Bernie and Al

At the conclusion of the New Hampshire primary Tuesday, the celebrants celebrated, the successful rejoiced, the unsuccessful licked their wounds (or dropped out of the race), and everyone remaining made a beeline to the next primary state, South Carolina.

Oh, yeah, except for Bernie Sanders.

The Great Promiser of Free Everything absolutely demolished Hillary Clinton in the New Hampshire primary on the Democratic side, winning the vote by about 22 percentage points, and leading her in every single demographic except for women over 65 years old.  He then celebrated with an interminable acceptance speech wherein he reiterated his pledge to:

1) Raise the Federal minimum wage to $15 per hour
2) Make tuition at public colleges "free"
3) Provide single-payer medical insurance (i.e., like VA hospitals for all)
4) Etc., etc., etc. -- it was like Oprah giving away cars

And then, the generous senator headed straight for -- not South Carolina, but New York, and he headed for New York for a special meeting with none other than your marginally-certified preacher and mine, the "reverend" Al Sharpton.

Now, you don't need an IQ over 85 to figure out why he felt that necessary.  Bernie Sanders is facing a series of state primaries in which, unlike Iowa and New Hampshire, the Democrat voters are as much as 40% or more black and Hispanic.  Between South Carolina, Nevada and the "SEC" state primaries in a few weeks, Sanders has to have a strategy to appeal to a different set of voters from those who gave him a virtual tie in Iowa and a huge win in New Hampshire.

Now, one could argue that he doesn't really need a different strategy for those states.  Those susceptible to his giveaway approach are susceptible because they are ignorant of basic economics, not because of  what color they are.  Having beaten Hillary soundly in New Hampshire, Sanders's message at least appears receptive to both genders -- there's no reason it should be not equally receptive by all races.

But Bernie is taking no chances. He fears that Hillary, though she has now shown to be overrated in her appeal to women, still has some special kind of appeal to non-white Democrats.  I don't buy it, certainly after New Hampshire, but Senator Giveaway does.

So I put myself in his shoes, and asked myself, "If I were a socialist and had just won New Hampshire in a landslide, but I felt I needed to appeal to black and Hispanic voters in the next primaries, what would I do?"  Now, I believe that I would try to address a few issues -- even two -- that would make minority voters listen to my message.

Perhaps I would talk about jobs ... oh wait, the biggest impediment to job growth in the black community is the unabated influx of Hispanics across the southern border to compete for jobs.  That is being done by the current president, in whose administration Hillary Clinton worked.  Of course, he is black, or at least half so.  So if I were to tout my opposition to unchecked immigration competing for jobs against American black job-seekers, I'd be able to wedge out Hillary, but I would then be opposing the views of the black president and offending Hispanics.

Perhaps I would talk about health care ... oh wait, the plan I advocate requires the same Federal government that is currently running the contemptible VA hospital system to run a universal system.  The VA system is killing veterans, and the armed services are a bit disproportionately non-white -- and not VA fans.  So I might not win on that.

Perhaps that is what Bernie Sanders was thinking when he decided that the best way to appeal to non-white voters -- and the very first thing he would do after New Hampshire -- would be to seek out an endorsement from some well-known black "leader."  Jesse Jackson has been leaning toward Hillary and probably won't endorse either of them, so he was out.

But what have we come to when a guy trying to run for president and attract black voters thinks that the guy he has to grovel before to do so is Al Sharpton?  As of a couple years ago, Sharpton had some $4.5 million in tax liens for non-payment of taxes owed.  It didn't stop Barack Obama from having him as a regular visitor at the White House, but wouldn't you think Bernie Sanders would be sensitive to a rich guy not paying taxes, and find someone else to pander to?

He's going to South Carolina, a state with an actual black senator!  Why doesn't he ... oh, wait, the senator, Tim Scott, is a Republican.  Nope, he has to grovel before Al Sharpton, who has called white people (like Sanders) "crackers", referred to Jews (like Sanders) as "diamond merchants", and actually did commercials for LoanMax, the auto title-loan company that lends money to -- you guessed it -- with rates and fees that equate to 300% total rates.

I don't quite know whether it says more about Bernie Sanders that he thinks Sharpton is the right guy to grovel before in public, or more about Barack Obama that he would let a guy like that within 20 miles of the White House, or about the people that Sanders thinks would be more likely to vote for him if he cozied up to Sharpton.

I just know that if I were genetically black (as opposed to "legally black"), and saw a candidate acting as if the way to my vote were to have coffee with Al Sharpton, I would vote as far from that candidate as humanly possible.  Perhaps Hillary Clinton suggested it to Sanders?

Wouldn't put it past her.

Copyright 2016 by Robert Sutton
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