She Stoops to Conquer

 --Jim, staunch Bernie fan

I understand; you took them in a round,
while they supposed themselves going forward.
And so you have at at last
brought them home again.   
--She Stoops to Conquer,
Oliver Goldsmith

 Yeah runnin' down a dream
That never would come to me
Workin' on a mystery
That never would come to me
--Runnin' Down a Dream,
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers 

 You will never see a team play harder
than we will the rest of the season.
God bless.
--Tim Tebow promise
____________________

[the latter two quotations are in honor of Gainesville. Sa-lut.]

We were hoping he would be there, and so he was.

We noticed Jim last week outside of a Gainesville Starbucks, proudly displaying his "Bernie 2016" sign at the corner bistro table. When we arrived back in town today, he was precisely as we'd left him, though we thought with an ineffable air of wistfulness (or perhaps it was a slight melancholy) following the latest shenanigans of the Democratic (i.e., Clinton) machine.

When asked how he felt about his candidate's situation, he did not voice any rancor. He said he was proud of Mr. Sanders (to whose campaign he said he had donated money), and that Bernie had "opened the debate".

He had a certain equanimity, a peace that surpasseth all understanding. Perhaps it was resignation, but Jim's civility stood in stark contrast to the boorish behavior to which we are party on the tube.

Much as Mr. Trump has functioned in the Republican's posse, Mr. Sanders was a burr, albeit a mild- mannered one, who also functioned to animate those members of his party who held out hope against hope for something new.

The behaviors at both party's conventions is vexatious. Certainly campaigns have historically often been rowdy slugfests, but the party faithful always coalesced behind their candidates at convention time. Not so this year.

Bernie's supporters heckled Elizabeth Warren as the farcical handover of power to Mrs. Clinton occurred in a scripted, crypto-Soviet fashion. "You betrayed us!" the crowd chanted, unaware that the betrayal had already occurred echelons above Ms. Warren.

Mr. Sanders could've been a contender, but the power elite did not like him. He was the primary threat to Hillary; in fact, the only one. Now as more pesky emails emanating from within the Party itself deriding Mr. Sanders threaten to block Mrs. Clinton's hoped-for ascent to throne, Democratic Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz has fallen on her sword for Mrs. Clinton. Buh, bye, Ms. Wasserman Schultz.

It becomes curiouser and curiouser. It seems the only reason to vote for Hillary and maintain personal dignity would be for the Presidential power of Supreme Court nomination. However, as Mr. Trump is largely a centrist Republican, it could be inferred that given the opportunity he would nominate a centrist jurist. Perhaps someone in the vein of Nixon's nominee, Justice John Paul Stevens, who served the Court well and honorably.

Like the Peanuts character Pig-Pen, Mrs. Clinton is unfortunately surrounded by an obscuring maelstrom of -- at best -- less-than forthrightness. Boys can be excused for being dirty, but not girls.

Her husband Bill could weather such debris fairly unscathed due to his rakish charisma, of which Mrs. Clinton shares not a whit.