I was listening to Leland Conway on WHAS 840 AM the other day and he made a very interesting point about the New Hampshire Primary and Bernie Sanders that I hadn’t thought about.
Bernie Sanders beat Hillary Clinton by 22.4 percentage points. He received 60.4% of the popular vote and she received 38.0%. In dividing up the delegates based on votes received, Bernie gets 15 and Hillary gets 9.
But there are 8 more super-delegates that aren’t restricted by the popular vote. Six have already expressed support for Clinton making the score 15 to 15. Of the remaining two, one is undecided and the other cannot by law support either candidate until the convention.
So Sanders trounced Clinton in the election but ends up with the same number of delegates. And could end up losing 15 -17 if the two remaining delegates side with Clinton. Sanders isn’t happy about it. He worked hard, meeting the people, shaking hands, attending town hall meetings, making speeches and changing minds. He got the majority of votes, but ended up with the same amount of delegates as the loser. And he said this isn’t fair.
But isn’t this what he is proposing for you and me? If you work hard and make more money than someone else, he wants to take some of your money and give it to a person who doesn’t have as much.
Like most Socialist, he is all for Socialism until it affects him personally. This reminds me of one of my favorite jokes from the Cold War years:
- Andrei was a card-carrying member of the French Communist Party. He attended the meetings every Wednesday night. Afterwards, he would come home and for hours, expound on the latest Communist doctrine. But one Wednesday night, he came home, hung up his coat, turned on the TV and sat silently in front of it. His concerned wife asked if everything was alright. Andrei turned the TV off, turned to her and said, “Tonight we learned when our Party takes over, confiscates all of the country’s wealth and equally divides it among our citizens, each Party member will receive 38,000 francs.” His wife replies, ”Isn’t that a good thing? Isn’t that what you have been fighting for?” Andrei says, “Yes, but we already have 85,000 francs in the bank!”
Everyone thinks Socialism or Communism is great until the re-distribution of wealth reaches down to their level. Then it ain’t so great. All of the people supporting Bernie Sanders believe the re-distribution of wealth won’t reach them. But it always does. Just ask the citizens of Socialist Venezuela who are standing in line for hours just for a chance to buy food and toilet paper like that other great model of Socialistic success, the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republic. The key word there is “former”. Read about the great success of Socialism in Venezuela here: Venezuela: Textbook Example of Socialist Mismanagement
You can listen to Leland Conway’s podcast here. The comments about Bernie Sanders delegates comes in around 13:15 into the show: Leland Conway 12 Feb 2016