by Dan Burns

Feb 23, 2020, 1:30 PM

I’ll be voting for Sanders on Super Tuesday

That would be March 3, a week from this coming Tuesday. I don’t vote early because I like to wander the four blocks over to the polling place and dig the election vibe.

My first choice has been Sen. Elizabeth Warren. We’re way overdue for a woman president – ideally the first of many, in a row. I also would like to see a president with the elite-level intellect that she possesses. (Bernie is of course plenty smart, himself, and I’m not suggesting otherwise, so settle down.) But (barring a huge, huge surprise on March 3, that I’d love to see but am almost sure I won’t) it’s now clear that that’s not going to happen, this time. Sanders came into this with the experience and the base and he’s been putting both to good use.

Therefore, the key now is to help make sure that Sanders goes into the convention with things locked up, so that the corporate conservadems can’t pull some kind of despicable shenanigans, there. Which they’ll try, in any case, but preferably just with embarrassing futility.

I too consider the abusive, asshole online antics of too many (but still a small minority of) Bernie supporters to be repugnant and counterproductive. I haven’t seen any clear data as to how many of them really are Sanders progressives, and how many are right-wing trolls trying (unfortunately successfully, in 2016) to sow anger and discord. But in any case, I choose to ignore them. It’s not that hard, with a little practice.

As far as I’m concerned electability arguments are bullshit. It all comes down to which party’s year it is – more precisely, whether Democrats get strong turnout – and indications now are that another blue wave is coming. From polling during impeachment it became clear that over half of American adults loath and despise Trump, and want him out of the White House, like, yesterday, and rightly so. Any “analysis” that isn’t grounded in that fact is not something I’m going to take seriously. And in any case electability arguments are specifically bullshit re: Bernie.

Yeah, I saw that NBC/WSJ poll purporting to show that many voters would have “reservations” about a candidate with attributes that just happen to closely match those of Sen. Sanders. Not a push poll, but a good example of what I personally call “polling with an agenda.” We’ll see if during the general campaign they or any big pollster troubles to ask whether voters might have “reservations” about voting for a candidate with severe and worsening mental health issues…a serial sexual predator…a pathological liar…and so fucking unbelievably just god-damned pathetically stupid. I kind of doubt it, but plenty of us know all of that, and more, by now, anyway.

Comment from Mac Hall: Gosh, will there ever be an Election Day, when I can choose between two great candidates ? Instead of focusing on winning the election, should the focus be on who can best run the government ?

So my serious question — considering that McConnell’s goal was to make Obama a one term President and to reshape the courts to a hard lean conservative court … what agenda item can Sanders get through the House and Senate ?

Any concerns about how he would handle world affairs … and addressing the national debt ?

Any concerns about how Sanders leading the ticket will impact MN elections (Peterson’s seat has been considered a Toss-up and it would be a boon to Hagedorn and Lewis’s campaigns … which may only help Trump win Minnesota’s Electoral College votes.)

Just curious … who would you recommend Sanders pick for VP ? Will it be anyone that anyone has heard of ? Considering that Klobuchar has been considered to be any unknown (outside of Minnesota), I gotta think that outside of their home states no one has heard of Tammy Baldwin, Sherrod Brown or Ro Khanna.

Reply from Dan Burns: Assuming we win the Senate, there will be the big annual reconciliation bills to get things done. Other than that, I’ve seen talk of reforming the filibuster, but we’ll find out on that if everything falls into place. The key thing is that he will quickly move on a lot of positive executive orders. The other key thing, in the biggest picture, is that everyone will see that we can elect an honest-to-goodness progressive president who is very serious about real, lasting change for the better, and the world won’t end. Quite the contrary.

I don’t see a problem with a foreign policy that gets away from being based on drone strikes, sanctions, and just generally inept, and ethically repellent, efforts at bullying.

Sanders’s plans to make the greedheads pay up, and slash waste and fraud from the military budget, are in my estimation in fact the best ways to get going on fixing our national finances.

Meaning no disrespect, I don’t see how a candidate who the data shows kicking Trump’s butt would hurt our chances in MN-01 and MN-08. As I’ve noted, the fundamental fact of this election is going to be the unprecedented public loathing of the incumbent.

It won’t surprise me if Bernie wins the primary here. Polling in general so far has seemed to have not picked up on young turnout. And the Strib’s polling has a history of (suspiciously timed) misses to the right.

If he picks Warren as VP that would line her up for the big job, if Bernie’s heart or whatever keeps him to one term. But perhaps a younger person of color would be better. In any case, you know as well as the rest of us do that unless the VP pick is a joke like Sarah Palin, it doesn’t matter electorally.