America is in the process of deciding who will be the Democratic nominee for President of the United States. The New York primary is next Tuesday, and the voters will decide on which democrat will be chosen to be honored with their support. I am not sure whether Bernie Sanders is comfortable with being associated with the Democratic Party. He again, was asked the question during the debate last night and he once again equivocated on whether or not he is a Democrat. To my way of thinking he is not a democrat. He caucuses with Democrats, but does he do anything to support the Democratic Party? He promised to support democratic candidates with financial support. Bernie Sanders has not done so thus far. Bernie is still an independent candidate for President. He is only a democrat for this campaign. So let us not forget that this primary on Tuesday is for the Democratic nomination for President.

Bernie Sanders has promised to run a campaign without any negative ads. He is running an ad now that states that Hillary Clinton has taken money for speeches. Yes, she has, but it is against the law for any senator or member of the House of Representatives to accept any money for any speech that they are to give while they represent their state. She has only accepted money for speaking engagements while she has been out of office.

Bernie Sanders more than implies that Hillary Clinton has been bought and paid for by the corrupt corporate world. It would be foolish to presume that anyone who runs for office other than a senator from the small state of Vermont to unilaterally surrender to reality and not take campaign contributions from corporations. In New York, especially, Wall Street was actually a constituent of Hillary’s. What was she to do, refuse to take any money from them even though Republicans do so all the time. It would have been political suicide.

You can be influenced by campaign contributions but that does not mean that your vote is bought for and that you are therefore corrupt. Bernie could accuse anyone of being corrupt, even the President of the United States, for having accepted any contributions from the corporate world. I do not think there is any proof that this President, or Hillary Clinton has been bought and paid for by a corporate donor. If you would take this logic to it’s logical conclusion than only Bernie and Trump should be elected because they are not corrupted  by taking corporate donations. Evidently you can not even make a contribution if you are a lobbyist, independent of any association with your employer without being accused of making wrongful contributions.

One can infer that all large corporations are corrupt and alienate them by accusing them of being crooked. What head of a major corporation would want to talk to Bernie after being vilified. If you are Bernie, it is okay to blame corporations for all that is wrong with the world. What difference is there between Bernie blaming corporations and Trump blaming everything on illegal immigrants or Muslims? We all have to take responsibility. We get the government that we deserve.

If we are to place the blame for the government that we have it should be placed on the voters who fail to take responsibility and vote when it is not a presidential cycle. Each election counts. In 2010, and in 2014 where were the Democratic voters and where were the young voters when they were needed?  Democrats lost badly and Congress is what it is, a government that is obstructionists. It is hard to get anything done if one political party is diametrically opposed to anything offered by a President, no matter what is proposed.

The blame on why government is not working rests squarely on those who chose not to cooperate with President Obama.

Bernie Sanders loves to champion the idea that he is an outsider. This is another reason why he is not a Democrat. He claims that he is not part of the establishment. Well, personally, I want to have an insider elected, someone who knows how to work the levers of government. Elections are important but you have to govern when you are elected and get something done.

A candidate can claim to be for something and have no idea how it will ever happen, how they will ever pass anything. Reality sucks. You might want universal coverage for health care, medicare for all. But please Mr. Sanders do not promise what you can not deliver. We are lucky we still have Obamacare.

Slogans are great! Bernie has the best slogans. But when it comes down to getting things done, you can not be fixated on not compromising on let us say, the minimum wage. Let’s look at the states that have passed $15 dollars an hour. The citizens of California and New York are not going to get to $15 per hour for some time as the law will increase wages over time and they will not have the increase be immediate.

We should be proud of the Sanders campaign for bringing forth many important issues. But we should not lose sight of the fact that who wins in November is at issue. What is important is the goal at the end of the campaign and that is winning.

You want to think big, fine, but you still have to govern after you are elected. But don’t claim to be running a campaign that is clean and without negative ads. Bernie is accusing his opponent of being bought and paid for by her contributors. I am sorry for pointing this out, but people who run corporations and work for them have rights to. We may want to overturn Citizens United, but let us admit that it is still the law of the land.

It is bad enough to hear the lies from Republicans but we should be careful as Democrats to not say what is not true just for political gain. Winning is not everything, you still have to look at yourself in the mirror in the morning and ask yourself did you run a clean campaign. We should be proud as Democrats that fundamentally we have run a campaign on the major issues of the day. The question still remains on the table, is Bernie Sanders really a democrat, or is he just using the party for his own self serving gains. We want a real Democrat to be the nominee.