Few Surprises in American Politics.
Donna Brazile the ultimate Democratic insider was fired by CNN recently for passing on questions to the Clinton Campaign prior to a debate against Bernie Sanders. According to an article in Washington Post.com by blogger Erik Wemple, the president of CNN Worldwide Jeff Zucker was critical of her for the leak and Surprised she wanted to hurt Bernie – leaving the network with no other choice but to fire the CNN Contributor.
Being the political junkie that I am it wouldn’t surprise me one bit that she passed the questions on to Hilary. Nor would I be surprised if Fox News leaked questions to Romney or Trump Campaigns. Remember it was President Obama who once labeled Fox News as the media wing of the Republican Party. In addition maybe some of the bigwigs at CNN were aware of the leaks and gave the approval.
Brazile, chair of the Democratic National Committee, who replaced Debbie Wassermann-Schultz, began her political life in the late 1970’s by connecting to the campaigns of Jessie Jackson, Walter Mondale, and acting as campaign manager for Al Gore in 2000. Donna seems to be a democratic strategist in the first order and is firmly behind Hilary in 2016. She bleeds Democratic blue.
You might say, she should be even-handed because Bernie and Hilary are both democrats. Hilary is a bonafide democrat, but Bernie isn’t. Surprised? In fact he has been a member of the Independent Party from 1979 to 2015 . In 2015 he ran as a Democrat for the presidency because his chances were slim as an Independent in a national election. It was a strategy that worked very well for him but he still came up short, losing to Hilary with a little help from Ms Brazile. After the defeat he switched back to being an Independent in 2016.
As a US Senator from Vermont, he usually caucuses with the democrats, but when it comes to political ideology he is way left of Hilary. Bernie, during the campaign once pushed free college for all that would cost American taxpayers billions of dollars. He is in favor of single-payer healthcare and European style socialism similar to Sweden where the government provides free healthcare, housing and income for many of its citizens. Hilary hasn’t gone that far, although she voted for the invasion of Iraq in 2003, sold by the republicans on the premise that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. It was later found out to be a lie in order to remove Saddam from office.
Bernie voted against the Iraq war, and was receptive to Black-Lives-Matter campaign to raise wages and provide jobs, along with social justice for African Americans. He was also receptive to the idea of wealth redistribution. But Hilary was not very receptive to wealth redistribution nor Black-Lives-matter.
Hilary Clinton is a democrat, a woman and a moderate, and that suits Donna just fine and dandy. What is the alternative? Donald Trump exudes fear and uncertainty by threatening to build a wall between Mexico and the US. At one point he wanted to bar Muslims from entering the country. He has been accused by women as being a misogynist, and by some of being a racist when he wouldn’t give up the birther campaign, accusing President Obama of foreign birth.
What bothers me the most of a Trump presidency is the appointment of several justices to the Supreme Court. Maybe three retirees are in order and that would definitely have a far right extremist bent. Don’t mention his foreign policy agenda, where he promotes a scorched earth policy in the Middle East, and would probably include a large contingent of American troops on the front line. His unfair trade comments about China and Asia scare a whole lot of voters.
If you were in Donna Brazile shoes maybe you would pass on a few questions to Hilary too.
hubiejones.com 