As I encourage my fellow Democrats to support Hillary over Trump, I constantly get people who point out Hillary’s faults (which I acknowledge many of) and profoundly say, like they’re reading a fortune cookie, “The lesser of two evils is still evil.”*
Most insulting is when the Bernie Bots say these things to me as if I am just too stupid to understand. Yeah, the old “wake up, sheeple” really helps to convince me. The decades I have spent getting my Political Science and law degrees, working as a lobbyist, college professor, campaign manager and lawyer, getting elected as a Judge of Elections, writing about politics, and being an officer in the Democratic party means nothing — the teenager who will be voting for the first time understands the system way more than me.
This is not to say you can’t have a different opinion about things, but please don’t lecture me about how politics works when you believe the superdelegate process is “illegal.”
Look, I supported Bernie too, as anyone who has read this blog knows. But he lost. Now we have a choice between someone who isn’t perfect and someone who is the most unqualified and dangerous person to ever win a major party nomination.
Two evils? Perhaps. Two equal evils? Not even close.
We have to make tough choices every day in life. We don’t always get what we want. Part of being mature is recognizing this. You don’t give up striving for a the best, but you also don’t refuse to take second best when that’s your best option.
I only wish someone had said that to me when I was young, because I was a lot like these Bernie supporters at that age.
Hillary won the nomination, as was always expected. I wanted Bernie but hey, Obama was the only time the candidate I supported in the primaries actually got the nomination. I’m used to not always getting my first choice.
Some Bernie supporters are not taking this well. Some of their complaints are indeed legitimate — there were some irregularities in voting in some of the contests that are suspicious — but those things still wouldn’t have changed the ultimate result. After all, Hillary did get more delegates and more votes.
And that’s not counting the superdelegates. Some Bernie supporters spent the entire campaign complaining about them, saying that they were thwarting the “will of the people.” These same people are now saying that the superdelegates should ignore the “will of the people” and cast their votes for Bernie instead. Come now, how can you commend Bernie for having a consistent set of policies that don’t change based on poll numbers while arguing this?
Politics is a game, and it helps to know the rules of the game. Hillary plays the game well, and she has been preparing for this day for a dozen years or more. Those superdelegates were there the whole time, and Bernie could have been playing that same game to get them on his side all those years, but he didn’t. You can’t complain about the rules of the game if you don’t play.
And let’s face it, is this a bad thing? Isn’t that what politics is about — getting people on your side, making deals, compromising to get what you want? Isn’t that a skill we want our President to have?
I congratulate Bernie on his successful campaign. He originally announced that he was running to raise the issues he felt important, and he did. People are really talking about income equality now. He also accomplished two other goals: He showed that it is possible to run for President and raise money without having to appeal to the standard Big Money interests; and he showed that you can move to the left and even call yourself a socialist and still get significant support. Those are huge things that no political scientist would have predicted a year ago (including me, here on this blog).
The important thing now is to defeat Trump. If I were a betting man, I’d place my bets on Hillary winning this for a lot of reasons, but it’s certainly not a sure thing. Those Trump supporters are rabid and fanatic, and they will vote. We Democrats have the problem of sitting at home on election day despite the fact that there are more of us than them, and despite the fact that polls show our views are the majority ones.
Yes, Sanders may win the California primary on Tuesday, but remember: the delegates are given out proportionally. He doesn’t get them all. This is not the electoral college.
To win the nomination, he’s going to need at least 66% of all the remaining delegates in all of the races that are happening on Tuesday.
That’s not going to happen.
Hillary only needs 256 delegates to win the nomination and that doesn’t include superdelegates. There are 763 pledged delegates to be chosen by Tuesday, and so Clinton can win the nomination even if she only gets one out of every three.
Still, I want Bernie to remain in, as was his plan all along, to influence the platform and use his power to make other deals with the eventual nominee.
Someone else did the exact same thing eight years ago. Let’s see, who was that? Oh yes — Hillary Clinton.
Imagine you have a club. The Star Trek fan club. You’ve been around for fifty years or so and have been fairly successful.
It’s time for your club to elect a new leader. Suddenly, a new member joins and says, “I want to be your group’s leader, but I really think we should be talking about Star Wars, too.”
“Well, that’s fine,” you say. “Welcome. We can do that, too…”
The new member then brings in a whole bunch of other new members, all of whom prefer Star Wars over Star Trek, but they discover that the rules concerning electing a new leader are quite complicated. Further, they discover that the other person running for leader has been a member of the organization for years and has lots of supporters within the organization, almost all of whom have pledged to support her.
“That’s not fair!” the new guy says. “You should change the rules to prevent that.”
“Well, we have a process for changing the rules,” you say. “It takes some time. If you had joined a few years ago, you could have asked to be on the committee — ”
“That’s illegal!” the new guy says.
Well, no, it’s not. It’s how the private organization runs things. They could, if they wish, prevent new members from voting or get rid of voting completely.
And that’s why you’re not going to see many changes in the way the parties choose their candidates. They’re specifically written by the party to prevent what has happened with both Bernie and Trump — where an outsider comes in and tries to take things over.
The Republicans wish they had superdelegates and other methods that could have prevented Trump from hijacking their party. You can bet that once they lose in November, they will have meetings to discuss how to make getting the party’s nomination more difficult.
The Democrats are not in such a precarious position (since both Bernie and Hillary are generally well-liked among party leaders and, unlike Trump, both are qualified), but the complaints from the Bernie people still resonate among some members.
The problem is that many of Bernie people* don’t get what this is all about. They complain about Hillary courting superdelegates and getting supporters to encourage him to drop out — basically, they’re saying “How dare Hillary use politics to advance her political career!”
Well, this is politics. The fact that she has played it better than Bernie doesn’t mean she has done anything wrong. Let’s face it, gathering supporters around you and making deals is what being a leader is all about. It’s how politicians accomplish their goals and get bills passed. It’s not a bad thing to be able to do this well.
Anyway, don’t expect the rules to become more inclusive over time. If anything, this election has shown the party leaders that they have to make the game more difficult, to prevent outsiders from coming in and taking over.
Whether that is a good thing or not is a discussion for another day.
*Before you criticize me, keep in mind that I am a Bernie supporter. There are valid things to criticize Hillary over. Playing the game by the rules as they currently exist is not a “valid thing”.
The Monkees are #1. No, really. They hit #1 this weekend, 50 years after their original appearance.
Great album. Terrible cover.
The Monkees were highly influential on me as a child. While some kids in the 60s wanted to grow up and be astronauts or James Bond, I wanted to be in a rock and roll band where we all lived in the same house and had wacky adventures. So I taught myself to play guitar and was in a number of bands over the years (as the bassist). Strangely enough, one of my college bands — the Naughty Bits — actually ended up pretty much all living in the same house (except for the drummer who was still in high school). We practiced in the basement. Our adventures weren’t quite as interesting, though.
Anyway, the music of the Monkees influenced me a lot more than the TV show. How could the music not be good? They had the greatest songwriters and backing musicians available at the time, and the guys in the band had something to do with it as well. (That’s Mike’s guitar work playing the hook on “Pleasant Valley Sunday” and Peter’s keyboard making the difference on “Daydream Believer” — not to mention the influence Mike had on creating “country rock.”)
They had some reunion albums every now and then that weren’t very good, but they’ve learned their lesson. The new album enlists some of the best songwriters of our day — people who, like me, were influenced by the Monkees. There are songs from Andy Patridge (XTC), Rivers Cuomo (Weezer), Noel Gallagher (Oasis), Adam Schlesinger (Fountains of Wayne), Paul Weller (The Jam), and Ben Gibbard (Death Cab for Cutie). They dug up some old songs that were written for the show and never completed from Neil Diamond, Carole King, Jeff Barry, Harry Nilsson and Boyce & Hart. And then Mike, Micky and Peter contributed songs as well.
Most people only know the hits from the sixties, but there are some great album tracks that should not be missed. In no particular order:
The Porpoise Song was a single, but it bombed — which is sad, because it’s a great piece of psychedelica written by Carole King and Gerry Goffin. This was the theme of their movie “Head.” That’s Leon Russel on keyboards, by the way.
The Girl I Knew Somewhere was the B-side to “A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You” and never appeared on any album until some greatest hits collections came along. Written by Mike Nesmith, this was the first song that the Monkees really played on. Peter’s keyboard solo is quite good.
Shorty Blackwell was Micky’s masterpiece — he wrote it about his cat. There are many parts to this song, with shifts in tempo (it even goes into 5/4 at the end).
Goin’ Down was the B side of “Daydream Believer” — it’s written by all four Monkees with Mike and Peter playing guitars. Micky is amazing here.
Daily Nightly was written by Mike and, as was his way at the time, has trippy words that don’t really mean anything. Micky plays the brand-new Moog synthesizer making its first appearance on a pop record.
Mommy and Daddy is Micky’s protest song, but the record company made him rewrite and re-record the strong lyrics (“Ask your mommy and daddy who shot JFK”). Here’s the original version:
While I Cry is one of Mike’s better written “country rock” songs, with clever lyrics, more than one bridge, and then it ends just at the right time before it could become boring.
Star Collector is another one written by Goffin/King. This one’s about groupies — something Davy certainly had experience in when singing this. Davy was my least favorite Monkee — too much Broadway, not enough rock and roll — but he handles this one just fine. There’s a long solo at the end that was the second use of synthesizer on a pop record. The version below is the long version you never saw on the TV show.
Long Title: Do I Have to Do This All Over Again was written by Peter. I like the way it’s organized, with a different lead section than the rest of the song, and with a great bass line. Nice title, too. This is from the “Head” movie.
Auntie’s Municipal Court is another one written by Mike, with meaningless words and a title that has nothing to do with the song. They were indeed smoking a lot of strange weeds in those days.
Bonus #11: Randy Scouse Git. I didn’t know whether to include this or not. It’s one of my favorites — another one written by Micky. I wasn’t sure if it was obscure enough for this list, as it was a big hit in England of all places (where they demanded an alternate title since “Randy Scouse Git” was a bit too crude in British slang for a teeny bopper audience). Micky, bowing to record company demands for an alternate title, renamed it “Alternate Title” for the impressionable youth there.
EDIT: If you want to read more about my opinion on Monkees songs as well as lots of background information about each song, get my latest book!
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