My Washington State- caucus experience part 2 (Danger! Danger, Will Robinson)
I attended the Washington State Legislative district caucus this Sunday. By the way, I phone banked on Saturday to ensure Sanders delegates attended their caucus. Moreover, I worked the register table for my overall caucus areas- we had 15 precincts delegates and alternates to check in and verify they were at the correct location.
I do not care for the caucus due to the time commitment and by its very nature- the few have the power to control the many; however, it does demonstrate the strength, organization, and commitment by a candidate or campaign. For the record, Bernie won 18 delegates and Hillary won 5 delegates- it was the expected outcome 78% to 22% (we were hoping to keep her under the 15% threshold to shut her out but the Clinton folks did show up)
There were a few items that I observed from this new caucus experience (recently moved to Washington at the end of October). The following is my general account of the experience:
1) The Sanders' supporters care, are involved, and are passionate about his (our) campaign. They want their voice heard and work hard for him. They donate their time, money and energy to the campaign.
2) The Clinton supporters are usually old guard (usually senior citizens- which is not a bad thing) regulars and are not very excited or fired up. They are a very pragmatic lot, I overheard a few of them talking “Wait until Sanders is crushed in New York, and the following week we will sweep then it will be over”. Their attitude is one of lets get over these formalities and give Clinton the nominee.
3) Another observation from the caucus there were so many younger people that are for Sanders and that is a great thing for the Democratic Party. Please note Sanders support continue as wide array of supporters as well- young, old, all races, genders)- so stick that myth in your pipe and smoke it. However, the old guard did not welcome or encourage them to participate- they basically gave them the cold shoulder (please note I am 48 years old so I can understand both sides, but damn wake up democratic and welcome these new people/blood).
4) Boogieman- this Fear factor was invoked every time a Clinton supporter spoke instead of telling everyone they should unite beyond a great candidate they said that the republican candidate (Trump or Cruz) would destroy the country.
5) Finally, the most important note from my experience was when the officials spoke or mentioned Hillary’s name most of the crowd booed and it was loud. After a while they stop saying her name- sad very sad.
I am telling you and everyone else, if Hillary wins the nominee she will not win the general election- a lot of people do not like her and will either stay at home, vote for a third party or vote for the republican candidate. Sanders’ supporters told me several times they will not vote for “her” if she is the nominee.
This lack (gap) of enthusiasm will destroy the party but that does not worry me because I will happily wait for its destruction. Afterwards, I will help pick up the pieces to create a new Liberal party that will address the country's core issue and give me the satisfaction of throwing the “real” democrat label into the face of fake democrats. (Sorry for this note but is burns me up everything I hear this phrase used by others)
Finally, come on Bernie win New York!
Comments
So Bernie supporters are seen as threatening
to the American way of life, but not as awful as a Republican? I had never thought about outright fear as a possible root of the vitriol OT and elsewhere.
Thank you for cat-herding.
Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.
very hard to argue with Hills people - there's no" there" there
the arguments for Hillary:
She's been tested (and found untrustworthy)
fear of Trump/Cruz
she was a Senator (don't pay any attention to that AUMF vote, or, if you do, she was lied to, but don't point out that lots of people knew Bush was lying....and don't say that Hillary knew it, too, which she did, but voted for the thing for political reasons).
the arguments against Bernie:
it's just too easy to propose things people want (this is confusing...isn't that the idea?)
he can't get things passed with the Republicans controlling Congress (could Hillary? A good Tom Tomorrow cartoon today on that point...she couldn't but they'd be "sensible" things that weren't getting passed)
it's like the crazy Republicans. They have so many things they could be criticizing Obama on and yet they come up with nutzo stuff like he's going to take away guns. So too with Hillary vs Bernie. Our favorite candidate is not as anti-war as we would like but that's not anything that Hills and the Hill-people will complain about. No, he shouts. Or his supporters support him too much.
Talkin to Republicans
These days any time one of my coworkers mentions politics - and they do unfortunately - I have to try to turn the conversation to the one point of commonality... Hatred for Hillary. Although they have all these weird ideas about why she is a terrible person as though some minor oversight in Bengazhi is worse than accepting bribes to green-light weapon sales to humans rights abusers.
Also the fact I can say that last bit about someone who is likely to become one of two 'realistic' Presidential nominees is borderline surreal.
Almost every person slightly older than me
That has been a rabid Hillary supporter has sighted their support for McGovern why they felt Bernie was not as good for the job.
This is my take on that. A few nights before that election they interviewed a fairly radical guy whose name I have no memory of. I was seven at the time. I remember the words he used. "We are going to burn it down! The system is corrupt! This is a revelution!" I remember the effect of that on my parents both undecided. I am sure they both voted for Nixon.
I have a neighbor who was a college student at Berkley and participated in the protests there. Her hobby over the years has been putting together a video library and digitalizing old super 8 films along with collecting news footage.
Sit down in the here and now and watch those old news reels It must have seemed like this country was on the brink of violent uprising to the average middle aged person with a regular job and a family. Add to that the death of RFK, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King by assassination and you have some serious fear of the return of those times.
I fear that too and actually believe Bernie may actually be the only way to prevent it. I believe he is trying to channel all the anger into positive channels for change. If he fails I think all bets are off.
"McGovern", as a thing, is used to scare liberals
you don't see Republicans going "oh we can't nominate another Goldwater".
As stated many times....well, you know how they pull out "Nader"? When, in fact, 5 times as many Florida Dems voted for Bush!!!! as for Nader? And how they don't blame those 300,000 Dems but blame the lefties? It's like that with McGovern. Mondale was not a "lefty" but ended up with fewer electoral votes than McGovern, but we don't hear "we can't nominate another Mondale!"
It's all their (the DNC and friends) way of guilt-tripping us. McGovern lost because Nixon was, at the time, popular and because McGovern's running mate got outed as an electroshock patient.
Yet 44 years later we're supposed to be afraid of voting for the ideas we hold.
Blank-blank-blankety-blank that!
I think McGovern also lost because the Democratic
Party was completely and violently split over the war in Vietnam. I have this hypothesis that in many places the old pols and Democratic party 'machines' just sat on their hands in '72. (E.g. It's hard to imagine the Daley machine in Chicago really went full-bore for McGovern.) Pro-war Democratic voters also voted for Nixon because he articulated white resentment of black militancy-- the "law and order" dog-whistle-- which was called at the time "white backlash."
So another way to interpret the use of the McGovern-boogieman narrative against Sanders, is that it contains an implicit threat by the Party establishment and DLC powers-that-be to withhold resources in the general election. Just as some HRC bloggers accuse Bernie people of being willing to let the Democratic candidate lose if we don't get our way, my feeling is that the significant implied threat-- the real, actual specter of political blackmail-- is the reverse.
The truth is I don't think the Democrats are nearly as divided as in 1968-72 and if Bernie were to be nominated the threat that the Democratic base of voters would stay home or vote Republican seems tiny. Unless the established party organs were really bent on sabotaging his election.
"Don't believe everything you read online." -- Epicurus (Greek philosopher, 341–270 BCE)
excellent point, juancito. Thanks.
Was yours terrible too?
I was in LD30. That was a TERRIBLE caucus. First they started checking in people late...which took 2 hours to "finish" checking everybody in. Then we kinda sat around for 3 hours until most of the alternates had wandered away. Then they announce "hey here is the numbers we have, and we're short on alternates so Hillary +2!" Guess what they had told most Bernie alternates - 'Oh you don't need to go check in at this time, go to the back of the room to wait and we'll check you in if we need you'.
Yeah, I'm not entirely sure if we managed to erase those losses in LD30...I was kinda delirious from lack of sleep after having been there nearly 8 hours - as a graveyard shift worker. Someone from the Bernie camp did tell me I wasn't needed at that point so I went home for sweet sweet sleep.
Still it smelled an awful lot like a parade of "Incompetence (for Hillary)" and vote rigging.
If I hadn't already been #BernorStein prior to this it would have pushed me over the top and then some. If she gets the nom now I think I'll just vote a straight Green or Micky Mouse ticket.
Sorry to hear that
No we were on it due to strong organization and just staying on them. Please keep it mind overall the state should be okay. However, that is how the Clinton and old guard Democratic Party want it- keep their power. So they will use any tactic to win. I am an old hand so I kept people calm and engaged. After this election some housekeeping is in order.