Biden: "I Never Thought Hillary Was The Correct Candidate"

[Ken Burch]

175. In 2008, HRC became, whether she wanted to be or not, the "stop Obama" candidate.

That was likely the decisive factor in how she did among white voters and voters of color that year.

She then spent the next eight years successfully winning over the African-American leadership.

Going into 2016, HRC knew caucuses were part of the terrain. There was no injustice to her campaign in the fact that caucuses were going to continue to play a major role.

Bernie, who hadn't even been thinking of running until probably some time in early 2015, hadn't had the time to make the kind of connections HRC had made among voters of color. He had an antiracist program, but failed to communicate it in time.

He also alienated a lot of black voters with the way he spoke about Obama(as HRC herself had done in 2008, ironically). Bernie would have spoken in the way he did about ANY Democratic president he saw as insufficiently progressive and too close to corporate power, but it read as an old white man disrespecting the first African-American president simply because that president WAS African-American.

Those were the main reasons HRC had a massive switch in her support base between 2016.

Caucuses have lower turnout, and that IS a problem, and I agree that they should be scrapped, but the whole argument some HRC supporters make on this tends to sound as if they're saying Bernie mainly did better in caucus states, therefore his victories don't really count. If caucuses are to be scrapped, it should be in the spirit of "let the people be heard". not "Bernie had no right to do as well as he did-his movement wasn't anything".

And to my knowledge, neither HRC nor anyone working on her behalf made any efforts, between 2008 and 2016, to ban caucuses or reduce the number of caucuses being held. She probably could have had the nominating process tailored to her exact specifications-why did she not just do that?

We should get rid of caucuses, but NOT as a way to delegitimize anybody's past victories in various stages of the nominating process, nor to get payback on anyone who wasn't a HRC supporter from the moment she declared her candidacy.

Are we on the same wavelength on this?