Saturday, July 30, 2016

KY Berners Are All Right

Maybe in states so blue that repugs can't win no matter what they do, Democrats can afford to vote third-party or to sit at home and not vote at all.
 
We Democratic voters in red states know better.  We have long experience voting for imperfect Democratic candidates because that candidate is the only thing standing between us and the repug catastrophe of Kansas and Louisiana and Wisconsin.
 
We will fight to the end for our preferred candidate, but when the convention does end, and our candidate has conceded, we know our responsibility.  We know our duty.
 
We KY Berners will be voting for Hillary.

Kentucky Democrats split almost evenly between Sanders and Clinton during the primary earlier this year. Of the state’s 55 pledged delegates, 28 are for Clinton and 27 are for Sanders.
There are signs within the Kentucky delegation that the two camps are finding common ground. Several Sanders delegates stood and applauded speakers who endorsed Clinton Monday night, and several Clinton delegates waved Sanders’ campaign signs when the Vermont senator took the stage at the end of the night.

“It started with a decent amount of divisiveness and then it started to come together toward the end of the night,” Bugg said about Monday's convention action. Speeches by first lady Michelle Obama, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Sanders himself were helpful, he said.

SNIP
 
“I think if she continues to speak very boldly on those issues, articulates them as the deep moral center of Democratic Party, demonstrates she is committed, then she can earn many Bernie supporters and maybe even more importantly some of those volunteer hours,” Westphal said.

Two Clinton advocates who addressed the Kentucky delegation Tuesday morning used the specter of a Donald Trump presidency to woo Sanders voters and urge them to focus on electing Democrats at the state and local levels.

SNIP
Former Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear said the odds of Clinton winning Kentucky in the fall are long, but any efforts on her behalf will help the party in the long run.

“I’ve lost political races and I know how Bernie and his supporters feel, but in the end Sanders and Clinton supporters understand there really is no choice in November and that the only way this country is going to move forward is to elect Hillary Clinton,” Beshear said.

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