“REALITY-BASED COMMENTARY”?
The election in South Carolina yesterday could potentially be the turning point in the entire Democratic primary season for the 2016 presidential election.
Yet other than a post by Fred Rich LaRiccia, there appears to be radio silence on this blog regarding the results of this South Carolina primary.
More importantly, LaRiccia’s previous post of this week, which laid out a comprehensive case for the candidacy of Hillary Clinton, is approaching 100 comments. Nonetheless that post has been denied a spot on the front page.
I have remained uncommitted in this race, but I have made no secret of my admiration for Bernie Sanders. Yet the speech given by Hillary Clinton after her win in South Carolina that included a newly focused alternative to the barbarism of Trumpism and that was stunning in its grace, eloquence, and vision, seems destined to be ignored as well.
Do these editorial choices represent disdain for lowly electoral politics (as opposed to esoteric – and therefore elite – public policy debates)? Is this distancing consonant with the “Reality-Based Commentary” mission that appears in the masthead of this blog?
I know the niceties of local transportation policy are absolutely thrilling, but is what is really at work here a bias that causes political advocacy in an American presidential election season to be beneath the intellectual dignity of the powers that be if that advocacy is on behalf of Hillary Clinton?
Please share widely!
It’s not that (1) I don’t get sucked in to the national horse-race stuff too or (2) I don’t enjoy what people here have to say on many topics.
But I really come here for Bay State reality-based commentary. The budget, the T, the corruption of my party and the failure of any other party to challenge that, Prop 2-1/2, and other things peculiar to Massachusetts (and sometimes neighboring states).
It’s on that score if any that this blog sometimes falls short.
Feel free to be part of the change after March 1st.
Not a single person running for town committee in the most populous town in the Commonwealth. So, there’s that issue…
I was just named one of the co-chairs of the Field Services subcommittee and I hope to prioritize getting every town and ward an organized Dem committee.
And no, we have to have candidates and a movement first before we can have a town committee everywhere. If our criteria was a town committee in every town, we’d be a party in a few hundreds years. But the legal criteria is ballot access. Stay tuned, we got some great candidates coming up and they will be running in competitive high profile races.
After rereading the subthread and remembering the context of any references you make to after March 1st, that seems to make sense now – mea culpa.
But if you can’t get a single supporter in Plymouth, it doesn’t augur well…they have a blank ballot posted for all to see at Town Hall.
Go for it. We got a Weymouth Town Committee we just inaugurated tonight and a Holyoke committee. I’m chomping at the bit to show our slate of serious candidates, but we will be rolling that out next week.
I want places that are our most active to have town committees to coordinate their efforts, I don’t see the point of having them just for the sake of saying every town has them.
You need five votes to get elected to a local party committee. Does UIP have a ballot tomorrow? At a local town hall I thought I just saw Dem, GOP, and Green samples posted. MA is in play for the primary so I don’t think it makes sense to take it as an unenrolled voter. Dems of course have to take a Dem ballot.
The Falchuk family and some supporters in his Ward elected him, Nathan Macher got friends in Brookline to do it, so did some of our folks in Weymouth and a candidate up in Beverly. Our councilor in Holyoke was really hitting the pavement to get the 163 voters up there to put him in. So we will see!
Enrollment figures came back and 17,000 voters stayed in the party. We have pledges from thousands of more to come back or join for the first time. So it’s real and we will see who else get elected on our ballot. It’s a fun experiment in democracy.
The last Democrat to win any South Carolina electoral votes was Jimmy Carter, in 1976. Bill Clinton got none. The fact that the small number of Democrats in SC prefer Clinton over Sanders is not likely to translate into any help for her in the general.
That’s some reality.
I think it is important a small number of Democrats in SC showed us how the voting population is trending.
Clinton (or Sanders) probably won’t win the state in the general election……so this is when Democrats in that state get to have a say.
For the record……….
Barack Obama’s 2008 primary win in SC didn’t translate in the general either.
She was expected to win big and she won big. We don’t have lots of diaries saying “Trump said something dumb” or “Sanders leads in Vermont” for similar reasons. If anyone thinks this indicates a broader point, by all means. If someone has an interesting post echoing mainstream press’s argument that SC demonstrates Bernie is dead in the water, that could generate some traction.
I also agree with t-u….this stuff you can (and most of us do) get many other places. It’s the Mass. commentary that makes this blog unique, usually.
Fred Rich LaRiccia’s post is certainly well put-together. If I’m not mistaken, it doesn’t stray very far from what the Clinton campaign itself is saying. Maybe that’s why? Not sure. Possibly the editors are waiting for back-to-back contrasting posts, one from each candidate.
As I said in another thread about MA relevance, we are not. We are a boringly reliable blue state. Democrats only come here to fundraise or vacation, secure in the knowledge that there will be no demonstrations or unpleasantness, and the locals will be properly worshipful. The Republicans have minor interest in delegates, as only 5% of the popular vote will get you one (a change made at the state committee level by a certain national committee man and former driver for Bush 41, who was concerned that a candidate he was committed to wouldn’t get ANY delegates in our state). After that, we regain our sheep-like reputation on the national stage, tolerating any and all corruption – fiscal, sexual, moral – from any Democrat and rabid, unreasoning hatred of any Republican regardless of any record or effort.
After Super Tuesday we revert to our former political irrelevance to both national parties for another 4 tears. Why waste perfectly good pixels posting here when there are other places where votes remain to be convinced?
Is this post directed at the editors, or the community? It seems literally directed at the editors, but its tone seems to include everyone.
Anyone who wants to write a post supporting Hillary Clinton is welcome to do so. I’m an editor, and I’m voting for her. But supporters of Sanders are certainly well within the camp of “reality-based persons” as I’d define then. Donald Trump, however, who thinks we should forbid people to immigrate because of their religious faith, is a fabulist.
In my view, we’ve already said all there is to say about each candidate.
My sense is that those of us who are willing to make up our mind before entering the voting booth have already done so. We’ve had a full, candid, and frank exchange of views here many times over.
I don’t much care about the “horse race” of who is winning and losing or who is going to win or lose in November, and I think we’ve already explored pretty much everything else there is to explore.
Finally, I want to say for the record that I think the editors have done a fine job. I like the addition of a fourth editor, and BMG itself seems to be in very good hands.
…have sometimes thought about posting something, but then don’t because someone else already has on the same topic. If I still have a point to make that wasn’t covered I usually just post it as a comment on the first diary.
Clinton destroyed Sanders. A complete destruction. To me with SC, Sanders is done, he will lose all states except his home state by wide margins on Super Tuesday. My sense is that if that holds up, he needs to drop out of the race.
I was out of the country and just came back yesterday. The trip gave me the opportunity to think about each candidate. Viewing the election via the BBC and International version of or US cable channels helps in forming my decision.
I watched clips of Sanders talking about he welfare reform act prior to SC and my jaw dropped. The only thing I thought when watching is was that he’s JUST ANOTHER POL. It was disgusting and SC responded to that repugnant attack.