Author: carlzeitz

There are an estimated 340 million people now in the United States.

It is said there are at least as many firearms — or even more. Imagine that, imagine that.

Today and every day for the next week or two, driven by how many more mass shootings there will be this month — and it’s a good guess there will be because one begets another and another — the focus will be on guns, mass shootings, all of that chatter we have come to expect, forget and get back to when some lost, angry, self-loathing white man kills a whole lot of people.

Meantime every week we’ll see and hear more news about black men who have done nothing except drive a car or walk past the wrong cop, being profiled by police while the next white male mass killer drives his merry way to kill lots of people.

Guns and what to do about them will be the first subject you read about or see on television news and the debate for a while, with predictable debate points.

Like on one side: ban automatic weapons, increase and tighten gun registrations, limit ammunition magazines and sales and so on and on and on.

And on the other side: thoughts and prayers, increase mental health treatment services, arm teachers (maybe now they want to arm shoppers?), and on and on and on like that.

But the real answer? The only answer? The only real answer?

Repeal the 18th Century muster-the-militia artifact called the Second Amendment.

Repeal it and pass laws that prohibit private ownership of firearms except under specific limited terms and estblish rules for their surrender by current owners or confiscation if they will not surrender them and that limit their use when they are allowed.

An example of such terms? Hunters for example.

Allow a hunter to own one rifle, one rifle not two or twenty, to be stored at a local police facility, checked and signed in and out for hunting trips with further controls like registering the trip, fines for late return of the weapon, limits on the amount of ammunition that can be purchased in a year, similar ammunition storage, weapon re-registration annually (like with a car? yes like with a car).

But the main point and the only answer to this, the only real way to end it all — all of it?

Repeal the Second Amendment and confiscate the guns, all 340 million of them.

But that won’t happen in the United States, will it?

No, it won’t.

In the alternative, this goes on and on and on  with no one safe anywhere since it can and does happen anywhere and everywhere with no warning though with the logic of hate.

No gun control law will limit or end the plague. Only 2nd Amendment repeal conceivably could do that: That simply cannot be accomplished in a nation in which more than 40 percent have and will again vote for the likes of Donald Trump.

It is a given that the House of Representatives could impeach President Trump and another given the Republican Senate would never convict him, but it is equally likely the matter would never even be taken up by the Senate.

Everyday jabbering heads on MSNBC breathlessly declare the new count of House Democrats announcing support to impeach President Trump.

Who would that be good for? For the TV folks because House Judiciary Committee Impeachment Hearings, an impeachment vote and the trial of an impeachment bill would be what? It would be a ratings buster and give MSNBC and CNN a fall series and higher ad rates. Fox too of course, but from an opposite take. That’s the cable news stake in this.

Our stake, your’s, mine and the nation’s is that impeachment would give Trump exactly what he wants, the supreme cause to rally his mobs and attack and attack and attack during his reelection year campaign.

Why has he spent the past month on a racist rampage? Because, shrewdly, he is driving more and more House Democrats to call for his impeachment apparently believing that would clinch his reelection.

So what are the prospects even though by now at last count 112 House Democrats have taken the bait? The answer, slim to none.

If 112 House Democrats don’t understand how toxic impeachment would be for them, one Democrat knows that to impeach Trump is to put regaining the White House at risk, surrender any remote chance of retaking the Senate and jeopardize what she spent the past eight years regaining — the Democratic House majority.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi has had one consistent objective this year – to fend off the political suicide of impeachment. She knew if she could get the House to its August recess she would have that under control. She’s accomplished it.

Even accelerated, which would mean no delays for inevitable court challenges by Trump and House Republicans concerning subpoenas, rules, and process, the appointment of impeachment counsel and the like,  such proceedings would be a two-to-six months adventure extending into the second quarter of 2020.

As we all know, the House accuses, the Senate tries and decides. A bill of impeachment effectively is a congressional grand jury indictment.

The trial would be conducted by the Senate with Chief Justice John Roberts presiding. The Republican majority would appoint senators to defend him. Presumably, the Senate Democrats would be expected to appoint the prosecutors because no Republican would agree or dare to do so.

We know it would take two-thirds of the Senate to convict on impeachment. That’s 67 senators in a chamber Republicans control 54-46. That’s not going to happen because there are not and never will be 67 votes in this Senate for impeachment.

There is another reason it won’t happen, which is that nothing says an impeachment trial has to take place.

It’s this: Who says the Senate must or would try an impeachment of Trump if one is sent by the House?

Article I, Section 3 of the Constitution states:

“The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all impeachments. When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside. And no person shall be convicted without the concurrence of two-thirds of the Members present.”

And that is all the Constitution says about the Senate’s role in an impeachment trial.

What it does not say is must. It does not say the Senate must try a bill of impeachment sent by the House. It says nothing at all as to that.

Then, who would decide whether to convene the Senate for an impeachment trial? The man who controls the calendar and the agenda of the United States Senate.

That man is Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Why would he allow an impeachment trial, especially in an election year, that would focus the nation’s attention on the alleged misdeeds of President Trump, effectively spreading scandalous negative charges and proofs against Trump across the public record?

Trump might want McConnell to, knowing he could continue to gin his base with such a trial, while ceratin there would never be 21 Republican Senate votes, if any at all, to add to the 46 Democratic votes in the Senate to convict him even if all Democrats were on board (and at least one, Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia might not be).

Could/would Democrats likely sue to get a court to order McConnell to move forward with a trial? Yes, they probably would. Would the suit succeed? Pretty likely not just on the merits, never mind the partisan divide on the court. Such a decision could well be judicial interference with the separation of powers and intrusion into the Article I power of the Senate to be the sole judge of impeachment.

In sum, impeachment by the House is not only politically self-defeating, but the chance that it would never actually be taken up and tried in this Senate is almost as certain as the outcome of a trial.

McConnell, after all, as Judge Merrick Garland can attest, is a man who ruthlessly will sacrifice the Constitution and even the Senate’s rules and its very history to accomplish a political goal

This is going to be about what the Democratic presidential nomination is actually all about — not poll numbers but delegates.

It’s a long piece because there is a lot to explain, a lot the political media hasn’t explained and that good numbers of them are not even attuned to yet. But to understand the contest for the Democratic nomination, you have to get into all this.

First though, some catching up.

Now, after the first Democratic presidential debate and before the second we know the answer to why Maryanne Williamson is running for president of the United States?

Because it’s a great country and anyone who wants to run for president can.

The catch is it is expensive, incredibly complicated, dependent on twists and turns and turnabouts no one can imagine when starting out to campaign for president and, above all, it is not about poll numbers a year before the Democratic National Convention but about delegate numbers at the convention.

Concerning the first debate. Kamala Harris had her made-for-TV moment at the expense of Joe Biden, then ultimately took the same position she attacked him on with regard to school busing, which — no matter how prickly — is not a top of mind subject now except as she used it as a foil for race and the new generation gap or, really, generation gaps. It set off three weeks of sturm and drang on the cable stations about Biden, race, Harris surging. All that crap.

The real discernible truth from those first two debate events? Elizabeth Warren had the best answers, the best demeanor, and the surest footing. Enough. The this and that of the debates is mostly meaningless junk on cable TV stations. Try to ignore it and make up your own minds. 

As of this writing, mid-July 2019, the field has changed and increased to 24 candidates. Former Pennsylvania Congressman Joe Sestak, a retired U.S. Navy admiral who ran for the U.S. Senate in 2012 but lost to Republican Pat Toomey, entered the contest in June but in early July, California Congressman Eric Swalwell announced his withdrawal from the race. Days later would be Trump-impeacher and billionaire Tom Steyer announced his entry.

Suffice it to say that Streyer is said to be worth $1.8 billion and apparently is willing to spend $100 million of his own money — which will give him one donor, himself. That is not much of a head start to get into the second debate; he’ll still need another 64,999  individual donors to qualify while getting onto the third debate stage in Houston in September (ABC Network and Univision) will take 130,000 individual donors.

What Sestak is thinking to enter so late with virtually no discernable support or campaign cash and less name recognition only he knows. Swalwell discovered along the way that being booked nearly every day on CNN and MSNBC is not a qualification for president and gives one no recognition beyond their audiences. He will run instead to keep his safe California House seat. As to Steyer?, He is a strident self-entitled jackass, who is living proof that Buckley vs. Valeo, the progenitor of Citizens United,  was, as they often say lately at the Supreme Court, wrongly decided n 1976.

The 24 candidates, now including Steyer and Sestak, have qualified or will try to qualify for the second two-night debate scheduled July 30 and 31 in Detroit to be carried by CNN  (donor qualification noted above). The qualification rules are the same for the second as for the first debate. There will be no debate in August — the candidates will be left to slog it out on the dusty campaign trail through the sloughs and doldrums of late summer.

One thing to look for is the appearance of Montana Gov. Steve Bullock in the July debate. Entering the race only in May after waiting until Montana’s legislature adopted and he signed a new budget, Bullock did not qualify for the June debate. He will qualify for July and is worth watching. At age 53, he is articulate, focused, an intelligent centrist liberal twice elected governor of a Mountain red state.

He’s won the endorsement of  Jan Bauer, considered by some — according to a story by Politico — the very most important Democrat in Iowa presidential politics. If Bullock breaks through to be noticed seriously in the July debate and can move on to the September debate – a very difficult task starting from ground zero in May — he has the potential to re-center the race.

If you remember the film “The American President”, well he looks and sounds the part. If the mayor of  South Bend, Ind. can be taken seriously as a presidential candidate, then, certainly, the governor of Montana should be.

To be on the debate stage in September candidates must up their numbers of individual donors from 65,000 to 130,000 and score at least 2% in at least three polls between June 28 and August 28 recognized by the DNC. Unlike the qualification standard for the June/July debates, this will not be an either or. Both qualifications must be met.

Not being on the debate stage does not mean a candidate has to withdraw from the contest but it does mean such candidates will be mostly overlooked by the media going forward, suffer damage to their prospects and, within a short time, likely be forced to face a cash-short reality and shut down their campaigns.

Even now, exactly a year before the convention, the field has sorted into a top tier of five or six candidates while widespread expectations among the political pundit casts of MSNBC and CNN are that these few will be the ones from whom a candidate will emerge and that, like Swalwell, all others will ultimately have to leave the race or simply fall by the wayside.

The five currently deemed certain to be viable are former Vice President Joe Biden, Senators Kamala Harris of California, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusettes and Bernie Sanders of Vermont, and Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind. Two others deemed on the fringe of that group are Senators Cory Booker of New Jersey and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota. As noted, one to watch, if only because he was not in the first debate but will be in the second, is Gov. Bullock.

There will be debates monthly for the rest of the year and into 2020 when, finally, voting starts Feb. 3 with Iowa’s caucuses and proceeds weekly through February to the New Hampshire and South Carolina primaries and the Nevada caucuses, reaching a first phase crescendo on March 3 — Super Tuesday.

On that date, 14 states, American Samoa and Democrats Abroad (enrolled Democrats who work and/or live abroad in many countries and elect a small delegation that represents them collectively at the convention) will conduct primaries or caucuses.

In the past, Super Tuesday while not determinative could be indicative from early endorsements of the ultimate outcome of Democratic presidential nominations — usually producing a clear favorite and all but certain nominee (Hilary Clinton), or pointing to an extended contest into May as with the 2008 battle between then Senators Clinton and Barack Obama.

But that changes in 2020 because California, the biggest state with the biggest delegation by a factor of nearly two, has moved its primary from June to Super Tuesday. The Golden State will elect 416 first-ballot delegates that day, more than 10 percent of the delegates who will be allocated by way of primaries and caucuses.

When the state’s 79-second-ballot super delegates are added, California will go to the convention in Milwaukee next July with 495 total delegates, more than 11% of the entire convention.

By comparison, notwithstanding all the commotion surrounding the Iowa caucuses and the other February contests –New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada — the four states together have just 168 elected delegates and only 42 Super Delegates.

Should February and Super Tuesday produce a very, very clear result pointing to one clear front runner or to a contest narrowed to two really strong candidates, the battle will go forward with clear shape.

But if three, four or perhaps even five candidates wake up March 4, 2020, the day after Super-Tuesday, with viable delegate totals, then something not seen since Adlai Stevenson won the Democratic nomination for president in 1952 on the third ballot may loom for the Democratic Party.

That would be a contested convention with a real chance to go to a second, even a third ballot. If that happens it will take the Democratic Party and its convention into political territory uncharted in modern times.

Any such result coming out of next March 3 could begin to take shape earlier as the February states vote, when what has not yet occurred to the pundits, columnists, prognosticators, and reporters on the campaign trail and in cable news’s plushest seats will come into focus:

That even now the determination of who will be nominated is not about summer poll numbers any more than it will be about percentages coming out of the February tests, BUT ABOUT ACCUMULATING DELEGATES.

How many delegates? Well, this is where it gets complicated and where this piece now offers a primer on Democratic Convention delegate selection and how candidates win them.

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When the Democratic National Convention convenes in Milwaukee Monday, July 13, 2020, there will be 57 delegations empowered to choose the party’s nominees for president and vice president.

All 50 states plus the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Guam, the Northern Marianas, American Samoa, and Democrats Abroad will be represented.

Every campaign worth mentioning must budget a lot of money for batteries of lawyers who have mastered and understand the complex convention and delegate selection and certification rules of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and of the individual state Democratic Party delegate selection plans required by the DNC.

These lawyers will also need to be up to speed on election laws, rules and regulations in all the states and other jurisdictions sending delegations so that they can be ready to verify or challenge everything along the way, including vote counts and resulting delegate awards.

The smallest state delegations, including all delegate categories (explained below), will be those of Alaska and North Dakota with 17 delegates each although several of the non-state delegations have just 11 total delegates. The number of delegates apportioned to each delegation is determined in advance by factors like a state’s Democratic vote in the last presidential election.

The largest delegations will be New York State, 270 delegates, Florida, 248 delegates, Illinois 184 delegates, Pennsylvania, 176 delegates, and Ohio 153 delegates.

Looming over all will be 495 delegates from California which will have 11% of both all first-ballot eligible delegates and of total delegates on subsequent ballots.

By March 4, following Super-Tuesday, nearly 40% of all elected delegates will have been chosen. By April 1 that number rises to 66%. If on that date it remains a multi-candidate race, there becomes a greater-than-lesser likelihood that a truly contested convention could result.

To be nominated on the first ballot will require a candidate to win 50% plus 1 of 3,768 delegates or 1,885 delegates. To be nominated on a second or any subsequent ballot will require winning 50% plus 1 of 4,532 delegates or 2,267 delegates.

Like a Passover question, why is there a difference between the first ballot and any subsequent ballots?

This is because the Democratic Party has a category of delegates called Super Delegates. Super Delegates are all Democrats in the House of Representatives and  the U.S. Senate, the (430) members of the Democratic National Committee, all currently serving Democratic governors — including those of territories and the mayor of Washington, D.C., and a small group of “Distinguished Party Leaders” which includes former Democratic Presidents and Vice Presidents.

At the 2020 convention, there will be 764 Super Delegates, who under rule changes adopted by the DNC after the 2016 convention, are not permitted to vote on the first ballot, except if the first ballot delegates alone produce a majority of the number of all delegates including Super delegates: That, 2,267 votes,  would be 60% of all first ballot delegates and from the view today no one is going to the convention with 60% of the delegates.

On the first ballot, the only delegates who may vote are the 3,768 district delegates elected in primaries and caucuses, and delegates selected in two delegate categories apportioned in each delegation according to statewide primary or caucus vote results.

The two statewide categories determined by voting are called state at-large delegates and Party Leaders and Elected Official delegates (hereafter PLEO delegates for easier reference). Those eligible to seek spots as PLEO delegates, for example, include elected Democratic mayors, county executives, county and municipal council members or Democratic state and county committee members or party municipal chairs for example.

The only way someone in one of the Super Delegate categories could qualify to vote on the first ballot is to be chosen in one of the elected categories.

In the past, most if not all Super Delegates announced their choices well before the convention. Hilary Clinton, for example, had the nomination locked away on Super Delegate strength long before the convention. Barrack Obama made significant inroads with Super Delegates on his way to the nomination.

This time a lot of Super Delegates will, if they are astute, hold back unless and until the campaign takes a decisive direction. If that direction is toward a second ballot, uncommitted Super Delegates will have numbers to influence strongly the convention’s choice.

Of utmost interest and importance is that elected delegates are pledged to the candidates under whose banners they were chosen unless or until the following happens. If a candidate they are pledged to withdraws before the first ballot, they are free to support another. If the convention goes to a second ballot all pledges dissolve. If that happens, the convention would most assuredly turn to old-fashioned brokering.

It would be a great television show so if there is any sign of it developing expect the cable networks to pound the possibility.

Every candidate has to work with the rules within each state to assemble slates of district delegates and slates of at-large and PLEO delegate candidates. In the case of at-large and PLEO delegate lists, candidates will be entitled to send a percentage of them as nearly identical as possible to the candidates’ percentages of votes in each primary or caucus if their shares of the votes meet a minimum 15% threshold in each delegation election (see below re proportionality).

So, again, to be nominated on the first ballot candidates will need to win 50% plus one (1) of 3,768 delegates, or 1,885 delegates. If no candidate gets there then subsequent ballots will require a candidate to win 2,267 delegates to become the nominee.

All Democratic primaries and caucuses must elect the majority of delegates from districts. Most state Democratic parties base these on their state’s congressional districts. Some use legislative districts.

Then the Democratic Party rules require proportionality. In simplest terms, the rule of proportion governing Democratic Party delegate awards is this: A candidate must win at least 15% of the delegates in a district to be awarded a share of that district’s delegates in accord with the candidate’s share of the qualified vote tally. A candidate must win at least 15% of the statewide vote in a primary or caucus to get a proportionate share of the state’s at-large and PLEO delegates.

If a candidate gets less than 15% in a district, he or she gets no delegates from that district. If a candidate receives less than 15% of the statewide primary/caucus vote then he/she gets no at-large or PLEO delegates from that state. In a large population state with many districts, it would be conceivable to win one or more districts decisively but still not reach the 15% threshold statewide.

Example: Pete Buttigieg currently polls at about 5% from survey to survey. If on Feb. 3 he gets 5% or even more, even 14% in any Iowa district caucus or statewide in Iowa, he will win no Iowa delegates.

Before raising a ruckus about fairness, understand that these rules, like the new Super Delegate rule, are distilled from nearly 50 years of Democratic convention reforms since the McGovern candidacy in 1972, including doing away with long-since disallowed winner-take-all primaries.

There are other rules for situations in which no candidate gets 15% of a district or even of a state. Such situations are probably unlikely and let’s forego those even more intricate explanations for now.

It is probably obvious, though not necessarily so, that candidates will by the terms of each state party plan and each state’s election laws have filed slates of candidates for all three elected delegate categories. In some states, the candidates’ names will appear on the ballot as a direct preference. In other states, the names of delegates committed to them will appear. The key will be district delegate votes in each state because they in turn when added up statewide decide the apportionment of at-large and PLEO delegates.

When, for example, there are projections at the end of the Iowa caucuses of delegates won that will be a projection of the total delegates won in the districts by a candidate plus his or her projected share of the at-large and PLEO delegates resulting from the total Iowa Democratic vote.

Looking at the polls now — meaningless as they are more than six months before the first vote in Iowa –how would they correlate to these rules for delegate selection?

Well, overall and very generally, five candidates are leading in all the polls: former VP Biden, Senators Harris, Warren and Sanders, and Buttigieg, although, as noted, he trails in single digits.

Biden leads in all polls to date in a range from 22% to about 30%. The three senators variously poll in the teens and Buttigieg is in the middle single digits.

For the sake of argument if those polls today reflect the actual outcome in the district voting with its effect on at-large and PLEO delegates, then none of the four top candidates would be close to 50% plus 1 on the first ballot while Buttigieg would have few if any delegates.

There is a long way to go and a lot to happen in debates, from endorsements, campaign fundraising, spending management, glitches caused by candidates’ errors, events we can’t foresee including, the ravings and rages of Trump and so much more. Everything and anything can change.

But if three, four or even five candidates survive to the convention then it will mean they enter it with meaningful delegate counts that could take more than one ballot to decide the nominee.

So the real story now isn’t the poll numbers but how they juxtapose with the complicated, complex delegate selection the contest is actually all about and how that plays out through a combined 57 primaries and caucuses.

That’s why the strongest candidate or candidates now are not necessarily reflected by poll numbers. A likely measure is how much they’ve raised and how much of that money they are putting into strong field organizations in the February states, plus the invisible but key strategic decisions they are making about Super Tuesday and particularly about California.

New Jersey, my state, is the last big state primary. Traditionally it shared the primary calendar with two even bigger states, Ohio and California. But California will take its turn March 3 and Ohio has moved up to March 10.

In 2020 the New Jerse primary, with a few smaller states holding theirs as well, will be  June 2, when New Jersey’s 107 elected delegates could turn out to be the biggest prize remaining for a viable multi-candidate field before the convention opens a scant six weeks later.

Wouldn’t that be fun? Oh yes, it would, with the  Jersey shore the scene for a campaign frenzy next Memorial Day weekend.

As of early this morning, June 26, the New York Times reported that the race for District Attorney of Queens is too close to call. But even without a final result, the political result is clear and Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) is the winner.

With 99 percent of precincts reporting,  The Times said Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez’s endorsed candidate, Tiffany Caban, led Queens Borough President and Democratic organization favorite  Melinda Katz by 1,090 votes. Between them, in the six-candidate field, they garnered 80% of the total vote, with 3,400 absentee ballots to be counted. The Times reported New York City Board of Election officials said the count might not be complete until July 3.

It appeared from reported results that turnout was a dismal 10% or 11%, signaling that once again the Queens Democratic machine sputtered and failed to get in motion as it did in June 2018 when AOC ambushed it in a similarly low-turnout election to win nomination for her congressional seat over long-term incumbent and heavy favorite Joe Crowley. If those who do not learn from the past are condemned to repeat it, then Queens regular Democrats are among them.

It is more than very likely that the New York Times endorsement of Caban a week ahead of the election tipped the vote to her because, especially in obscure local low-turnout elections where the most motivated voters turn out,  voters actually do look to newspapers to help them decide. And in New York, the Times’s endorsement matters to such voters a lot.  But whether the Times made the difference, it will not get or claim the credit.

AOC will get credit for a big win that is likely to strengthen her hand not only in her congressional district and in Queens, but in the very consequential Democratic presidential nomination battle.

She has been smart about that, appearing with both Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, both of whom endorsed Caban. Though she’s appeared with both, she has yet to endorse either —  although the 2016 Sanders campaign gave the congresswoman her start in politics.

She can let that decision ride toward the end of the year but, given her influence, her endorsement will be wanted by whoever receives it well before the early voting starts in Iowa Feb. 3.

The one thing we can divine from her short but impactful career in politics is that she would never in any circumstance endorse Joe Biden for the nomination. Would she support him if he became the nominee? You are supposed to say that yes, she would and probably she would but …

In any case, whether the absentee ballots turn the election to Katz or confirm Caban as the winner, AOC’s candidate won or will end up in a very near second place and either result is an AOC win.

Ordinarily, absentee ballots would favor an organization candidate. But even if they do, from the numbers reported election night, Katz will need to win two-thirds of them to pull out a victory While possible, that is unlikely. Most likely is that when it is all done and counted Caban’s win will hold up.

What is likely is that this will be read in political circles and in the political media as a win for AOC that strengthens the value of her endorsement for president, an endorsement all but certain to go to Sanders or Warren. Her endorsement is important not just because of her own renown but because she is an influencer and a media magnet.

She will influence the presidential choices of others in the Democratic progressive caucus in the House. Not if but when she endorses she will influence a lot of young voters in early primary and caucus states and her choice will influence the media to report that she is influencing young voters and progressives.

In the nature of things political, hearing from the media they are being influenced toward one candidate or another by AOC will actually influence those younger voters and progressives toward her choice.

All of that makes the AOC endorsement particularly prized and essential for Sanders or Warren, whichever of them gets it.

Do I have a guess as to which of the two AOC will support?

Yes, I do.

Who?

Not saying.

Guess.

Tomorrow, June 25, a relatively obscure election in Queens, N.Y. looms large in the career of Alexandra Ortasio Cortez — AOC, the whirling dervish of new “progressive” politics.

I put progressive in quotes because my father worked in and for the Progressive Party, successor in New York State to the American Labor Party, for which he also worked as one of its chief fundraisers. In my father’s house, there were not liberals, there were progressives committed to all the same things today’s progressives are.

Continue reading “AOC and the Organization”

This post refers back to another two days ago titled “And the Candidate Is: Part VII” that suggests Joe Biden is not the front-running candidate the media reports he is and the  23-candidate Democratic presidential field is already reduced to a few real choices with a possible multi-ballot convention resulting a year from now.

From the start, these posts have emphasized the importance of California moving its 2020 primary from a traditional early June date to Super Tuesday, March 3, 2020, when the state containing 12.5 percent of the U.S. population will dominate on a day of nine state presidential primaries.

California will send 416 elected and 79 super delegates to the Democratic National Convention.

A poll released today (June 13, 2019) conducted for U.C. Berkley/The Los Angeles Times showed:

Joe Biden, 22%

Elizabeth Warren, 18%

Bernie Sanders, 17%

Kamala Harris, 13%

Pete Buttigieg, 10%

No other candidate at more than 3% (Beto O’Rourke).

It is a clarifying poll little more than a week before the first Democratic candidate debate. The first debate, all the debates and seven more months of campaigning before the first caucuses in Iowa lie ahead. They can and will change the race but, for now, this poll confirms a lot about where the race stands as all that awaits.

It says even more clearly than any poll before now that the field of 23 candidates is presently a field of five or six real contenders, cluttered by more than a dozen other candidates gaining no traction.

It says Biden is a thin front runner, who 70% or more of Democrats do not want as their nominee.

It says Warren has moved into second place supplanting Sanders (this being the second poll in a week putting her second, a spot Sanders had held until now).

It says Harris,  for whom her home-state California primary is the acid test, is not breaking through.

It says be sure to watch that first debate June 26 & 27.

On Wednesday, July 15, 2020, the Democratic National Convention will call the roll of the states and U.S. territories to choose a presidential nominee. That’s just 13 months from now. If you think it is a long way off, it’s not.

If you think House Democrats should impeach the president less than a year before their national convention and send an impeachment charge to the Senate, where Mitch McConnell no doubt would let it fester right up to Election Day, think again.

The Constitution says the Senate has the sole power to try impeachment. It doesn’t say the Senate has to and, even if it did, as federal Judge Merrick Garland can attest,  McConnell is situationally creative when it comes to what the constitution doesn’t say.

Better than the very stupid politics of impeachment is to give us all the chance to repudiate the president at the ballot box and send him back 18 months from now to the tender mercies of the Southern District of New York, the Attorney General of New York and the Manhattan District Attorney.

Focus on that roll call date, July 15, 2020. As this is written it is 13 months away. That’s all, 13 months.

Continue reading “And the Candidate Is: Part VII​”

At Gettysburg in the Fall of 1863 Abraham Lincoln said this, words that can, that should be said again on the beaches at normandy on D-Day’s 75th Anniversary:

“But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Continue reading “D-Day”

At Gettysburg in the fall of 1863 Abraham Lincoln said this: Words that can, that should be said again on the beaches at Normandy on D-Day’s 75th Anniversary:

“But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” 

Continue reading “D-Day”

When the electors of the Electoral College gathered in their respective states in November 1788 to cast votes for president, the original system for choosing a president had not yet been amended to the form it has today.

The 12th Amendment, adopted in 1804 in time for the re-election of Thomas Jefferson, marked the first presidential election in which the electors voted separately for president and vice president, which clear separation ultimately produced combined tickets for the top two offices.

Until then the electors had simply cast their votes in the fashion the Constitution first directed with each elector voting for two candidates. By constitutional terms, providing he got a majority of electoral votes, the highest vote-getter would become president, the runner-up  vice president. In the event of a majority tie the matter would be sent to the House of Representatives to choose between those with an equal majority vote, with each state holding one vote or, if no one had a majority the House would choose from the top five candidates in the mix.

Continue reading “His Excellency, Supreme Highness, Grand Pooh Bah – No, just Mr. President”

It’s pronounced Booda-jedge (as in judge but say jedge and say both syllables fast). Mea culpa, I underestimated him in Part I. But who didn’t. Shades of 2007/2008 eh? Remember that? When people wondered why a brand new senator from Illinois thought he had a chance to be president.

Mayor Pete, as he has come to be known by many having trouble pronouncing his last name, is a Harvard grad, was a Rhodes scholar, served in Intelligence in Afghanistan, plays concert piano, speaks 7 languages and is gay and married.

Continue reading “And the Candidate Is: Part VI”

Continue reading “Whither the Fed? Cold Pizza and The Deadbeat”

In the old days there was, and probably still is even in this age of “breaking news”, a hierarchy of news alerts from the Associated Press, when the AP and its competitor news services (called wire services back in the day) were the breakers of breaking news.

The levels of urgency in the alerts were associated with the number of times bells on the wire teletypes would ring to signal them.

Continue reading “And the Candidate Is: Part V”

Ok, let’s take stock and attempt to keep track of who’s running for the Democratic nomination for president or yet might run now that it’s late January 2019 – a situation that changes almost daily and will for a while more.

Below find a list of those mentioned here in Part I of this continuing series — declared already or mentioned as being interested in running  back in October 2018 or at least being mentioned by others as potential candidates. It is modified here to remove three who have announced they will not run and to add a few who lately mentioned themselves.

But first, what are highlights of what’s happened since October as far as finding the next Democratic nominee for president?

Continue reading “And the Candidate Is?: Part IV”