Make no mistake about it, I am an ardent Bernie Sanders fan. I have developed a great deal of respect for him over the past decades listening to him on ‘Brunch with Bernie’ on the ‘Thom Hartmann Show’. Bernie calmly and politely took calls from listeners, on a wide range of subjects, answering them clearly and honestly.
To the HC camp bullies… I am NOT voting against Hillary because she is a woman. I am voting for Bernie because he is the better candidate for me. Hillary is certainly well qualified, so is Bernie, but Hillary too often has voted against my issues, while Bernie has stood up for them (sometimes all alone on the senate floor when no Democrats had the gumption to join in support of him). And the content of Hillary’s campaign speeches have changed drastically to echo Bernie’s over the past year. Thanks, I’ll stay with the candidate who has stood firm on these issues over the years, standing against the tide.

I was excited about candidate Obama’s promise of Hope and Change. We got some of that. I’d hoped for more. Specifically I had hoped for stronger demands for change. I understand that a President mostly can’t do it all alone (Executive Orders not withstanding), but when you start from a centrist position (not putting Single Payer on the table for example),that is a problem, and that is what Hillary is offering. Moderate Democrats have allowed themselves to be pushed toward the center so far, that they are now good old conservative Republicans.

When Hillary came to NY to run for the Senate, I was going to volunteer to campaign for her, even though I was uncomfortable with the carpet bagging aspect of it. I thought a smart woman from Arkansas might be a better advocate for rural interests in a state that is so overwhelmed by Metropolis that many people in the country, heck, even in our state, don’t know there is a rural NYS – not to mention that the vast area of NY is rural.

But she quickly showed her hand.

Let us not forget that she voted FOR the bank bailout in 2008.

Instead of moving to CNY where the Clintons were reportedly looking at a home in Skaneatles in the center of the state, they chose instead to go to Chappaqua NY in northern Westchester County nestled along the CT border. Well we know who your friends are Hillary, and your voting has certainly reflected that. Chelsea ” I don’t care about money” Clinton, is married to a multi-millionaire investment banker, and reportedly looking to buy a home in the $10 million range.

As a Mom sixty+ year old grandmother who is still working to afford to get by, watching hard working children with good jobs who struggle to raise children, I just can’t identify. If my math is correct you could sell that $10M dollar house, buy a measly $500K house (stil 2x the median price of a single family home in the NE) and support  almost 200 families for a year at the median household income, or put 95,000 NY’ers through community college. Etc., etc.

It just seems to me that Bernie Sanders who has lived in, and represented a rural state that certainly more closely represents the economic, educational and philosophical diversity of CNY (yes I know, both areas are predominantly white) might just understand middle class Americans a little better.

And then again in the run up to the Iraq war she showed that she had left the idealistic Young Hilary far, far behind.

I could be wrong, but there is one more glaring problem for the Hilary campaign. Republicans hate her. OK – yes – mostly for misogynistic  reasons, but also because she has been part of Obama’s  cabinet. I think that she will face the same, if not more galvanized, obstructionist government that has thwarted President Obama. If they wouldn’t cooperate with that N in the hwite house, they sure won’t deal with an uppity L(ezzy) woman. (No I don’t think she is and I wouldn’t care)

I think that Bernie has a greater chance of at least starting from a more cooperative position, though of course we must also work to get him a Congress and Senate that is not mired in a totalitarian backwards mindset.