The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age

    Jane plays victim card

    By PeraclesPlease on Fri, 04/29/2016 - 2:25am |

    So Jane Sanders goes on Fox to agree with Donald about how unfair the delegate process is.

    Let's see how hypocritical that stance is. Her big complaint is about closed primaries. But Hillary's won 11 open primaries yugely including semi-open Ohio, while Bernie won Michigan by the skin of his teeth (1%/17000 votes). New Hampshire was a closed primary, Oklahoma and Rhode Island semi-closed, but Vermont & Wisconsin were open - kudos, 2 open primary wins, finally.

    But half of Bernie's 10 or 11 caucus wins were closed - severely depressing turnout to 1/10th the possible voters. Jane's not worried about the unfairness of caucuses, closed or otherwise. She just cares about playing the refs where Sanders is losing.

    And apparently one of the fair and balanced refs is Fox. LOLZ & chairman ROFLMAO... Prhaps fair would have been to let Trump voters vote for Bernie too.

    Looks like 2016 will be the year of not eating one's brussel sprouts and holding breath till turn blue, and simply wishing away inconvenient facts. A shame, as it started out so promising. The Democrats have been rather accommodating to an outside contestant, including shared voter databases and equal treatment, and even coming up with a few more debates to make him happy. That we didnt have the foresight to adjust the contests to those that give him the best helping hand up is an oversight we'll just have to rush out and fix.

    Or maybe Donald and Bernie could get a room. I hear Trump Towers has space.

     

     

    Comments

    Nate Silver notes that Hillary's delegate lead would triple under GOP rules. Is that what Jane wants? Of course Donald is winning when no one thought he would - it's hard to see why he'd be disgruntled, except it's part of his schtick. Come to think of it...


    by PeraclesPlease on Fri, 04/29/2016 - 9:54am

    Rules are rules.

    Hell, the popular vote cannot even elect a President.

    I like Sanders. But even at my age I feel Bernie AND Hillary are too damned old--so I am an ageist.

    We need younger blood in this party so four or eight years from now I hope we find some.

    It was kind of interesting when this dog bounty hunter was on Fox News.

    'The panel' asked this monstrosity who he would endorse as President.

    He said: Hillary and the panel went nuts. hahahha

    Dog reported that Hillary is the only candidate with real experience.

    Again, rules are rules.

    Fine, next time change the rules.

    And T-Rump has benefited from the goddamn rules for chrissakes. hahahahah


    by Richard Day on Fri, 04/29/2016 - 12:43pm

    The Sanders campaign theory is that if independents could have voted in all the democratic primaries he would have won. You've demolished that case pretty well. But is there a positive case for allowing independents to vote in democratic primaries absent a Sanders campaign?

    Independents are not universally liberal. Most self declare as moderate. Even Sanders independents aren't all liberals and don't necessarily support his policy positions. Some are voting against Hillary and Trump. Some are voting for the outsider. This year we've seen an insurgent candidate from the left get independent votes. It's as possible that we could see and insurgent candidate from the right of the democratic party get independent votes. If Sanders hadn't entered the race and Webb had actually run a campaign we might have seen a two way race with Webb getting large numbers of independent votes and pushing the narrative and the front runner to the right.

    I'm happy to see the democratic party shift to the left but I don't think it's inevitable that it will continue or that's it's permanent. And it's not just allowing independent voters into democratic primaries that could shift the party right. While many are celebrating the possible break up of the republican party I see the possibility of socially moderate or moderately pro choice republicans switching to the democratic party and pushing the party right on economic policy.

    These changes the Sanders campaign and his supporters are pushing for might have unintended consequences. Change doesn't always produce the expected result.


    by ocean-kat on Fri, 04/29/2016 - 4:27pm

    I see another positive from this.  The 2012 and 2014 elections saw Democratic candidates running away from the President (not even admitting that they voted for him in some cases).  They were afraid to defend the ACA, and gave absolutely NO ONE a reason to get off the sofa and vote.

    From the beginning of her campaign, Hillary has touted the President's achievements, and vowed to extend them.  She has proudly vowed to make improvements in the ACA, she supported his Iran deal, and she is committed to making Social Security financially sound as well as other Progressive goals, and actually has a plan to achieve all of the above.

    At some point even the most intransigent complainers will get "austerity fatigue" once they realize that austerity is only directed at them.  I think there is a new pride in a political philosophy that champions the Middle Class and the neediest.  Yes, the GOP will continue to name their projects:  "The Healthy Skies Initiative," describe their health plan as "empowering to people," etc, when their programs do the exact opposite.  But I think Democrats don't call them on these frauds at their own peril.  And I think there is more of an appetite for doing just that.

    Hopefully, at least I am slightly right!  I do hope the bitterness and slurs coming from the BernieorBusters won't continue to distort Hillary's record and we will have a Dem President and Congress!


    by CVille Dem on Fri, 04/29/2016 - 5:21pm

    You have a good point - running from the president hasn't helped much in the past, and at this point enough of what Obama's done has respectable success. It's still amazing that the GOP only suffered from the Bush 2008 meltdown for about 1 month, and then transferred their ire to the supposedly independent Tea Party that proposed similar or worse nonsense.


    by PeraclesPlease on Sat, 04/30/2016 - 1:31am

    Jane asks FBI to get on with that email investigation thing.If wishes were horses, beggars would ride. Don't let the door hit you on the way out, Jane.

    In other news, the Sanders campaign withdraws its lawsuit against the DNC while still contending his campaign staff didn't grab the Clinton records that an external review board CrowdStrike proved it did. Nice.

    How would they do on a Benghazi hearing?


    by PeraclesPlease on Sat, 04/30/2016 - 1:51am

    Rather outrageous for a candidate's wife to hint she hopes the FBI finds something legal on their opponent. Would be a bit ugly even to say that overtly about the GOP. Michelle was vetted much harder in 2008.


    by PeraclesPlease on Sat, 04/30/2016 - 7:08am

    Neither Jane nor Bernie has been vetted because the media quite right assumed Sanders didn't have a chance of winning. He's never been attacked by the right because he never did anything. He never even attempted to push his ideas in the media for most of his career. He simply hasn't been involved in the fight beyond occasional griping at the democrats. Barny Frank was a much more aggressive fighter for his ideas and made frequent appearances on national news shows to promote his agenda. Sanders has always rested comfortably in little liberal Vermont. The full extent of his activism was bravely calling himself a socialist. Doing anything to actually promote socialist ideas was a step to far for him to take.


    by ocean-kat on Sat, 04/30/2016 - 6:18pm

    I have a lot of sympathy for the argument that none of this is new.  Open primaries.  Closed primaries.  Caucus states. Voter ID/suppression laws.  Arcane party rules.  There's a whole industry of experts that anyone seriously running in a party primary needs to have on board in order to get through the morass.  This is the gauntlet.  It would be like signing up for a Tough Mudder and then complaining that that the water you have to swim through in the obstacle course is uncomfortably cold.

    If the complaint is that the system is stupid, absurd and should be changed to something more standard, more democratic and less arcane, I am all ears and all for making those changes.  If the complaint is, "I don't like this ride I signed up for," well... sorry?


    by Michael Maiello on Sat, 04/30/2016 - 8:59am