Bernie Sanders's New York State of Mind

[Editor's note: This post might be considered a continuation from the post: Hillary Clinton comes unraveled in New York — which might be considered a continuation from the post: Hillary Clinton's New York Campaign Scandal]

Some folks like to get away
Take a holiday from the neighborhood
Hop a flight to Miami Beach or to Hollywood
But I'm takin' a Greyhound on the Hudson River line
I'm in a New York state of mind

In 2008, the Piano Man Billy Joel endorsed then-Illinois Senator Barack Obama over then-New York senator Hillary Clinton; but in 2016, Hillary Clinton will be contesting Bernie Sanders in the Empire State. Bill Joel is currently missing from the list of Bernie Sanders' endorsements of other top stars/musicians — while others such as Katy Perry back Wall Street and Hillary Clinton.

This coming April 19th New York has a whopping 247 delegates up for grabs; but the New York Daily News reports that even if Sanders were to win the New York presidential contest, every single New York superdelegate they contacted said they would never back Bernie Sanders — such as slime balls like Chuck Schumer and tax dodgers like Charlie Rangel.

But in 2008, when Obama was running against Hillary Clinton, Schumer and Rangel felt a little differently: The Observer:

Charlie Rangel, a major supporter of Hillary Clinton, is joining Chuck Schumer and a growing number of superdelegates who think the Democratic nominee should reflect the popular vote, not the will of the superdelegates. From Newsday:

"It’s the people [who are] going to govern who selects our next candidate and not superdelegates," Rangel said last night at a dinner for the New York State Association of Black and Puerto Rican Legislators conference in Albany. "The people’s will is what’s going to prevail at the convention and not people who decide what the people’s will is," he added.

The official Clinton campaign position remains that she will go all the way to the convention with the idea that superdelegates–and Florida and Michigan delegates the campaign hopes to get seated–will give her enough votes to win the nomination even if Obama has more pledged delegates.

Currently there are about 712 superdelegates in the Democratic party machine that will cast votes at their convention in Philadelphia in July 2016 to nominate the party's presidential contender. So far, Hillary Clinton has the pledge of some 469 of them — leaving about 243 others outstanding. Democratic party officials are defending superdelegates by saying 1) superdelegates have never decided the outcome of any election, and 2) they were "elected by the people".

But to the first point, if superdelegates don't decide elections, then why do we need them?

And to the second point, super-delegates were not elected by the people to vote on behalf of a larger group of voters in a general election. They were elected during a period of time and place to represent them in specific positions doing certain jobs for an allotted amount of time. The voters didn't elect them to hold political power forever (Exceptions in our system of government would be the nominations of Supreme Court Justices.)

Case in point: Bill Clinton was last elected by the voters in 1996 to beat Republican Bob Dole for the presidency in a general election. Bill Clinton was not elected in 1996 to vote for his wife as president 20 years later in 2016. To say the voters voted for him in 1996 to be a superdelegate in 2016 is absurd.

Bill Clinton pointed to his support of Barack Obama in 2008 in defending the decision not to recuse himself as a superdelegate in the Democratic nominating process. Some politicos say they want a rule that would bar superdelegates with clear conflicts of interest from participating in the primary.

The system has been blasted by politicos on both sides of the aisle as being rigged. But the Republicans also have "unbound" delegates — so the system is rigged on both sides of the political aisle. Politico: "Delegates ready to flee Trump at contested convention: If Trump fails to clinch 1,237 delegates outright, already more than a hundred are poised to break from him on a second ballot."

In 2008, when then-New York Senator Hillary Clinton was trailing Obama, she had complained about the superdelegate process: "I think there’s a couple of problems with it. You know, if the Democrats had the same process as the Republicans have, I would be the Democratic nominee today because I’ve won more states with more electoral votes."

Daily Caller: "The party’s lopsided system was put on full display during the Feb. 9 New Hampshire primary. Sanders walloped Clinton in terms of raw vote tally — 60 percent to 38 percent. But the two candidates walked away with the same number of total delegates. Sanders won 15 pledged delegates versus nine for Clinton. But six of the state’s superdelegates lined up in the Clinton camp."

As Clinton said in 2008: "I think we need to figure out how we can have a process that reflects the desire of the voters.” But I doubt she feels the same today, because like everything else, she "evolves" on the issues when it benefits her.

Last February a Clinton campaign adviser had said her of superdelegates: "That is her only true firewall." (Although, the Black vote in Southern States was also a very effective firewall for her as well.)

Currently, Bernie Sanders has a slight lead in the polls before Wisconsin votes, but a Clinton spokesperson says it doesn’t really matter whether she wins or loses that State, because she will wind up with roughly the same number of delegates from a close race. As a result, Clinton will maintain her sizable lead going into the more-important New York primary on April 19. Of course, a loss there would trigger humiliating headlines (Or, like the Clinton campaign has previously claimed, the loss was "expected".)

Bernie Sanders does much better with Independents than both Clinton and Trump — combined. But New York has a closed primary and is not open to Independents. This is the case in many States, and another way the primary process is rigged, because there are more people nationally who identify as Independent, more so than Democrat or Republican. Bernie Sanders is an Independent, but is running in the Democratic primary — because running as a third party candidate in a corrupt two-party system is almost impossible. To vote for Bernie, sometimes one must swallow that awful tasting pill and register as a Democrat.

Phil Singer, a former aide to Clinton in her 2008 presidential campaign and a longtime aide of New York senator Charles Schumer said, “If you look at New York state politics of the last four or five years, there’s been an increasing progressive tilt with regard to elections. Bernie is doing very, very well with liberals and progressives. I don’t think it’s a surprise that it would be a 10-point victory for Hillary as opposed to a 30-point victory for Hillary.” (But so far, all the New York establishment politicos in the Democratic party machine are backing Clinton.)

Like his wife, Bill Clinton has also become a New Yorker. He sits in courtside seats at Nets games and spends summers days in Hampton enclaves. He’s also spent years schmoozing with nearly every elected official, union leader and constituency that makes this city work.

And then there is the mayor of NYC, Bill De Blasio. Politico: "The New York City mayor finally embraced Hillary Clinton, but he can't hide his admiration for Bernie Sanders:

Bill de Blasio pledged his loyalty to Clinton, but the primary has put de Blasio in a real bind. And his support may not be as devout as Clinton is hoping for. Sanders is the candidate espousing the cause of economic inequality that de Blasio stands for. But he owes a political debt to Clinton. "I’m trying to live out my values,"he explained. "I have a long history with Hillary ... she’s put forth a real vision." He doesn’t hide his admiration for Sanders, however. And some of his closest aides thought the mayor should have endorsed Sanders in the primary, despite the sense of obligation. "I’m not going to say I haven’t met Bernie supporters who have said ‘you should be with us,’" said de Blasio, who won the mayoralty on a message of raising taxes on the wealthy. But he insisted that between Clinton and Sanders, there are ‘a lot of shared values in their vision.’”

The New York Democratic race has been a homecoming of sorts for Bernie Sanders, who was born and raised in Brooklyn. During a swing through New York last February, he walked the street of his old neighborhood with CBS news anchor Scott Pelley — and seemingly on a whim, decided to see whether he could get into the old 3½-room, rent-controlled apartment where he grew up. It turned out that the apartment was vacant and being painted, and the painters let him in. Sanders said, "God, I can’t believe how small it is. When you were a kid, it looked so big."

Hillary Clinton, who moved to New York to be a senator while still the First Lady, now calls Chappaqua (a wealthy suburb of New York City) her "primary" home. (Read about her New York campaign candle).

But if Democratic superdelegates or Republican unpledged delegates are going to tip the balance over the popular vote, maybe Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump should BOTH run as Independents in the presidential general election against their equally corrupted establishment's political party machines.

"The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything." — Joseph Stalin

Off topic, but somewhat juicy ;)

Excerpts from a recent editorial at the Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal

In 1992, during Bill Clinton's first run for office, the Clintons declined to release all of their tax returns because, it turned out, a few of the returns showed Hillary Clinton's incredible success in commodities trading when Bill Clinton was attorney general and then governor of Arkansas. She made almost $100,000 from an initial investment of $1,000 in a matter of months — a return of 10,000% — under the guidance of a lawyer who was also outside counsel to Tyson Foods Inc., Arkansas' largest employer. The returns weren't made public until 1994.

As a senator in 2006, Clinton set up an energy task force that produced a 40-page report. But the existence of the group, its members and its work product were all kept secret. Turned out the leader of the task force had headed an investment firm with major holdings in the energy sector.

Last year, the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation became an issue. Donors are identified but not the exact amount of each donation or the date of those contributions. And donations to the foundation from foreign governments have raised conflict of interest questions for Clinton as secretary of state, an office with power over foreign affairs and favors second only to the president's.

Then there are the closed-door speeches to Wall Street financial investment firms, for which she received hundreds of thousands of dollars apiece.
These off-the-record speeches were delivered after Clinton left the State Department and was preparing for her second bid for the White House. Clinton has refused to release transcripts of the speeches, saying she would do so only if other politicians released transcripts of their speeches.