The latest Gallop Poll shows:
25% of voters identify as Republican
31% of voters identify as Democrat
41% of voters identify as Independent
But a new CNN/ORC poll surveyed 261 registered Democrats, but only 131 Independents, to show that Hillary Clinton's lead grew over Bernie Sanders.
The skewed CNN/ORC poll shows:
42% for Clinton (57% without Biden)
24% percent for Sanders (28% without Biden)
22% percent for Biden if he runs
That CNN poll and this post shows precisely how
the DNC and the corporate media rigs the election process to beat 3rd Party and Independent political insurgents such as Bernie Sanders.
Should Bernie Sanders have ran as an Independent? In a response to an article by Tom Gallagher at Common Dreams titled "Only in America? The False Dichotomy Between Movement Building and Electoral Politics" Kevin Zeese of PopularResistance.org wrote:
The author is right that movements and elections can work together, but the recipe for transformative change throughout U.S. history has been with mass movements and an independent political party. There will be neither when a candidate runs inside the Democratic Party.
The Democratic Party kills movements. Every movement that has gone into the Democrat Party has gotten weaker not stronger (e.g. labor, environment, women, anti-war, civil rights). Strength comes from building political muscle outside the duopoly.
The major changes in history — worker rights, union rights, ending child labor, women voting, civil rights, even the New Deal — all have their roots in third party candidates who never won the presidency, but changed the direction of the country. They changed it by impacting the outcome of the election, which is called "spoiling" by those who oppose third parties, showing enough electoral support to show one party they needed to adopt their issues or end up like the Whigs.
The only successful third party candidate was Abraham Lincoln, who came after two decades of failure by abolition candidates, which weakened both the Democrats and the Whigs — the latter replaced by the Republicans.
Bernie Sanders made a terrible mistake running inside the Democratic Party. Their nominating process is rigged to ensure an insurgent never wins. They have blocked insurgents for decades. Sanders will be finished in April [2016].
As a third party candidate Sanders could have united all the left parties to create a unity campaign. He would have been running when 42% of Americans are independents — the highest ever as both parties are highly unpopular. He would have run through November and could win the three-way race with less than 40% of the vote. If he lost he would open up the electoral process to third parties — a lasting legacy.
Now if he loses, there is nothing left behind. Some would have been educated on domestic economic issues, but they would have no electoral vehicle. Running inside the Democratic Party was a disservice as we will never have the "revolution against the billionaires" that Sanders calls for inside either Wall Street-dominated party.
How has the Democratic Party rigged their primary system to prevent an insurgent like Sanders from winning? The tools have been foolproof throughout the history of Democratic nominations since the early 1980s. There have been insurgents in every primary, but none have won. Here are some of the anti-democratic methods used in the Democratic Party nominating process:
* Superdelegates. They make up 20% of the delegates needed for the nomination. They have mostly all already endorsed Clinton, they will switch to Biden if she falters. This puts Bernie behind by 20% and requires landslides across the country to make it up. That is impossible. (By the way, the Republicans have 0% super-delegates.)
* Frontloading of primary votes. In the month of March, 23 States vote. This makes it impossible for a challenger without hundreds of millions [of dollars] to compete. You cannot physically campaign in 23 states in 30 days except superficially. This requires hundreds of millions in TV and other mass media advertising. You have to see out to Wall Street and big business to compete.
* Minimal debates. This was actually added this year because the Dem leadership knows they are unpopular and there is an uprising even within their political base. When Obama ran in 2008 there were more than two dozen debates, this year there are six and four of those are before Iowa. Once things get going, the only way to get national TV attention is with mass advertising.
* There are many informal powers. The mass media is corporate in the US. They have members of their board from Wall Street and big business interests. They serve oligarchic control of the government and have destroyed insurgents. The media is filled with Democratic Party hacks and talking heads from the party. They will control the narrative, and Sanders does not have the media access to change it.
No candidate has overcome all of this. The Democratic primaries are really an anti-democratic process — and it works well to keep the power structure of the Dem Party in place. Sanders made a gigantic tactical error running inside the Dem Party. He actually would have had a better chance running as an independent.
--// end of Kevin Zeese's response.
At a convention of the New Hampshire Democratic Party (attended by more than 4,000 delegates and guests), the chairwoman of the DNC (Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz) was heckled by some of those whom feel strongly that there should be more primary debates than the Democratic national party has sanctioned.
ReplyDeleteFormer Maryland governor Martin O'Malley said it is "party malpractice" to let Republicans get all the exposure — and he called the Democratic calendar a "one-woman edict" by Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/09/19/dnc-chair-heckled-over-debate-schedule-at-new-hampshire-convention/
THE NATION (excellent post) "Bernie, Donald, and the Promise of Populism"
ReplyDeleteClass condescension is as old as American democracy and is back in vogue this season, thanks mainly to the plutocrat with big hair. Only, Donald Trump turned “populist” anger upside down. He’s a super-rich guy ridiculing the “stupid” people in government and bragging about how he and his fellow billionaires buy politicians to get free stuff from government.
Sanders, meanwhile, is plowing a parallel furrow of dissent—a substantive and serious program for reform. But neither fits the label “populist” because they are both working within the established order.
The popular anger exploding in the run-up to 2016 baffled press and political leaders. They would not have been surprised if they had listened more respectfully to the broad ranks of citizens during the past three decades. Working people knew the “American dream” was falling apart. They knew because it was happening to them.
With brave exceptions, politicians in both parties turned their backs on the cries of distress.
There is widespread feeling across ideological and partisan divides not only that government failed to ensure economic prosperity and security but also that both political parties denied or ignored what average working stiffs knew and were trying to tell the politicians. Many believe they were betrayed, that the politicians lied.
http://www.thenation.com/article/bernie-donald-and-the-promise-of-populism/
* Lawrence Goodwyn’s short version: The Populist Moment: A Short History of the Agrarian Revolt in America
http://www.amazon.com/The-Populist-Moment-History-Agrarian/dp/0195024176
* PDF Intro...
http://www.celdf.org/downloads/Populist%20Moment%20-%20Introduction.pdf
EXCERPTS FROM THE NATION:
ReplyDeleteHow Automatic Voter Registration Can Transform American Politics: 50 years after the Voting Rights Act, a quarter of Americans are still not registered to vote.
In 1976 Jimmy Carter proposed automatically registering to vote every eligible American once they turned 18, which he said would transform the politics of our country ... But too many states are still making it difficult to participate in the political process, by requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote, eliminating same-day voter registration, hindering voter registration drives, and failing to comply with the National Voter Registration Act ... Voter registration laws have historically been used to exclude people from the democratic process.
http://www.thenation.com/article/how-automatic-voter-registration-can-transform-american-politics/
[* I would suggest something akin to a National Day for Voting — with paid time off from work.]