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
Wednesday, May 11, 2016
Friday, April 15, 2016
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
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
Saturday, April 9, 2016
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
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
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