Conventional Wisdom
In every state that held (or will hold) a primary or a caucus, truly concerned individuals try their best to get the vote out for their candidate. They could do so by attending meetings, soliciting door-to-door or on the phone, putting signs on their lawns, cars, windows, bumpers, or by wearing campaign buttons on their clothing.

In the final run, does the actual vote of the people really count in selecting each party’s candidate at the national convention?

On July 25-28, the Democratic National Convention will take place in Philadelphia, with 4,770 delegates having 4,766 votes to cast for the party’s Presidential nominee. The wining candidate will have to get 2,383 votes, but will they truly earn them?

What’s So Super About Them?

Among the delegates are 715 unpledged delegates, whom nobody has voted for, and they are known as superdelegates. Twenty are distinguished party leaders, twenty-one are Governors, forty-seven are Senators, 193 are Representatives, and 434 are members of the Democratic National Committee (DNC).

These Democrats Have

One Thing In Common

The people in the following paragraph, whose names you may not recognize, are among the 438 members of the Democratic National Committee, who have 434 votes at the Democratic National Convention.

They are Rafael Anchia of Texas, Stuart Appelbaum of New York, Belinda Biafore from West Virginia, Rosiky F. Camacho MP, Emelia S. Chargualaf MP, George Wallace of Virginia, David Worley of Georgia, Jose R. Rodriguez of Texas and Mannie Rodriguez Colorado, Andre Ramirez of Nevada and Rion Ramirez of Washington, Javier Morillo-Alicea of Minnesota, Gilberto Hinojosa of Texas, and Marcia Fudge of Ohio.

Actually, there are two outlanders in this list, for Rosiky F. Camacho MP and Emelia S. Chargualaf MP, who each own one superdelegate vote, are both members of the House of Representatives of the Twelfth Northern Marianas Commonwealth Legislature, a U.S. Commonwealth in the Pacific Ocean, with a population of 53,855. As you well know, their commonwealth is a very important part of our democracy, and perhaps they should each have several votes.

All for Hillary

All of the aforementioned superdelegates have one thing in common; they all endorse Hillary, as do a total of 502 superdelegates. Only 41 endorse Bernie, and only Daniel Hynes has said he would endorse Martin O’Malley. An additional 171 superdelegates are not endorsing any candidate, yet.

The distinguished party leaders include current or former presidents, current and former vice-presidents, former congressional leaders, and former DNC chairs. Among those favored few are former vice-presidents Al Gore and Walter Mondale, and former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, along with current President Obama and current vice-president Biden.

First in War, First in Piece

Obama, Biden, Carter and Gore have not endorsed any candidate, while Mondale and Clinton have endorsed Hillary. It is imperative for William Jefferson to vote thusly, if he wants to have any chance of being the first First Man.

Who’s On First?

As of Friday the Thirteenth of May, Clinton has 2,240 delegates including 524 superdelegates, while Sanders has 1,473 delegates, including 40 superdelegates. This means that there are 1,052 delegates not yet allocated for either candidate.

I Pledge Allegiance, Too

Superdelegates are "unpledged,” and they can decide which candidate to support. But if they want to feed at the Democratic Party trough, they are loathe to do anything rash, like vote for Martin O’Malley or Bernie Sanders, for their vote may haunt them when moneys and political favors are available.

Pledged delegates can change their vote if no candidate is elected on the first ballot and can even vote for a different candidate on the first ballot if they are "released" by the candidate they are pledged to. Superdelegates, on the other hand, can change their vote purely of their own volition.

It’s All Narishkeyt

The Yiddish word “narishkeyt” in the broadest sense means “nonsense,” and if ever a political system is full of narishkeyt, where the will of the voters is semi-meaningless, it’s here and now. To quote a man who will make America grate, “The system is rigged.”

It’s A Far Different World From When I Entered It

Things were far simpler in 1936, when I first experienced life. Next January, I turn eighty and each day I seem to understand less and less about the world I am now living in.

THE LEAST INCOMPETENT

We have two snake-oil salesmen leading the race to be the GOP candidate for the Presidency. One is a blustery, loud-mouthed white man, who has yet to propose a workable plan to “Make America Great Again.”  He doesn’t quite tell lies, but has perfected the innuendo style of speaking used by Richard Milhous Nixon.

That style can best be described as, “I’m not saying that my opponent is a (liar, thief, crook, dishonest, incompetent), that’s for you to decide,” statements.

The second is a soft-spoken Black man, who embellishes (or creates) tales of his wayward youth, and how he was resurrected while sitting in the bathroom after one of his misdeeds. He hasn’t exactly told the media, “You are looking for any wrong doings because I am a successful neurosurgeon of color,” and seems to be a bit more subtle in his Nixon-like campaign direction.

THE TRUSTWORTHIEST

On the Democratic side, we have a kindly, honest, fireball of a Jewish grandfather running against William Jefferson Blythe III’s wife Hillary. Some women are supporting her because she is a woman, and they say this country needs a woman President to inspire young girls to have higher goals and rise above the secretarial pool. Isn’t that what Carly did, or said that she had done? There’s a hesitancy to believe anything a politician says.

When Tuesday, November 8, 2016 arrives and I vote for the President, I will once again be forced to decide which candidate from which party, will do the least amount of damage to my country and me over the next four years.

I am fortunate enough to have safe havens to move to if the “wrong” person is elected President, thanks to my wife. She’s not only a citizen of the United States, but also of Canada where she lived for thirty-six years, and of Spain where she was born. We can either move north and be “owt and abowt,” or be “muy contento” in España, as long as there isn’t another Inquisition.

Political cartoonists will also face a difficult adjustment figuring out to incorporate the elected candidate’s ears, hair, facial coloring, pantsuit, or other attire, to incorporate within their renderings.

IS IT NEWS, OR ‘NU?’

When it comes to television news, I have had a great deal of trouble listening to Obama over his two terms as he vacillates when he talks the talk, without walking the walk. If anyone but Bernie is elected, I will have to figure out how to use the time I will gain by not watching any television news over the next four years. If someone spends an average of only thirty-minutes a day watching any and all television news programs, that would total 43,920 minutes over the next President’s four-year term, or 732 hours of time.

If I gave up watching all television news for those four years, I would have ample time to write a novel, or to write more blog posts kvetching about what’s going on in the world, and wondering if anyone is reading what I have to say.

Incidentally, has anyone read this?

THOSE WHO CAN’T 
REMEMBER THE PAST

Would you vote for a candidate for the Presidency, whose political resume included less than eight years serving in his state’s legislature?  What if he had been a U.S. Senator for little more than three years, when he sought his party’s nomination to be their candidate for President? What if he had no real experience as a Governor or another such elected position, to show that he could actually govern and lead the United States during troubled times? What if his Father had been born in another land?