This will be the shortest blog post I’ve ever written. (Cheering, clapping of hands!) So short you can probably read it at a stoplight on your way to work (but don’t comment-that would be illegal). Today is Tuesday, June 7, 2016, the day North Dakota Democrats will hold their presidential preference caucuses. I’ve already written about that here, back in February, so I won’t write much about it. I’ll just summarize what I said then:
“As for the Democrats, well, by the time they get around to implementing their 44-page plan, likely Hillary Clinton will already be the nominee . . .”
Yep.
So here’s who I feel bad for today: A few hundred, maybe even a few thousand, active, avid, some even rabid, Democrats, many of them friends of mine, who were primed to swarm the Democratic-NPL caucuses tonight and enthusiastically show their support for Bernie Sanders. Sorry, friends. It’s over.
I hope they’ll show up anyway, and rally behind our nominee, Hillary Clinton. I’m going to be there. I’ve made no secret of my support for the next President Clinton (drives Tom Gunderson and all my other Republican friends nuts, but I like that, and they’re still my friends), and I hope we can all get together and use every bit of our energy to elect her.
Because if we don’t, and by some terrible circumstance we elect Donald Trump president, I fear the possibility of a military coup having to take over the White House one day to stop a crazy many from pulling a trigger none of us ever want to see pulled.
This is important. Practice saying the five most important syllables in the English language right now: Pres-i-dent Clin-ton.
The Prairie Blog 
I will take some issue with this post. Bernie may well lose, however, he has brought a much needed debate into the party and into politics. I guess Trump is doing that too although he is not speaking to me.
The Democratic party over the past 30 years has become increasingly irrelevant—it has abandoned the principles that has separated us from the Republicans. That has disenfranchised a lot of Americans—-so have the Republicans. As money has trumped(pun intended) good governance.
I disagree with your take on Hillary. As President, she would be more likely to take us to war that any other candidate. She has been in the pocked of the Military/Industrial complex forever as was Bill. She will be unable to united the party. Too much money and baggage.
I view this as an opportunity to rebuild the Democratic party with a return to the ideas that attracted the people that needed a voice. If we can do that, we have a bright future. If we accept the status quo, our country suffers—not merely the Democratic party.
What Bernie has done is ask the questions that the Democrats have avoided for a long time. I disagree with most of his solutions but he has had the courage to raise the issues. A breathe of fresh air.
It is up to us to keep asking these questions and make suggestions as how to handle the big problems—not an easy task—-but who said is should be?
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Tom (my old friend), I’d like to hear more about why you think Hillary would be most likely of the candidates to take us into another war. Trump has been blathering about nuking people, or torturing them, and killing the entire families of terrorists (he seems to have acquired his moral beliefs from watching the Sopranos). Hillary has expressed much concern about the wars we are in and about not getting in deeper.
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what a coincidence. We parked across the street from your old house last night as Presidential caucus. I told my wife about my memory of that time. And wondered just where you might be.
I hope that this is not an inappropriate use of Jim’s blog but I would like to hear from you. My political e-mail is asbridgeforhouse@yahoo.com
Would be really great to hear from you.
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i looked up the place for the democratic caucus and i’d have to travel from Alexander to Hettinger. Heck that is close to 200 miles one way. i would surely be in favor of doing a caucus by e mail, or regular snail mail or at least have the ability to go to our county courthouse. And i guess anymore that magic time of seven p.m. doesn’t count much either. Maybe you could voice some opinions on how the silly Democrat organization in this state can improve things. i think we have long since gone past the gathering in a local farm house to state our positions. i sure would have liked to cast my vote for Hillary too. There are a few democrats out here!
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Dorothy Reil makes a really good point regarding the caucus.
Perhaps the confusion is due to the fact that this was the first time and even with that, the process came off fairly well. I would hope that next time it would be better.
One point that can be said is that the Party leaders were clearly Hillary supporters. With the fear of Sanders, a need came to be to give Hillary every edge possible. Politics as usual? Maybe. But if that is true, it is one explanation of a shrunken party. The new Sanders folks that showed up should be the message that we must be way better at listening and not telling. A top down party will always turn out this way.
The fact that new faces showed up is the most positive sign for the party that I have seen in over 30 years. I hope we can learn from it and move forward with that in mind.
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