It took Hillary long enough to get here

That was my initial reaction to hearing the word earlier this week that the Associated Press (the same news-gathering organization that claims our city’s public transit elevated train system is the L and not the el) had proclaimed Hillary Clinton the presumptive winner of the Democratic presidential primary cycle.

 

CLINTON: The winner, it seems

Even though the people of California had not yet voted. Nor had those of New Jersey or the District of Columbia.

IN THEORY, THOSE places could have an impact on the purely committed number of delegates to the Democratic National Convention. Bernie Sanders was certainly counting on them to influence the uncommitted delegates to swing over to his side and make him the winner.

But it would seem that ain’t a gonna happen when the Dems gather for their convention in Philadelphia – which is destined to become a Hillary Clinton pep rally.

Even though it is likely a significantly large number of people siding with the Democrats will not feel all that peppy, on account of the fact that they have been lapping up the Bernie Sanders rhetoric.

For all I know, they may well remain angry at the fact their guy couldn’t beat up on Hillary, who admittedly is a politician who can compete with likely Republican nominee Donald Trump for the title of “most off-putting politico ever.”

NOW AS I have written before, I wound up casting an Illinois primary ballot for Hillary Clinton only reluctantly. It was the sense that Sanders was little more than cheap talk; an uncompromising sort who would not have the skills to carry out any of the things that he actually promised.

Not only because he can be an un-disagreeable cuss, but also because he’s the democratic socialist who has no other democratic socialists in Congress who would be aligned with him.

I could see where he’d have an actively hostile Republican opposition (be honest, there’s hardly anybody those people really like) and a Democratic caucus that would feel resentment.

It really would be a do-nothing four-year time period, if he were somehow to get elected.

BUT IT SEEMS that’s not going to happen. Because the reality is that Clinton is taking the primaries in the larger states with solid Democratic Party organizations, while Sanders wins Democrats in states where the organizations are weak and barely existent up against Republican-dominated political structures.

But more importantly, it really is ridiculous to think that the superdelegates – the political party regulars, the establishment themselves, are going to turn on the woman who was supposed to be the inevitable choice of the Democratic Party in this election cycle.

Especially not for a guy who went out of his way to avoid using the Democratic Party label while serving in the U.S. Senate from Vermont. When you think about it, it makes no sense.

It would be the wildest of fantasies to see all those superdelegates suddenly turn on Clinton to pick Bernie Sanders as the party’s presidential nominee.

IT MAKES ME wonder if Sanders supporters are the same kind of people who seriously expected an all-Chicago World Series this year (a thought now completely absurd considering that the White Sox are struggling to maintain a winning record; First Place is a fantasy).

If there is a larger theme to this year’s election cycle, it isn’t going to have anything to do with Bernie. It’s going to be to figure out why Hillary had so much trouble wrapping this process up.

Of course, the whole Hillary Clinton image is wrapped up in confusion. To many people, she’s that b-word who planted all kinds of crazy liberal ideas into then-President Bill Clinton’s head. She’s liberalism incarnate.

While the Sanders supporters want to believe she’s still that Goldwater Girl at heart who somehow snuck her way into the Democratic Party to commit acts of sabotage against progressive causes.

THAT IS, FOR those people who don’t just view her as a dried up hag from the 1960s whose time has passed. Except that it seems it hasn’t passed – it’s going to be her against Trump come the November general election.

And may the least despised pol amongst the two come out as the winner!

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