Does Hillary have financial backers who hopes she wins so that they can gain certain favors? Well of course she does. Yet, the larger purpose for pressing on to the convention 8 years ago was to inspire hope for change in a nation with a glass ceiling that Hillary fractured during her last run at it.
Before it was all over, she had to press on just to show respect to her main super pack, the world's first minority- women- for taking them excruciatingly close to breaking that glass into bits. In hindsight, breaking the glass does little for cleaning the mess that comes from glass ceiling removal. In hindsight, the white woman president would have encountered a similar challenge to the one that the black man president encountered when shattering a different ceiling. For both, the challenge is in trying to make people accept and respect you in an environment that you admittedly just broke in to on purpose.
If Clinton were to survive until the end this time, she will be a pioneer just like her predecessor Obama, but so will the Jewish socialist, Bernie Sanders, or the straight off the street rebellion candidate, Donald Trump for that matter. All represent a path of inevitable change for a nation refusing to accept more of the same.
Once again, we are steering fairly clear of the only demographic that has represented the position prior to Obama's shake up of the White House family tree. White males are still thoroughly in the mix of things, but not one in a position of strength except the two guys that should have been third party entrants because few really expect either to win the general while fully dependant upon the two party system they are rejecting.
Pioneers are notorious for carving out a path laden with gold but difficult to break through. Sometimes they make it after a few tries, other times they pave the way for someone else to finally break through. Either way, they are always offering something new, something unavailable before their pioneering efforts began.
New things like immigration walls that you make Mexico pay for. Or $15 per hour wages and free college tuition, maybe even some help with current college debt. While many complain now about the Citizens United decision, somebody in congress voted to expand campaign finance limits for those who needed more access to influence, because the reality is, we all have needs. Big money and small money too.
That super pack of people showing up at rallies for certain candidates?
They believe in the men on stage for what each promised they could do for them, not because they promised that there was very little any president can do while congress remains unwilling to write and pass laws. What will make Donald's fence more likely to get approved in congress than all the other infrastructure work (including old water pipes like those in Flint) that congress refuses to deal with?
Bernie might think he is free and clear of the negative influence of a Political Action Committee, but those packs of people who support him don't want to hear that they felt the Bern way too late for it to matter now. They may not even want to know that the best he can do is alter the agenda of the party by staying around. They really don't want to hear they that he is staying because the party needs them all to stay in the game till the end instead of quitting the moment he does.
This is all pioneering stuff when you talk about the areas of our society he could impact before long. In reality, Bernie also has a duty to his people to feel their burn from this rigged system we've uncovered, and to stay around so that it might be exposed and disposed of someday, giving candidates like him, and efforts like theirs, hope.
Donald might be in this thing for the exact same reason if you're watching closely and wondering exactly who he is courting as a candidate. His constant willingness to accuse Hillary- the glass ceiling speer head- of playing the woman card; or comparing his long arduous walk around the back side of a convention center just to avoid ANOTHER group of Trump protestors, to walking across the border, means he doesn't understand the impact hispanics and women will have on EVERY election for the foreseeable future.
Or he does. (my theory)
Trump does finally gets this delegate thing, and realizes that it will be used against him no matter how many states he wins prior to the convention. He, and WE, are learning that it might have been created to stop people exactly like him. Whether Trump anticipated thousands upon thousands of people coming to campaign events (I doubt that he did), he is now the face for those people and the political pioneer for exposing our undemocratic politics. For Trump, he must press on to achieve this righteous cause and justify his followers, all while hopefully offending just enough people to not have to actually preside over this miserably disfunctional nation.Bottom line, the support dictates the agenda or there is none. And whether you are beholden to a traditional campaign Super PAC or just a super pack of supporters, WE all need and expect our political candidates to make our selection of them worthwhile by making something better for us and ours.
Sorry Bernie, but that means even you have a super pack too.
