Re: [blind-democracy] A Contested Convention Is Exactly What the Democratic Party Needs

Despite the current mess the Republican Party finds itself in, both
major parties are committed to a two party system. And in supporting
and working for this two party system, they also attempt to control
the party loyalists from their central committees.
I just received my primary ballot. In Washington, we vote by mail. I
do have the option, which I use, to go to my county courthouse and
vote by an accessible machine, which reads to me as I mark my paper
ballot. But on my ballot, according to my wife, there are only two
columns, Democrat and Republican. While I am not either, I will mark
my ballot for Bernie Sanders.

Carl Jarvis


On May 6, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@optonline.net> wrote:
>
> Nichols writes: "What Sanders is proposing is a necessary quest - and a
> realistic one. Already, he is better positioned than any recent insurgent
> challenger to engage in rules and platform debates, as well as in dialogues
> about everything from the vice-presidential nomination to the character of
> the fall campaign."
>
> Senator Bernie Sanders. (photo: Scott Olson/Getty)
>
>
> A Contested Convention Is Exactly What the Democratic Party Needs
> By John Nichols, Moyers & Company
> 05 May 16
>
> Bernie Sanders will go to Philadelphia with more pledged delegates than any
> insurgent in modern history. Here's what he could do with them.
> Joe Biden understands something about the Democratic Party and its future
> that his fellow partisans would do well to consider. "I don't think any
> Democrat's ever won saying, 'We can't think that big - we ought to really
> downsize here because it's not realistic,'" the vice president told The New
> York Times in April. "C'mon man, this is the Democratic Party! I'm not part
> of the party that says, 'Well, we can't do it.'" Mocking Hillary Clinton's
> criticism of Bernie Sanders for proposing bold reforms, Biden dismissed the
> politics of lowered expectations. "I like the idea of saying, 'We can do
> much more,' because we can," he declared, leading the Times to observe
> that,
> while Biden wasn't making an endorsement, "He'll take Mr. Sanders's
> aspirational approach over Mrs. Clinton's caution any day."
> Unwittingly or not, Biden made an even better case than Sanders has for
> taking his insurgent campaign all the way to the Democratic convention in
> Philadelphia. If the party is going to run in 2016 on a "do much more"
> agenda - as opposed to triangulating around the center - the Vermont
> senator's supporters and like-minded Democrats, including Clinton's
> progressive backers, will have to force the issue. Taking the Sanders
> insurgency to the convention is the paramount vehicle for placing demands
> that are ideological and, as Biden's comments suggest, also strategic.
> That's one reason why Sanders promised in a statement on April 26 to go to
> the convention with "as many delegates as possible to fight for a
> progressive party platform" - despite the fact that Clinton's delegate
> advantage now all but guarantees that she will win the nomination.
> What Sanders is proposing is a necessary quest - and a realistic one.
> Already, he is better positioned than any recent insurgent challenger to
> engage in rules and platform debates, as well as in dialogues about
> everything from the vice-presidential nomination to the character of the
> fall campaign. As veteran political analyst Rhodes Cook noted in a survey
> prepared for The Atlantic, by mid-April, Sanders had exceeded the overall
> vote totals and percentages of Howard Dean in 2004, Jesse Jackson in 1988,
> Gary Hart in 1984 and Ted Kennedy in 1980, among others. (While Barack
> Obama's 2008 challenge to Clinton began as something of an insurgency, he
> eventually ran with the solid support of key party leaders like Kennedy.)
> By
> the time the District of Columbia votes on June 14, Sanders will have more
> pledged delegates than any challenger seeking to influence a national
> convention and its nominee since the party began to democratize its
> nominating process following the disastrous, boss-dominated convention of
> 1968.
> This new reality has Clinton supporters fretting about the prospect of a
> chaotic convention that could expose divisions within the party when it
> should be uniting for what increasing looks like a fall fight against
> Donald
> Trump. But a muscular appearance by Sanders and his delegates at the
> convention doesn't have to lead to bitterness. Historically, contested
> conventions - not carefully choreographed coronations - have led parties
> and
> their nominees to take more audacious positions and to excite broader
> electoral coalitions.
> "Conventions are where we come together, but you don't really come together
> if you avoid differences," says the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who has protested,
> attended or spoken at nearly a dozen Democratic national conventions (and
> who has not endorsed a candidate in the primary race this year). "You start
> by understanding that it takes two wings to fly. If you have two strong
> wings - a wing that has won and a wing that has lost - you don't deny the
> differences; you recognize them. You debate, find common ground, find ways
> to start working together for immediate goals - the next election - and for
> long-term goals that can mean as much to the nation as to the party."
> Recent conventions have been so tightly scripted that it's easy to forget
> that both parties have long histories of contested gatherings - sometimes
> with open combat over the party's standard-bearer (as may erupt at this
> year's Republican convention), but often with spirited competition over
> rules, platforms and the very nature of the party itself. Contested
> conventions can open policy debates and clear the way for "significant
> political and social progress," argues Fitchburg State University professor
> Benjamin Railton, who has analyzed the history of conventions. With 18
> state
> wins so far and more than 1,350 delegates, Sanders is uniquely poised to
> push for such progress. Since Clinton will likely arrive at the convention
> with a majority of the pledged delegates and a lead in the popular vote,
> she'll have every right to argue, as she did in April, that "I am winning.
> And I'm winning because of what I stand for and what I've done."
> Front-runners rarely invite input from insurgent challengers, and if
> Clinton
> chooses to wall Sanders off, she'll have the upper hand in Philadelphia. In
> January, Democratic National Committee chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz
> appointed a pair of Clinton allies, Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy and
> former Atlanta mayor Shirley Franklin, to head the platform committee. And
> an ardent Clinton supporter and noted Sanders antagonist, former
> congressman
> Barney Frank, will cochair the rules committee.
> But Clinton's decision to adopt what was initially Sanders's position on a
> host of issues, from wages to climate change to trade policy, shows that
> her
> campaign recognizes that a substantial portion of the party's base - as
> well
> as its potential base - is attracted to Sanders's more aspirational
> message.
> And the pressure to make that recognition a part of the Democratic platform
> will grow as the committees expand before the convention and Sanders aides
> urge the DNC to deliver on the promise made by spokesman Luis Miranda: that
> the party is "committed to an open, inclusive and representative process"
> for drawing up the platform, and that "both of our campaigns will be
> represented on the drafting committee."
> If Sanders advocates gain sufficient representation to provoke debates,
> what
> are the likely pressure points? Like Jackson and his supporters, who forced
> rules reforms and the diversification of the DNC in 1988, the Sanders camp
> could champion a more open and representative Democratic Party. There could
> be calls for reducing or eliminating the role of superdelegates, for a
> better approach to scheduling debates and for consistent primary rules to
> avoid dramatic variations in turnout based on whether the primary is open
> or
> closed. Even though Sanders ran well in caucuses, his backers could gain
> credibility by also arguing that caucuses are too incoherently organized
> and
> difficult to participate in to be justified. On all of these issues,
> Sanders
> supporters would have to establish alliances with Clinton backers who
> recognize that it is time to "democratize the Democratic Party."
> The prospect of aligning with Clinton supporters, especially progressive
> members of Congress and labor activists who will attend the convention as
> superdelegates, creates even greater openings for platform fights.
> Prospective nominees tend to favor weaker platforms; Harry Truman would
> have
> preferred milder civil-rights commitments than were made in his party's
> 1948
> platform, and it took steady pressure from unions, liberals and Ted Kennedy
> to get Jimmy Carter to finally embrace spending on jobs programs. It will
> take similar pressure to get Clinton and her inner circle to accept a
> Democratic platform that Sanders says must include "a $15-an-hour minimum
> wage, an end to our disastrous trade policies, a Medicare-for-all
> health-care system, breaking up Wall Street financial institutions, ending
> fracking in our country, making public colleges and universities
> tuition-free, and passing a carbon tax so we can effectively address the
> planetary crisis of climate change." Clinton stalwarts may want to keep
> things vague, but look for the Sanders team to demand specifics, such as an
> explicit endorsement of a national $15 minimum wage instead of the $12
> proposal that Clinton initially offered, and an unequivocal rejection of
> the
> Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal that President Obama supports and that
> Clinton once championed but now criticizes.
> As it happens, many of Clinton's most passionate allies have been outspoken
> supporters of the fight for $15, fair-trade policies and proposals to break
> up the big banks. One of them, Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown, a potential
> vice-presidential pick, has argued publicly that Clinton "should work with
> [Sanders] on the platform" in order to strengthen the party's appeal. Other
> Clinton backers like Connecticut Representative Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) and
> nonaligned House members like Wisconsin's Mark Pocan could play a critical
> role in steering the party toward unequivocal opposition to the TPP. There
> could also be room for cooperation on addressing mass incarceration,
> passing
> constitutional amendments to get big money out of politics and guaranteeing
> voting rights for all.
> Sanders backers want to win these platforms fights - not to make a point
> about their campaign, but to make a deeper point about what the Democratic
> Party must stand for in order to win the 2016 election and the future. "The
> convention can amplify what this campaign made visible - that there are
> millions of Americans who are hurting - and say that the Democratic Party
> has to respond to that pain with bigger and bolder policies," says Working
> Families Party national director Dan Cantor, a veteran of the 1988 Jackson
> campaign who is now a Sanders backer. "Democrats who want to win a big
> majority in November, to take back the Congress and to move forward in the
> states, know that the party has to stand for something that excites young
> people, that excites working people. No matter who the nominee is, the
> party
> has to take a big-vision stand."
> Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. Error! Hyperlink reference not
> valid.
>
> Senator Bernie Sanders. (photo: Scott Olson/Getty)
> http://billmoyers.com/story/a-contested-convention-is-exactly-what-the-democ
> ratic-party-needs/http://billmoyers.com/story/a-contested-convention-is-exac
> tly-what-the-democratic-party-needs/
> A Contested Convention Is Exactly What the Democratic Party Needs
> By John Nichols, Moyers & Company
> 05 May 16
> Bernie Sanders will go to Philadelphia with more pledged delegates than any
> insurgent in modern history. Here's what he could do with them.
> oe Biden understands something about the Democratic Party and its future
> that his fellow partisans would do well to consider. "I don't think any
> Democrat's ever won saying, 'We can't think that big - we ought to really
> downsize here because it's not realistic,'" the vice president told The New
> York Times in April. "C'mon man, this is the Democratic Party! I'm not part
> of the party that says, 'Well, we can't do it.'" Mocking Hillary Clinton's
> criticism of Bernie Sanders for proposing bold reforms, Biden dismissed the
> politics of lowered expectations. "I like the idea of saying, 'We can do
> much more,' because we can," he declared, leading the Times to observe
> that,
> while Biden wasn't making an endorsement, "He'll take Mr. Sanders's
> aspirational approach over Mrs. Clinton's caution any day."
> Unwittingly or not, Biden made an even better case than Sanders has for
> taking his insurgent campaign all the way to the Democratic convention in
> Philadelphia. If the party is going to run in 2016 on a "do much more"
> agenda - as opposed to triangulating around the center - the Vermont
> senator's supporters and like-minded Democrats, including Clinton's
> progressive backers, will have to force the issue. Taking the Sanders
> insurgency to the convention is the paramount vehicle for placing demands
> that are ideological and, as Biden's comments suggest, also strategic.
> That's one reason why Sanders promised in a statement on April 26 to go to
> the convention with "as many delegates as possible to fight for a
> progressive party platform" - despite the fact that Clinton's delegate
> advantage now all but guarantees that she will win the nomination.
> What Sanders is proposing is a necessary quest - and a realistic one.
> Already, he is better positioned than any recent insurgent challenger to
> engage in rules and platform debates, as well as in dialogues about
> everything from the vice-presidential nomination to the character of the
> fall campaign. As veteran political analyst Rhodes Cook noted in a survey
> prepared for The Atlantic, by mid-April, Sanders had exceeded the overall
> vote totals and percentages of Howard Dean in 2004, Jesse Jackson in 1988,
> Gary Hart in 1984 and Ted Kennedy in 1980, among others. (While Barack
> Obama's 2008 challenge to Clinton began as something of an insurgency, he
> eventually ran with the solid support of key party leaders like Kennedy.)
> By
> the time the District of Columbia votes on June 14, Sanders will have more
> pledged delegates than any challenger seeking to influence a national
> convention and its nominee since the party began to democratize its
> nominating process following the disastrous, boss-dominated convention of
> 1968.
> This new reality has Clinton supporters fretting about the prospect of a
> chaotic convention that could expose divisions within the party when it
> should be uniting for what increasing looks like a fall fight against
> Donald
> Trump. But a muscular appearance by Sanders and his delegates at the
> convention doesn't have to lead to bitterness. Historically, contested
> conventions - not carefully choreographed coronations - have led parties
> and
> their nominees to take more audacious positions and to excite broader
> electoral coalitions.
> "Conventions are where we come together, but you don't really come together
> if you avoid differences," says the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who has protested,
> attended or spoken at nearly a dozen Democratic national conventions (and
> who has not endorsed a candidate in the primary race this year). "You start
> by understanding that it takes two wings to fly. If you have two strong
> wings - a wing that has won and a wing that has lost - you don't deny the
> differences; you recognize them. You debate, find common ground, find ways
> to start working together for immediate goals - the next election - and for
> long-term goals that can mean as much to the nation as to the party."
> Recent conventions have been so tightly scripted that it's easy to forget
> that both parties have long histories of contested gatherings - sometimes
> with open combat over the party's standard-bearer (as may erupt at this
> year's Republican convention), but often with spirited competition over
> rules, platforms and the very nature of the party itself. Contested
> conventions can open policy debates and clear the way for "significant
> political and social progress," argues Fitchburg State University professor
> Benjamin Railton, who has analyzed the history of conventions. With 18
> state
> wins so far and more than 1,350 delegates, Sanders is uniquely poised to
> push for such progress. Since Clinton will likely arrive at the convention
> with a majority of the pledged delegates and a lead in the popular vote,
> she'll have every right to argue, as she did in April, that "I am winning.
> And I'm winning because of what I stand for and what I've done."
> Front-runners rarely invite input from insurgent challengers, and if
> Clinton
> chooses to wall Sanders off, she'll have the upper hand in Philadelphia. In
> January, Democratic National Committee chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz
> appointed a pair of Clinton allies, Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy and
> former Atlanta mayor Shirley Franklin, to head the platform committee. And
> an ardent Clinton supporter and noted Sanders antagonist, former
> congressman
> Barney Frank, will cochair the rules committee.
> But Clinton's decision to adopt what was initially Sanders's position on a
> host of issues, from wages to climate change to trade policy, shows that
> her
> campaign recognizes that a substantial portion of the party's base - as
> well
> as its potential base - is attracted to Sanders's more aspirational
> message.
> And the pressure to make that recognition a part of the Democratic platform
> will grow as the committees expand before the convention and Sanders aides
> urge the DNC to deliver on the promise made by spokesman Luis Miranda: that
> the party is "committed to an open, inclusive and representative process"
> for drawing up the platform, and that "both of our campaigns will be
> represented on the drafting committee."
> If Sanders advocates gain sufficient representation to provoke debates,
> what
> are the likely pressure points? Like Jackson and his supporters, who forced
> rules reforms and the diversification of the DNC in 1988, the Sanders camp
> could champion a more open and representative Democratic Party. There could
> be calls for reducing or eliminating the role of superdelegates, for a
> better approach to scheduling debates and for consistent primary rules to
> avoid dramatic variations in turnout based on whether the primary is open
> or
> closed. Even though Sanders ran well in caucuses, his backers could gain
> credibility by also arguing that caucuses are too incoherently organized
> and
> difficult to participate in to be justified. On all of these issues,
> Sanders
> supporters would have to establish alliances with Clinton backers who
> recognize that it is time to "democratize the Democratic Party."
> The prospect of aligning with Clinton supporters, especially progressive
> members of Congress and labor activists who will attend the convention as
> superdelegates, creates even greater openings for platform fights.
> Prospective nominees tend to favor weaker platforms; Harry Truman would
> have
> preferred milder civil-rights commitments than were made in his party's
> 1948
> platform, and it took steady pressure from unions, liberals and Ted Kennedy
> to get Jimmy Carter to finally embrace spending on jobs programs. It will
> take similar pressure to get Clinton and her inner circle to accept a
> Democratic platform that Sanders says must include "a $15-an-hour minimum
> wage, an end to our disastrous trade policies, a Medicare-for-all
> health-care system, breaking up Wall Street financial institutions, ending
> fracking in our country, making public colleges and universities
> tuition-free, and passing a carbon tax so we can effectively address the
> planetary crisis of climate change." Clinton stalwarts may want to keep
> things vague, but look for the Sanders team to demand specifics, such as an
> explicit endorsement of a national $15 minimum wage instead of the $12
> proposal that Clinton initially offered, and an unequivocal rejection of
> the
> Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal that President Obama supports and that
> Clinton once championed but now criticizes.
> As it happens, many of Clinton's most passionate allies have been outspoken
> supporters of the fight for $15, fair-trade policies and proposals to break
> up the big banks. One of them, Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown, a potential
> vice-presidential pick, has argued publicly that Clinton "should work with
> [Sanders] on the platform" in order to strengthen the party's appeal. Other
> Clinton backers like Connecticut Representative Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) and
> nonaligned House members like Wisconsin's Mark Pocan could play a critical
> role in steering the party toward unequivocal opposition to the TPP. There
> could also be room for cooperation on addressing mass incarceration,
> passing
> constitutional amendments to get big money out of politics and guaranteeing
> voting rights for all.
> Sanders backers want to win these platforms fights - not to make a point
> about their campaign, but to make a deeper point about what the Democratic
> Party must stand for in order to win the 2016 election and the future. "The
> convention can amplify what this campaign made visible - that there are
> millions of Americans who are hurting - and say that the Democratic Party
> has to respond to that pain with bigger and bolder policies," says Working
> Families Party national director Dan Cantor, a veteran of the 1988 Jackson
> campaign who is now a Sanders backer. "Democrats who want to win a big
> majority in November, to take back the Congress and to move forward in the
> states, know that the party has to stand for something that excites young
> people, that excites working people. No matter who the nominee is, the
> party
> has to take a big-vision stand."
> http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
> http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
>
>
>