Sanders' New Hampshire win too big to be a mere "speedbump" on the Clinton race to the nomination

The cravenness of the mainstream media in the wake of Bernie Sanders trouncing of Hillary Clinton in the New Hampshire primary was of two minds: they had been “expecting” this result for the past six months—or it was not a big deal, merely a nasty speedbump for the Clinton race to the White House. On the Seattle Times website the headline is “Sanders wins big over Clinton in NH, garnering wide support.” But it is not a victorious Sanders pictured below the headline, but an insanely beaming Hillary and Bill in front of cheering partisans holding “Fighting for us” campaign signs, an indication that the Clinton camp is so desperate that it is stealing Sanders’ own raison d'etre; she is expecting voters to ignore the fact this is what Sanders has been doing his whole political life. Hillary has been in it only for herself—her gleeful look in the picture, seemingly completely out-of-touch with reality, reveals as much.

The truth of the matter is that since Clinton didn’t technically lose Iowa, some observers and Clinton partisans were under the impression that there would be second thoughts by enough New Hampshire voters about supporting Sanders to tighten the vote enough for them to claim a “victory” of sorts. As in 2008, Clinton also shamelessly deployed her gender “victim” shtick to gain voter sympathy, which did help her gain a “surprising” if slim victory over Obama in the primary. But not only didn’t it work this time, it seems more likely that Sanders’ strong showing in Iowa merely energized his supporters in New Hampshire. 

Perhaps not surprisingly, Clinton’s campaign manager, Robby Mook, took no time in poo-pooing the result, implying that the citizens of Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina are relative provincials in the “big picture,” a position that CNN and other Clinton media partisans took no time in parroting. In a memo released soon after the first numbers came in, Mook wrote that “The March states better reflect the true diversity of the Democratic Party and the nation – including large populations of voters who live in big cities and small towns, and voters with a much broader range of races and religions.”

There are many problems with these assumptions. Clinton won Iowa by two whiskers despite the fairly centrist-to-conservative leaning of those who voted in the caucus, and Sanders’ margin of victory in New Hampshire was just too big to “explain” by demographic particularities. Telling the same young and first-time voters who rallied behind Barack Obama in 2008 that they are not part of that “diversity” is also suggestive of the kind of illogic that hampered the Clinton campaign back then. I also suspect that working class voters in the Midwest would feel that Sanders is more in tune with their issues and problems than the privileged, self-entitled Clinton is. 

Black voters too should realize that upon closer inspection, Sanders has their best interests in mind; he talks jobs before CEO billions, and living wages, while Clinton just wants their vote, do a couple of high-fives, and see you later. Even if it is a difficult hill to climb, you know that Sanders won’t back down from his principles; with Clinton, the question is not if she bends backward to appease Republicans, but how far once her own ego has been satisfied. As far as religion is concerned, since when have the Clintons shown respect for religion? 

It is just that kind of hypocrisy that gave voters pause during the pre-primary phase when they were instructed by the media to do what they “had” to do—or rather felt they were being forced to do by the conservative and gender politics elements of the Democratic establishment. But Sanders, like Obama, knew of the underlying weakness in support for Clinton, and all that voters leery of Clinton needed was someone who could expose it.

That weakness, of course, is that unlike Obama—who was clearly an idealist who wanted to do great things for people rather than play armchair general—and Sanders, who for 50 years espoused the philosophy of the many over the few, Clinton continues to come off as someone who is a user for her own ends. In an AP story, a 24-year-old Sanders supporter spoke for many: “‘I felt like he was the most honest. He’s had the same views forever, and he’s never budged. That makes me feel confident in him.’” This undercuts the claim by the Clinton camp and the media that Sanders can’t win—as do recent polls that show Sanders doing better than Clinton against potential Republicans candidates. 

I’ve seen news organizations use a headshot of Clinton with her hand under her chin staring out into space, as if this is supposed to reflect “thoughtfulness.” Or is it befuddlement—let’s not forget that Clinton won New Hampshire in 2008. In 2016, Sanders’ overwhelming victory over the media and Democratic establishment favorite in the state could well provide food for thought for voters in other states. Yes, there is an alternative that speaks for you.

Broncos stun Panthers in Super Bowl as "Superman" played like the football was made of Kryptonite

Of the first 46 Super Bowls, only three of them featured a black starting quarterback, those quarterbacks being Doug Williams, Steve McNair and Donovan McNabb. Each of the past four Super Bowls, however, have now seen one of the teams with a starting quarterback who is black. In six games coming into the 50^th Super Bowl, it could be argued that not only did black quarterbacks hold their own in comparison to their white counterparts, but outplayed them by a narrow margin; black quarterbacks were a combined 116 of 190 passing for 1666 yards, 12 TD passes and 6 interceptions for a passer rating of 97.4, while their white counterparts were a combined 154 of 248 for 1802 yards, 13 TD passes and 7 interceptions for a QB rating of 89.8. Although white quarterbacks were the winners in four of these games, the combined margin of victory was only 17 points—while the two victories by black quarterbacks were by a combined score of 85-18. 

So we entered Super Bowl 50 knowing two things: Cam Newton is this season's NFL MVP, and most analysts believe that his team, the Panthers, would win this game, likely by a comfortable margin over his sanctified counterpart, Peyton Manning and the Broncos. Did that in fact happen?

In the first half, save for one offensive possession, the Panthers looked completely disorganized. This wasn’t the fault of coaching (save for a needless “trick play” called by offensive coordinator Mike Shula), but more like the confusion and frustration of the players when the game was not going as expected. A Newton fumble that ended up in the end zone for a Broncos’ touchdown, the “trick” play gone awry that ended a scoring threat, leading to bone-headed coverage on a punt  that led to another three Bronco points, and it was 13-7 by halftime.  

Yet to say that it was “surprising” that the Broncos were actually leading this game was an understatement; save for their first possession, offensively they were mostly inefficient if not completely inept. And the Broncos’ defense was helped immeasurably by “Superman” suffering from an apparent power outage at inopportune times.  If the Panthers could at least get their “B” game in order, they still had a chance to pull it out in the end, if not sooner. 

At the start of the second half, the Panthers seemed to be on “track,” but their drive stalled and was followed by missed field goal attempt. Manning was again unable to complete a drive, but at least he was bailed out by a made field goal that extended the Broncos’ lead to a two-score game. Now things became dicey for the Panthers, because they had yet to demonstrate that they could get out of their own way, especially from penalties. After Manning’s second turnover led to a Panthers’ field goal, and with five minutes to play following another Broncos punt, maybe this time the Panthers would finally show that they were the superior team, having outgained the Broncos 315 to 184 at that point; although stunningly trailing 16-10, the game was still winnable.

It was not to be. “Superman” suddenly became the 90-pound weakling getting sand kicked in his face. For the second time in the game, the man who was supposed to be physically awe-inspiring was sacked and lost the ball on the very wrong side of the field. Once more the mostly inept Broncos’ offense was seemingly kept out of the end zone again, until the Panthers’ eleventh penalty turned a third-down incompletion into a first-and-goal, and a touchdown and two-point conversion left shocked observers mulling over a 24-10 score, despite the fact that the Broncos still had only 186 yards of total offense. Manning was only 13 of 23 for 141 yards, no TDs and an interception and lost fumble, for a pitiful 56.6 passer rating. Yet Newton was worse; he would finish 18-41, 265 yards, no TDs, one interception and a QB rating of 55.4 

But it was Newton’s two fumbles which provided the Broncos’ their margin of victory. There is simply no denying it: Cam Newton is the reason the Panthers lost this game in such shocking fashion. It wasn’t the Panthers’ defense, which did a commendable job of keeping Manning and the Broncos’ offense in check, allowing only 194 yards of total offense, 11 first downs and a pitiful one third down conversion in 14 attempts.  But stupid penalties, especially “unnecessary roughness” on the offense, just showed that the Panthers were not ready for primetime under the pressure of living up to the hype, both of their own making and that which the media bestowed upon them.

And in doing so, they allowed Peyton Manning to cement his “legacy” in most undeserving fashion. In four Super Bowls he has thrown only 3 touchdown passes in 144 pass attempts (well, five--except that two were to the other team), and his teams scored just 64 points offensively—and seven should be subtracted from this game, after Newton’s late fumble at the Panther four-yard line. Manning should be—like Jim Kelly—0-4 in the Super Bowl, and that includes the victory against the Bears, which the Colts were also extremely fortunate to win, no help from Manning despite being the most undeserving MVP winner in Super Bowl history. 

But while I can’t disguise my dislike of Manning for the reasons I have provided the past two weeks, I must also say that the only reason why I favored the Panthers in this game was because of that dislike. The Panthers are not a team I’ve been able to “warm-up” to, Newton as a player in particular. It seemed to me that three seasons following his rookie campaign he had been revealed as a bit of an over-hyped fraud; this season because of the Panthers’ success on the win column it was easy for some “analysts” to re-hype Newton. Maybe it was just more politics, after all. At the very least, Newton’s performance in the Super Bowl proved that he is susceptible to "Kryptonite," whether in his hands or in his own head.

Internet queries about Sanders proves that voters are not as “dumb” as the media thinks they are

Following Thursday’s Democratic debate between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, CNN and other media outlets that have staked every ounce of their credibility on Hillary’s eventual nomination—and election as president—have once more allowed the question to arise about why Sanders is such a “surprise” to many voters. I heard Sanders opine about the issues of the day every Friday on Thom Hartmann’s radio show for a year until the station it was broadcast on switched to yet another sports talk program (there is in fact no “progressive” talk radio programming at all in “progressive” Seattle; it is all unfair and mentally unbalanced right-wing rubbish).

Sanders is thus no “mystery” to me; in fact, I found his straight talk and utterly guileless concern for common people and the issues that directly affected them rather refreshing compared to the vacuous and self-serving propaganda that typically passes for political discourse in this country today. Newt Gingrich discovered that this is what “sold” in the 1980s, and the news media bought it hook, line and sinker in the 1990s—for nothing more than ratings; maintaining an informed public was not even secondary. Today, thanks largely to the Republicans, political discourse is like one side trying to shout over the other, and one comes away with nothing more than an emotional response rather than an intellectual one. 

That he elicits an intellectual response (at least among younger and core Democrats) is one of the reasons why people want to know more about Sanders than what they’ve learned about him on CNN and the like. It isn’t any great “mystery” that the Clinton News Network has strained every muscle to marginalize Sanders, and fortunately that seems to be counterproductive. Since many people have gleaned virtually no information about Sanders or his positions prior to the run-up to the Iowa primaries from what they saw on television, they had to seek it on the Internet. This was a serious mistake by the pro-Hillary news media; instead of satisfying the “curiosity” of voters about Sanders with the usual superficialities, they were forced to search the Internet, where they were provided more in-depth information about him. The more people read about Sanders and his public policy positions, the more self-describe Democrats and progressives liked what they read about him. 

While the Washington Post reported that Google searches during and following the debate for Clinton seemed to inquire about her own electability and if she really was in tune with the problems of ordinary people, searches for Sanders were rather surprising: 2 of the top 5 inquiries were “Who should Sanders’ VP be?” and “How do I donate to his campaign?”. It was the pro-Hillary camp’s worst nightmare: Voters are taking Sanders seriously. The same polls are also showing Sanders doing better than Clinton against potential Republican opponents. The Clintonphiles had seen this story before, when they learned the depth of voter discontent with a Hillary-or-else proposition in 2008.

Clinton’s desperation is quite apparent by her playing the tiresome gender card. This may work with older women—like Harriet Christian, the disgruntled Hillary supporter who characterized Barack Obama as an “inadequate black male”—or feminist commentator Bonnie Erbe, who had the utterly asinine gall to opine that Obama should hand over his victory in the primaries to Hillary because “white people won’t vote for you.” That statement was particularly distasteful when one recalls that in 1991, feminist fanatic Eleanor Smeal complained in USA Today about “racism against white women.” Smeal is said to be ramping up a full frontal assault to combat the apparent defection of younger feminists to Sanders, who are more interested in progressive public policy than voting for a female simply because she is a female. Clinton’s unsubtle use of gender language against Sanders is not only unfair and lowdown, but the use of it implies putting a “guilt trip” on voters—a tactic which likely will backfire on Clinton, because its overuse will eventually turn-off more male voters in the privacy of the voting booth than gaining (or rather, retaining) the female vote. 

The 2016 primary season still has a long way to go, but my feeling is that if Sanders maintains his momentum, we may well see the Hillary Clinton we saw in 2008 all over again—the one succumbing to flights of illogic and fancy, appealing to the bigotry of certain demographics, and making bizarre references about a 1968 assassination. We have been told that Clinton has a “commanding” presence, but that is not how she reacted to pressure in 2008, and even now there are suggestions that she is once more succumbing to it.

Is Cruz's Iowa caucus victory just a brief lapse in judgment like that of Huckabee and Santorum ?

Were many people “shocked” that Ted Cruz bested Donald Trump in the Iowa primary? Why should they have been? It was obvious that Trump wasn’t taking Iowa all that seriously lately, since the state is little too “small” and provincial for a man of his egomania, and his refusal to participate in the most recent Fox News presidential primary debate (and his reason for it) may have put off some voters, particularly of the female variety. On the other hand, the Fox moderators had made every effort to marginalize Cruz, and that this strategy apparently backfired. Like CNN and MSNBC with their shameless bias toward Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders, Fox and its corporate paymaster, Rupert Murdoch, are desperate that a Republican occupy the White House (which the country absolutely does not want, with the right already in control of both chambers of Congress and the Supreme Court), and Trump and Cruz make about as much sense as Barry Goldwater and Sarah Palin (Palin did Trump no “favor” by endorsing him). 

Media reports suggest that Trump was “wounded” after Iowa, and the sharks are circling him. But who really benefits from this? Who would Trump’s supporters naturally gravitate too? Cruz? Shouldn’t it be obvious that it was from Trump that Cruz skimmed enough votes to win Iowa? And who is this guy anyways, who was not born in the United States as is implied by the Constitution to be eligible to run for president, but in Canada? You don’t get much help from the mainstream media, which occasionally allows him a soundbite or two, but otherwise treats him like an annoying gnat in need of swatting, but just can’t keep him away.

It is not that Cruz’s ideology is much different than his primary opponents on immigration, abortion, taxes, the budget and health care reform; it is just that he seems more inflexible and rigid in his thinking, and his “calmness” in expressing these views only makes him appear more extreme and heartless than his opponents. It is like he is completely oblivious to or doesn’t give a damn about the problems of ordinary people. His attempt to run a one-man filibuster against funding the ACA in 2013 not only embarrassed his fellow senators, but he came across as a man so desperate for attention that the fact that tens of millions of people in country did not have access to affordable health care apparently did not compute in his self-described “mathematician” brain.  

Cruz has other problems, such as his self-identification. He was born in Canada—which unlike the Panama Canal Zone where John McCain was born, is not a U.S. “territory,” living there for three years. One should think that since he was not born in, say, a U.S. consulate office, he is technically not eligible to run for president, even if his mother was an American (his father was a Cuban exile who became a Canadian citizen while the young Cruz was still living there). But a court has granted him ‘”native-born citizen” status, for the rather quizzical reason that no government agency ever questioned his citizenship status, his parents never officially “registering” his entry into the country. It is deeply hypocritical how some Republicans insist on questioning Barack Obama’s citizenship, and now question if “natural born citizen” applies to immigrant children actually born in this country. 

But more fascinating is this idea that Cruz is “Hispanic.” The reality is that Cruz himself has run as far away as he can from any suggestion that he is anything but your typical Anglo-American—unlike, say, Marco Rubio, who doesn’t feel any shame in embracing his Cuban heritage or speaking Spanish. Cruz’s actual first name is Rafael after his father, but that obviously is too embarrassingly “ethnic”; so-called “real” Americans have “American” names. Not only does Cruz not speak any Spanish, he looks “Caucasian” because, well, he is 100 percent that. His father’s ancestors are from Spain, his mother’s from Ireland. 

Thus any claims that Cruz appeals to Hispanics—particularly of Mexican heritage—couldn’t be further from the truth; he received only one-third of the Texas Hispanic vote in his 2012 senate race, and the typical response as to whether they support Cruz now goes something like “I’m Mexican, he’s Cuban,” which points to a wide gulf politically and socially.  Mexican immigrants are no doubt mindful of the double-standard in U.S. immigration policy that benefits Cubans based on an out-dated Cold War mentality (or the one that benefits our former Vietnamese "allies"); even Mexicans trying to escape the violence fueled by the U.S.' insatiable appetite for illegal drugs receives almost no consideration compared to a Cuban who happens to wash up on shore. Furthermore, in a story in Reuters the CEO of the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Javier Palomarez, was quoted as saying “I think he’s got a long way to go to convince people that he understands the Hispanic experience and that he understands the Hispanic voter.”

Obviously a Republican like Cruz can write off the “47 percent” that Mitt Romney disparaged right off the top. Certainly the Tea Party extremist core of the Republican Party would support him, but would independent voters feel “comfortable” voting for him? With his extreme views (particularly socially) and a seeming incapacity to “soften” his stances that is required to actually work with people, there certainly is a question there. Considering the fact that in 2012 the hard-right Rick Santorum won the Iowa caucus over Mitt Romney, and in 2008 Mike Huckabee was the winner, Cruz’s “victory” is just another such mirage.

Clinton claims “victory” in Iowa by not “losing”

Remember in 2007 when we were repeatedly assured by the Clinton lap dogs in the news media that Hillary was the prohibitive “favorite” to win the 2008 Democratic nomination? Polls that supposedly proved this were mostly name recognition surveys. The media may have been in love with the Clintons, but there was no real understanding of what exactly voters really thought about Hillary. Yes, there were the fanatics and disciples who wanted her elected for purely personal political reasons, but most voters—particularly younger voters—were not really all that enamored by the Clintons, seeing them as propelled by the power of self-privilege.  The core Democratic voters in fact wanted someone who they could vote for because they wanted to, rather than simply because they had to. 

In 2015, Hillary Clinton was again anointed as the “inevitable” Democratic nominee for president, despite having one very lame list of “accomplishments” despite holding the offices of U.S. Senator and Secretary of State. The Democratic “establishment” has already made its decision, as demonstrated by the fact that at least half of super delegates have already thrown their support behind Clinton. We have been repeatedly informed that she presents herself as “commanding,” which in actuality is nothing more than a pose that the media chooses to define as such. When Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders presented himself as a challenger, nearly everyone in the mainstream media regarded him as something of a joke, just an old white man with “outdated” ideas, and something of a crazed Sixties radical who never grew up. 

Yet in 2016, Iowa polls essentially showed that Sanders had pulled even with Clinton, despite every effort by the Democratic establishment and the pro-Clinton media to marginalize Sanders. How could this happen? Could it be that people believe Sanders when he said he was about the “people” rather than the corporate power structure with its political stooges? That he actually stands firm on core Democratic principles? Could it be that once again the media, in failing to do its duty in giving people the truth about the world they live in, is not that power of omnipotence and influence that it claims to be? 

Now that the Iowa caucus is over, Clinton and her media supporters are claiming “victory” after “winning” the caucus vote by a grand total of four. Yes, that’s right, just four measely votes. The UK The Guardian is reporting that Clinton only “won” because of a little known “rule” that in the case of a “tie”—probably determined by a loud, unhappy pro-Hillary minority—in a precinct, the “winner” was literally decided by a coin toss. The newspaper reported that Clinton somehow “won” all six of the precinct votes that were determined by a coin toss. 

While a few polls had predicted that Sanders would win by a narrow margin, The Progressive noted that it was unlikely that Sanders would actually win outright because “each of Iowa's 1,681 precinct caucus sites as a bunch of tiny states in an electoral college setting.  Every four years, each precinct is given a preset number of delegates, but instead of it being based on the total population of the precinct, it's based on how many Democrats voted in recent presidential and gubernatorial elections…Like the rest of the nation, 2014 was a notoriously low-turnout election for Iowa Democrats.  The Democrats who did vote, skewed older, more conservative, and more likely to vote for Hillary.  In addition, there are many precincts that might have a lot of people that voted Democrat, but for whatever reason don't participate in the caucuses…Which means that some districts with a more 'liberal' views who likely would favor Sanders were not motivated to vote in the 2014 mid-terms, and would be under-represented in the equivalent 2016 Iowa caucus precinct, and be more heavily skewed to the more Hillary-friendly caucus attendee.”

For the time being, Clinton and her sycophants can claim “victory” at least for the reason she did not “lose” in the way she did in 2008, when she placed third behind Barack Obama and John Edwards. But exit polls showed that first time caucus voters supported Sanders by a nearly 2-1 margin, and this could mean trouble for Clinton in more reliably “blue” states, unless Sanders begins to lose momentum. In fact, Clinton will likely have to rely on more conservative voters in “red” states that likely will not vote Democratic in the national election.