As the Nevada Caucus results started filing in a CNN analyst intoned something along the lines of, "well there is no path to victory for Bernie Sanders."
There have been two caucuses, one primary and a lot of shenanigans. The show is barely on the road. The road has some serious potholes.
When you see some of the videos being shot by folks in the Nevada caucus locations it makes you want to petition the U.N. to watch the Democratic Party. Can Jimmy Carter put his hammer down for a few minutes to monitor this stuff?
The behavior of the Democratic Party in these mock elections called caucuses has convinced me that it is time for Voter ID. I was against Voter ID in 2012 because the issue was actually issuing the photo cards in time to everyone for the general election. The overarching issue of jamming up Barack Obama was not enough to convince me 2012 was the time for this. But the time is now.
This 4-minute video from The Young Turks displays the lack of management of the proceedings. The participants are not properly vetted into the process; no Voter ID = no credibility. After the votes are calculated is when the person managing the mock election finally decides to verify some of the people in the room. I cringed when he starts pleading for people to come back in the room. He forgot to appoint anyone to actually be a delegate. If he was not so worried about delivering for Hillary, maybe the guy would have done his job.
Is this an isolated incident? Nope.
Check out this Twitter video -- it is priceless. Link Evidently the person taking the video is describing a busload of people just walking by the check-in table without actually checking in. Whole lotta Hillary swag there.
Wading through the Internet you can find more of the same stuff going on. Point is, the Democrats have made the GOP's case for Voter ID. Voter fraud is there. The DNC is using it for Hillary's advantage. If you are going to use the caucus process to actually help select the president, then it has to be done right.
The intoned comments from CNN are a little early. Yes, I know that CNN and the rest of the media could actually do some journalism when it is in front of their faces and report what is going on. That might do something to even this up in caucus states.
There is another reason why it is way too early to bury Bernie. Take a look at the New Hampshire primary results. This was an open primary; meaning anyone could vote for anyone they want.
According to Aristotle.com the New Hampshire population breaks down as follows:
GOP = 221, 984 Voters or 31%
Democrats = 190,712 or 26%
Everyone else = 307,119 or 43%
Some of the analysts talked about Clinton and Sanders battling to a 50-50 split on the number of Democratic Voters. Then it follows the 56,000 vote difference for Sanders over Clinton is the non-Major-Party-Affiliated voters. There were almost 250,000 votes cast on the Democratic side. That is 60,000 more votes than there would be if the Democrats got 100 percent turnout.
In the only election so far where anyone could vote for their preference, Sanders gets 30 percent of the TOTAL vote. No one else broke 20 percent.
The vaunted, anointed Donald Trump lost to the nerd with no media coverage by 10 percent.
It would be nice if the media coverage reflected this fact, but why ruin their narratives?
With the populations of both Democrats and Republicans shrinking and the rise of the Fed-Up-Opted-Out Electorate, it would seem that if Sanders can battle even in closed primary states and caucus states, he can run the table in the open primary states.
Sanders campaign's path to victory needs to include some voter outreach in closed primary states to get Independent and Non-Partisan voters to switch to Democrat before those deadlines close.