Primary Voting - Elizabeth Warren Voter here

I am bringing this blog out of hibernation to write about politics. Primary time is here - not Massachusetts this time, at least not since 1820, but next Tuesday anyway. Four years ago, I voted for Bernie Sanders in the primary. This time - I'm voting for Elizabeth Warren.

It's been a strange year, and it's turning into a strange primary season. A year ago, I was fairly optimistic about the Democratic side of the race. I liked the senators offering for the race - Warren and Gillibrand and Harris and maybe Sharrod Brown, Booker and Klobachar; I was willing to give a listen to O'Rourke and Buttigieg and the like. I took some shots at Bernie in that post, but have never had any complaints about Bernie's policies. Biden - well, Biden is Biden. It looked like we were going to have good choices.

Oh, fool that I was. Warren and Sanders are still around, but the others I thought I could support are all gone, leaving the likes of Biden, Klobuchar (who's the least of the senators running), Buttigieg (the year has not shown mayor Pete to be qualified for this gig, though somehow people preferred him to Julian Castro or Booker - I don't know.) And motherfucking Mike fucking Bloomberg? the fuck? As a Democrat? And worse, the raw stupidity of the American political system is on full display. We have had what, a primary and two caucuses and people are acting like it is a given that Sanders will have a plurality of delegates at the convention, and oh, what shall we do then? Caucuses need to be banned, and places like Iowa and New Hampshire need to be relegated to the afterthoughts they should be. Start with California or something, I don't know!

There is no sanity to be found in trying to make sense of American politics at all. So I won't anymore.

Why Warren? The truth is, i would have supported her last year - I would have supported her in 2016, if she'd ran. I wish she had - she would have been a far better representative of her brand of leftist politics than Sanders, she would have done a lot more to move the entire party left (though the Democrats continue to move left, a fact no opne seems to admit to). She probably wouldn't have won in 2016, but she'd be the front runner this time, and almost certainly far stronger than Sanders is now.

That's horse race stuff, though. The main reason I support her is that I support her politics. Bernie's too, for whatever that's worth - they'll both push for real health care systems, for higher taxes on the rich and corporations, for stronger labor, for higher wages, for regulation and oversight, for saner foreign policy, for better support for students, for child care, for civil rights and on and on. Where they break, they usually break in her favor: she is more insistent on political reform - ending the filibuster; packing the courts. Political reform, from protecting voting rights to breaking the power of minority parties to dictate politics, is necessary, or we will not have a country much more. At least not a democracy, and the republic is not exactly on the firmest footing. There is that.

I also think she would be much better at getting things passed than Sanders would be. She is more likely to have, and court, the support of the more conservative parts of the Democratic party, she is more likely to be able to build deals, she strikes me as having a better grasp of the nuts and bolts of politics and government. I think she will do a better job of strengthening the party up and down the line - and that might be the most important thing anyone can do. Party trumps personality, and if it doesn't entirely trump politics, it runs it close. You have to be able to pass things, and the Republicans have long since committed utterly to obstructionism and anything they can do to force real decision making onto the executive. They won't stop any time soon. (You can hate Trump as uniquely awful, as an open fascist, as all the things he is - but the fact is, he matters because the Republican party supports him all the way. Mitch McConnell is the one who has ruined this country. Trump serves at his pleasure; literally at this point, as he had a straightforward chance to remove him and did not.) It is a fact that whoever becomes president, winning the senate is far more important. Warren strikes me as a better bet to make that possible.

You will notice that I am only comparing Warren to Sanders here. It's a fact that there is not one else left in the race I would want to vote for. In the fall - obviously - you have to vote against Trump, no matter what the option is. They could bring back Hillary Clinton, and I'd vote for her in the fall. But I don't have to vote for crap now, and I don't have to pretend to want to. The rest of them are awful, frankly - Biden was a joke back in 1988, how is he still a thing? Blame the Onion, I guess. Klobuchar might not be terrible, just a bland, middle of the road, typical midwestern Democratic, dare I say it, establishment politician. Fine in the senate; a disappointment as president. Buttigieg? the same, only 20 years too young. Maybe he'll change, but right now, he's a middle fo the road hack with absolutely nothing going for him. And what have I forgotten?

I yeah - Mike fucking Bloomberg. Dear god. In the admittedly extremely unlikely event that he got the nomination, he would sorely try my conviction that I must vote for any Democrat on the ticket against Trump. I would - I mean, shit, if the only people on the ticket were Trump and Pence, I'd vote for Pence - but he would try it. At least the rest fo the contenders seem to agree with me, the way they have all been lighting into him. The more the better. Eat the rich indeed!

Enough! I am voting for Warren for the reasons above. I only compare her to Sanders because Sanders, whatever his faults, is the only other Democratic candidate I really want to be president. Beyond the reasons I listed above, I could add, though she is too old for the job, she is younger than Sanders - she is more likely to be alive in November 2020, let alone November 2024. And I won't deny I would like to see a woman elected to the office. Age and demographics are part of the qualifications of being president - it is a hard job, it will wear you down. And who and what you are matters - not as much as what you do and what you stand for, but they matter. And everything I find to choose between Sanders and Warren pushed me to her.