Monday, March 2, 2020

2020 DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY ENDORSEMENT (SUPER TUESDAY/COLORADO PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY)




I cast my vote for in the Colorado Presidential Primary as part of the Super Tuesday contests for…



First, let me point out that this endorsement is for the primary and only the primary.

Once the primary has concluded and there is a nominee for the Democratic Party, I will vote for that person the moment the general election ballot arrives in my mail box later this year. If you are already committed to voting for the Democratic nominee, make sure you check your voter registration information for your respective state, look at the candidates who are running down ballot (they matter as much at the top of the ticket), and make a plan to go vote as soon as the polls are open.

Any of the remaining candidates are infinitely better than Donald Trump. I’m more qualified to be president than Trump.

NOTE: I am not announcing a late entry for the presidency. Do *NOT* write me in as a candidate.

While my sample size of presidents in my lifetime is very small (Reagan, both Bushes, Clinton, Obama, Trump), I truly despise this president, his enablers, and those that voted for him - which also includes family members who I have ceased any lines of communication with and likely will for the foreseeable future.

Previous presidents have their faults and do what they can to leave a lasting legacy that improves our lives.

This president serves himself and only himself.

Not only that, but Trump is untethered to our Constitutional norms due to surviving impeachment because 52 senators felt it was more important to align themselves with Trump than it was to protect and defend the Constitution, a document that Republicans claim is sacred but proved their real loyalties during the Trump impeachment and trial. A second Trump term will be even worse as he directs whatever means to go after his perceived enemies in Congress and his critics.

Currently there is a global pandemic - the coronavirus - and instead of monitoring the situation, providing a calm presence, surrounding himself with experts in viral outbreaks, and coordinating with government officials at the city, state, & federal levels, Trump has done everything wrong.

Trump proceeded with his plans for campaign appearances to raise money in Florida for his re-election and followed it up with a rally in Charleston, SC with Senator Lindsay Graham, a leading Trump sycophant. During the rally, he called the outbreak “a hoax” which further contradicted several press conferences where he downplayed the outbreak as well as made up the number of confirmed US cases and citing it will be down to zero by April. Those in the Trump administration continued those hoax claims at the annual CPAC meeting in Maryland that ended with Trump doing his usual mocking of any of his potential Democratic rivals.

Instead of appointing someone to head the task force or directing the press to ask the CDC questions, Trump named Vice President Mike Pence to be in charge. Pence - as Indiana governor - made an HIV-AIDS outbreak worse by banning a needle exchange program. Pence along with this administration has a long history of being deniers with anything evidence based - ranging from the receipts on Pence believing that conversion therapy for LGBTQ persons works to climate deniers at the EPA and of course the many lies that Trump has told across his presidency.

The only reason Trump leapt into action was because his anger over how poorly the stock market was doing and how it could hamper his re-election chances. Once again, it is only about serving himself.

This pandemic is serious and unfortunately, we do not have serious people in the White House who are willing to do serious business.

I do not make this choice for who I am voting for in the primary lightly. When my ballot arrived, I placed it on my nightstand. I wanted to see how the results in the early contests of Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina played out before I voted. I - and I suspect many others in Super Tuesday states - did not want to vote for a candidate who dropped out during this stage of the nomination thus wasting my shot at voting for another viable option.


I am still disappointed in how the process eliminated Booker, Castro, and Harris so early without a chance to see how voters felt about them, and I addressed those concerns in an earlier post. There certainly needs to be reforms in how states choose their delegates as well as the order certain states go in. Going forward, there needs to be pressure from people who can influence the necessary improvements to our nomination process so that this can be avoided.

As for who I cast my vote for, I narrowed my choices down to former Vice President Joe Biden and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren.

Why is Sanders not under consideration for my primary vote?

I have serious reservations about Sanders as a general election candidate, and it could jeopardize Democrats chances in several critical down ballot races across the country at the federal and state levels.

I am also disappointed in that some of the more passionate supporters of Sanders have spent their time and effort at going after Democrats who would be willing to advocate for their issues while not turning their energy towards defeating Republicans.

The coronavirus outbreak has highlighted the persistent problem with the Trump administration and that is this: the complete dismantling of our bureaucratic infrastructure.

There have been several departures and vacancies throughout this presidency. While turnover in presidential administrations in nothing new, it is unprecedented where critical governmental agencies go dangerously understaffed. Rachel Maddow on her show tracked this that it began to resemble a departure board at your choice of favorite major airport.


Whoever is the next Democratic President will have the daunting task of rebuilding it back up and will have to rely on drawing from the talent pools that have served in previous Democratic administrations such as the Barack Obama and Bill Clinton administrations as well with Hillary Clinton when she was Secretary of State. One of the reasons why Obama picked Mrs. Clinton as his Secretary of State was that he needed someone who could jump right into handling our international relations while he worked on the domestic front to keep a deep recession into turning into an economic depression.

The next Democratic president will need to surround themselves with wise and experienced people who can rebuild our frayed international relations that Trump has damaged and take on the domestic issues to ensure that no like Trump ever happens again.

Senator Warren appeared positioned to do that. There are many things I agree with her on such as this speech she gave at a house event during her 2012 senate run.


Unfortunately, she has shown less than stellar performance throughout these nominating contests. The only delegates she received was in the Iowa caucus and since then she has failed to receive any delegates, especially in the New Hampshire primary where she was a neighboring senator.

Instead of trying to differentiate herself from Sanders and expand her support base to best position herself as the better messenger for the party’s left flank, her campaign appears to have entered in a non-aggression pact with the Sanders campaign. I wish that the attacks on Bloomberg in the final two debates were directed more at Sanders to show a substantial difference between the two throughout the debates.

I doubt that Sanders has as deep of a talent pool to draw from should he ascend to the White House. While that might be an endearing quality to his most fierce supporters, it does not impress those that believe that experience with the complexities of government and how they interact with each other matters. The same people who have worked in Democratic-progressive-liberal-left leaning causes for the last 30 years have taken their share of abuse from his campaign and might have reservations about working for him as well as those that surround him.

The final factor that played in my decision was how South Carolina voted which was when the Democratic Party base - mainly black voters - would have their say. Again, this nomination process has been criticized that two states that do not reflect the nation’s demographics receive first priority and when a more diverse state - Nevada - comes up on the calendar, they use a voter suppressing caucus which may not reflect a state’s demographics.

South Carolina spoke on Saturday night.

And they did so

Loudly

It might be best to listen to them and not dismiss them.

That reason is why I cast my primary ballot for Joe Biden.


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