ALL POLITICS IS LOCAL

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Only new voters can register as Democrats

I think if you're already registered Independent it is no longer possible to change parties in NY.

I oughta know as I did it back in November planning to vote for Bernie to send a message and pull Clinton left. Then I started watching how Bernie's supporters conducted themselves (with extreme misogyny, among other things), thought about my daughters, and decided to vote for the woman in the race.

So I am living proof that the aggressive tactics of Bernie supporters have cost Bernie (whom I have loved for years) my vote.

Sec. Clinton will be winning the NY primary by 30+ points (and Bernie acolytes will scream election fraud, watch) anyway. And she owns it in the general.

Despite the very broad brush insult attached.

It's absolutely true however.

Bernie lost my vote, or rather the childishness of his supporters (very much including here on DU). I've loved him for years and sent him money for his senate campaign. This ain't t about Bernie the man. He's a mensch and a great American.

Really it is worth considering that many voters are not impressed by stridency among supporters of a candidate, calling anyone not on your team stupid or evil or misinformed, utopian messianic language about what's possible, and all the rest. I love Bernie. But he's not superman. And a lot of his supporters remind me of zealots on the right.

Broad brush or not, Bernie had this NY Independent switching to Dem registration so I could vote for him. I wrote about it at the time on DU. And the over time his supporters drove me back to Clinton.

That's real data to chew on. May not be typical but it's a fact. I'm a well-off middle aged professional white male. But to me many Bernie supporters seem to be ignorant of their own privilege.

I don't want to dismiss the decision you have made, but I would like to think that voters can understand issues and separate these from immaturity or over-zealousness on the part of supporters.

It is very likely that Bernie Sander's campaign will attract a variety of anti-establishment and even anarchy groups. Some of these might even be right-leaning people or even interlopers just looking for a fight.

It's also true to say that these groups are very engaged on the Internet where they find sympathetic ears and voices.

Furthermore a lot of these supporters are young and don't always have the maturity to handle themselves perfectly at all times.

I don't think the behavior of some Hillary Clinton supporters has been perfect either.

Can you tell me what you mean when you say that Bernie's supporters seem to be ignorant of their own privilege? That seems like an odd statement. I would really like to understand what you mean.

This is exactly the kind of back and forth that should be possible but often isn't on DU.

At my age I've seen a lot of elections and been disappointed many times as a liberal. My concern about the passion and zealousness of Sanders' supporters (most but not all younger) is that I've rarely seen such urgent passion become a force at the ballot box that hails less passionate voters, with one exception who is sitting in the White House now. And I think this is just as true for charismatic candidates on the right.

It is the prerogative of youth to imagine they can change the world with their passion. But in fact people like Clinton voters also want to change the world, but believe in incremental and steady chipping away at it after decades of watching passion fail to deliver.

Sanders speaks the truth. My truth. There is not a single policy issue on which I don't support his views. And I love him as a man and a moral character. It's not even hat I believe he "can't" win.

But what I believe is that the zealous intensity of his most urgent supporters, most of them young, is both naive and inexperienced. I also simply don't believe they will show up to vote in November even for Sanders. Even Obama barely moved the under-25 vote upwards, and in 2012 it came back down again. Because he didn't live up to their idealistic expectations, I suspect. Young Americans, in my 33 years of voting experience, do not vote en masse or en bloc. And counting on them to do so is a historic error. Who votes is older women and that's a fact.

I've been around too long to fall for the promise that this time it will be different, because he's Bernie. Every passionate supporter who yells at me that Hillary is corrupt of evil and Bernie is ideal and perfect and our only hope drives me closer to feeling ok with Hillary, because I don't trust that yelling level of passion on our side any more than on the right. Clinton is boring and incremental. In America, that's how you get elected and make incremental positive change.

I also think most Sanders supporters I've met are a bit blind to their own (white) privilege. But that's another tale for another day, and equally true of many other people voting for other candidates (Republicans are fucking proud of white privilege).

I think we were all spoiled by the once-a-century skill and charisma of Pres. Obama, and that the nation is shell shocked from the racist backlash against him, and that's why people are so angry at each other. Meanwhile he has been a consummate incrementalist and dogged but smart fighter and actually gotten a ton of shit done despite historic opposition.

I dont love Hillary like I love Obama or Bernie. But I really want to win and I trust the "boring" dutiful support of Hillary's voters, especially women, more than the passionate intensity of Bernie's voters (or supporters, I don't think that tells us who will vote for him outside of college towns and hip well of urban enclaves).

Ironically, if the economy was in worse shape, I suspect Bernie could have taken a lot of Trump's supporters with an anti-free-trade message. (Although I'm a contrary liberal in this and don't see free trade as nearly the problem some do, just e lack of fair trade.)

I greatly appreciate what Bernie has done and how he has influenced the debate this year, to the point that I will still give him my vote in the NY primary, but only if (as it looks) Clinton has an easy win in the bag on primary day. I'm not voting "against" her. I don't think she's evil or any more corrupt than most politicians (again, Obama gave us a model we would be wise not to expect again soon). I do think she is knowledgeable, competent, and above all doggedly determined and impervious to insults and disrespect. She's battle tested against the far right and still standing.

And she's a woman, and I have daughters. So there's that. It's really important to me symbolically.

And very nearly every person if color I know is supporting her, and I want to support them.

But mostly I support her now because I believe she can win, and I don't buy the strained cases made against that (or in support of Bernie's GE electability) by supporters of his who call me stupid for having my own preferences and views. If you think Clinton supporters are low information sheep and say so often, pardon me for not being super enthusiastic about changing my mind. National polls mean nothing prospectively when a candidate has never before run a national election and the other side is in turmoil. The GOP has an easy path to destroying Sanders, his supporters just can't see it.

I supported Carter, Mondale, Dukakis, Gore, and Kerry. Then I finally backed a winner and he was the best president of my lifetime.

Gonna go with my gut.

And a US Senator has nothing whatever to do with election laws in his state.

The petition is a protest, perhaps, but will have zero effect on the NY primary.

Instead, people should be trying their best to increase turnout for the election. There's still time for GOTV activism.