Hillary Clinton is a strong enough candidate to win without needing Bernie to make things safe for her. The diaries panicking about “OMG! Bernie might make her actually hold the whole vote!” would only make any sense if she weren’t strong enough. She can face a primary season that goes through July. I have that much faith in her. Don’t her supporters?
Any adult who wants to show themselves tough enough and worthy enough to attain what’s arguably the most important office in the world needs to be able to gut out half a year of primaries, and yes, even a vote of superdelegates at the convention, against a nice little old Jewish man from the northeast. If you’re saying she’s incapable of facing that without crumbling, what would that say about her?
Thankfully, the fact is that she ISN’T incapable of doing so. Hillary seems quite prepared to fight the primary battle through June, and then to have the superdelegates vote the next month.
If you want to get rid of the superdelegates, hey—believe me, I’m all for it. Let’s be sure to do that. I’ve said that over and over for months.
But what Hillary’s supporters here said to US was that our opponent “knew the rules going in,” and insisted that the superdelegates’ votes should be counted. Well, right you are: Hillary, too, knew the rules going in. And the rules are: there will be several months of primaries and caucuses. These will assign pledged delegates. And there will be superdelegates, who AREN’T voted in because the voters want them to have that power, but our party establishment has decided to grant themselves that power and arrogate it. Well—if it’s “tough cookies, Bernie” about the superdelegates if they go against him, then it’s “tough” for Hillary too. She has to watch the superdelegates vote at the convention, if Bernie wants to fight the campaign to the convention. Any candidate agrees to those terms when they run as a Democrat.
And what if Bernie WASN’T a nice little old Jewish man, who usually keeps things pretty civil, and who even said—repeatedly—that he didn’t want to capitalize on her problems with “the damn emails”? What if she had faced a real, colossal creep, an underhanded knife-sticker who came at her with every BS charge from Benghazi to charging her with having political opponents murdered, and demanding to see her birth certificate? Would we be pleading with THAT kind of jerk “please don’t hurt us”? Would we beg them to please please please drop out of the race, because we are afraid about what would happen if we just hold the votes? I hope not.
The idea that we need to bend the rules and offer Hillary a handicap, and say “why don’t you just concede before the nomination, to make it easier for her,” is nonsense. Every candidate who fights a campaign needs to be prepared to fight it through her party’s convention, and then through the general election against the other parties’ nominees. To pretend that Hillary can’t take facing that fight does a disservice to Hillary, which she doesn’t deserve. I am confident that she is not calling for Bernie to concede before the contest is actually won. I’ve never seen her do so. Don’t belittle her by pretending that she needs Bernie to do so in order to win in November. She doesn’t.
Friday, May 6, 2016 · 3:59:36 AM +00:00
·
Whamadoodle
Also: I’m sure there isn’t more than one person who’s incapable of reading and understanding this before I say it, but in case I haven’t mentioned it enough dozens of times yet:
I do not think that Hillary will lose against Trump. I do not think there’s any WAY that Hillary will lose against Trump. Or Bernie, if he’s the nominee. Therefore, anyone whose argument rests on Hillary’s sports team losing to Trump’s, and therefore proving that Bernie was even weaker than Hillary’s, is not using his or her reading skills.