Democratic Party Establishment finds fault in everyone except themselves

Dear Friends,

The leadership of the Democratic Party has not changed much since Bill Clinton was elected President in 1992.  Unfortunately the Democratic Party and its influence has been greatly diminished since that time.  Here is a little comparison of political control by the Democrats.

Senate Seats:              1992               Democrats 56  Republicans 44
                                   Post 2016       Republicans at least 51
House Seats:              1992               Democrats 267 Republicans 167
                                   Post 2016       Democrats 193 Republicans 239
Governorships           1992               Democrats 28 Republicans 20
                                  Post 2016        Republicans at least 33
State Legislatures     1992                Democrats 26 Republicans 7  Split 16
                                  Post 2016       Democrats 14 Republicans 32 Split 3
Since 2008, the Democrats have lost control of 30 State legislative chambers (910 seats) and 11 Governorships.

During that same period the Democratic Party Establishment led the Democratic Party further and further to the right as it became Republican lite and courted and did the bidding of Wall Street and the economic elite.  The Democratic Party Establishment became more and more out of touch with the traditional base of the Democratic Party.  It ignored the rapidly diminishing middle class and the working poor.  It failed to fight for unions and trade policies that established level playing fields.  It embraced the military industrial complex and the constant pressure for more militarization to feed the profits of that complex.

When the Democratic Party Establishment had the opportunity to return to its roots and embrace its historic values by endorsing Bernie Sanders, it doubled down on its move to the right and selected Hillary Clinton, one of the leaders of the Democratic Party Establishment who epitomizes the rightward movement of the Democratic Party and its too cozy relationship with Wall Street and the military industrial complex.  Now that she has been defeated by a racist, misogynist, homophobic, islamophobic, egotistical demagogue, the Democratic Party Establishment is finding fault in everyone else except themselves.

In an interview with Chris Hayes (here) Senator Harry Reid, retiring Democratic leader in the Senate for years, said,

She would have won this election without any problem if Comey had not been the Republican operative that he is...He is the reason she lost the election.

He went on to say, "I want everybody in America to understand if Harry Reid can make it in America, anyone can...it doesn't matter what your race is, it used to but it shouldn't anymore".  Harry Reid was born into a very poor family and has been a great success, but he was born a white man in America.  For him to say that because a white man can overcome birth into a poor family any black man can do the same shows how out of touch with the real America he is.

Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic leader in the House for the last 16 years said

...We cannot be taking the full responsibility for what happened in the election. We have to do our after-action review thoroughly and see what we could have done differently. But a lot of it was beyond our control.

Senator Chuck Schumer who will replace Harry Reid as the Democratic leader in the Senate was probably the most honest when he said, "we needed a much sharper, bolder, stronger economic message".  Senator Schumer was not taking any responsibility for the fact that the Democratic Party has "needed a much sharper, bolder, stronger economic message" for a long time during which he was in a position to promulgate that message but instead he helped move the Democratic Party to the right.  He voted for NAFTA, he voted to get rid of Glass-Steagall, he voted for the Iraq War, he voted for the Patriot Act, he protected Wall Street, etc.

The Clinton campaign continues to refuse to acknowledge that Hillary and her campaign were completely out of touch with the economic woes and anxiety of the country.  Sure, they moved to the left when forced to by Bernie Sanders, but it was not believable particularly in light of the decades during which the Democratic Party Establishment ignored the middle class and working poor.  In an interview on CNN (here), Karen Finney, a spokesperson for the Clinton campaign had a whole list of reasons why Hillary Clinton lost, including sexism, voting rights act, third party candidates, FBI Director Comey, media coverage and Bernie bros.  Interestingly enough, she did not mention the lack of an economic message to address the economic woes of the middle class and working poor.  When she was pointedly asked what mistakes the Clinton campaign made, there were none of significance.

In fact it is probably true that the Clinton campaign did not make too many mistakes.  The problem was that Hillary Clinton was the wrong candidate, and she could not overcome the fact that the Democratic Party Establishment had ignored the middle class and working poor and moved the party to the right for the last several decades.  Probably the best analysis of the election that I have seen was the op-ed in The New York Times by Naomi Klein entitled "Trump Defeated Clinton, Not Women" (here).  You should read it, if you have not already.  I selected some of my favorite paragraphs.

Voters chose a loose cannon of a man with zero government experience over a calm, collected and supremely qualified woman. The root cause of this injustice, many have suggested, can only be sexism — proof that the glass ceiling protecting the highest reaches of power cannot yet be shattered.
The reaction is understandable. It’s also wrong and unnecessarily demoralizing.

...

Yes, she had a gold-plated résumé that more than qualified her to be president. But that overlooks an important fact: Virtually everything about Mrs. Clinton’s biography made her uniquely unsuited to draw blood where Mr. Trump was most vulnerable.
This election needed a Democrat who could call out, again and again, the myriad hypocrisies and absurdities of Mr. Trump’s claim to be a hero for the downtrodden working class. In the debates, Mrs. Clinton landed points when she exposed Mr. Trump’s history of outsourcing and tax dodging. But by then Mr. Trump had already spent the summer mocking his opponent for her private parties with oligarchs, painting her own lifestyle as profoundly out of touch with ordinary Americans (which it is).
In short, she landed on many of the right messages, but she was the wrong messenger.

...

Here is the biggest problem with elevating sexism to the defining explanation of Mrs. Clinton’s loss: It lets her machine and her failed policies off the hook. It erases the role played by the appetite for endless war and the comfort with market-friendly incremental change, no matter the urgency of the crisis (from climate change to police violence to raging inequality). It erases the disgust over Mrs. Clinton’s coziness with Wall Street and with the wreckage left behind by trade deals that benefited corporations at the expense of workers.

...

That Mrs. Clinton could be defeated by the likes of Mr. Trump remains disgraceful. But Mrs. Clinton was too flawed a candidate for this disgrace to go down in history as a defeat for her gender.

The Democratic Party needs new leadership and needs to return to its core values.  Keith Ellison is running for head of the DNC and even Senator Schumer understands that he needs to support him.  Tim Ryan is challenging Nancy Pelosi for leadership of the House Democrats.  The traditional values of the Democratic Party should not simply be relegated to the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, they should be the values of the entire Democratic Party.  We need new leadership to reclaim the Democratic Party.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

The Democratic Party needs to look inward to understand why we lost

Dear Friends,

The United States of America is a country where racism and misogyny are fully institutionalized and rampant.  This racism and misogyny existed long before this election cycle, and long before Donald Trump said things out loud that had only been said with dog whistles and in private before.  These pre-existing conditions and their exposure to all those who had previously ignored them cannot explain Hillary Clinton's loss in this election.  The mainly white, more often males, who voted for Donald Trump were no more racist and misogynist this election cycle than they were in prior ones.  So why did so many of them desert the Democratic Party this time when they had not done so in such huge numbers in the past?

My thesis is that historically the Democratic Party was the champion for these people, and they voted their economic interests over their racist and misogynist feelings.  The Democratic Party lost most of these people in the South with the voting and civil rights legislation of the early 1960s.  Unfortunately, the Democratic Party Establishment since the election of Bill Clinton in 1992,  has  attempted to become Republican light and do the bidding of the monied interests and has deserted the poor and middle class.

It was Bill Clinton who fought for and signed the revised NAFTA into law in August 1993.  NAFTA caused a significant loss of good jobs in the United States.  Since NAFTA, low wage workers have seen their compensation decline.  It was also Bill Clinton who supported and signed the repeal of the Glass Steagall Act which was one of several steps at deregulating Wall Street that helped to produce the Great Recession.

Many of the Trump voters lost their jobs, theirs houses and their self-respect in the Great Recession.  Wall Street was bailed out, and there were no prosecutions for any of the wrongs that were done, even when President Obama took over. While many jobs have returned under Barack Obama, they are lower paying jobs with little or no job security or upward mobility.  In 2007 Candidate Obama promised to walk the picket lines with the workers whenever the right to organize was being challenged.  He broke that promise in 2011when Governor Walker in Wisconsin was passing legislation designed to kill unions and thousands of people were protesting.  President Obama, along with the rest of the Democratic Party Establishment, remained silent and certainly did not join the picket lines.  He let them fight alone.  Is it any wonder that Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania all voted for Donald Trump?

Not only has the Democratic Party Establishment turned their backs on the working people of this country, they have sent their sons and daughters to unpopular wars where both sides are using arms supplied by the US arms industry with support and encouragement from the United States government and in particular from President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.  To make matters worse, the Democratic Party Establishment supports and nominates Hillary Clinton who is clearly a hawk.

The Democratic Party Establishment courts the oligarchy and takes their money in the form of political contributions, charitable contributions and paid speaking engagements at the same time that it ignores the plight of the working class.  The wealth and wage inequality continues to rise and the rich and powerful are treated differently from the working class.  Is it any wonder the working class is angry?

It is not just old white men that the Democratic Party Establishment has turned its back on.  Blacks, Hispanics and other minorities most of whom are working class have been hurt even more than the old white males.  As hard as it is to believe, Donald Trump did better with these groups than Mitt Romney did.  Hillary Clinton got 6 percentage points less of the Hispanic vote than President Obama did and 7 percentage points less than Bill Clinton did. I am convinced that part of this reduction in support is the result of the failure of the Democratic Party Establishment to stand up for and with these minorities.

The former white Democrats who flocked to Donald Trump in this election did so because they could no longer see any hope of the Democratic Party Establishment helping them economically.  While at the same time they saw a "strong" man who was standing up for them and giving voice to their racism, misogyny and economic fear and anxiety.

What can I do?  First and foremost, as a person of great white privilege, I must actively, publicly and boldly stand with my brothers and sisters who are the focus of Donald Trump's racism, misogyny and hatred, and I must actively, publicly and boldly protect the earth.  I must also work and organize to reclaim the Democratic Party.  It must be restored to the party that protects those least able to protect themselves, that fights for justice for all, that protects the earth and that demonstrates true love, compassion and empathy.  The Democratic Party has lost its way, and Donald Trump's victory is just the latest proof of that fact.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Vote for Hillary Clinton

Dear Friends,

I have been trying to figure out how to write a post in support of Hillary Clinton.  As you all know, I would have much preferred Bernie Sanders, but that is not a choice now.  I thought that Bernie's speech at the convention was great.  He has now written an op-ed in the LA Times (here) entitled: "Bernie Sanders: I support Hillary Clinton.  So should everyone who voted for me".   It is similar to his convention speech and outlines very clearly not just the reasons why Donald Trump should not become President, but why we should support Hillary Clinton.

As he says in the final paragraph

I understand that many of my supporters are disappointed by the final results of the nominating process, but being despondent and inactive is not going to improve anything. Going forward and continuing the struggle is what matters. And, in that struggle, the most immediate task we face is to defeat Donald Trump.

While I disagree with many of Hillary Clinton's policy positions, have concerns about her tendency to slide to the right, do not believe that her incrementalism is what the country needs right now and am very concerned about her hawkish foreign policy, I also agree with many of her positions.  We should all focus on the reasons that we can support her.  Despite her incrementalist tendencies, she is clearly moving in the right direction on healthcare, the economy, education, Wall Street reform and trade.  Her nominees for the Supreme Court will be important proponents of getting the money out of politics and preserving a woman's right to choose as well as being intelligent and thoughtful people.

Much has been written lately about how Secretary Clinton should campaign in light of how Donald Trump campaigns. While she needs to point out how incredibly bad he is, I think that she should be making the positive case for why we should support her.  She needs to generate enthusiasm to vote for her not just getting people to vote against Donald Trump.  If she is clearly pushing the truly progressive policies that she adopted during the primary,  she should be able to gain support from Bernie's supporters.

We need to keep the revolution moving forward.  We need to elect Hillary Clinton.  Then we need to hold her accountable and work to get true progressives elected at all levels of government.  This plan is one that I am looking forward to working hard on.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Tim Kaine and Fracking

Dear Friends,

In my last post I neglected to point out that Tim Kaine is in favor of fracking.

Hillary Clinton has put Bernie Sanders in a very difficult position.  He will be asked about Tim Kaine.  So far Bernie has not commented, but he did post this tweet yesterday.

 

Bernie SandersVerified account‏@BernieSanders

Fracking is a danger to our water supply, the air we breathe and it’s contributing to climate change. Time to phase out fracking nationwide.

• RETWEETS 1,835
• LIKES 4,759
• 

6:23 PM - 22 Jul 2016

1,835 retweets4,759 likes

 

 

 

Hillary Clinton wants Bernie Sanders and all his supporters to support her, but she is making it very difficult.  I cannot vote for Hillary Clinton, but I will vote against Donald Trump.  Voting for someone is much more motivating than voting against someone.  Secretary Clinton needs to start giving us reasons to vote for her rather than just against Trump.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Senator Tim Kaine - What is Hillary Clinton thinking?

Dear Friends,

There has been a lot of reporting in the last few days that Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia will be (could be, is likely to be) Hillary Clinton's choice for Vice President.  Turnout is always the key for  Democrats to win.  This year that is more true than ever because of the record high negative ratings of both major party candidates.  To ensure that Donald Trump does not become President, Hillary Clinton needs to generate enthusiastic support among Bernie Sanders supporters, independents and those that do not typically vote.  Selecting Tim Kaine as her running mate will not help.

Tim Kaine supports the Trans-Pacific Partnership.  Tim Kaine just wrote a letter urging bank deregulation and less consumer protection by the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau.  Tim Kaine supports off shore oil drilling along the American coast.  Tim Kaine talks like a deficit hawk agreeing with the concept of "two or three dollars of cuts for every dollar of revenue".  Tim Kaine is a devout catholic who is personally opposed to abortion, although he is generally against government interference with a woman's right to an abortion.

Throughout the primary campaign Hillary Clinton has made moves to the left as a result of pressure from the Bernie Sanders campaign.  If she decides to move back to the right by selecting Tim Kaine as her Vice President, she will be making a strong case that she is a center right candidate who moved to the left when it was politically expedient and then moved back to her comfort zone; that she cannot be trusted to stay with the more progressive positions that she has taken during the campaign; that she  is just a politician who is seeking power; and that she is all the other things that people dislike about her.

Hillary Clinton cannot expect progressives to believe in her new found left leaning positions if she has her delegates keep an anti-TPP plank out of the platform and picks Tim Kaine as a running mate. While some of us will vote for her regardless of her VP choice, she will lose an opportunity to increase turnout and help Democrats win not just the White House but the down ballot races.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Eliminate White Privilege

Dear Friends,

Over the years as I have become more and more aware of my white privilege, I have lamented that I cannot just give it away or otherwise get rid of it.  This morning I came to what is an incredibly obvious way for me to dispose of my white privilege.

White privilege is bestowed on me by a racist, bigoted and unjust society.  Therefore to eliminate my (and all other) white privilege, the society in which we live must be radically changed.  Our society must be free of racism and bigotry.  It must provide true justice for all.  It must provide equal opportunities for all.  It must be a society in which all humans are respected, valued and loved equally.  It must be a society in which we truly care for each other, especially for the weakest among us.

It is now obvious that I must do what Mahatma Gandhi urged all of us to do.  "Be the change that you wish to see in the world."  I must hold myself accountable to use all of my white privilege to create the society that I long to see, a society in which there is no white privilege.  I must urge others, particularly those with white privilege to work to create this society.  I must join with all others who are struggling to create this society.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Privilege, Hatred and Division

Dear Friends,

I have been overwhelmed by the graphic videos of the killings in Baton Rouge, Falcon Heights and Dallas and am writing this blog in an attempt to clarify my thoughts.

I was born and have lived a life of extreme privilege.  I am a white, male, financially well off, well educated, straight, raised Christian person.  In this country it does not get any better than that.  I was raised in an environment where there were no people of color.  It was not until I got to college that I had any classmates who were persons of color and then they inhabited a world different from mine.  It was ok to have Jewish friends, but Jewish doctors needed to start their own hospital because they could not get privileges at the "Christian" ones.  In fifth grade while writing a paper, I spoke with my father about hiring black people.  He said that he would be worried about hiring a black lawyer at his firm because many clients would object.  There was, of course, no talk of being gay, and I never saw the ghettos of North Minneapolis.

Overt racism, anti-sematism, homophobia, etc. has been eliminated from visibility in polite society, and our society has made progress at eliminating legal discrimination; but our society continues to be rife with racism and fear of "others".  Those of us with privilege and hence power in our society must be held accountable for permitting the continuation of this institutional fear of others.  The question is what can I do.

I do not know and cannot really imagine what it is like to be black (or gay or female or of some other persecuted class of people).  How can I learn to see the world as I would if I had been born a black male in a poor family in north Minneapolis without the privilege and opportunities that I have had?  I know I would not be where I am today.  While the video by Diamond Reynolds of the aftermath of the killing of Philando Castile is sickening and heartbreaking, it has done more to help me understand what it might be like to be black than any other thing I have seen or read.  But there must be a better way for me to understand.

I, and the rest of the society, must see, feel, believe and truly know that we are all human beings of equal worth who deserve respect, compassion, love and empathy.  It is possible that over time we can achieve that result as we all know and love people who are "other".  Unfortunately we do not have time.  We have squandered so many decades and so many opportunities to become one.  In recent years, we have become less of a community not more of one.  We think too much of ourselves and too little about each other.

I believe that the vast majority of people in our society want peace, justice, equal opportunity, love and happiness for all people.  Unfortunately, we in that group are failing to hold others accountable for their actions that fracture and divide our society.

For years the fringes of the Republican party have used racial dog whistles and other fear of "other" tactics to gain and maintain control.  The vast majority of the Republican Party who want an inclusive society have not held the fringe accountable and now they have Donald Trump and many of the Republican leaders are endorsing him.  The "good" Republicans must reclaim their party and put the fringe back on the fringe.

The vast majority of the people on the police forces are people who want an inclusive society and are members of the police force because they want to serve and protect the entire community.  Unfortunately, they have failed to hold the small minority of police officers who thrive on power, hatred, fear and division accountable for their actions.  The "good" police must reclaim the police forces everywhere and hold each other accountable.

The privileged white liberals (I include myself in this group) in general believe in an inclusive society free from hatred and fear of "other", but have failed to confront the issue with the full force of their privilege and power.  It is not enough for us to say and believe that we are all human beings and deserve respect, equal opportunity, etc.  We must use our privilege and power to rid our society of institutional racism and fear and hatred of "other".  We let the Democratic Party move to the right, to be controlled by monied interests.  We have failed to hold ourselves accountable for a government and a society that continues to be run and controlled by division, fear and hatred.

Governor Mark Dayton made history when he said of the killing of Philando Castile

Would this have happened if those passengers or driver were white? I don’t think it would have. 

Why is it that by saying what everybody already knew was true, Governor Dayton is making news?  I am afraid the answer is that we liberals have for some reason not been willing to fully acknowledge that driving while black can get you killed by the police because our society continues to be racist.  While I will never know what it is like to be black, I can stand up with all my whiteness and privilege and speak truth to power, and I can truly and intentionally listen to my fellow human beings who do not have the privilege that I do and join with them in their struggle because it is my struggle as well.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Hillary Clinton and the Establishment don't get it

Dear Friends,

The Establishment (Republican, Democratic, business and media) all knew that Jeb Bush would be the Republican Presidential nominee and that Donald Trump was a joke and going nowhere.  The Establishment knew that Bernie Sanders was a fringe candidate whose campaign would go nowhere.  The financial markets knew that Great Britain would stay in the European Union and showed it when the Dow Jones Average rose to18,008 before Great Britain voted to exit the EU and the Dow dropped to 17,401.

The Establishment is completely out of touch with the reality of average people.  These people are frustrated with income and wealth inequality, with the fact that they are unemployed, underemployed and/or working harder and making less than a decade ago, with the fact that the political and economic systems are controlled by big business and the ultra wealthy, with the fact that they are powerless over their destinies and with the status quo in general.

Hillary Clinton is well entrenched in the Establishment and is just as clueless about the frustration of the people as the rest of the Establishment.  She is clearly not taking the advice I offered her in my blog (here).  She continues to campaign on the basis that she is better than Donald Trump, that she has experience and that she is practical.  She is essentially saying that she will continue to work the way that President Obama has, trying to convince the Republicans to take baby steps to solve our problems, but she will be better at it than he is.

On Tuesday, June 22, Secretary Clinton gave her much touted economic speech in Raleigh, North Carolina.  It was the perfect opportunity for her to announce some bold initiatives, but she simply reiterated her five point plan.  It was a rehash without any details of her plan as put forth during the primary campaign. She lacked passion and credibility.  The following sentence typifies her speech:

We'll say no to bad trade deals and unfair trade practices, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which does not meet my high bar for creating good-paying jobs.

She has never made any attempt to explain why she was a strong advocate of NAFTA and called the Trans-Pacific Partnership the gold standard of trade agreements, before Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and others forced her to the left.  Until she acknowledges and explains away her past, she will continue to lack credibility and be unable to generate excitement.

She made this economic speech two days before the Brexit vote as the financial geniuses were pushing the Dow back to 18,000 because, of course, Britain would vote to stay in the EU.  She was living in the Establishment bubble.  After the Brexit vote, instead of changing her approach, she doubled down.  In her official statement, she said

This time of uncertainty only underscores the need for calm, steady, experienced leadership in the White House...

The Establishment believes that Donald Trump does not stand a chance to win the Presidency.  So far this year the Establishment has been wrong every time.  The Real Clear Politics Electoral Map (here) has Hillary Clinton with 211 electoral votes, Donald Trump with 164 electoral votes and 163 electoral votes undecided.  The undecided states are pretty much the ones that always fall into that category, and the recent polls in those states are within the margin of error.  There is no question that this election will be decided by which party is better at getting people to vote.  While there will be people who will show up to vote to vote against Donald Trump, to ensure that Hillary Clinton wins, she needs to start to generate enthusiasm and excitement among the people who were energized by Bernie Sanders.  So far she does not even appear to be trying to accomplish that result.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Advice for Hillary Clinton, her supporters and pro-Hillary media

Dear Friends,

Last night Bernie Sanders made a great speech to his supporters.  It was done over the internet (here) and as far as I can tell was not broadcast by anybody else.  In the speech he made two very clear points.  First, he said that the most important thing in the next five months was to defeat Donald Trump and that he would soon be devoting his time to obtain that result.  Second, he said that the political revolution must continue so that we can transform the Democratic Party and our country.  He did not endorse Hillary Clinton nor did he drop out of the race but neither did he mention his own candidacy for President or a third party.  He focused on transforming the Democratic Party and our country from within the Democratic Party.

Hillary Clinton has continually said during this campaign that she is working hard to earn everybody's vote.  The clear implication from Bernie Sanders' speech was that the ball is in her court to earn the votes and perhaps even the enthusiastic support of his supporters.  Unfortunately, so far Secretary Clinton has failed to make any attempt to earn the votes of the Sanders's supporters.  I can find no statement by her about the speech, not even an acknowledgement that it happened.  Ignoring Bernie Sanders will not help her earn the votes of his supporters.

Secretary Clinton was not the only one to ignore him, the media ignored him as well.  Rachel Maddow, who has been unable to hide her support for Hillary Clinton, gave his speech just a few minutes of coverage and in that time she ridiculed him and misconstrued what he had said.  In the part of the speech where Senator Sanders encouraged his supporters to get involved at all levels of politics to elect progressive candidates, he encouraged them to run for office.  What he was proposing was that the Democratic Party work to elect city council members, school board members, state legislators and governors in all 50 states.  Rachel Maddow's voice was full of ridicule as she reported that he encouraged his supporters to run for office.  This strategy has been incredibly successful for the Republicans.  Unfortunately, the Democratic Party establishment only embraces populist efforts to reach out to all people in Presidential elections.  Ridiculing what has been demonstrated to be a very effective strategy is not the way to earn the votes of Sanders' supporters.

My advice to Hillary Clinton (and her supporters) if she wants to earn the votes of Sanders' supporters is that she should:

• Truly, passionately and vocally embrace the new positions that she has taken on things like the TPP, Keystone Pipeline and drilling in the Arctic.
• Take the final step to eliminate small policy differences with Bernie Sanders on issues such as (1) fracking (If she is going to regulate it out of existence, why not just ban it?); (2) breaking up the big banks (She says she will consider it.  She has had plenty of time to consider it, and she has never made a cogent argument against it, so break up the big banks.); and (3) $15 an hour minimum wage (she says she supports the $15 an hour movement but refuses to endorse it stopping at $12 which while a big improvement falls short of lifting people out of poverty, so endorse a $15 an hour federal minimum wage.)
• Passionately embrace bold plans to transform our country including, significant tax increases on the very wealthy (Her very minimal increases are not sufficient to address our needs for funds or to reduce with the wealth and income inequality.) and meaningful infrastructure spending (Her proposal for $275 billion is without detail and completely insufficient to meet our needs and stimulate our economy.  Consider a plan more like Senator Sanders' detailed plan for $1 trillion.)
• Embrace healthcare as a right and lay out a clear plan for how her changes in Obamacare will lead to healthcare for all.
• On issues where she cannot in good faith move toward Senator Sanders' positions, engage in an open dialogue about those issues in which she truly listens and engages even if she does not ultimately change her position.  
• Demonstrate her commitment to getting big money out of politics.  Even though she takes big money, lay out a clear plan for how she will move from our money tainted and broken system today to a political and economic system not dominated by big money in the future.
• Enthusiastically embrace the reformation of the Democratic Party's primary process: eliminate caucuses; eliminate super delegates; hold open, same day registration primaries; and ban big money contributions to the DNC as President Obama did.
• Do not rely on the "I'm better than Donald Trump" approach.  Demonstrate that she is progressive and wants the Democratic Party and the country to transform itself.
• Appoint a true progressive, not an incrementalist, as her vice president.

There are, of course, many other things that Secretary Clinton could, and I hope, will do but these might give the Sanders' supporters the confidence in her that they need in order to vote for her and perhaps even work hard for her election not just against the election of Donald Trump.

Thanks for reading and please comment,

The Unabashed Liberal

Voter Turnout

Dear Friends,

The Clinton campaign and its supporters have been spending a lot of time lately telling supporters of Bernie Sanders that they need to vote for Hillary Clinton or they are essentially voting for Donald Trump and that Bernie Sanders need to drop out of the race and work for Hillary Clinton because he has no chance of winning.  Besides Hillary Clinton has already announced that she is the nominee.  I have read a couple of articles that are worth your time to read.

The first is by Seth Abramson on Huffpost Politics entitled " How to Explain the Sanders Campaign to an Idiot, Paul Krugman or a Clintonite in 8 Sentences" (here).  Despite the snarkiness of the title, the post contains a cogent argument for why the Sanders campaign should continue until all the votes are cast at the Democratic convention.

The second is a post by Jake Johnson on Common Dreams entitled "No, I Won't Work for Hillary Clinton: A Response to Robert Reich" (here).  It is a very thoughtful and thought provoking piece in response to a Facebook post by Robert Reich (here) who had given advice to the supporters of Hillary Clinton and to the supporters to Bernie Sanders.  The advice to the supporters of Bernie Sanders is as it always is - Hillary Clinton is better than Donald Trump and if you do not vote for her you are essentially voting for Donald Trump and how can you stand to do that.  Anyway, while I will vote for Hillary Clinton if she is the nominee, the post certainly made me think.

All of this talk of blaming Sanders' supporters if Hillary Clinton gets the nomination and loses to Donald Trump got me thinking about voter turnout.  So I did some research.

Counting caucuses, Bernie Sanders has received probably somewhere around 11,000,000 votes so far.  For my purposes I would divide that group into a group of Democrats like me who vote every election and certainly every Presidential election and for whom this year will be no different.  The other group is a group of people who do not vote every election or even every Presidential election.  Who knows the percentages but let's say 50/50.  So maybe by the time the voting is done there will be   7,000,000 but certainly less 10,000,000 Sanders' supporters who are at risk of not voting.  That sounds like a large number, and it is but it pales compared to the number of Americans who just plain do not vote.

A little over a year ago, the Pew Research Center published a report on the voter turnout for the 34 nations in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (here), basically the world's leading industrialized democracies.  Of the 34 countries, the United States ranked 31st in turns of voter turnout with just 53.6% of voting age people voting.  Belgium ranked first with 87.2% of voting age population, and Germany was right in the middle at 17th with 66% of voting age population.  To put these percentages into perspective.  In 2008 Obama got 69.3 million votes and beat McCain by 9.7 million votes.  If 66% of the voting age population had voted (same as Germany), there would have been an additional 17.5 million votes cast, more than double the margin of victory.  If 87.2% of the voting age population had voted (same as Belgium), there would have been an additional 65.3 million votes, almost 7 times the margin of victory.

The problem with the American electoral system is that we do not have a culture of voting.  I believe in large part the lack of voting is the direct result of the lack of exciting candidates and the almost constant problem of voting for the lesser of two evils.  I calculated the percentage of the voting age population that the winners in the last nine Presidential elections.  In only two elections did the winner get more than 30% of the voting age population - Reagan in 1984 with 31.1% and Obama in 2008 with 30.7%.  The average is about 27%, just over a quarter of the voting age population voted for the person who became President.  A democracy should not work like that.

This year both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are making the lesser of two evils argument all the time.  Donald Trump's best argument for Republicans and Independents is that he is not Hillary Clinton and many Republicans and Independents will vote for him as the lesser of two evils.  Hillary Clinton's best argument for Democrats and Independents is that she is not Donald Trump and many Democrats (including me) and Independents will vote for her if she gets the nomination for just that reason - the lesser of two evils.

As a country, we must do more to develop a culture of voting so that the majority can govern.  We could start with automatic voter registration and a national holiday for election day.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Hillary Clinton makes her own problems

Dear Friends,

I have long believed that Hillary Clinton is a flawed candidate and not just because of her policies and positions.  She continues to create problems for herself.  Two of these problems were apparent upon reading the news this morning.

First, the State Department's Inspector General (not the Republicans) came out with a report severely criticizing Secretary Clinton for using her personal email account for official business.  One need only read the first paragraph of the story in The New York Times (here) about the report.

The State Department’s inspector general on Wednesday sharply criticized Hillary Clinton’s exclusive use of a private email server while she was secretary of state, saying that she had not sought permission to use it and would not have received it if she had.

Buried deep in the first section of The New York Times this morning (here) was an article comparing the Clinton campaign's spin on what the Inspector General's report said with the reporter's analysis.  Here are a couple of the comparisons.  The bold is from a statement by the Clinton campaign.  The rest is the reporter writing.

From the statement: “The inspector general documents just how consistent her email practices were with those of other secretaries and senior officials at the State Department who also used personal email.”
Only one other secretary of state — Colin L. Powell — exclusively used his personal email for official communications. Condoleezza Rice said she did not use personal or government email. Madeleine K. Albright did not use email, which was in its infancy when she was in the job. Secretary of State John Kerry said he occasionally used personal email, mostly to reply to people who emailed him on his personal account. But the report said that after discussing the issue with his aides and other staff members, “he began primarily using his department account to conduct official business.”
“As this report makes clear, Hillary Clinton’s use of personal email was not unique, and she took steps that went much further than others to appropriately preserve and release her records.”
Mrs. Clinton’s use of a private email and server stored in her home was, in fact, unique. She left the State Department without turning over any emails, and only did so after she was contacted by the department’s lawyers, who were under pressure to produce documents from the House Select Committee on Benghazi. The 55,000 pages of emails she delivered did not include anything from the first three months of her tenure.

If Secretary Clinton is the Democratic nominee, Donald Trump will use this report and her campaign's statements to attack her as being untrustworthy and lacking judgment.  Her statements and those of her campaign about her emails are at best misleading and at worst completely inaccurate.  Since she will want to attack Donald Trump as being untrustworthy and lacking judgment, he will easily distract with his own attack on the same issues.  The conclusion of the public will, I am afraid, be that they are both untrustworthy and lack judgment.

This problem was not created by the Republicans or the press or Bernie Sanders, it was created by Hillary Clinton.  In my view it was some combination of bad judgement, arrogance and paranoia.

Problem number two results from her decision to back out of the fourth debate that she had agreed to have with Bernie Sanders before the California primary.  Let's be clear, she did not just decline to debate, she broke her agreement to have four debates including one before the California primary.

Of course the conventional political wisdom is that the frontrunner can only lose by having a debate.  I think Hillary Clinton is making a terrible mistake.  If she wins the nomination and wants to have Bernie Sanders' supporters vote for her, she needs to show that she listens to them, has views similar to them, respects them and will make big not just incremental changes.  Right now she is ignoring Senator Sanders and claiming out loud that she will be the nominee.  By breaking her agreement to debate, she is fueling the narrative that she cannot be trusted, that she is going to move to the right as soon as she can and that she doesn't really care about the issues that Senator Sanders' supporters do.

After last night when both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders said they would be willing to debate the other, Secretary Clinton's decision to break her agreement looks really bad.  If a Trump/Sanders debate happens, she will look even worse.  If Senator Sanders does really well in that debate, it will be clear to everybody that Senator Sanders will be a better candidate against Donald Trump than Secretary Clinton.

This problem was not created by the Republicans or the press or Bernie Sanders, it was created by Hillary Clinton.  Secretary Clinton does not understand that times have changed, that she should not be running her campaign according to the conventional political wisdom, and that if she wants the votes of the Bernie Sanders' supporters she needs to truly court them.

While it is a very narrow and steep path for Bernie Sanders to obtain the Democratic nomination, it is possible.  If Bernie Sanders has a big win in California, particularly if he debates Donald Trump and has a really good night, I would hope that the super delegates would face the reality that Bernie Sanders has the better positions and policies, is the better candidate and is the best bet to beat Donald Trump.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Why is Clinton Disliked?

Dear Friends,

As you know, I seldom, if ever, agree with David Brooks, but I thought that his column, entitled "Why is Clinton Disliked?" this morning in The New York Times (here) was quite insightful.  While I am an avid supporter of Bernie Sanders, I do not dislike Hillary Clinton.  I dislike many of her positions and believe that Bernie Sanders is the better candidate and the better choice for President.

There are, however, many people who dislike or really dislike Hillary Clinton.  David Brooks has a very plausible reason for the phenomenon that such an accomplished person can be disliked by so many people.

At least in her public persona, Clinton gives off an exclusively professional vibe: industrious, calculated, goal-oriented, distrustful. It’s hard from the outside to have a sense of her as a person; she is a role.
This formal, career-oriented persona puts her in direct contrast with the mores of the social media age, which is intimate, personalist, revealing, trusting and vulnerable. It puts her in conflict with most people’s lived experience. Most Americans feel more vivid and alive outside the work experience than within. So of course to many she seems Machiavellian, crafty, power-oriented, untrustworthy.
...
Even successful lives need these sanctuaries — in order to be a real person instead of just a productive one. It appears that we don’t really trust candidates who do not show us theirs.

Whether this widespread dislike is fair or justified, it is real and is the cause for her extremely high unfavorability ratings.  If she becomes the Democratic nominee for President and expects to win, she will need to change this image and clarify her positions to attract the supporters of Bernie Sanders who are new to the political process.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Which candidate beats Trump? Part 2

Dear Friends,

The mainstream American press (including MSNBC) is obsessed with Donald Trump and is covering him while ignoring Bernie Sanders and even reducing its coverage of Hillary Clinton.  In the meantime, media outlets and people outside of the establishment are actually watching and reporting on what is going on.

Aljazeera just published an article (here) entitled: "Polls: Sanders has more potential to beat Trump" with a subtitle, "Recent data show Sanders has double-digit lead in support over Republican candidate while Clinton would face tight race."

It is a well researched and written article worth your time to read.  I am not saying that just because it agrees with my prior post.  The article focuses on the fact that independents heavily favor Bernie Sanders and that the polls tend to underrepresent independents.  This fact helps to explain why in open primary states Bernie Sanders has quite frequently outperformed the polls.  Donald Trump also gets support from independents which is why some experts feel the race between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton is much closer than the polls show.  Of course the polls already show that Hillary Clinton will have trouble beating Donald Trump.

It is really sad that you will never see any of this in the mainstream American press.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Which candidate beats Trump?

Dear Friends,

The mainstream media continues to proclaim that the Presidential race will be between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.  These same media giants and their pundits, all of whom failed to recognize that Donald Trump was a real candidate regardless of his lack of qualifications and personality and who were certain that he would never be the Republican nominee and that Bernie Sanders would never pose a real threat to Hillary Clinton, are now saying that Hillary Clinton will beat Donald Trump by a landslide.

They continue to fail to understand that the American people are angry and scared.  Many Republicans are angry because they are finally figuring out that the Republican Party establishment has been using them for years.  People are angry because the establishment including big corporations, Wall Street, the mainstream media and the two major political parties have created a political and financial system that has concentrated all of the wealth and power in the hands of the few at the top of the economic heap.  They are scared for a variety of reasons and not all reasons apply to all the people.  Old white men are scared because they are losing their privilege.  Most everybody is scared about their financial futures.  Thoughtful ones are scared for the lives their children and grandchildren will live because of climate change.  Those who have fallen for the Republican fear mongering are afraid of Muslims, blacks, hispanics and GLBT people.  The establishment types in the mainstream media do not understand that the American electorate is ready for real and significant change, and they are looking for leaders who agree with them and can lead them in achieving that change.

I cannot imagine anything worse for the world and our future than Donald Trump beating the Democratic nominee and becoming President of the United States.  In addition to all the reasons that I have put forth in prior posts demonstrating why I think that Bernie Sanders is the best candidate to effectuate the real and radical changes that we need, I now want to make the case for why Bernie Sanders is the best candidate to beat Donald Trump.

I have created my own spreadsheet of the Electoral College results by State for 2000 through 2012 and my predictions based on history and the polls to date.  Under my analysis, there are 10 states that are up for grabs this year.  I have given the electoral votes from the others to either Donald Trump or the Democratic candidate.  The result being
Donald Trump          180
Democrat                  226
Undecided                132
Keep in mind that a candidate needs 270 votes to win.  Under my analysis and virtually all the others I found online, the Democrat has a big lead but does not get to 270 without some of the undecided states.

Here is what I have gleaned from the polls about the undecided states.

In three states there is no worthwhile polling: Colorado (9 votes), Nevada (6 votes) and New Mexico (5 votes).

In one state, Indiana (11 votes) both Democratic candidates lose to Donald Trump in recent polls but Hillary Clinton loses by 7.5 percentage points while Bernie Sanders loses by only 1 percentage point indicating that he might win Indiana.

Florida (29 votes) is the only state where the polls indicate that both Democratic candidates would beat Donald Trump where Hillary Clinton wins by more than Bernie Sanders.  Hillary Clinton wins by 4.3 percentage points and Bernie Sanders wins by 0.5 percentage points.

In all the other states Bernie Sanders beats Donald Trump by wider margins than Hillary Clinton.

Iowa (6 votes)                               Sanders +9        Clinton +4
North Carolina (15 votes)             Sanders +7.3     Clinton +3.3
Ohio (18 votes)                             Sanders +5        Clinton +3
Pennsylvania (20 votes)                Sanders +12.7   Clinton +7

Based on the current polling numbers, Bernie Sanders is a much better bet to beat Donald Trump than Hillary Clinton.

Hillary Clinton and her surrogates claim that Bernie Sanders has not been fully vetted and attacked they way that Donald Trump will attack him.  The Clinton Campaign has attacked Bernie Sanders repeatedly, and his campaign gets stronger.  The more people know Bernie Sanders the more they like him.  The more people are exposed to Hillary Clinton the less they like her.  The Huffington Post tracks the trends for the favorable and unfavorable ratings of both Bernie Sanders (here) and Hillary Clinton (here).

According to the Huffington Post analysis, Bernie Sanders currently has a 51.6% favorable rating and a 41.1% unfavorable rating, a net 10.5% positive.  Since July 2015, both his favorable and unfavorable ratings have gone up as people have been exposed to him, but his net positive rating has steadily increased since that time.

Conversely, the Huffington Post analysis shows that Hillary Clinton currently has a 41.5% favorable rating and 54.6% unfavorable rating, a net 13.1% negative.  Except for a small bump up in February 2011, Hillary Clinton's favorability rating has declined since October 2010 and her unfavorable ratings have steadily increased since February 2011.  The last time she had a net positive favorable/unfavorable rating was in April 2015 and her net negative rating has continued to grow since then.  The Clinton campaign likes to say that her bad ratings are the result of decades of unfair treatment by the Republicans, but just over a year ago she had a net positive rating which during the campaign has rapidly become a really significant 13.1% net negative rating.

Of course Donald Trump has worse ratings than Hillary Clinton.  The Huffington Post analysis (here) shows that Donald Trump currently has a 58.6% unfavorable rating and a 36.5% favorable rating for a net negative rating of 21.1% which is worse than Hillary Clinton's net negative rating of 13.1%.  If you only read the mainstream media you would not believe that Donald Trump's favorability ratings have been increasing and his unfavorability ratings have been decreasing since April when he had a net negative of 31.3%.  If the trends of Hillary Clinton's net ratings getting worse and Donald Trump's net ratings getting better continue, Hillary Clinton's chances of winning would be further diminished.

While I understand that Bernie Sanders has a narrow chance of winning the Democratic nomination, if he continues to win the primaries/caucuses between now and the convention and the polling numbers and favorable/unfavorable numbers continue their present trends, I would hope that the Super Delegates would do their job for the good of the world, country and party and nominate Bernie Sanders.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

War v. Peace, Status Quo v. Real Change and Obfuscation v. Transparency

Dear Friends,

The debate between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders last night could not have done a better job of highlighting the choice that we have between these two candidates and their policies, opinions and positions.

War v. Peace

On foreign policy, except for a short discussion about NATO where the candidates are in basic agreement, the Middle East was the focus.  Senator Sanders laid out a very clear and articulate position that acknowledged the right of Israel to exist in peace and security, but also acknowledged the same right for the Palestinian people.  Senator Sanders made it clear that the Israeli  response to the latest conflict in Gaza was an over-reaction by Israel.  Secretary Clinton refused to acknowledge that Israel over-reacted.  You cannot achieve peace between Israel and Palestine until you acknowledge the atrocities on both sides.  Senator Sanders' approach is the only one that has any chance of bringing peace.

With respect to Syria, Secretary Clinton, who has frequently chastised Senator Sanders for criticizing President Obama, laid the blame for the Syrian situation on President Obama because he did not take her advice to more aggressively arm the "friendly forces" fighting against Assad and establishing a no-fly zone which virtually all experts say would lead to more US troops fighting in Syria.  She also refused to take any responsibility for the debacle in Libya.  President Obama has said that one of the biggest mistakes of his Administration was not planning for what happens after Gaddafi is deposed.  Secretary Clinton refused to accept any responsibility even though she was a strong proponent within the Obama Administration for regime change in Libya.  She blamed the Libyan people for failing to take her advice and accept American troops in Libya.

We have a clear choice - Secretary Clinton, a clear hawk or Senator Sanders, a thoughtful person who will acknowledge reality, seek peace and use force only as a last resort.

Status Quo v. Real Change

On issue after issue, it is clear that Secretary Clinton supports the status quo, with only incremental changes, and it is equally clear that Senator Sanders believes we need big and substantive changes now.  This difference represents a fight for the soul of the Democratic Party.  When Secretary Clinton says that Senator Sanders is not a real Democrat, what she means is that he is not part of the move to the right, Republican light, Democratic Party establishment founded by her husband.  There is a great sentence going around the internet - "There is only one moderate Republican running in this election, and she is running as a Democrat."  I have said before that President Obama is about as far right as President Eisenhower was.  Secretary Clinton is clearly to the right of President Eisenhower particularly on the use of force.  President Bill Clinton formed an unholy alliance with big business.  Secretary Clinton will continue that alliance.  Senator Sanders will break up that alliance.

Secretary Clinton claims that she wants to get to universal healthcare coverage but has only plans to add an incremental number of people and attacks Senator Sanders' plan for Medicare for all.  She says he would throw out Obamacare which is not true.  He would keep Obamacare until the Medicare for all was in place.  She wants incremental change and calls it pragmatism.  She says she supports the movement for a $15 minimum wage, yet she refuses to support Senator Sanders' bill to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 instead she supports a competing bill to raise the federal minimum wage to $12 an hour.  She claims that she wants to protect the economy from another melt down but continues to fight against breaking up the big banks even though they are bigger now than before the great recession and the Fed and FDIC have recently called them too big.  She continues to say we should regulate them but, in an implicit criticism of President Obama, says that she would be tougher.  However, she fails to acknowledge that the big banks have successfully stalled on developing "living wills" for more than five years.  She says that she stood up to the big banks before the great recession but fails to acknowledge that she completely failed in changing their behavior.  The time has come to stop coddling the big banks and break them up.

She uses the overturning of the Citizens United case as one of her two litmus tests for any Supreme Court nominee and states that big money is corrupting our political system but refuses to acknowledge that it has any impact on her.  Apparently she is immune to all the pressures that other politicians are not immune to.  She cannot answer the simple question of why she will not release the transcripts of her paid speeches to Wall Street.  Her only response is that she will not release them unless everybody does, obviously including all Republican candidates.  Senator Sanders has not made closed door speeches to Wall Street.  The only logical conclusion that I can reach is that she would be embarrassed by those speeches if the transcripts became public.

The most important area where Secretary Clinton's incremental only approach to change cannot be accepted is with respect to climate change.  With every new report we are closer to a cataclysmic tipping point than was previously thought.  The time for incremental action has passed.  We need big change now.  Senator Sanders would ban fracking, would ban further drilling on federal lands, would place a tax on carbon and would focus completely on moving to sustainable, renewable energy.  Secretary Clinton promoted fracking around the world as Secretary of State, she refuses to say she would ban fracking, she refuses to say she would stop drilling on federal lands, and she refuses to say that she would support a carbon tax.  She says we need to move to sustainable energy but will do it in a "practical" and "possible" way, which is to say with small incremental steps.  That approach will destroy the earth for my grandchildren and is unacceptable.

Of course the debate was full of moments when Secretary Clinton obfuscated the facts while Senator Sanders was transparent about his positions.  While saying she would fight climate change, she refused to indicate immediate actions she would take that would have a significant impact, while saying she supports a $15 per hour federal minimum wage, she actually supports a move to $12 per hour, while claiming she supports Senator Sanders' policy of extending the life of the social security trust fund she refuses to support raising the income cap on social security taxes or endorsing any other particular approach, while saying she would be tough on the big banks, she refuses to support doing anything more than have the regulators be "tough" which has failed miserably so far and while saying she will work for peace between Israel and Palestine, she refuses to acknowledge the Israeli atrocities only the Palestinian ones.

She also continues to distort Senator Sanders' record.  She claimed that most of the gun deaths in New York resulted from guns from Vermont which is absurd.  While acknowledging that her statement was incorrect, she refused to apologize.  Instead she made the even more absurd statement that Senator Sanders does the bidding of the NRA in the Senate.  That statement is blatantly false as everyone including the NRA knows since it gives him a D- rating.

She claims that Senator Sanders could not answer the questions in the New York Daily News interview correctly even about breaking up the big banks.  I have actually read that interview in total and either Secretary Clinton is lying or she has not read the interview.  But you do not have to believe me, you can listen to this segment of Democracy Now today (here), it is entitled, "Juan González: Clinton Has 'Really Distorted' What Happened When NY Daily News Interviewed Sanders".  Senator Sanders answered the questions of the interviewer precisely and accurately.  The question to which he answered that he didn't know was whether the Fed has the right to break up the banks.  That is a correct statement, nobody knows for sure if the Fed does have that authority.  When asked about the President's authority to break up the banks, he correctly stated the process under Dodd-Frank by which the President can break up the big banks including that in the end the banks themselves determine exactly what assets to shed, etc.

We have a clear choice and in my opinion Senator Sanders is by far the better choice.

I should also point out that Senator Sanders will win a general election against any Republican while Secretary Clinton is quite vulnerable against any Republican other than Trump.  In the most recent polls reported by RealClearPolitics (here), both Clinton and Sanders beat Trump although Sanders beats him by quite a bit more.  The interesting results are that Clinton is in a statistical tie with Cruz beating him by 1 point in one poll and 3 points in another poll.  Sanders on the other hand defeats Cruz by 12 points in both those polls.  With respect to Kasich, Clinton loses to him by 9 and 6 points while Sanders beats him by 4 and 5 points.

Sanders is by far the better candidate both because of his positions and because of his electability.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Passionate Democracy

Dear Friends,

Today I attended the Minnesota Democratic Farmer Labor Party Senate District 61 Convention, as a Delegate, elected at my precinct caucus on March 1.  Minnesota has many Senate Districts.  District 61 includes the western part of downtown Minneapolis as well as the southwest part of the city.  There are about 82,000 people, 90% white and fairly affluent.  It consistently wins the largest voter turnout among Senate Districts in Minnesota which consistently is among the top turnout states in the country.  It is heavily DFL (we are not just Democrats, we are the Democratic Farmer Labor Party).

DFL caucuses and conventions are always interesting affairs.  Since we always use proportionate voting we often have walking sub caucuses.  In the years before we had a vote for Presidential candidate preference, these walking sub caucuses were really important to the campaign to maximize the number of delegates for your Presidential choice.  The preference vote has eliminated some of the significance of the walking sub caucuses because ultimately the delegates to the Democratic National Convention from Minnesota must be proportionate to the results of the Presidential preference vote, excluding super delegates, of course.

There were over 400 delegates at the convention over half of whom had never been to a Senate District Convention.  Since walking sub caucuses are not needed at most precinct caucuses virtually none of those delegates had any experience with walking sub caucuses.  I will not try to fully explain walking sub caucuses, but I will give you a little flavor for what happens.  Our Senate District gets to send 31 delegates to the Minnesota State Convention where the delegates to the Democratic National Convention are chosen.  Viable sub caucuses get to elect delegates.  Simplistically, to be viable you would need to have 400/31= 13 delegates in your sub caucus to be viable.  It is not that simple since the number of delegates changes (usually dropping) as the day goes on, but forget about that.  To those of us that have been through this process many times, it is obvious that you need a fairly broad based sub caucus if you want to be viable.  Newcomers to the system need to learn this lesson through experience.

Any delegate can nominate a sub caucus.  The name must include a Presidential candidate (or uncommitted) and may also contain other items.  There were several very broad sub caucuses - "Sanders", "Clinton" and "Uncommitted" without any other issue.  There were also others.  The sub caucus that I joined was a combination of several smaller sub caucuses, all of which started with Sanders and then more issues - "Racial and Social Justice", "Black Lives Matter", "Restore the Vote to Felons", "End the War on Drugs", and several others.  Our sub caucus ended up with the name "Sanders: Racial and Social Justice #BLM".

There were about 35 sub caucuses nominated for Sanders, about an equal number nominated for Clinton and 6 nominated for uncommitted.  Since a sub caucus has to be able to elect at least one delegate to the state convention and since our convention is only allowed to send 31 delegates to the state convention, the maximum number of viable sub caucuses is 31.  So we had way more than double the number of sub caucuses nominated than could be viable.  The process involves walking among the sub caucuses to get into one that is viable.  In addition, you can get quite sophisticated about maximizing the number of delegates for your candidate.  If 12 is the number to be viable, and you have 36 delegates who are for your Presidential candidate, you want them to get 3 delegates.  If one sub caucus has 20 and one has 16, you will only get 2 delegates but if you can move 4 from the 16 sub caucus to the 20 sub caucus you will get 3 delegates.  As I said before this strategy is not as important now that the delegates to the national convention must be in the proportion of the preference vote.  Nevertheless it is important to send delegates that are really committed to your candidate as the actual people at the convention, if it is contested, are important.

We had 49 delegates in our sub caucus and were awarded 4 delegates and 4 alternates.  The gender balance rules required that we have 2 delegates who identified as male and 2 who identified as female.  We also had to have the same number of alternates with the same gender balance.  We also had to rank the alternates by gender identification.  The rules get even more complex if you have a uneven number of delegates.  In that case the number of female and male delegates and alternates has to be equal.  So if you get 3 delegates and 2 identify as women you need to have the other delegate identifying as male and 2 of the three alternates identifying as male and one as female.  You also must rank the alternates by gender.  In addition the entire convention (the combination of all the sub caucuses) must be gender balanced.  As we are reminded from time to time during the convention, when we are voting we are also supposed to consider increasing the number of people from underrepresented groups.

As you can see, it takes a kind of a nerd to enjoy this process, and I do.  The caucus system itself is not democratic at all and should be changed but the current process is fascinating.

I was considering running as a delegate, but when I saw the group of people in this sub caucus, it was clear that they were the future of the DFL, the Democratic Party and our country.  Our sub caucus was not at all gender balanced.  We had way more females than males.  Despite our plea to the parliamentarian that our delegates should reflect the ratio of female to male in our sub caucus, we had to elect equal numbers of males and females.  Each sub caucus determines its own election rules except that the results need to meet the DFL gender balance rules.  We determined to eschew a secret ballot and go by raising hands.  It was the only realistic way given the number of people that wanted to be delegates, but it does make it very difficult on the people who want to be delegates to see what the vote count is.  It is intimidating to put yourself forward and have people vote about you right in front of your face.  I am very proud of all the young people who because of their passion were willing to face that prospect.

Our group of 8 delegates/alternates was for our district quite diverse - 3 black women, 1 latino male, 1 transgender and virtually all of whom were under 50 and at least 6 of whom were probably under 30.  Their stories and pitches were passionate, enthusiastic and very diverse.  It made me proud to be a DFLer and gave me great hope for the future.  Their passion must not be squashed or in any way subdued.  It must be encouraged and supported.  If the future of our world is in their hands, all will be great.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal