Not so long ago, I posted a blog about being an old and jaded woman who doesn’t believe someone like Bernie Sanders stands a chance in the general election.
Well, now I…still don’t believe Bernie could win. (Although Scott Walker has dropped out, thank the gods!) But I do have to make note of something I’m seeing… Yesterday was National Voter Registration Day, and I took the day off from work so I could spend it all registering voters. Because I’m a giant political nerd. Oregon does technically have the new law where you automatically get registered to vote if you have a driver’s license or ID at the DMV, but a lot of (especially younger) people who don’t have IDs might fall through the cracks, so voter registration drives continue to be an awesome thing.
We did our registration drive at a local college, and the students were incredibly enthusiastic about signing up. And the main reason for their enthusiasm? Yep, you guessed it. Bernie. Lots of young people who wanted to make sure they could vote for him in 2016, who wanted to make sure they were registered Democratic so they could vote for him in the primaries. So Bernie’s campaign to win the White House may not be realistic, but he is getting a whole new generation of Americans excited and involved in the election process. I doubt that the students would have been so fired up if it had been just Hillary or Biden running.
Or maybe they would have been. The number two reason I heard from our brand new voters was: “I don’t care what happens–I don’t want Donald Trump to win.” There are certainly some colorful personalities involved in the 2016 race, and that may motivate high voter turnout. Whether or not that’s a good thing? We shall see when the election results come in…
eurobrat 
09/23/2015 at 8:41 pm
so glad to hear something optimistic about this election for a change. you’re awesome for doing the registration drive!!
09/24/2015 at 7:51 pm
Thank you! It was a lot of fun, and revived some of my optimism as well 🙂
09/23/2015 at 8:41 pm
YAY Bernie! Glad that students are taking part in the Democratic processes.
09/24/2015 at 7:51 pm
Absolutely, and they are excited about getting involved!
09/24/2015 at 12:17 am
How could DT (Delirious Tremends) run the country. I saw his son leering at a former Playboy pinup on a Celebrity Apprentice episode. I almost grabbed my bug spray but then I realised he wasn in my iPad. x
09/24/2015 at 7:50 pm
Hahahaha…that entire family is extremely scary.
09/24/2015 at 6:55 am
I believe in Bernie, and I’ll vote for him in the Dem primary. I do believe that Joe Biden’s decision to run or not will play a big role in the numbers game. If Biden decides not to run, most of his would-be supporters will switch to Hillary, I think.
09/24/2015 at 7:49 pm
Ah, so you are more optimistic than me about Bernie…and I sincerely hope that you are right and I am wrong.
09/25/2015 at 4:28 am
Well, here’s my thinking (I think a lot, surprisingly): If we vote for him in the primaries–if enough of us vote for him and he still doesn’t win–the DNC has to listen to the message we are sending, and maybe Hillary will heed that message.
Now, if miracles happen and Bernie wins the nomination then we have a battle on our hands. I sense you are much younger than I, but I remember when Nixon beat McGovern in ’72. I couldn’t vote yet, but McGovern was very much like a younger Bernie–idealistic, progressive, and really scary to the conservatives. I often wonder how different our country might be now if McGovern had won that election.
09/25/2015 at 7:25 pm
I’m not surprised at all to hear that you think a lot…your posts are always quite thoughtful. I was indeed born after that Nixon victory, but it is the general election I’m most worried about. I think Bernie could beat Hillary for the nomination, but you are correct that after that the real battle would begin.
09/26/2015 at 4:04 am
Can an elderly Jewish socialist win the presidency? A LOT of thought would need to go into choosing a running mate.
09/27/2015 at 12:30 pm
There is no way in hell America would elect a socialist.
But even if the Democrats grew a pair and looked like they might nominate one, The Powers That Be would make DAMN sure that socialist would get a “sudden heart attack”….or take a one-way flight on a small, “poorly maintained”, aircraft.
Too many very important people would be threatened by the “legitimization” from a socialist just winning the Democratic Nomination…even if he was going to make McGovern’s run look like a landslide victory over Nixon.
But regarding the Voter registration, good work. However, I think it should be automatic as part of registering for school as well. You should not be able to turn 18 without getting (permanently) registered.
Me? I got my Voter Registration Card (for October’s Canuckistan election) in the mail Friday….which is amusing because home delivery of mail is something the current Conservative government is in the process of eliminating. When the Conservatives slipped in the polls, they tripled the speed at which the phase-out is happening.
09/28/2015 at 8:18 pm
Gee, what a coincidence!
I don’t think we even have to worry about the fake “heart attack”…I still don’t see Bernie getting the votes to win. I might be wrong, and I’m being told so by quite a few friends 🙂
09/30/2015 at 1:36 pm
Oh, you don’t have to worry about that fake heart attack, but Bernie sure as hell does!
His ideas are so unpalatable to The Powers That Be that plans to give Bernie that “heart attack” might kick into gear if he won just ONE state, the “ideally” timed vote in his own neighbourhood, New Hampshire. Since my 2016 vow prevents me from looking at polls, I have no idea how he’s doing there. But given he lives next door & his disposition seems to fit N.H., it’s not unreasonable to think he’d do well there.
The idiotic Primary system has expanded to over a year of (meaningless) speculation before the 1st vote is cast. As a result, completely inappropriate importance is placed upon the results of the first few Primaries. They are tiny, delegate-insignificant, states that can often be won on a total fluke. But in this idiotic, speculative, front-loaded, system, it’s not uncommon to build “unstoppable momentum” with less than 1% of Primary votes cast.
Just look at what happened to “America’s Mayor”, Rudy Giuliani, in 2008. He was a legitimate Top Tier candidate with big money and spent much of 2007 as #1 in the (meaningless) polls. He passed on Iowa & New Hampshire to target more delegate-rich states. It was an attempt to apply a perfectly logical strategy to a completely illogical system. Because he chose to avoid the candidate sardine can of Iowa & N.H., the hype machine completely ignored him in favour of complete nobodies who crammed into the sardine can. Despite being arguably their most viable candidate, Rudy was completely ignored and wound up spending $50+ million bucks (which used to be a LOT) to win ZERO delegates and finish last. He was so completely forgotten in the Media Circus, he was passed over by McCain for VP candidate in favour of some half-baked Alaskan retard. Needless to say, 2008 was the last time I took the Primary process seriously.
Now back to the topic…
Because of this illogical system, The Powers That Be know that any success of a candidate like Bernie needs to be nipped in the bud, lest it generate the all-important “momentum”.
Yes, candidates are allowed to live for proposing “socialist” policies, but a self-proclaimed Socialist who proudly proposes socialist policies HAS to be shut down, lest he start a trend. He and/or his campaign must die a miserable, success-free, death or else his ideas might live on.
Feel the Bern!!!…in your chest?…Quick, somebody call Bernie a doctor!…Never mind.
09/30/2015 at 8:09 pm
Ha, love the “feel the Bern” skit! He won’t even get that far though…the powers that be don’t need to be concerned. The general public in America won’t vote for him. The Bernie enthusiasts I was registering were art college students in a Left Coast city. I know plenty of people who still think Obama is the second coming of Lenin, and he doesn’t even claim to be a socialist.
10/01/2015 at 11:56 am
Which is why he’s still alive. If Barry O called himself a socialist, he wouldn’t make it to next week.
10/04/2015 at 11:30 am
No doubt! And he probably wouldn’t have gotten re-elected in the first place.
10/01/2015 at 9:11 pm
I’m a big fan of ideologues, no matter what creed. So I wish him the best 🙂
10/04/2015 at 11:30 am
I kinda like ideologues!
10/27/2015 at 9:55 am
Hey there “old woman”. Time to stop sunning yourself and get back to writing!
(If stuck for a topic, may I suggest the recent Canuckistan election? You can just post the topic, slap a couple lines together and let me kvetch for a few thousand words.)
10/27/2015 at 9:52 pm
Ha, I wish I were sunning myself! I’ve been crazy busy with the local political stuff. I am planning to jump back into blogging soon. At the moment, I’m spending my spare time cutting endless cardboard squares for an art project I’m participating in…so many cardboard squares…..
Also, congrats on your country’s election results! Maybe now you’ll finally start that blog…and I’ll get to kvetch for a few thousand words in the comments 😉
10/28/2015 at 1:31 pm
“Also, congrats on your country’s election results! Maybe now you’ll finally start that blog…and I’ll get to kvetch for a few thousand words in the comments”
Sorry, but you don’t get off that easily. My kvetching rampages cannot be corralled, even within my own (still pending)
blogeducational website.As for the Canuckistan election….”congratulations” is a bit of a misnomer… Yes, the Conservatives are out. But the (mediocre at best) Liberal Party won a damn Majority Government. They now have 100% of the power in the legislature and are accountable to nobody. (Kinda like the NSA.) My party fell from a 3 way tie for 1st just weeks before the vote to a completely irrelevant 3rd.
This election is probably akin to Obama winning. The worst Bad Guys are gone. The new guy is smart, handsome & seems like a nice guy. But I expect virtually NOTHING in the way of “hope” or “change”. Same bullshit, same downward direction, just a little slower and little more watered down.
At this point, the ONLY verifiable good news from the election is that Canada Post has announced they’ve stopped taking away people’s home delivery of mail (a despicable Conservative policy) So, my home delivery will remain. About half of my city lost their home delivery during the election and probably will never get it back.
I guess this is the closest to “victory” as it will get. (Really makes a guy want to eat a gun.) Although, I’m crossing my fingers that “anti-stress” brownies will be made legal, as promised by the Liberals.
But keep those updates coming, no matter how “local”. From what I understand, Portlandia is about the most “hopeful” place left on the continent. Interesting to see what going on there that ain’t happening elsewhere.
10/31/2015 at 10:40 am
Hmmmm, but are there any election results you would have been happy with? Any “realistic” ones, anyway?
Anyhoo, this definitely isn’t the end of me as far as blogging is concerned…I love writing too much to stop. But for now, I’m off to get my costume ready. Have a wonderful Halloween, sedate me!
11/02/2015 at 9:46 am
Better not be the end of you! Yours is of the few blogs (I’m still welcome on) that post stories more than 3 times a year.
As for the Canuckistan election…(Oh yeah, there’s no escaping it. I don’t get to escape your country’s friggin 2 year long election. So what’s good for the goose…)
I’d have been pretty
hoppy,heppyhippie(whatever that fucking word is!) with a New Democratic Party (NDP) victory, even a Minority Government. That’s the kind where you need another party’s help to get anything passed. (Insert smug “Canada has 5 parties in the legislature” comment here.) Hell, even a Liberal Minority would have been FAR better than a Majority because they’d need NDP support. (Insert smug “Our parties know what the word ‘compromise’ means” comment here.)The NDP is a Democratic Socialist party….Yes, a party full of “Bernies”! They’re the ones who got us free health care. (Insert Canadian smugness here.)
As for “realistic” results, a narrow NDP victory was absolutely realistic. They had the 2nd most seats before the election. And until the last 3-ish weeks of the election, they were in a 3 way tie with the Liberals & Conservatives. But alas, one moment of perceived weakness was all it took. A few polls said they dropped about 3 points, but were still within the Margin Of Error of 1st. And BOOM!!!
That one sniff of weakness (possibly just a random statistical error) is all it took to cause a stampede of voters scared shitless of another Conservative Majority toward the Liberals.
It’s the shitty First-Past-The-Post electoral system both of our nations use. (The only other nation that still uses it is England) In a multi-party system, it causes “vote splitting” that can give you 100% of the legislative power with as little as 34% of the votes. At one point, the Conservatives appeared they were going to do just that. Even though 2/3 of Canadian voters hated their fucking guts, they came within a hair of winning 3 elections in a row, 2 of them Majorities with 100% of the legislative power.
Everybody is afraid to vote for who they actually want for fear of getting who they hate elected (Think: the Nader fear) Fucking insane! Liberal PM Trudeau promised to scrap First Past The Post. We’ll see. I give it a 10% chance of happening. Once in office, the unfair things you wanted to scrap start to look better.
11/02/2015 at 5:14 pm
Well, thank you. You’re always welcome on my blog.
Okay, it makes sense that you could’ve been happy with an NDP victory. I’m used to political parties that are all “Bernies” from when I was growing up in Europe. And all it took was that one wobble in the polls, huh? Man, tough luck. Hope it goes better for them next time around.
11/13/2015 at 12:43 pm
Nope. This was the first & last realistic chance for the NDP. The NDP had only surged in recent years due to the collapse of the Liberals. But now the Liberals are back as strong as ever. The NDP is back to their traditional 3rd and will stay there.
But, as previously mentioned, the “good news” is Trudeau promised:
1) an end to a riding/jurisdiction based 1st-Past-The-Post electoral system which allows for “vote splitting” & gerrymandering and a move toward Proportional Representation. (30% votes = 30% of the seats)
2) to legalize “anti-stress” brownies, which will help me “de-stress”, if such a thing is even possible.
3) halt the further cancellation of home mail delivery.
Funnily enough, I was personally handed my mail by an actual human being who knows me by name while writing this. Just imagine such a level of human contact in the year 2015, where most people now break up with their “soulmates” in text messages because they can’t bother to put down their fucking devices long enough!
My dogs, my mail lady & I all shared a close personal moment…kisses were exchanged. Dog kisses mind you…but still. Ironically, her real name is Stoner and I expect she will be delivering my mail-order weed directly to my door. In 2015, I suppose this is as good as it is allowed to get.
You know me, always the sunny optimist ready to completely ignore the tidal wave of evil and concentrate on the sliver of a silver lining. (Oops, I just lost my lunch typing that.)
11/15/2015 at 8:44 pm
Yep, I know you well enough by now to know that sunny optimism thing is totally true 😉 But hey, I love dog kisses!
In other news, the salmon art event I helped organize is done and was a success…I’m hoping I’ll have more time for blog posts again now that I’m not cutting cardboard all the time….
11/22/2015 at 10:35 am
Oh dear, it is your life, guys, and the results of your elections will have an impact on the whole world. Do your best, people. Please!
11/22/2015 at 6:48 pm
Oh, absolutely. I’m keeping a balance between wanting the best possible option and realizing what is realistically achievable.
11/23/2015 at 3:19 am
Exactly, the balance is that you all need, not the swinging from one extreme to the other.
11/24/2015 at 10:37 am
A “realistically achievable” option ?
These days, that probably means the worst possible outcome…maybe with a 50% off coupon for China Mart tossed in. Unfortunately, most people would be cool with that.
11/24/2015 at 7:40 pm
Well, there isn’t a perfect option, but there never is in life. Unless you mean that Trump is the only realistic choice in which case, yes, that is the worst possible outcome 🙂
11/25/2015 at 12:15 pm
1) I’ve said this about 365 times already in 2015 (which says a lot in itself), but Trump isn’t going to be an option in 2016…which is why I can talk about him all I want and not break my “No 2016 until 2016!” vow. He is like the highly advertised product on sale for 75% off that will disappear by the time you get to the store.
2) Nothing in this Digital
EraError is real. Everything is fake, a con-job, corporate lies, or a CIA psy-op. People are now free, and strongly encouraged, to believe every idiotic thing they want to, irregardless of the facts.Within that context, millions of delusional idiots are positive they’re going to be the next superstar, or that their government goes through their underwear drawer in order to keep them safe from “underwear bombers”. Things are so batshit crazy, even Donald Trump can be considered a “legitimate” political candidate.
3) I am the perfect option! (See: Point #2) …Well, if the US Empire allowed me to be an option, that is. Maybe I could pull a Ted Cruz and pretend I’m American born. Worked flawlessly for him.
11/28/2015 at 6:37 pm
LOL! You are the perfect option, huh? Well, you certainly don’t suffer from low esteem, and that is a good thing…congratulations!