#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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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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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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Poll-er Opposites

We all knew this day would come. The day when I had to talk about polls. Believe me, I was dreading it as much as you were.

Before I go into everything that's wrong with election polling, and which polls you should and shouldn't trust, I'll say a few words about what's good about public opinion polls. In three recent major elections (2008, 2010 and 2012) the polls predicted election results fairly accurately. In this election season, public opinion polls were showing the rise of Trump before anyone in the mainstream thought of his candidacy as legitimate. The polls did something that even light of my life Nate Silver didn't do, and predicted that Donald Trump would win the Republican nomination.

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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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Still Relevant After All These Years

If you had told me that the 1994 Crime Bill was going to play a huge role in the 2016 election, I would have been a little surprised. And yet here we are, with a lot of accusations being tossed around about the crime bill, and me not knowing much about it, beyond what's been thrown around by my Facebook friends.

So here you go, a primer on the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act. To paraphrase John Mulaney, I know it's kind of stupid to write a blog post about a bill that was passed 22 years ago, but I wasn't a political blogger back then.

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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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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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Iowa and New Hampshire: Not That Important

New Hampshire has a rich history, beautiful natural scenery, and some of the best apple cider I have ever tasted. And I'm so incredibly lucky that I do not currently live there.

With primary season fast approaching, living in Iowa or New Hampshire must be like living inside of the CNN Situation Room. Candidates are ramping up their political ads, increasing the number of door-to-door canvassers who go out and try to convince voters, and probably calling every landline phone at all hours of the day. What makes these two states important enough to suck up the news cycle for months leading up to their primaries (or caucus, in the case of Iowa)?

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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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Balancing Act

There's a lot of moments from the Republican debate I could fact-check, dispute, and tear apart for my many blog readers (all 12 of you). But while there has be article after article about Marco Rubio's flip-flopping, Donald Trump's sexism, and the Christie/Paul debate, no one has written about the incredibly interesting and sexy issue of John Kasich and balancing the federal budget.

If you watched the debate, you may remember John Kasich, current governor of Ohio, touting numerous times that he balanced the federal budget. It's certainly correct that John Kasich was the Chairman of the Budget Committee in 1997, which was the last time we had a balanced Federal budget. It's true that this was the first time the United States had a balanced budget since 1970. It's true there was a Republican-controlled Congress at the time. And yes, it's true that Bill Clinton was the President the last time the Federal budget was balanced.

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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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(Finally) Ready for Hillary

I’ll confess. I didn’t come out of the womb Ready for Hillary. I wasn’t even Ready for Hillary in 2008. Until recently, I still wasn’t Ready for Hillary. I was Holding Out Hope for Joe Biden, or Assuming Elizabeth Warren Would Run, or even Maybe Going to Give Bernie Sanders A Try. But I was, and on some level remain, Skeptical of Hillary.

After the November Midterm Elections, and with Hillary Clinton’s announcement that she would be running for President in 2016, I can finally say that I am totally Ready for Hillary.

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