Speaking of wishes, here is my new list of desiderata for new Democratic primary rules:
1. ALL CLOSED PRIMARIES. A political party is not an institution of government; it's much more like a private club. Outsiders have no right to game the system.
2. No-one can run for the nomination unless he or she has been an actual Democrat for three years or more.
3. No caucuses.
4. Only four big voting days. Divide the map into four regions; the candidates have a month -- no more -- to win over that region.
5. Remove the superdelegate system. A leadership committee (including representatives from all competing factions) shall have the ability to release the delegates from their pledges, if circumstances should so dictate -- for example, if a few skeletons come jumping out of the presumptive nominee's closet.
Ideally, I'd like the voting rights stripped from any young nitwit who screams about rigged elections after being handed a provisional ballot because he didn't know he had to register. In fact, I'd like to see such people whipped, branded on their foreheads, and forbidden from holding non-menial jobs. Perhaps they could be hunted for sport...?
Hillary the outsider. The biggest lie in political history is that the Clintons represent the Establishment. They never did. Our friends at Skydancing direct our attention to this piece in the Atlantic by Peter Beinart...
Many forget how devastating Clinton’s 2008 loss was. Over the course of the campaign, her party’s most powerful leaders—people she had worked with for decades—betrayed her. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid sought out Barack Obama and secretly urged him to challenge her. Former Senator Majority Leader Tom Daschle, who according to John Heilemann and Mark Halperin’s Game Change, considered Clinton an “icy prima donna,” did as well. Chuck Schumer publicly endorsed Clinton; as her fellow senator from New York, he had to. But he also privately urged Obama to run. West Virginia Senator Jay Rockefeller, an old ally from Clinton’s health-care fight, endorsed Obama and said he was doing it for his kids.I keep recommending Conason and Lyons' The Hunting of the President, which shows that the media and the DC Establishment always treated Bill Clinton as though he were a dead bird in Central Park -- something to be scooped onto the nearest trash heap.
Ted Kennedy endorsed Obama publicly, despite being repeatedly begged not to by Bill Clinton. So did Representative Lois Capps, even though Bill had campaigned for her, spoken at her late husband’s funeral, and employed her daughter at the White House. Bill had also employed former Energy Secretary and U.N. Ambassador Bill Richardson. Nonetheless, Richardson—who ran himself in 2008—made a deal to send his supporters to Obama if he failed to meet the delegate threshold at individual Iowa caucus sites. He did so, according to Heilemann and Halperin, despite having promised the Clintons he would not. James Carville dubbed him “Judas.”
That wasn’t even the worst of it. Civil-rights legend John Lewis endorsed Clinton and then rescinded his endorsement to support Obama. Claire McCaskill betrayed the Clintons twice. They had campaigned hard for McCaskill when she sought a Missouri Senate seat in 2006. Then, that fall, she publicly declared that “I don’t want my daughter near” Bill. McCaskill assuaged the Clintons’ fury with an emotional apology to Bill. Then, in January 2008, she became the first female senator to endorse Obama.
The funniest man in American politics. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Lord HA HA. His latest headline is a gutbuster: Bernie Sanders is Still the Democratic Front-Runner. Clinton's FBI Indictments Coming Soon.
9 comments:
The trouble is states do caucuses to save money on primaries. Getting rid of them won't happen.
Please keep reminding people also about the free version of excerpts from The Hunting of the President that apply most to Hillary, The Hunting of Hillary. - http://bit.ly/1MMXxTr
I 100% agree with your recommendations. I jumped over to the hahahgoody thing and watched approximately 12 picoseconds, then drifted through the comment thread. The crazy and stupid runs deep there. I think someone should start a blog called "Any Day Now" so we can have all this exceedingly dumb shit collected in one convenient location.
Joseph, I suspect you've already seen it but on the off chance you haven't then I'm sure that your readers will enjoy this terrific account of Paul Manafort, Donald Trump and Roger Stone.
Open Primaries make sense, at least open to independents. So they don't have to move to the middle in the general. Have more general appeal and increase chances of winning.
No, open primaries do NOT make sense, for the reasons already stated. It's a DEM party primary. If the independents want to vote in something, let them form the independent magic pony party and vote in it.
California's open primary was quite successful: The voters chose the Democrats and not a republican in sight.The top three conservative candidates combined did not achieve the number of votes the second place democrat(Loreta Sanchez) at 18%. This means that if republicans want to run, there ideas must be made more acceptable to Californians. Closed primaries guarantee that parties don't have to appeal to the voters to get a seat in the general election and in such elections money doesn't just talk, it swears.
Just checked Lord Haw-Haw Goodman's page at HuffPoo.
Every column is still "Help me, Obi-Wan Comey. You're my only hope."
Is anyone else reminded of "Baghdad Bob"? xD
Imagine you are one of the 1% (or 0.1%, or whatever).
To whom would you prefer to entrust the helm of your Great Global Profit Dreadnought (not to mention the nuclear launch codes)?
(1) To a responsible adult with many years of service in government, and eight years of close-up study on how to be President of the USA?
(2) To a self-described "democratic socialist" who honeymooned in the USSR, among many other flaky behaviors in his past?
(3) To a tribble-haired narcissistic grifter who can't be easily controlled, who does not know when to STFU (that being much of the source of his appeal to his fanboys), and who has such a thin skin that he just might take the country into WW3 over a perceived slight from a foreign leader?
The choice is obvious.
But what if the Big Fat Nothingburger be a somethingburger after all?
The J. Edgar Hoover days are over, and the elite will never allow another such figure to rise. FBI Director Comey is no Hooverian uncrowned king. Comey knows who his masters are. If there is a somethingburger, but his masters want Clinton anyway, the evidence will disappear into oblivion.
If Comey somehow does not know who his true masters are, he will receive the Howard Beale lecture on how the world really works, perhaps with Prez Obama himself playing Jensen.
And I will wallow in sweet, sweet schadenfreude at the howls of outrage from the Hillary-haters.
Post a Comment