The hemp campaigns

Perhaps I should explain that I am a man without party; a New Dealer. The 2016 Democratic Party has few things that appeal to me; and the Republican Party and its antidemocratic theocrats and degenerates nothing at all. But that doesn't mean I cannot enjoy the parade.

So these posts about the contest are merely about the race and imply nothing about the wisdom or rightness of any particular platform or policy proposal.

From Delaware, we have a weird report of a Trump (but ex-Carson) consigliere threatening Delaware party leaders about whom they should select as delegates. Trump hardly seems to be in a position to fulfill threats, and one thing I've learned from following party politics is that if you make threats, you had better complete them and leave no survivors. Because if you frighten or antagonize party men and women, they have a thousand ways of taking their revenge; especially in a small and probably tight-knit little party like Delaware's.

I can gleefully imagine the deputy chairman of the Republican Party of Kent (formerly Whorekill) County, Delaware, pop., 160,000, standing up in Cleveland and skewering Trump on worldwide teevee.

However, I doubt that will happen. despite his repellent persona and tactics, I still think Trump will win the nomination before the convention.

And he can thank Kasich. The only reason I can think of for him to keep running is the give-'em-enough-rope strategy: Trump and Cruz are so repellent that the party will, somehow, reject both and, for lack of anything better, turn to loyal Kasich.

This won't work, second because the pols are able to count. One-quarter of voters are Republicans, and one-tenth of those have shown themselves willing to vote for Kasich -- and sometimes then only because they would have  voted for a pinata stuffed with unwashed gym socks just to keep a vote from going to Trump.

Kasich is delusional if he thinks he can expand that core of one-fortieth of the electorate into a majority. And before the party leaders will let him try, they'll bring in somebody like Romney. Or Pence. There are several possibilities.

But first because there isn't going to be an open convention. Trump isn't going to do poorly in the Midwest and West. His supporters -- aggrieved white racist losers -- are distributed evenly throughout the country.

The Democratic campaign involves a different kind of hemp. 

In January, when the Sandersistas discerned a popular primary majority through clouds of pot smoke, they were saying that superdelegates should follow the vote of the rank-and-file. Now that even the stonedest of them understands that Clinton will easily win most of the votes, they are saying superdelegates should vote for the future of the party by switching to Sanders -- Clinton is currently ahead in superdelegates by 12 to 1.

Aside from the rank dishonesty of the argument, it neglects (as Trump's man Uddo neglected in Delaware) the way party politics works. What has Sanders ever done for the party? Why should people who have worked for the party -- often long, unpaid hours -- for 10, 20, 30, 40 years turn their organization over to a man who didn't even bother to join until a few months ago?

Not only that, but a man who has let his operatives accuse them incessantly of rigging the vote, being corporate whores, cheating and pulling dirty tricks?

Clinton will handily earn enough delegates to win without the superdelegates, but even if somehow she misses, the idea that over half of them would abandon the party in favor of a faction that degrades and insults them is beyond pot-happy. Those guys must be smoking batu.