You wanna see cranky, kiddies? Isaac Chotiner, at Slate, checks in with a notorious Jewish Congressional gadfly:
Isaac Chotiner: What do you make of Bernie Sanders’ success thus far, even if he is likely to come up short in terms of delegates?
Barney Frank: Remember he’s way behind not just in delegates but in votes.
Yeah I know, but still—
It’s ironic that we complain about voter suppression and shortened voting times and then we have so many caucuses. The caucuses are the least democratic political operation in America. They cater to the people who have a lot of time on their hands, and what’s interesting is Sanders is the nominee of the caucuses and Hillary is the nominee of the primaries.
I am disappointed by the voters who say, “OK I’m just going to show you how angry I am!” And I’m particularly unimpressed with people who sat out the Congressional elections of 2010 and 2014 and then are angry at Democrats because we haven’t been able to produce public policies they like. They contributed to the public policy problems and now they are blaming other people for their own failure to vote, and then it’s like, “Oh look at this terrible system,” but it was their voting behavior that brought it about.
So it seems like you’re saying Bernie’s voters have a slightly unrealistic sense about the political process. And that this is driven—
I didn’t say slightly.
OK.
Bernie Sanders has been in Congress for 25 years with little to show for it in terms of his accomplishments and that’s because of the role he stakes out. It is harder to get things done in the American political system than a lot of people realize, and what happens is they blame the people in office for the system. And that’s the same with the Tea Party. It’s “I voted for these Republicans, we have a Republican Congress, we voted for them, they took over Congress, they didn’t accomplish anything.” You gotta win at least two elections in a row.
How do you think Dodd-Frank is working?
Very well. I think Steve Eisman, who is the Steve Carell character in The Big Short, and one of the heroes of this issue, had a very good article a couple weeks ago talking about how well things are working…
Before anyone decides to fling a hissy-fit, you should read the whole thing, it ain’t long.
RaflW
Here’s my brief hissy-fit: Barney Frank is an opinionated old windbag (I saw him live a couple years ago at a conference and he really needs an editor right in his head. Blah blah fking blah!…goes Barney).
Beyond that, it just seems like gratuitous Bernie-slagging. And I’m Bernie-ambivalent.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
We know Larry David will play Bernie; who will play Barney in the road company of The Sunshine Democrats?
Come in!
…. and enter!
smintheus
Frank is trying to shine up the sh*ttier parts of his own record, on which Sanders has obviously scored some hits that he resents.
redshirt
@the Conster linked this in the thread two down, but it certainly also belongs here:
Frank on Bernie
RepubAnon
The Republicans have pushed the Overton Window so far to the right that Ronald Reagan would be seen today as a communist stooge. We therefore need Bernie and his supporters to push the Overton Window back toward the center. This allows folks such as Hillary Clinton to appear as “moderates” to the High Broderist media types.
Does this sound crazy? It’s been how the Republicans have operated ever since Reagan’s presidency:
1) Nominate a raving lunatic to wear down the opposition;
2) Nominate the hard-core right wing fanatic they really wanted, and claim this as a “compromise” and a “move to the center.”
We should start using this tactic against the right-wingnuts.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
@RaflW: Isn’t Barney Frank correct.
Sanders has been in office for 25 consecutive years and in all that time he passed a grand total of …. 3 bills.
2 to rename post offices. 1 a cola adjustment for vets.
It would be sad, if it was so funny.
Lamh36
I agree with Barney about the caucuses.
other than that this is my que to go to bed…the bat signal has been sent
ive had enough with the torches taken to any Dem pol who’s dares not to speak in glowing terms of the Bernster.
and vice versa for the crazy Hillster folks…is November here yet, not just cause of the election but also cause it’s my bday month
good night BJ
John Revolta
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: He keeps giving me the finger!
ruemara
He ain’t wrong on caucuses or Bernie. He can have a shitty record on some things and still be right about those two.
amk
Without caucuses, it is highly doubtful da kenyan would have become the prez. Hillz needs to up her ground game to win at least a few of them.
Omnes Omnibus
@amk: Yeah, she’s doing poorly.
ETA: Go look at the delegate totals. Just saying…
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@efgoldman: asked if he would fund-raise and campaign for down-ticket Dems, he said “we’ll see”. I guess he wants to make sure he’s treated fairly.
Bobby Thomson
@amk: she won two (IA and NV) and that’s all she’s going to win. And that’s more than she needs to win.
Delegates, not states.
Mnemosyne
It’s almost 9:30, which means it’s time for the cats to start swarming me in preparation for getting their nightly wet food treat. Annie is keeping an eye on me from the top of the cat tree while Keaton stares soulfully at me from the floor.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
@RepubAnon:
This is crackpot thinking.
We’ve got a Black President, gay marriage, healthcare, normalization with Cuba, détente with Iran, we prevented a 2nd Great Depression, rescued the auto industry, legalized pot in 3 states, the next President is going to be a woman, and we’re flipping the Supreme Court for the first time in 45 years.
Anyone who thinks we’re to the right of raygoon is paranoid from smoking too much of that legal pot.
SarahT
Sorry to go OT but OMFG @ tomorrow’s NY Daily News cover:
t.co/T5kJhHwV59
Dying laughing here. Back OT: I heart Barney Frank. That is all.
Bobby Thomson
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Just because he signed a contract saying he would in exchange for getting money and support from the party, and just because the election is only seven months away, and just because he’s calling for a political revolution that kind of needs more than one elected official to accomplish more than raising money, and just because he doesn’t have any problem asking unemployed people to put another $27 on their credit cards for his own campaign, and just because he’s asking those people in other elections to go against the wishes of a majority of Democratic voters by casting their superdelegate votes for him at the convention, I don’t know why he would. Don’t rush the guy.
redshirt
@SarahT: Wow, that’s topical! Seriously, because of the Netflix show.
MikeBoyScout
“It is harder to get things done in the American political system than a lot of people realize”
Wait. What?
I want my rainbow farting unicorn NOW! And I’m damn sure I’m not going to get off my lazy fricking ass and vote every 2 years!
Geez, these establishment pols will never get it.
TaMara (BHF)
@Mnemosyne:I skipped breakfast feeding today because everyone was throwing up and I felt their tummies needed a break. You should have seen the haunting and looks I was subjected to today. So totally empathize.
SarahT
@redshirt: HA
patroclus
If Barney Frank were running for President, I’m pretty sure I’d vote for him over Hillary and Bernie. Of course, he’s gay and I think we’re a long way from electing our first (openly) gay President. I think James Buchanan was gay, but not openly. Barney can irritate a lot of people but he’s almost always right on the issues I care about and he was definitely my favorite Congressman during the Clinton impeachment saga and during the Dodd-Frank era. It’s a shame he’s no longer in the House, but to be in a substantial minority is just not all that interesting to someone who’s main aim is to get liberal legislation passed. If not for the rentboy scandal and for the Gingrich horror, he could well have been Speaker and, in my opinion, would have been the best since Rayburn. There was a recent documentary on Frank that was pretty good on either HBO or Showtime.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: he’s a joke. he yammers and yammers about the People’s Revolución! but he’s doing absolutely nothing to about it – other than self aggrandizement. The primaries for congress and the senate are happening now, not next year. If he wants little bernie sanders in office around the country to pass his legislation, he has to act now, not next year. I mean, Howard Dean did it when he ran for president, and he was from Vermont.
Lamh36
@amk: meh…maybe so, still I’ve never liked caucuses…PBO or not
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
Here’s the full cover of tomorrow’s NY Daily News – pretty funny (photo)
SarahT
@patroclus:Yeah, that doc was terrific – “Compared to What ? The Improbable Journey of Barney Frank”. Can’t remember if it was HBO or SHO
redshirt
@SarahT: There’s also a Barney Frank Castle joke at the tip of my tongue, but I’m still working on it.
SarahT
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: thanks for posting – guess my link photo didn’t work for everyone, d’oh !
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
@efgoldman: Not sure. Perhaps the Post. but there has been near unanimous agreement in supporting choice in nyc
RaflW
@RepubAnon: I do agree that we need our own countervailing force on the Overton window, and I appreciate Sanders for that role in this campaign. I hope we as progressives, liberals, and Democrats can unite after the nominating contest is over. The point in the short term is to kick the spluttering, flailing GOP to the curb.
Longer term, I do want the Dems to move back left from the low-crouch, “we’re not liberals” days of, well, most of my time on this earth (I’m 50… So mostly I’m personally aware of post-Carter years).
patroclus
I agree with Barney on The Big Short. It got such good reviews and was supposed to be terrific, but I watched it and was very disappointed. The “heroes” were merely guys who made money off the collapse of the bubble – they did absolutely nothing to stop it and arguably exacerbated it while profiting handsomely. And then they concluded with that statement that nothing had changed when, in fact, Dodd-Frank now requires all derivatives (even credit derivatives) to be fully disclosed, to be traded on recognized exchanges and that capital be allocated for them. And, the “push-out” provisions have worked like a mini-Glass Steagall and commercial banks don’t really do the risky stuff anymore; rather, those types of transactions are now farmed out to investment banking affiliates. Plus, the FSOC has eliminated the stovepiping of the info to the regulators and the CFPB is now definitely acting on behalf of consumers. It’s as though the extremely wealthy left-wing cynic Susan Sarandon wrote the whole thing.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
@SarahT: thanks for letting us know. It’s a funny cover.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
here’s a witty comment from TPM:
RaflW
@SarahT: The Daily News is putting all the pearl-clutching faux-centrist newsies to shame.
It’s a rag, but it’s got guts.
Steeplejack
Florida Man alert! “Bloodied Florida man goes on hotel rampage after losing his dogs, smashes beer bottle on his own head, threatens deputies.”
Anne Laurie
@efgoldman: Nope, I’m bi-petual; we have two cats in addition to the three dogs. One perfectly lovely dilute British-type tuxedo (grey & white) named Piper, aka The Ninja; and a red tabby oriental shorthair answering (as much as cats ever do) to Rocket-the-Viking. (Who is a thug & a bully & an expensive pest with a depraved appetite for eating holes in fabric, but the Spousal Unit loves him.)
SarahT
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: Ha ! And 15% of those will be women to whom he’s paying alimony.
patroclus
@SarahT: Except for the part where he insinuated Rayburn was a closeted gay guy. Actually Rayburn was married once – but his wife left him (because he smoked, drank and cussed) and he had to cover up the scandal and never spoke about it ever again. I really don’t think Barney should be outing people, even if dead, on no evidence. But that’s Barney!
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
@patroclus: I didn’t see the flick, but just reading the review it sounded terrible. How can guys profiting off a catastrophe be heroes? made no sense. If would be like doing a movie on the guys who got rich using put options to bet against American airlines right before 9/11 – how would they be heroes.
RaflW
I can’t even copy edit myself at this point. I gotta get some sleep. Y’all be nice to each other!
.
Oh, um, yeah well I can ask.
Suzanne
I voted for Bernie (I wanted to show solidarity for democratic socialism as a movement), and I agree with Frank. I will happily vote for HRC this November.
SarahT
@Steeplejack: Was it Jebya or Marco ?
SarahT
@patroclus: Fair enough.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
Check out this delightful picture of a dog attending a baseball game (photo)
patroclus
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: Well, they’re the “heroes” because they were smart enough to realize that there was a housing bubble and that the regulators didn’t know anything about it because the CDO’s were unreported (and therefore) unregulated and they bet against it by doing credit default swaps (essentially creating the instrument). But only one of the three groups even tried to tell the press about it; let alone the regulators. In reality, there were no heroes. The book was better because it was much more detailed; but not much. And the film jazzed it all up with hip-hop music and made it all jokey in a real Susan Sarandon kind of way. It’s an entertaining movie, and it explains things okay, but it left me cold and very disappointed.
patroclus
@SarahT: Well, other than that, the documentary was really good, and I’m gay and I just outed James Buchanan, so it’s not that big of a deal. But I think the Rayburn part should just have been edited out.
gene108
@efgoldman:
Barney’s somehow related to the Three Stooges via marriage of one of his relatives. Maybe that helps…
Eh, I just think it is a cool bit of random trivia…
SarahT
@patroclus: So YOU’RE the rat bastid who outed James Buchanan ?!
patroclus
@SarahT: Yeah, mea culpa. But the difference, I think, is that some of Rayburn’s relatives (who knew him while he lived – he died in 1961) are still alive whereas James Buchanan’s descendants never knew him personally. I’m not sure if there are really any rules anymore. In Barney’s eyes, I’m sure that he was kind of retroactively complimenting Rayburn, but the way he put it in the documentary (“it’s so sad”) seemed sort of demeaning. It’s only a quibble about the otherwise excellent documentary. I wish the Slate guy would have asked him about it, “frank”ly.
Amir Khalid
@SarahT:
I always thought James Buchanan was openly gay. By mid-19th century standards, that is.
patroclus
@srv: The reason he couldn’t was because of what happened in the 1990’s, when Brooksley Borne’s efforts to require the reporting of derivatives were shut down by Lyman, Greenspan and Rubin; and what happened after the passage of Phil Gramm’s Commodity Futures Modernization Act, which prohibited any sort of disclosure whatsoever. Frank actually proposed a law which would have required disclosure when he became Chairman in 2007, but it didn’t pass until 2010 in Dodd-Frank.
For that, he definitely deserves a medal. The markets need to be regulated. Rayburn, the author of the 8 major securities laws statutes, certainly recognised that – after their enactment, we had 50 years of virtually un-interrupted growth in the markets, until Reagan’s election ended the regulatory consensus.
SarahT
@Amir Khalid: That’s because Patroclus outed him.@patroclus: :)
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
@patroclus:
Symbol of the Revolución – 1958 (photo)
Symbol of the Revolución – Chanel 2016 (photo)
poser
dogwood
@patroclus:
The Rayburn thing troubled me too. The story of LBJ and Sam Rayburn is a sad one. He loved LBJ and Lady Bird as family. When Johnson betrayed him, he was left pretty much alone in the world.
patroclus
@dogwood: Well, Lady Bird reminded Sam of his wife – Metze Jones (Rayburn), who was the sister of Marvin Jones, long-time House Agriculture Committee Chairman (and later Chief Judge of the U.S. Claims Court), a small-town Texas girl who had never been to any big city. Rayburn got married in 1927 and Metze left him 11 weeks later. Rayburn met LBJ, the son of Sam Ealy Johnson, with whom Rayburn had served in the Texas Lege, just a few years later and he basically fell in love with Lady Bird when LBJ similarly brought his young bride to the wild wooly world of D.C. He was very protective of both of them for the rest of his life.
Rayburn had numerous brothers, sisters, nieces and nephews and tons of close friends in D.C. He was never all THAT alone. But many biographers make it out like he was (and Barney Frank evidently believed it too).
dollared
Soooooooo Barney FRank wants to blame the Bernie Sanders for 2010 and 2014? And the voters for staying home? Maybe if there had been some sort of a political party that was dedicated to ensuring loyalty of their base and xpending heavy resources on GOTV that might have come out differently? Maybe Barney Frank had some sort of role in that political party?
I dunno, blaming Bernie Sanders and his supporters for 2010 and 2014, when it was the state level Democrats that failed in 30 states, seems just a bit odd.
Anne Laurie
@Amir Khalid: Well, the people who knew Buchanan personally certainly considered him to have an “unseemly affection” for pretty young men — some of whom didn’t reciprocate his feelings at all. His political enemies called him “Miss Nancy” behind his back. But in those days, while homosexual behavior was strongly discouraged, there wasn’t a common framework for what we call same-sex orientation — a man could make a fool of himself lavishing attention & gifts on another man, but he couldn’t be accused of being homosexual.
Also, without modrun media, it was possible for Buchanan to make a fool of himself in DC and never have his antics ‘leaked’ to the general public. Even his political opponents, while they sniggered among themselves, didn’t try to demonstrate what they found so risible while campaigning against him; they called him ‘weak’ and ‘womanly’ and ‘susceptible to unnatural influence’, but Joe Six-Tankard didn’t have the vocabulary to understand/respond to “He’s a gay queer homosexual invert.”
The Lodger
@patroclus: James Buchanan had descendants?
cbear
@Anne Laurie: Yes, in many regards it was kinder and gentler time in the nation. Out west, as long as the sheep couldn’t talk–and the other cowboy wouldn’t talk–it was perfectly acceptable to be a buggerer, or buggaree.
Damn modern media.
redshirt
Can you imagine how the media today would cover FDR’s secret polio?
redshirt
Jesus, has everyone gone to sleep?
magurakurin
@amk:
there’s only two fucking left, Wyoming and North Dakota. Pretty sure she can let Sanders win them. Meanwhile, she is poised to clean his clock in NY. The internals in the Sanders’s camp must be brutal. They are trying to spin a goal of 40% of the vote as a sign of “viability” going forward. Forward to where? Double digit loses in MD, PA, DE, CT, and RI? So, yeah, ND and WY, not so much a concern, I’d reckon. The caucus states are done. Now, Sanders has to try and make up ground in real elections. You know, the ones where people with jobs can still participate in.
kdaug
@TaMara (BHF): The monster ate 2 packs of powdered donuts and a poptart while I was i@ the store this afternoon. Not something I’d usually have around (nieces & nephew). Then she looks disappointed that she didn’t get her dinner.
Perhaps she was intrigued by the novely. I suspect I’ll be impressed by the novely on our morning walk.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
Sullivan makes an interesting factual case that Lincoln was gay (video)
BillinGlendaleCA
@redshirt: Nope, just packing.
Applejinx
Hm, so the stuff Bernie’s been vociferously complaining about since 1991 has finally come to a head and become impossible to ignore, and now that the ‘sausage making machinery’ has broken down completely rather than just being ugly, it’s Bernie’s fault for never liking it even when it was working?
The one argument I find persuasive is the ‘yeah well he can’t actually make it work, he’s just calling out how broken it is’. I get that Barney Frank is better at the gory details of getting legislation made and government to work: he HAD to be. And I love this:
though I think it’s not a desire to shame the bankers there, but something more basic.
He’s another guy who represented his constituency so well he could do and say anything he wanted. As such I’m not offended by him always hating Bernie. Narcissism of minor differences…
Amir Khalid
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
I’d take anything Sully asserts with a pinch of salt.
Randy P
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Billy Crystal. Who, much to my chagrin since I remember him as a fresh new face in comedy, is doing a lot of schtick these days in the “grumpy old Jewish guy” vein.
John D.
@dollared:
Well, given that he said
I’m going to go with “No. Barney Frank doesn’t want to blame Bernie Sanders for 2010 and 2014.”
different-church-lady
@efgoldman:
Well, you do understand that the Democratic party is the only thing that needs reforming, don’t you?
different-church-lady
@John D.: Now, blaming him for 2018, on the other hand…
Matt McIrvin
@magurakurin: I think the faint hope is that media coverage of his big wins in the Western caucus states will cause a wave that somehow causes him to get big wins in all those states. It’s the “somehow” that’s kind of a problem.
But Sanders’ national popularity keeps increasing. I do wonder how long that can continue: by convention time, are a solid majority Democrats going to be regretting that they already voted for Hillary Clinton?
AxelFoley
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
Thank you. This is the kinda shit so-called progressives say, along with bullshit like “Obama would be a moderate Republican back in the day.”
Fuck outta here.
Uncle Cosmo
Bernie Sanders tried to be a carpenter before he moved into politics. Good thing he found that other gig. What kind of carpenter is so incompetent he can’t figure out how to build a freakin’ bench??
Kay
The people who vote in presidential primaries and read interviews with former congressmen aren’t the people who don’t show up in midterm elections. He’s scolding the wrong group of people and he’s doing it on a forum where he will never reach the right group of people.
That’s actually why people like Bernie Sanders start a run for President- to reach more people.
Bob In Portland
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: As I recall, H. Clinton named two post offices also.
lol chikinburd
@Uncle Cosmo: You know who else was a Jewish carpenter and later had a fan club riddled with assholes?
Bob In Portland
Lots of false bravado here this a.m.
As long as you vote for Sanders in the general.
Kay
@efgoldman:
Exactly. The .0001 % of people who don’t vote in the general because they are mad at the results of the primary just aren’t “sporadic voters”. They’ve had 6 years to figure this out. One would hope they’d be closer to cracking the code on the unwashed masses they’re busy blaming. More data! They should collect more data. The 5000 voter databases and thousands of political professionals aren’t enough.
We were always told small donors are the most engaged. I have been given “guaranteed” lists composed exclusively of small donors. They’re like uber voters. It’s a tiny fraction of voters.
Blue Galangal
I love Barney Frank so much, and this interview has not diminished my love for him. I still remember fondly the time he asked a very stupid person at a town hall if she was a table.
Barbara
@amk: Obama won caucuses and primaries — the same primaries that some Sanders supporters dismiss as being irrelevant because they are in the deep South. But just for the record, he won primaries in Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee and Illinois. Clinton has won in those places as well, and has also won in Ohio, Missouri, Arizona, Texas and Florida. So her path has actually been cleaner versus Sanders than Obama’s was versus her.
Basically, Obama kept it close enough in enough other primary states to keep Clinton’s wins in states like Pennsylvania and Ohio from offsetting his earlier gains. Florida and Michigan upset the apple cart with their efforts to bypass the party’s schedule. If those had counted, Obama and Clinton likely would have been much closer in the end.
Barbara
@Blue Galangal: That was awesome.
Matt McIrvin
@amk: Obama had to go that route because it was super close in the delegate count. Sanders has too much of a deficit to win that way.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Blue Galangal:
I was his constituent, and have been to his town halls which were always PACKED. For some reason he always had a small LaRouche contingent who dogged him, and I think that table lady was one of those. He’s pretty good on his feet, and funny as hell. He’ll say stuff that lands on your funny bone 10 seconds after he says it, and can do put downs like no one else. He’s also got Sanders’ number, since he’s an atheist Jewish curmudgeon too, but an effective one instead of an ineffective one.
Matt McIrvin
@Bob In Portland: Dude, if Sanders can actually pull off the massive, last-minute-come-from-behind victories in the big Eastern primaries that he needs to get over the hump, only an idiot will stay off the Bernie train.
Quinnipiac just now has him only 12 points behind in New York, which is a big improvement from where he was (though the Emerson College poll that gave Clinton 71 percent was an obvious outlier). He’s got almost three weeks to turn it around… but to make up his deficit he needs to be several points ahead in most of these mid-Atlantic states where he’s way behind now.
sherparick
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Bill Maher? (Maher is supporting Bernie, but also is “okay with HIlary” if she is a nominee. Maher has made fun of liberals and their Green Lantern views of American politics.) There is a reason Congress is address in Article I of the Constitution as it, not the President has the power to actually make laws (which can be enacted over a President’s veto). The U.S. Constitution as designed to as compromise between British Parliamentary system (where the Executive and Legislature were unified and all you needed was a majority to make a law – see also Madison’s Virginia Plan) and the Articles of Confederation where you need consensus in Congress and the voluntary cooperation of the States. I would be more impressed with both the Bernie movement if he was trying organize movements to elect progressive state legislators and congress critters. (The lack of attention to building a progressive Democratic party not only in all 50 states but in every county is somewhat appalling under Obama and Clinton Presidencies)
StellaB
Vote Democratic — we’re not perfect, but they’re crazy. — B. Frank
Bernie has not had a good track record of working with other members of Congress. They’ve always had to come to him for his vote. When he talks about compromising in Congress, he is actually referring to compromise with the Ds. I just can’t see him turning that around and learning to work with Congress to get anything done. That’s Barney Frank’s criticism too.
Last night on Rachel Maddow’s show, he was not willing to say that he would fund raise for down ticket races. How is that going to bring about his “revolution”? He doesn’t work well with the existing Congress and he isn’t willing to being his own supporters on-board.
SFAW
@sherparick:
Oh, that old “50-state strategy” BS again? The Dems tried that after 2004, and look what happened — crushing defeats in the House and Senate races in 2006 and 2008. No wonder Dem voters had given up by 2010. I mean, after all, why bother to vote if there’s going to be a permanent Republican majority?
gwangung
Dude, if Sanders can actually pull off the massive, last-minute-come-from-behind victories in the big Eastern primaries that he needs to get over the hump, only an idiot will stay off the Bernie train.
If he does that, he DESERVES to be President, and he’s fairly won my vote.
liberal
@patroclus: The problem is that the legislative reform Frank is associated didn’t fix all the problems.
Not to mention Frank himself, while perhaps better than others, is hardly thoroughly antagonistic to the malevolent agents running the financial system. It’s not like there’s none of them here in MA.
Elie
@magurakurin:
I agree with the negative verdict on caucuses but just to be accurate, the WA state caucuses are on Saturday and if you work you can send in a proxy. I still don’t like them, but wanted to be accurate.
Elie
@SFAW:
Part of the problem is that the Dems have not put enough attention on the state houses and governorships. These are the bastards that screw up the district boundaries and put in place other measures to assure their supremacy in the states. Dems have been too focused on the national scene before doing the wet work in the basement that influences how successful you are on the national front…
abrxas
Hissy fit? It was glorious!
Procopius
@Omnes Omnibus: Something I found odd:
I’d swear I’ve seen vote counts in news articles showing that Bernie actually has morevotes, even though Hillary is still ahead on delegates. I’m not sure if the delegate count includes the super-delegates.