The more interesting aspect of that poll was how unpopular it showed Clinton to be. This is the other facet of the secret hiding in full sight -- not only does she not poll as well as Sanders against the Republicans, but people flat out don't like her. And we see this nationwide.So we have to congratulate the Clinton people for maintaining the widely-held perception that this unloved candidate is the best option the Dems have.

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So, why do so few people ever hear about these polls? Well, the Clinton people debunk them at every turn, for obvious reasons. The mainstream media tend to share that campaign's view of what is real and what is not, so these results tend to confound them and they prefer to quickly move on to the next subject -- I see that Bill O'Reilly was recently expressing his disbelief in the results of his own network's poll showing Sanders beating all Republican comers. And I think that for some time even we Sanders backers couldn't believe our eyes when we saw the numbers because we accepted the conventional wisdom that independent voters would prefer the more centrist Democrat, when the reality is that many of them view Sanders as a honest man and Clinton as a hack.

JB: Despite Bernie's impressive string of wins, eight of the last nine contests and the fact that he is Brooklyn-born and bred, the Clinton campaign claims that New York is Hillary turf and that it will be challenging to upset her there. No matter how you slice it , a lot is riding on the NY primary on Tuesday. Your thoughts?

TG: I agree. I think that the race is moving inexorably toward Sanders, as people have had the time to realize what he's saying and compare it to Clinton. But we are racing the clock.

JB: You were in the Massachusetts House of Representatives for a time and you've since relocated to California. What's the race look like out there on the coast?

TG: Well, the latest Field Poll showed Clinton's lead down to six points, so I'm more optimistic that we can catch up here than I am for my original home state -- New York. But the more interesting aspect of that poll was how unpopular it showed Clinton to be. This is the other facet of the secret hiding in full sight -- not only does Clinton not poll as well as Sanders against the Republicans, but people flat out don't like her. According to this poll, 49% viewed her unfavorably, compared to 48% favorable. And we see this nationwide. So we kind of have to congratulate the Clinton people for maintaining the widely-held perception that this unloved candidate is the best option the Democrats have.

The interesting thing about California is that we vote last, so we work on all the other states first. I've made Sanders calls to Iowa, Illinois, Hawaii, Alaska, Wisconsin, Michigan, New York, and maybe a couple of others I don't remember, and I've yet to call a Californian (at least intentionally -- today I called a New York voter and he told me he'd moved to California). But that is about to change. Usually Californians vote after the nomination has pretty much been settled. But this year, we might have a chance to have an impact.

And the really interesting thing is that we may be looking at the first contested convention in awhile.

JB: Maybe. Anything you'd like to add before we wrap this up?

TG: I think when this all started all of us who supported the Sanders effort -- candidate included -- would have been very happy to be able to take this thing to all fifty states and that's what we're going to do, as far as I can see. I don't know that anyone could have imagined that this campaign would, in the process, revolutionize campaign fund raising, allowing a candidate who explicitly ran against the influence of big money in politics to actually raise more a candidate who said that she had no choice but to take their money, by getting people to contribute an average of $27. A year ago a scenario like what has played out would have been dismissed as lunacy. In principle, we all believed that if you talked sense to the American people, they would respond. But would they really? We have our answer -- they have.

It's hard to imagine Clinton not going to the convention with a lead -- although you never know. But an unintended consequence of the superdelegates is that she's unlikely to have enough committed (elected) delegates to clinch. So it ain't over until it's over, which probably gives Sanders delegates great opportunities for raising issues at the platform convention and will likely add an overall element of frisson to the proceedings. Are the superdelegates likely to wake up to Clinton's weakness as a candidate and turn their votes around? Probably not, but it's worth the try.

And there's something else -- is there anyone confident that, all the discussion about how thoroughly Clinton has been vetted over the years notwithstanding, there isn't another shoe that may drop regarding her past? Should something happen between now and the convention, it's important that we maintain a living, breathing alternative, in the form of the Sanders candidacy.

JB: I just interviewed Seth Abramson, The Audacity of Nope: Clinton's Nix on Transparency. We discuss the Goldman-Sachs speeches and why Hillary is adamantly refusing to release the transcripts. He says that this is just one more example of poor judgment on her part and something voters should be very aware of. He surmises that if the transcripts were to emerge, the contents would reflect even more poorly on her than her refusal to release them. Comments?

TG: I've read his assessment and it seems about right. When you think about it, if a company drops $225,000 on you to come to talk to them, well it might seem a bit ungrateful of you to say anything but that they're a bunch of nice fellows doing great things for humanity -- a sentiment that would not play nearly so well among the great foreclosed-upon masses.

JB: I never asked: When and why did you become a Bernie supporter, Tom?

TG: I've known about Bernie Sanders for a very long time. Some time in the late '80s, after my stint in the Massachusetts House of Representatives, I spent a Fourth of July with him, going to picnics while conducting an interview for "Socialist Review." I've always believed in socialists engaging in electoral politics and he was one of a handful of others doing it. I've been the chair of the San Francisco chapter of Progressive Democrats of America for a few years and the organization ran a "Run Bernie, Run -- as a Democrat" campaign for a year before he declared. I also wrote a book, The Primary Route: How the 99% Takes on the Military Industrial Route, which argues that there will never be an American electoral left until we start running candidates in the Democratic presidential primaries, along with several articles urging Bernie to carry the banner. (Hey, I might have looked like a prophet if anyone had bought the book!)

JB: I'm glad I asked. What was Bernie like in the '80s? You were lucky enough to interview him then. How is he different today?

TG: Well, you made me go dig up that interview and get my dates straight. The interview was run in 1992 -- he was first elected to Congress in '90. He sounded much the same. For instance, he said, "I would give my right arm to go on television with the President [Bush I] for two hours -- my views, issue by issue, are supported by far more people than the views of the President of the United States."

As we see, he's gotten his two hours several times over now and I think he's basically made his claim stand up. The main difference then was that when I asked what advice he might give to Jesse Jackson if he were to make a third presidential run, Sanders thought he ought to go third party. As we know, Bernie eventually came around to the realization that to make a serious run it would have to be in the primaries -- and the results have exceeded almost all of our expectations.

There's also a book called Radicals In Power: The New Left Experience in Office, by Eric Leif Davin that's got a chapter on what he was like as mayor of Burlington (and a chapter on me, too).

JB: Hmm. You and Bernie in Davin's book, eh? Sounds like it's worth a look! Thanks so much for talking with me, not to mention looking up that interview, too, Tom. It's been a pleasure.

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Authors Website: http://www.opednews.com/author/author79.html

Authors Bio:

Joan Brunwasser is a co-founder of Citizens for Election Reform (CER) which since 2005 existed for the sole purpose of raising the public awareness of the critical need for election reform. Our goal: to restore fair, accurate, transparent, secure elections where votes are cast in private and counted in public. Because the problems with electronic (computerized) voting systems include a lack of transparency and the ability to accurately check and authenticate the vote cast, these systems can alter election results and therefore are simply antithetical to democratic principles and functioning.



Since the pivotal 2004 Presidential election, Joan has come to see the connection between a broken election system, a dysfunctional, corporate media and a total lack of campaign finance reform. This has led her to enlarge the parameters of her writing to include interviews with whistle-blowers and articulate others who give a view quite different from that presented by the mainstream media. She also turns the spotlight on activists and ordinary folks who are striving to make a difference, to clean up and improve their corner of the world. By focusing on these intrepid individuals, she gives hope and inspiration to those who might otherwise be turned off and alienated. She also interviews people in the arts in all their variations - authors, journalists, filmmakers, actors, playwrights, and artists. Why? The bottom line: without art and inspiration, we lose one of the best parts of ourselves. And we're all in this together. If Joan can keep even one of her fellow citizens going another day, she considers her job well done.


When Joan hit one million page views, OEN Managing Editor, Meryl Ann Butler interviewed her, turning interviewer briefly into interviewee. Read the interview here.

While the news is often quite depressing, Joan nevertheless strives to maintain her mantra: "Grab life now in an exuberant embrace!"


Joan has been Election Integrity Editor for OpEdNews since December, 2005. Her articles also appear at Huffington Post, RepublicMedia.TV and Scoop.co.nz.