What happened at the Nevada Democratic Convention is awful and inexcusable, and Sanders needs to apologize; demand that his supporters stop such terrible, hateful, stupid, counterproductive behavior; and then carry on campaigning and talking about issues until the convention, by the end of which he should strongly endorse Clinton.

All that being said, a lot of what Kevin Drum, Josh Marshall, Koz, and Paul Krugman are saying is overwrought, and I don’t pay much mind to them anyway, because they made it clear from the start they don’t like Sanders. All of them have been beating up on him for months.

I am going to engage in some you-tooism here. Not on the behavior of some of his supporters, which is despicable, but on “feeling sorry” [as Krugman said about some Sanders supporters]—for Clinton supporters. I am truly shocked and disappointed by people who call themselves strong left-wing liberals who have been reduced to defending Clinton’s positions and actions on a wide range of things on which they would never have defended anyone else.

I appreciate Clinton supporters who say, “I agree with Sanders on the issues but I don’t think he can win.” I understand that. But I have seen way too many Clinton supporters who defend her blatant changing of positions depending on who she is talking to (as we just saw last week with coal miners), her being buddies with people like Kissinger and Blankfein, her multi-million dollar contributions and speaking fees from Wall Street interests, her hawkishness on foreign policy, her actions in Honduras, her refusal to support Elizabeth Warren on major issues like breaking up banks and reinstating Glass-Stegall, her opposition to an immediate moratorium on fracking, her turning back decades of Democratic support for single-payer health care by saying “it will never, ever happen” and chastising people who support it, and several other items.

For those of us who care about issues, this has all been a very sorry sight. We will vote for Clinton in November because the alternative is too awful to contemplate. But don’t sugar-coat her poor position on issues.

None of which is to excuse Sanders for not forcefully condemning the actions of his supporters and demanding that those behaviors stop. It is extremely maddening and disappointing that he has not done that.

I do want to add one addendum here, lest I be accused of being a fraud and hypocrite this fall: I did not mean to imply that I will vote for Clinton only because Trump is worse. In spite of my many and major policy differences with her, I also admire her in some ways. I think she has good experience, I like her strength on other issues including guns and reproductive rights, and I admire her for standing up to all the phony scandals and other crap that the Republicans have thrown her way. And I am excited to vote for the first woman president!

Much like I feel about Obama– I strongly disagree with him on some issues and on some things he has done, but overall I greatly admire him and think he has been an excellent president. I am optimistic that Clinton can be the same.

And I also recognize that this mainly a fight between liberals, albeit moderate liberals and left liberals. It’s not like we’re all conservatives!

The post Sanders, Clinton, Nevada and squabbling liberals appeared first on Occasional Planet.

The 2016 presidential primary season has started for real–kicked off by the Iowa caucuses. But our current presidential primary system is a disaster for political discourse, for serious candidates, and for our democracy. Just listen to what passes for political debate—particularly among the 2016 crop of Republican primary candidates—and you have all the evidence you need. For candidates, it’s all about proving that they are more right-wing conservative than the next person. And it’s all in pursuit of the brass ring of winning the earliest primaries/caucuses in the most conservative states: Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

And that, right there, is the problem. Because of the structure of the primary cycle, frontloaded with these ultra-conservative states, candidates feel compelled to tailor their messages to extreme right, because that’s who is motivated to come out for the caucuses and primaries. In addition, the early states have no big cities, so candidates do not feel the need to talk about the issues that concern urban dwellers: No mention of Ferguson, Black LIves Matter, Flint’s poisoned water system, etc.  They are interested only in pandering to the narrow concerns of rural and small-town voters, because their votes are the ones they need to build momentum for the rest of the crazy primary season.

So, what’s the solution? A total re-think of the way we determine the presidential nominees from each party.
I’m not proposing that we go back to the smoke-filled rooms of yore, when party bosses decided who the candidates would be, without any input from the electorate. [There is, however, a strong whiff of a new kind of party-boss smoke out there. It comes from the Koch Brothers, Sheldon Adelson, Missouri’s billionaire would-be-kingmaker Rex Sinquefield, the Wicks Brothers of Texas, and other super-wealthy men. They’re spending huge sums of money to push their personal agendas by buying politicians and funding their campaigns. But let’s put that aspect of our current system aside, for the moment, and look at other alternatives.]

Many people have said that a better structure would consist of a series of regional primaries. But before I get that—and some of the other ideas that have been floating over the years, here is…

A brief history of primaries

It’s easy to think that the current primary structure is a built-in part of American political history, and, therefore, is not to be tinkered with—you know, that whole “originalist,” traditionalist thing. It’s not. Neither political parties nor primary elections are included in the U.S. Constitution: Primaries evolved over time, invented by political parties. There were primaries in some states in the early 1800s, but they were mostly non-binding, and they gave way to the party-boss system by the mid-1800s.

The current system of binding primaries [in which delegates are required to vote for their state’s nominee in the first round of voting at the national convention] is actually rather new.

According to Wikipedia:

The impetus for national adoption of the binding primary election was the chaotic 1968 Democratic National Convention. Vice President Hubert Humphrey secured the nomination despite not winning a single primary under his own name. After this, a Democratic National Committee-commissioned a panel led by Senator George McGovern –that recommended that states adopt new rules to assure wider participation.

A large number of states, faced with the need to conform to more detailed rules for the selection of national delegates, chose a presidential primary as an easier way to come into compliance with the new national Democratic Party rules. The result was that many more future delegates would be selected by a state presidential primary. The Republicans also adopted many more state presidential primaries.

Iowa and New Hampshire

The now-all-important Iowa caucus began just 40 years ago. The New Hampshire primaries began 60 years ago, and they have become the center of attention in the battle to nominate the Republican and Democratic Presidential candidates. It’s obvious that the current system is terribly skewed, front-loaded with rural states that represent a tiny fraction of the ultimate number of delegates, and whose issues and preferences do not remotely represent the mainstream of American political discourse.

Resistance to change

But changing the system has proven to be a Sisyphean task, because states love going first and don’t want to surrender the advantages first-ness brings—even if sharing in a regional primary would be better for the common good of our electoral system and democracy.

Elected officials, political scientists, pundits, party leaders and many others—although I doubt that the list includes many state party chairpeople–have suggested alternative systems. The Congressional Record is littered with failed proposals going back decades. You can look ‘em up: 1980, 1985, 1991, 2007, 2011 for example. But, for what it’s worth, here are some current ideas:

Alternatives to the current presidential primary system

Fix The Primaries offers a handy summary of a range of alternatives–the links take you to helpful infographics with more detail. Solutions–some more logical than others– include:

The American Plan
Starting with small states and working towards large ones, the American Plan also incorporates random order to afford big states the chance to go early as well.

The National Plan
This plan calls for a national primary where voters can vote once between January and June and ballots are counted and tallied at the start of each month.

The Delaware Plan
This plan relies on “backloading” the primary schedule, that is, allowing less populated states to go first and the most populated to go last.

Interregional Primary Plan
Six groups of primaries or caucuses would be scheduled between March and June. On each date, a state or group of smaller states from one of six geographic regions of the country would go together.

Rotating Regional Plan
Under the proposal, the country is divided into four regions – Northeast, Midwest, West, and South, which take their turns voting first, then one region per month from March to June.

Regional Lottery Plan
State order would be decided by lottery on New Year’s Day. Two small states would be randomly selected to go first, followed by four regions also determined randomly.

One Day National Primary
This plan simply calls for primaries and caucuses in all states on the same day.

The Texas Plan
States are divided into four rotating groups with equal number of both electoral votes and total number of states per each group to provide an equal number of predominantly Republican states and predominantly Democratic states.

Please, people. Get over yourselves and pick one, already. [Personally, I think the Rotating Regional Plan–proposed by the National Association of Secretaries of State–makes the most sense.]

Political thought leaders on both the right and the left are dismayed by what they are seeing in the current system—and I use that term loosely—of presidential primaries. Even Republicans are recoiling from the monster created by our current system. On the left, Think Progress recently issued a call to “ban the Iowa Caucus,” stating that:

It’s as if Rube Goldberg designed a method of polling, implemented it in an unusually unrepresentative state, and then decreed that this state’s votes would receive greater weight than other state in the union.

I’ll be watching the 2016 presidential primaries closely. But I’m going to be grumpy about the whole process, no matter who comes out ahead—even if it’s somebody I like—because the system stinks. And even though I know that performance-enhancing substances are banned in other professional sports, what I think American presidential politics needs is a large dose of Human Political Grow-Up Hormone.

The post We need a new presidential primary system, ASAP appeared first on Occasional Planet.

“A certain kind of rich man afflicted with the symptoms of moral dandyism sooner or later comes to the conclusion that it isn’t enough merely to make money. He feels obliged to hold views, to espouse causes and elect Presidents, to explain to a trembling world how and why the world went wrong.”
-Lewis H. Lapham, editor and writer (b. 8 Jan 1935)

Our friend John Whittier posted this quote today, and I’m pretty sure he was thinking of Donald Trump when he posted it.

That quote brought to mind something Trump said many years ago when he wanted to buy the only parcel of open/green space left in Manhattan. Someone asked him why, when he was already so wealthy and already owned so many properties, would he want to buy the only open space left along the river. He replied that he didn’t need the money and didn’t really have any plans for what to do with the property. He said it was all about the competition and winning when others wanted something. He said something to the effect that it was the thrill of victory that motivated him.

I suppose, in a way, people whose goal is to make as much money as possible or to own as much property as possible share the same kind of human desire to win as do athletes, politicians or chess masters. Men have gone to extremes to be the “first” at things like climbing the tallest mountain in the world.

It’s part of our nature to strive, to compete, to enjoy victory. Many times it’s about the money (e.g., the gold rush.) Sometimes it’s about breaking a glass ceiling. To my dismay, sometimes it’s women wanting to show they can maim and kill other human beings just as effectively as men can.

Many times when my husband is watching a college or professional football game, I can’t help wondering why supposedly sane men would stand out in the cold, bare chests painted the colors of their team, theater props on their heads, screaming like howler monkeys.

Or why hundreds of thousands of sports fans would spend inordinate amounts of money on clothing, blankets, and doo dads to publicly display their support for a certain team. This is especially puzzling when students who really can’t afford all that stuff feel they have to do it to “belong.”

Of course we Americans have always enjoyed competition. And I’m proud of the one tennis trophy I earned years ago. But it seems to me that the exaggerated attention given these days to sports and, especially, the way the public is being manipulated by team owners, can’t be just about the thrill of winning a game.

Let me go off the deep end here and toss out some ideas that may or may not help explain what’s going on in America today.

First, I think everyone has by now heard that the vast majority of Americans are not “winning” economically any more. In fact, incomes are not only stagnant, a lot of people took a direct hit during the “Great Recession.” (Who came up with that label?)

In a recent column in the Washington Post, Fareed Zakaria mulled over why middle-aged Caucasian Americans are killing themselves at higher rates than previously. Why are so many people turning to alcohol, drugs and eventual suicide who probably wouldn’t have reached such a level of despair in the past?

True, globalization and technological change have made it more difficult for workers to advance financially. But there is more to it, according to Princeton anthropologist Carolyn Rouse whom Zakaria contacted for comments on this phenomenon.

It may be about expectations as much as actual events in the lives of our white working-class neighbors. Although they have never seen themselves as “elites,” they have always had an edge in terms of reaching their goals. They have always been a “superior” class because there was always someone they could point to as poorer than they were. I think it was Kris Kristofferson decades ago who sang, “Everybody needs somebody to look down on. Help yourself to me.”

People who have never expected much aren’t as affected by the changes in our economic situation. They may be hurting financially along with their white co-workers, but they may not feel they’ve lost a “leg up” in the competition because they never had one.

A personal note here. I grew up in a working class family. Neither parent finished high school. My father was a factory worker; my mother worked in retail. My father put cardboard in the bottom of his shoes that had worn through the soles. My mother sewed our clothes and exchanged hand-me-downs with our cousins. But we never thought of ourselves as poor because our church was always collecting something “for the poor” and because there were really poor migrant workers who came to town to buy supplies during the summer and fall harvest seasons. This was post World War II when the U.S. had no real global competition, and there were no limits on what we could accomplish with more schooling and a determination to succeed. My sisters and I all attained a professional level of education because it was expected of us.

I know I was a beneficiary of “white privilege” because my grandfather emigrated from England and walked right into a good factory job where blacks need not apply.

The Princeton anthropologist quoted in Zakaria’s column suggests that part of the reason African-Americans, Hispanics and others who were never part of the “privileged” group are not killing themselves at the same rate as whites is because they never felt the kind of superior status that whites did in the past.

Now we circle back to sports mania and Donald Trump. I think it’s obvious that middle-aged whites are the ones making the worst fools of themselves at sporting events. And there may be something going on with them about this whole Rams stadium fiasco. (How old are Governor Nixon and Mayor Slay???)

But the seriously disturbing phenomenon is the support for Donald Trump among middle-aged whites. I try to avoid watching anything about Trump on TV, but it’s getting more and more difficult because our media outlets seem to be obsessed with him. I wrote a few months ago that the American media will get Trump elected president just by pushing him in our faces constantly. Admit it… Americans love to jump on a bandwagon. Why else would they stand in line in the rain for hours to be the first to see a certain movie? Why are normally solidly sane people running out to buy powerball tickets?

Trump is not only in our face constantly, he is saying, according to one of his supporters in New Hampshire “what the rest of us are thinking but afraid to say out loud.”

Another supporter, who also happened to be a middle-aged white resident of New Hampshire, said something to the effect that “we” have lost so many of our freedoms and Trump is going to give them back to us. While any rational person knows that ‘s nonsense, maybe we should look more closely at what that woman meant.

My husband, like most other level-headed voters, said he doesn’t understand why Trump groupies don’t realize he can’t do all the things he is promising. My only explanation is that they really don’t want to know that. They feel they’ve been cheated and don’t know what to do about it. Along comes someone with a strong personality and a dash of charisma who promises to return us to the glory days of empire. Let’s not examine this savior too carefully. Cognitive dissonance? What’s that?

Another personal story: When I was finishing up my doctorate at Illinois State University in 1990, I told a neighbor I was moving to New Hampshire to take a job. She said I’d love New Hampshire because there weren’t any Mexicans there. I thought that was an odd thing to say, but now I think I know what she meant.

So what we may have in this presidential primary season is a combination of Trump’s need for self-aggrandizement and victory over competitors along with the need for middle-aged white working class folks for some kind of champion. Their fears are real, but they are looking for a miracle cure just as Dorothy, the lion, the tin man and the scarecrow were in the land of OZ. The man behind the curtain is a charlatan, but how do we get folks who think he has a miracle cure to realize this?

Obviously facts don’t matter. They didn’t matter when Hitler told despairing Germans that Jews were the source of all their troubles. Or maybe it was their Slavic neighbors. Or gypsies. Or homosexuals. When people want to believe someone is their savior, don’t get in the way because you’ll be run over by their contempt for your rational arguments.

When I was doing voter registration at a sliding-scale health clinic in rural Missouri, a woman with missing teeth, terrible skin problems and greasy hair came up and told me proudly that she was voting for Trump because “he’s made himself rich and can fix our country.” After she complained about her food stamps being cut, I told her that it is Republicans who are cutting food stamps. She glared at me indignantly and told me that “Trump won’t let them do that.” I rest my case.

Those of us who want to save our democratic republic from total ruin will have to figure out how to keep the man who would be king from seizing power. But how?

The post Trump: The man who would be king appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Now that it’s 2016, it’s time to fact-check some of the end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it predictions that President Obama’s critics made before his 2012 re-election. In an article published today, Think Progress highlights four big things that were supposed to happen by 2016, if Obama were re-elected. [Spoiler alert: They didn’t.]

1. Gas was supposed to cost $6.05 per gallon.

In March 2012, on the floor of the United States Senate, Mike Lee (R-UT) predicted that if Obama was reelected gas would cost $6.05 per gallon by the start 2015. Lee said that gas prices would rise 5 cents for every month Obama was in office, ultimately reaching $6.60 per gallon.

Lee was not alone. Newt Gingrich, running for the GOP nomination, predicted that if Obama was reelected he would push gas to “$10 a gallon.” Gingrich said he would reduce gas prices dramatically by reversing Obama’s energy policies. Gingrich flanked himself with campaign signs promising $2.50 gas if he was elected.

Today, the nationwide average for a gallon of gas is $2.00.

Some of the reasons for the decline in gas prices were beyond Obama’s control — including weak international demand and OPEC’s failure to reduce supply. Also driving prices lower was increased gas production in the U.S., which has doubled over the last 6 years. The policies that Lee, Gingrich and others criticized — the rejection of Keystone XL pipeline, more EPA regulation and limiting drilling on public land — have not gotten in the way of historically low prices.

2. Unemployment was supposed to be stuck at over 8%

In September 2012, Mitt Romney predicted that if Obama is reelected “you’re going to see chronic high unemployment continue four years or longer.” At the time, the unemployment rate was 8.1% and had been between 8.1% and 8.3% for the entire year.

What would breaking out of “chronic high unemployment” look like in a Romney presidency? Romney pledged that, if elected, he could bring the unemployment rate down to 6% by January 2017.

The unemployment rate currently stands at 5.0% and has been under 6% since September 2014. Since January 2013, the economy has created over 7.8 million new jobs.

3. The stock market was supposed to crash

Immediately after Obama won reelection in November 2012, many commenters predicted that the stock market was toast.

Charles Bilderman, the author of the “Intelligent Investing” column at Forbes, wrote that the “market selloff after Obama’s re-election [was] no accident,” predicting “stocks are dropping with no bottom in sight.” Bilderman said that the policies the Obama administration would pursue in his second term would “crash stocks.”

On Bloomberg TV, investor Marc Faber predicted that, because of Obama’s reelection, the stock market would drop at least 20%. According to Faber, “Republicans understand the problem of excessive debt better than Mr. Obama who basically doesn’t care about piling up debt.” Faber joked that investors seeking to protect their assets should “buy themselves a machine gun.”

The Dow Jones Industrial Average currently stands at 17,425.03 and, despite a downturn in 2015, is up over 27% since Obama was reelected.

4. The entire U.S. economy was supposed to collapse

Rush Limbaugh predicted that “the country’s economy is going to collapse if Obama is re-elected.” Limbaugh was confident in his prediction: “There’s no if about this. And it’s gonna be ugly. It’s gonna be gut wrenching, but it will happen.”

The economic free fall would begin, according to Limbaugh, because “California is going to declare bankruptcy” and Obama would force states like Texas to “bail them out.” California currently has a $4 billion budget surplus.

Limbaugh added, “I know mathematics, and I know economics. I know history. I know socialism, statism, Marxism, I know where it goes. I know what happens at the end of it.”

Limbaugh said the economic apocalypse could take “a year and a half, two years, three years.” It’s been three years and two months since Limbaugh’s prediction.

The U.S. economy grew at a respectable 2% in the 3rd quarter of 2014, following 3.9% growth in the second quarter.

Happily, for Americans of all political persuasions, predictions for Obama-geddon didn’t pan out. In fact, we’ve actually had a pretty decent run. I shudder to think how things might have been–especially for people without membership cards for the top 1 percent club–had we elected Mitt Romney in 2012. And with today’s Republican field of presidential candidates, we could be in even deeper doo-doo if one of them makes it all the way. Any Democrat would be better than any of these clowns. As a very smart person [my sister] said here on Occasional Planet yesterday, make it your most important New Year’s resolution to vote in 2016.  And for gawd sake, vote for the Democrat.

The post It’s 2016: What happened to all those dire, Obama-geddon predictions? appeared first on Occasional Planet.

In a rare, and perhaps historical, moment of truth telling in presidential politics, Donald Trump told 24 million Americans that wealthy people like him rig the U.S. political system—that big money controls everything, and that our system is, basically, a fraud. Trump crossed a line. Although the GOP enjoys the attention Trump brings to the party, you can be sure party leadership, and the big money behind them, will do everything they can to take him out.

Let’s review Trump’s fateful comments:

BAIER: And you said recently, quote, “When you give, they do whatever the hell you want them to do.”

TRUMP: You’d better believe it.

BAIER: — they do?

TRUMP: If I ask them, if I need them, you know, most of the people on this stage I’ve given to—just so you understand—a lot of money.

TRUMP:  I will tell you that our system is broken. . . Before two months ago, I was a businessman. I give to everybody. When they call, I give. And do you know what? When I need something from them two years later, three years later, I call them, and they are there for me. And that’s a broken system.

Mike Whitney explains why, although way ahead in the polls, Trump’s statement doomed his chances to be the Republican Party nominee:

Dear reader, there are things you can say in America and there are things you cannot say. You can criticize the government, support torture, applaud the racist arrest and incarceration of immigrants looking for work, and cheerlead the bombing of civilians in the many countries around the world where the US has launched its vicious wars of aggression.  But you cannot stand in front of an audience of 24 million Americans on national Television and explain in excruciating detail how the political system really works, how the tycoons and moguls pay for favors from the sock-puppet politicians, how the politicians do whatever they are told to do, and why the system is a complete and utter fraud.

The people who own the system will not allow that—after all, it is their system, a system which they created, which they control, and that provides the very foundation upon which their wealth and power depend. They have no intention of allowing a loudmouth, upstart casino operator to seriously threaten the credibility of their precious system by blurting out all kinds of insider information that exposes the rot at the heart of the machine. That’s not something they want to hear, and that’s not something they’re going to hear.  Donald Trump is about to be crushed and destroyed in ways he never could have imagined. He’s about to discover a painful truth that the vindictive and merciless people who run this country are not to be trifled with.

For starters, we have the Megyn Kelly scandal. By Saturday after the debate, Whitney reports, mainstream media had published 2,105 articles covering the sexist remarks Trump made on CNN about Fox’s Megyn Kelly. These almost identical pieces repeated the same claims. Elites were using their media, the mainstream media they own, and a faux outrage at sexism against women, to shape the narrative about Trump. All 2000 plus articles followed the New York Times lead and suggested that Trump should be removed from the campaign because his presence in the primary field is “disruptive.” That was the main message of the Megyn Kelly story. Whitney continues:

The Times is obviously inserting itself into the process, just as Megyn Kelly inserted herself into the process when she pummeled Trump with one incriminating question after another and then proceeded to lob softballs to the dreary and utterly lifeless Jeb Bush.

This is why people are angry, right, because they think Trump was treated unfairly. And this is why they’re not buying the media’s BS storyline, because they’re sick of the media telling them how to feel, what to think and who to pick. They resent it, in fact, it pisses them off.

Now you’d think that if you had a brand-spanking media-machine that can crank out 2000 cookie cutter articles overnight blasting “sexist” Trump as a first-class scoundrel and praising the dainty Ms. Kelly as the unwitting victim of abusive male bullying, then dastardly Trump would plunge in the polls, right?

Wrong. Trump is still comfortably in the lead and more popular that ever.

Why?

Because people don’t trust the lying media. Because people don’t trust the lying liars who run the Republican party (or the Democratic party). And because people resent the fact that they’re being manipulated. Is that so hard to understand? The feeling now, is that, “if the assho**s who run this country are against Trump, then I’m for him. It’s that simple. It’s not about populism or channeling anger and frustration to a rebel candidate. Trump is no rebel, and he’s no reformer either. And he’d probably be a shitty president too. But Trump has one thing going for him that is sadly lacking in all the other candidates, all the party honchos, and all the flannel-mouth, stuffed-shirt fake politicians who are presently in office. What is that, you ask?

He tells the truth, at least it sounds like the truth to a lot people. And that makes all the difference.

I’m not really interested in Trump or the other personalities running for office. I’m more interested in the mood of the American people, how they view the candidates, and what happens to the economy as the election approaches. Something I think bears watching: the rebellion of the conservative and progressive base against the corporate leadership of the Republican and Democratic parties expressed in growing support for outliers Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. Across the ideological spectrum, people are saying “no” to business as usual, to a political system that serves the elite at their expense.

I never thought I would be quoting conservative talk show host Laura Ingraham, but she has her finger on the pulse of this election:

People have to get their minds wrapped around the fact that the seething fury at the leadership of the Republican Party is real, and it’s going to bubble over somehow with somebody, and right now it’s with Trump,” said the conservative talk show host Laura Ingraham, noting that there were “a lot of ticked-off people out there who are willing to throw both parties into the fire.

The post Trump to nation: Political system is rigged against you appeared first on Occasional Planet.

In a trend that adds a nice dose of fairness to election laws, 22 states now allow citizens who will be 18 years old on or before a general election to vote in their party’s corresponding primary or caucus. Illinois, for example, allows 17-year-olds who were born on or before Nov. 4, 1996, to register and cast ballots in this year’s March 18 party primary election, as the teens will be 18 and able to vote in the Nov. 4 general election.

Where 17-year-olds can vote in primaries and caucuses:

States that currently allow 17-year-olds [who will be 18 by the date of the general election in November] to vote in primaries and caucuses are: -Alaska–Connecticut–Hawaii–Illinois–Indiana–Iowa–Kansas–Kentucky–Maine–Maryland–Minnesota–Mississippi–Nebraska–Nevada–North Carolina–North Dakota–Ohio–Oregon–Virginia–Vermon–and Washington.

Of course, when things like this are done state-by-state, there are always some quirky, local variances. In Alaska, Kansas, North Dakota and Washington, 17-year-old Democrats may caucus, but 17-year-old Republicans cannot participate in their party’s caucus.

To check on your voting status in your state, go to Vote411.org

The rationale for “Suffrage at 17” is simple. Fair Vote, a voting-rights advocacy group, puts it this way:

A notable portion of citizens who have the right to vote in the general election in November currently do not have a voice in determining who will be on that general election ballot. Granting voting rights in primaries and caucuses to these 17-year-olds is only fair and will increase their political engagement through participation.

“Suffrage at 17” advocates say that one of the prime benefits of allowing 17-year-olds to vote in primaries is that it encourages civic engagement at an earlier age. Voting when young starts a lifetime habit, they contend. That’s good for political parties, too, goes the argument, because once someone has voted in a particular party’s contest, that young person may vote for that party for decades–if parties are important to you.

Opening up primary voting and caucus participation to 17-year-olds taps into a large market of potential new voters—a significant demographic. In 2008, there were more than four million 17-year-olds in America. Young eligible voters (18 to 29 year-olds) have traditionally voted at the lowest rates because they are not prepared for participation. Advocates say that the “Suffrage at 17” policy puts  more young people on the voter rolls and prepares them to participate in the general election.

[As an aside, for some, the notion of “Suffrage at 17” doesn’t go far enough. A few years ago, a group of Massachusetts teens launched an initiative to lower the voting age to 17–for school-board and local elections. Their rationale was that school boards make decisions that directly affect teenagers, and that they should have a say in those elections. To me, that argument has some merit–and to those who worry about “immaturity” at the polls, I’d say that young people are no more likely to engage in irrational voting and immature behavior than older voters, who demonstrate a lot of stinkin’ thinkin’ at the polls during every election cycle.]

“Suffrage at 17”  makes sense. It doesn’t do anything drastic, like officially lowering the voting age for everyone [we did that in 1971, when the legal voting age went from 21 to 18]. It’s logical–especially in a world where primaries and caucuses reign supreme in determining who will be on general-election ballots. And it’s a welcome example of a voting-rights expansion at a time when too many state legislatures are going in the opposite direction.

[By the way, we really need a whole new system for presidential primaries. Read more about this issue here.]

The post Voting news: Some 17-year-olds can vote in primaries and caucuses in 22 states appeared first on Occasional Planet.

The title of Noam Scheiber’s November cover story in the New Republic is: “Hillary’s Nightmare: A Democratic Party That Realizes Its Soul Lies with Elizabeth Warren.” The Democratic Party lost its soul a long time ago, but voters may force it to find it . There are growing signs that voters are waking up to what leftist writer Paul Street describes as:

. . . the richly bipartisan nature of the U.S. corporate, neoliberal, state-capitalist, hierarchical, classist, sexist, imperial white supremacist eco-cidal police surveillance and security state, and the total captivity of the dismal Dollar Democrats and their fake-progressive figureheads and office-holders to the nation’s unelected dictatorship of money.

He goes on to warn liberals that they are being manipulated by a ruling elite;

“Blue-state” campus-towns, lakefront liberals and upper west side Dems need to think harder about how they are being played by the ruling class and its two party game, which is all about making sure that, at the end of the day, people don’t really focus on Goldman Sachs and the rest of the corporate and financial plutocracy.

Paul Street never minces his words. If you think his negative assessment of our political process too extreme, consider that the most recent Gallup poll put Congressional approval at an all-time low of 9%. The reasons for that disapproval may not be as specific or ideological as Street’s, but the electorate is clear about two things—their elected officials are not serving them well, and, the 1% is sucking the life out of the country.

Scheiber says the debate in 2016 will focus on the power of America’s wealthiest and how they are systematically destroying the economy, the environment, and our democracy. Younger voters, who are suffering most at the hands of the elite, are going to demand more than vague promises of hope and change. According to Scheiber, Democratic voters are more angry, disaffected and populist than they have been in decades. This emerging political consciousness will present serious difficulties for Clinton who has deep ties to Wall Street. Wall Street, on the other hand, hates and fears Warren, which will make her more attractive to a young generation. They get the connection between corporate friendly legislation and the fact that they can’t find a decent job. Simply put, Democratic voters, weary of a drawn out, lack luster recovery, are less naïve than they were in 2008.

Scriber writes:

They are more attuned to income inequality than before the Obama presidency and more supportive of Social Security and Medicare.¹ They’ve grown fonder of regulation and more skeptical of big business.² A recent Pew poll showed that voters under 30—who skew overwhelmingly Democratic—view socialism more favorably than capitalism. Above all, Democrats are increasingly hostile to Wall Street and believe the government should rein it in.

On the other side is a group of Democratic elites associated with the Clinton era who, though they may have moved somewhat leftward in response to the recession—happily supporting economic stimulus and generous unemployment benefits—still fundamentally believe the economy functions best with a large, powerful, highly complex financial sector. Many members of this group have either made or raised enormous amounts of cash on Wall Street. They were deeply influential in limiting the reach of Dodd-Frank, the financial reform measure Obama signed in July of 2010.

I would add that on top of a watered down Dodd-Frank, corporate Democrats gave us the deeply flawed, health insurance industry giveaway known as the Affordable Care Act.

The media has already anointed Hillary as the inevitable Democratic candidate, but if Warren decides to run, she will present a formidable challenge. For decades, Warren has been driven by her deep concern over the shrinking middle class. Her authenticity and clear talk about the source of our economic problems, and her common sense solutions, may be a better match for the mood of the country.

In 2016, Scheiber says, voters will be looking for a candidate who understands their struggles and will reject anyone who has deep ties to banks and finance. He points to a leftward trend in the country and cites several examples starting with Bill de Blasio who won the New York mayoral election on a platform of addressing inequality. De Basio beat Christine Quinn, who had close ties to Bloomberg and the financial sector, in the Democratic primary. He went on to win against a Republican opponent by a landslide. He held his victory party at a YMCA rather than a fancy downtown hotel.

More progressive Senate Democrats, angry about Summer’s role in deregulating the banks, forced Larry Summers, Obama’s his pick for Federal Reserve chairman, to withdraw his name. Bill Daley, former Obama chief of staff and JP Morgan executive, recently withdrew from the Democratic primary for governor of Illinois after polls showed him trailing current governor Pat Quinn. His decision to drop came on the heels of repeated populist attacks from Quinn, who portrayed him as a member of the same wealthy banker class that had caused the recession.

I’m sure Hillary, a brilliant politician, sees the writing on the wall. The country, feeling burned by both parties, including the so-called Tea Party, is moving left. Unfortunately, like Bill Clinton and current president Obama, Hillary’s economic advisors are the same Wall Street crowd that caused the Great Recession. She’s great on women’s issues, and gay issues, and can talk convincingly about the struggles of working families, but her financial and political ties to banks and corporations represent a conflict of interest, and could make her less attractive and trustworthy in the eyes of the electorate.

Scheiber describes the ideal candidate to take on Hillary Clinton:

Which brings us to the probable face of the insurgency. In addition to being strongly identified with the party’s populist wing, any candidate who challenged Clinton would need several key assets. The candidate would almost certainly have to be a woman, given Democrats’ desire to make history again. She would have to amass huge piles of money with relatively little effort. Above all, she would have to awaken in Democratic voters an almost evangelical passion. As it happens, there is precisely such a person. Her name is Elizabeth Warren.

Contrary to popular opinion, Scheiber thinks Warren has a chance to defeat Clinton in the primary. And, as we all know, it won’t be the first time a younger, political newbie has won the nomination from an older, seasoned member of a political dynasty. If she chooses to run, Warren will be running, not for her own ambition, not because “it’s her turn,” but on behalf of a battered middle class and for the restoration of the soul of the Democratic Party.

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