The SeedSing 2016 Year in Politics and Society: The Top Political Stories

Happy 2017 all.

Sorry to say, but we need to look back at 2016 one last time. The upcoming year is going to be quite different in politics than any year within many of our readers lifetimes. With that in mind, we here at SeedSing want to count down the five most important political stories of 2016. There are many important things that happened globally when it comes to politics, but our stories mostly look at the United States. What happened in the US will have massive global implications in the years to come. These events were crucial in creating the uncertain future that will begin in 2017.

We are going to start with the most overhyped political story of 2016. The endless coverage of Hillary Clinton being the first woman to be at the top of a major party ticket for President is the most inconsequential story of 2016. The Clinton campaign barely used this angle when the Secretary Clinton was on the campaign trail. It was widely accepted that Hillary Clinton was going to be the Democratic Party nominee, and the media decided not to cover the historic angle. It is a shame, because what Hillary Clinton did, by winning the election by a margin of nearly three million votes, is historic. It is an overrated story because no one talked about like they should have.

The fifth most important political story is the insanity that was the Republican Presidential Primary. Many, including us, thought that former Florida Governor Jeb Bush would easily win the nomination. If there was going to be a Barrack Obama like upset, it would maybe come from Florida Senator Marco Rubio. As the weeks went by, and New York businessman Donald Trump kept getting just enough of the plurality in primary states to win, things started to get strange. The endless debates started to focus on penis size, the attractiveness of spouses, and whose father helped to get JFK assassinated. There was no substance, no vision, just a comedy of errors. This chaos led to Donald Trump finally securing the nomination in June.

The fourth most important political story is the fact that the British people voted to leave the European Union, or Brexit if you want. Brexit is a bad, bad, idea, and the voters knew this. In what was soon to be a trend, the middle and lower class voters of Britain did not care about the consequences and wanted to send a message. No one in the press got it right. The stats gurus who set betting lines on public opinion got it wrong. Brexit sent a shockwave out that saw British Prime Minister David Cameron resigning, and most of the Conservative leaders actively running away from being the new leader of the British government. Theresa May stepped up to the plate and has actively delayed Brexit, even looking for her own exit to Brexit.

The third most important political story is the failure and incompetence of the professional media. During most of 2016 many media outlets, including SeedSing, treated Donald Trump as a joke. Many media outlets, mainly NBC, were treating Trump with kid gloves. Clinton was questioned for every small detail, but Trump's glaring problems were glossed over so the news networks could get better ratings.The stats gurus at Princeton, 538, The New Times, and many others were giving Hillary Clinton a huge advantage to win the presidency. They were all wrong. Once the election was over, these newspeople spent their time covering their own rear ends. It was never their fault. The only people taking actual responsibility were comedians like Stephen Colbert and John Oliver. People like Nate Silver and the clowns at Morning Joe were busy throwing fire in every direction. The need the media has for fame and profit outweighed the safety and future of America.

The second most important political story is the death of the Democratic Party. Since Bill Clinton was elected as President in 1992, the Democratic Party has almost entirely given up on trying to win any competitive election outside of the President. In the early part of the 21st century, then DNC chairman Howard Dean started to reverse this trend, but once Barrack Obama was elected, Dean’s plan was scrapped so the Obama campaign could demand all the money and resources. 2016 proved to be the Waterloo of the DNC’s President or bust strategy. The so-called “safe” Senate map did not give the Democratic Party a majority. Republicans took control of more state legislators, Governor mansions, and the White House. The Democratic Party responded to these humiliating setbacks by maintaining the status quo. California Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi was once again elected to the position of Minority Leader. The same old talking heads the party has been keeping around far too long on the news networks all kept their jobs. The Democratic Party’s choice to keep the same failed leaders shows that personal glory for a few is more important than a more secure America for all.

The number one most important political story of 2016 is the ascension of Donald Trump. From the first rally, where Trump had to pay people to attend, to election night, Donald Trump is a political candidate like one not experienced in our lifetimes. He used juvenile insults on his opponents, threatened to jail Hillary Clinton, bragged about sexually assaulting women, claimed his use of bankruptcy law makes him a good businessman, and put the reputation of Russia ahead of the safety of the United States. All of these issues still caused the Republican nominee to lose the popular vote by nearly 3 million, but he did gain the needed electoral votes to be the next President of the United States. Since his popular defeat, but electoral victory, Donald Trump has spent his transition time insulting CIA intelligence professionals, media outlets, and his opponents. His cabinet is mostly made up of wealth seekers who actively want to make America less welcoming to anyone that is chasing the American dream. The rise of Donald Trump to the highest office in the land has not humbled the thin skinned tabloid mainstay. Over half the country does not want him to be President, but he is, and America needs to be ready.

RD

RD Kulik is the Head Editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. Are you part of the minority that voted for Donald Trump? Tell us why. 

SeedSing is funded by a group of awesome people. Join them by donating to SeedSing

Let's Talk about the Electoral College

You have probably seen this map.

http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/2012-election-county-by-county/

For those who do not know, this a map of every county in the United States and how they voted in the 2012 Presidential Election. The red portions are for Republican Mitt Romney, and the blue are for Democrat Barack Obama. We do not have a very good map to reflect the 2016 election, but it will look very similar to the one above. When presented with this map, the initial reaction is to think that most of the United States voted for Mitt Romney. Unless you live under rock, we all know Barack Obama won the 2012 Presidential Election. The incumbent beat Romney in the popular vote 51.1% to 47.2%, a margin of five million votes. Obama also handily won the Electoral College vote 332 to 206. President Obama even carried all of the electoral votes from Nevada, Oregon, and Washington even if this map looks like all those states went strong for Romney. 

The fact is that the county election map is useless. Many pundits will use this visual as an argument for America being a center right country. In 2004, the county election map was used by strategists in the George W Bush administration to show the media that the newly reelected President had a mandate from most of America. Never mind that Bush won with just over 50% of the popular vote, the county map showed over two thirds of the nation was all in on the President. The county election map is nothing but a propaganda tool to try and fool the masses. It works every single time.

How do we break the spell of the county electoral map? Here is another way to look at the popular vote map from the 2012 election.

http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/2012-Electoral-Map-Population-Adjusted1-570x305.png

This map comes from University Michigan professor Mark Newman. The map distorts the states to show how valuable they are based on the population. Yes it does only show the states as a whole and not broken down into counties. If we could distort the map to show the population numbers of the counties, most of the red at the top map would completely disappear. The blue area would be way more dominant, and even look as big in red states like Arizona. Compared to the traditional ways we are presented with an electoral map in Presidential elections, Professor Newman actually has the one that comes closest to truly reflecting the support Barack Obama had in his reelection bid. That is the map the media should be using.

The recent election of Donald Trump has upset a lot of people. The opposition to Trump points out that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote, and therefore a larger portion of Americans would prefer her as President. The supporters of Trump point to the non-disputed fact that their candidate won over the requisite amount of states to put Trump over the 270 needed Electoral College votes. Both sides are correct, but the rules state that the winner of the Electoral College gets to be President. That winner is Donald J Trump. That is not up for debate.

Similar to our recent situation, the 2000 election between Bush and Democrat Al Gore ended with the Electoral College loser having the most popular votes. After the election, Democrats were claiming that the Electoral College should be eliminated. Nothing ever happened, the Democrats gave up pretty quick. Now for the second time in five elections, the Democratic candidate gained more popular votes, and lost the Presidency. Renewed cries to eliminate the Electoral College have started. California Senator Barbara Boxer has floated the idea of putting forth legislation to do away with the system. Why should people care this time, if the Democratic Party gave up the fight 16 years ago?

What is the purpose Electoral College?

To understand why the Electoral College should be eliminated, we need to know why it exists. Vox.com writer Sean Illing says it was created to protect slave states, and he is probably right. Founding Father, and current Broadway darling, Alexander Hamilton said we need the electoral college so “that the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications.”(Federalist #68). James Madison was afraid that a dangerous, passionate, faction could elect a bad person. Has the Electoral College stopped any of these things from happening? The idea the founders were trying to put forward is that the President of the United States needed to be an honorable, qualified, and politically professional person. The President should not be elected by current whims of an angry population.

The true nature of the Electoral College does not exist today. The founders intent has been lost because all states, except Maine and Nebraska, allocate all their electors to whoever wins a plurality of the vote. Twenty six states, and the District of Columbia, make it against the law for the electors to vote against the will of the plurality. The Electoral College has been altered so much, that it does not even act as intended. That alone should call for its dismissal.

In our current political climate. many people defend the Electoral College as a method that allow all American interests to be represented. The single rural farmer should have as much say as the large concentration of similar thinking urban dwellers. Without the Electoral College, the Presidential candidates would only focus on the big cities. These are the people who use the county electoral map as a true snapshot of America. Unfortunately these ideas are incredible wrong and dangerously naive.

The Electoral College is a system set up to fail it's true intent. In fact, it has failed the country four times, twice in the last sixteen years. The uneven representation of small states has thwarted the progress of the United States since the founding. Slavery went on because of this uneven representation. States wage economic warfare on each other because blue states like New York and California pay for the economic disasters in Kansas and Louisiana. Places like Puerto Rico have a 0% chance to be admitted as a state because Republicans fear it would give the Democrats more representation, and more electoral votes. The Electoral College system rewards small state fear, and incompetence. Does that represent a bright shining city on a hill? The real failure of the Electoral College lies in the idea of population disbursement.

As directed by the US Constitution, each state gets an Electoral College vote for each member of Congress. Every state has two Senators, and then any number of Representatives based on population. The highest number of Electoral College votes currently is California with fifty-five, the lowest electoral votes is three shared by a number of states plus the District of Columbia. Right now, a Presidential candidate could win the requisite 270 votes with just 11 states, leaving almost 80% of the states without any real representation in the White House. But what if we had a large concentration of the population in only one state? Would the rural folks have any hope?

The Super State Experiment

Lets do a little experiment where we take the Electoral College to its terrifying final form. In order to make this experiment easy, we have assumed the US voting population is close to the same as the current actual population (approximately 300 million). New laws were passed to allocate votes based on the voting population, not the total. In order to win the electoral vote, a candidate still needs 270 votes. And last, poor Washington DC will be left out, their three votes gets absorbed into the experiment's ether. We will tax the good people of DC, but you still get no representation.

To see how the Electoral College is a farce, we need to imagine a Super State. This Super State would have over 99% of the United States population. Let's imagine that a wonderful thing was discovered in this state, and every American citizen would have to move there for economic survival. Because we are creatures of habit, the United States keeps the other forty-nine states. We do not want to change the flag. The other non-Super States would keep three people living in their borders, a Representative and two Senators. And then let's say that the Electoral map looked like this after the election.

I choose Missouri because the map looks cooler. Boy is it going to be crowded in the Show Me State.

Beautiful blue Missouri has 391 Electoral Votes, more than enough to elect the President. Who in their right mind would argue that the winner of the Super State should not be President? Yet people still argue that this map is valid:

http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/2012-election-county-by-county/

The blue portions on the county map account for over 50% of the current US population. Not like Super Missouri, but more than enough to gauge the will of the American voter. The county map is filled with false ideals. For example, a candidate can win the state of Ohio by taking just eight of its eighty eight counties. Why are there no thought pieces about the under representation of the other eighty counties? Because it would be ridiculous. 

Lets look at how big the Super State of Missouri has to be so it does not control every election. If the other 49 states have six electoral votes each, then Super Missouri would have a paltry 244 votes. Having six electoral votes means that each small state would account for 9% of the population of the country. Our mythical 49 states with six electoral votes would then in total make up 46% of the population. Super Missouri would have 54% of the population, and their unanimous voice could not elect the President. A true tyranny of the minority.

Here is where the Electoral College really shows its failings. It is not logical to think that every single person in Super Missouri would vote for one candidate. It is conceivable to think that the Presidential candidates would only campaign in the Super State and try to sway a majority of its dense population.. If Missouri holds 99% of population, then it is a race to the plurality, but what if Super Missouri was just barely big enough to sway any election? 

For this to happen, the other 49 states need to have five electoral votes each. That means the states that are not Super Missouri would have approximately two million residents each. Collectively, the non-super 49 would be just under one third of the population. That means in a two party race, a Presidential candidate could win the election by taking just over half of Super Missouri. In every election, the President-elect would only need one third of the nation to vote for them. In a race with multiple fringe party candidates, the victor would need much less than one third of Americans supporting their candidacy. With 100% voter turnout, less than one in every three voters would determine who would lead the nation for four years. The Electoral College deems this fair. 

What Damage has the Electoral College Done?

Every four years people defend the Electoral College as a system that stops the majority from imposing it's will on the entire country. The demagogues come from the political fringes, the philosophical minority. The majority has to be more centered to attract more voters. By embracing the Electoral College, we enable the growth of fringe movements. The modern political campaigns are not contested in big states like New York, California, Illinois, and Texas. Theses states are some of the biggest economic powers on the planet, and they have little influence in who the President will be. States like Ohio and North Carolina have a deeply divided electorate. They get the lions share of attention in a political campaign. In fact, both the Clinton and Trump campaigns spent almost 90% of their time in just four states at the end of the 2016 election. In an era where the Republican party will run 147 people for President, an unqualified wanna be despot can take the largest minority of votes in a primary and become the de facto choice A or B in the Presidential election. Once that person gets to the final round, they only need to get the right number of states, and not the will of the people, to be the President of the United States. The Electoral College defends the will of a partisan minority over the wishes of a balanced majority.

The Electoral College was an idea born of fear and inhumanity. It is a system being propped up by a political minority who will die without it. The defenders of the system claim it is more representative of the nation as a whole, and they are wrong. A modern America has been held back because of this terrible 18th century idea. It is time to understand the true failures of how we elect the President of the United States. It is doubtful that any real action will happen in our lifetimes, but with our little experiment, maybe more people will become enlightened. America has discarded other bad ideas from her past, maybe the Electoral College will be the next one to join the ash heap of history. We can only hope for that change.

Thanks to outsidethebeltway.com for their maps and crazy awesome knowledge.

RD

RD Kulik is the Head Editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. Are you one of the five people who live in a three Electoral Vote state? Tell us why you need unequal representation by writing for SeedSing. 

SeedSing is funded by a group of awesome people. Join them by donating to SeedSing

Dear Trump Voter

I'm hearing some protests from you recently that "we're not all racist/misogynist/etc!"  And I take you at your word. It's not my place to figure out what is in your heart. But here's what I know.

We're all grownups here. We all have deal breakers and priorities.  You voted for Trump for a reason, and I voted for Clinton for a reason. I'm sure Trump isn't your ideal candidate, and Clinton isn't mine. Some things are disqualifying, and some aren't. For instance, I put aside Clinton's hawkish interventionist tendencies. I put aside the dynastic implications. I put aside her ties to Wall Street and the general whiff of graft because they were preferable to what I saw on the other side.  I own that decision. I will not pretend that I can distance myself from the less savory aspects of her candidacy.  If she won and chose to invade Yemen, I'd have no right to be surprised.

You made a different choice, based on your own values. That's completely fair. You heard the divisive language, the racist dog whistles, the calls to violence, the authoritarianism,  the grotesque treatment of women, the suggestion that Latino judges and Muslim gold star families are less American that their white Christian counterparts. You knew that his running mate supports gay conversion therapy.  You chose to set that aside for the things (abortion, guns, making America great, whatever) you felt were more important.  Fine. But own it.

Don't pretend to have hurt feelings that people call you out for your priorities.  Don't even try to equate the discomfort of being called racist or misogynist with the sting of actual discrimination. Don't try to equate being called a homophobe with the pain of not having legal rights with your partner. It's just insulting.

So fine. You're not racist. You're not misogynist. You're not a homophobe. But you voted for so someone who actively promoted that worldview, because for you, that stuff was negotiable.  It wasn't a deal breaker.  That tells me that we may get along fine at a backyard barbecue.  But I can't really trust you. You may not actually think my kid deserves less respect than yours, but you're willing to tolerate those who do.  When push comes to shove, you don't have my back.  You made that choice. That's your right as an American. But deal with the fallout. Suck it up. After all, elections have consequences.

Tina S

Tina is a sometime contributor to SeedSing and a special guest star on the X Millennial Man Podcast. Check out her latest walk on appearance on the X Millennial Man Podcast where she discusses the best political ads ever made. We made a twitter for Tina, go follow her @TinaSeedsing. 

Did We Mention that you Need to Vote Today

As RD has already stated, and I'm going to state right now, go vote today. All my pop culture stuff is not nearly as important as going out and letting your voice be heard. Voting is a right handed to us when we turn 18, and now more than ever, you need to vote. Everyone who reads and listens knows who I voted for, but I do not care who you vote for, as long as you vote. Sitting this out and thinking your vote doesn't matter is dumb.

Our country is a democracy and voting is the best way to use your voice in picking, not only the next president, but governors, treasurers, any form of government in your state. There are also plenty of other issues on ballots today that will affect your city and state in the future that need to be voted on today as well. Go out and do your due diligence and vote today. Obviously, I think you should vote for Clinton as president, but you vote for whoever you want, just vote.

And let the world know that you voted too. Pass it along on social media and let people know where you voted, and let them know they have until 7pm in most states to vote. Also let them know that if you are in line, and stay in that line even after 7pm, they have to let you vote. You cannot be turned away, no matter what they try and say and do.

Also, go out of your way to thank the volunteers at your polling place. They are taking the day to help you vote. These are good people, doing thankless work. Let them know they're appreciated.

Anyway, vote, vote, vote. It is very imperative that you get your voice out via voting. I'll be back to pop culture/sports/music stuff tomorrow, but today, voting is what matters most. GO VOTE TODAY!

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. He pops up on the Politics side when talks about voting, and to teach Donald Trump a little history. Follow Ty on instagram and twitter.

SeedSing is funded by a group of awesome people. Join them by donating to SeedSing.

Second Annual Get Your Ass Out and Vote Call to Action

Just follow the signs.

Ed note: Much of this article was copied from our "First Annual Get Your Ass Out and Vote Call to Action". The names and entertainment have been updated. Next year will be a lot of the same words if you don't get off your ass and vote.

Hello All, again.

It is election day. I assume many of our good readers are well informed of the candidates and issues. You all probably woke up bright and early, presented your voting credentials, and are now wearing the "I Voted" stickers to the embarrassment of your non-voting friends, co-workers, and family. To all the good voters out there, good job, you make America proud. 

The preceding paragraph represents less than two thirds of America's eligible voter population.  In over 75 years we have seen Presidential election turnouts rate top out at 65% of eligible voters participating only one time (1976 - Jimmy Carter's victory). What the hell is the problem? Why do people not vote? Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are not inspiring a bunch of hope in the American electorate. The onslaught of the 24 hour media, and the subhuman conversation on talk radio, make elections into a quasi philosophical battlefield. Cowards like Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh use their time on publicly created radio and television airwaves  to claim America will be ending if their chosen politicians do not win. The professional left (once again thanks Robert Gibbs) makes every election into a crowning of their latest political celebrity. With all of this noise, very few people actually vote.

What the hell is wrong with you people? The national (and most state) Democratic Party has totally given up on local elections so they can win the "Best in Show" ribbon that is the Presidential election. Way to go Democrats, Obama won two elections. How has that worked out? We have the psychopaths of the tea party in congress now, non-stop obstructionism, and a Republican Senate who promises to never give a hearing to a Supreme Court Justice if their party is not in power.. The Democratic Party's lack of developing any local candidates, and supporting them, has led to people in Washington DC much worse than Donald Trump. The mighty party of the people has completely failed at building a strong stable of candidates, and left the power to the most self serving political movement in American history.

The people who are on your school boards, city/town councils, and municipal courts have a ton more power over your lives than anyone who is elected to Washington DC. Your kids go to schools run by the philosophical whims of the school board. Your emergency services are managed by your city councils. Your home values are dictated by the people elected today. Yet nobody seems to care. We all get excited to vote for history (Obama) or vote to take our country back (Donald Trump), but we care not to vote for the person who will give the next generation a chance to thrive. What is wrong with us? The election you do not participate in today will elect the crazy person to your school board. That person will next move on to win a city council race you refuse to vote in. Next thing you know, that crazy person is being featured on "Full Frontal with Samantha Bee" as another crazy right winger who belongs in the 1800's. They got there because we refused to stop them from winning their first election.  We elected them by not participating.

Wake up and get your ass out to vote. I know that levies, school boards, and trustees do not excite our electoral urges. Maybe you got up to vote against Hillary or Donald? Make sure you look down that ballot and make your mark against other names and issues. Grow up. Your home values, your kids education, and the overall future of our society depends on who wins this November 8th, 2016. If you decide not to vote, I will blame the next Trump/Clinton on you. 

Vote

RD

RD Kulik is the Head Editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. Not voting gives us leaders like Matt Bevin in Kentucky. The Bluegrass State would like a do over. Be a thought leader of tomorrow and write for SeedSing. 

SeedSing is funded by a group of awesome people. Join them by donating to SeedSing.

Hillary Clinton vs Donald Trump is the Least Important Choice on Your Ballot

Somehow we got to use this picture again.

Who is ready to do some voting?

At long last, the greatest election in American history is coming to an end. Jay Z has sung, Ted Nugent has grabbed his crotch, the most important voices have told you who to vote for. It is now the general public's turn. On election day, less than two thirds of eligible voters will make their choice. Hillary or Donald will emerge victorious in the days after the election, and America will enter a new era. The choice of the people will be ready to lead.

Unfortunately we are all already know what will come after the election. Trump will lose, and he will throw a temper tantrum. If in some weird way Trump does win, the Clinton supporters will lose their minds and accuse people of election fraud. The new President will be deligitimized immediately by the opponent's partisans in the media. The idea of respecting the outcome of an election is long gone. The new President will have an incompetent group of partisan hacks in the US Congress who will do everything in their power to stop any meaningful idea from the executive branch. The millions of people who vote for the loser between Clinton and Trump will feel left out of this new America, and they will react poorly.

The thing is, we have ourselves to blame for this dangerous division. The supporters of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have made the election only about themselves. Clinton does not do rallies with down ticket Democrats, and Donald Trump has flat out refused to endorse some very powerful congressional GOPers. The media, national and local, spends 99% of its time on Trump and Clinton, and the other 1% on other races. The public is uninformed, and not curious, about any thing outside of the freakshow that has been the 2016 Presidential campaign. That attitude has created a broken America.

This is a huge problem. Barack Obama won in 2008 and 2012 by a wide margin. He is the first President since Eisenhower in 1956 to win over 51% of popular vote twice. What do we remember from Obama's eight years? We have the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare if your nasty. We also have a ton of Republican obstructionism. That is pretty much it. There was the increase in LGBTQ rights, but that came from the courts. Obamacare and Republican obstructionism is pretty much what we saw over eight years. There has been a record number of votes to overturn Obamacare, all failed. We have now long past the record for the most amount of time a Supreme Court appointment has gone without a hearing. If Obama is so popular, how can Congress keep being do nothing obstructionists and get away with it?

Obama, like Clinton and Trump today, never made their supporters care for the down ticket races. It takes a whole lot of money, and personpower, to run for President. The hording of resources is what we have called the Ohio Problem (you can read all about on this fine website). The general electorate, or less than two thirds of it, get excited to vote for President, and forget everything else. Midterm elections struggle to get half the amount of voters in Presidential elections. There is very rarely times where people are excited to vote for the Senator, or school board member. That lack of excitement has given us a popular President, and a Congress more concerned with partisanship than with doing actual work. The most important races, the people running who can actual affect your life, are being pushed to the side for the dog and pony show of modern Presidential campaigns. 

In 2000 many people thought George W Bush was way less qualified to be President than Al Gore. In 2008 Hillary Clinton and John McCain made the case that Barack Obama was a celebrity, not a seasoned politician. The press liked the camera friendly Bush, and the dynamic Obama. The people followed the press. The American people elected the popular kids over the hard working salutatorians. The idea of celebrity was overshadowing the solid resumes of the DC lifers. People wanted to be part of a movement, they wanted to join the cult of personality. The experienced workers were squares who most of the electorate ignored.

While these media friendly neophytes were winning, the public forgot about the people who actually make laws. In the last two decades, a freshman member of the US Congress has more power than the President. Senators Ted Cruz and Rand Paul have stopped legislation supported by both parties. Members of the House of Representatives you have never heard of are currently blocking vital federal funds from solving the water crisis in Flint, Michigan and containing the Zika virus outbreak in Florida. The most powerful members of our government were being reelected with no competition from the opposing party. Even in the swing state of Ohio, the Democratic party has ceded the election to a man who was once the Budget Director and trade representative to George W Bush. Hillary Clinton is working hard to expand the Democratic Party's electoral college map, but her hording of state resources are allowing the GOP to keep a stranglehold on Capitol Hill. Her supporters believe electing Hillary will be enough. It won't be.

How the Democratic Party keeps missing the lessons of 2012 are baffling. Hillary will probably win, and the Republican party will still control Congress. Senators John McCain, Ted Cruz, and Mike Lee have promised not to hold hearings for any Supreme Court appointments for the next four years. That is unconstitutional and anti-American. Nationwide, people running for office as Republicans have promised to waste more taxpayer money by have a thousand more showboat votes to defund Obamacare. By ignoring down ballot races, the Democratic Party is embracing gridlock and giving up any chance of change until the next election.

This needs to be the next election. We have made the case for Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, but their victory is unimportant. Many people have expressed their frustration that both candidates are terrible. Then don't vote for the President, or vote third party. Who cares? Trump will not have the power to do what he wants to, and he will act the child he has been his whole life. Clinton will not have a Congress that will work with her, and she will use the office to enrich her family and her donors. Ok, they stink, but there are other people on the ballot. The person you elect to the US House, the Senate, your state legislature, town council, school board, they have real power. Your taxes are decided by these people. The education your child receives is in these peoples hands. Feel like you do not know who these people are, check out your local ballot. Think you don't know these people, Google them. If you plan on going to vote for Hillary or Donald anyway, it doesn't hurt to take time and vote for the people who really matter.

We get our chance to end this nightmare tomorrow. Clinton V Trump will not be listed as one of the more inspiring Presidential campaigns in US history. The good thing is we have a moment to take power back. Sure there all third party candidates like Gary Johnson, Jill Stein, Evan McMullin, and Cthulhu, but we should focus on the not as well known names lower on the ballot. When we focus on getting a working Congress, a school board who thinks of children over partisan interests, and judges who focus on the law over special interests, then we will have a government who has real hope and change. 

Go out and vote.

RD  

RD Kulik is the Head Editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. Be a thought leader of tomorrow and write for SeedSing. 

SeedSing is funded by a group of awesome people. Join them by donating to SeedSing.

The Case for Hillary Clinton

The combo for the case was in one of the 3000 emails

In case you live under a rock and still find time to read SeedSing.com, there is a pretty contentious race going on for the Presidency of the United States. New York businessman Donald Trump is running against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. There are a few other people on the ballot, but they have no chance whatsoever, so we will not name them here.

Are you one of those undecided voters? Really? What is wrong with you? Well we are going to give the undecided, and the determinedly decided, voters a look at why each candidate deserves your vote for President of the United States. Enjoy, and make damn sure you vote on or before (if allowed in your state) November 8th. 

Why Hillary Clinton should be President of the United States

Time for some real talk.

Hillary Clinton will walk into the election on November 8th with almost enough electoral votes to win the Presidency. If you take, Ohio, Iowa, and Florida, all states won by Obama in 2012, and give those votes to Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton will still have over the needed 270 electoral votes. This huge advantage is not because Clinton is a transcendent candidate, it is because the Democratic Party nominee will always have this advantage until the GOP can figure out how to grow voters. Complaining about immigration, and offering no credible solutions. Voting constantly to defund Obamacare, and offering no real alternative. Claiming white christian men are the real victims, while ignoring every other demographic group. These issues are keeping the national Republican Party isolated from the majority of Americans. How and why the GOP can win everything except the Presidency has been a mystery to many. We have discussed how the GOP has been so successful at the local level, and so very bad in Presidential elections. While the Republican Party rests on the success of their small ball approach to elections, and not evolve to bring in new voters, the Democratic Party will continue to win ever single Presidential election. Most of these victories will be by a wide margin.

Being gifted this Electoral College advantage is why Hillary Clinton will be elected President of the United States, but it is not why you should vote for her. The contrast between Clinton's centrism, and Trump's populism is almost nonexistent. There are many issues where the candidates are on the same page. They will both work with a pro business Congress to bail out Wall Street when there is another economic downturn. Both candidates will acquiesce to any recommendations the Pentagon makes in concern to our continued military operations in the Middle East. Like every recent Presidential campaign that preceded them, both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have claimed to be the change candidate, but when it comes to the big issues they will not have the Constitutional powers to make the broad sweeping changes promised on the campaign trail. The economy, gun rights, foreign policy, it will all stay the same under a President Clinton or President Trump. Sorry, but those are the facts.

Where Hillary Clinton does separate herself from Donald Trump is in the areas where the Republican Party is falling behind on the national stage. The GOP, led by Trump, has taken a very hard stance on immigration. Talk of loyalty tests, banning entire groups from entering the country, and the constant defense of racist leaders, and their racist ideas, has hamstrung the Republican party with many minority groups. Immigrant groups like Latinos, and Muslims, are growing, while the old middle class white man as a voting group is shrinking. While Fox News, and other thought leaders of the Republican Party, continue to demonize these growing groups, the GOP will continue to lose voters. Gaining these groups is creating a permanent fire wall of supporters the Democratic Party can count on for generations. If these groups turn out, there is no way the Democratic candidate can ever lose the Presidency. The Clinton campaign is counting on these voters to put them over the top.

Many people wonder why the majority of minority groups blindly support the Democratic Party. Hillary Clinton, along with majority of the Democratic Party, has not been demonizing Muslim or Latino immigrants . Along with African Americans, the immigrant community sees the Democratic Party as their only choice in a national election. Clinton has highlighted the struggle of the people who come to America for a better opportunity. She has put on display the heroism of immigrants who have given it all to defend America. The GOP has tried to present a case to American minority groups that the Democratic Party does nothing to help the true struggles immigrants face, but it sounds hollow when in the same day Donald Trump is turning Muslims, African Americans, and Latinos into people all Americans should fear. By acting gracious, and not suspicious, the Clinton campaign is adding voters with almost all minority groups in the United States. Alienating these voters is killing any future the Republican party hopes to have at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

The Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare if your nasty, is another area where Clinton is focusing on solving a problem and Donald Trump is only concerned with creating division. The Affordable Care Act is not a very good piece of legislation, but it has areas that almost everyone agrees on. People should not be denied healthcare because of a preexisting condition. No matter of income level, every American deserves adequate access to good health. The mythical GOP plan that has been presented as an Obamacare replacement has included both of these provisions at one time or another. Hillary Clinton has been involved in reforming America's healthcare system for over twenty years. She wants to create a solution, not have endless defunding show votes that accomplish nothing. Donald Trump, and the Republican Party, continues to treat Americans health as a commodity where there is money to be made. Hillary Clinton may not have evolved to the point where access to good health should be equal, but she has devoted a large part of her life in trying to gain access to good healthcare for all. Her leadership on this vital issue is a comfort to a nervous electorate.

Donald Trump likes to criticism Hillary Clinton for being in politics for so long, and not accomplishing anything. If Mr. Trump, and the Republican Party, had read the United States Constitution, they would understand that a former private attorney, First Lady, US Senator, and Secretary of State does not have the unilateral power they all believe she did possess. If one was to have an unbiased look at Clinton's actual record of accomplishment, they would come away impressed. Clinton has made her mark on both US domestic and foreign policy. People may not agree with everything she has accomplished, but the record is long, and even Republicans will see some good. Trump likes to say she created ISIS, any thinking person can see the lie in that statement. The Republican Party has tried, and tried, and tried to trip up Secretary Clinton on Benghazi. They have failed and embarrassed themselves. Hillary Clinton's long political career has not only created an unparalleled list of accomplishment, but it also created one of the craftiest political fighters in US history.

This is usually the point where the Trump supporters will point to the corruption that has followed Hillary and Bill Clinton their entire political careers. There have been a lot of news stories, hit pieces, and congressional investigations, yet Hillary Clinton has never been indicted or charged with any crime. None whatsoever. While the GOP has gone after Hillary Clinton, she has swatted every single attack down. The email scandal has been going on since before Clinton announced her intention to run for President, yet their is still no smoking gun. Foreign entities have tried to derail Clinton's campaign, they have all failed. Former President Bush, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, and many other administration officials, kept government information on private email servers and deleted millions of communications when investigators came knocking. Surprisingly there have not been endless investigations by the the Republicans in Congress who claim they are just trying to protect Americans. While the Bush administration has gotten away with deleting millions of emails concerning government business, Hillary Clinton has constantly been hounded about 30,000 communications that no one can find. Most Americans see the double standard, and Donald Trump is losing the argument.

Hillary Clinton has spent most of her adult life working in the Washington DC machine and slowly climbing her way to the top. On the campaign trail people like to see an outsider running for President, but we have always preferred the comfort of knowing that our President knows Washington DC. Hillary Clinton definitely knows DC. Voting for Hillary Clinton is like walking through a haunted house attraction. How everything works is hidden from your view. The secrets of the house are closely guarded. You have an idea what to expect, but there will be a few scares. In the end you will be right back where you started. Nothing has really changed. On the ride home you are left wondering if it was all worth it. 

Go out and vote.

RD

RD Kulik is the Head Editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. He is not embarrassed about writing what is not in his heart. Why does he have no shame? Because journalism has no shame. Be shameless and write for SeedSing. 

SeedSing is funded by a group of awesome people. Join them by donating to SeedSing.

The Case for Donald Trump

The case is filled with lead and swings in the general direction of the candidate.

In case you live under a rock and still find time to read SeedSing.com, there is a pretty contentious race going on for the Presidency of the United States. New York businessman Donald Trump is running against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. There are a few other people on the ballot, but they have no chance whatsoever, so we will not name them here.

Are you one of those undecided voters? Really? What is wrong with you? Well we are going to give the undecided, and the determinedly decided, voters a look at why each candidate deserves your vote for President of the United States. Enjoy, and make damn sure you vote on or before (if allowed in your state) November 8th. 

Why Donald Trump should be President of the United States

With the current state of the national political climate, any Democratic candidate has a huge electoral advantage over their Republican counterpart. It is the facts of math. Mitt Romney in 2012 and John McCain in 2008 were blown out in the electoral college vote because of the Democratic Party's advantage. In order to win the election, Donald Trump will have to get a state, or two, who have leaned towards the Democratic candidate for nearly a decade. Trump has to gain votes that Romney and McCain could not. Being so unpopular, how does Trump gain these voters?

The fact is that the only way Donald Trump will win the US Presidency is if enough people vote for him because he is not Hillary Clinton. To this vital group of people, who can swing the entire election, the case for Donald Trump is that he is not Hillary Clinton. That is it, these people want to find a way to keep Clinton out of office.  The anybody but Hillary crowd need to break for Trump. If that happens, than the Republican nominee may have gained the voters the GOP have been searching for over the last two elections.

Why does Donald Trump deserve the lion's share of the never Hillary voters? To begin with, Trump is definitely not like Hillary Clinton. Donald Trump is not like any politician in modern memory. The election of Donald J Trump to the Presidency of the United States would be shocking. For years, many people have run for elected office claiming to be outsiders. Trump is genuinely an outsider. He has ran as a third party candidate. He has been registered as a Democrat longer than he has been a Republican. The talk of being an outsider is never right, except when it is Donald Trump doing the talking. For people saying that the problem with politics is politicians, Trump is the messiah they have been waiting for.

Donald Trump has also put a great amount of effort into running for President. While most of the Republican field took the electorate for granted, Trump was always on tv, and at rallies, making his case. When the fundraising has been a little light, Trump has put his own money up. Hillary Clinton has run a very low key, and low energy, campaign, while Trump is a force that never stops. His constant presence has had many consequences, but no one can deny his effort. Being a figure who has taken advantage of other people's hard work, it is shocking how much energy Trump has put into his 18 month run for the President. Donald Trump may be accused of a lot of bad stuff, but being a lazy candidate should not be one of those accusations.

If Donald Trump is elected to the Presidency of the United States, it will end the Clinton Dynasty. The Democratic Party has been crippled at every level because of the hording of resources and manpower done by the Hillary Clinton campaign (just take a look at the Ohio Problem). The constant defense of the sins of Bill Clinton has caused the Democratic Party to lose the moral high ground. Any Trump accusation is turned around to make a similar, if not worse, accusation against former President Clinton. True or not, there is an unfortunate history of Bill Clinton and infidelity, and the left wing never condemns the former President. The mainstream media, along with the entire Republican Party, has spent decades litigating Bill and Hillary Clinton. Many people are tired of the overzealous investigations, and the same amount of people are tired of the general corruption that follows the Clintons. Make no mistake, there are plenty of scandals surrounding Donald Trump, but they are new scandals. The nation does not have the same kind of fatigue concerning the Trump scandals. There will be plenty of media, and maybe even a few congressional, investigations into a possible President Donald Trump. That does not matter. What is important to the nation's psyche is that we are finally investigation someone not named Clinton.

There is also no way of knowing what a Donald Trump Presidency would look like. I know many people find that frightening, but to others it will be an exciting breath of fresh air. We know what we get from a Hillary Clinton Presidency. She will help Wall Street, not fix Obamacare, continue the terrible foreign policy Bush II started in the Middle East, protect her big campaign supporters at the expense of everyone else. Hillary Clinton will act like every President before her because that is what the system rewards. Trump is an unknown. He says a lot of things like building the wall, and tearing up trade and defense treaties, but he does not have the unilateral power to do these things. Congress will definitely not follow the currently laid out Trump plan. How will President Trump react to this? The last time there was such an unknown, and feared, person in the Oval Office his name was Teddy Roosevelt. History has judged President Roosevelt quite well. Could Trump take his unknown qualities and change America for the better? 

Do you want an unknown quantity, who is very high energy, and will finally kick the Clinton machine to the curb, then Donald J Trump is your man. His language may be rough, his past is filled with landmines, and his business acumen is questionable, but he is definitely not a part of the same DC machine that has given us our current broken government. Voting for Donald Trump is like diving into the old quarry late at night. You have no idea how far down it is, how deep the water is, and if you will actually survive, but it sure gets the heart racing. It is up to America to decide if we want to make that jump. The only thing we risk is death, paralysis, or one hell of thrill. Leap at your own risk.

RD

RD Kulik is the Head Editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. He is not embarressed about writing what is not in his heart. Why does he have no shame? Because journalism has no shame. Be shameless and write for SeedSing. 

SeedSing is funded by a group of awesome people. Join them by donating to SeedSing.

Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are not Equally Terrible

Politics is all about bad math

Have you been checking out your Facebook feed lately? There is a lot of insightful political talk going on? Too many people use their social networks not to try and gain support for their given political candidate, but they want to trash the other side. With every new hiccup coming from their chosen political campaign, people rush to the internet and let the world know that the other side is filled with brain eating monsters. This behavior is not just living in the world of amateur want to be political minds of social media, the national press engages in the same tactics. If one candidate does something terrible, the press balances it with an attack on the other candidate. Even worse, the opinion shows go all in and defend their chosen candidate, no matter what their talking heads have been preaching for years. It does not matter what a candidate does, it only matters that the other one is equally as bad. Democracy in action.

The latest round of memes making there way around the world wide web concerns the fact that no one likes the binary choice of Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and Republican nominee Donald Trump. Yes there are other candidates, but let's be grownups and understand that only Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have a real, not imaginary, chance of winning the presidency. The political discourse has devolved into the engaged internet political pundits wanting a do over. They do not like Trump, and they really do not like Clinton. The latest infection of not so clever memes has come up after the Trump "Grab them by the pussy" tapes and all the new allegations of sexual abuse being levied towards the Republican nominee. Fox News has predictably used their most un-American pundits, people like Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, the Fox and Friends jamokes, to go all out and attack the alleged history of corruption and sexual assault from Bill and Hillary Clinton. The supposed news anchors of Fox News just try to set up an equivalency of terribleness between Hillary and Donald. If Trump says / does something bad, the Clinton campaign has also done something not similar but still really bad. Other media outlets like the network news, Sunday political shows, and cable follow the Fox News ratings grab formula and report on the same equivalency of terribleness. The message is clear, if Donald Trump is bad, Hillary Clinton must be at least as terrible.

Hillary Clinton has a long, rocky, history in the public arena. There are many scandals she is either directly, or indirectly, been a part of for nearly thirty years. Things like Bill Clinton's history of sexual indiscretions, Whitewater, the private email server used during Hillary's tenure as Secretary of State, have been gleefully investigated again and again by Republicans in congress. These defenders of fiscal restraint have no problem using millions of taxpayers dollars to litigate the same issue again and again. Their lack of concern for saving the taxpayers is equal only to their abuse of power in going after the Clintons. We can thank the GOP for thirty years of pointless, and wasteful, investigations that have produced nothing but failure. Hillary's scandals have been kept alive due to Republican impotence.

Then we have the crackpot conspiracy theories that the GOP refuses to give up on. Since the Clinton's famous 60 minutes interview that aired immediately after the 1992 Super Bowl, Republican opinion leaders (i.e. Rush Limbaugh) have been going after Hillary Clinton about every trivial thing. She is ugly, she is a bitch, she is a lesbian, she is a woman who does not respect her place in society, all of these hateful, and non-important, character traits have been used against Hillary by the fringes and mainstream media. The are still being used today. Embarrassingly, the details surrounding the suicide of Hillary's former law partner Vince Foster are still being discussed all over the internet. The fact that the Clinton's took furniture and other items from the White House after President Bill Clinton's Presidency is still treated like one of the worst things any former first family has ever done. Most people still do not the truth about what happened. Many of the self righteous media types slamming the Clinton's conveniently forget about all the freebies that Ronald and Nancy Reagan received while at the White House. What the Clinton's did was wrong, just as wrong as what the Reagan's did. In the petty act of using the White House as a gift giving apparatus, the Clinton's and Reagan's are equally terrible.

This leads us to Donald Trump. With all the Clinton problems, the public wants to equate the Trump problems as part of the same culture. Just recently Donald Trump was hit with the damning off record tape of he and Billy Bush casually talking about sexual assault. That was excused as boy's locker room talk. Since then, and for decades before, women have come out to accuse Trump of sexual assault. This is excused as being no worse than what was alleged about Bill Clinton. Trump has used a tax code that favors the rich to fail upwards whenever another one of business ventures fails. This is excused by saying that Trump is a great business man. Trump's long, proven, history of infidelity and ugly divorces has been part of the Donald's story since his separation from first wife Ivana Trump. This is excused by his acolytes by saying it is all ok because Donald Trump is now a good christian man and should be forgiven. Trump uses cheap, unregulated, overseas labor for many of his projects, and regularly does not pay his contracts to american workers. This is excused again by saying that Trump is a smart business man. There is also the racism, hate, and hints of wanting violence on display in Donald Trump's rallies. This is excused by saying Trump is just speaking for a "silent" majority who have no voice. Cracked.com has even more, true and proven, terrible things that Donald Trump has done. Donald Trump is responsible for things we would not let a candidate for school board to get away with, much less a major party candidate for President.

With the two candidates history, how in the world can one say that Clinton and Trump are equally terrible? What Hillary Clinton has been accused of, and litigated by the court of public opinion, is what we can connect to any politician who is been in power for a long time. That does not make it right, but that is the current reality of American politics. We treat these elected officials like royalty, so they act like royalty. Did Hillary Clinton knowingly hide things from the American people? Probably. Has she used public service to increase her families wealth? Definitely. Does she say one thing to her donors in private and something contradictory to the voters. Absolutely, that is how are political system works today.

Do you know who else has done what Hillary Clinton does? Every single person elected to public office. Tea party heroes like Jim Jordan still forces  the government to buy tanks the US Army says are a waste of taxpayer money. He does it because of powerful political donors who make the tanks. President George W Bush and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales deliberately did not turn over millions of emails subpoenaed by the US Congress  because the emails were on a private server run by the RNC. The Chief of Staff to sitting Vice President Dick Cheney was convicted of outing a CIA agent because the agent's husband was a political enemy. Scooter Libby made America weaker and spent time in prison. President George W Bush pardoned Libby as a political favor. Did the press feel the need to balance Hillary Clinton's history with these cases of political greed and pettiness?

Donald Trump's terrible ideas, and business struggles, are not part of a broken political culture. His terribleness is born in the fact that Donald Trump only cares about his own personal well being. There is nothing in his history that shows a man who is trying to help anyone out. He inherited a fortune and used an economic system built to protect the wealthy to protect his failures. He used his money to acquire, and eventually discard, women. He used his celebrity to take what he wants, forgetting that there are people he is actively hurting. Trump does not care about any of this, and many people cheer him on for this. Donald Trump is not trying to appease a political constituency. He is not trying to push a public agenda. Donald Trump is actively trying to keep a world alive where Donald Trump is the most important person. Trump is correct when he says that he is not a politician. Politicians have to care about others in order to win elected office. Trump does not cater to anyone, unless that person is Donald Trump.

That is what makes Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump different. Clinton has been trying to serve other people, and in the process has been part of a broken and corrupt political system. Hillary Clinton is no different than any other politician in the swamp of Washington D.C.. Trump is corrupt due to his own narcissism. He has no will to help anyone who is not Donald Trump. The system did not make Trump bad, he has been exhibiting this terrible behavior as long as the press has been covering him.

Many people use Clinton's scandals to dismiss her because she is the Democratic Party nominee. Voters who identify as Republicans do not want the Democrat to win, so her scandals are brought to the forefront like any other opposition candidate's scandals would be. You do not want the Democrat to win, then you need justification on why they are unworthy. The apprehension to Donald Trump has little to do with the fact of him being the Republican nominee. His terribleness is wholly his own and not part of a larger political culture. His scandals are not part of a D.C. culture. Donald Trump has personally created his own political struggles through his greed and immorality. Clinton is a politician, Trump is dangerously selfish. That is not different sides of the same terrible coins.

Stop with the equivalence of terribleness between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. They may both have things we do not like, but it is not even close to equal. If you do not like Hillary Clinton, don't vote for her. What you can not do is claim that both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are equally flawed. Clinton is part of a system that has enlarged elected officials for a very long time. The system needs to be reformed. Donald Trump is part of a system that is anti-american and anti-progress. The system that helps Donald Trump to succeed needs to be discarded. There is no equivalence.

RD 

RD Kulik is the Head Editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. Listen to RD and Ty discuss the history of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton on the newest X Millennial Man Podcast. What do you think of the current state of American politics? Tell us all about it. 

SeedSing is funded by a group of awesome people. Join them by donating to SeedSing.

The Ohio Problem: The Capitulation of Ted Strickland

Ohio has once again become ground zero for Presidential politics. Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump desperately need to win the Buckeye state. Professional surrogates and dedicated volunteers have been dispatched all over the state to gain us much ground as possible for their respective major party nominee. With early voting about to begin, the battle for Ohio’s electoral votes has begun.

Here we go again.

The voters in Ohio will not only be casting their votes for President this October and November, they will also vote for a number of local officials and one national Senator. Republican incumbent Rob Portman will face off against former Democratic Governor Ted Strickland. There are a few fringe party candidates on the ticket, but the real race is between Portman and Strickland. Both candidates faced primary opponents, with Portman winning with no struggle and Strickland easily besting upstart Cincinnati Councilman PG Sittenfeld. The Democratic and Republican candidates have spent two years, or longer, preparing for the 2016 Ohio Senate race through back door strategy meetings and very public fundraising. Outside of the race for President, the Ohio Senate election has captured the minds, and opinions, of all registered Buckeye voters.

With a few weeks left in the 2016 election, Republican Rob Portman has been assumed as the victor in the Ohio Senate race. The polls give Portman a commanding lead over Democrat Strickland. The money is still steadily coming in for Portman, while the Strickland is cutting staff and cancelling ad buys. The race for President is still a tossup in Ohio, the race for Senate ended in the summer.

The Ohio Problem has once again been a detrimental force to any Democrat who is not the Presidential nominee. A big reason Ted Strickland decided to run for the US Senate was his tight relationship with the Clintons. It was thought having Strickland on the ticket would further enhance Hillary Clinton’s ability to win Ohio’s crucial electoral votes. Unfortunately, once Republican nominee Donald Trump started to close the gap in Ohio, the Clinton campaign started to consolidate as much of the money and manpower in the state. Since Strickland was willingly playing second fiddle to the Presidential nominee, there were no table scraps left for the former governor. The political operatives in Ohio starved their own homegrown candidate so the national party could once again consume every available resource. A contest at the national level meant no time for a race at the state level. The people of Ohio were once again told a Democratic President is so much more important than any state representation in Washington DC.

Governor Ted Strickland never had the chance, or the will, to mount a credible campaign against Republican Senator Rob Portman. During the Democratic Primary, Councilman Sittenfeld was travelling the state and running ads portraying his vision for Ohio and America. Strickland ran no ads, traveled only to meet with Democratic Party leaders, and refused to debate Sittenfeld. Once the primary was over, Portman started to conduct voter outreach while Strickland only appeared in public to promote Hillary Clinton. In the middle of the summer, ads painting Ted Strickland as a bad choice for Ohio started to appear on the airwaves all over the state. No ads supporting Strickland could be found. By the end of the summer, Senator Portman was being featured in ads as a positive, and inspirational figure for Ohio. The only time anyone would see and hear Ted Strickland’s name were in ads that highlighted the failures of the former Governor. By Labor Day, the race between Portman and Strickland was already cast as a race between the positive Republican incumbent who cared for Ohioans, and the out of touch and failure to the people that is the Democrat Strickland. First week of September, Portman and his political allies put the Ohio Senate race away.

Many things said about Ted Strickland’s time as Governor were true, when all context is removed. Ohio did see many economic problems during the Democrat’s four years in Columbus. Ted Strickland easily won the Ohio Governor election in 2006, and officially took office in 2007. Strickland inherited a state teetering economically due to the corruption of the previous governor’s regime, Republican Bob Taft. As Strickland was getting his policies in place to heal Ohio’s economic woes, the 2008 economic collapse hit the nation. Ohio, like most of the nation, was in financial hot water due to the terrible economic decisions made by the Bush administration in Washington DC. Ohio lost jobs, Ohio lost economic stability, and Ted Strickland was governor. With a reelection bid only two short years away, Governor Strickland had to move fast. New President Barrack Obama was interested in spurring economic growth with upgrades to the US passenger rail system. Ohio was to be the recipient of some of these infrastructure funds to create a high speed passenger rail line from Cleveland to Cincinnati. Other new economic measures were being put in motion by Governor Strickland’s office all the way up to the 2010 election. The future was looking a little brighter for the Buckeye state.

Even after the 2008 economic collapse, the 2010 contest looked like an easy reelection for Governor Strickland. The Republicans nominated former congressman, Fox News talking head, Lehman Brothers associate, and generally rude human being John Kasich. The republican candidate's work history for failed banking firm Lehman Brothers should have been enough to sink his campaign. Unfortunately since it was not a Presidential election year, the skilled Democratic party operatives were no where to be found in Ohio. The big money Democratic party donors sat out of the 2010 Governor’s race. Ted Strickland himself seemed to be giving up, even when the polls in late October were showing the democrat having the electoral advantage. Due to the total Democratic party giving up, a man who unapologetically defended his work with one of the banking firms responsible for the 2008 economic collapse won a very narrow election against the Governor Ted Strickland. National Democratic Party malaise gave the country John Kasich.

2012 saw the Democratic party, and its donors, back in Ohio in full force. President Obama won the state, and nearly every other democrat lost. 2014 saw the absolute disaster of the Ed Fitzgerald campaign, and former Lehman Brother associate John Kasich easily won reelection. A few higher ups in the state Democratic party left in disgrace, a new group of insiders took over, and the regional leaders of the party stayed the same. Their failures were not punished. 2016 was coming, and Ohio had many of the same faces who should be focused on the local elections being used to only enlarge the Presidential candidate. Former Governor Ted Strickland was primarily being used to help the Clinton campaign, and secondarily he was trying to win a Senate race. That is the playbook for the Ohio Democratic Party.

Since the Senate was a second concern for Ted Strickland, his full attention was never on his own race. PG Sittenfeld tried to run a race for the US Senate, but the national Democrats wanted a candidate who would defer to the top of the ticket. While Rob Portman and his allies were painting Ted Strickland as a failed politician, Ohio Democrats turned all of their attention to the Presidential campaign. The Strickland campaign was not even trying to show how their candidate compared to the Republican incumbent. Even Senior Senator Sherrod Brown, a Democrat, has not been seen assisting the Strickland campaign. Like in 2014, Democrats in Ohio have been failed by their own party in trying to be competitive in any local race.

The Strickland campaign could have easily put Senator Rob Portman on the defense and made the election about the incumbent Senator's support for some very bad ideas. While in the US House of Representatives, Portman voted for NAFTA and was a yes in the decision to impeach President Bill Clinton. He was briefly the United States Trade Representative under President George W. Bush. During Portman's time as the trade representative, the US trade deficit with China increased by over 20%. Also under President Bush, Rob Portman served as Director of the Office of Management and Budget. This appointment positioned Portman as one of the key architects of the US economy. Shortly after Portman left this position, the United States economy collapsed. As a current US Senator, Rob Portman signed onto the UnConstitutional, disrespectful, and pointless Tom Cotton letter to Iran. With a record spanning over two decades in Washington DC, there are many problematic decisions Rob Portman has made. There are many ads the Ted Strickland for Senate campaign could make to show Portman is unworthy of reelection.

Yet there were no ads connecting Rob Portman to the failed Bush economy. There has been talk of the waste, and pettiness, of the Senator signing the Cottan letter that disrespects the US Constitution. Democratic leaders, like Senator Sherrod Brown, have not been travelling the state and tell the people of Ohio how Senator Portman has put party ideology above his constituents interest. The Ohio Democratic Party has been cowering to the national party, and Ted Strickland capitulated to Rob Portman by the time summer ended.   

The Ohio Problem is not going away while we have the same failed local leaders, and the same disinterested candidates, populating the Democratic Party. The professional political operatives in the Buckeye state have once again focused all of their energy on the Presidential campaign, and voters have once again been left with no support to have people in Congress that represent their ideals. Ted Strickland may have official thrown in the towel in September, but he never had the will to put up a credible fight. Ohio will once again be talked about as being a crucial swing state for Presidential race, but when it comes to local politics it is as red as any other Republican stronghold. Thanks to inept leadership, Ohio Democrats continue to let the Ohio Problem grow. The voters deserve leaders who care.

RD

RD Kulik is the Head Editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. Do you have a thought about the Ohio Problem. Tell us all about it. 

SeedSing is funded by a group of generous donors. Join them by donating to SeedSing.

Semi - Instant 2016 Presidential Debate Reaction

Let the debates begin

One debate down, I do not want to even count how many more times we have to do this.

The very first debate between Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump, and Democratic Party nominee Hillary Clinton, is mercifully over. NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt attempted to ask questions and keep control of the event. He failed terribly.  The newsman began the night be reminding the audience not to be emotional humans, Holt then reminded the candidates that there were many questions to get through. Why do we need so many questions to be unanswered? Then we were underway.

Secretary Hillary Clinton and multiple bankruptcy declaring businessman Donald Trump proceeded to trade jabs, oldies from Trump and a few new focus tested ones from Clinton, and not answer any of Holt's questions. Clinton attacked, Trump defended and babbled, and Holt begged to move on. For ninety plus minutes the nation got to witness the exact same two candidates that were packaged and sold to us earlier in the year. Nothing new happened.

Hillary Clinton looked way more polished and in control during the debate. Everything she said seemed rehersed and extremely prepared. During certain moments of the debate I could tell her team were trying to come up with phrases that could be easily hash tagged. Anyone looking for some warmth and humanity in the former Secretary of State were not going to be in luck. Clinton was well aware that Trump was going to be combative and unpredictable. Here biggest victory was to be dismissive of the Republican nominee, and to land crushing blows to his record and ego. While she may have come off as cold, Hillary Clinton definitely looked more Presidential than her opponent during the debate.

Donald Trump was the same disaster of a candidate we have witnessed for a year now. The only difference is that the stage is not filled with a cast of thousands of other Republican clowns. Now Trump has to face off against an extremely well prepared, and extremely experienced, politician in Hillary Clinton. He did not do well. Trump was unprofessional in constantly interrupting Clinton and Holt. Trump would not give up on all of his lies and divisive tactics. Trump was flustered and incoherent whenever Clinton challenged his wealth or business failures. Trump was loudly breathing into the microphone. Donald Trump as bad as he has always been, and on the Presidential debate stage next to Hillary Clinton, he looked so much worse. The Trump campaign has been one of doom and hate, and Donald Trump embraced those ideals once again on the debate stage. He was played by Clinton, and his lack of ideas was clear to the audience who tuned in.

There we have it. One cold and calculating politician who spouts off hashtag campaigns, and one rambling lunatic who is clearly a danger to the country. Both candidates have to make some improvement before the next debate to convince the majority of voters. Hillary Clinton needs to be a bit warmer and present a positive agenda for America's future. Donald Trump needs to attend anger management classes and maybe sit down with the best psychaitrist the world has ever known. The candidates have a few weeks to get it together. Can not wait to see what happens.

RD

RD Kulik is the Head Editor at SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. 

The Day After: Democratic National Convention Edition

The halls are empty, beware your front door

History has been made. Hillary Clinton is like the 40th woman to ever run for President of the United States. She follows in the grand footsteps of Victoria Woodhall, Lenora Fulani, and Roseanne Barr. I know about all of these other women because my Republican leaning friends on social media want everyone to know that Hillary is not making history. Republicans need to find anything that will take the spotlight away from the Democratic party. Plus, they have been playing the hate Hillary Clinton game for over two decades. Sorry to say, but all the Republican apologists out there are wrong. Hillary Clinton is the first women to ever be the nominee for President by a major political party. The former First Lady, US Senator, and Secretary of State is the first women ever who has a chance at actually winning the election. The Republican voter can continue to try and deny progress. The fact is that history was made in Philadelphia this week. A woman has a legitimate chance of becoming President of the United States.

Once the unpleasant affair with Debbie Wasserman Schultz was swept away, he 2016 Democratic National Convention was everything the Republican National Convention was not. The star power was real, and not filled with c listers from 30 years ago. The speakers talked about the growth and greatness of America. The candidate was not a suprise usurper, but someone who has been working to this moment for almost a decade. The defeated rival gave a full endorsement to the nominee. The four days in Philadelphia saw the Democratic Party celebrating their recent past, and getting ready to create a new future.

The speakers of the 2016 Democratic National Convention were the exact opposite of what was seen in Cleveland and the best of the GOP. It is clear that the Democratic Party is currently blessed with a group of great orators. Former President Bill Clinton can give a speech to thousands of people, and make each every one of those people feel like Bill is talking only to them. Current President Obama can build excitement like no other politician. Vice Presidential nominee Tim Kaine did his duty by attacking the bluster of Donald Trump. Vice President Joe Biden talked of personal tragedy, and the need to be a servant to the people. First Lady Michelle Obama used her place in history to talk about the evolution of American society. Khizr Khan, whose son died in Iraq protecting his squad, showed the backward looking GOP what being a 21st century American is all about. It was the best speech of either convention.

Late last night, Hillary Clinton walked out to engrave her name into the history books. Dressed in a white pantsuit, a clothing style owned by former Secretary of State, she took the stage and gave the most important speech of her career. Last week I showed dissapointment in the overly long, and incredibly gloomy Donald Trump speech, Clinton exceeded expectations with her address. I was worried that she could not deliver on the same level as all the other DNC speakers. Clinton is not known for giving many speeches in public. Yet for nearly an hour, Hillary Clinton laid out her plan, and knocked down her opponent. The GOP's nominee used hate and fear. Clinton used the words of Ronald Reagan and FDR. Trump said America was failing. Clinton said our greatness is still growing. The thing I kept thinking is that if this was a high school student council election, Clinton is the candidate that actual cares about student government, and Trump just calls out the football team (San Dimas high school football RULES). The goody goody always wins the election over the meathead. 

The dark cloud hanging over the Democratic National Convention was that of the Bernie Sanders supporters. After Ted Cruz used is time to not endorse his party'e nominee last week, many feared the Vermont Senator would do the same thing. Sanders enthusiastically endorsed Clinton, even to the misguided boos of his supporters. As the week went on, anytime someone referenced Sanders, the tv cameras would cut to the runner up looking quite disgruntled. The inept media kept trying to make it look like the Democratic Party was fracturing, and unity was not going to happen. Outside of a few ego filled protesters chanting during big speeches, the Sanders revolution fizzled like the Never Trumpers. In order to have a story, the press need a split party, like that of the GOP. Poor Fox News, and even venerable PBS, could never get that fight going. Lord did they try.

The long grueling primary season is officially at an end. Trump v Clinton: Dawn of an Ugly Presidential Race is now upon us. Battleground states will be terrific, until their not. The endless narrative of the Clinton scandals will occupy our television sets. The only thing I know at the end of July is that Trump will somehow make America great again, and Hillary Clinton will try to be the liberal icon Democrats have been waiting for since Mario Cuomo. Oh I also learned that the White House was built by some well fed slaves. Thanks Bill O'Reilly, your idiocy is the thing that never changes with each Presidential Election.

RD

RD Kulik is the Head Editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. He would be happy to go on The O'Reilly Factor and tell confront Bill on his lack of historical knowledge and his lack of human feeling. Come on tough guy, contact us.

The Day After: Republican National Convention Edition

Time to move this mess to Philadelphia

It is now official. Donald J. Trump is the official Republican Party nominee to be President of the United States. I never thought this would happen. Even today I am filled with confusion and apprehension. The ascension of the New York businessman, and reality television star, to being one of two assumed choices for President is a story for the history books. For four days in Cleveland Ohio, the country got to witness what the Trump Republican Party was all about. Last night, for over an hour, candidate Trump had the attention of the nation all to himself. No more debates with ten or more people. No more primaries or states needing to hold a caucus. No more wrong media analysis. The GOP of 2016 has been solidified, and now onward goes the campaign for victory on November 8th.

The 2016 Republican Party National Convention was feared by many, and hoped by some, to be one of chaos and fighting. There was an expectation of political fisticuffs in the convention hall, and real violence from protesters who had descended on Cleveland. The Never Trump movement had one more chance to derail the nomination. Stories of the 1976 Republican Convention, and the Ronald Reagan supporters trying to block Gerald Ford's nomination by changing the rules at the last minute, were being linked to what may go on in Cleveland. The Cleveland police were requesting help from other cities. Public officials wanted to suspend the right to open carry firearms. The nominee himself was promising an exciting and non-traditional list of speakers. I for one was not looking forward to the violence and hate, but was intrigued by what a showman like Donald Trump could pull off. The 2016 RNC was going to be unlike anything we have ever seen in American politics.

The reality is that the 2016 Republican National Convention was a bit of a letdown. Thankfully we did not have any horrible violence in the streets of Cleveland. The protests were typical for any political event. Flag burning, yelling, and being drunk while political, typical protester stuff. Inside the convention halls, nothing much happened. The Never Trumpers tried, and failed. They failed in a spectacularly quick manner. The speakers were nothing to be that excited about. Typical Fox News republicans like Rudy Giuliani, Newt Gingrich, and Chris Christie did the same tired act they have been doing for years. An endless parade of actors and sports figures most of us have forgotten about would take the stage and yell about how horrible President Obama and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton are as Americans. Vice Presidential nominee Mike Pence put a lot of America to sleep. Speaker of the House of Representatives Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell made their expected speeches, and both men were not welcomed with open arms. The Trump children were the only speakers that garnered any bipartisan praise. Possible First Lady Melania Trump stirred up some non-news by possibly plagiarizing a 2008 Michelle Obama speech. It was a dumb story kept alive by an underwhelming convention. 

Then there is Texas Senator Ted Cruz. The 2016 Presidential Primary contest was one of the most personal, and drawn out, contests in American history. Senator Cruz and Mr. Trump were both trying to run as outsiders, and Mr. Trump came out as the eventual winner. To the surprise of no one, Trump used personal insults and general bullying to gain voters. Florida Senator Marco Rubio tried to use Trump's tactics against the New York blowhard. Rubio was out of the race a few weeks later. Senator Cruz and his family were prime targets for Trump. It was ugly. By giving Senator Cruz a Wednesday speaker slot at the convention, many Republicans thought the Texas Senator would move past the primary, and endorse Trump to show party unity.

That did not happen. Senator Cruz instead used his time to take a passive aggressive swipe at his own party's Presidential nominee. Why show up and do this? Marco Rubio and John Kasich, who both have ambitions in four years, were smart enough to stay away and not take a chance at ending their national aspirations. The only reason I can see Ted Cruz going this route is that the man must be crazy. He has an irrational want to be the GOP's next Ronald Reagan, and maybe his speech was supposed to start an inter party revolution like Reagan's 1976 convention speech. The thing that the Texas Senator seems to forget is that the Gipper did not try to undermine the nominee, Reagan endorsed Ford and worked to try and get the incumbent President reelected in 1976. Cruz has tried to undermine his party and has used shady tactics in every campaign the man has ever run in. He attacks Republican and Democrats alike. The only reason Cruz could last as long as he did in the 2016 primaries is by being shady and because the Republican party on the national level is a mess. By allowing so many people to run in the primaries, Reince Preibus doomed any hope of a moderate Republican from emerging. Ted Cruz, and Donald Trump, should have been done in January, but incompetence at the RNC allowed their fringe campaigns to survive. By not supporting Trump, Senator Cruz has given up any chance of ever being the Republican Party's Presidential nominee. He is not a smart man who has shown everyone that the only thing that matters to Ted Cruz is Ted Cruz's own political ambition. The end of Senator Cruz's Presidential dreams is one good thing to come out of the Republican National Convention.

Finally, late last night, Donald Trump ended his speech and officially became the flag bearer for all Republicans this November. I for one was really looking forward to seeing the Trump acceptance speech It was going to be unlike any political speech in my lifetime. Unfortunately is more of the same from Trump, just louder and longer. I went to bed feeling a bit let down. It was boringly typical Donald Trump. America is a hellhole of crime. Illegal immigration, pointless war, and free trade have led us down a dark path. Hillary Clinton is incompetent, a crook, and dangerous to all Americans. President Obama has failed for almost eight years. The only thing that can save Lady Liberty is the awesomeness of Donald Trump. There was no actual solutions to these problems, just the awesomeness of Donald Trump is the only cure needed. Oh, and for the first time ever a Republican Presidential nominee said we should be nice to the LGBTQ community, and he was applauded. That was weird.

The balloons dropped, confetti fell, and my brain is still trying to accept that Donald J. Trump is on the ballot as the Republican candidate for President of the United States. The entire Republican National Convention felt like a big letdown. No grand solutions, only problems. The action on the convention floor did not seem to be well planned. Most of the speakers did not embrace their nominee. Many people gave rambling, or over the top, speeches that only incited the fringe of the right wing. Conspiracy theories were being given more time than actually trying to court new voters. From my perspective it seems like the RNC has given up on the Presidential race and is going to rely on Democratic Party incompetence in the down ticket races so the GOP can hold onto everything below the executive office. That is probably the party's best path forward. Donald Trump's new Republican Party had its star shine bright, and dim with the four days in Cleveland. 

RD 

RD Kulik is the Head Editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. We are looking for people to talk about the 2016 election from their local point of view. Have something to say? Come write for SeedSing.

2016 and the End of the 1968 Political Revolution

I am the one who makes American Great

The Presidential primary election is usually a boring, anticlimactic, process the country goes through ever four years. There are a few legends of divided presidential nominating contests. In 1800 Thomas Jefferson handily beat incumbent John Adams in the election for President, yet due to some quirks in the process of electing the executive, the victorious Jefferson had to fight it out in the US House of Representatives with his own running mate, former Senator Aaron Burr. The electoral stalemate was broken only when Jefferson's rival, former US Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton, threw his support behind the Democratic-Republican candidate from Virginia. Jefferson went on to become President, and Burr killed Hamilton in a duel a few years later. The second Republican Party convention of 1860 famously saw relative unknown former Illinois Representative Abraham Lincoln go from a third place finish on the first ballot, to winning the nomination on the third. The 1948 Democratic Party convention ended in a split within the the party when the pro-segregationists left to form the Dixiecrats. Other infamous political icons like South Carolina's John Calhoun, Nebraska's William Jennings Bryan, and New York's Horatio Seymour have at times made their party's nomination contests somewhat of a circus.

Not one of these historical episodes compares to what happened to the Democratic Party in 1968. Incumbent President Lyndon Johnson choose to not seek the party's nomination due to increasing public dissent over his administrations role in escalating the war in Vietnam. Senators Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota and Robert Kennedy of New York were challenging for the nomination by running on an anti-war platform. With President Johnson out, the establishment of the Democratic party was rallying behind Vice President Hubert Humphrey. In the lead up to the convention in Chicago, the nation was in the grip of never ending tragedy and violence. On April 4th, civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis Tennessee. June 5th, shortly after claiming victory in the Democratic Party's California primary, Robert Kennedy was assassinated by a lone gunman. Many cities across the United States were experiencing riots due to the discord in the country. The baby boomers were beginning to reach voting age, and many of them were tired of seeing their family and friends coming back from Vietnam injured, mentally damaged, or dead. They wanted their concerns to be heard, and the politicians was ignoring their voices. The Democratic Party Convention in Chicago was marred by constant protests and violence in the streets. Things were made even worse when the party nominated the pro-Johnson Humphrey over the anti-war McCarthy. The nomination of Hubert Humphrey was seen as a manipulation by party leaders because the sitting Vice President had not even competed in a number of state primaries, and the anti-war McCarthy, with the primary votes won by the recently deceased Kennedy, had garnered over three quarters of support from actual Democrats. Party insiders had gone directly against the will of the people, and nominee Hubert Humphrey was destroyed in the general election by Republican Richard Nixon. 

Is 2016 shaping up to be another 1968? The two parties are getting ready to nominate candidates who have extremely high disapproval numbers. The primary process itself has been marred by political insiders trying to subvert the will of the voters. The parties are ignoring the millennial voters and their concern about economic security and opportunity. There has been more talk about convention rules and superdelegates than there has been about the will of the voters. Violence has been erupting at events associated with Presidential candidates. The anger and fear of the younger generation of voters is being ignored by the establishment candidates. The summer of 2016 is starting to look like that of 1968. What has happened to bring us back to this point almost 50 years later?

The road to the nomination for New York businessman Donald Trump mirrors the 1968 Democratic Party nomination. In 2016, like in 1968, the party was divided along many different ideologies. The insane number of Republicans who competed in the early primaries caused a fracture in the central GOP philosophy. Voters were split and would gravitate towards candidates based a few issues. No consensus candidate could be rallied behind. Trump emerged as an alternative to the establishment Republican ideals by speaking directly to the fears and anger of the Republican voters. Unlike in 1968 when the Democratic establishment was able to force their preferred candidate to the nomination, the republican voters of 2016 were able to elect their man. The incompetence of the Republican National Committee, and the cheerleading from the press, led directly to the embarrassment that is Donald Trump's candidacy. The dangerous and un-American  rhetoric from the New York businessman is leading us into a summer of discord. The Republican Convention in Cleveland is getting ready for 1968 Chicago levels of disruption.

The eventual nomination of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton by the Democratic party has more in common with the ascension of Richard Nixon to the GOP nomination in 1968. Nixon easily won the nomination in 1968 because he was the party's most reliable national figure. The former Vice President had been around Washington D.C. for decades. He was a well known commodity for a party that did not have a strong bench of nationally renowned figures. Nixon was mildly challenged by an upstart in California Governor Ronald Reagan, but no one in the Republican establishment were taking any of Reagan'a new conservative ideas seriously. The former Vice President also devised the "southern strategy" during the primary season to make sure that core republican voters were solidly in the Nixon camp. Richard Nixon was not a popular choice, but he was the best the party could do. Plus, with  the problems in the Democratic Party, Nixon could be presented as the sensible choice for President. 

Secretary Clinton has been presented as the "next person up" since she announced her candidacy is 2015. The Democratic Party insiders have done their best to smack down the different ideas of the Bernie Sanders campaign. The primary plan for Clinton has been a bizarro southern strategy where the former Secretary of State has secured the support of minorities who tend to be traditional Democratic voters. Her campaign uses these tactics to drown out and ignore the disaffected millennials. Clinton may not have secured the nomination with the same ease that Nixon did, but her inevitability followed the same path.  The Democratic party have already adopted the GOP 1968 talking points by insinuating that Hillary Clinton is the sensible choice for President in 2016. Core voters, establishment support, and being the most acceptable person available, that is how Hillary Clinton won the primary.

As the Primary season ends, and the party conventions just around the corner, the United States is living in a new era of public frustration. The Republican Party is being fueled by anger and violence, while the Democratic party is catering to the establishment while it ignores its younger voters. The nomination process of 1968 fatally injured the Democratic Party, and cut a small wound in the GOP. Both parties were forever changed by what happened. Forty-eight years later, 2016 has seen the Republican Party fall to pieces with the Democrats starting to accelerate their demise. Donald Trump will hurt the entire Republican Party in 2016, like Humphrey did to the Democrats in 1968. Hillary Clinton will easily win the Presidency in 2016, following the same path the fates set for Richard Nixon. Many voters on both sides of the political spectrum will feel left out. The discord and anger in the country will get worse. The election of 1968 started a political revolution that lasted for almost 50 years. How long will the revolution of 2016 last?

ed note: The original article misspelled Senator Eugene McCarthy's name. We have corrected the mistake.

RD

RD Kulik is the Head Editor for SeedSing and the host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. He wants to know how in the world Hillary Clinton will not win the 2016 election. Come on and tell us.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz's Empire of Dirt

Time for some rehab on DNC HQ

Current Democratic National Committee chairwomen Debbie Wasserman Schultz is not a very popular person these days. Vermont Senator, and current candidate for President of the United States, Bernie Sanders has endorsed the challenger in the Florida Congresswoman's Democratic primary. Most of the reports surrounding her tenure as the DNC chairwoman have not been flattering. The Democratic party has lost an extraordinary amount of down ticket races since the chairwoman took over the DNC. Many of the millennial voters who identify as Democrats view her unfavorably. Even Bill Moyers, a highly respected member of the Democratic Party intelligentsia, has repeatedly called on the chairwoman to resign. With so much discord, and an awful electoral track record, what kind of influence can Debbie Wasserman Shultz have in the 2016 election?

To the dismay of many democrats, Chairwoman Wasserman Schultz is one of the most powerful people in the current election cycle. Her influence has already helped steer the party in helping to make Hillary Clinton the party's Presidential nominee. During the early days of the 2016 primary season, Wasserman Schultz worked to get the number of Democratic Presidential Candidate debates very limited. Many political insiders felt that the debates hurt Clinton in the 2008 primaries. By reducing the number of debates, many felt that the DNC was trying to save Secretary Clinton from making any mistakes that could alienate Democratic Party voters. In one of the first DNC sponsored debates, Clinton did slip up by blindly defending Wall Street when the she was questioned about her ties to big money. This early slip up has stayed with Clinton the entire primary season. Any more debates would lead to more slip ups. 

Once the DNC and Chair Wasserman Schultz were called out on their obvious tactics to help Secretary Clinton, more debates were added. These new debates were scheduled at times not known for being friendly to television audiences. The Chairwoman was called out again for being biased towards the Clinton campaign, and once again the DNC was losing support of many Democratic voters.

Chair Wasserman Schultz influence is strongest through the use of party money and the superdelegates. The Democratic Party has used superdelegates, party insiders who get a vote at the convention to elect a Presidential candidate, since 1980. In 2008 Senator Clinton was trying to use superdelegates as a tool to give her campaign a narrow victory in the primary. At the same time Senator Obama was collecting more state primary wins and talking about the will of the people. Once Senator Obama had a majority of voters, the superdelegates were obliged to switch their support. Wasserman Schultz was a co chair to the 2008 Clinton campaign, and in 2016 the use of superdelegates is once again a key Clinton strategy. Senator Sanders won over 60% of the vote in the New Hampshire primary, yet all six of the state's superdelegates have pledged their support for Clinton. Why would these Democratic party insiders go against a large majority of their own voters?

Money is almost always the answer to why someone would do something against their own people. Under Chair Wasserman Schultz, the DNC has been virtual bankrupt. The chairwoman seems more interested in raising money for her own campaign, which she always wins with relative ease, than she does with raising money for the national party.  The only thing seemingly keeping the DNC financially afloat is the influx of money coming from the Clinton campaign's victory fund. The use of a victory fund means a candidate can pool large amounts of money from a single donor. No more separate checks for the primary, party, and general election. The victory fund allows these high dollar donors to write one big check. Secretary Clinton created a victory fund in conjunction with the DNC. The money raised is then distributed by the DNC to state party leaders. The large majority of these state leaders have pledged their support to the Clinton campaign. The New Hampshire Democratic party received $124,000 from the Clinton / DNC victory fund. Senator Sanders, like President Obama in 2008, does not a victory fund in conjunction with the DNC.

The undemocratic methods being employed by Chairwoman Wasserman Schultz is not the only reason many in the Democratic party want her to resign. The horrible record of getting democrats elected around the country has been a mighty thorn in the chairwoman's side. Since 2011, Democrats have lost an incredible amount of ground in municipal, state, and congressional races. The Ohio Problem has become a national problem under the leadership of Debbie Wasserman Schultz. What used to be seen as unelectable candidates, such as Matt Bevin in Kentucky, have been winning races because the incompetence at the DNC. The Democratic party is not embracing a new and young generation of leaders. The current practices of the DNC are turning off the next generation of voters. The Democratic Party is facing an extinction event thanks to Chairwoman Wasserman Schultz.

Under the leadership of Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the Democratic Party has a name, and no real substance. The Democratic Party is an empire of dirt. It is time to rebuild with new, younger, and inspired leadership. This new leadership needs to embrace a whole country approach to the Democratic Party. The President can not make any real change without a Congress of like minded people. The Supreme Court will not be full unless the majority is run by grown ups who understand how the process works. The States will only thrive when their citizens are put ahead of out of state rich donors. Chairwoman Wasserman Schultz has watched the party decay. It is time for her to go so new leaders can build a better, more inclusive, future.

RD

RD Kulik is the Head Editor for SeedSing and the host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. Are you running for office? Let SeedSing tell your story.

Donald Trump and the End of a Center Right Nation

Our political compass has no direction

No matter how many times the political experts predicted the end of Donald Trump (see the many, many times I have said so) , the New York businessman is going to be the Republican nominee for President in the 2016 national election. This means we will have six more months of Donald Trump and his great ideas to make America great again. Six more months of the national press treating these ideas as credible ones. Six more months of the liberal pundits on HBO and Comedy Central being apoplectic about Trump's ideas.  We have six more months of Donald Trump's Republican Party. A party that can in no way claim to be conservative or center right. The days of a center right nation are gone.

Shortly after the election of Barack Obama as President in 2008, the professional media class started to use the term "center right". Center right meant that Americans did not fully subscribe to the ideals of the far right or far left, but sat somewhere in the middle. Americans sat in the middle, but were leaning more to conservative ideas. The media class thought that Americans were moving away from supporting social safety programs, moving towards national defense, and wanted to slow down on changing excepted social norms. The term center right was used to make it look like the country still believed in the brand of conservatism that President Reagan and Bush II practiced. Barack Obama may have been elected President, by a very large margin, but the country was not willing to embrace the Democratic party's plans to implement health care reform and to scale down on military intervention around the world. 

The media was invested in the idea of the United States being a center right nation because of the disaster that was the George W. Bush presidency. By the end of 2008 the US was mired in an endless war with no real purpose, an economy that had crippled the middle class, and public confidence that was at an all time low. The media of the early 2000's was built to cater to Bush and the conservatism of John Boehner, Paul Ryan, and Mitch McConnell. The tea party had not been given a national platform in 2008. Fox News gained strength in the first part of the 21st century because they embraced the notion of being the "news channel" for the right. The other media outlets quickly raced away from journalism and into republican propaganda to try and catch ratings on the coat tails of Fox News. NBC, CBS, and ABC used their nightly newscast to gin up support for the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Journalism was replaced by ratings friendly war mongering. The same "fair and balanced" media were also defending the destructive economic ideas of the republican party. Story after story of a booming housing market were being fed to the Americans, while no one was talking about the obvious coming collapse. Vice President Dick Cheney made secret deals with the energy industry, there were no investigative stories until after 2008. The media was an accomplice to the bad policies of the Bush administration, and they wanted to cover their own rear ends. Saying America is a center right nation took the blame off of the media, and put the blame on the voters.

The idea of America being a center right nation was wrong in 2008, and it is wrong today. The Republican party may hold the US House of Representatives and the Senate, but that has more to do with shady manipulation of the electoral process and general incompetence of the Democratic Party. In 2008 and 2012, President Barack Obama easily beat his republican challengers. Neither of those races was even close. Obama still won with the media allowing the right wing to paint the President as a foreign born communist who hates America. Rights for the LGBTQ community have grown at a fast, and much needed, rate. The press keeps giving the bigoted side a voice, but the large majority of Americans are on the correct side of history. Hillary Clinton is having trouble sealing the deal on the 2012 Democratic Presidential nomination because most Americans are not supportive of protecting the wealthiest of our citizens at the expense of everyone else. The media has tried to marginalize Senator Bernie Sanders, yet here in the middle of May and Clinton is still not the nominee. America was not center right in 2008, and we have been moving further and further left since then.

Now that Donald Trump is the presumptive Republican Presidential Nominee, the center right lie can finally be buried on the ash heap of history. The story surrounding Trump's ascension has centered around how much everyone got the New York businessman's rise so wrong. Even liberal darlings like Nate Silver and the people at fivethirtyeight.com have egg on their face. The real story should not be how wrong everyone was, but how in the world did the Republican party nominate someone who has held mostly Democratic Party ideas his entire life. Trump has a history of being pro-choice, pro raising taxes on the wealthy, and pro healthcare reform. The Paul Ryan's and Mitch McConnell's of the Republican party have used their entire careers railing against these ideals. Ohio Governor John Kasich could only win one state, and rarely broke 10% of the vote in any other state. Texas Senator Ted Cruz, the poster boy of Republican obstructionism, only gained traction in the primaries once he was deemed the true Republican alternative to Donald Trump. No one in the classically defined Republican establishment could take Trump down. One could say that Trump's win in the 2016 Republican primary means that the GOP is becoming a center left party.

The rise of Trump is unfortunately not the rise of a center left Republican party. In hindsight it is very easy to see how Donald Trump was able to beat the rest of the Republican field. The blind hatred of the GOP towards Obama and the Democratic Party has created a lot of tiny fractures in the national Republican party. The tea party was built on blind racism. Radio and television personalities like Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity demanded purity in the philosophies of elected republican officials. The right wing worship of the founding fathers (most of them were slave holders) and the original Constitution (where African-Americans were counted as 3/5ths of a person) started to show the party as being unreasonable and not have the ability to properly govern in the 21st century. The national identity of the Republican Party was split into many pieces. The fiscal conservatives never found their candidate, and that hurt voting. Kasich, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush could never gain any unified support. The religious conservatives had incompetent buffoons as their choices. Former Governors Bobby Jindal, Mike Huckabee, and former Senator Rick Santorum were so idiotic even the media could not shield them. Ted Cruz was hated by most of his party, Carly Fiorina and Ben Carson were so bad that they helped bring the GOP brand further into the dirt. The only unique option int he filed was Donald Trump. His persona appealed to the angry white man. His ideas fueled the racist, misogynists, and bigots, in the Republican party. Donald Trump was the only Republican in the field that had a voting block to himself. This voting block turned out in high numbers, and Trump was able to survive the cage match that was the 2016 Republican Presidential Primary. His victory is actually quite easy to understand, now.

A minority of the Republican Party was able to nominate a life long Democrat to be their 2016 Presidential candidate. White male christian persecution complex has replaced conservative social and economic philosophy in the GOP. Donald Trump may be a Republican now, but many of his ideas lean to the left. The professional media created Donald Trump, and helped destroy their own narrative of a center right nation. For better or worse, America is stuck with Donald Trump and his new Republican Party. For at least six more months.

RD

RD Kulik is the Head Editor for SeedSing. Hear RD and Ty talk about Trump and the 2016 Presidential election on the latest episode of the X Millennial Man. 

The Days After: I Give Up

In the beginning I had a plan to look at every single Presidential primary / caucus result and try to use my education and work experience to give the good people out there on the internet my own personal views of what the results meant. Things were going well for a while, and then the mid-March primaries made me lose interest in the whole process. Why? Because it is an incredibly undemocratic, hateful, and pointless exercise. So today I decided that the primaries do not deserve any more of my attention, because they do not respect the will of the people. Recapping the days after countless show elections, I give up. 

Elections are incredibly important. When people do not show up to vote, the results can be disastrous. No matter how toxic the process has become, we must get out and vote. Your town council decides how safe, clean, and valuable your neighborhood is. Many neighborhoods do not even offer recycling because their local officials would rather not deal with the expense and hassle of trying to clean up the planet. Your school board is directly responsible for determining how your children, and all of their friends, will be educated. Science teachers around the country are being forced to give lip service to non-science because of uninformed religious zealots being elected to the school board. Most of our judges are elected and not appointed. These judges are being swayed by private interest to send more people to jail. These jails are constantly being sold off to private companies because the governors we elect need to plug gaps in their respective state budgets. Access to good healthcare is being dictated by members of your state legislature. Most of these state lawmakers have more extreme views than anyone we see on the Sunday morning political shows. What I am saying is that elections are extremely important. You should always get out and vote.

The highest voter turnout is always during the US Presidential election. I have personally never thought the election of the President of the United States is that big of a deal. My ambivalence to the Presidency is probably directly related to the men who have held the office in my lifetime. Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George Bush I, Bill Clinton, George Bush II, and Barack Obama - that is a pretty mediocre run of Presidents. Ford pardoned Nixon and told America that the President is above the law. Carter was listless and allowed his opposition to weaken his Presidency, Reagan destroyed the economy, bankrupted social security, ignored the AIDS crisis, and represented only the rich and religious interests in the country. Bush I started the destabilization of the Middle East. Clinton embraced republican economic ideals and weakened the social safety net for our most vulnerable citizens. Bush II was one of the top five worst presidents in US history represented by his disastrous foreign and economic policy decisions. Obama has been filled with empty promises and policies that only go half way in addressing our true problems. This run of Presidents is comparable to the weak, ineffectual, and political hacks that occupied the White House during Reconstruction (without looking it up on the internet, try and name three Presidents in order between Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt, not a memorable group). Why should I care about who is the President, when ever single man who has been in office the last forty years has been there to represent a very small group of rich political donors. Every four years I vote for the President, and it is the least important vote I cast.

The 2016 election has already been one for the history books. We may have the first woman to sit on top of the ticket for one of the two major political parties (we will). The first candidate of Hispanic descent could be the nominee for the Republican party. The first Jewish presidential nominee. The first brokered convention in generations. There is a lot of history being made, too bad the people making the history are uninspiring and self serving. The modern media, and the two major political parties, have given the American people the most deplorable slate of Presidential candidates.

The Republican Party has little to no chance to ever win another national election with the current state of their party. Decades after Richard Nixon's southern strategy, the Republican Party has enhanced their platform of fear and hatred. Anytime there is a push to suppress voter turnout, it is the Republicans. Any effort to redraw congressional district lines into a gerrymandered atrocity, it is always the republicans. Blame the poor or a minority group for all of America's problems, you better believe the Republican Party is creating the talking points. The modern Republican Party has been built to not grow voters, and to make sure that voting is as undemocratic as possible. The nation has taken notice of how unamerican the Republican Party has been when it comes to elections.

The three remaining Republican Presidential candidates perfectly represent a party of feudal lords. Ohio Governor John Kasich, the moderate according to the national press, embraces all the bad ideas of the GOP. Under his leadership Ohio has added a lot of low paying jobs, and lost a whole lot of jobs with good pay and benefits. The religious right, with the help of Kasich, has put Ohio near the bottom of the country when it comes to women's health. The public education system is being gutted by "moderate" Kasich so his charter school donors can get rich off of the taxpayers. Bad businessman Donald Trump is filled with hate and has no meaningful ideas to actually make America great again. His campaign has been an embarrassment to the entire country. The press keeps egging Trump on because they care about money and have killed the concept of journalism. Texas Senator Ted Cruz is a crazy person, surrounded by crazy people, and has some very antiquated crazy ideas. People like Glenn Beck paint Cruz as some kind of religious savior, and Cruz plays the part. The Texas Senator is so ineffectual and unpopular that a large majority of his own colleagues refuse to endorse Cruz for the Republican nomination. All three of these bozos can not win a national election, no matter how bad the Democratic nominee is.

Speaking of how bad the Democratic nominee will be, Senator Sanders and former Secretary of State Clinton have their own laundry basket full of issues. Bernie Sanders has captured a lot of the millennial imagination, but that really doesn't matter when half of the millennials will not even vote in the election. What really bothers me about Sanders is that the Vermont Senator is not even a member of the Democratic Party. It seems to me that Sanders is using the infrastructure of the Democratic Party for his own personal gain. With Hillary Clinton, the Democratic National Committee has thrown all of their resources behind a candidate who has economic values equal to those in the Republican Party. Under a President Clinton, Wall Street will continue to run unregulated. When the big banks sink the economy again, Hillary Clinton will make sure that US taxpayers bail out the 1% again. It continues to trouble me that scandal and bad PR follows the Clinton's everywhere they go. Benghazi may be a show trial, but it never ends. Hillary's hubris keeps it around. Former President Bill Clinton whitesplaining his administrations horrible record on race and crime, that is another unfortunate event that seems to keep happening.  A Hillary Clinton Presidency would be a whole lot of the same we have seen the last 25 years. Endless war in the Middle East, Wall Street giveaways, and weakening of the social safety net. That sure looks like Democratic Party values.

In my eyes we have five self absorbed, power hungry rich people fighting with each other to win the pageant called the US Presidency. Like a beauty pageant, the US election is not be decided by the American people, it is being decided by a select group of judges. On the Democratic Party side we have the super delegates. Hillary Clinton only needs to win a few states, not even half, and the super delegates will giver her the Democratic Party nomination over Bernie Sanders. In Wyoming, Senator Sanders won over 50% of the popular vote and still only took under 40% of the states delegates. DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz has altered the rules constantly to only favor Clinton. The Democratic Party does not care at all about the voice of the people, they only care about the rich and connected. 

Somehow the Republican Party is a bigger undemocratic mess than the Democrats. Donald Trump is a horrible choice for President, but so is the rest of the field. RNC chairman Reince Priebus and the Tea Party created this fractured hateful Republican Party to win local races, and now their hate is on full display for the nation. By making your base feel like they are always under attack from terrorists, minorities, the poor, social justice warriors, children, martians, whoever, then your base will flock to biggest strongman. Kasich is not filled with enough pure hate, Cruz is a creepy fellow with very few friends, someone had to lead the angry white man. Trump is a master of marketing, and he knew that his hate filled rhetoric would inspire the very vocal persons who believe in white christian male victimhood. These people demand someone pay for their insecurities, Donald Trump has promised them restitution. No wonder they are so upset that the RNC has tried to remove Donald Trump from the Republican field. The Republican Party has been advocating Trumps positions on immigration and women's health for decades, they just soften the hate with terms like conservative principles. The base has rejected these code words and wants action. Trump promises action, and the establishment is now trying to silence the voice of the people. Trump is the reflection in the mirror of the modern Republican Party, and the party does not like what they see.

The candidates all stink. None of them care about actually fixing anything. Sanders may want to deregulate the big banks, but he still believes guns deserve more protection than people. Clinton could break the gender barrier, but she will bend over backwards to protect the richest Americans. Kasich may not seem crazy, but embraces all the same backward ideas of his colleagues. Trump may be a true outsider, but he wants to make sure we are a country of hate and fear. Cruz is, well there really is not anything nice I can say about Ted Cruz. His children are adorable, there I said something nice. The brokered Republican Convention may bring a new, or old, face to the race. It doesn't matter, the next President will be another in a long line of political hacks who care very little for the problems facing our nation.

So I give up. The Republican and Democratic Parties refuse to let the people have a say. The fact that we keep talking about super delegates and brokered conventions means that the primary elections of 2016 mean nothing to the political party elites. The election of our next President does not need the will of the people. Why should I care what the RNC and DNC think, they do not care about me. No more primary updates, it has been over a month since the last one. I have nothing more to say on a process that deserves no more words. We will continue to talk politics here at SeedSing. Our goal is to give the non wealthy and connected a voice. I am not going to waste time on the primary dog and pony show. I give up. We will talk about this electoral mess when the mud clears, or when the mud consumes us all. 

Please do not forget to vote. Our voices will only gain meaning, and the political parties will lose their power, if we ALL vote in EVERY election. Get out and vote.

RD Kulik

RD  is the Head editor at SeedSing and the host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. He may think the US President is pointless, but every other race needs your attention. Donate to the National Campaign Training Committee today and support your local candidates.

The Ohio Problem: The Curious Case of PG Sittenfeld

Believe it or not, but there is a choice in the Ohio Democratic Party US Senate Primary

As goes Ohio, so goes the nation.

Well that is a big problem.

The Ohio problem is not unique to the fine people of the Buckeye state. National political leaders have been starving the local activists in many states for years. Ohio just seems to be the epicenter of the failed local work exhibited by the National Democratic Party. This Tuesday the Buckeye state will hold its Republican and Democratic primary elections, and the Ohio Problem has once again surfaced in the form of a Democratic primary for the US Senate.

Republican Rob Portman is currently the junior senator from the great state of Ohio. Senator Portman is not a hateful republican, just a non curious and greedy one. He was a trade representative and budget director for the George W Bush administration.  All reasonable people can agree that the Bush administration did not do a stellar job with trade and the economy. Rob Portman does not have the best resume to be a senator from any state, but not being a hateful idiot seems to help his elect-ability in Buckeye country. Senator Portman's ease of getting elected can be directly tied to the fact that the Ohio state Democratic party has been disorganized and lacks experience. For over a decade the same incompetent people have been losing elections years after year. Their only victories have been the two times President Obama carried the state. Two national wins and countless of local defeats to extremist Republicans equals a decade of no accountability. The ease of incumbent Senator Portman's reelection looked inevitable again in 2016.  The Ohio democrats seemingly could not mount any credible fight against the incumbent Republican. The 2016 election was again going to be all about the President, the rest of Ohio's democrats would be on their own.

Surprisingly a newcomer did step up to the plate for the Ohio Democratic Party in the race for the United States Senate. Cincinnati City Councilman PG (Alexander Paul George) Sittenfeld decided in early 2015 to challenge Senator Portman. No other credible challengers had emerged, and Councilman Sittenfeld stepped up for the Democrats. The Councilmen is very youthful, just over the age of 30, but a formidable fundraiser and campaigner.  Sittenfeld easily won two elections for the Cincinnati City Council, and is very active on social media and with the local press corps. If the people of Cincinnati could only name one member of council, that member would be PG Sittenfeld. His energy, bright personality, and independence has made him popular with Republicans and Democrats alike. Sittenfeld was one of the first millennial politicians that seemingly could challenge the baby boomers in the establishment.

Not long after PG Sittenfeld announced his intent to run for the US Senate, former Ohio Governor Ted Strickland threw his hat into the ring. Strickland had served in the US House of Representatives for a long time and was a one term governor for the Buckeye state.  Many political pundits thought that Governor Strickland was the only hope to defeat Senator Portman in the 2016 election. Strickland was well regarded by many in Ohio. He held an A rating from the NRA, and this man is a Democrat. He has a long history and Washington DC, and that history has given Strickland a nice pipeline for fundraising. The fact that Strickland has already won one state wide race, and was narrowly defeated in another, shows that the former Governor has good name recognition with the voters in Ohio. Ted Strickland had a clear path to the Democratic party's nomination for the US Senate.

Even with the Governor Strickland's perceived inevitability, Councilman PG Sittenfeld was not ready to concede the race. There were some new ideas coming from the youthful Cincinnatian. PG Sittenfeld was talking about things that effected the largest growing voting block, the millennials. His canidiacy was bound to bring energy and excitement not tied to the national Presidential election. PG Sittenfeld was going to excite Ohioans about issues that face Ohio.  By the time Ted Strickland filed to run for the US Senate, Sittenfeld had already brought in a campaigning staff, and he had received donations from some big donors (including Google's Eric Schmidt). The Cincinnati council member was not ready to abdicate the nomination to Governor Strickland.

Unfortunately the Ohio and National Democratic party leaders wanted to  force Sittenfeld out of the race in an undemocratic way. Soon after Ted Strickland entered the race, many state and national political leaders endorsed the former Governor. To endorse a candidate in a state primary more than a year before the election was unheard of. Many of the local Democratic activists were also encouraged to endorse Strickland over Sittenfeld. A smear campaign against the Cincinnati council member quickly followed. The state party was telling the media that Sittenfeld had promised to leave the race if Strickland decided to run.  The narrative being sold by the establishment of the Democratic party was that Sittenfeld was hurting the party's chance to pick up a senate win in 2016. The opposition to an up and coming Democrat was unprecedented. PG Sittenfeld was going to lose this election, his first loss, and it would be better for his career if he left the path clear for Ted Strickland. The Ohio Democratic Party did not want to give people a choice in the matter. 

PG Sittenfeld represents the future of the Democratic Party in Ohio. His early career in the Cincinnati City Council should bring support from the national and state party. The councilman even sided with the establishment of the Democratic Party when he changed his opposition on the Cincinnati street car project. That flip-flop, and inexplicable reasoning by the councilman to continue to spend on construction because money had already been spent, will haunt Sittenfeld his entire political career. He took that risk for the better of the party, and they have not been grateful. In many other, not as controversial areas, Sittenfeld has been a bright spot for the party. He fully embraced First Lady Michelle Obama's Keep Moving campaign. He has been outspoken on equality for the LGBTQ community. He is extremely active in the community when it comes to violence and poverty. If there is a cause important to Democrats, PG Sittenfeld has been one of their champions.

The Strickland / Sittenfeld primary contest perfectly represents how bad the Ohio Problem is. The Buckeye State will once again be home to many out of state campaign experts. The Democratic Party will once again put a great emphasis on winning Ohio for their Presidential candidate. Ted Strickland is part of the old establishment, he is seen as a nice compliment to Hillary Clinton (if she wins the nomination). PG Sittenfeld is too much of an unknown, the party does not see his value to winning Ohio. With no dedicated, experienced, political operatives in Ohio all of the political decisions for the Buckeye State are seen through the national party's needs. Councilman Sittenfeld has even fallen victim to the Ohio Problem. He has been put in a position to replace most of his locally grown campaign staff with people who do not live in Ohio. He has changed his main focus from student debt relief to gun control. This pivot in campaign strategy has netted some high profile endorsements for Sittenfeld, with most of the endorsements coming from out of state celebrities. PG Sittenfeld has been very active travelling the state and discussing his Senate run with local Democratic Party activists, but in order to stay relevant he has had to lean on influence makers who do not live in the Buckeye state. The lack of support and structure for a strong local candidate has been detrimental to PG Sittenfeld's hope to be in the United States Senate. Ted Strickland, who mainly works in Washington DC, may be from Ohio but his strength lies with his ties to the national Democratic party. Sittenfeld's support from the state is no match for Strickland's DC connections.

The Ohio Problem is still contributing to the electoral problems in the Buckeye state. Cincinnati City Council member PG Sittenfeld may seem to not have a chance to defeat former Governor Ted Strickland, but the state party has never really given the upstart Sittenfeld a chance to compete. The national Democratic Party establishment has used their outside influence in Ohio to try and make the state Senate primary as undemocratic as possible. It is frustrating that the national and state parties have tried to go out of the way to force Sittenfeld out of the race since day one. The people of Ohio deserve a fresh perspective. PG Sittenfeld can help end the Ohio Problem, if only he had a bit more local support.  The leaders of the Ohio Democratic Party may have changed, but their incompetence and fidelity to the national Democratic Party establishment is the same as it ever was. This cycle needs to end. The people of Ohio deserve to have their interests represented by politicians who focus on Ohio.  The people of Ohio deserve democracy

As goes the country, so goes Ohio. That is the core of the Ohio Problem.

RD

RD Kulik is the Head Editor for SeedSing and the host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. He is tired of the old failed ways of state parties who focus on presidential races and leave behind their own local candidates. Ohio is not alone in this practice, tell us about your state's failures in electing true leaders - write for SeedSing.

The Day(s) After: Super Saturday and Tuesday 2 Edition

The Saturdays and Tuesdays are about to get a lot more Super

Looking at the results of Super Saturday and Super Tuesday 2 one can see that the Republican and Democratic Primary season is far from over. Both political parties are facing scenarios not thought of one year ago. Hillary Clinton's clear path is becoming more and more clouded. The rise, and inability to stop, Donald Trump is  becoming more and more troublesome to the Republican establishment and the national media. The 2016 primary season is making a fool out of a lot of the self identified experts. Maybe the people are really taking the power back.

On Saturday Texsas Senator Ted Cruz took his turn as the latest Republican establishment hope to take down Donald Trump. With a commanding win in Kansas and a tight upset in Maine, Cruz won the most overall delegates on the first Super Saturday. Donald Trump scored a few more small victories in Kentucky and Louisiana to pad his delegate totals, but Cruz closed the gap on the New York businessman's lead. Once the votes were tallied on Super Tuesday 2, Trump put a bit more distance between himself and Cruz with wins in Hawaii, Michigan, and Mississippi. Cruz eked out a win in Idaho and held second place in the other contests to stay in the primary race. Florida Senator Marco Rubio again underachieved on Saturday and Tuesday, winning zero delegates yesterday. All of the love and hope the Republican establishment and national media had for Rubio is evaporating quickly. Ohio Governor John Kasich finished where he normally does, far behind the leaders. With one week to go before the big winner take all prizes of Florida and Ohio, Ted Cruz is the only hope the Republican party has in derailing Trump's hold on the party's nomination for President of the United States.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton continued to separate herself from Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders for the Democratic nomination with the help of a few southern states and super delegates. Blow out wins in Mississippi and Louisiana added to Clinton's lead, while Sanders closed gap with wins in Kansas, Nebraska, Maine, and surprisingly Michigan. When the delegates are added from Super Saturday and Tuesday 2, Clinton and Sanders won almost the same amount. Where Secretary Clinton is separating herself from the Green Mountain State Senator is in the super delegates. These Democratic party officials do not need to follow the will of the people, and can vote for whomever they please. Clinton has spent years cultivating this valuable resource, and no matter how many close races Senator Sanders wins, she will still have the numbers advantage because of the super delegates. In order for Bernie Sanders to capture the Democratic nomination, he needs to win some of the big primary prizes, such as Ohio and Florida, and convince the super delegates to support his candidacy at the Democratic National Convention. That seems unlikely. 

Six months ago no one thought that Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, and Bernie Sanders would still be in this race. Cruz has received no endorsements from any of his Senate colleagues, and is generally disliked by the Republican establishment. Every week Donald Trump seems to do something that would end the political career of any other person. Bernie Sanders is constantly smeared by the national media as some sort of socialist boogeyman. Not one of these three candidates has the support of anyone of influence in the Republican and Democratic parties. How is it that we are approaching mid March, and all three men are still able to win their respective party's nomination? How did everyone get this primary season so wrong?

In the case of Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, the Republican party has been grooming their voters to hate governance. The rise of the tea party created a culture of obstructing anything that President Obama and the Democratic Party wanted to get done. There was absolutely no support for the smallest bits of bipartisanship. Then Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said in 2010 that his number one job was to make Barrack Obama a one term president. He failed. While the Democratic Party failed at supporting down ticket candidates, a new breed of obstructionist Republicans started to take office. The Glenn Becks and Fox News personalities celebrated this culture of discord. Any one who compromised was severely punished. John Boehner, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, was the highest profile casualty of the new Republican Party. Boehner's failure to lead his own party was embraced by many Republicans. Ted Cruz was celebrated by the right wing media for attempting to stop any kind of legislation that required compromise. Donald Trump just yells about how other people are losers. The Republican Party embraced these tactics, and now they want to deny their champions. The voters were trained to want the bombast of Trump, the inflexibility of Cruz. The Republican voters want demagogues, not leaders. The party created this want.

The lingering campaign of Senator Bernie Sanders represents how much the Democratic Party has wasted the potential of the millennial vote. The Clinton campaign was embarrassed by the upstart Obama in 2008, and they did everything in their power to not make the same mistake again. The Democratic National Committee purposely limited the number of debates early on to help the former Secretary of State. The Clinton campaign has been raising money for years, to the detriment of many lower profile candidates. Any other Democrat who showed an interest in running for President was quickly met with scorn from the national party. Hillary Clinton's coronation as the Democratic nominee for President was one of the most undemocratic processes in modern political history. Senator Sanders, who is not even identified as a Democrat in the U.S. Senate, was so far outside of the established party that no one took his candidacy serious. The voters who identify as Democrats, but have felt betrayed by the party, flocked to Sanders campaign. The Clinton campaign has once again underestimated the voices of the disaffected Democrats, and it is costing them votes. Many thought Sanders could only win a few small liberal New England states, and now his campaign has claimed victory in Michigan. Without the advantage of super delegates, Sanders and Clinton would be neck and neck. The mistakes of 2008 seem to be coming back to haunt Hillary Clinton. The longer Bernie Sanders stays in this race, Hillary Clinton will have more pressure to talk about issues important to the millennial vote. If she refuses to acknowledge their ideas, 2016 is going to be a reminder of 2008.

The 2016 primary season has been unpredictable for both the Republican and Democratic party. Next week Florida and Ohio may bring more clarity on who will actually be on the ballot for President in November. Can the Republicans stop Trump? It looks unlikely. Is Ted Cruz the true choice of the Republican establishment? Probably not. Will John Kasich and Marco Rubio stop wasting peoples time? We can only hope.  Will Bernie Sanders be able to ride the potential of the millennial vote to the Democratic party nomination for President of the United States? Who the heck knows? The unpredictability makes this election one for the history books. 

RD

RD Kulik is the head editor for SeedSing. He is willing to admit when he is wrong, and he has been so wrong about this election. Lend your voice to the discussion and keep SeedSing on the right and true path, write for us.

The Day After: Super Tuesday Edition

Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, and Nebraska - You're next

It seems to be over, and yet the end seems so far away.

Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump both scored numerous Super Tuesday victories, and seemed to take a giant leap closer to their respective party's Presidential nomination. Both candidates won where they were expected to win, and lost where they were expected to lose. The momentum gained in February has carried over into March for both front runners. Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are on a course to face each other in November. Both candidates are already preparing to transition from the primaries and get ready for the national election. The end is here.  

Unfortunately the supporters of the losing candidates do not want to give up hope yet. In the case of the Democrats, the math is starting to cool the Bern down. Former Secretary of State Clinton dominated in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and won a very close Massachusetts primary.  Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders won large victories in Colorado, Minnesota, Oklahoma, and Vermont. Clinton prevailed in the larger states with more delegates, while Sanders was victorious in the less rich delegate states. Couple Clinton's win with her enormous advantage in super delegates, there is almost no possible way the Green Mountain State Senator can win. Many Democrats may think that the very existence of the super delegates is extremely undemocratic, but it is unfortunately part of the process. As long as Hillary Clinton can keep winning states, no matter the margin of victory, she will get the support of the majority of people in the established Democratic Party. Senator Sanders long shot candidacy is becoming more absurd every day. His small state victories will not be enough to overtake Clinton. People who are feeling the Bern will need to find a new obsession. Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic Nominee for President of the United States.

The establishment of the Republican Party really wishes it had super delegates. New York business man Donald Trump won in Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Vermont, and Virginia. Trump took less than 50% of the vote in each state, but was still the candidate who finished number one. Texas Senator Ted Cruz won his home state along with Alaska and Oklahoma. Florida Senator, and establishment savior, Marco Rubio finally won his first election of the primary season with a victory in Minnesota. Even with all the victories Donald Trump has to his name, almost all of them have been close races with Mr. Trump taking well under 50% of the vote. On the day after Super Tuesday, Cruz and Rubio have enough combined delegates to beat Trump. With the addition of super delegates, the establishment of the Republican Party could really tip the scales for one of the two Senators, but alas the RNC wants to let the voters decide. A plurality seem to be deciding on Trump.

The only plan left for the RNC and elected Republicans was to rally around someone who could defeat Trump. Over the last week the core of the Republican Party, along with their national media lapdogs, started to rally around Marco Rubio. Things were so insane that Rubio was being referred to as centrist Republican. This is a man with almost no legislative accomplishments to his name and once deflected a question on the age of Earth by saying "I'm not a scientist, man". That lack of conviction and need to pander does not make for a great leader. This is the candidate the RNC is trying to elevate. The republican voters do not seem to be listening  The support and positive news coverage yielded the Florida Senator many third place finishes and one victory in the land of 10,000 lakes on Super Tuesday.

The next great hope is Cruz, and the establishment does not care for the obstructionist from the Lone Star state. While Senator Cruz did not do as poorly as Rubio on Super Tuesday, he was still almost 100 delegates behind Trump when the voting was completed. The new narrative from the RNC and media is that Ted Cruz is the only "real" republican that can defeat Trump. If Rubio, or Kasich, were to leave the race, it is believed that their support would all flood to Cruz. If that is truly the case, and it is doubtful this would happen, then the party would anoint Ted Cruz as the leader of Republicans nationwide. The Cruz candidacy would be just as, if not more, disastrous to the Republican party's national image. The Trump and Cruz supporters share a lot of the same ideas, even if Glenn Beck refuses to believe this. If Cruz is the backup plan, the Republican party is in a lot of trouble come November.

The best chance the Republicans have in defeating Trump, and saving some down ticket races, is to make sure that Donald Trump does not get the necessary number of delegates to secure the nomination. The only possible way to pull this trick off is to have Cruz and Rubio stay in the race. Trump wins a lot of primaries, but rarely gets over 40% of the vote. If Senator Cruz dropped out, many of his supporters would flock to Trump. If Rubio, or Kasich, dropped out, their supporters would probably sit out or split between the other two candidates. Keeping everyone in waters the field down, and makes it difficult for Trump to secure the nomination. Without the proper number of delegates, the heads of the Republican Party can call for a vote on new candidate at the convention in July. That is the only path available to ensure Donald Trump is not the Republican Party candidate for President of the United States.

The election of 2016 is already one for the history books. Hillary Clinton has finally broken through and figured out how to win over the needed people in the Democratic Party. Donald Trump is unbelievable still in front, but his lead is not as daunting as one would think. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz have almost no chance to be the Republican nominee, but together they can stop Trump. It is going to be epic.

RD Kulik

RD is the Head Editor for SeedSing and the host of the X Millennial Man podcast. The political parties may not care about your voice, but we do. Write for SeedSing.