Capitol Hill Blue Forums Political Issues Politics In General Is it too soon to be talking 2020?

OK Jeff. Breaking my posting hiatus after reading this gem.
If you don't see the contradictions here then I'm afraid you have been clinically traumatized with what is being commonly called Hillary Clinton Defeat Syndrome
What it is, basically, is deep trauma to the brain for Clinton supporters that occured after she flamed out in the 2016 election. Their brains need to protect themselves of the reality that she lost by having a horrible political record for many on both the far right and left as well as the fact that she was nakedly incompetent to win against one of the most unlikable candidates in modern history.
For the brain to do this it must make up an alternate universe of cockamamie rationale that explains that loss, often extending the logic to the democratic primary itself, as you have done.
Unable to find a tidy narrative to paper over the obvious fact that she was unexpectantly challenged by real politics of addressing people's material concerns and anger and a resultant exposure of the DNC coordinating with her campaign over her challengers, youve concocted a set of rules that, apparent to yourself, allow for the coronation of a nominee.
Coupla things with that:

There was a widely publicized contest where the VOTERS got to both, listen to the arguments, and then cast their votes in whatever state primary system they reside in.

What is the rule or governing authority over candidate qualifications that you are referring to that allows a candidate such as Sanders to run in the primary but not allowed to win it over party preference? Really. A link or citation would come in handy here.

I understand the MSM (looking at you NYT, WP) serving as basically an outpost extension of the Clinton 2016 campaign and running sanders down when er they could. That's fair and the press has sided with the neoliberal consensus for decades now and Hillary was their pick but the DNC?
Out of respect to your fondness for analogies, how much confidence would you have in a stock car race if one of the race teams had just loaned NASCAR a pile of money just before the race?

As mentioned before, there's a perverse comfort in knowing there's an equal amount of that there cognitive dissonance coming from the center right as there has been from the far right. It's just that the center right has more news channels to choose from.

You seem to have me confused with a Hillary fan.
Yes, Hillary Clinton is at least partly responsible for my son being alive, given all the hard work she did to make sure that the S-CHIP program survived.
But that doesn't mean that I wanted her to run for President...again.
2008 was enough for me, I knew she was a terrible candidate back then.
I also knew she was a terrible candidate after watching her dip her toe into the water in the first part of the 2016 campaign, and by that time I was already aboard the Bernie Sanders train.

I was maybe the very first "citizen-journalist" to cover his announcement, because he stopped by Canter's Deli right before his appearance on Bill Maher. There wasn't even enough time for most of his fans, which were already legion, to get to Canter's, so the room was sparsely populated. It was June 20, 2015.



But, putting aside your slightly condescending outlook toward what is basically a common sense look at how parties conduct their business, let's analyze what it is you think I'm trying to prove.


Yes, there was. Yes, people did.
And the Democratic Party had indeed already "crowned" Hillary before the first primary was even planned, and even released funds to her campaign ahead of time.
But that's beside the point, and the point, which you steadfastly appear to be ignoring, is this:

The Democratic Party would, under any other circumstances, open the field to any challenger, much the same as the Republicans did to seventeen of them, had it been a different stable of candidates.
Only one requirement was needed - they had to actually BE Democrats.

Can I point to a specific party rule in either party that flatly states that a party candidate has to be a member of that party?
Wow, where do I even go to look for such a rule in order to copy and paste the link?
Maybe Democrats.org...

Sure enough, in Article 9, Section 9 there is a clause which says that you might be right!


Except, what IS a "bona fide" candidate?
Let's look further...

Well, Section 4 of Article One says:


So it appears it might be a bit of a quandry, because while Article One/Section 4 talks about the DNC's responsibility to all MEMBERS, Article Nine/Section 9 talks about "all candidates campaigning as Democrats" but makes the vague stipulation that they must be bona fide, and apparently there is no further definition of what exactly constitutes "bona fide".

You know, it could be that this sort of thing has happened so rarely that the issue has never even come up.
Teddy Roosevelt tried setting up his own unique party called the Bull Moose Party but he was basically running on a Republican Party platform, just not AS a Republican. It didn't go anywhere.

I cannot think of a single other instance in our entire history where a candidate for POTUS ran "as if they were" a party member.
Plenty of people have run as third party members, but Bernie might be unique.

As for the media ignoring Sanders (AND giving Trump almost two billion in free air time) there has never been a dispute between you and me about that ever. I've said in earlier discussions that I grant you everything in that regard.
Maybe you forgot, because you appear to have forgotten that I was a Sanders supporter.

I think where I must have failed in your eyes is the moment where I decided, all alone in my voting booth, not to throw my vote down a blank hole marked "write in candidate" in the futile hope that the laws of the universe would suddenly change and thousands of electors would suddenly "go faithless" and choose Bernie after he had already bowed out of the process. (thus in effect giving my vote TO Trump)

And now you appear to have decided that, in reality, it must just be a temporary form of madness and that I am suffering from some kind of Hillary syndrome.
Talk about a perverse form of cognitive dissonance.

No major political party will EVER lend support to candidates who are OUTSIDE of their own party. That's because in all our 242 years, no party ever HAS.
Pretending that they suddenly would is a fool's errand.
It's like trying to look for anti-matter in a jar of Crisco shortening.

PS: Why are you on a posting hiatus? I sure hope it's not because no one is willing to accept your pronouncements on my mental health.
My mental health is as good as it can be under Trump.
I wanted Bernie to be President, it didn't happen, and I happen to believe that Bernie could have made the DNC his bitch.

You seem to think that a political party would be willing to lay down a brand new rule for a unique and otherwise unheard of situation, and I must be suffering from a syndrome to excuse a candidate I didn't even want to run.

Hmmmm...

I think Bernie just misunderstood what it meant to "caucus with" the Democrats...

Hillary might have been a poor candidate, but obviously Bernie was a worse candidate. Because Hillary actually won more votes than he did.

An actual 'discussion' over non members of the Democratic party claiming the right to run as a Democrat. This is a VERY strange discussion. Apparently, according to those arguing for non Democrats running as Democrats means that the Democrats must allow anybody at all to run under their banner, ie. Nazis, Communists, Socialists, Aliens from Outer Space, Canadians, Mexicans, whatever........... (I know, that's crazy. On the other hand this is where some of the logic is headed)

If Bernie really wanted to run as a Democrat then he should have joined the Democratic party! It was that simple. On the other hand I also think that the Democratic party has a right to not allow just anybody to even join. It used to be that a political party also had a number of 'planks' under which any candidate, or member, subscribed to as it was the basis of the party. Now, however, nobody even seems to know, exactly, what the planks of either party actually are and candidates are, apparently, not necessarily supportive of said party planks. If this is true then I am not even sure what it means to be a member of either party.

Now, for the last - The anti-Hillary stuff is also kinda strange. She was a terrible candidate who won 3 MILLION more votes than the opposition. She wasn't all that bad a candidate but did have so-called strategists that REALLY screwed the pooch on this one. The Republicans simply out thought and out fought the Democrats. These are the same people who seem to be in charge these days too. Let me change that to "These are the same OLD people who seem to be in charge". These are also the same ones who watched as the Republicans took over something in excess of 80% of all State Legislatures and seems to have woke up one day and said; "Gosh, how in the world did the Republicans do that?"

My fond hope, in all of this, is that the Dems are, right now, having a LOT of discussions on just what the hell happened, how they are going to fix it (the Democratic party), how they are going to setup groups, across the entire country willing to sit down and think it through. After they are done they should come up with some party planks that actually describe how they want to be understood and seen, and also make sure that their candidates agree with said planks, or explain their reasons for not doing that. They could start, for instance, with having certain institutions socialized like; fire departments, police departments, public schools and healthcare. These are the things all citizens should support (I think) I also believe that, eventually, the Republicans are going to have to do the same thing after their dear leader is out of the way.

One last. Jackass is 72, Sanders is 77, Biden is 76. How about somebody that's a bit younger?

Just saying.............

Beto?

He's a centrist, I get that. A white Obama so to speak. And the press is already ragging on his voting record and accepting donations from the petroleum industry. Not a real progressive, no true Scotsman...

I don't mind centrists if I think they might be swayed further left than their previous records might show. I don't need a socialist agenda. Just a president who will sign progressive legislation into law. And of course a congress who can pass progressive legislation.

That's really all there is to it. The press is pushing Dems hard to pick a progressive candidate. The more progressive the better. Because that's the horse race the press is trying to set up.
A Bernie vs Trump redux of the 2016 fiasco is what I think the press wants. It's a moneymaker. The glow was all on Beto after November but he's too mainstream for the mainstream press.

They're doing market research right now. Bernie can beat Biden if that's what it comes down to. Bernie still has the fire in his belly. Uncle Joe's day has passed, I'm afraid, it's time he drove his Vette into the sunset. He was never really presidential material anyway.

There's still a good chance that Beto catches fire even with the press trying to tamp it down. In age and attitude he's exactly what the country needs.

And just for the record, my personal choice out of all the contenders would be Sherrod Brown. Of them all he would probably make the best president. But I just don't see it happening.

Maybe Sherrod and Beto oughta sit down and have a nice chat.