By Dick Miller
Last week’s column made a case that your vote in this Presidential year was important. We were wrong.
WE.CONNECT.DOTS: –An analysis of more factors concludes the opposite.
The ruling elders of both major parties can predict how you will vote and manipulate enough of the process to achieve results to benefit themselves.
Doesn’t work every time, but often enough to maintain political control.
Sounds confusing, but here are some examples.
Manipulation of Republican rank-and-file has worked for at least 25 years. Until Donald Trump injected blatant racial appeals the two major elements of the GOP co-existed with a wink-and-a-nod. The mega corporations were willing to finance promotion of anti-immigration platform planks so long as no one actually made any changes. Tea Baggers were willing to look the other way while mega corps continued to tap into cheap labor.
Trump ended that unholy alliance. He convinced a large segment of the Republican Party that the U.S. Government could actually limit the number of migratory labors crossing borders and taking our jobs away. Trump is not likely to occupy the White House nor convince Congress to implement such a program, but the unholy alliance between big business and Tea Baggers as it relates to migratory labor is gone.
Mega corps will likely re-direct their money to legislative battles. They have proven they can get what they want by keeping ownership of Congress which, in turn, works to make a Democratic President as ineffective as possible.
The presidential candidacy of Sen. Bernie Sanders has exposed the same contempt that Democrat leaders have for their membership. He has zero chance to unseat Hillary Clinton in her quest for the Presidency. Her talented team schemed, functioned and purchased the nomination two or three years ago, perhaps before Sanders considered a run.
With negatives nearly off the charts, Hillary expected inter-party opposition. When the GOP became Trump’s lap dog, Clinton became more in control of her destiny.
Disconnect between Sanders’ candidacy and the Democrat Party is as wide as it is deep. Sanders shuns membership in the Party even though he always caucused with them. He criticizes Democrats for not allowing independents to vote in primaries.
Yet to be revealed is how Clinton piled up a 20-to-1 margin over Sanders in the fight for super delegates. One report is that a cadre of her big donors made sizable donations on her behalf to at least 32 state Democrat Party committees a year or so ago. In Pennsylvania those gifts reportedly totaled over $70,000.
Apparently Pennsylvania Democrats cannot be trusted to nominate “best” candidates for down ballot offices, according to last week’s primary. Democrat leadership grabbed over $5 million of campaign funds to buy advertising for Katie McGinty in Pennsylvania’s senate primary.
Those funds were earmarked to be spent against incumbent Republican Pat Toomey in the fall. Donors did not know these funds would be spent against other Democrats. The Keystone primary for U.S. Senate had more qualified candidates than any other ballot in the country.
McGinty is a former environmentalist and chief of staff for Gov. Wolf. Joe Sestak was a Naval admiral involved in national security under President Clinton. He was a two-term Congress member who lost to Toomey in 2010 by less than two points. Until the $5 million was spent against Sestak, he had been a solid favorite among voters, but not the bosses. John Fetterman is a Harvard graduate and ingenious mayor of Braddock who captured twenty percent of the vote.
Bottom Line: The 2016 Presidential race is unique. That is an understatement.
The Republicans are about to nominate a big money, corporate mogul campaigning against mega corps influence (and big money) in politics. The Democrats will counter a week later with the nomination of one of the most unpopular politicos ever on the national scene.
Should be interesting.
