I just returned from turning in my ballot for the Washington Primary. I voted for Bernie Sanders as the candidate who best represents my values, and the issues I care most about.
In my opinion Bernie is far more likely to to address the biggest problems our country faces:
#1 The enormous influence corporations and their big investors exert over our government and our political class. Anyone who doesn’t think this is one of the biggest problems facing our nation needs to read 'Dark Money'.
#2 The urgent need to move away from our dependence on fossil fuels. We are currently conducting a monstrous experiment with our planet’s atmosphere and oceans. The results of our destroying our climatic equilibrium will last for centuries, and now we’re learning the effects may last for Millennia. Read This Changes Everything Capitalism vs the Climate
Bernie wasn’t my first choice. But the more I learned about Bernie’s career in the Congress the more my respect for him grew. I also had to respect Bernie for the enemies he made. The corporate media went from completely ignoring his candidacy for most of last year, to unrelenting attacks on Sanders when it became apparent he was garnering more support than they had predicted.
Yes I was disappointed when a handful of Bernie supporters left nasty phone messages on the state chairwoman’s answering machine. We’re better than that! But I was far more disappointed with the wave of hysteria fostered by Hillary’s supporters, surrogates, and then trumpeted in the MSM as the prevailing narrative. The firestorm of orchestrated umbridge was all out of proportion to the real importance of these incidents. Then how Bernie’s condemnation of these sensensionalized incidents was deemed insufficient to satisfy his political opponents and their allies in the corporate media was disturbing if not too surprising to me as someone with long experience at spotting political propaganda in our media.
Tactically I think Bernie should have limited his campaign’s efforts to change superdelegates’ votes to those “supers” who represent districts and states that had gone decisively for Bernie in the primaries.
I realize Hillary Clinton is very likely to become my party’s nominee barring some extraordinary turn of events, and if that happens she will get my vote. I have high hopes for a prospective Hillary presidency, while harboring low expectations (especially for Bill’s ideas of how to “reinvigorate the economy”).
In the future I wish my state’s Democratic Party would use a primary for allocating its delegates. I missed my caucus and didn’t get a chance to discuss the Democratic candidates with my more motivated Democrats from my neighborhood since I was on the other side of the Pacific. Today I was proud to cast my vote for Bernie Sanders.