Thoughts from My Snuggery!

On the coming election – on Bernie, Hillary and Michael Bloomberg! I have this nagging feeling that this year’s presidential election will be one of the most important in history. I am hoping people will not gamble when they vote this year. There is far too much at stake. In terms of defining America, I think this election has importance nearly as significant as the elections of 1860 and 1932. Here are some of my thoughts about this election.
by Charlie Leck

On Bernie Sanders!
With the apparent realization that Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic Party’s candidate for the U.S. Presidency, the NY Times Editorial Board had this to say about Bernie Sanders…

“The Democratic Party and Mrs. Clinton are better off for Mr. Sanders’s presence in this race. His criticism, as Winston Churchill might say, was not agreeable. But it called necessary attention to unhealthy developments in the Democratic Party, including its at-times obliviousness to the lingering economic pain of the middle class and the young, and its drift toward political caution over aspiration.”

And the editorial concludes this way…

“But to truly unify the party, Mrs. Clinton and party leaders must work to incorporate Mr. Sanders and what he stands for in the party’s approach to the general election. It would also help to acknowledge that the party has strayed at times from its more aspirational path.

“Unlike the voices on the Republican side, Mr. Sanders’s has elevated this campaign. The Democratic Party should listen.”

Well, the NY Times has got it right – and, in the next few months, it is important that Bernie Sanders gets it right as well. He is now a national figure of very large proportion. He needs to hold Mrs. Clinton’s fingers to the fire and he needs to give her his support to keep the White House under the Democrats’ control. If he can help take back the House and the Senate, all the better.

Sanders has all these abilities. The question is: Does Bernie Sanders have the energy after his grueling and very successful campaign. We must hope so!

I have been an admirer of Senator Sanders for many years. He brings fresh thinking and rational thinking to the U.S. Senate. He scoffs at ideas when they should be scoffed at! He supports sensible ideas with vigor. He had the brains and tenacity to oppose the wretched 2003 invasion of Iraq by U.S. military forces under President George W. Bush.

What happened to the Republic Party in 2016?
Someone who is probably not even a Republican, but found it convenient to be one in this particular year, has kidnapped the Grand Old Party. Of course, that someone is Donald Trump!

The Republican Party was lazy and unwatchful in late 2015 and early 2016. While they should have been coalescing behind a qualified candidate for President and developing a plan and a platform of ideas for America, they could only rise to an unparalleled level of negativism and opposition. They were not a party of ideas or of hope! They made the political atmosphere ripe for Donald Trump to step into the abyss. Republicans can rightfully blame Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, Paul Ryan and a few other lazy and dizzy legislators for the Donald Trump phenomenon.

Why weren’t these guys talking to the brilliant former Mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg, instead? Bloomberg would have drawn huge numbers of Democrats to support him.

My only hope (I’ll be 76 when this election takes place) is that the Republican Party will somehow find a way to deradicalize and discover its former place only slightly right of center. From there they can work with the next President to turn America back to the dream it has always held; that is, that we can again be a nation for, of and by the people.

Goodnight Mrs. Calabash, wherever you are! (I dined a week or so ago in Little River, SC, at the Calabash Seafood Restaurant; and folks at that establishment claim that the famous Mrs. Calabash was one of them.)

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