Friday, March 25, 2016

CALIFORNIA MATTERS

CALIFORNIA MAY MATTER THIS ELECTION PRIMARY!

The 2016 Presidential Primary state elections to select our two major political party's candidates convention delegates continue to be the most unusual, even bizarre, in my lifetime -- considering the rhetoric used.

This year, candidates need to acquire western states delegates to reach the necessary total to become their party nominee at the convention.   For so many election years the required total would be achieved much earlier in the year, following  mostly eastern states primaries vote tally.   So...California's June 7th primary is taking on more significance.

Once ignored Californians can now anticipate for the next couple months or so being subjected to all the hoopla first hand we've read about taking place in other states as candidates seek votes for their respective July political party conventions.  In fact, some candidates have already been in the Los Angeles area holding campaign appearances.  I suppose we'll soon have TV commercials, phone calls, and mail flyers to plague us voters which we've largely been spared previous years.   I've been signed up several years with our local "No Knock Registry".  That means I have a decal on my door also stating "No Solicitations", so I won't have those door-to-door campaigners.    

Here's how it looks up to this point from my perspective.....

The Democratic party candidate-choosing has proven to be more of a two candidate competition than anyone had anticipated.   They each are defining their positions on the major issues facing our nation and the world, allowing those who are paying attention to distinguish how they're different and how they're the same.  They stress intent and action, but they also have an underlying design toward national and international unification.  Personal attacks and negativism have been absent, fortunately.  The  front runner candidate continues to be expected to achieve the required nomination numbers by their July 25-28, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania convention.   

The multiple Republican party candidates have continued being whittled down in number and now are three.
The third -- whose behaviors indicate he may be the only sane sensible one in the group -- has acquired the least number of delegates and is said to be unable to obtain enough more to become the candidate. 

Debates of the other two most prominent Republican candidates have revealed intent to institute alarmingly extremist irrational approaches to addressing our nation's and the world's issues in a destructively divisive manner.  Their debates, and I use that term loosely, have waffled all over the place from focusing on actual issues to denigrating one another -- and lately even disparaging each others wives.

The current Republican leader offers what appear to be overly-simplistic knee-jerk type problem solutions reflecting a failure to understand and consider all of an issues complex nuances, coupled with a repelling enthusiasm for initiating personal attacks on his opponent(s).   Frankly, I find it scary, even dangerous,  to think that leading candidate is expected to secure enough votes for the nomination.   One fly in this ointment is despite gradual increasing overt support, there continues to be a lot of open and covert opposition to his becoming the nominee.  How, or even if, the Republican party can prevent that, should they decide to do so, will be interesting to observe in the months ahead, then later at their July 18-21, Cleveland, Ohio convention.

The Democratic party is expected to continue as a political force, basically consistent with their long established principles, whatever the outcome of their convention.  The same may not be true for the Republican party which long ago strayed from principles for which they always said they represented.  Years ago a vocal Republican party minority segment began disrupting congressional legislative function, then more recently has been trying to hijack their party's election primary. 

Voting outcomes to date in both party primary results clearly reflect a desire for change, but..... from what to what?    






10 comments:

  1. The campaign on the Democratic side has been civilized, mostly, but many Sanders supporters are surprisingly aggressive on the social media I follow: Twitter and Facebook. They do things like accuse the Clinton campaign of voter fraud and claim that blacks and Mexicans aren't smart enough to see that they should vote for Sanders. A constant complaint is that the Sanders rallies don't get sufficient media coverage. I don't know about that, because I don't watch television but get all my media input from NPR and the Internet.
    One good thing coming out of all this, though, is some education in matters such as voter suppression through not providing sufficient services, as seen in Maricopa County, Arizona, which many of these Sanders supporters were not aware of. They jumped to blaming Clinton for this, but of course she and her crew had nothing to do with it.
    I think Elizabeth Warren has it right when she says she is proud of her party for conducting a (mostly)good campaign in such bad political times.
    I can't even think about the Republicans. I just hope they lose.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I wonder if some of the farfetched Sanders supporters attacks might be simply to stir up the pot, or even be false plants from another party? I'm always leery dirty tricks would be in public accessible comment sources. Voter suppression is certainly a deplorable issue not only in Ariz. but other states, but hard to believe anyone would buy blaming Clinton.

    ReplyDelete
  3. It does seem far-fetched, but there are Sanders fans who will believe almost anything negative about Hillary Clinton. They are so eager to win that they are stepping way over the line in their accusations.

    ReplyDelete
  4. We'll be having our pre-primary tomorrow in Hawaii. We're voting for either Hillary or Bernie and Bernie's forces are here campaigning very actively.

    Do you suppose the Republican Party could split into two parties?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hawaii, Alaska and Washington are all voting today (Sat.) so will be interesting. I suppose the Republican Party splitting is one possibility, but I wouldn't hazard a guess among the options.

      Delete
  5. "scary and dangerous" says it all !!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Read 'Listen Liberal' by Thomas Frank. Unfortunately, the Democrat Party of today, at least nationally, is NOT the party of FDR. Democrats abandoned the FDR ideas ages ago, beginning with Carter. CA may be the exception, but God help the rest of us.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Interesting perspective from Frank on how the national Democratic Party of today differs from FDR days as I read some summaries. Critiques of Frank's writings should be considered also. Perhaps people angrily view both major political parties as no longer effectively representing them -- this anger is being reflected in the presidential primary election voting, the candidates they choose to support.

      Delete
  7. Thomas Frank has some interesting views. However, he emphasizes economic development issues almost to the exclusion of human rights matters. In the latter, we find the huge differences between the parties. All leading Democrats I know of favor church and state separation, equality of opportunity for women and minorities, "one man-one vote" guarantees, and strong support for public education. Not so of the three leading Republican candidates for president, and also of most other leading GOP politicians.

    I think the crude behavior of some candidates this time around is despicable, but the choices for voters are clear. This is one of the most intriguing campaigns I've witnessed.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I disagree with Dick. Read the book and you decide. I think every Democrat shoud reaad it, and others too. I learned about the book from a review Carlos Lozada wrote for WaPo, and the latter is hardly anti-left.

    ReplyDelete