In some ways, this does remind me a little of ‘08 (although the food is not as good; trust me — when you come back from 8-10 hr.s of knocking, you have only one Q: “what’s here to eat??”).
Please have a look at: www.politico.com/...
So-o, Bernie’s latest is that the supers are a prob. Yeah, I’m with him. I don’t care for Superdelegates. Bernie raises a very valid point — he won 73% of the vote in WA caucuses, but Hillary got all of the 10 supers. Bernie’s right. He should get 7 of the supers. Supers must go. They are un-Democratic and un-democratic. Fair enough.
That said, it looks as if it is another “rookie mistake.” He called Hill “unqualified” (oh c’mon) and didn’t correct himself for two days. He stumbled in the Daily News interview: does the Fed or the Treas. Dep’t have the authority to break up the big banks? (“I don’t have the statute in front of me.). Oops.
This is also a goof. Since Hillary has won so many primaries by large margins and so many states, it really would not help Bernie a lot if we were “strictly proportional." I agree with his critique. I am for eliminating supers. I talked with a solid Bernie today who feels that the overall vote totals should matter.
BTW, I LOVE talking to other Ds. It’s the best thing about knocking doors. Oh yeah, and I also met a former Party Chair from Howard Co. (Kokomo). Since I once served on the central committee here in Tippecanoe Co. (as the lowly sec’y) it was a great honor to knock his door. I enjoy meeting past and present local party people.
My point is that Bernie is just not doing the arithmetic. O’Malley has exactly ONE delegate (count ‘em). Even if there were no supers, Bernie would be in a difficult spot now. We could have a completely statewide (or even nationwide) fully proportional system, and Bernie would not be the presumptive nominee.
If he and/or his staffers don’t get that basic point about arithmetic, then I would like to respectfully urge them to think again.
--raj
P.S.: Thank goodness it only started raining now. Yesterday was a fairly dreadful day in the field. Ick. Fabulous weather today, things look good for my last night of knocking tomorrow. There is nothing better than talking F2F to real voters. Although today, I met the first person who refused to tell me his street address. That’s too funny :-) And I say it’s “funny” by comparison to the difficult spots that we were in during the ‘08 primary and general. I have NEVER been seriously scared this time. (Annoyed, yes … but never terrified. I met a couple of 20-something Bernie canvassers from Frankfort the other day. I tried to explain to them that ‘08 was “rough.” I don’t think they quite got it. ‘08 GE especially was challenging in the field.)