How Are The 2016 Democrats Not Embarrassing America This Week?

Any of these will be fine

Aloha, class, time for another round of Oh Yeah, Democrats Are Running For President Too, Aren't They? We know it's hard to remember that because they are so boring, with their Serious Talk About Serious Issues, LAME. They don't LITERALLY fling metaphorical feces at each other, or try to out-dick each other by figuring out which racial groups are A-OK to slur. (The answer is: none.) And not a single one of them has promised to send a big-ass wall to Mexico, POD. So BOR-ING. But still, we reckon it's nice to check on them from time to time, so they don't feel neglected. Especially poor Martin O'Malley. He could really use a hug.

Hillary Clinton

Yeah, she's still practically president already. Sorry not sorry. Also, emailghazigate? Not really a thing, according to those lovable Democratic goofs in Iowa. No, seriously. Not. Really. A Thing:

Clinton has been dogged by media questions and an FBI investigation about whether her use of a private, home-based email server while secretary of state undermined U.S. security.

In Iowa on Wednesday, she said use of personal email "clearly wasn't the best choice." But Clinton, who says voters don't bring up the issue, downplays the investigation as "about politics."

[Pollster J. Ann] Selzer said Clinton's right about the unimportance of the email controversy at this point in the caucus race — 76 percent of her supporters and 61 percent of all likely Democratic caucusgoers say it's not important to them. The emails are at least somewhat important to 28 percent of all likely caucusgoers, with an additional 10 percent saying the issue is very important.

The Media and The Republicans are quite certain Hillary Clinton's email will be her downfall -- once they find that incriminating AH HA! smoking gun email in which she gleefully admits to Holocausting Pearl Harbor on 9/11, buried deep among the forwards and replies about how do fax machines work and "Hey, my longtime aide Huma Abedin, come into my bedroom and do some lesbian with me, why don'tcha?"

But the regular voter types don't especially care. Maybe because they don't understand what the hell this home-brewed artisanal craft server thingy whatsit she kept in her bathroom (?) to undermine America's national security is all about. Or maybe it's because "she may have sent emails using her private email account that contain information now deemed by the State Department to be highly sensitive and should have been marked classified at the time" does not fit on a bumpersticker.

Bernie Sanders

Are you still Feeling The Bern ? Well, then here is some sexciting new math stuff for you to fap to, from the same poll of disproportionately influential voters. (Yes, we mean Iowans and the absurdity of the power they wield in elections, given that, as far as we understand the state, which is not much, we're talking about a few thousand people and a cow made of butter. )

Liberal revolutionary Bernie Sanders, riding an updraft of insurgent passion in Iowa, has closed to within 7 points of Hillary Clinton in the Democratic presidential race.

Awwww yeah, feelthat, Hillbots? (Or is it Clintonistas? Or do we have an entirely new insult for Hillz's 2016 supporters? Please let us know, we don't want to seem like behind-the-times olds.) But wait! This isn't even about people hating Hillary. Iowans just genuinely like this Bernie Sanders fellow:

Sanders, a Vermont U.S. senator, has become a liberal Pied Piper in Iowa not as a vote against Clinton, but because caucusgoers genuinely like him, the poll shows. An overwhelming 96 percent of his backers say they support him and his ideas. Just 2 percent say they're motivated by opposition to Clinton.

So, in other words, some people like Clinton the best, and some like Sanders the best, but either way, whichever of them ends up the nominee, Democrats just fine with that.

Martin O'Malley

Nobody, however, is feeling the MO'M-entum:

Martin O'Malley, who campaigns on the progressive results he achieved as Baltimore's mayor and Maryland's governor, has 3 percent support.

We do pity the guy a tad. He seems good enough and nice enough, for the most part, but that's not enough for this year's Democratic voters. And this kind of story doesn't help:

Addressing the DNC session on Friday, O’Malley ripped party chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz and the rest of the leadership team for limiting the number of debates among the five announced candidates for the nomination.

“We are the Democratic Party, not the Undemocratic Party,” he declared. “If we are to debate debates, the topic should be how many, not how few.”

Maybe O'Malley is correct, and Democrats should have a dozenteen debates instead of just six, but nobody ever made it to the White House complaining about the party's leadership decisions. Sorry, Martin O'Malley, maybe if you are real nice, President Sanders will let you be his undersecretary of making "The Wire" required viewing for preschoolers or something.

Joe Biden

Old Handsome Joe is doing great in the polls for a guy who isn't running for president. In fact, Democrats think the nicest thoughts about him, more than any candidates who are actually in the race:

Aw, everyone loves Joe! But everyone also loved Hillary Clinton, back before she was a candidate. Will that change if Biden runs? Who can say? (We can say. And we say, yes, it will change.) In fact, anonymous Biden-adjacent tipsters have suggested how he might run, if he were to run, not saying he will run, of course, just hypothetically speaking, and they've hinted that he might say Clinton is weak on income inequality. To which some Democrats have politely reminded us of that time Biden was in the Senate for all those decades and was, erm, affectionately known as the senator from MBNA. People start to remember that kind of stuff when you become a candidate again, or even just a potential candidate, instead of the vice guy who gives great grope. Just sayin'.

Lincoln Chafee

 That guy from that state, who used to be a senator or maybe a governor (both, actually), and didn't he used to be a Republican or an independent (both, actually), before he became a Democrat? Yeah. That guy is never going to be the nominee.

Jim Webb

LOL, fuck that guy, and still NOPE.

Lawrence Lessig

It was weird when Professor Lawrence Lessig (???-Harvard) said he will run for president on a single issue, fix that, and then resign, leaving America to enjoy its problem-free utopia. It was weirder still when he wrote a post seemed to sort of endorse Bernie Sanders for president, but then suggest that Sanders would not be able to govern effectively, so vote Lessig, kinda maybe?

That while Sanders is running a campaign that could win, he is not running a campaign that would let him govern. He's got a strategy that could get him across the finish line. He doesn't yet have a strategy that will leave him in a place where he could get any of the extraordinary reforms that he is describing done.

Yeah, we don't know what Lessig is really doing here. He was not included in the recent poll in Iowa, and as far as we know, he has yet to eat any deep-fried thing-on-a-stick to woo the caucusgoers. However, if it comes down to "Who would win in a race: one of the GOP candidates or any fuckin' dude or dudette who is not a Republican?" we figure Lessig at least has a fighting chance.

[ Des Moines Register ]