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Editing an email from Northern Humboldt For Bernie taking personal contact information out. Basically, Sanders has improved upon the phone banking system Obama initiated in 2008 – the primary point being to ID potential supporters. Obviously the focus this Saturday will be on Iowa – the caucuses taking place on Monday. The polling is mixed, with leads for both Sanders and Clinton and it’s really hard to gauge caucuses in polls – unlike primaries you don’t just show up to vote. In theory you could be there for hours.
Here’s the redacted message:
Dear phone bankers,
It’s crunch time! The caucus coming up next Monday in Iowa is too close to call, and Bernie organizers and volunteers across the country are coming together to make a final push for Bernie in this critical state!
Join us this Saturday from 10:00 a.m. to noon at the Eureka Labor Temple (840 E Street); bring your laptop and cell phone (if you need to borrow one or both, please contact us at the email address below). We’ll supply the training, snacks, coffee, and tea.
If you haven’t phone banked before, and you have a bit of time before Saturday, check out the information at berniesanders.com/phonebank to get a jump start.
Together, we will win this for Bernie!!!
northernhumboldtforbernie@gmail.com
Here’s a clip on CNN with Art Garfunkel. What I find refreshing is that Sanders bothered to ask before using someone’s song! A few other candidates didn’t bother. Also of note regarding the ad, all of the clips were taken from locations in Iowa or New Hampshire, and everyone in the clips are supporters who agreed to be in the ad.
Bob Froehlich and I will discuss the topic of Conspiracy Theory and Critical Thinking. We’re expecting a lively show. 7:00 p.m. on KMUD.
Addendum: This was one of our best shows ever!
I was driving to the Bay Area on Friday evening and listened to the KPFA evening news for the first time in God knows how long, and Mark Mericle is still the voice! A little weaker given his age – has to be in his late 70s – but still glad to hear a radio voice from my childhood live! And although the politics are on the dogmatic side, the stories are still very well researched and written – NPR quality.
The next morning on my way into the city I listened again. Now, I know that Johnny Otis died a few years back, but seriously. okay… when I was in high school I would either watch TV or come home from a concert or movie with friends, fall asleep to the Church of the Subgenious, and wake up to Emmet Powell’s Gospel Hour. I don’t remember if that came before or after Khalid Al Monsor (spelling it phonetically) would come on to lecture all the white listeners about their inherent racism – nice thing to wake up to on a Saturday morning – but that was only 1/2 hour. After that, it was the Johnny Otis show – he did blues and rock for the rest of the morning and it was pretty much music for the rest of the day until the evening news followed by a half hour call-in talk show. After that it was jazz until early morning. I spent many hours doing homework in my parents’ kitchen listening to Forms and Feelings – old African American guy with a low deep voice calmly DJing. I wouldn’t pay attention to the names of the artists or the different eras and styles – my first college roommate would teach me all that.
But I listened in on Saturday morning and they were blabbing politics! Saturday morning!
Look, you know I’m a politics junkie. I live politics. Breath politics. Devour politics. I’m fascinated, moved, entertained, and driven by politics.
But I’m thinking – Guys! It’s Saturday morning! Give it a rest!
And then another childhood voice from the weekday Morning Show with Kris Welch (childhood crush!) Philip Muldari is hosting “the Sunday Show” (so much for originality). It used to be this guy, can’t remember his name, would play baroque music and then for a half hour he would read “all the news that’s fit to spit” basically summarizing all the stories on the front page of the NY Times with his wry humor and commentary. And maybe he would take some calls. And then back to the music. And then at 11:00 it was Across the Great Divide, a folk show always starting with Kate Wolf’s song of the same title.
Now both mornings are filled with blabber!
The Revolution needs a day off.
And now I’m looking at the weekday schedule! The morning show used to end at 9 a.m.. Then there was avante guard or classical music until 11, at which time there was the “morning reading” and then public affairs for an hour or two and them music until the news. There was talk after the news until 8. That’s plenty of talk!
The margin between them being about twice Clinton’s advantage. This is not an anomaly, as it follows similar results in other polls. The writer of the linked article makes his arguments as to why, but it really comes down to Clinton’s negative ratings with independent voters. Most independent voters aren’t socialists, but they don’t hold it against him. They see him as principled.
They also see Clinton as corrupt and Trump (whose unfavorability ratings are over 50 percent consistently despite the stubborn angry white crowd supporting him in the primary) as nuts. It’s that simple.
It does strip away the unelectibility argument Clinton keeps offering about her primary opponent. Bernie beats all of the Republicans in the polls, and by a larger margin than Clinton – although in this particular poll he actually loses to Cruz and Rubio while Clinton beats them, all within the margin of error.
Chad White will join Julia Minton and Bob Froehlich to discuss the general topic of skepticism. It will probably begin by discussing the definition and move on to applications. It begins at 7:00 and they welcome your calls.
I wish I could listen live!
Shane Brinton will join me tomorrow night on Thursday Night Talk on KHSU to discuss the reintroduction of socialism to national mainstream politics for the first time in nearly a century, and whether the cold war politics of fear around the concept has declined. 7:00 p.m. Please call in to join the discussion.
Sohum Parlance II 
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