As We See It: Politicians with ‘big hat, no cattle’

The results of the Nevada caucus are in and of course Sen. Bernie Sanders won a majority of our Silver State’s delegates. Congratulations to all the Bernie supporters who worked so hard to get this win. Also, congrats to Donna West and William McCurdy, respective chairs of the Clark County and Nevada State Democratic Party.

Please consider some friendly advice from the publisher of this magazine, which will go all out to support the eventual Democratic nominee – no matter who it eventually is.

You’ll note, the Spectrum didn’t make an official endorsement for the caucus. We did urge everyone to caucus or vote early. Thank you to the Sanders and Buttigieg campaign, which both purchased full page ads in the Spectrum. That enabled us to increase the February distribution from 11,000 to 13,000. The extra 2,000 copies were direct mailed to same-gender households here in Southern Nevada.

Over the past few months, we offered all candidates full page op-ed columns. Our pages were graced by Sen. Sanders, Sen. Kamala Harris, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Cory Booker. In the December issue, we ran mini-op-eds from 25 readers, each supporting their own candidate.

We don’t know who the eventual nominee will be, but we have been irritated with Bernie supporters for four years and they need to own their behavior. In 2016,  they would vote for the Democratic nominee, whether it was Clinton or Sanders.

We’re sorry, but if you didn’t vote for Hillary Clinton, whether-or-not you voted for Donald Trump, his values are now your values and you own them.

Don’t even get me started on the fiasco from the 2016 county convention.

Our Bernie friends now need to assure us they’re on board with the Democratic nominee, whether the eventual nominee is Bernie or someone else.

Additionally, both Bernie and his supporters need to realize that without a Democratic majority in Congress – both the House and the Senate – Sen. Sanders’ much lauded social goals of Medicare for All and major changes in the tax codes, will never happen. In addition to defeating Trump, the eventual nominee must help carry Congress, otherwise all the campaign promises are nothing more than empty rhetoric. As they say in Texas, “big hat, no cattle,” and that will describe any nominee if they don’t bring the Senate and House majority with their election.

Women, power and money

Our LGBTQIA+ community is made up of dozens of organizations. Some small, some large. The larger ones often have budgets in the millions of dollars. In addition to community organizations, we have elected officials, governmental agencies and institutions of higher learning.

Have you ever stopped and considered how many women are in leadership roles? How many women take home the top paychecks? Why isn’t it more equal? Why is it that most often when a leadership position becomes available that local women assume it’ll be filled by a man? Perhaps they’ve seen what happens, all too many times?

Likewise in politics. We had a Democratic slate that included at least five women. Many people, including women, publicly state they don’t think a woman can defeat Donald Trump. Need we remind folks that a woman got about 3,000,000 more votes than Trump? He only won because of our sexist, racist and conservative-skewed Electoral College.

We’ll remind our eventual Democratic nominee, no matter whom it eventually is, that women must be fully represented throughout the new administration and we hope the next elected official aims for at least a 50% female cabinet and agency leaders.

On a somewhat humorous side note, let me point out that the publisher of this magazine is male. In my defense, my partner and the person responsible for the content, including the final decision on our cover, happens to be a woman. I always joke that I write the editorials and clean the bathrooms. She’s the one who does the heavy lifting around here, and I want to thank my partner, Lyn Collier. Without her and our 75% female staff, there would be no Spectrum.

This Modern World

Due to space limitations, we’re usually only able to run one “This Modern World,” comic per issue, even though weekly strips are available. Here’s what you missed on the impeachment topic. “If House Democrats weren’t able to hear testimony from witnesses the president blocked from testifying, is that somehow the president’s fault?” That comic line was attributed to the reasoning of Sen. “Moscow Mitch.”

This month, since I’m feeling generous and haven’t much to say, we’ll let you enjoy two. Thanks for reading