Wednesday, January 30, 2008

The Democratic Race: Who's the Real Establishment Candidate?

Hillary is, among other things, widely characterized as the old-style, liberal Democratic candidate because she is supported by labor (horrors), older women (horrors of horrors), high-school graduates (what could be worse?) - none of whom, of course, have any right to a candidate whom they think will represent them. And, we should not forget, she is Bill's wife, was First Lady and is now a Senator.

Obama, OTOH, is the fresh new face. Young people like him. African-Americans like him. The highly educated like him. And, oh yes, he has endorsements from Sen. Ted Kennedy (who must feel pleased to know that he is not part of the Establishment) and John Kerry (ditto). He also has the support of most of the netroots who have expended enough energy repeating right-wing, neo-con, Republican slurs against Hillary to, surely, power an entire city.

Oh, and let us not forget: the MSM love Obama. They don't even bother to try to restrain their enthusiasm. Indeed, they have already crowned him our next President. Even Andrew Sullivan, self-styled saviour of the Conservative movement in America, loves him.

Anybody supported by such a motley mix is surely worthy of more than a little skepticism. He's such a blank slate that everybody from the far left to the far right, excepting those in the middle, sees in him what they want to see.

So, it looks to me as if the "change" guy is really the old-style pol who is careful not to offend anybody and who wins by slandering his opponent...and rolling in the dollars from the Democratic establishment.

Monday, January 28, 2008

Obama's 911: Judgment

Rudy's been selling himself as the 911 mayor for so long, even Joe Biden realized he was a one-note candidate: "a noun, a verb and 911"

But Obama's been running on two pitches and nobody has noticed how old they have gotten.

First there is his "new generation, bring us all together" about which I've written before. Tonight we got another indication of just how he is planning to bridge our differences: he snubbed Hillary when she took the initiative to shake Ted Kennedy's hand even though he had just endorsed Obama. (Obama had been standing beside him when Hillary approached.) It's one thing to be a sore loser; Obama is a sore winner.

But his key 911 song is "judgment". And what is this qualification pegged on? Well, he once publicly declared that he thought the war in Iraq was dumb. Gee whiz, I was also against the war before it started. Like Obama, I wasn't in a position to actually vote against it - but, what the heck, if that's all one needs to be a candidate, maybe I should run for office.

Sunday, January 27, 2008

Questions for Obama

It is well past time for somebody (Hillary? Edwards?) to ask Obama a couple of important questions:

1. Are you a Democrat or an Independent?

2. If you are a Democrat, what does that mean to you? What political beliefs do you have that distinguish you from being a Republican?

3. If you are an Independent, why should Democratic voters vote for you?

4. You say that it is time to end the divisiveness of the past 20 years. What, precisely, do you mean by this? What are the divisions you plan to overcome? And how do you plan to overcome them? For example, how do you plan to bridge the divide between Republicans who insist on Supreme Court justices who will override Roe v. Wade and Democrats who want the reverse? Or those who believe that tax cuts are the solution to every domestic problem vs. those who believe that the people, especially the rich, should be willing to pay for the government services they want? Between those who believe the war in Iraq is wrong and those who believe it is right? Are you just going to wave a wand and make all happiness and light? [oops, forget that one. "Fairy tale" allusions are racist.]

5. A rather large proportion of your vocal supporters on the Web have stated that they will vote for the Republican candidate, whoever he is, rather than vote for Hillary or John. That suggests that, at best, they are voting for you as a person rather than as somebody who supports their political beliefs. What do you say to them? And to Democrats who want a Democratic President who will represent their Democratic beliefs?

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

MSNBC Does Something Right: Rachael Maddow

Well, when I checked in with Countdown a few minutes ago, whom did I see but Rachael Maddow, not as a guest but as an MSNBC analyst!

Cheers to MSNBC, although it did take them rather a long time to realize that she is smarter than anybody else they have on the air.

Here's hoping that replacements for Matthews, Scarborough, and Carlson may be somewhere out there in the wings.

Criterion for choosing a candidate: The Press Conference Test

The latest California poll shows Hillary leading Barack by about 12 points but 20% of the voters are still undecided and, I suspect, a fair number who expressed a preference may not be fully committed.

So, if you still can't make up your mind, try the Press Conference Test. Ask yourself which of the candidates you would most want to watch at a press conference.

My take:
Remember: All of them would duck the questions they didn't want to answer.

Obama - he'll hem and haw (as he does often during the debates) and fall back on inspiring statements when he gets lost. Sort of like Bush except in full sentences.

Hillary - she'll bury the reporters in detail, admittedly not hard to do since 99% of the reporters couldn't explain her health plan even if they had read it (which they most probably have not). These would probably turn into such dull affairs that the news organizations would start sending their 2nd stringers.

Edwards - he might be a lighter version of JFK (still the best Press Conference President ever). He has a sense of humor and is skilled at facing an indifferent, at best, or hostile audience (the jury). Indeed, of the three, I think he is the only one who might survive, and enjoy, the British Parliament's Question Period

Criteria for choosing a candidate: Hope and Inspiration

Imagine that you are on the Board of Directors and are seeking a new CEO for Citigroup (largest loss in its 196 year history) and Merrill Lynch (worst results in its 94 year history). You have 3 candidates who are trying to prove to you that they will do the best job of turning those historic losses into profits.

Candidate #1 tells you how he will inspire the employees to work harder.

Candidate #2 says she has 35 years of experience during which time she has successfully coped with a variety of problems. She provides a detailed plan.

Candidate #3 has a lot of energy and a reputation as a goto guy. He identifies the primary cause for the losses, the people and actions responsible, and offers a general plan for recovery.

I suspect that you would not turn the job over to candidate #1.

Campaign phrases I am tired of hearing

1. "Change". Enough already. If you can't give specifics, the word's not worth a penny.

2. "35 years of experience". Hillary, we all get it. You'd be smarter to simply give specific examples, when the opportunity presents itself, of what you have done and when.

3. "I can inspire people". Barack, this is an incredibly arrogant statement even given the natural arrogance and ego that any candidate running for the Presidency can be expected to have. JFK, RFK, MLK all inspired people. But I doubt if any of them ever stated this ability as a qualification for public office. You remind me a bit of Wolf Blitzer who repeats at least 100 times a day that CNN has the best political team in the business - as if by saying it is so he can make it so (the grown-up edition of the self-esteem movement in the schools).

4. "I'm not an insider... and I've run a business". It's amazing to me that Romney can shout this with a straight face. It amazes me even more that people are attracted to this message. By my reckoning, the only insider President we've had since Gerald Ford was Bush 41. Reagan, Clinton, and Bush 43 all ran as outsiders. Bush ran as a businessman. Look where it has gotten us.

What have we learned from the debates?

1. A lot less than we should have. One reason many of us Democrats are still undecided (besides the fact that Democrats are blessed with a very strong bench) is that we still know very little about the nuts and bolts of the candidates' positions. The media have decided that the differences are too trivial to matter and too complex to present. They are probably right about the magnitude of the differences, but I would still like to hear a sustained debate among the remaining candidates (including Kucinich) on, for example, their health plans. What do I want to know? Well, for a start, their assessment of the pros and cons of mandates. What about the hundreds of different forms doctors and hospitals must deal with? Why not just take "over 65" out of the Medicare plan? I want to know what factors each candidate weighed in coming up with the plan, partly so I can understand the arguments over the differences and partly to see how well the candidates understand their own plans and can defend them.

2. The moderators wouldn't know a substantive question if it were dropped directly into their voice boxes. In the 1/20/08 South Carolina debate, Blitzer, at the end of the first part, told the audience to stay tuned for more substantive questions in the 2nd part. And what were some of these "substantive" questions? Is it OK for African-Americans to vote for a candidate because he is an African-American? (Edwards knocked this one out of the ballpark. Obama pretty much ignored it as did Hillary.) To Edwards: how do you feel being the only white man? Was Bill really the first Black President? And, to top it all off, Wolf ended with what I'm sure he thought would be the piéce de resistance: why MLK, if alive today, would endorse them.

3. Needless to say, the aprés-debate pundits focused on the mudslinging. They didn't even bother to hide their glee. It is clear that the press corps prefer a gloves-off (cheers to Jon Stewart for catching this) to a gloves-on boxing match.

DEMOCRATIC DREAM TEAM - Revisited

In my Jan. 15, 2008 entry, I gave my assessment of different pairings for a Democratic Dream Team. From various blogs, I see that I am not the only one who has thought of an Obama/Clinton or Clinton/Obama ticket as the solution to our indecision.

As I wrote earlier, I think the only two viable combos at the start of the campaign were Edwards/Obama or Clinton/Obama.

Today, given all the animosity that has been stirred up, largely by pundits and journalists looking for a fight, I think the chances for such a pairing have been reduced significantly. But I decided to look at the combos not from a political perspective but from a functional perspective.

Obama/Clinton
Obama plays the "big picture", inspirational leader while Hillary gets the budget and legislation drafted and pushed through the Congress. In short, this is the typical Manager/AA arrangement that has existed for decades in which the hardworking female AA does all the work for which the male boss gets credit. Unfortunately, this is another reason why Clinton is unlikely to accept such an arrangement.

Clinton/Obama
Clinton micro-manages everything and sends Obama around the world to win back our friends and allies. This has the additional advantage of keeping Barack and Bill away from each other. This gives Obama a fair amount of room for travel and seasoning for his own run for President. But it would require some humility and a willingness to wait for his turn at the top job . . . to say nothing of what Michelle would have to give up.

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Democratic Dream Team?

Back at the start of the campaign season in 2007, it occurred to me that the perfect Democratic ticket might be Edwards/Obama. My logic: Edwards has somewhat more experience than Obama. He's not only been a Senator, he's been through a Presidentical campaign and he's built a business. And I figured that having a good-looking white southern male at the head of the ticket would negate most of whatever residual racism there might be against having an African-American on the ticket.

Anna Quindlen, in a similar vein in a July 23, 2007 Newsweek column, suggested that Hillary should put Obama on the ticket as VP.

So, I started to think about variations permutations and whether or not they would work:
1. Clinton/Edwards or Obama/Edwards
No. Elizabeth has cancer. I don't think either she or her husband would be willing to commit the time and energy needed to campaign, let alone serve, for 2nd place.

2. Edwards/Clinton or Obama/Clinton.
Here again, I don't think there's any way that Hillary would take 2nd place, and I don't think either Edwards or Obama would offer it. Why? Well, a cynic might say that Hillary was already 2nd for 8 years and isn't likely to go through that again. But I think the main reason is Bill. Neither Edwards nor Obama would, I think, rationally want as husband of the VP a former President, especially one as popular as Bill.

3. Clinton/Edwards
I think this would work as a ticket except for the point I made above about Elizabeth Edwards. Also, I suspect that being second on the ticket last time probably irked Edwards a lot, and I don't think he'd want to be in that position again.

4. Clinton/Obama
Advantages:

  • breaks two barriers at once;
  • combines, as one characterization of the two goes, prose and poetry;
  • would drive Matthews and Sully insane.

Disadvantages:
  • breaks two barriers at once. Americans might be ready to vote for a woman or for an African-American, but would it be expecting too much of them to vote for both at once?
  • egos: a few months back, I think Obama might have accepted second place, but the campaign has gotten nasty in the past weeks. I think it is the fault of the media for pushing Obama to attack Hillary; others will say that Hillary started the attacks. In either case, I fear the damage is done.

And I think that is a shame because a Clinton/Obama ticket would be the most audacious ticket in history.

Monday, January 14, 2008

Is Peggy Noonan channeling Chris Matthews?

Here's the final paragraph from Noonan's weekend column (Jan. 12-13, 2008; page W14) in the Wall Street Journal:
Between sobs she is going to try to destroy Mr. Obama. She is going to try to end him. She will pay a price for it--no one likes to see the end of a dream, no one likes a dream killer. But she will pay that price to win, and try to clean up the mess later."


What struck me about it was the use of the word "destroy", the same word that Tweety used in discussing Hillary's strategy. I don't recall if it was before the Iowa caucuses or the New Hampshire primary, but he was his usual apoplectic self when he opined that Hillary would prefer that Edwards win if she didn't in order to destroy Obama. In fact, I think he said something like "anything to destroy Obama".

Have you ever heard the strategy of any other candidate in this or any other election being described this way? That the person was trying to "destroy" the other candidate? Is McCain trying to destroy Huckabee? Is Romney trying to destroy McCain?

The media seem to have forgotten, at least where Hillary is concerned, that the Presidential campaign is a zero-sum game: only one person can win. Now, I do not know to what extent any candidate is likely to waste time or resources getting some other candidate to win, but it does not seem unreasonable, in such a large field, for campaign workers to prefer one ranking over another if their candidate doesn't win.

Matthews and most of the press corps, however, apparently believe that Hillary doesn't have the right to fight for the nomination because Obama is the one who deserves to get it.

Likability - Dorothy Rabinowitz gets it right

If you didn't see the N.H. debate in which Hillary was asked about her likability, all you probably know of her answer is that she said it "hurt her feelings" which makes it sound as if she were whining or asking for pity. It has certainly been characterized that way.

But if you watched the debate, you know how different her answer was, and the only person I've heard, seen or read who characterized it properly is Dorothy Rabinowitz in her Jan. 11, 2008 WSJ TV Review column:

. . Sen. Hillary Clinton playfully [my emphasis] allowed that she was hurt at the suggestion that Sen. Barack Obama was better liked than she was


Here is a transcript from the New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/05/us/politics/05text-ddebate.html
MR. SPRADLING: Yeah, I did notice. And I'd like to ask you this.

The University of New Hampshire Survey Center has been consistently trying to probe the minds of New Hampshire voters and get a sense of what they think about all of you. I'd be happy to report that the experience-versus-change debate seems to be sinking in. And what I'd like to get is to this:

New Hampshire voters seem to believe that of those of you on the stage, you are the most experienced and the most electable. In terms of change, they see Senators Obama and Edwards as the agents of change, in New Hampshire mindset. My question to you is simply this: What can you say to the voters of New Hampshire on this stage tonight, who see a resume and like it but are hesitating on the likability issue, where they seem to like Barack Obama more.

SEN. CLINTON: Well, that hurts my feelings. (Laughter.)

MR. SPRADLING: I'm sorry, Senator. (Scattered applause.) I'm sorry.

SEN. CLINTON: But I'll try to go on. (Laughter.)

He's very likable. I agree with that. I don't think I'm that bad.

SEN. OBAMA: You're likable enough, Hillary. (Inaudible.)


What makes Obama's answer sound so churlish is its contrast with the warm and funny way in which Clinton responded to this difficult (and rather insulting*) question.

*Has any male candidate ever been asked if he is likable enough to be elected?

Saturday, January 12, 2008

The Race Card

During the past day or two, both Clintons have been accused of overt racist attacks. Given their history, and the oft-repeated trope prior to Hillary's NH win, that Bill Clinton was the first Black President, this is absurd.

The statements in question can be perceived as racist (Hillary's MLK* comment - truncated by the NYT & almost all other outlets - and Bill's "fairy tale" (which requires some incredible distortion to turn it into a racial attack) - only by deliberately misreading them.

Hillary haters appear to be so angry that Obama lost N.H. that they, in order to tar her beyond all redemption, are making race an issue in the campaign.

Unfortunately, this could easily turn out to be bad not just for Hillary's supporters but for Obama's as well. I've already noticed a response that is almost as bad as the attack: that Obama is using this in the same way that Hillary is supposed to have used tears: to get him a sympathy vote.

Let's be clear here: Hillary has no inborn right to win the nomination or the Presidency. But Obama doesn't either. He has tremendous support in the MSM and blog worlds (name me a MSM person or leading blogger who is actively supporting Hillary). They should start asking themselves why they feel it necessary to smear his major opponent.

*The Horses's Mouth

Friday, January 11, 2008

Reasons for Voting for Hillary

Like many Democrats, I have been trying all year to make up my mind about which candidate to support. I have flirted with the 2nd-tier candidates (Biden, Dodd and Richardson) because of their experience. I have fallen under the charms of Obama and, even more so, under the power of Edwards' populist rhetoric. And then, of course, there is Hillary - a woman who raises many conflicting feelings, both personal and political.

During the past week, however, I made up my mind - largely due to the wholesale, misogynistic lynching of Hillary by members of the MSM and, unfortunately, by the liberal blogosphere as well.

Now, many would say, and are saying, that it is stupid to vote for a candidate just because the MSM hate her, but there is, actually, a method to the madness.

To begin with, I would more or less happily have voted for any of the Democratic candidates (including, ugh, Gravel) over any of the Republican candidates. I find this is not true for many Democrats, which brings us to

Reason 1. The company I would be keeping.
Andrew Sullivan loves Obama, thinks he is the new Messiah. Given Sullivan's previous political love affairs (Thatcher, Reagan, and the Shrub), one must seriously consider his judgment.

In my travels through the blogosphere, I have discovered (in a totally unscientific non-survey) that most Obama supporters, and a sizable number of Edwards' supporters, are prepared to pick up their marbles and go home if Hillary becomes the nominee. Hillary supporters, OTOH, have no objection to voting for whomever the Dem. nominee is.

One could hear this difference after the NH votes came in. Obama tossed off a one sentence "congratulations" to Hillary at the start of his "concession" speech with a request for applause that produced a smattering of tepid claps. Hillary, later in her speech, warmly praised all of her opponents, past and present, and was greeted with a warm round of unsolicited applause.

I do not want to be associated with people who think that any of the Republican candidates would be better than Hillary.

The liberal boycott of Hubert Humphrey after RFK's assassination gave us Nixon and 50 years of toxic, race-based, anti-women politics. Instead of learning the lesson that even a bad Democrat is better than a "good" Republican, too many liberals continue to believe that voting for the lesser evil is a copout. It is not. It is called reality.

Reason 2: The MSM lynching
To paraphrase an email posted on Andrew Sullivan's web, if one added up all the awful things the Clintons have actually done (not the wild imaginings of the Right Wing Nuts), they would still be buried under the mountain of catastrophes perpetrated on this country by George W. Bush.

The hatred of the Clintons has exceeded all rational boundaries and the justifications for the malevolence is about on a par with "my computer ate my thesis". I think even FDR & Eleanor would be shocked - and they came in for a boatload of abuse.

It appears that, as far as the media are concerned, political racism is dead but misogyny is alive and well - even on liberal blogs and Air America.

I have, quite simply, had it. Hillary is possibly the only woman who has a chance of becoming President in the next decade or so. She will be vilified every moment of her Presidency, but when it is over, I believe the next woman will be treated more fairly.

Obama can run in 2016, thus locking in 16 years of Democratic rule, perhaps enough to change the direction of the SCOTUS.

Reason 3: Obama
Too much of his rhetoric comes from the right-wing play book: dynasty, Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton, tired-old 60's "no-longer-relevant" divisiveness.

I fail to see how "I can bring us all together" is any different than Clinton's "triangulation". One either has enough power to pass whatever policies one wants or one compromises. That is the nature of the political game.

I also fail to see exactly how Obama plans to bridge the divide between pro-choice & anti-abortion foes, liberals who believe in a government that takes care of its citizens vs. conservatives who believe in social Darwinism, etc. When an NPR journalist asked Obama why he thought he could pass universal health care when all previous attempts have failed, he said he would do it by (I'm paraphrasing from memory) rousing the American people up to demand for it. Just how he expects to do this (by the force of his personality?), I have no idea.

The rhetoric that so entrances the MSM who have declared him to be the finest American orator since Lincoln does NOT move me. I appreciate the craft with which he drafts his speeches, but I sense no substance or honest feeling behind the words. His speeches remind me of Sunday-morning sermons, all flowery & lofty and meaningless. The speech he delivered after New Hampshire could have, minus the first sentence, been issued without change even if he had won. It didn't come from the heart.

I am also very uncomfortable with his constant invocation of God. We have traveled too far down that road already. The invasion of religion into both our government and our politics is toxic and must be stopped. Obama's faith is dangerous because so many in the media consider it to be "genuine" as opposed to, I assume, Bush's non-genuine faith?

Yes, Hillary invokes God, too. But one knows that she is uncomfortable doing so and can be sure that it will be kept to a minimum.

The final straw for me was the last debate before New Hampshire when he replied, looking down his nose, that she was "likable enough" - followed by a photo op of the 3 men chatting comfortably together with Hillary off to one side.

Reason 4: Edwards
His populist rhetoric appeals to me in a way that Obama's does not. But his voting record doesn't match his rhetoric. He might have still convinced me until he took advantage of Hillary's slightly teary eyes (Jon Stewart nailed the MSM right on) to issue a thinly veiled attack on her not being "strong enough" to be President.

Reason 5: Hillary
She is far from my idea of a perfect Democratic candidate. But she knows Washington and she knows the Senate. If anybody can get some semi-decent legislation through, she can. Most importantly, I know that the next SCOTUS justice, if appointed by Hillary, will be a person who respects the concept of justice. FEMA will be run by somebody competent. The EPA and the FDA will do their jobs.

I know what I will get with Hillary, a flawed but competent President. I do not know what I will get with Obama at this stage of his career, and I am not ready to take the risk.

And we should not forget that the only reason that the wives of Obama and Edwards can play such prominent, and unquestioned, roles in their campaigns is because of all the garbage thrown at Hillary in the 90's. Her continuing ability to smile in the face of the vicious attacks on her as a person is a true profile in courage.

Thursday, January 10, 2008

New Hampshire 2008 & The Pundits

Well, the pundits are trying to explain what went wrong with their predictions. Unfortunately, they don't understand why they were wrong because they are incapable of learning.

For the most part, they blame the mistake on the polls and the pollsters. One common explanation is that White voters lied about voting for a Black man (the so-called Bradley effect after the mayor of L.A.). See: the pundits aren't responsible for the voters' hidden racism. Dyson, even after hearing a report that the polls were right about Obama's percentage (thus negating any Bradley effect) and the problem was under-counting Clinton's support, insisted that there was racism. According to him, you could hear it in Hillary's comments & Bill Clinton's attack on Obama: that Black men aren't capable of doing the job. (So we can't criticize Obama for anything because any criticism has to contain at least a seed of racism?) Besides there's never been a Black President. Ahem.... there's never been a female President either.

Then they mine the exit polls for explanations, things they didn't see before. There isn't much, except the large turnout of women and the percentage of women who voted for Hillary. So, what do the pundits conclude? It was the "tearing up" moment which showed that Hillary had a human side. It is already the standard explanation. Pundits stick together. Original thought is not encouraged. On CNN, however, one woman made the astute and, I think, accurate assessment that women saw the endless replay of the moment and got mad. Did this assessment cause Wolf Blitzer to reconsider? Of course not: he repeated once again (as if the woman had never said what she said) that it was the humanity of the moment.

Some of the "outstanding" pundit moments:
1.) Tim Russert was beside himself with joy that 5 days into the primary campaign,they still didn't know who the winner would be. Imagine that: 5 whole days, 1 caucus & 1 primary and they couldn't crown a nominee in either party. Horrors.

2.) Tom Brokaw said "we don't have to get in the business of making judgments before the polls have closed. And trying to stampede in effect the process". Chris Matthews' response: well, what would we talk about? Unfortunately, Brokaw didn't seem to expect that response and, to my ears, kind of fumbled for an answer.

Gee, do you think the media might study the voting records of the candidates? Hillary's been in the Senate 6 years, Obama 2 (plus 8 in Illinois), Edwards also has a Senate record. Maybe they could interview legislators & community people who have worked with the candidates. How about an analysis of pork (the money kind) proposed by the candidates. Richardson has held many roles in government that I suspect most voters, like me, know absolutely nothing about.

3.) Joe Scarborough accurately suggested that it was due to the media savaging of Hillary - in which he was one of the primary figures. Did he acknowledge that he was one of those savagers? Don't be silly. Of course, not.

4.) The hyperbolic descriptions: greatest upset in American history, blow-out, etc., etc. But look at the numbers. Hillary beat Obama by 3%, in one primary. That's not a massive victory.

5.) The Comeback kids. Please. Hillary lost Iowa, the first test. She won NH. I fail to see how that qualifies as some overwhelming return from the dead. Maybe it is fair to apply it to McCain since he had not only been written off but had to fire almost his entire staff for lack of money. But there are a total of what? 40 primaries to come? When a baseball, basketball or football team wins one game after losing one game, do we call that a comeback? It apparently has never occurred to these cretins that the lead might, gosh, actually change hands several times before a winner appears.

6.) Kristol, the latest star on what used to be the Op Ed page of a great newspaper. Hillary's tears were fake, women felt sorry for her and voted for her. This is sooooo offensive on so many levels, it leaves one speechless.

7.) Pundits never learn. Within an hour of admitting they had goofed, I started hearing pronouncements that Obama HAD to win Nevada. And predictions for South Carolina were running hot & heavy within minutes. Geez. Isn't the definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result?

Dan Abrams, not one of my favorite news personalities by far, provided the most original (for the media) explanation and one that resonates with me, as a Californian: that it was wrong for the media to call the primary season over after one caucus and one primary. He said it was the equivalent of ending a trial after the opening statement.

I can't prove it, but I think women voters decided that they didn't want anybody to be crowned King by the pundits - and they had finally had enough of the endless misogyny of the attacks on Hillary (even on Air America( - so they voted for the person the media had written off.