As I write, the polls remain open for several more hours in New York state’s Primary election, with endless analyses of what it all might mean….
A few hours ago I had occasion to be in downtown Minneapolis to deliver something to the Canadian Consulate at 7th Street and 4th Ave S, across the street from the Hennepin County Government Center.
A block from my destination this billboard was impossible to miss:
(click to enlarge)

One is left to speculate why only Hillary and Trump are mentioned; why the first name for one and last name for the other, respectively. Why the other candidates are left off. It all has meaning to the massive car dealer for whatever reason. It obviously is not considered bad for business, and there is no intention for informed argument in the ads: just single word labels. The reader can fill in the blank with other words. It’s so American.
One of the candidates, in recent days, was “testing” the word “corrupt” as a one-word label of an opponent. It was just a test of a word, not a test of fact. It might be useful.
We are so proud of our democracy. Proud, I suppose, of our national ritual to attempt to destroy the opposition and then, later, to pretend that the previous conversation didn’t matter. So, in New York, Hillary and Bernie try to score points to “win” at the end of the day; as do Donald, John, Ted on the other side.
And much is then made of what it all might mean.
And tomorrow another round begins, this time in other northeast states.
The national culture of disrespect of our leaders, past and proposed, is not helpful. We are all losers.
I keep thinking back to that 25 years ago guy, Robert Fulghum, who published “All I ever Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten”
You can buy the book at his website.
It really isn’t necessary. Teachers still teach kindergarten the same way.
And sanctioned disrepect (bullying, name calling and the like) is universally condemned in school settings, while we look forward to combat in politics.
Our country, we all, need to take a look at ourselves.
COMMENTS:
from Joni, school Principal: Thanks for sharing your latest blog post. I don’t think that I could have said it any better.
from Fred: Well said Dick. Indeed, this campaign is making us all losers.
from Dick: It will have to get much worse before it gets better…and by then we’ll be the “third world” country that we like to despise. I have come to believe we are a society of hopelessly addicted individualists who actually demand the theater that we seem to despise. As a result, we all lose. I could articulate many examples, just from my personal surroundings.
Frederick Douglass, the famous civil rights leader in 1857, the days which birthed Abraham Lincoln, said it well: “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.” (in 8th para beginning “This struggle….”)
We voters possess all the power, but we do so as individuals, with individual demands, and as a result most choose to be powerless.
A big repetitive threat I see all the time is variations on the phrase: “If the right candidate isn’t nominated, I won’t vote for anybody” (or, alternatively, for someone who has no chance whatever) The speaker always declares this in a most powerful way, as if not voting at all will make a difference in his or her favor…. They might think there’s logic there, but the logic escapes me. They simply disenfranchise themselves, and increase the odds that the worst of their own personal options will be selected. So, on we go.
from Mary in New York: I appreciate the comments in the blog but I have certainly come to understand that we have some serious flaws that need addressing in our political process. It is quite interesting how tentative most candidates and elected officials have been in addressing some of the issues. I really wish that the blue collar billionaire and the frantic female in this contest could present their platforms for reform in a more palatable way. The crude X on the scrap of paper that defines the vote in some of the less developed parts of the world is looking better than the politically correct slander that currently defines the American Way.
Love the drama around being a New Yocker and wish you a good week.
from Dick 5 a.m. CDT, April 20: Many thanks.
I awoke to the same Just Above Sunset I read every day, to get a digest of sort about the national perspective. In this one he deals with the New York election, just about wrapped up (he seems to publish, usually, about midnight in Los Angeles. He’s like me, a retired guy. He’s a gifted writer, and he has credentials and, to my knowledge, like myself, expresses his own opinion through the comments he chooses to share, not bought and paid for by anyone. He just likes to write. For the interested reader, his is always an interesting read.)
It is no secret at all that I support Hillary Clinton. She’s the kind of person this country needs as a leader, as President. She’s far more than paid her dues, having to make numerous difficult decisions. (The root of that word “decision” is to kill off other options: think suicide, homicide, insecticide…. Leaders have to make tough decisions, all the time.)
I’ve just gone through a rough year of having to make endless decisions about stuff in a family estate with a lot of heirs. I’m the Trustee of a Trust. It is a very small deal compared with state, national, international policy questions, but rest assured every decision has been preceded by a number of choices, each one of which might be preferred by someone or other, every one which could have been “wrong”, and perhaps a bad mistake. Somebody could, I’m sure, find some grounds to sue me for something or other I did “wrong”, in their view. I was willing to take on the task (as a candidate agrees to stand for election); sometimes I wondered why…and closing the Estate still isn’t quite complete.
I emphasize, I’m not complaining.
This is just a reality faced every day by everyone faced with an array of possible choices, with differences of opinions. Government is no different, only much more difficult, in the case of US, the U.S., over 320,000,000 people in a world of over 7 billion.
No different, just a lot tougher.
from Norm, 10 a.m. Apr 20: Right on with your observations about our apparent need to tear down our political leaders and candidates. It appears to be something ingrained in us and something that we cannot avoid doing.
As a son of a long-time elected public official, i.e. Minnesota state senate, I learned early on that the public views such folks with a mixed bag of characterizations from very effective to does nothing to he/she is not responsive or he/she is in the pocket of or he/she has been in too long (folks quickly forget that Minnesota does have term limits and that they are called elections!) or we thought that he/she really was “on our side” but once he/she got in office, he/she (fill in the blanks).
A good example comes to mind of that mixed bag of characterizations noted above. I can remember an Obama supporter who was an avid supporter of his in 2008 who was convinced that once in office, the new president would set things straight and change the course from evil to good.
Less than three months after Obama was given the keys to the house on Pennsylvania Avenue, she loudly proclaimed her disappointment over the new president and his failure to do everything that he had promised. So, in less that three months, he had gone from being the proclaimed savior of the country to an abject failure in the eyes of his former supporter.
I don’t know if she seriously thought that the new president could just wave a magic wand and everything would be back on course or what but…
from Dick, 24 hours later…in the aftermath of New York
A day ago – 4 p.m. on April 19, New York Primary day – I posted about one aspect of the New York Primary Election. It, along with several comments, is “above the fold”.
The Republican National Convention is July 21-28 in Cleveland (Quicken Loans Arena); the Democrat gathering July 25-28 in Philadelphia (Wells Fargo Center).
Three months is a long, long time in politics. Election Day, November 8 is over six months out. That is a near lifetime. Still we’ll be treated to minute-by-minute play-by-play between now and then.
There is some entertainment value in all of this. Quicken and Wells Fargo bought the naming rights to these local civic institutions. They have lots and lots of money.
Yesterday while taking the photo of the billboard, I happened to notice another interesting piece of signage on the east edge of downtown at another almost complete arena, the place where the Minnesota Vikings will soon play. Here it is:
(click to enlarge)

Of course, locals will recognize this place, missing part of the name, a bank with lots and lots of money.
For the moment, I’ll allow that bank, owner of the name of the new football stadium, to go unrecognized. Everything is a billboard for hire these days, and as bank robber Willy Sutton liked to say, “that’s where the money is”.
But I digress. Politics is serious business.
Yesterday in New York will be spun as it will be spun by the parties and the surrounding chattering class.
I am guessing there are lots of earnest conversations going on within the power actors ‘as we speak’ about what New York means.
I’ll give my opinion as much credence as anyone else.
My take:
The Republican Party as very broadly defined has been hard at work for many years to essentially make Democrats like myself irrelevant, hoping to take control of the three branches of government and governorships and state legislatures.
It has been remarkably effective.
But Tuesday sort of signifies a wakeup call for the bunch going to Cleveland in July.
A carefully nurtured base wants Donald Trump as the Republican candidate for President; Republican insiders are in a quandary, they despise Trump. Contender Ted Cruz came in third, so much for his invincibility. Ted Cruz is also despised by the Republican power-structure, or so we hear. He’s second choice of the Republican electors.
Kasich seems to be going nowhere fast. Paul Ryan, I still think, will be the “fair-haired boy”, the “Knight in Shining Armor” before this is all over.
As for Hillary, for years, the same Republican apparatus has been actively working to destroy Hillary Clinton by any means at their disposal. Secretary Clinton fixes this at the last 25 years, which would ring true, as her husband became President in 1991, and she became an activist First Lady, and she was despised. Remember her efforts at Health Care Reform back in the early days of the Bill Clinton administration? Remember how that went over? Remember the “Harry and Louise” ads financed by the Health Insurance Industry?
And then she earned positions of Senator from New York, and Secretary of State, which required her to make endless tough decisions. That contributed to the opportunity for effective hate messages. She couldn’t do everything everybody wanted. As an elected representative you represent a broad constituency with many needs and beliefs. She represented a state, then a country….
Give anyone of us 25 years of hate-messages from someone and consider the effects that it would have (go to snopes.com sometime and put hillary clinton in the search box…. No matter how decent we could be shown to be, people tend to gravitate towards the down and dirty, nasty, narratives especially about other people.
Hate speech works.
Long ago George Orwell in 1984 hi-lited what he called the “the two minute hate” (or something like that), which kept the Proles energized against an invisible enemy.
Hate messages are nothing new….
Keep that in mind, as you assess the real Hillary Clinton (as opposed to the one manufactured by her opposition).
April 21: This mornings Just Above Sunset (April 20) does another good job of capsulizing the events in New York on Tuesday.
What it all means depends on who does the interpreting. As Fox News liked to say, “we report, you decide”.

POSTS about Michigan, Iowa and New Hampshire are accessible here. More personal comments about Minnesota are found at end of this post, for March 2 and 7, 2016.
Our Precinct Caucus was one mile from our front door.
The traffic was so heavy that it would have made more sense to walk than to drive, though it was quite chilly. I found a parking space at the very back of the farthest away lot; then came a long walk to the school, then standing in a long line snaking into Woodbury High School.
It had very much a feeling of 2008, when the choices were Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
There were, according to ballots for the Presidential preference, 151 people who came to our precinct, and signed in to register their preference for President.
About 50 of us (it appeared from the packed classroom) remained for the entire caucus.
Thus, two-thirds put their mark on a piece of paper and left immediately.
Our Precinct qualified for 30 delegates and 30 alternates to the next level.
13 volunteered to be delegates to the next level; no one volunteered to be alternates. Thus, if you volunteered, you were elected by consensus. No speeches were asked, or requested by candidates.
Every person could offer Resolutions on any issue.
Two of us offered Resolutions for consideration at the next level.
I was one of the two, offering resolutions from Common Cause Minnesota on three issues relating to voting and money in politics.
Another lady offered a heartfelt resolution on Water Quality. She was well prepared.
Both resolutions passed easily; both of us had to answer questions about our resolution.
The Presidential Preference in our Caucus:
85 – Bernie Sanders
66 – Hillary Clinton
The vote didn’t surprise me.
Most of those who voted left immediately, before the caucus actually convened.
The major decisions of who will be supported for President was left to those who will be delegates to at least the next level; and who will in turn select the delegates and begin the process of formally endorse the candidates for all offices at the state level.
It was a good night tonight. Too bad more didn’t come, and more didn’t stick around.
POSTNOTE 8 A.M. WEDNESDAY MARCH 2, 2016
The Minneapolis Star Tribune headlined “Sanders, Rubio score key wins at jammed party caucus sites“; the Minnesota Secretary of States showed the statewide tallies (see them here).
There was no campaigning for votes last night. In fact, the Presidential preference poll was essentially concluded before the caucus meeting began. There were no campaign speeches, and the like.
Out of curiosity, I looked up to get an idea of the number of registered voters in my Woodbury precinct in the last Presidential election. It was 2601. Our district is relatively stable in population; it is generally DFL (Democrat), though roughly an even split.
Less than 5% of the registered voters in my precinct stopped by to cast Presidential Preference ballots last night, and our caucus was heavily attended.
13 of us, perhaps one percent of the registered DFL voters, became the decision makers. We became decision makers solely because we volunteered to become delegates.
We made no speeches, we did not need to declare our Presidential preference. Our “campaign” was our willingness to raise our hands and volunteer to serve. We now become the decision makers at the next level, the Senate District Convention on April 23, where we endorse candidates for local office, consider resolutions passed at the various precincts, etc.
I volunteered for the Resolutions Committee, which can be a tedious job, sifting and sorting through assorted resolutions, some of which require some discussion to determine what they mean. But every resolution is actually looked at by real citizens, and a report goes forward to the next level.
One dominant comment, yesterday noon, before the caucuses even convened, sticks in my mind: a friend said she heard some young people being interviewed. The sentiment was Sanders for President; and what if Sanders didn’t win the nomination? Probably the choice would be Trump….
I could not think of any more opposites than these two.
But I suspect that there are more than just students who are thinking in these terms.
It’s no wonder why we’re a very troubled democracy.
SOME THOUGHTS A WEEK OUT…MARCH 7, 2016:
There were a number of comments to this post. At the time, my computer was running slow, and I couldn’t integrate them as received, but here are some afterthoughts for anyone interested.
1) Personally, I have some recurrent images from March 1
A) How important the meeting from 7-8 p.m. was (the caucus itself, about one-third of those who registered actually stayed for the entire caucus where the business of the evening was actually done.)
B) The literal stream of people I saw who left the caucus site and passed me by going to the parking lot as I was walking towards the caucus site about 6:30 p.m. They apparently came to “vote” for President, period.
C) The woman in the line waiting to get into the building who said she couldn’t believe there were this many Democrats in Woodbury. I asked her where she was from: she’d moved here from Iowa three years ago. People THINK this is a Republican stronghold, while it really isn’t. It isn’t the Republicans responsibility to point out that there are lots of Democrats in this community, and many others.
D) The young man standing off to the side as I was coming in and apparently knew me and called me “a usual suspect”. I didn’t recognize him at all. The tone of voice suggested he was an opposition observer. Anyone can come to a caucus.
2) As exemplified by 1B above, I am skeptical of any advantage to major changes in the Minnesota Caucus system in favor of a “Primary”, however devised. The political parties provide an essential function to endorse candidates and establish party platforms representing the breadth of this diverse populace. Those who came to vote only in our version of the “Straw Poll” but didn’t stay are another group, were interested only in a single office, the Presidency. Then there are the masses who just don’t bother.
I remember my learning about the impoverished country of Haiti, where the peasants were in assorted ways always denied the right to vote. When they achieved the right to vote, 90% of them did, and stood in line for many hours, enduring threats and violence.
In our educated society, we are amazed when 60% of the eligible voters vote for President (with lower percentages voting for the other candidates).
3) A comment came from a former colleague of mine, both of us had been involved in many organizing election campaigns. He uttered an organizing truism: “don’t peak too soon”. Of course, there’s a corollary: “don’t peak too late”. Single events, like the caucus, are important, but the successful campaign “plans its work, and works its plan”.
4) I remembered a key learning from long ago: stay on the offense; if you get trapped into being on the defensive, you’re losing. Donald Trump is masterful on going on the offense. It is easy to stay on the offense. You just have to decide to do it. Of course, a synonym for offense is offensive…there are problems with that, too.
5) Caveat Emptor: Karl Rove perfected the black art of making an opponents positive into a negative. This reared its ugly head in the John Kerry campaign in 2004, when decorated Vietnam war veteran John Kerry was “swift-boated”, successfully.
The same kind of tactic has become institutionalized: for example, Hillary Clinton’s extensive experience in policy making is made to be a liability. She was Senator from a large State, New York, of which New York City is a major part, and U.S. Secretary of State, not to mention First Lady of the U.S. for eight years, and all of these are made to be liabilities…because she was elected to represent the immense diversity of her state and our nation on the world stage.
And Hillary is a strong woman, and it is my sad observation over many years, that many women seem to resent stronger appearing women…. Her being a woman is cast as a liability…probably even among many women.
And it is a near certainty (my opinion) that many of the anti-Hillary talking points embraced by too many of the progressive left were planted by the right-wing propaganda apparatus.
6) There is a distressing inclination in our country to hold the President, and only the President, accountable, while ignoring the impact of the Congress, whose members we also elect, and can effectively throttle any President (see #5, again). Republican Presidents are sainted, whatever their faults; Democrat Presidents are demonized from the get-go.
Some years ago, for my own information, I did a graphic to represent the reality of Congress-President 1977-2013. You can view it here:US Congress 1977-2013001. A useful graphic from 1855 to present day is here.
If there is a demon in today’s American politics, it is the right wing hatred of the very government it seeks to control.
7) In the long term – in the case of election 2016 from now till November – I think my party, the Democrats (DFL) are best served by focusing on positive leadership, rather than negative positioning. I think the oft-cited “American people” want good government and appreciate things that are accomplished for the common good…and it has been the Democrats who have championed these goals.
But, that’s just my opinion.
My choice for President? Hillary Clinton, with Bernie Sanders for Vice-President…. here

Cathy and I were among 4,000 people who heard Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders each give long speeches in person at the Annual Minnesota DFL (Democrat Farmer Labor) Party Humphrey-Mondale dinner Friday night, February 12.
Here are their bios, as printed in the program booklet: Hillary & Bernie 2-12-16001
Both candidates were respectfully and enthusiastically received. (The snapshots below were taken by myself, and are “screen shots”, such as they are. We were halfway back in the very large hall, and screens were the only way to see the speakers.
(click to enlarge)

Minnesota Senators Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken, and Governor Mark Dayton, all publicly endorsed Hillary Clinton to the gathering. Cong. Keith Ellison, also a speaker, has endorsed Bernie Sanders.
The comportment of all the speakers was very polite. I noted only one comment that I thought might be a “zinger” aimed at Hillary Clinton by Bernie Sanders. But it was a brief throwaway line, off the cuff, and probably few noticed. It related to the teleprompter on stage. Clinton had been campaigning in South Carolina earlier in the day; Sanders had been in the Twin Cities. On grueling campaign days, it can be understood that there is need for “cue cards”: which local people to speak about, how to pronounce their names, etc. (I remember a comment made about the long-time U.S. Senator William Langer of North Dakota. On the campaign trail, he’d come to a small town parade, and ask his local aide for the name of someone on the other side of the street, and then go across and deal with the individual on a first name basis, like a long lost best friend. A good tactic.)
Someone at my table noted that both candidates tended to look towards their right. This was the side where the cameras were. The candidates were there to speak to us; but great attention was obviously paid to the media, who would select what photos to use, and what quotes to publicize in last nights 10:00 news, or today’s paper.
Those of us in the hall had the unique privilege to see the entirety of both speeches and all ancillary videos, music and other speakers. The “news” version is always highly compressed. Mostly, most of us get the “news” version.
*
In the previous couple of days, friend Jeff sent along the below two items which I find are very interesting, assessing the now 7 years of the Obama administration.
1. A video Chicago Tribune conversation with President Obama and several of his former colleagues in the Illinois legislature.
2. The Nation He Built.
*
Personally, it is no secret that I first expressed a preference for Hillary Clinton at the DFL caucuses in early Feb. 2008. She was then, and even more so now, an extraordinarily competent candidate, very well prepared to lead this country in these extraordinarily complex times.
In 2008, after Barack Obama gained the Democratic nomination, I strongly supported him, and I still do. His Secretary of State for the first four years of his term was Hillary Clinton; these last few years, John Kerry has admirably filled the role of Secretary of State.
All these folks have made a quantitative and lasting and very positive difference in this country.
That is why, in my opinion, these Democrat candidates are both feared and hated by the denizens of the most radical right wing.
I have had zero reason to change my mind about the positive qualities of Obama and Clinton.
Of course, there are other assessments in this “blood sport” of politics, from the right, and, ironically, from elements of the far left.
Saul Alinsky called such strategies now employed by both left and right against Hillary as, “personalize, polarize and publicize”, and I think the left is being manipulated (and provided with ammunition) by those on the radical right who most aggressively hate and fear Hillary Clinton.
If Bernie’s candidacy stays strong, the attacks will escalate against him. It is how the political process (unfortunately, in my opinion) works.
*
Bernie and Hillary made powerful positive impressions last night.
Bernie looked and sounded tired: he is a year younger than I am, and going full bore at age 74, which he is, and will have to continue for at least the next many months, has to be extraordinarily difficult.
Cathy and I spent 7 hours of engagement yesterday to hear those two long speeches last night.
It will take a while to recover from last night. And for my age, I think I am a relatively high-energy person.
The President of the United States is the most complex and demanding position one could imagine. A relevant question, I think: could Bernie handle the demands?
Hillary Clinton for President.
I think Bernie Sanders would be an excellent choice for Vice-President when the time comes.
COMMENTS:
from Catherine: Yes to Hillary.
from Bruce: Unfortunately HRC is not a good candidate. She is her own worst enemy as her 2008 campaign attests to. She doesn’t seem to have learned much from that failed experienced this time around either. As for Bernie, age is a problem. The pace is only going to get faster. Whether he can handle it remains to be seen. In my opinion, Bernie is a gift from god to the Democrats. He’s become the voice of a movement that both the Clinton Campaign & the DNC are blind to. The same can be said for Trump on the Republican side. The difference between the two is the difference between Obi-Wan Kenobi & Darth Vader in STAR WARS. I don’t think Hillary can defeat Trump, if Trump is their nominee, but Bernie can. Bernie’s support is not Democratic once he’s gone so are they & many of them will end up with Trump. I hope the Democrats don’t look that gift in the mouth. Here is an excellent piece. The videos in it are powerful.
from Carol: I agree with Bruce about Hillary. They both have their drawbacks (Hillary isn’t a “spring chicken” either, you know…) I’m impressed with the support from young people for Bernie. The attitude toward Hillary seems to be that she represents the past instead of the future, dynasties and all that, and maybe we’re not all that happy about 4 (or 8) more years of Bill. Yes, young people are more idealistic than practical. But remember, they put Obama in office.
Frankly, I swing back and forth about once a day in whom I will vote for… I think the bottom line is that if either Trump or Cruz is their opponent, we need to have chosen the one who can win. I’ve been kind of monitoring online postings on one website. It’s surprising the number of Republicans who say if Trump is on the ticket, they will consider voting for Bernie – but never for Hillary.
I seriously think if Trump is ever in the White House, it will be the end of our country as we know it. He’s already done an incredible amount of damage along the way. We have talked about leaving the country in that case, and we’re not alone.
But either Hillary or Bernie is w-a-y better than what the Republicans have put forth as their “cream of the crop.”
from SAK in England: In an earlier email you suggest that one of the remaining 9 candidates MAY win . . . are you suggesting that there might be a third (independent) candidate with a chance. Let us say the Democrats & Republicans field candidates D & R while a third independent candidate I is also in the running. Assuming D gets 40%, R gets 35% and I gets 25% of the electorate – hence none has an overall majority. The way I understand it is the House then decides who is to be the next president. The House belonging mostly to the famous 1% would pick the independent candidate especially if he were a successful rich businessman with Republican leanings. Is this correct & what are the implications for democracy when the candidate with least electoral votes becomes president!? Any precedents?
Response from Dick: The American electoral system can be confusing. There have been Independent candidates who’ve gotten quite a few votes. For example Ross Perot back in the time when Bill Clinton won over George H.W. Bush in 1992. Perot got a lot of votes, but no electoral votes. The U.S. system of electoral votes by state mitigates strongly against any minority party being any more than a nuisance. There may be a situation in modern history where a minority candidate even received an electoral vote. I don’t know of any.
I think the election situation today is such that most anything can happen, particularly at the Republican Convention in coming months. It is theoretically possible that the convention could nominate “none of the above”, favoring someone else. It’s far too early to guess at such a scenario, in the unlikely event it happens, but it could. The Convention will decide on the candidate if there is a deadlock within the Convention. It is highly unlikely that such a deadlock would occur within the Democrat Convention this year. There are, to my knowledge, no viable minority parties this year. Michael Bloomberg has threatened to run as an independent and could self-finance. Stay tuned!
from John: Isn’t this interesting? I watched the Republicans last night, They reminded me of little boys who think they rule.
I feel the Bern! When I was 18 years old I knew I was a democratic socialist. I have drifted both left and right as I grow and evolve.
Where you look at things from, determines what is seen.
And then, Is not the whole political thing reflective of our existing mass consciousness?
Let the clown show go on, and bring on the snake charmers, the three eyed man, the caged lion and the Cotton Candy vendor.
What are thinking people thinking? How will this all end? I’ll be at the DFL caucus, and my heart is with Bernie!
from Madeline: Dick, are you familiar with the following articles? here, here, here and here.
I am saddened by Clinton’s compromising before even starting a negotiation for change, which makes her small, and why Obama beat her in 2008; and her record of being party to what has probably cost a great deal more loss of life, such as in sabotaging Kofi Annon’s attempt at negotiating a peace for Syria; and supporting US-led “regime change” militarism.
I can’t seem to find where I found this, but some also argue Sanders is trying to bring the Democratic party back to its pre-Carter support for a more fair distribution of wealth–which has always been the best for the economy, while later Democrats & Bill Clinton have deregulated Wall Street, and increased poverty with “welfare reform.”
She has done remarkably well in a “good old boy” dominated world, and even if not perfect, as no one is, has had to be intelligent and tough to survive. I think she deserves some credit, and has experiences that prepare her well for the presidency, actually better than all the rest.
I’d like to support Clinton, and will if she gets the nomination, and know we would have to push her to do the right things if elected. I’d like to support her as the first woman president of the US.
I fervently hope that Sanders can physically survive the rigors of the campaign and the presidency if he is elected. I, at 72, wouldn’t dare take the risk, even though I am also healthy.
from Dick: Comment on Comments Feb. 17, 2016: None of the comments either surprise or upset me. In fact, one of the main reasons for printing my post is to encourage readers to give serious attention to their own reasons for favoring one or the other (doubtless the same could be said for the dwindling group of Republican contenders, but this is about Hillary and Bernie.)
Personally, I like Bernie. I also think that Hillary’s biggest liability is also her greatest strength to lead this country: being President of the United States is far more than standing for something. It is much more the art of forging agreements among very disparate opinions and beliefs. Last Friday somebody, maybe Hillary, essentially defined the dilemma: Progress is a Process. Too many opinion leaders, far left and far right, have a vision of controlling the agenda. It doesn’t work that way.
By accident, mostly, my worklife almost entirely was devoted to representing teachers in a teacher union in a state with collective bargaining. I worked for a state organization (I had a boss), represented local teachers in dealings with local school boards.
I was first and foremost an organizer. I never called myself that, but that is what I was. Others can say if I did things correctly or not, or made any difference, or created more problems than I solved…. I just tried to do the job I was faced with.
In a position like mine, the odds were almost certain that everything had to be negotiated. I had to deliver state or national priorities to locals who might feel differently about those priorities. In locals, before the first collective bargaining session, the local had to hammer out what it wanted to ask for, which was no easy matter: elementary teachers have differing priorities from high school teachers; coaches, special education, on and on. People on the bargaining teams could and did have vigorous arguments at all stages of the process.
And then, when you got to actually bargaining against a school board, an entirely new and different set of dynamics presented itself, depending to a large extent on who happened to be on the school board at the time.
Nothing was ever easy.
That is basically what moves me to support people best equipped to serve in positions where nothing is ever “right” to everyone.
First, the person with the ideals has to be elected by a majority of the electoral votes from the 50 states; then the task becomes accomplishing some goals against an often aggressive opposition, as we have constantly experienced in the time of Obama.
The debate at this point in the process is good.
Sooner or later, the reality will set in. Bernie knows it, Hillary, and all the rest, know it too.
Keep Talking.

Only one piece of data interested me related to the just completed Iowa Caucuses:
How many people participated in those caucuses?
A day after the caucus, a news program briefly flashed the numbers:
Republican: about 186,000
Democrat: about 171,000
A quick search of the Iowa Secretary of State data base shows Iowa with 2,090,298 registered voters as of January 4, 2016.
Therefore, roughly 12% of Iowa’s eligible voters, roughly half Republican, and half Democrat, showed up for those caucuses on Monday night…before the bad weather entered the scene.
88% couldn’t be bothered to attend.
The most successful candidates in Iowa, Republican and Democrat, garnered a very small fraction of the total potential vote.
Three of the twelve Republican candidates each received roughly 25% of the Republican vote. The winner received 27%.
Two of the three Democrat candidates evenly split over 99% of the Democrat vote. The winner won two more delegates than the loser.
Here is more for the armchair analysts.
(Iowa is a small state, population wise: 2015 est. 3,123,899. Minnesota is average among the 50 states, with roughly two percent of the U.S. population: 5,489,594.)
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Every state has different procedures for their own primaries, or caucuses.
In Iowa, the Republicans had a different procedure than the Democrats.
The process makes no difference. All that matters: only those who showed up in Iowa – only one of eight potential voters – are the only ones who were counted in the first, and crucial, action of the rest of the journey to the elections in November.
The rest didn’t even bother to come to the game, though most could have participated.
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I’m a regular at caucuses. The above data is pretty typical, I’d say. New Hampshire, South Carolina, etc., will not be that much different. Or Minnesota. Regardless of political party.
In Minnesota, our caucuses are Tuesday, March 1. At those community meetings the citizens who attend will elect the delegates who will participate in the political process ultimately leading to the nomination of their candidate for President of the United States, and many other offices. They’ll debate resolutions on this or that issue that will go forward to become a part of a party platform. Every State, each party, has its own process. I’m Minnesotan. Here’s Minnesota’s.
Folks have to show up to have any say at all.
Those who can, but don’t, show up disenfranchise themselves.
Get familiar with your states process, and show up, well informed, for every election.
COMMENTS:
from Carol in Minnesota: And the really sad thing is they had record turnout. However (speaking of the Republican slate), when there’s nobody worth voting for…
“Only one piece of data interested me” – The one piece of data that interested me a lot was that Trump LOST. Hooray for those Iowans for finally pricking a hole in his hot air balloon!
from SAK, in England: It’s a strange system but I suppose it aims at reaching the grassroots? The data you provide, especially voter participation is truly shocking. With so much at stake & voters obviously wanting a change on both sides of the divide how come so few bother to show up!?
Here’s how the BBC sees it.
The world is become more unequal across the board but some are more unequal than others – according to the Financial Times/OECD which can’t be accused of leftism! [I am unable to share this link, which essentially shows vastly disproportionate and increasing wealth gaps in a few countries, particularly the U.S.]
You are not recommending a candidate yet!?
from Dick, in response to last sentence: Stay tuned, at this space, in a couple of weeks or so, I’ll announce to the world my preference, with rationale.
As to the BBC post, Why are the Americans so angry?”, I think the data, from living a now 75 year life-time in the U.S., is that things like the Iowa caucus portray a false “reality” about people in the U.S. My own mini-analysis, above, is that the Iowa caucuses “catch the wave” of the fringes, both left and right. Bad news is, over here, and perhaps also everywhere else as well, more “interesting” than good news, where people are being charitable towards others, going to work, figuring out how to compromise with people they disagree with, etc. In this sense, who Americans are, and what America is, are not conveyed by the telescreen, which dominates the visible conversation a la George Orwell’s 1984, the 1949 vision of utopia gone mad.
(Recently, we visited “Blue Hawaii”, our paradise state, and I was intrigued by the evening news there, focusing on a dispute over trash pickup in a neighborhood, the usual catastrophic accident on some freeway, and the like. Here we were, next door to Waikiki Beach in a fancy hotel. If we had been marooned in that hotel room, and had only the television as a source of information, we would have been certain that Hawaii was a disaster!)
from Ruth: Good blog!
Seems to me that it’s good that the DFL [Minnesota Democrat Farmer Labor Party] is so generous with delegates. It’s much harder for special interests to take over an open system than a restricted one. However, low participation also invites takeovers by unrepresentative groups. Antiabortion forces tried to take the DFL in the 70’s, but were never able to take more than their percentage in the general population (about one third). There were about 100,000 attending DFL caucuses in those days.
GOP caucuses were very poorly attended, with the few delegate slots going to long-time activists, and the antiabortion folks were able to take over almost completely, and we lost many moderate Republicans from public service.
I’m hoping that Bernie will bring lots of new people to the caucuses and that we can get some of them engaged in the process.
The Occupy movement in Spain set up local meetings to try to arrive at a national agenda. Our caucus system offers that channel. I wish the resolution structure were more open even if it occasionally embarrasses the powers-that-be.