The inner Bernie Sanders is getting an airing. The NYTimes has a front-page "Sanders Personality Test" sketching the candidate as not necessarily anyone you would marry or want for a next door neighbor. It focuses on what we might think of as his irascibility.
The Economist (2/29-3/6) suggests something of the same quality "That Bernie Feeling," while focusing on his go-it-alone behavior as a Representative and Senator (he has been in Congress for thirty years) He got remarkable little done, and it's not just because he's a socialist.
Bernie will see these two pieces as part of the vast corporate media attack on him. But they can only throw sticks and stones. The voters have a more potent tool, the ballot. Last week more than a majority chose someone else. That could change next week, but seems unlikely.
Many Americans have pinned their hopes on Bernie. They should fear what they are likely to get: a smarter than Trump, but equally chaotic disfunctional presidency. As the Economist put it in it's lead editorial: "SOMETIMES PEOPLE wake from a bad dream only to discover that they are still asleep and that the nightmare goes on."
Irascibility and the recent ill-advised rants against the Democratic Party Establishment (Trumpism is the enemy, Bern), I'm going out on a limb and calling Michigan for Sanders:
ReplyDeleteWayne/Macomb/Oakland counties (aka Dee-troit) no longer drag the rest of the state behind them at the polls. Hillary won in those three counties, but lost statewide to Sanders. Biden is polling well there, but Sanders still has support among the disgruntled in the north counties.
North counties are mostly red, and Trumpublicans will cross over to vote for Sanders in our open primary.
Joe is not showing up here. He's sending John Kerry (not anyone who resonates in Michigan) and Amy Klobuchar as surrogates, focusing heavily on Detroit. Bernie is making two or three appearances on both east and west sides of the state.
Bernie is not taking Michigan for granted with ads and mailing pieces. He's on TV or in the mailbox every day. Joe is late to the media blitz.
Biden would do better to give Amy some earmuffs and a pair of Sorrels and send her to an Up North location. They just got another foot of snow up there, and politicians who go north in this weather get points around the state for making an effort. People still talk about Obama going to Marquette, where he made a couple of Yooper jokes and gave a speech that demonstrated someone on staff actually bothered to learn about upper Michigan. Bernie's not going north, but he is in areas accessible to more northerly counties.
Young people in Michigan are not seeing Trump's vaunted great economy. Two in three say they aspire to leave the state. They are irascible and debt-ridden. Bernie speaks to them.
Nobody is visiting Flint. Michigan Democrats pay attention to how Flint is treated, and not going there is a gaffe for both campaigns.
Neither of those bozos is going to do a big rally in Flint? They are not going to FLINT?
DeleteStill flat-lining.
THIS JUST IN! Yes, Bernie is going to Flint and Ann Arbor.
DeleteAnn Arbor is especially lovely at this time of the year. But, as you say, that isn't Traverse City.
DeleteUgh, what Michigan are you talking about!? Nothing is lovely in Michigan in March--piles of black snow, huge pot holes, matted down lawns, no foliage. And Ann Arbor. People try to navigate the insanity of the layout and are never seen again. I visited a U-M specialist down there one time and decided I would rather die than go for a repeat visit.
DeleteUGH? Did I mean East Lansing?
DeleteAh, Ann Arbor. Willow Run Laboratories, later ERIM, Environmental Research Institute of Michigan. Took two weeks of modern optics courses there in 1973. Two of the lecturers were Leith and Upatnieks, the inventors of modern holography. Synthetic aperture radar was developed there. Modern holography was born from radar math. I had a wonderful time and learned a lot. Fond memories of Michigan.
DeleteWillow Run. Haven't heard that name in a while. If memory serves, projects were military surveillance and the like. I recall a lot of protests down there in the Vietnam era over the development of what were perceived as high-tech implements of destruction.
DeleteHad an aunt who taught at Ann Arbor (Michigan State?), back in the 70s. She drove an old piece of junk for years even though she could afford to upgrade. She said, "What's the point of having a nice car when you would just break something in a chuckhole, and the salt they put on the roads would wreck the paint?"
DeleteYeah,Jean. Thus the name change to the politically correct ERIM. I guess you can call it surveillance but it was mostly advanced radar, optical data processing (which never kept up with electronic computation), and holography, which now persists mostly as a way to secure credit cards and some rather specialized applications. Synthetic aperture radar, sometimes called side-looking radar, allows for extremely high resolution radar imaging. Applying the same techniques to sonar allows surface ships to attain high resolution maps of the sea floor. I believe the Titanic was found this way.
DeleteAnn Arbor is the University of Michigan. East Lansing is MSU. Don't confuse them if you come here.
DeleteI had an Aunt who taught math at U-M. Scottish immigrant, about 4 feet tall. She had some Detroit mob boss's kid as a student. After she failed him, she was visited by some flunkies. "Do your worst," she said tartly. "It won't make him any smarter." They went away chastened.
Don't get me started in Michigan roads. Major issue here. Gov. Gretchen ran on "fix the damn roads," but legislature refuses to raise taxes. She just implemented a bond initiative to try to get things rolling. We'll see.
Rumor has it that Pope Francis is pretty grumpy, too. Especially toward his subordinates! That should not be surprising. Every Christmas, he gives the Curia a sack of coal for their greeting. After lecturing them about the spiritual diseases of the Curia, one cardinal asked him whether they should be seeing a physician or a psychiatrist? He shot back “Both!”
ReplyDeleteThen there was the saintly JP2 who loved babies!. My polish grandfather loved us grandchildren, too. However he terrorized his own children. Most of them left home as soon as they could. My father went to work in the mines after eight grade. When I saw JP2 shaking his finger at the priest kneeling before him in Nicaragua, I exclaimed “Grandpa!”
When I was in the mental health system, I was well known for my preferential love for those with mental illness. I was also well know for being very professional, not picking friends or enemies. All that did not stop me from speaking truth to my colleagues and the powers that be. Just the facts, folks, we have to face reality!
It truly does appear that the Best and Brightest, and those who consider themselves among them, have decided that Sanders Simply Will Not Do. The Don never notices when the B&Bs declare anathema against leftwing, neoMarxist, secularist, neoSocialist liberals (formerly known approvingly as New Dealers). But I think the public does so note. And that's why it is willing to accept The Don's contention that the media is biased. I suppose it is possible that the New York Times, the Economist, NPR and, I assume, The Washington Post have only now, by sheer coincidence, come to the conclusion that Sanders Simply Will Not Do, but it surely sounds like there is a B&B echo chamber. Those of us with incredibly long memories recall that in 2016, the B&Bs decided that The Don not only Simply Would Not Do but also affirmed there was No Way he could Do.
ReplyDeleteAll that being said, even I shudder at the prospect of president with pumping arms and the delivery of the guy on the last barstool before the loo ranting on and on.