Without Bernie Sanders on the ticket as the VP candidate, Clinton will
probably go down in flames. With him, Trump loses badly. On the other
hand, what a great VP he would be, because as President of the Senate, he
would advance a great progressive solution oriented agenda. Bernie's
ability to further advance his reforms would make a quantum leap from
platform planks to actual legislation.


When I first read that Sanders had endorsed Clinton in New Hampshire, I
went into a mourning that lasted for about 12 minutes. The pundits may
speculate about this news, but I must go on record now to observe that I
don't see a way Clinton can win without Bernie Sanders as her running
mate. This inexorable truth may become clear to Clinton, especially as her
credibility woes and legal baggage increase.

Only Sanders has the ideological pull and charisma, plus the devoted
followers, who might mourn for 12 minutes like I did, and then move on to
the Real Politik. Such a ticket would pick up 80-85% of the Sanders
supporters. I am a member of 800 Facebook Bernie Groups, some virulently
anti-Hillary. If he is not on the ticket, a lot of them will go for Jill
Stein, or will write in Bernie.

He didn't convince me today to vote for Hillary Clinton. I have devoted
months and thousands of hours to researching and writing about election
rigging, vote "flipping," and, what I know the most about, the voter
purges in New York State. I wrote a petition on Moveon.org that 6700
people signed, asking New York’s Attorney General, Eric Schneiderman, to
get a Federal Court to order a new primary for New York, then the hundreds
of letters to the crusading Wall Street busting US Attorney for the
Southern District of New York, Preet Bharara. As a last resort, we turned
to Bernie's campaign lawyer, Brad Deutsch, sending him many emails from
those devoted to the apparently naïve concept that elections should be
honest and clean.

All of these were ignored. We had held out, hoping that either before the
convention or at the convention, these grave concerns would be aired, but
that is not going to happen, and not by the victim of these stolen
elections, Bernie Sanders himself. Maybe that’s what it boils down to for
Bernie: helping the American people to whom he is so deeply devoted, the
voiceless, the poor, and the disenfranchised, by putting aside ambition
and going for the greater good.

Maybe even the Republicans and Trump and Right Wing Radio will allow those
rigged primaries to be swept under the rug. Maybe I and those 6700 signers
of the petition were too naively hopeful that something as unprecedented
as a Federal court order for a state primary to be entirely redone, with
monitors and safeguards, could happen. We must never forget that hijacked
NY election and others which proved so important in the electoral scheme
of things.

The DNC has heavy handedly ushered the lemmings to jump off the cliff. If
Bernie Sanders is not to be the Democratic Vice Presidential candidate, it
will be a long drop for us Democratic lemmings; we will have 4 or 8 years
of Donald Trump and the end of the Democratic Party for decades. But, if
Bernie were the VP candidate, many of the Bernie Congressional Candidates
would pull through to victory.

I am not a soothsayer trying to make the best of a defeat. I know enough
about the Senate to see that Sanders would make a brilliant Vice President
of the United States. Clinton may already recognize that her election
depends on Bernie Sanders being on the ticket. This message may also show
up in thousands of letters to the editor, as the Battle of the Editorial
page continues.   Inbox x Stephen Fox <stephen@santafefineart.com> 11:29 PM (10 hours ago)     to me