Will The Political-Revolution-That-Could Be Derailed by Power-Politics-As-Usual?

Quinnipiac University Poll numbers released today, showing Bernie Sanders easily beating all GOP contenders.

If superdelegates steal the Democratic presidential nomination for Hillary Clinton in 2016, her “nomination” won’t be worth having.

That’s a view I’ve been hearing again and again in conversations with Democratic voters over the past two days, voters who do what they can to live as comfortably as they can manage these days in the quiet suburban streets ringing the giant hotel-casinos that form the empty, rigged, voracious heart of Las Vegas.

It’s a view I’ve encountered so often, in my role as as an out-of-state helper for the Sanders campaign, that I feel obligated to bring it up, for whatever consideration anyone might think it’s worth.

But the truth is that I feel stunned by just how many regular Democrats have volunteered to me over the past two days that they’ll never vote for HRC. A woman I talked today named Mary Ann just shook her head and said this: “She’s been around too long. I’m tired of her. Besides,” she added darkly, “Hillary has blood on her hands.”

A 66-year-old union guy named Duane told me that, even though his union leadership (“suck-ups,” he called them) endorsed Hillary, he’ll never vote for her. “I’d rather see Trump in there,” he admitted.

Most Bernie supporters, though, seem much more buoyantly pro-Bernie than anti-Clinton, although their optimism seems guarded, tentative, as if they recognize that Bernie’s little political-revolution-that-could might ultimately be derailed by power-politics-as-usual players from the past.

Then what? Head shakes. No one knows. We’ll cross that trestle when we come to it.

Others, though, are unabashed in their disdain for Hillary, and aren’t afraid to say so. They’re so, um, out there, and so willing to share it, that I was able to use the intensity of their dislike for HRC as a reason to caucus for Bernie.

“There’s only one way you can stand up against Hillary this week,” I told three different voters today. “And that’s to stand up for Bernie Sanders. Because he’s the only one running against her.”

That might seem a helluva piss-poor, superficial reason to vote for anyone, much less a cool, democratic socialist from Vermont with all the amazing bona fides that Bernie Sanders has accumulated over a lifetime of selfless public service, but the fact remains: There are a helluva lot of Democrats who genuinely don’t like Hillary Clinton.

And worse, there seems to be a helluva lot of insider Democrats set on tilting the outcome to her who are completely oblivious to that fact.

But no one ever accuses them of listening to people like me. They listen to big-dollar donors and each other.

That’s why I predict that if the Democratic Party nominates Hillary Clinton instead of Bernie Sanders in 2016 because of insider deals involving superdelegates, they will lose the election to someone named Trump or Cruz or Rubio or Bloomberg and they’ll never even know what hit them.

And here’s the real hell of it: They won’t even know they were holding a winning hand until they threw it all away.

The Morning After | What Does Goldman Get For All That Money?

Only Hillary Knows For Sure, But No One’s Betting It's a Lecture on Greed.

As usual, after televised national debates and town halls, social media is all a-twitter this morning with one burning question: Who “won” last night’s Democratic debate?

Leaving aside the simple-mindedness of our collective preoccupation with framing political processes as horse races, rather than the competitions of ideas and governing philosophies that they are, at least, supposed to be, I’ll go way, way out on the elliptical limb I’m currently pedaling  —  as I one-finger jab my way through this note on my iPhone  —  and say simply this:

Ditzy Damage Control: When in doubt, shrug and make something up. Pretend everybody picks on you unfairly.

Bernie Sanders “won” because he actually answered the single most-important question put before both candidates by the debate’s moderators.

The reason I say that he won an entire debate simply by answering a single question is this: Because his answer plainly revealed the starkest stark contrast between the Senator from Vermont and the former Secretary of State in anything other than judgment, which may only impact future war and peace, perhaps. 

It's a question of integrity and potential (if not real) conflicts of interest.

And it also happens to involve an issue that’s right smack dab in the heart of his candidacy: He’s got nothing to hide. And Hillary seems to have plenty.

Hillary’s response was her typical angry campaign retort, “full of sound and fury signifying nothing,”  other than trying to deflect attention away from her inability to explain why Goldman Sachs would dispense such large “speaker fees” repeatedly to the same, politically well-connected speaker. 

If Mrs. Clinton’s “fees” were meant as a gift, why didn’t Goldman Sachs offer and report it as a charitable contribution to the Clinton Family Foundation? I hear they burn through lots of money, and always have their hand out.

And if it’s not a form of charity (as it certainly does not appear to be) doesn’t Lloyd Blankfein, as CEO of a publicly traded corporation, have a fiduciary responsibility to his stockholders to expect (or extract) something in return for their $675,000?

What no one but Bernie Sanders seems to understand is this: Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street firms, health insurers, and crony capitalists do, indeed, get something in return for keeping Hillary’s “tip jar” full: VIP treatment at the highest levels of Clinton and Clinton, Inc.  —  both now and in the future.

And influence pedaling (or the continual appearance of it, which seems as bad, particularly in this campaign, which many view as a contest for the very soul of the Democratic Party and the republic itself) raises many, many questions that Mrs. Clinton seems to prefer to answer with a wink and a nod — and an angry outburst aimed at Bernie Sanders.

And such clumsy avoidance inevitably leads to the ultimate question: Why are Wall Street investment banks and Fortune 100 firms so chummy with the Clintons? 

What does Goldman (and all the others), get for all that money?

Hillary's $15 Million Tip Jar

I don’t know of a single progressive who’s ever been offered, let alone accepted, let alone admitted accepting, $15 million from Wall Street.

Maybe that’s not a coincidence. Real “progressives” don’t need to be told not to sell out to Too-Big-To-Fail banks, grotesquely-profitable “health” insurers, and Big Pharma. Such “donations” simply never come sailing through their windows or sliding under their doors.

Hillary C and her generous sponsor, Lloyd B, comparing notes prior to a closed meeting. (Vanity Fair)

Corporate contributions to candidate-affiliated super PACs like Hillary’s (and her GOP sister and brethren) constitute a legal form of bribery and every progressive knows it — with the glaring exception of the aforementioned Hillary Clinton.

But wait! Maybe I’ve got it wrong.

Perhaps Hillary Clinton’s only on the take from her Wall Street chums when she’s in her “moderate-centrist” mode — days of the week that end in “day,” for example.

It should be easy to remember, I know, because those are the same days that she girds herself in her custom-made, stem-to-stern, let’s-kick-some-ass-muthafukkas neocon body armor.

Hillary in 2015, pondering her 2016 centrist pandering options. (Huffington Post)