for the Democratic nomination for President,
and having waited more than 24 hours so that what I posted would not be misinterpreted
I am taking some time from grading student work and helping my wife get organized for a trip with her father and siblings to another country to get some thoughts that have been rattling around for some time out for consideration of others.
These are my thoughts, but they are certainly influenced by what I have read and heard from others.
Make of it what you will.
I hear the “terms” Senator Sanders propounds that he wants from Clinton, I hear him advocate people to continue to support him in a fashion that seems to indicate that he thinks he has a right to dictate on the party platform. He does not. He certainly can advocate, but again, this is a question of math.
Both candidates offered diagnoses of the issues facing this nation, sometimes very similary diagnoses.
Each offered their own prescriptions of how to address these issues.
In my opinion those offered by Secretary Clinton were in general far more specific and far better able to accomplish the goals than those offered by Senator Sanders.
But my opinion is only that of one person, who decided fairly early to support the Secretary.
What matters is that after the campaign to this point we know the following:
1. Secretary Clinton has won more states
2. Secretary Clinton has won almost 300 more pledged delegates
3. While it is still possible in theory for Sen. Sanders to catch up in pledged delegates, as a practical matter all except those being totally unreasonable recognize that is not going to happen. Sen. Sanders is not totally unreasonable, and those of his adherents who are being so should recognize that the Senator has accepted the inevitability of a Clinton nomination.
4. Secretary Clinton has received some 3 million more votes than Senator Sanders.
In short, the electorate in the Democratic primary has had a full opportunity to get to know both candidates and what they propose, and by a pretty overwhelming margin, they have chosen Secretary Clinton, not Senator Sanders. That overwhelming margin represents what is commonly called a mandate.
Then we can add in the Super Delegates. Who overwhelmingly support Secretary Clinton. We might note that many of them are people who have worked with Senator Sanders in either the House or the Senate and still prefer Secretary Clinton. Regardless, their addition gives her an overwhelming majority of the delegates to the convention. That will also give her overwhelming control of the credentials committee, and of greater importance, the platform committee. Thus Senator Sanders can offer his ideas, he can even if he choose place demands, but he has no more chance of winning those demands than he does of catching Secretary Clinton in pledged delegates.
Given some change in his recent rhetoric, I am willing to consider that he is gradually moving in a direction of full support to give his followers time to grieve, to make the change to come along with him to full support of the Democratic ticket. If not, if he insists on being a hardliner about the platform, then I suspect he will lose a great deal of respect from many people. I know he would from me.
There has been a lot of speculation about a possible running mate. There are some names mentioned that while I can see advantages of having them on the ticket, I see insurmountable obstacles.
Julian Castro — while he is articulate, he has never been elected outside the one city of San Antonio. He is not fluent in Spanish. His tenure in the cabinet has some issues that could cause problems. Quite frankly, I think he would come across as a pander.
Senators Warren and Brown have the same issue — their states have Republican governors, and the lose of either of those seats could potentially mean the difference between having control of the Senate, possibly even by the VP having the tie breaking vote, and leaving it in Republican hands. I do not think that is a risk worth taking. I would love to see Sherrod Brown, given the importance of OH as a swing state, and given that he is very much a progressive, but am simply not willing possible control of the Senate.
There are some names mentioned, and some not mentioned, that I think ought to be considered. In no particular order, here’s my list:
VP Joe Biden
former VP Al Gore
Sen. Tim Kaine
Sen. Amy Klobuchar
Sen. Patty Murray
Sen. Jeff Merkley
Secretary Tom Vilsack
Secretary Tom Perez
Rep. Raul Grijalva
The last name I include because I think one should have at least one Latino under consideration, and I think his maturity provides more than the exuberance of Sec. Castro.
Quite obviously the two VPs are more than qualified. I do not know if either one would want to do it. And given that both are older than Clinton, we would not be grooming a successor.
I include Merkley as a real progressive who supported Sanders without bashing Clinton. I similarly include Grijalva not merely because he was an early supporter of Sanders and because he is Latino, but he is also the co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
All four Senators are from states with Democratic governors so there is no jeopardy to possible control of the Senate.
Klobuchar provides some geographic balance, as does Murray.
Tim Kaine had been one of the earliest non-IL supporters of Obama two cycles ago. He was the first governor not from IL to endorse Obama. He has been a city councilman and mayor of a city with more Blacks than Whites (Richmond) , Governor of and now Senator from a key swing state, Virginia. He has been a fervent supporter of Secretary Clinton. He has a child in the military. And he is fluent in Spanish, having taken a break in his education to serve as a principal of school in Honduras as a Catholic Missionary. He was born in MN, grew up in KS.
Tom Vilsack has been a mayor, state senator, two term Governor of Iowa, and is the last original Obama cabinet member still serving. He is a Catholic. He was born in Pennsylvania, did college and law school in NY State, moved to IA at the request of his wife’s father. He was a foundling. Yep.
Full disclosure on this. I like many who have participated in the annual bloggers conventions met Merkley before he was elected, have chatted with him several times since at various events, but do not know if he would remember who I am. I have never met Perez, Klobuchar or Murray. I have met Biden once, many years ago, and while he might remember the occasion he would not know me. I have never met Gore. I have known Grijalva and his staff for a number of years, in part because of my being a formerly active member of the National Democratic Club.
I met Tim Kaine when he was running for Governor, have a friendly and respectful relationship with him, in part because for a while I was one of the more prominent Virginia bloggers.
Tom Vilsack is a good friend, whom I got to know when he was exploring running for President, and with whom I have stayed in constant touch over the more than a decade since then. He was on my panel on education at the first Yearly Kos in Las Vegas. He is one of several people who could ask me to drop what I was doing and work for him and I would not hesitate. I would love to see him continue in some way at the national level, VP as one possibility, continuing at Agriculture, or even as Secretary of Education, in which case I suspect I might well ask for a political appointment.
Turning to another subject — during this campaign my respect for Secretary Clinton has continued to grow. And my irritation at the sexism and agism that have been directed towards her have at times been hard to keep under control.
I can respect Sen Sanders for his civil rights work while at U of Chicago, including getting arrested. That is honorable. But I think that is more than matched by the work Hillary Clinton did in the South as a young white lawyer from the North at the request of Marian Wright Edelman, driving around the South by herself. I am old enough to remember the killing of Violet Liuzzo. At a relatively young age Hillary Rodham took on tasks that put her at risk on behalf of others who needed assistance.
She has a lifetime of work on behalf of the less fortunate. That includes her work on the board of the Legal Services Corporation, to be sure.
It certainly includes a lifetime of advocating on behalf of women, whether here in the United States, or around the world, as in the example of her famous speech in China.
My sense is that even were Donald Trump to pick an accomplished woman as his running mate (which would surprise me), he will have two huge problems. The first is how hated he is by Latinos — the recent survey by Latino Decisions shows that 79% of that demographic have a strongly negative opinion of him.
His problem is almost as severe among women. His recent remark that were Clinton a man she would only get 5% support is something that resounded negatively. So was saying she was only getting where she is by playing the woman card.
There are hundreds of thousands, probably millions, of women for whom those remarks are going to resonate in a way that will not help Mr. Trump. They have seen such remarks and attitudes direct towards them and women they have known far too often for far too long.
On a more personal note, I would almost prefer to run against Ted Cruz, because he is so extreme that he would turn off many many people. His dominionist theocratic approach would scare the living daylights out of a number of strong conservatives. And the words offered by John Boehner are reflective of what a lot of Republicans on the Hill actually believe.
Even if Trump has the requisite delegates going into Cleveland, I suspect there will still be some messiness at or just before the convention. That will be over the platform. In theory if Trump has a majority of the delegates, he should have a majority of the platform committee. But what he has said on issue is so in conflict with “traditional” Republican values that has the possibility of a platform fight becoming possibly as a big an issue as the contest for the nomination has been, with just as much rancor. That would play out on national tv BEFORE what we hope would be a more reasonable and orderly Democratic convention. That could have an impact on a lot of down ballot races as well.
We are, practically, at the end of yet another bitter primary season. I am hoping that some of the hurt on both sides can be surrendered, and the community this has been, can go back to a place that has been of importance to so many.
Three weeks from this coming Monday I will turn 70.
I do not yet know where or if I will be teaching come the fall.
I have an interview for a summer job sometime next week.
My priorities will continue to start with the health of my wife, with all else subsidiary to that.
I am reaching a point that as much as I still enjoy teaching, I think I would prefer were it possible to support myself in a more solitary fashion, by reading and writing and perhaps being of counsel political and otherwise where my service might be needed.
Like most people, I do not have total freedom of choice as to what I do, in large part because of financial obligations, but also to some degree because of the responsibility I feel to be of service to others, sometimes in ways that might be necessary at that moment even if my preference would be to be doing something else.
In short, I recognize that even in the ordinary living day to day I am regularly making compromises.
As I consider that I find I am willing to be a bit more forgiving of those in the political arena, both as candidates and as office holders, who regularly are faced with the choice of what compromises to make in order to achieve some of what is important.
I am honored to be a part of this community.
I am even more honored that some of what I write, both in my own posts and in comments on those of others, are considered worthwhile by some of those who read them, far more people than I can ever thank.
I remain shy as I always have been.
In the past that was combined with being an extreme extrovert, which made for a dangerous combination. As I age I become somewhat more intraverted and reflective.
I am still socially awkward. I too often say or do things in clumsy ways. Sorry for that.
And thanks for putting up with me here for so many years, so many posts, so many words.
Peace.