[Vision2020] Dick Van Dyke introduces Bernie Sanders (was: Trump nonsense)

[Kenneth Marcy]

On 6/4/2016 2:56 PM, Dan Carscallen wrote:
> Sure would be nice if folks (candidates included) would tell me why I 
> should vote for a particular person instead of why I shouldn't vote 
> for a particular candidate.
>
> Just sayin'

      You should vote for Bernie Sanders, or those people who will 
enable and implement Bernie Sanders' policies and ideas, so that we can 
collectively gain more control over who actually makes the laws under 
which we must live, and make those individuals more accountable to the 
electorate.  Campaign finance reform is the first step, and beyond that 
electoral system and voting geography selection and management reform 
should follow.  (Yes, I really do suspect that you know how to spell 
gerrymandering, but it's such an old-fashioned, and fundamentally 
corrupt, word).
      Remember, 2020 is only four years away, and that means another 
national census, and reapportionment and redistricting follow.  We need 
to be much better prepared for these not-very-far-away exercises not 
only for their usual details, but also for the structures within which 
they operate.  Significant structural reforms toward more voter 
awareness, education, and understanding, and better structural electoral 
involvement can take us away from purchased and produced elections and 
toward participatory democracy.
      Your first voting preference should be for Bernie Sanders for 
these reasons and many more.  If Bernie Sanders does not achieve the 
presidential nomination directly, then he must be selected as the 
vice-presidential nominee.  If he is not selected as the 
vice-presidential nominee by the presidential nominee, then the 
delegates on the convention floor should vote to remand to themselves 
the power to select the vice-presidential nominee, and then they should 
vote the vice-presidential nomination to Senator Sanders.
      Your second voting preference should be to elect those delegates 
to various positions of party authority to make these preferences happen.
      The fact of the matter is that the Democratic Party, and the 
American nation, need Senator Sanders' sound policy judgement readily 
available for the next presidential administration.  Should it come to 
pass that the first female American president is not able to complete 
her first term in office for whatever reason, having a Vice-President 
Sanders is as good a backup president as the electorate may expect, and 
perhaps better than it sometimes deserves.  So, we must all do what we 
are able to do to ensure Senator Sanders is in one position or  the 
other of the 2016 presidential ballot, and we should vote for that 
ticket to provide public service of the best quality to all of us.
      Beyond the national executive offices, we should vote in favor of 
those federal candidates most likely to support the Sanders policy 
positions.
      At the Idaho state level, it would be nice for all of us if we 
would vote for educated, competent, non-embarrassing candidates who 
understand that we live together in a society that includes human beings 
in various family combinations, as opposed to various fantasy creatures 
from economic and political imaginations.
      Here's a thought.  We might vote for state legislative candidates 
who are willing to raise state legislative pay to levels that allow a 
legislator to be employed full-time as a legislator, instead of relying 
on semi-financially independent people who have reached stages in their 
financial wealth accumulations and career development (meaning 
semi-retired), and many of whom can, and apparently do, ignore, disdain, 
and turn unseeing eyes toward the voters who elect them.  Were 
legislators paid enough to allow more diverse candidates to run for 
those offices, perhaps the nature of the legislature would then be able 
to better reflect the population of the state it is supposed to serve.


Ken

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