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It’s becoming absolutely impossible to ignore how badly the press treats Bernie Sanders. They can’t quite completely ignore him any more, and he’s had some great guest spots on the late night talk shows, but…
A poll was released in New Hampshire the other day, and Bernie Sanders won it. This is big news because New Hampshire is the second state in the selection process (after Iowa) and the first primary state, because Iowa has the caucus system. In 2016, Bernie crushed Hillary in New Hampshire, although she still got the most delegates.
CNN ran five separate stories on the poll. Not one of them had “Bernie Wins New Hampshire Poll” as the headline, which any first year journalism student could tell you should be the headline of a story about a poll which was won by Bernie Sanders.
One headline said “Buttigieg in fourth, but a strong fourth.” So, I suppose you could accuse them of being unfair to Biden and Warren, as well. The only time a newspaper should lead with a fourth place finish is if it’s a high school paper reporting on their own team.
Another said “This is a historically unprecedented New Hampshire mess.” A nice touch, that they manage to avoid mentioning the candidates entirely. But, it’s not true. There is nothing unprecedented in there being a large number of candidates at this stage of the game, and it is inevitable that some of them would be ahead of others. So, it is not unprecedented, and it is not a mess.
Another one also avoided mentioning any of the candidates. It read “Early state primary voters much more undecided than voters nationally.” Undecideds in this poll were 10%, but they don’t show any national polls for comparison. Besides, 10% is not a huge amount, before the primaries have even begun.
One headline simply read “A disappointing poll for Biden.” True, I suppose, but Biden has been a walking corpse for several months now. Another disappointing poll for Biden is hardly newsworthy.
One headline did mention Sanders, but still managed to throw shade: “Sanders and Warren sit at top in New Hampshire, but there’s no clear front runner.” Yes, there is. Sanders was ahead of Warren by 3 points.
It’s not a landslide, yet, but it does mean Sanders is the clear front runner.

Last night’s blog kind of got cut off in the middle because it was really a two part premise that I had in mind, but after I’d written a few paragraphs about the first half of the premise, it was drifting toward tl;dr territory, and I wouldn’t want to do that.
So, the last blog talked about how we all are descended from murderers and rapists and slave owners, because that’s just the history of human beings on our planet, over the last 100 millenia or so.
Part II of that concept, the glass half full to its glass half empty, is that probably almost every human being alive today is a direct descendant of the person who first picked up a flaming stick from a forest fire, took it back to his or her cave, and nurtured it a bit. Probably almost everybody alive today is a descendant of that first person who stopped jabbering long enough to realize that, by slight and subtle changes in sound, they could attach names to physical objects: tree, mountain, your butt. I’m sure they kept the whole tribe enthralled around the campfire.
And since all of human development since then has been based on what was learned back then, all of art and literature and science and invention, should be equally and fairly shared among all their descendants.
Some people might have a bigger house, or a newer, shinier car, but knowledge, and the technological state we have come to, is the legacy of the ancients, and it should belong to all of us equally.

I was never really invested in Columbus Day, so I’m not terribly bothered that the holiday is being swapped out for Indigenous People’s Day or Voting Day. But, the historical revisionism grates a bit. Not that it’s untrue. He murdered, and raped, and tortured and enslaved people.
I have always thought that Thomas Jefferson was one of America’s greatest presidents. Still do. But, it is a known fact now that he had several children with a slave, and he left them in slavery.
So, our deification of these personalities was misguided, our reverence for them somewhat naive. Nonetheless, they are part of who we are.
Here’s a broader view. By 65,000 years ago, human beings had invented (or learned to use) language, agriculture, houses, clothing, boats, and fire. We were probably recognizably human for a couple hundred thousand years before that. And there is little doubt that violence, murder, rape, slavery, kidnapping and torture go back at least that far.
So, we are all descended from rapists, and murderers, and tyrants. All we can control is what we do going forward.

Bernie didn’t have to make a big announcement detailing his plans to legalize marijuana, which includes immediately legalizing it by executive order, starting to pardon people who are already serving time, taking steps to see that it doesn’t get taken over by tobacco or alcohol companies so that it remains affordable, and re-investing the profits into the communities that need it the most.
He certainly didn’t have to do it at 4:20 in the afternoon, which was a total nod to the pothead community.
The pothead community is already mostly behind Sanders. I sure am. He already had a statement out there that he’s pro-legalization, and since most everybody else did, too, it was not a controversial issue. And he’s way ahead in the youth vote. The only problem there is that the only demographic that shows up less to vote than youth are potheads. (and there’s a fairly large Venn overlap between the two groups)
Also, Sanders is riding high right now. He did great in the last debate, had that huge rally in Queens with over 30,000 people, if you count the overflow, and I do, is gaining in the polls, and is racking up endorsements faster than I can keep track.
So, there was no political advantage to be gained, and plenty of risk. But he did it anyway. Because it was the right thing to do, and Bernie does the right thing.

Of course, people have different reasons to vote for the candidates they do, different criteria, and that is their right in a democracy. I may think it’s silly that some people vote on the basis of appearance, or mannerisms, or something else totally superficial, but that is their right.
To me, it seems like the logical way to vote is to analyze the candidates’ positions on the issues, and vote for the one most closely aligned with your personal world view, but that’s just me.
If you are voting on the basis of appearance and you are a woman, you’re probably going to like Beto O’Rourke, or maybe cute Peter Buttigieg. If you are a man you’re probably going to vote for Tulsi Gabbard. (Strictly choosing on issues, Gabbard is one of the two candidates I find acceptable)
If you say that character is the main issue, you should probably rule out Warren and Biden right away, as they both have huge conflicts of interest: Biden with the oil industry as his son, Hunter, is on the board of a Ukrainian Oil Company, and Elizabeth Warren as her daughter, Amy Tiagi, is raking in the big bucks as a Health Insurance executive. You should probably rule out Booker, too, as his connections to the pharmaceutical industry caused him to vote against reducing drug prices for seniors.
If political experience is at all on your list of criteria (and it’s kind of important, in view of who’s holding the office currently), then you should automatically dismiss Steyer, Willamson, and Yang, who have none. I also don’t think Buttigieg’s political experience is adequate. If mayor of a middling sized city is all you’ve got, then you’d better have been some sort of a spectacular mayor, as Bernie was for Burlington. There are a lot of people in South Bend who hate Mayor Pete, especially black people.
If electability is your criteria, it’s Bernie hands down.