#FlashbackFriday: Democratic Primary Edition

It's well known that a large percentage of this blog is answering the political questions my friend said to me, and this post is no different. My friend Maxine asked me to write something about the Clinton/DNC fundraising agreement, and I felt like it was the least I could do. See, Maxine taught me how to door-to-door canvass, and those skills have proved incredibly handy in my current job, and I'll do what I can to pay Maxine back.

(Side note, I get that everyone is annoyed by street canvassers, but please, be nice to them. They're people too.)

Yesterday, Donna Brazile published an article in Politico about a secret fundraising agreement between Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee. It's a detailed article, with a lot of different moving parts, and we're going to address them one by one.

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"Let It Be Pure and Bright"

"Great emergencies awaken generous traits which have lain dormant half a life. If there is a spark of true nobility in you, now is the occasion to let it shine...Do what is more difficult & brave. Reform! It is not proof of highest goodness never to have done wrong, but it is proof of it, sometimes in ones career, to pause & ponder, to recognize the evil, to turn resolutely against it...Once in awhile there comes a crisis which renders miracles feasible. The great tidal wave of sorrow which has rolled over the country has swept you loose from your old moorings & set you on a mountaintop, alone.”

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Judging Me, Judging You*

Thankfully, we're inching ever closer to Election Day, and the most common question I've been asked, right after "is it over yet?" is "what's the deal with judicial elections? How do I know who to vote for?"

This is a hard question, because it is often challenging to figure out what a judge thinks about issues you care about. Sure, you can look at your past rulings, but those are not always readily available, and quite frankly, none of us have the time to make sense of legal transcripts and briefs. And how do you know what someone thinks if they're running to be a judge, and haven't ever served before?

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A Post About Nothing

This past week, in-between maligning Bill Clinton's past transgressions and simultaneously downplaying his own, Donald Trump talked about how the election in November is probably rigged. To hear Trump tell it, Saturday Night Live is creating hit pieces to rig the election, Hillary Clinton is using performance enhancing drugs during the debate, and the women who have accused him of sexual harassment and assault are part of a grand conspiracy.

With this claim, Trump appears to be tapping into a widely held fear among Republicans, as only one third of Republicans believe their votes in this election will be counted fairly. And while Governor Pence, Trump's running mate, has committed to accepting the results of the election, whatever they are, many Trump supporters and Trump himself, have not let up.

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And I Ran, Iran So Far Away

There is much to be said about the recent Vice Presidential debate. I could talk about the near-constant cross-talk and interruptions coming from both candidates. I could talk about the lack of discussion on both candidates records. I could talk about the largest HIV outbreak in Indiana's history that happened under Governor Pence. I could talk about the line-item veto (again) and why no one will ever balance the Federal budget, but there's honestly only so many times I can write about that.

But I won't talk about those things. Those would be far too interesting for this blog. Instead, I'm going talk about an obscure political maneuver that is being blown out of proportion by many politicians, as is my way.

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Three Times Now

I was really trying not to write a post about throwing your vote away by voting third party. I know that posts like that can come off as patronizing, and I do strongly believe that it is better to vote for a third party candidate than not vote at all. I told myself that I would be content writing about why those two candidates were just fundamentally unqualified to be president, instead of doing a post on why voting for a third party can ruin an election.

But Jill Stein and Gary Johnson have been so annoying that I feel compelled. What can I say, they brought this on themselves.

It's impossible to talk about third party spoilers without talking about Ralph Nader, Green Party candidate for president in 2000. For those too young to remember, George Bush won the state of Florida by 537 votes, giving him the electoral votes to win the presidency. Now, yes, there were Democrats who voted for Bush. And yes, if Gore had carried his home state of Tennessee, the Florida loss would not have been as much of a problem. And yes, Nader wasn't the only third party candidate running.

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The Dannemeyer Bill Count

Once in a generation there comes along a rumor so ridiculous, it doesn't even feel worth addressing. And for a long time, the "Clinton Body Count" list has been that rumor for me. I didn't think anyone actually believed it, but articles keep popping up, and I keep seeing references to all the people who Hillary and Bill Clinton have allegedly killed or had killed.

And so the time has come to put this rumor to rest as best I can.

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The Room Where it Happens

This Tuesday, I came as close as I probably ever will to being on the Donald Trump List of Insults, even if I wasn't referenced by name. In 2011, Stephen Bannon, the current Trump campaign CEO, said on a radio show that progressive women do not like conservative women because "the women that would lead this country would be pro family, they would have husbands, they would love their children. They wouldn't be a bunch of dykes that came from the Seven Sisters schools up in New England. That drives the left insane and that's why they hate these women." 

First off, thanks to Bannon for the stellar recruiting quote. I can already feel applications to women's colleges rising. I'll come back to his use of a slur at the end of the post, but I wanted to first address his claim that the women running this country would not be people who went to women's colleges.

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Advice on Going Green

I'm not going to start this post with a list of reasons about why it's bad to vote for a third party candidate. We've all seen enough of those articles, and frankly, they don't seem to be persuading anyone, and it can feel condescending. People have valid and legitimate reasons to vote for third party candidates, and I have never been in the business of talking people out of voting. So if you want to vote third party, godspeed my little involved citizens. Live your truth.

But think twice before you vote for Jill Stein.

Not because she's in the Green Party, but because of who she is as a candidate. If Jill Stein were running in a Democratic primary, I would also advise you to vote against her, because she is in no way qualified to be the president.

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Real Talk about Gary Johnson

Before this election cycles goes any further, we need to talk about Gary Johnson. I'm seeing a lot of people on Facebook tout Johnson as a great candidate, capable leader, and a man would make a great president. Blog Readers, I didn't move out of New Mexico and struggle to make it in the big city to see this country governed by former governor Gary Johnson.

"But Gary Johnson seems so chill!" you say. "He wants to legalize marijuana, he's totally cool with gay people, and he's pro-choice! What more do you want, you crazy liberal?"

Ah my friends, we've come to one of my favorite discussions. Being pro-gay, and pro-choice, and pro-weed does not a liberal make. If you're really a progressive, you believe in utilizing the power and means of the government to help out those who need the most assistance in society. It's great to be pro-gay marriage, but if you're going to be against the government spending money of group homes and foster care and healthcare for low income people, you're not really pro-gay, because LGBT people are far more likely to be homeless, be refused healthcare, and need access to government services.

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We've Got Your Mail

Hillary Clinton should probably just start using carrier pigeons and burning the notes, with all the problems email has caused her. For those who were focusing on finishing the new season of Bojack Horseman (or like me, catching up on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend) and didn't see the news, the WikiLeaks recently posted 20,000 emails from top officials at the DNC. 

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Hard Pass

In the 2008 Superbowl, David Tyree caught a ball on his helmet, gaining 32 yards, and setting the Giants up for their game winning touchdown. It was the Hail Mary pass to end all Hail Mary passes, it was named the Play of the Decade, and it meant the Giants won the Superbowl over the Patriots.

This is all to say that sometimes, Hail Mary passes are very successful. That's why people keep throwing them. But for every Helmet Catch, there are dozens, nay, hundreds, of failed Hail Mary tosses. The Stop Trump movement within the Republican party, is one such failure.

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Looking Into the Future

If you know me even a little, you know that I hold the website 538 in the absolute highest regard. Maybe it's because I've never been good at math so I'm easily convinced by statistics and models that I don't fully understand, maybe it's because the site predicts elections correctly the vast majority of the time, or maybe it's because I'm widely known as the Nate Silver of Oscar Predictions, so I feel a certain kinship.*

So when a journalist from 538 tweeted that Clinton would probably secure the nomination before the polls even closed in California, I had a vision of the future where people were complaining that she "stole the election" because they called if for her before the people of California even decided. This blog post is here to explain why that's not the case.

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Sexism in Politics

"Medicare-for-all will never happen if we continue to elect corporate Democratic whores who are beholden to big pharma and the private insurance industry instead of us."

I understand what Paul Song was trying to say here, that money in politics prevents politicians from passing progressive policies. I see what he means so clearly, that I was almost ready to write off his use of a word that his almost exclusively directed at women, and used to demean women. At a rally for Bernie Sanders, Paul Song casually and tangentially called Hillary Clinton a whore, and to be very honest, it didn't really shock me all that much.

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Contested Contest

No one, not even me, thought Trump would last this long. I was sure that he would have dropped out of the race by now due to boredom, or lost a fair amount of states. But that has yet to happen, and I, like most of the country, am freaking out about the possibility of Trump actually winning the Republican nomination, which is why I, along with the rest of America, am hoping and praying for a contested convention.

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What Do You Meme?

I can't overstate how tired I am of those Clinton/Sanders memes. You know, the ones that give the candidates fake positions on things like Radiohead or Pokemon, and while making Sanders look cool and Clinton look lame.

I'm tired of them for several reasons. One, neither of these candidates are cool. They're career politicians, old enough to be our grandparents, who have spent their lives considering the intricacies of foreign and domestic policy. There's no way either of them has an opinion on Pokemon.

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It's a Bird, It's a Plane...

It's...Superdelegate! Faster than an electronic voting machine, more powerful than a group of Democrats in a caucus, able to leap over previous delegate counts in a single bound!

Much like Dear Abby, I answer the political questions that I am sent, and this week, I was sent the same question by three different people. After Hillary Clinton won enough superdelegates in New Hampshire to tie Bernie Sanders in the delegate count, people were abuzz, wondering what these superdelegates were and why they have so much power.

Let's clear up the biggest misconception first. Yes, superdelegates is one word, thank you very much spell check.

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Coin Flipping Out

For the many of us who don't live in a state that uses the caucus system, the revelation that coin flips were used to determine certain aspects of the Iowa caucus was shocking. Accusations flourished about unfair practices, and more than once on Facebook, I saw people finishing up their posts with "Welcome To Democracy."

Well, yeah. Welcome to the caucus system at least. No one said it was the best system.

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Who Will Win the Nomination: Democratic Edition

Not Martin O'Malley, that's for sure.

The race right now is between Senator Sanders, socialist-democratic Senator from Vermont, and Secretary Hillary Clinton, former Senator from New York, former Secretary of State, and former presidential candidate. Who do I think is going to win?

Let's just say I'm not #FeelingTheBern and I don't think this country is #OverTheHillz. Hillary Clinton is outpolling Bernie Sanders by 16 points, according to a recent NBC poll. Recently, Senator Sanders hit a new high, with 33% of Democratic voters saying they would support him. But compare that to the 49% of Democratic voters saying they would support Secretary Clinton, and it's a little less impressive. In Iowa specifically, Bernie is polling at 40%, impressive, but still distant behind Clinton's 51%

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Battle of the Liberals

In most interactions, I am "The Liberal." I take a progressive stance on 97% of all issues, so it's very unsettling to me when I find that I am the most conservative person in a conversation. Since Senator Sanders (D-VT) has been rising in the polls though, I've been in that position often. I've experienced an interesting turn around from being not excited about Hillary Clinton just a year ago, to adamantly defending her against people who say that Senator Sanders might be a better choice.

I'm not going to delve into the debate about the value of a tough primary challenge, or talk about how Hillary Clinton and her many years of experience dealing with foreign affairs make her the wiser choice for the commander in chief. But I want to clear up the idea that Senator Sanders is the only choice for progressives, because Hillary Clinton is a moderate wolf in Democrat clothing.

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