Monday Open Thread [4.25.16]
PENNSYLVANIA—NBC/WSJ/Marist–Trump 45, Cruz 27, Kasich 24
PENNSYLVANIA—NBC/WSJ/Marist Clinton 55, Sanders 40 Clinton +15
RHODE ISLAND—Brown University–Trump 38, Kasich 25, Cruz 14
RHODE ISLAND—Brown University–Clinton 43, Sanders 34
PENNSYLVANIA—NBC/WSJ/Marist–Clinton 54, Trump 39 | Clinton 52, Cruz 41
PENNSYLVANIA—PPP–Trump 51, Cruz 25, Kasich 22
PENNSYLVANIA—PPP–Clinton 51, Sanders 41
CONNECTICUT—PPP–Trump 59, Kasich 25, Cruz 13
CONNECTICUT—PPP–Clinton 48, Sanders 46
RHODE ISLAND—PPP–Trump 61, Kasich 23, Cruz 13 Trump +38
RHODE ISLAND—PPP–Sanders 49, Clinton 45
Washington Post: “Transgender rights have become an unlikely and heated issue in the presidential campaign after North Carolina enacted a law that, among other things, mandated that people use the bathroom that corresponds to the gender on their birth certificate.”
“Cruz has seized on Trump’s assertion that the North Carolina law, which also rolled back other protections for gay, lesbian and transgender people, was unnecessary and bad for business — corporations including PayPal and Deutsche Bank scrapped plans to create jobs in the state after the legislation was enacted. Trump said there has been ‘little trouble’ with allowing people to use the bathroom they want, though he later said that states should have the power to enact their own laws. Trump also said he would let transgender reality television star Caitlyn Jenner use the women’s bathroom at his properties.”
Sen. Ted Cruz and Gov. John Kasich “have agreed to coordinate in future primary contests in a last-ditch effort to deny Donald J. Trump the Republican presidential nomination, with each candidate standing aside in certain states amid growing concerns that Mr. Trump cannot otherwise be stopped,” the New York Times reports.
“In a statement late Sunday night, Mr. Cruz’s campaign manager, Jeff Roe, said that the campaign would ‘focus its time and resources in Indiana and in turn clear the path for Governor Kasich to compete in Oregon and New Mexico.’ Minutes after Mr. Roe’s statement, the Kasich campaign put out a similar message.”
Trump responded on Twitter: “Lyin’ Ted and Kasich are mathematically dead and totally desperate. Their donors & special interest groups are not happy with them. Sad!”
This may be the case of too little too late, but maybe, just maybe, if the deal extends to California and New Jersey, with Cruz concentrating on Cali and Kasich NJ, then maybe it might prevent Trump from gettting to 1237.
Donald Trump mocked “candidates who praise their opponents during concession speeches, saying that if he lost the contest, Americans would probably not hear from him,” Yahoo News reports.
Said Trump: “They fight like hell for six months, and they’re saying horrible things, the worst things you can imagine. And then one of them loses, one of them wins. And the one who loses says, ‘I just want to congratulate my opponent. He is a brilliant man, he’ll be a great governor or president or whatever.’” He added: “I’m not sure you’re ever going to see me there. I don’t think I’m going to lose, but if I do, I don’t think you’re ever going to see me again, folks. I think I’ll go to Turnberry and play golf or something.”
That makes Donald Trump an unpatriotic, unAmerican petulant piece of shit. The concession is an important piece of our political tradition and civic history. Remember how Sarah Palin wanted to give a nonconcillatory rally speech on the night of her and John McCain’s loss to Obama and Biden, and how McCain and Steve Schmidt shut her down?
The bright side of this is WHEN Trump loses in Goldwaterian fashion to Hillary, he will be gone, never to be seen again by human eyes.
Lucia Graves at The Guardian says a President Hillary Clinton would be historic and that is not something to be ignored
Another exciting plot twist came this week when Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta, announced that his boss is currently mulling a number of womenon her VP list. It’s a move that, if realized, would shatter the glass ceiling not once, but twice. Yet that it comes as such a surprise that Clinton has multiple qualified women she’s considering underscores how far from representative government the US is.
There are just three Democratic women governors Clinton might choose from. Women, though they make up more than half of the population, hold just 104 of 535 seats in Congress, and for minority women the numbers are considerably worse. There have been just two women of color elected to the Senate – ever – and only one black woman in the history of the institution: Carol Moseley Braun in 1992.
That Veep talk has turned so quickly to progressive favorite Elizabeth Warren, who still hasn’t even endorsed Clinton, is evidence mostly of a shallow bench.
Many of Clinton’s feminist detractors will tell you they want a woman president, just not this woman. But if not this woman, which woman, and how long are they willing to wait?
Mark Salter: “He might lose more Republicans and Republican-leaning independents in November than he won in the primaries. It’s possible that as much as a third of Republicans won’t vote for him, especially if a conservative alternative runs independently.”
“It’s safe to say and a comfort to know that barring some catastrophic misfortune, Donald Trump will be remembered as one of the biggest losers in the history of presidential elections.”
“I feel better just writing that.”
Joshua Holland at The Nation says if you’re going to accuse a Democratic campaign of election theft, you should offer some evidence:
Last week, I attempted to debunk allegations of widespread election fraud by the Clinton campaign that have been swirling around on social media. My argument was an appeal to common sense: If Hillary Clinton entered the race with a very large lead in the national polls and an enormous amount of support from Democratic Party activists and elected officials, as she did, and then quickly built up a significant lead in pledged delegates, as she did, then at no time since the start of the race, regardless of how unscrupulous her campaign might be, would there be any rational motive for risking infamy by rigging the vote. You don’t need to cheat when you’re winning.
That didn’t sit well with Harvey Wasserman and Bob Fitrakis, whose earlier piece for The Free Press, “Is the 2016 election already being stripped & flipped?,” I had mentioned briefly in the column. They’ve now published a lengthy broadside accusing me, and The Nation, of not being able to handle the truth when it comes to “election theft.” (It’s an odd charge, given that my Nation colleague Ari Berman has done some of the best reporting in the country on vote suppression.)
The scale of the disconnection from reality and facts seen in some Bernie supporters is matched only by the right wing. It is very troubling.
Michelle Goldburg of Slate talks about Bernie Sander’s failure to support Jon Fetterman in the Pennsylvania Senate race:
Given the money and political power stacked against him, Fetterman says he needs Sanders’ help to have any chance [this] Tuesday, the same day as the Pennsylvania presidential primary. So far, however, it has not been forthcoming. There’s been no endorsement, no fundraising support, no joint appearances. Fetterman’s campaign finds this confounding. On the ground, he says, there’s enormous overlap between his supporters and the Sanders grassroots. (“The crowd at the Fishtown brewpub is young, liberal, urban. They rave about Sanders—and Fetterman,” says a recent Philadelphia Inquirer story.) In a three-way race, he believes, Sanders’ backing could be decisive; Fetterman estimates that he’ll win if he gets 60 or 70 percent of Sanders’ voters.
Right now, that seems unlikely; a poll from early April had him at 9 percent of the vote, with 66 percent saying they haven’t recently seen, read, or heard anything about him, and 63 percent saying they didn’t know what his ideology was. The only ray of hope: When people had heard about him, what they heard made them like him more. Lacking the resources to get on the airwaves, he’s doing as much retail campaigning as he can, including going to Sanders rallies to talk to voters one on one. (The Sanders campaign didn’t respond to a request for comment.) […]
Sanders often says that his audacious agenda depends on a political revolution, one that would sweep progressives into office behind him. So far, however, he’s done notably little to make that happen. It’s not just his failure to support Fetterman; he hasn’t gotten involved in any Senate races. He made his first congressional endorsements just last week, sending out fundraising emails for three female House candidates: Zephyr Teachout of New York, Pramila Jayapal of Washington, and Lucy Flores of Nevada.
Will Bunch from the Philly Daily News:
I spent a big chunk of last year studying Sanders’s life story, and so his actions up until now don’t really surprise me. His life has been devoted to two things: Promoting his “political revolution” to raise up the American working class, and promoting himself, Bernie Sanders, as the avatar of that revolution. It would be easy to call that selfish — except that it’s a strategy that’s brought remarkable results. The notion of putting Sanders in the White House has electrified a generation of young voters around issues such as income inequality and the corrupting influence of big money in our policy. He has an unmatched ability to raise money from regular people — not special interests — and has developed an email list that is the envy of American politics.
But if Sanders is truly serious about a political revolution in the United States, the time for him to shift gears is…yesterday, frankly. Even though it’s probably too late to help him get elected, Sanders would be wise to use his campaign stops in Pennsylvania on Monday to finally endorse Fetterman, and to begin doing more to use his $40-million-a-month money machine to raise money for progressive outsider candidates, not just for Congress but for the less glamorous posts in the state legislature or the county commission or even the local school board.
The reason I have been insultingly dismissive of any talk of a “revolution” is because I saw that Bernie was not doing the work needed to bring about the revolution. If Bernie had funded 100+ candidates for Congress, including Fetterman, and done joint appearances with him and other candidates like him, then I might have respected the revolution talk as something substantive. As it was, there was no revolution planning, which meant there was going to be no revolution, which meant that if by some miracle Bernie Sanders got the nomination and won the Presidency, he would have no support or plan in Congress to pass his program.
“Of the 63 unbound delegates who have already been named, 26 have told TIME or other news outlets that they are either committed to support Cruz, lean towards supporting Cruz or refuse to support Trump on the first ballot. By contrast Trump has the public support of only one delegate in North Dakota. Another delegate in American Samoa is Trump’s local campaign chair, but he declined to confirm to Time that he will support Trump on the first ballot. Fifteen others declined to tell TIME their preference, and 15 more could not be reached for comment.”
Ted Cruz and John Kasich supporters are as far away, ideologically, as people calling themselves Republicans can be. Is it possible that Kasich voters can hold their nose and vote for Cruz? I guess it is possible but not likely.
Bernie’s support or not of Fetterman is a dumb-ass red herring. Fetterman is at 4% in the polls after Sestak and McGinty. All are polling behind the Republican Toomey. Supporting Fetterman is a great way to elect Toomey. Sestak was leading in the polls until the Dem establishment launched a full-court press against him, including dirty lying TV ads. Now I understand Sestak and McGinty are even in the polls. I watched the Dem PA-Sen. debate yesterday, and I was quite impressed by Fetterman, but this election is not his time.
“Trump also said he would let transgender reality television star Caitlyn Jenner use the women’s bathroom at his properties.”
And they made fun of Jimmy Carter for allegedly micro-managing who could use the White House tennis courts.
Fetterman is a great example of what Sanders could have been. He could have injected some life into the Fetterman campaign and they could have shared resources for GOTV operations. It’s not nearly as useful here with the two primaries that we have, but in lots of places there are real synergies that Sanders could have harnessed.
Very easy to say what Sanders could have done now that he’s made up so much ground in the Democratic primary contest. The only reason he’s in this position is because so much work was done to even make the arguments and make the movement relevant much more broadly.
It’s almost an implicit dismissal of the mountain climbed to even get to this point. Sanders is still relevant in late April and can make a fair argument to keep campaigning until the primaries end. The gap that was closed in like nine months really shouldn’t be overlooked.
Now we’ll see if the work that has been done is parlayed into a political movement that isn’t focused on an election campaign, but focused on policy and more localized action outside the private party campaign shitstem.
In Delaware, he could have stood up there with Bryan Townsend or Sean Barney or even Lisa Blount-Rochester. He could have anointed people that support him and they could have shared some resources. Instead, he had Kim Williams (who is wonderful) but only 3% of the state will get to cast a vote for her this year.
But the cult of personality of Bernie and the lack of any long-running organization here in Delaware will result in (at best) a one-time bump to Bernie only.
“Now we’ll see if the work that has been done is parlayed into a political movement ”
Sure the machine is winning the horse race today, but the work has already been done to capture hearts and minds and alter the direction of the Democratic party.
“In Delaware, he could have stood up there with Bryan Townsend or Sean Barney or even Lisa Blount-Rochester. ”
Really?
@puck Are you saying that Townsend, Barney and Blount-Rochester shouldn’t get Bernie’s support? Why?
“Are you saying that Townsend, Barney and Blount-Rochester shouldn’t get Bernie’s support?”
No, I am saying that they (with the possible exception of Townsend) are creatures of the establishment and will probably be at the Hillary event today. Typically you wouldn’t stand on a campaign stage unless you have endorsed the candidate, and certainly not if you support his opponent. And none of them needs or wants Bernie’s money.
I understand there is a lot of DNC interest in Bernie’s email list, but there needs to be a political price. DNC thinks Bernie supporters are an ATM where you can just send them words and they will send you money.
“In Delaware, he could have stood up there with Bryan Townsend or Sean Barney or even Lisa Blount-Rochester.”
Sean Barney or Lisa Blount-Rochester? Why not include Bethany Hall Long in that roll call?
I wonder if Townsend was in contact? If so and he passed, that was a big wasted opportunity.
One of them is going to serve in Congress with President Hillary Clinton. Do you think any of them really wants to be caught dead on a stage with Bernie Sanders during the primary?
So Bernie could have anointed people in tiny local races across the country back months ago when he was trailing Hillary nationally by 40+ points and most people had no idea who he was.
You’re all experts in what candidate should have done and how it would have been perceived.
Charles Koch is Ready for Hillary.
Talk about a truth hiding in plain sight.
Either Bernie has a movement that other candidates want to grab hold of and ride or he doesn’t. If he doesn’t, then this isn’t the start of any revolution.
Is the issue that candidates wouldn’t be caught dead with Sanders, or that Sanders doesn’t have any interest in helping other candidates? Either one is damning of the so-called movement.
I hope that Sanders is better at movement-building AFTER the primary than he is before. That was one of the strengths of Howard Dean. He was able to institutionalize (to an extent) some of the tenets of his campaign. But I don’t see Bernie stooping to the level of displacing DWS at the DNC. It would be too much hassle.
Do you think any of them really wants to be caught dead on a stage with Bernie Sanders during the primary?
And right here is the problem with “revolution”. There isn’t one if there is just one person. You need an army and in this country that means a governing army in Congress. If the person running for President can’t be bothered to even reach out to like minded candidates down ticket, there is never going to be a revolution. Because President Bernie’s supporters are just going back to their keyboards after they vote.
Fetterman is a great guy too. Walking the walk and getting elected in an unlikely place. I’d vote for him if I could. And this is the kind of guy who comes to office with the right agenda and a willingness to vote for it. But we have a revolution perfectly willing to ignore potential allies.
The people Bernie needs to reach are in front of the stage, not on it.
“Either Bernie has a movement that other candidates want to grab hold of and ride or he doesn’t. ”
Bernie doesn’t “have a movement.” The tide is turning with or without Bernie. If you think it is about Bernie you are badly missing the point.
“like-minded candidates” by definition should have strongly similar positions on key issues that Senator Sanders has championed during his campaign. You may want to check the opinions of the congressional primary democrat candidates on one of the most often pronounced and important issues that Sen. Sanders has embraced. The reinstatement of Glass-Steagall is of utmost importance to his economic policy agenda and has not been supported (even opposed) by some of the primary candidates. Banking reform measures such as Glass-Steagall are being resisted by all Delaware based banking entities and their lobbyists and their positions have become the positions of our current senatorial and congressional reps as well as at least one of the hopeful successors. Sen. Sanders may also be aware of the lack of enthusiasm/knowledge of the candidates as regards the Trans-Pacific Partnership and its potential to be a horribly damaging policy if passed. The specifics and commitment necessary to continue Bernie’s drive for true corporate reform and taxation on the wealthier may “not” be on some of the primary candidates’ (for Congress) to do or support list. Before you presume to pick and choose who is “like-minded” and deserving of Senator Sanders support/endorsement, get to know their positions on the important stuff.
Representative John Kowalko
Adulatory (and exhaustive) coverage of Clinton rally from WDEL. If Twitter allowed it Amy Cherry would have dotted her i’s with little hearts.
So why is Bernie the only guy running for a high office that has these views (other than 3rd party candidates)? I mean, if this is a movement, there would be some people straying from the centrist Dem positions toward Sanders. It’s a tide? WTF? The Tea Party was a tide. They got assholes elected all over the country. Where are Bernie’s fellow travelers?
It’s great to say that the TPP is getting voters motivated. You’d think that sort of thing would result in House, Senate and gubernatorial candidates all over the country. Where are these people? Rep. Kowalko, are you going to throw your hat in the ring? How about Rep. Williams? At the moment there doesn’t appear to be a single statewide candidate (and there are 13 Democrats running statewide in Delaware) that has embraced Sanders publicly. Why the hell is that???
Q: Why the hell is that?
A: The Clinton mafia.
Here is the good news. Recent polls show that the corrupt “High Dem” position is on the way out with or without Sanders.
“Corruption” is Public Enemy No. 1 to young Americans. They think it’s rampant, from Wall Street to Washington, and this rejection of corruption underlies all of their public policy opinions.
I mean, if this is a movement, there would be some people straying from the centrist Dem positions toward Sanders. It’s a tide? WTF? The Tea Party was a tide. They got assholes elected all over the country. Where are Bernie’s fellow travelers?
The key questions, right here. Then there’s Fetternan — who is a Bernie fellow traveler — who none of Bernie Sanders’ followers know anything about. Multiply that guy by 100 and get them to run for office nationwide and you might actually have yourself a revolution.
puck: not surprised at your point about wdel and amy cherry’s reporting. they’re small-timers.
So the Clinton Mafia is preventing someone from jumping into the Governor’s race and preventing any LG candidates from differentiating themselves from their 6 competitors? Really?
Why is Brad Eaby (randomly selected statewide candidate) afraid of embracing Bernie Sanders? What does he have to lose? Could Rep Williams parlay her role introducing Sanders into a challenge to Carney?
It’s just not adding up for me. I absolutely wish that someone would do this. It’s the goddamn 50-state strategy writ large. Get a Berniac elected in every state even if Sanders doesn’t make it. Yet I cannot name a single candidate that gloms on to his platform.
Put it this way: If the only result from Bernie’s campaign is that Hillary doesn’t appoint anyone from Goldman Sachs et al to the Cabinet, that’s a victory for the movement. But if she does, the resulting scrutiny from the grassroots and from the press will also be a victory and a new discourse for politics. The downticket candidates will come eventually, but they will not be the same individuals you know today.
Are we now adding the Clinton Mafia to the list of excuses, along with the deep south, the DNC, poor people, rigged primary/voter system, closed primaries, not enough time to make up ground, etc., as to why Bernie isn’t doing better?
I am completely baffled as to why Sanders chose not to support down ticket candidates. He knows how this works. He did take 10,000.00 from one of Hillary’s Pacs when he ran. Which is fine with me, but I’m the establishment. 😉
“Are we now adding the Clinton Mafia to the list of excuses…as to why Bernie isn’t doing better?”
No, “Clinton Mafia” was the answer to a different question, not the one you substituted.
If the only result from Bernie’s campaign is that Hillary doesn’t appoint anyone from Goldman Sachs et al to the Cabinet, that’s a victory for the movement.
Moving the goal posts. Again.
Clinton Mafia was in reference to why someone like Bryon Townsend might have reservations about sharing a stage with Bernie.
Okay, shall I say… Are we now adding the Clinton Mafia to the list of excuses… as to why no “single statewide candidate (and there are 13 Democrats running statewide in Delaware) that has embraced Sanders publicly.”
Clinton Mafia sounds like another conspiracy theory. Just sayin’
Well it comes from a little inside joke about the Bethany Hall Long mafia. But I think there are parallels. It is true on its face that being on the shit list of powerful people is bad for your health. I mean… it isn’t a conspiracy theory to say that politicians hold grudges.
So Bernie’s voters are bold, but no one that seeks power would be that bold? Got it. That Tea party is the shit! Amiright?
Guy runs a presidential campaign inside an established national party as a Democratic Socialist. No real precedent in modern times. Two years ago this was fringe Occupy hippie drum-circle shit. Guy gets enough traction and relevance after 9 months to get the argument heard on the highest stage and the criticism is that he hasn’t built the new political machine quickly enough? He hasn’t wielded his political capital, such as it is, in the last 90-120 days he’s actually had it. OK.
You all need some down time to give this a bit of perspective.
Revolutions are not started by politicians raising money for other politicians. Revolutions are not started by their eventual leaders. The American Revolution (not a true revolution but the war for independence is similar) started in Massachusetts, at Lexington and Concord, 15 months before the Declaration of Independence was signed. It was another 13 years before what’s now this country adopted its eventual form of government. Revolutions are messy and uncertain, their goal only to topple the existing order.
Sanders’ “revolution” cannot be a real revolution, and he would not be working to gain this office if it were. It has achieved its initial goal of putting certain issues much closer to the top of the agenda.
It would be nice if Sanders’ economic agenda could be merged with Clinton’s agenda for women, children and minorities. That combination would make her unassailable in the general election.
The ball is in her court, not his. His campaign is over. The question now is whether Clinton will continue the neo-liberal policies of her husband and Democrats in general. Given her vast support among the financial economic elite, I doubt she will embrace his talk of inequality. Neo-libs would rather talk about growing the pie, surely the most oxymoronic cliche in their book (pies don’t grow, obviously, you have to consciously make them larger to begin with).
Neo-liberalism is dead. The main question is whether Clinton will be its last representative, or the first mainstream political figure to discard it. If she gets eight years, I think it might become the latter, but she might not get the second four if she pushes too hard for the former.
Guy gets enough traction and relevance after 9 months to get the argument heard on the highest stage and the criticism is that he hasn’t built the new political machine quickly enough?
So. One more time we hear that there isn’t much political revolution here. Howard Dean started from further back and pushed not just for himself, but for as many other like-minded candidates as he reasonably could. Even after he was brought down after Iowa, he still worked at pushing the kind of candidates that would be supportive of the agenda his voters wanted to see in office.
That model understood that one guy wasn’t going to make the changes we wanted to see. It was going to be a bunch of people at every level of government to make that change. And Dean is STILL right. The accomplishment is not running a presidential campaign, it is in changing who makes the decisions at a bunch of levels. Dean was playing with a much better (and infinitely tougher) roadmap than Bernie. So there is a precedent for a larger vision — and it is one that was less about the candidate exercising political capital than it was about working overtime to empower and motivate grassroots supporters to capture the flag.
I’m about 75% with Dorian’s perspective regarding the glass being far more than half full. Nobody took Bernie any more seriously 9 months ago than took Trump seriously.
My 25% difference with DG and with everybody else who characterizes what Bernie is doing as a “revolution” (successful or not), misses the point. Bernie’s campaign is a very modern version of a left-populist rebellion not revolution. It started as a rebellion against the idea that Clinton should get a free pass to the Democratic nomination just because it was her turn and because no progressive Democrat would make the leap. Those who criticize Bernie for “suddenly” becoming a Democrat miss the point that had a solidly progressive Democrat with real chops jumped into the race (sorry, O’Malley), Bernie would not have been able to party hop effectively.
Bernie’s entire campaign organization was shocked when he didn’t end up as the left-wing version of Ron Paul, marginalized with 12-18% of the vote. They converted a “protest” campaign into a real campaign on the fly. Those who criticize him for “not knowing the rules” forget, I think, that when he started this is it was never supposed to be able to go on this long–they were never going to need those rules because he was never going to really be in contention. And then, when suddenly he was, the Clinton organization already had all the necessary insider positions filled (exactly as they should have, by the way). But Clinton lost in the sense that Bernie has made her have to win ugly.
The process has also wounded Clinton because it raises the very real question of “what part of the Democratic Party do you represent?” The people here chanting that Clinton and Sanders are together on 95% of the issues are (a) overstating the case of unity; and (b) if not, they are certainly understating the critical nature of that last 5% difference, which includes something like the progressive part of the soul of the Democratic Party.
(Enjoy it, Dorian, how often do I agree with you this much?)
Hillary isn’t such a big supporter of a living wage. Well, she wasn’t until she was running for President:
http://redalertpolitics.com/2016/04/25/oops-clintons-state-dept-opposed-minimum-wage-hike-worked-closely-huge-corporations/
But it’s “her turn!”
Umm…no.
She is a weak candidate and there is too much at risk in this election.
My 25% difference with DG and with everybody else who characterizes what Bernie is doing as a “revolution” (successful or not), misses the point.
Characterizing themselves as conducting a revolution is the point. While it is more accurately a rebellion, as you note, Steve, the entire critique of this thing is based in the fact that too many Bernie voters think they are pulling a lever and then it is done. The problems if inequality did not happen overnight and they do not get fixed overnight. It is a rebellion in that there is much noise being made, but there is unlikely much legacy from that noise. It is the legacy that is needed and that takes work over the long haul — a thing I don’t see much interest or capacity in.
And I don’t seen Clinton as especially damaged from this yet. She’s been able to get enough votes to get enough delegates to lead in the nomination race and she’s been largely able to get past the still more Clinton Derangement mud being thrown at her. In spite of a fair amount of negative media attention, she has still been able to get her message across. The fact that she doesn’t get the adulatory media coverage isn’t damage. And it wasn’t damaging the Barack Obama when both he and Clinton fought over every delegate until the very last state.
@J “She is a weak candidate and there is too much at risk in this election.”
So then let’s help her. I’m donating…
Computer server: $300-$10,000. Having the public not be able to make FOIA requests on your private server: Priceless….Yeah ,she worked hard for the money, says the also politically tone deaf Carper….Love that guy right now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFseQots0Mw
@L “Hillary isn’t such a big supporter of a living wage. Well, she wasn’t until she was running for President:”
So… The State Department didn’t promote a minimum wage increase in Haiti, but instead looked out for American interests… SHOCKING!!!
Point#1: Why would you think that this low level activity would ever cross Hillary’s desk? Do you have any idea how the State Department actually works??
Point#2: Why is it surprising the the State Department works to protect American interests abroad? Who are they supposed to be helping???
Point #3: In cases where the State Department should not be helping apparent American interests (e.g. profit from slavery), then who should make the call?
Frankly, I don’t know enough about the wage structure in Haiti to know if it was a good thing or a bad thing, but I’m pretty sure Hillary had nothing to do with this.
And I think the State Department should be protecting American interests abroad (within reason, of course).
The comparison to Howard Dean is something you all made up to try to easily explain something not easily explained. Also, if you notice I never said “revolution” or “rebellion” or “protest.” These are all description that people who think they are the small town versions of James Carville come up with to look like they are using the proper political parlance. If this Sanders thing doesn’t “fit into a model” than all you armchair strategists become very confused.
I think if you continue to try to compare this with what came before you’ve missed the entire point of it. That’s fine. But don’t think you can tell us what the point is. (When this is done the other way round the stupid suffix -splaining makes an embarrassing appearance). We know what the point is. Stop telling everyone you know what “Bernie votes” think or want or will do or won’t do. We simply don’t know yet really.
Oh, by the way, I think we agree 100%, Prof Newton. (Although I am unconvinced that Sanders did any real political damage to HRC.) When the Sanders campaign began there were really no resources to mount a full-on national thing. No name recognition, no money yet, candidate relatively unknown. They literally could not do what the strategy geniuses here say now, 9 months later, they should have done.
All these little condescending lessons we get are based on fabricated and irrelevant context. The Howard Dean example is a great one. How is arguing that Sanders didn’t do what Howard Dean did even an argument? Who was asking for Sanders to do that? He also didn’t do what Adlai Stevenson did.
As far as Sanders people pulling the lever and being done, I have no idea if this is true or not. Nobody knows. It’s a typical trope you’d hear though so I’m not surprised to read it here. Typical tropes abound. As for me personally, I’m waiting to see what type of operation Sanders puts in place this summer. I’d gladly continue to contribute money to some sort of leftist/populist quasi-party with Senator Sanders as the spokesperson.
I would be perfectly OK with Sanders doing nothing but serving in the Senate as long as he likes. He has already done an immense service to the nation and to the Democratic party. Any movement going forward is on us, with or without Bernie. I don’t expect a “movement” with a web site and a fundraising address. It’s more about your hearts and minds and how you vote in the future. It’s about our new understanding of how the economy works for the 1% and not for us.
Think of Bernie’s “movement” as more like Occupy Wall Street or maybe even a continuation of it. It was fun to cheer on the Occupy movement and to deliver a few sleeping bags to the park, but when somebody makes it real by running for President saying the same things, some of us run screaming for the “safe” establishment choices, same as it ever was.
Cassandra: One does not change the system by working within the system. A rebel who joins the system does not change the system. The system changes him.
Every NeoLib started out as an idealist, because people who run for office for the first time usually think they can change things. They think that they can change the system by getting inside it, and it always ends up the same. Once the game is joined, winning becomes more important, and the compromises mount up.
The proprietors of this site seem to be more wedded to the Democratic Party than to any ideal of liberalism. That’s what happens when the system changes you.
DG is funny. What I am advocating is what every movement in the history of democracy has had, alliances. I am advocating for Sanders to make alliances. These alliances would help both of them (unless one of your alliances is Singing Tom Carper — that isn’t helpful to anyone).
The Howard Dean example is a guy that ran a movement candidacy with a cult of personality tinge, which is largely what Sanders is doing here. Reportedly bringing in new voters, giving liberals a stick to beat their more moderate Democrats with and bringing some excitement to the process.
I guess if I am a small-town James Carville, you would be some sort of small-town Richard Dawkins?
I’ll give Bernie a pass for getting up to speed with his campaign, but why hasn’t he tried to build alliances or help other candidates in the last 2 – 3 months?
If we were discussing evolutionary biology, maybe. In this context it seems like a non sequitar.
I think what Sanders is doing is nothing like what Dean did. I know you want to try to stick this in a box and make an easy comparison, but this had nothing to do with the person Sanders. Do you think an old grumpy guy from New England is the figurehead you need for a cult of personality. The entire idea makes no sense.
I do agree with this alliance-making business. That’s why I said I’m interested to see what may be planned for the summer.
Of course he has.
New York’s Zephyr Teachout,
Nevada’s Lucy Flores,
Washington state’s Pramila Jayapal
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/04/bernie-sanders-progressives-fundraising-221887#ixzz46wXYKFWB
But, 1.) it’ll never be enough for you, and 2.) he’ll never endorse, support or raise funds for the establishment candidates you fancy.
Goldwater was a grumpy old man from Arizona.
Trump is a grumpy old man from NY.
Ross freakin’ Perot was the grumpiest old man I’ve ever seen.
Yeah, in my life, political leaders have been a lot of grumpy old men!
Another non sequitar. I never argued that there weren’t other grumpy old men in politics, now or in the past. I was arguing directly against your example of Sanders’ campaign being a progressive cult of personality movement akin to Howard Dean’s.
There’s a similar ideological thread connecting the three gentlemen you mentioned. Grumpy old white guys work better in that ideological context, yes? You must see the difference here?
Yes, populist movements, all, Sanders inclusive.
So, you’re pretending you don’t see the difference. I find that intellectually dishonest.
Why is it when a progressive actually starts to get some electoral traction, all of a sudden it’s a “cult of personality?”
Do you think an old grumpy guy from New England is the figurehead you need for a cult of personality.
I never argued that there weren’t other grumpy old men in politics, now or in the past.
One aspect of your argument that I find interesting is that you seem to think that the Sanders campaign is unique, which is funny because your whole attitude about everything else seems to be that there’s nothing new under the sun.
Puck – because from what I’ve seen, the movement, such as it is, hasn’t planted any seeds. I guess I could be wrong and in 20 years we could look back and list thousands of people that are in office because of the Sanders campaign, but I don’t see it.
I’m not seeing it either, LG – mainly because one consistent with the Sanders’ movement is labeling people as not being progressive and kicking them out. You either 100% agree or you’re not a true progressive.
I am currently working with a candidate who goes out of his way to listen to people and try and find common ground. Refreshing.
What’s especially funny is that you think you understand my “whole attitude about everything.” What a wild presumption to make.
“I guess I could be wrong and in 20 years we could look back”
20 years ago, young people coming of age politically were brought up with the idea that we need to funnel more money to the “job creators.” That was the atmosphere they breathed. But now this generation has heard and understood that idea is bankrupt, and was in fact at the root of many of our social problems as well as economic problems. Because Bernie brought that knowledge into a Presidential campaign, media coverage of the economy will be forever altered or at least seen with more skeptical eyes. And that is the lens through which future campaigns will be seen.
Sanders is doing what Dean did — running for President with a message of wholesale change. The only difference between them is that Dean wanted people involved with his campaign to capture the progressive flag everywhere and Sanders couldn’t care less about building.
One does not change the system by working within the system.
Tell that to all of the movements that have changed the system in this country. The thing that none of you want to come to grips with is that you are the system if you just show up in enough numbers and enough force. That’s not romantic, that is the way this system of government is set up. The current system has convinced too many people to be cynical and discouraged about the opportunity for change, and that cynicism is cultivated. And cultivated well enough for so-called progressives to show up to claim that no one out side of the Bernie *movement* can understand what is going on. Which, of course, is stone cold bullshit. And one more excuse for not grappling with what it takes to get the government back.
DG – I think mine is a fair assessment of your commentary here in the past few months. Above the fray, condescending (while claiming that others are condescending). It’s gotta be fun.
^^^
This all day.
hey, “i” wanna be the small-town richard dawkins.
LG – If by “the fray” you mean the iterative, dumb, regressive arguments the same 5 people rehash in this space everyday, then yes, I am well above the fray.
But is it fun to pretend that is so?
“one consistent with the Sanders’ movement is labeling people as not being progressive ”
My criteria for a progressive is someone whose carbon footprint is zero, assesses themselves a tax rate of 100%, grows and harvests cotton to make their own clothes, and is vegan so as not to contribute to methane production.
But really, labels mostly serve as means to exclude rather than include. People label ideas as progressive and if someone doesn’t agree with an idea, they must not be progressive.
This would be a good example of the logical fallacy of reification because who gets to decide that an idea is progressive and therefore those who do not accept the idea are not progressives?
The labels isolate you from building the kind of coalitions that move the ball forward. If the purity keeps you from working with the folks who can support you on a few (but not all) issues, you’re doing it wrong.
“Purity” makes sure people on your team aren’t trying to get the ball across the wrong goal line.
Which is how you came to support the lapse of unemployment insurance just because some tax cuts got extended. I’m certain people who needed that support appreciated your attention to purity.
I think Sanders’ age actually has something to do with his not being too interested in building a party–also that his iconoclast career has not exactly prepared him for that. It’s probably one of his major weaknesses.
I think it is interesting to examine similarities between Sanders and Ron Paul, not Howard Dean. Granted, Paul never managed more than 12-18% of the GOP vote, but the man was an organized fund-raising machine … still is. Yet he is Sanders’ contemporary in age and has not successfully passed the mantle on to his son. Rand was out so early in large measure because his Dad’s supporters did not show up to vote for him. Had he been getting Ron Paul’s even 12% this year he’d still be in it (see John Kasich). But the Paulistas have not been able to take over the GOP and it looks now like they never will.
Bernie’s folks aren’t going to take over the Democratic Party, either, because there is literally nobody else ready to follow Bernie (and Elizabeth Warren is not going to be it).
Oh, and cassandra, the jury is still out on whether Clinton has been hurt by Bernie’s campaign. That was my gut feeling; yours obviously differs. The reality is that we are going to have to wait for September-October to tell.
@SN “Oh, and cassandra, the jury is still out on whether Clinton has been hurt by Bernie’s campaign. That was my gut feeling;”
That’s my gut feeling too. Back when Reagan did it to Ford, it was clear that Reagan had a long-view strategy. But what’s Sander’s long-view strategy? Does he think he can come back and do it again when he’s 80?
What does Sanders believe in? And how does he see himself helping anyone based on those beliefs? I want my politicians to be more than just mascots and cheerleaders. He could have worked to a prominent role in the administration, or even VP, but it looks like he blew all that up in a dramatic way…
Oh, and cassandra, the jury is still out on whether Clinton has been hurt by Bernie’s campaign.
It could be. Everyone thought the Rev. Wright and birth certificate and and who do you trust at 3AM all of the rest of the drama would hurt Obama too. In the main, Sanders and his supporters had mostly recycled Clinton Derangement Syndrome BS from the right to throw out there. That will be recycled again — by the right — who will now have the opportunity to attribute said Derangement to the Left.