Super Tuesday 2016!

Super Tuesday is upon us and registered voters in 11 states have a couple decisions to make:  1) Am I voting and 2) if so, who am I voting for.

I'm hoping that the answers for many will be "yes, and I'm voting for Bernie Sanders"... which shouldn't be surprising to anybody, but you might not agree with me... so let's go through your options.

If you want someone who is anti-government and anti-religious freedom, you probably want to vote for the Texan from Canada: Ted Cruz.  He is hated by everybody in Congress... no kidding... and is all about bringing down the government in any way he can.  By the way, politifact reports that he tells mostly truths/truths 21% of the time and tells mostly false or even more false 67% of the time... so if you like a liar, he's a decent choice.

If you want someone who is anti-government and not white, you probably want to vote for the youngling of the crowd: Marco Rubio... and he even has more of a chance at being nominated than 2 others that are running.  Politifact reports that he tells mostly truths/truths a whopping 35% and tells mostly false or even more false only 42% of the time... so if you want someone that one third of the time tells the truth and boldly lies only half the time... he's your man.

If you want someone who is a Democrat but is a war-hawk, economically-moderate, and who Republicans hate more than the Socialist in the race, vote for Clinton (no, seriously, I know Republicans who will vote for Sanders before Trump but will vote for Trump before Clinton).  If you want the Democrat who is most electable in the general, that's not Clinton based on all the polls.  By the way, Clinton tells the truth significantly more than she lies, so that's a positive... 51% for mostly truths/truths and 28% bold lies... including 1% pants-on-fire lies.

If you want someone who truly believes in liberal ideals and thinks we should avoid going to war, or if you want someone who can beat any Republican that ends up getting nominated, or if you want someone who doesn't change their stance on a variety of issues every 4 years, vote for Sanders.  To be fair, Sanders only tells the unvarnished truth 47% of the time and lies 32% of the time... but he never lies at a pants-on-fire level.

If you want someone who lies, disparages wide swaths of the public, doesn't think that issues are what we should vote based on, has gone bankrupt (unlike any other candidate listed thus far), and the rest of the world hates even more than Republicans hate Clinton, just stay home.  Seriously though, Trump lies... he lies a lot.  He has a harder time telling the truth than Cruz does with 7% of the time telling the mostly truths and 78% telling mostly falsehoods with a full 20% of those being full-on pants-on-fire lies.  He's insulted Mexicans, Women, residents of Iowa, immigrants... and that's just the wide generalizations.  And when asked if he would disavow white supremacist supporters, his response was that he didn't know David Duke... whom he had tweeted about previously... no, his response was not to say "white supremacists are racist thugs and I don't need support from the likes of them", which I hope most Americans would have thought reasonable.

So... let's see if this follows... If you want Trump to win, congrats, your job is done, stay home, nobody cares.  If you want Trump not to win the general, your best approach is probably to vote for Sanders, since polls show that he's the best bet at beating Trump.  If you don't like Sanders because he's too far left, fair enough, vote for Clinton, but don't be surprised when we've got troops on the ground in Syria for a decade.

Super Tuesday matters, go out and vote, but vote informed and thoughtfully.

Sanders vs Clinton... a bit more

If you haven't read my other posts about Clinton and Sanders, go read them... I'm clearly in favor of Sanders... but I'd like to share a bit more of my thoughts on the matter as we come away from the Iowa caucuses and wait with anticipation for the New Hampshire primary.

First, I was provided with a set of links about some issues with Sanders: his supporters have been nasty to Clinton supporters; his campaign has suggested or stated that he had endorsements he didn't have; a Super PAC has raised nearly $1m to spend supporting him; he voted in favor of spending bills related to Iraq and Afghanistan.  The person providing me the links was, of course, a Clinton supporter, and was suggesting that this made her doubt him and what he supports.  Now, admittedly, I have not done my thorough research on each of these items, but here's some things to consider:

• His supporters have been nasty to Clinton supporters - This is unfortunate, but as I mentioned in my last post, I'm much more concerned with the politician than his/her supporters.  The article said that this wouldn't normally be of great concern because the rationale Sanders uses for his being able to push things forward if he's elected is that his supporters will be a tidal wave, a political revolution, and therefore what they're like is vitally important.  O.k., but if all his supporters were being this nasty, there would be significantly more news about it.  A quick couple searches does not pull in the number of reports that I would expect if this was a wide-scale issue.
• His campaign has been shifty by suggesting/stating that he has received endorsements he hasn't.  O.k., this is a fair problem to raise.  That said.... really?  A Clinton supporter is going to complain about someone being dishonest and shifty?  I mean, not for nothing, but ... a Clinton supporter?  I mean, o.k., but, wow.
• A Super PAC has raised $2.3m to support Sanders.  O.k., let's start with some numbers, shall we?  Clinton's outside support, as of the end of January, have raised $48m (roughly 20 times as much as those supporting Sanders), and spent $12m (roughly 10 times as much as those supporting Sanders).  Let's move on from that to discuss not just that the amounts are dwarfed, but that the money coming into these support groups is from vastly different sources.  The Super PAC supporting Sanders mostly gets small donations from middle class workers (it's National Nurses United... yep, it's a nurses union).  The Super PACs supporting Clinton get most of their money from very large donations (98% of the money raised in the second half of 2015 for Priorities USA Action was in the form of $100,000+ donations... I don't think most nurses have that kind of spare cash).  To be perfectly honest, I don't really have a problem with a politician having a Super PAC while saying they're in favor of removing Super PACs from politics... provided they have a history of being in support of political finance reform... but I also feel like the Super PACs in this race are in line with the fundraising the campaigns are doing themselves.  Sanders' campaign is getting predominantly small donations while Clinton's is getting larger donations.  So... long story short, Sanders has the support of a Super PAC which in turn is supported by working people... Clinton has the support of much larger Super PACs which are in turn supported by much richer people.  Thus, the argument point is awared to Sanders.
• Sanders voted in favor of spending bills for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  I haven't looked into this very closely, but I know he voted against going to war in the first place.  My feeling is that once you're at war, voting in support of the spending bills is acceptable.  Furthermore, are we really talking about how it's a problem that Sanders supported war?  Really?  This from someone supporting Clinton?  Clinton, the war hawk?  REALLY?  O.k., well, if I'm in favor of trying to do everything we can to maintain peace, and I am, why would I vote for a war hawk over someone who supported some war spending bills but has been a vocal opponent to wars in general?!?

So, we've got 4 points provided against Sanders, 3 of which would be bigger points against Clinton and one of which is unfortunate but I believe blown a bit out of proportion.

I'd also like to point out Clinton's own 2 points against Sanders:

• Clinton says Sanders won't be able to get what he wants accomplished but she knows how to get things done.  First off, as First Lady, she couldn't get health care reform done.  Secondly, she's viciously hated by Republicans and this leads me to believe that she would have a harder time getting more conservative things done than Sanders would getting somewhat liberal things done.
• In response to Sanders saying she was the establishment candidate, Clinton said that Sanders is the only person that could label her as an establishment candidate because she's a woman running to be the first female President of the US.  Well, let's compare the two candidates on the Democratic side then, shall we?  One has a ton of support from establishment players in the party, the other doesn't.  One has been in the lead and the DNC has been scheduling debates at times that people wouldn't get to see the two face off.  One is moderate, the other is somewhat extreme left wing.  Without knowing that the "one" in each of these statements is female, it's very clear that the "one" is the establishment candidate.  I'm sorry, I don't care that she's a woman.  That is NOT sufficient reason to vote for her nor is it reason enough to believe that she's not the establishment candidate between the two of them.  Hell, the first comment, that one about most of the political players supporting her, that one element is enough to indicate she's the establishment candidate.  Give me a break.

So... New Hampshire, get to the polls on Tuesday and back Sanders as our nominee for President of the United States!