Let's get real though - Hillary has used a 400 plus Super Delegate lead before a single vote was cast to create a perceptual illusion that her nomination was inevitable. This makes it very difficult for a candidate like Sanders, who is basically exogenous to the Democratic party apparatus to have a realistic shot at winning. And yet, he has still managed to get damn close. In my opinion, Hillary and her people have been extremely disingenuous in putting the fix in for what would otherwise be a losing candidacy.
2016 US Presidential Elections | Trump Wins
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Let's get real though - Hillary has used a 400 plus Super Delegate lead before a single vote was cast to create a perceptual illusion that her nomination was inevitable. This makes it very difficult for a candidate like Sanders, who is basically exogenous to the Democratic party apparatus to have a realistic shot at winning. And yet, he has still managed to get damn close. In my opinion, Hillary and her people have been extremely disingenuous in putting the fix in for what would otherwise be a losing candidacy.
Economy is doing fine, and better than Europe which has a more socialized and progressive taxation.
Stagnate wages, dying middle class, record levels of wealth inequality. It´s certainly better for the 1%. Doesn´t sound so great from the donor funded and right wing think tanks you parrot. Is this why Trump needs to make America great again? You see Donald wants to gut Dodd/Frank do deregulate the financial industry again? Retarded.
Trump will make Korea, Japan and Europe pay their share for the defense and in the process will make America great again.
Don´t know if you´re trolling, or parroting retarded Trump propaganda. I think Sanders would want the same "retarded" economic/political saving. And if we do get these other countries to pay their way, it´s be fantastic to put those saving toward higher education
Clinton's mandatory minimum sentences were/are problematic, but it's our fault for corrupting our Latino allies
I´ve lived most my life in Colombia. I´m sure you and your smiley face ignorance know more about how America´s drug war has fecked up our countries big time. Clinton´s massively expensive, destructive sentencing is more reason not to vote for his wife. Retarded Trump will continue the same.
If a student wants to take $100k in loans to graduate with a degree in sociology or women's studies, well it's their right I suppose. No one forced anyone to go to college, I suppose.
Typical retarded right wing propaganda about graduating in sociology and women´s studies. As if engineer and law and computer science and business graduates aren´t saddled with the same debts. Why this economic war on college students? Business should be paying much more for their employees´education and training.
It's a better system than increasing the minimum wage and increasing costs of doing business, which will get passed to consumers anyways.
How do you you know? Cause your right wing think tanks tell you so? Show me some actual factual examples.
That it is, I agree.
You agree? Donald Trump certainly doesn´t. Says Climate Change is a hoax. Retarded
Would you rather cede hegemony to the Russians or Chinese?
Oh god, typical retarded scare tactics. Who gives a feck about broke Putin´s Russia hegemony outside parts of the ex Soviet Union Republics with sizeable Russian populations. China is more interested in business and capitalism. I´m sure cutting the Pentagon, massively, reducing the trillions in waste on useless weapons and avoiding wars could pay a big part of the investment in higher education. Many European countries with, as you say, worse economies can pay college and health, why not the wealthiest country in the world?
Trump will shut those down, pronto.
Hope so. Retarded Bernie economic policy as well. Channel that money into Bernie´s plan of higher education.
One question remains: When Bernie loses to Hillary, will you break ranks and vote for the Donald?
Of course I´d vote for Hillary. What do you think, I´m retarded???
I think Bernie´s idea of raising minimum wage is shooting high to later compromise. We all know the retarded right wing majorities in congress would never allow this, nor the even more retarded righter wing state legislators.
And your fear mongering about taxing walk street speculation and capital gains at higher levels is just parroting the 1% funded think tanks. Show me concrete evidence.
This is the 2008 primary results map
Sanders is basically Obama minus the South. And primary voters aren't usually deterred by maths. Hillary won 8/10 of the last 08 primaries even when it was fairly certain she couldn't catch up.
One thing we also need to keep in mind regarding KY, WV or any another coal state is that they are hit especially hard by Obama's energy policies. Why should they vote for Clinton when she's running as Barry's 3rd term? Of course, the irony is that Sanders's positions are even more liberal, but they don't know or care about that.
There's always a place for liberal panic, I suppose.
You can't compare Sanders with Obama, since the former is basically a non-Democrat who began in the single digits and without any party support. They are therefore light years apart.
They run on the same anti-establishment, populist, outsider, you name it, sentiment. Of course, Sanders is a far inferior candidate, but social media and previous pioneer effort in grassroots fundraising by Howard Dean and Obama's campaign made it possible for him to go this far.
And the superdelegates comment is quack. I've yet to see any concrete evidence that voters are turned off by supposed 'inevitability' from those. If anything, they seem to have served Sanders fairly well in stoking the 'system is rigged' sentiment.
Democrats aren't supporting Clinton out of loyalty alone. In nearly every surveys, about 8/10 of them think she has a better chance to beat the GOP nominee, whoever that might be, than Sanders. Superdelegates are also mostly elected office holders. They are out for their own skin first. If they truly believe that Sanders has the better chance in the general, there would have been a defection similar to 08.
There are 3 posts on this page and I agree completely with all three of them. Well I guess 4 now since I agree with myself 
Oh wait, maybe I don't agree with @InfiniteBoredom , streak might be over
Oh wait, maybe I don't agree with @InfiniteBoredom , streak might be over
Obama didn't run on an anti-establishment platform, he had the support of some very big hitters like Oprah and Ted Kennedy (who accurately sussed Hillary out as a weak candidate) at the time, so they are incomparable.
The Super Delegates issue is completely legitimate. It's a corrupt way of stacking the odds in favor of the candidate being supported by the party apparatus before the general public cast a single vote. This then creates a perceptual illusion of that candidate's inevitability, as in "Why bother with any other candidate when Hillary is going to win anyway, so you might as well vote for her". That is as morally nefarious as it gets and could easily be viewed as institutionalized cheating because party elites are effectively usurping the Democratic process in favor of their preferred candidate.
She was the almost unanimous choice for President of elected Democrat members of congress and governors. That's where her superdelegate lead came from. And she won the nomination because of her strength with minority and older voters, who generally wanted a continuation of Obama's policies, not because they thought "damn, check those superdelegates, we'd better fall in line". What the endorsements did do was winnow the field early on so you didn't have a GOP like situation of splitting the vote against the insurgent candidate.
Well yes....what are a cabal of party hacks doing selecting the nominee before a single citizen had a chance to vote in the primaries.
Here's Ted Kennedy's endorsement of Obama in 2008 - you can pretty much take out Obama and add Bernie Sanders into his words, and I'm pretty sure he would endorse him if he were still alive today.
Otherwise known as using the same nomination process that has existed in the Democratic party since the 1980s.
Or flat out choosing the nominee without input from the voters before that, which, incidentally, is still the norm in European social democracies that Sandersnistas are infatuated with.
Well, this is why Sanders raising the discussion that superdelegates are unfair and undemocratic is a good thing. The public have a right to vote for who their nominee will be through the primary and caucus system. Elected officials and party insiders should not have any say in the matter since in the case of elected officials, the people who voted them into office are already directly voting for the nominee through their respective state primaries and caucuses, and in the case of party insiders, they are basically just unelected elites who have no business sticking their beaks into public's business.
If the GOP used superdelegates, they probably wouldn't have Trump as a nominee.
It's up to the party to decide how their nomination process works. If you're going to allow non-Democrats to vote for your party's nomination for President, which benefits outsiders, and allow caucuses, which are intrinsically undemocratic but allow candidates with high voter enthusiasm to do better, then the party will also want to retain some degree of say in who their party chooses. These are the people that actually spend every day of their working lives trying to improve the Democratic party, get it elected at all levels of government, who actually meet voters and go door-knocking and fundraise and perform outreach. Calling them hacks is a little puerile. Ted Kennedy's a hack too, I guess? Giving his endorsement when most of the country hadn't even voted, tut tut.
Yup, certainly have a greater level of input. In the Labour Party you can't even run for leader unless you get a certain number of nominations (a check which, well, didn't quite work out last time round
)I would expect the superdelegate chicanery to exist for the GOP, since they are less interested in Democracy, especially through their voter suppression efforts.
It's up to the party to decide how their nomination process works. If you're going to allow non-Democrats to vote for your party's nomination for President, which benefits outsiders, and allow caucuses, which are intrinsically undemocratic but allow candidates with high voter enthusiasm to do better, then the party will also want to retain some degree of say in who their party chooses. These are the people that actually spend every day of their working lives trying to improve the Democratic party, get it elected at all levels of government, who actually meet voters and go door-knocking and fundraise and perform outreach. Calling them hacks is a little puerile. Ted Kennedy's a hack too, I guess? Giving his endorsement when most of the country hadn't even voted, tut tut.
Yup, certainly have a greater level of input. In the Labour Party you can't even run for leader unless you get a certain number of nominations (a check which, well, didn't quite work out last time round
Endorsing someone is completely acceptable since anyone, famous or not, has a right to free speech. We're specifically talking about stacking the numbers in favor of a candidate before the public have chance to make up their own minds - and in so doing; skewing the public's ability to make balanced choices because they feel one candidate's nomination is already an inevitability due to superdelegates. That's not democratic at all and needs to change, and let's face it - Sanders may well be on par or ahead of Hillary at this point if not for the SD shenanigans.
I agree that the superdelegate process is unfair but it is somewhat bitchlike (in lieu of a better term) of Sanders to complain about superdelegates after deciding to run as a nominee under the Democratic party banner. Minor issue I have with him, mind.
I don't see the relation between the two. Do you feel he doesn't have the right to run as a Democrat ?
Not much in terms of viable alternatives. If his run can shed light on how limiting and undemocratic our current two party system is I will be pleased.
He definitely has the right to run as a democrat. Complaining about an issue that if resolved would benefit you, ranks slightly lower on the moral scale than complaining about an issue that if resolved doesn't necessarily benefit you. I think.
It will be a major benefit and credit to him if the superdelegate system is removed as a result of his efforts.
I see it a bit differently. The fact that he has been undercut by super delegates and is willing to raise the issue as undemocratic, is nothing but a good thing because it raises the issue among citizens that the Democratic party is behaving **cough** unDemocratically. It takes someone who is a straight talker like Sanders to bring these sorts of things to light and I'm glad he's doing it. Hillary would never complain about them even if she were losing since she is an establishment candidate who doesn't seem to mind party elites having more power and influence in the process, and indeed, both her and Bill have benefited from it all throughout their careers.
That is one thing I am hoping comes out of both primaries is that people start pushing their state leaders for a straightforward process in awarding delegates. It can be prorated, it can be winner take all, but at least have it based on the votes cast. Even the caucus method needs to be questioned as to whether it is too easy for a well-organized candidate to game the system.
So who's allowed to give said speeches and who's not? Kennedy gave his endorsement and was a superdelegate. People did exactly the same thing for Clinton this time round. A lack of other viable candidates meant a lot of people did this early. I like to give voters a little more credit in being able to make their choice for the nomination, I don't think they're sheep.
Some aren't, many are.
A public endorsement from a politician is completely in bounds because it can be argued that its done within the context of the endorser being a citizen, and as such, having a first amendment right to say what he or she pleases. That is light years apart from an entire political party apparatus being usurped to give one candidate a massive advantage though the superdelegate system, which is undemocratic. The fact that Kennedy or others were one in the past, doesn't change this fundamental reality of elites choosing a candidate before the public have a chance to vote for them. If superdelegates were not allowed to vote for a candidate until the convention, then it would obviously be a bit more fair since the public would have already spoken by then.
This is literally how it is right now
Or are you advocating to forbid them from endorsing, at all? Or not making the call public? All seems to violate First Amendment.
This is literally how it is right now
Or are you advocating to forbid them from endorsing, at all? Or not making the call public? All seems to violate First Amendment.
I'd prefer they are done away with as they are fundamentally undemocratic. But if they are to stay, they should make their votes known at the convention so as to not give a candidate an advantage when they are campaigning with the general public.
I have no issues with people advocating for the former position, other than that you should be careful what you wish for, since you might get another McGovern or Trump. But, the later is not feasible, since it infringes on free speech. Sooner or later, you will have elected office holders or influential members speaking out against it to advocate for upstarts or establishment, whoever happens to be their candidate of choice. It's just impractical.
So now you ARE advocating limiting their freedom of speech.
They are willing participants, so no. Think of it as conceptually similar to when a Jury is sequestered from discussing a legal case in order to not prejudice the outcome. What we are talking about is making democracy better as opposed to arguing in favor of the status quo, which is presents a gapingly disingenuous flaw in the process. Of course, super delegates can still endorse candidates throughout that process, but they shouldn't be able to stack the odds before any voting begins.
It should be entirely up to the public who gets nominated. The argument that superdelegates are needed to avoid allowing fringe candidates to become successful is just a ruse designed to mask the democracy deficit such policies promote.
You argued just a few posts up the page that you can't prevent a politician from endorsing whenever they like as it limits their free speech, now you're saying you should prevent them doing so until the convention. Which is your actual position?
I was talking about endorsing, not becoming a super delegate. People who are super delegates can endorse whoever they want - that is their constitutional right. The Democratic Party as a whole however, shouldn't allow super delegates, but if it does, it should at a minimum not allow them to actually make their superdelegate votes until the convention, AFTER the general public are done voting.
It's actually not.
Ancient history now, but back when there's no superdelegates in place, the 'public' chose two uniformly terrible general candidates that the only reason one of them managed to win once before getting shellacked in the next election is because he was up against an incumbent who was never officially elected and bear the albatross of Tricky Dick around his neck.
Again, they are not casting their votes until the convention now
.Just popping my head out of the sand for a bit, is Bernie president yet?
It's actually not.
Ancient history now, but back when there's no superdelegates in place, the 'public' chose two uniformly terrible general candidates that the only reason one of them managed to win once before getting shellacked in the next election is because he was up against an incumbent who was never officially elected and bear the albatross of Tricky Dick around his neck.
Again, they are not casting their votes until the convention now
But they are affecting the perception of the general public by making the claim of who they intend to vote for. This is different than one off individuals like Ted Kennedy saying they support a particular candidate.
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