slow GDP growth by 9.5%

*Kasich-hasn't released enough details for the experts to even analyze