Veteran journalist and political advisor Mr. Salim Lone has penned another article he posted on his Facebook that yet again contains a number of arguments regarding the ongoing Democratic primary contest between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders; arguments which are either false or contrary to overwhelming facts and developments that undercut each one of them.
In a response to my last blog in which I disposed of similar arguments put forth by Salim, he responded to me by basically saying even though he appreciates what I said in as far as it helped him in thinking through some of the points better, he nonetheless doesn’t think we’ll ever agree because of our “fundamental approaches” to these issues.
Salim, I am not sure I know exactly what you mean by that but, reading through your new post, I find it compelling to respond in saying you’ve once again penned a piece deserving an award for both overstating and understating facts.
While you continue to rightly admit that Sanders has virtually no chance of beating Hillary on the delegate count, you nonetheless continue to advance arguments which totally ignore why that’s the case so, let me put them forth for you and others who refuse to accept them as the reality they are:
First, Hillary is winning in states that represent the core coalition of voters a Democrat must have on their side to win in November, namely, states with a diverse population while Sanders is winning in states that are predominantly white–and some of them 90%+ white which needs no genius to figure that alone would be a reason to make him unelectable in November as a Democrat.
Second, Hillary is not only winning states that have the diverse core coalition of voters a Democrat must have to win in November, she’s winning them across the country and, come June 7, 2016 when she once again wins big in California, Hillary would have won in every state and region in the country she needs to win in November so your argument implying that she’s only strong in the South is simply false with a subset of that argument being Hillary cannot win in states that don’t have blacks, which is true but that’s true of any Democratic Party candidate–an argument that has a racist undertone by some but not all of those who advance it.
Third, because delegates are apportioned proportionally in all states in Democratic primaries, it’s irrelevant how many states one wins, what matters is how many delegates one gets with each victory. On the other hand and given this very fact, when one has a pledged delegate lead half-way through the contest as the one Hillary has, it’s impossible for anyone to catch-up with her, let alone overtake her which is doubly so in a two-person race and what a sweet fact for Hillary who experienced that in 2008 when she was unable to catch up with then Senator Barrack Obama who had an even lesser lead at this point than the one she has over Sanders.
I could go on to lay out more facts but these are the key facts that make Hillary nomination all but assured and her matching on to keep the White House in Democratic hands well within reach.
You’ve also made some false arguments that I think should be responded to:
It’s not true that the primary process underway in the Democratic Party is the product of a “broken political system.” Just because your candidate is not winning doesn’t make the system “broken” and if by “broken” you mean a system that has in place a mechanism to make sure a fringe candidate who cannot win in November does not secure the nomination, then your issue many not be the system at all but failure to grasp the fact parties are there to win not to experiment with insurgency.
You say CNN reported that the Hillary campaign said they will embark on “destroying” Sanders beginning tomorrow but, as a staunch Hillary supporter, I can tell you that’s a moronic assertion I seriously doubt came from her campaign and if it did, she should fire whoever the moron is who said it.
Hillary need not do anything different than she has been doing to win in the states that she must win and, quite frankly, I was impressed though not surprised that Sanders did not attack Hillary at all in his victory speech last night; what a civil gentleman he has been and I know Hillary is no dummy not to reciprocate but that doesn’t mean neither can’t be critical of the other in pointing out their policy differences or, occasionally, pointing out where surrogates have crossed the line into lying as Hillary did the other day though I wouldn’t have advised her to react as she did.
Finally, lost in all of your arguments–valid or otherwise is failure to acknowledge the simple fact even most in the media fail to do so as well and that is, Sanders is not a Democrat but Hillary is.
One would expect that a life-long Democrat is the nominee of the Democratic Party and not someone who has been absent from its battles most of his life–how noble is that?
That’s not to say Sanders has not here and there done things one can say are commendable and in tandem with Democratic Party principles, he has and deserves credit for them but there’s a reason he’s not a Democrat and instead calls himself a Democratic Socialist which, in my view, he might as well have declared himself a candidate for that party instead of the Democratic party and since it doesn’t exist, he might have as well registered one so, if he’s to vie as a Democrat, let him not express shock or insinuate something sinister that the Democratic Party “establishment” prefers one of their own.
Indeed, this is the single reason why Hillary has the support of 400+ Super-delegates (elected officials and former elected officials in the Democratic party with votes at the Democratic Party Convention) and Sanders only has 31.
Given the large delegate lead Hillary has and will maintain through the end of the primaries, these Super-delegates will have no say in her being the nominee as the voters would have spoken through the ballot that she should be the nominee therefore all this sudden talk about Sanders somehow erasing the lead and somehow turning this into an open convention is just that and more–talk and wishful thinking that has no basis in fact or reality or, more accurately, in the face of facts and reality.
In sum, get ready to say hello to Hillary the Democratic Party nominee and support her for the general election if you value the party and what it stands for compared to the Republican Party or stay home or support someone else; that’s your right.
For those who bet, the money is on Hillary both winning the Democratic Primary and going on to be elected as the next and first female president of the United States of America and what a victory that would be in this already circus of an election season.
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