By CHARLES CULLEN
I’ve always considered myself a yellow-dog Democrat. Every vote I’ve ever cast has been for a Democrat. And, hey, I get that everyone down to heroin dealers generally have higher moral codes than politicians. I also never got the weird national dislike of Hillary Clinton. I found it absolutely inexplicable unless the answer is we’re simply very, very sexist; exponentially so when it comes to ambitious women seeking power.
The reason I find my faith shaken is the continuous effort of the Dem bosses to absolutely rig the primaries for her against Mr. Sanders. I’m still scratching my head over how Mr. Sanders could have beaten Mrs. Clinton so soundly in New Hampshire, yet been forced into a delegate tie with Clinton by virtue of super delegate intervention. I’m also quite sad that—while Sanders has collected many minority endorsements—Clinton has, and continues to collect more. From a fractured Black Caucus, to the biiiig money folks, it seems that Sanders can’t get a fair shake from the Democrats. Clinton has an entire rolodex of powerful elected officials stumping for her, while Sanders has Killer Mike (a rapper). It seems the Dems are determined to prove what Sanders has been crowing all along: the system is rigged.
Now maybe the party bosses are just trying to protect us stupid, regular voters from sending an unelectable candidate into the General Election. The problem is that national polling shows Sanders beating the Trumps and Cruzes of the world. Often by a wider margin than Clinton. Why, then, is the fix in? Is it because Sanders (annoyingly) won’t stop calling himself a “democratic socialist?” Is it his stint as an Independent? Or have the powerful just decided that it’s Hillary’s turn?
It baffles the mind that at a time when Sanders was introducing legislation to end private prisons, Clinton was trying to explain away her acceptance of private prison cash … yet Sanders is the candidate desperate (and sort of failing) to court minority voters. And if you don’t recognize the correlation between prison reform and civil rights, I have multiple bridges to sell you.
Then we have Super Tuesday, when Sanders is expected to get trounced in the reddest of red States. This’ll earn Clinton plenty of delegates, especially if she takes Texas, but will mean nothing in a general election. I don’t think Alabama is going to put a Democrat over the top and into the White House. Do you? If so, please refer again to my offer for low cost bridges.
Hillary Clinton has had a great, albeit way to the right of Sanders, political career. She’s helped the country in countless ways. And if she manages to win the primary fair and square, I’ll be the first to say bravo. I’ll be first in line to cast my vote for her. If, however, the media, her super-donors/pacs, and the Dem party bosses hand her the nomination, I’ll be disappointed. The party will have done unthinkable damage to itself when it comes to the usually reliable youth vote and their new found desire to participate in midterm and local elections, and every conspiracy theory about the road to the White House will seem to many to have been confirmed. Her Presidency will start with that weakness and it may haunt her into a second term run—where she may not have the luxury of facing utter clowns as opponents. Imagine a reasonable sounding, strong Republican running against a lethargic Democratic party. Does Clinton win that second term? I certainly don’t know but my instinct is that she does not. By then we will have the staunch liberals on the Supreme Court dead or retired, not to mention concerns about lower court appointments. And now that the SCOTUS game involves appointing ridiculously young Justices we may have a Neo-Con version of the Warren Court. And it may last for an uncomfortably long time. During that time much of the good that President Obama has done--fighting, as always, against the grain, may be undone.
I don’t want this piece to sound like fear mongering and I’m not even stumping for Sanders (he’s got his own issues.). But how one reaches the mountaintop matters. And it can also determine whether one stays.
At a Hillary rally Madeline Albright informed us that “there’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women.” Perhaps that’s true. But if so, I would guess there’s an even “specialer” place in hell for people who gender shame others into voting for one candidate over another. Black people don’t have to vote for black candidates, Jewish voters don’t have to vote the faith, and women don’t have to vote for Clinton because she’s a woman. One must vote with the full force of one’s conscience.
Just food for Democratic thought.
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