An open letter to Bernie Sanders

Dear Bernie Sanders,

You’re right. The Democratic Party has rigged the primary process – for Democrats!

I feel your pain, man. I mean, how corrupt is that? Dems looking out for Dems. What an outrage!

But look, Bernie my brother, since I’m neither a part of the ruling class nor a career politician, perhaps you can tell me, what’s so complicated about the leaders of an organization – any organization – limiting the decision making to members of that particular organization?

Most people get that the Television Academy reserves Emmy ballots for its rank and file, rather than members of the Motion Picture Academy, because there’s a separate election for those folks. You know, a little thing called the Oscars.

Similarly, the Baseball Writers’ Association of America limits its annual baseball awards and baseball hall of fame elections to actual baseball writers, keeping football writers at bay. That’s because baseball and football are entirely different animals. The great George Carlin explains.

Yes, the television and baseball elite allow for exceptions. It is possible for a person to work in both the television and motion industries, after all. And there’s nothing that precludes a baseball writer from working as a football writer as well. In each case, the individual merely signs up with both voting bodies, pays the membership dues required by each, and trudges the road of happy destiny in two fields of interest at one time.

While a person may work on both sides of the arts aisle, or in two sports simultaneously, it seems to me that there is a degree of wisdom to the notion that one cannot be both a Republican and a Democrat at the same time. So no, with the exception of the odd state (Washington, for example), you don’t get to vote in two primary contests in the same state during the same year. You have to choose, and when you do, you simply abide by the rules of whichever side you prefer.

As an independent, Senator, you may swing both ways. Just not at the same time.

Enough with the complaining about a rigged primary system already. It’s time to chill. To the extent that the D’s have established rules to the advantage of D’s – not R’s; not I’s – parameters were in place before any particular R or I declared for the 2016 election. It’s nothing personal.

The team which scores the most runs wins the baseball game. The squad with the most points triumphs in football. And the Oscar goes to…drum roll, please…the person with the most votes. What a concept, right?

Or as they say in sports, “scoreboard!”

Howard Cole is a Los Angeles-based freelance writer, currently publishing at Forbes.com. His work has appeared previously at Rolling Stone, the Guardian, the San Jose Mercury-News, Prevention, the Orange County Register and LA Weekly. He is also the Founding Director of the Internet Baseball Writers Association of America (IBWAA).