All other things being equal (and, of course, they aren’t) the following should be the end of the debate over who would be a better Democratic nominee for president.
Sen. Bernie Sanders on Thursday rejected the notion that he lacks foreign policy competence in comparison with Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton and again leaned heavily on his opposition to the Iraq war as evidence of his superior judgment.
Sanders met with The Des Moines Register’s editorial board Thursday afternoon and was asked what he’s done to prove his foreign policy mettle.
“How many hours do we have? I don’t want to take you into the new year,” Sanders joked. “How do I answer that? What was the most important vote cast in the modern history of America on foreign affairs? Yeah, it was Iraq,” Sanders said. “What does Hillary Clinton have to do to convince you that she has significant foreign policy judgment? She cast a vote for the war. I cast a vote against the war.”
People choose to support the Democratic Party over the Republican Party for a whole host of reasons, and foreign policy judgment is just one of them. But, in a president, it is probably the most important consideration, or should be.
Still, even if you are convinced of Bernie Sanders’s superior foreign policy judgment, you might have other reasons that outweigh that factor. Perhaps you believe that Clinton would win the presidency but Sanders would not. Or maybe you think that Sanders could eke out a narrow victory that would leave DC gridlocked but Clinton has the potential to win a landslide that would help the Democrats regain control of the Senate and maybe even the House.
Maybe you are willing to give Clinton a mulligan on her pro-Iraq War vote and otherwise think that her foreign policy is more realistic and better-suited to keeping the country safe.
Maybe you just don’t think there’s much difference between them and you’re prefer to see a woman in the Oval Office for the first time.
My point is that you can make an argument that the vote on the war in Iraq is the alpha and the omega of the whole question, but that isn’t going to be the sole consideration for most people.
Perceived electability and potential coattails are major considerations. Making the safer choice in light of the obvious downsides of a Republican president will influence many Democratic voters.
For Sanders to break through, he needs to do more than talk about the war in Iraq.
Distinguishing himself on Wall Street helps create a contrast so that people can see that there’s a real choice between them, but that alone won’t be enough either.
What Democrats need to see is why they should take a risk on Bernie. Being an avowed enemy of Wall Street makes him appear less electable, unless you don’t give corporate America any credit for being able to protect their interests, fight back, and shape the media environment.
There’s no substitute for winning primaries if you want to prove you’re electable, but even this is of limited predictive value when considering Bernie’s chances in a general election. The most helpful thing for Sanders would be consistent head-to-head polling that shows him doing as well or better than Clinton in match-ups with Republican candidates.
But I think another factor that would help is if he could demonstrate that he would be able to bring some people into his cabinet that people know and trust. He just seems isolated and on his own island. We don’t elect presidents so much as we elect organizations. Who would Bernie bring with him to run the Treasury Department or Defense or the CIA?
If he could demonstrate that he has anyone behind him, that would make him look less like a protest candidate and more like a real alternative.
To be fair, I’d like to see the same thing from Republican candidates not named “Jeb.” Their collective failure to do this also makes them seem like cannon fodder for Team Clinton.
This is part of why she looks like such a juggernaut at the moment.
He could have a cabinet like Justin Trudeau’s and it would just give neolibs worse hysterics.
Esp if William Black figured anywhere in there.
he could select a cabinet of resurrected geniuses and he still wouldn’t have a chance at being elected president, Booman. Not a chance. Most of the more successful RatPub candidates would eat him up in a national election.
Eat him UP!!!
But…not to worry. Unless he has gone backstage with the stage managers and promised to be just another frontman for PermaGov interests they won’t allow him to even be nominated.
Bet on it.
Trump?
They know he’s one of them, on decades of evidence.
Bet on that as well.
Clinton too.
AG
I’m curious Mr. Gilroy, what role does the Constitution play in your view of the federal government and the role of our elected Representatives?
I know, I think, you understand the Presidency of the United States is a job and not just a title.
The President is not a dictator, he or she enforces the law, they don’t make it.
Of course most Presidents seem alike, the job is the same for all of them.
It plays whatever role(s) ultimately decided upon by a (poltically chosen) Supreme Court.
Why do you ask?
AG
I don’t understand your reply my friend, are you saying Bush v. Gore overturns one man one vote?
One man/one vote has meant nothing at least since the assassination of JFK if not before. The fix is in, enforced by the corporate-owned media and its control over the minds of the majority of the electorate if possible and by other…less gentle…means if necessary.
WTFU.
AG
Sooo…what you’re saying is the American people bear no responsibility for the election of the people they vote into office?
It’s all the fault of those folks who organize and form political parties and solicit contributions and so on and so forth…?
My sense is that AG’s point is that the process functions (indeed AG might argue that it’s intent is to) frustrate informed consent about political choices in national elections if not all elections. His second repeated point is that the party establishments play a complementary game in order to preserve elite power overall at the expense of ordinary voters and ordinary citizens.
It’s a system of operation. It depends on those people who are socialized into the system carrying out their functions by just doing what has “always been done”. Finding fault is beside the point because individual actors do not unilaterally have the power to change the system. Whoever forces change on the system changes the system, and that likely will not be the Democratic and Republican political establishments or a popular selection of one over the other. As a result, what we are likely to keep getting is what we have been getting.
The other point is that not only have the major parties no inclination to change the system, they positively block the possibility of changes from third parties or coalition movements not controlled by the establishment.
The American people are responsible to the extent that they fail to wake up and see the rigged game they are participating in. They at least have the choice of awareness and attention.
Now, AG will comment and tell me I have it all wrong.
Not a bit of it, Tarheel.
You are almost always right on the money.
AG
This day in history, AG đŸ˜‰
You write:
An “American people” that has allowed itself to become media-tranced on the level of the U.S. public? A public no longer conscious enough of what it is doing to refuse to take drugs that are advertised with lengthy disclaimers right out front!!!??? A public that does not even think of trying people like Dick Cheney and G. W. Bush for war crimes but seriously considers impeaching a president for a little sex play between consenting adults?
Yes, they bear no responsibility for the election of the people they vote into office. They vote the way that they are told to vote by the media. They are given two choices, both of which are quite publicly owned and controlled by essentially the same corporate interests, and then they are told how lucky they are to have a choice between two “different” candidates or parties. They vote and whichever candidates win go right ahead with whatever program is in place, varying only in their public style of lying.
Responsible for the election of the people they vote into office? The U.S. public is not even responsible for the food they eat or for the historical disinformation that they allow to be funneled into their children’s heads.
Wake the fuck up.
You been had.
From the rear.
WTFU.
AG
There’s something about people declaring the death of American democracy before the Civil Rights Acts of 1964-68 that really pisses me off. Do you REALLY think that Americans were more free to exercise their democratic rights in, say, 1952, when there were actual organized lynch mobs and sundown towns? Or are you prepared to make a ’10-15% of people afraid to vote for fear of death was worth it because the other 85-90% of people didn’t feel the bootheel of the overclass as strongly’ argument?
Does the reality of lynching and it’s purposeful attendant intimidation of the wider community contradict my point?
‘I don’t understand your reply my friend, are you saying Bush v. Gore overturns one man one vote?’ That’s a good one, maythirteenth, in that election the rule of one man one vote was literally ignored, you could say overturned that one time to enforce the will of certain power brokers. Maybe, just maybe, that precedent has destroyed the notion of one man one vote, without reference to race, ethnicity, religion or whatever but only to money. It happened only 15 years ago and it can happen again over a succession of tomorrows: I would not be surprised if it does as soon as the opportunity arises.
As an action by the Supreme Court, it certainly did, but more incidentally than deliberately. The Supreme Court now has a case in which the conservatives on the court can act deliberately to strike down one person/one vote and replace it with one registered voter/one vote while allowing interference with both registration and voting.
And Gore actually won that election by the way. If the votes had been counted to the end. Even with a 90,000 vote deficit of potential voters that was not visible to the public to overcome.
Sanders is great but the problem is that very few people know much about him for the established Democratic Party heads want Hillary. They should put equal time for Sanders and push for the MSM to talk about him more.
I totally agree with you Booman. The cabinet choices would be a great idea for the Sanders team to do. It just might push Hillary to say who she would have as cabinet members. This would definitely give voters a real choice via knowledge gained!
99% of Democratic Primary voters are not going to care about cabinet choices, especially at this juncture.
Well, he appointed Stephanie Kelton as his economic advisor in congress. We could do a hell of a,lot worse if she were an economic advisor to Sanders as President. Bill Black could help prosecute the damn thieves on Wall Street , if needed. Just sayin’ .
Don’t get me wrong. When I heard that he brought Stephanie Kelton onboard that made me happy for his campaign in a way I’ve never been for a candidate — and I was an O’Malley supporter at the time. If you want to get me onboard your economic plan, appoint a big-name MMTer to it.
I’m just saying, though, badass cabinet picks aren’t going to mean much to the voters. It means the world to political junkies like us, but we’re kind of, ah, decided on various things.
Professor Kelton was appointed by Sanders as his chief economist on the budget committee. She is on leave from the University of Missouri at Kansas City.
Should be a very important criteria. One that needs to be considered and weighed.
For example, in 2008 Obama kept repeating, in some form, that Social Security was going broke regardless of how often Krugman publicly tried to school him on that point. Yet, Krugman, who I often enough disagree with, supported Clinton. (Krugman who later upon the publication of Piketty’s work declared, “Oh my, we forgot all about income inequality” which confirmed why I often found Krugman’s work wanting.) OTOH, Obama had Goolsby in his camp which could have tipped me over to Clinton if Obama hadn’t also been in consultation with Stiglitz which gave me some hope for Obama — misplaced as it turns out but not worse than what a team Clinton would have delivered because the actual appointments wouldn’t have differed.
OK, are you going to make another post, “Hillary Clinton: Where’s the Beef?” Or more to the point, “Hillary Clinton: Where’s the Pork?”.
So sad to see bloggers pushing the coronation, why not just abolish the primarys since it’s all decided in a smoke filled room anyway.
I was lucky enough to be in a room with one of Clinton’s senior foreign policy advisors: Jake Sullivan (he was part of Obama’s debate team).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jake_Sullivan
It was a room of about 10 people: so I asked him directly about Clinton and Iraq. I spoke with him privately later and he told point blank: that is a hurdle we struggle getting people over. He talked about her struggle to admit she was wrong – and he didn’t think she really got it UNTIL 2012.
He left, and I walked out with about 4 others, each of whom was very active in Democratic Politics, and the group included a former chair of the NH Democratic Party. To a person everyone agreed but for the Iraq vote Clinton would already be president, and it may very well cost her New Hampshire this time.
But the electability question with Sanders just hangs in the air. People are scared of Cruz (some caddie).
What I heard: “We can’t take a chance with the election”
So people are enormously conflicted. The vote on the War was something that has defined Clinton in a very negative way. And the Wall Street connections have people worried about the political liability.
The task in front of Sanders is enormous. Even the Democrats I talked to are worried about ISIS.
So I think you are right.
He needs to define a less interventionist policy that still addresses the fear of ISIS.
.
Clinton is so much more vulnerable than the pundits understand. More than half the party isn’t excited about her when you look at polling.
Somewhere, Elizabeth Warren has to be wondering what if.
Because if she ran I think she would have beaten Clinton.
I’d love to know her choices for economic posts.
Professor Kelton and friends.
Sorry. Kelton could be Sanders choice.
What I heard: “We can’t take a chance with the election”
When have Democrats not said that since 1976? How do these people even measure something like “electability?”
Kerry was “electable” and Dean wasn’t. Maybe Dean wasn’t but neither was Kerry. Clinton deemed “electable” and Obama wasn’t. Maybe Clinton was but we only know that Obama was “electable.” It would have been Clinton/X v. McCain/Y and we know that his Y wouldn’t have been Palin.
Whatever made anyone think in ’08 that Edwards was “electable?” As if the VP on a losing ticket has ever come back to win the WH four years later (and with a mere six years in public office and nothing in between losing and running for POTUS).
It’s easy enough in the abstract to declare that someone like Mike Gravel or Dennis Kucinich isn’t electable. On the GOP side, they waste a huge amount of time, energy, and money on inherently unelectable people like Robertson, Keyes, and Carson, but plenty of decent and reasonably well qualified people on the DEM side are routinely dismissed. Many that I would have preferred to vote for instead of the actual nominee.
Democrats succumbing to fear of ISIS are as irrational as RWNJs feared Jade Helm or any the other fake things they’ve been told to fear.
wrt — Warren and FP, she has zero. Thus, she couldn’t do any better than hire the old gang. And while she is a more astute decision maker than Clinton, she wouldn’t have much control over the quality of information that would be fed to her, most of which is crap.
The point is not whether Clinton is or is not more electable than Sanders. The point is that a lot of Democrats think she is and Sanders has to have a response to that better than, “She was wrong on the Iraq vote.”
People are irrational. To succeed in politics you have to grasp the nature of that irrationality and make it work for you.
Don’t disagree. However, two points. Most elections hinge on domestic and not foreign policy issues. On FP, Sanders has put himself in a bit of a straight jacket with his vow not to run “negative” ads. How to wrap this around her neck without being accused of going negative: (Frontline
It’s not unreasonable to project that IS in Libya will strengthen during the coming months. Calls for Islamist fighters to abandon Syria for Libya are already out there.
By making a huge deal out of the Benghazi nothingburger, the GOP did position itself well for a deterioration of Libya by the next GE as they didn’t have to formally sign on to the military action. Informally, Republicans called for more US military intervention in Syria, but that’s going to be tough for them to exploit if IS is decimated in the coming months.
It is wrong to say Kerry was “unelectable” he lost to an incumbent by 3.
Sanders is 74, and a history that is the stuff of Karl Rove’s dreams.
For Sanders the electability question is very real, and based on more than irrationality.
Ok. I think the question is very real as well. It’s just not a very good question. I can’t imagine how it would work, in reality, the answering of it. What will the Rove-style, swiftboat campaign against Sanders look like? What will be the criticism? It worked against the unquestionably electable Kerry because it had an air of truthiness to it: Kerry didn’t look very military to anyone; I surely wouldn’t follow him into battle (though yes I did vote for him). Kerry became actually unelectable by the choice his campaign made to emphasize his apparently very real, yet questionable military background. What’re they going to say about Sanders that won’t have been said a million times over the next several months before the nomination convention next July (or August or whenever)? They’re working on the $18 trillion dollar tax increase line and maybe that’ll stick, though it’s demonstrably false. They’ll continue to call him a pinko commie, but the last time I knew actual, real people about whom that label really mattered was back in the 20th century. They’ll call him a dirty fucking hippie, for certain, and probably using those exact words. But he doesn’t look at all like a dirty fucking hippie, and with a 40 year record in elected public service it’s not a credible attack either. What else’re they going to throw at him that could be worse than what they’re saying about actual broad categories of American voters? How’s that going to work for them in winning any of those voters that already hate and fear Republicans (aka a substantial portion of the Democratic base)?
It’s glib to say there’s a very real electability issue with Sanders for the reasons already provided, absent some argument to the contrary. And no one has yet provided a good argument to prove Sanders isn’t electable.
The only real test of electability is if the candidate wins or loses. Theoretically electable, in any particular race at any particular point in time, ends once the voting begins.
Those of us who posit a GE “electability” for any candidate more often than not never have their assessment tested. For example, in ’08 would Clinton have been more, less, or equally electable in comparison with Obama? Her supporters say “more.” That seems to be hogwash to me. Those that say she would have lost aren’t on firmer ground, but IMO it’s possible that she could have lost. Therefore, she had no more potential upside than Obama and only somewhat more potential downside, but not enough so IMO that she would have lost. So, both were electable in ’08, but Obama was a slightly lower risk, which is contrary to the opinions of others. Historical rhymes/echoes could also be thrown into the mix: Bush 1 term, Clinton 2 terms, Bush 2 terms, Clinton X term(s). Again to me, breaking that with someone new, made Obama the lower risk (and never doubted that, short of a black swan, he wouldn’t get a second term.
I strongly doubt that Warren could have beaten Clinton. She’s well known to the progressive community, but to the general population, not so much. Hillary Clinton is the most admired woman in American for something like 20 years running, with only one year’s blip (no doubt Michelle Obama would have won that one or more years, but she chose to be born with an incorrect skin tone.)
As to Sanders’ electability, I see two things. He’s a proud Socialist and he keeps calling for a “revolution.” Those two things are on video multiple times.
Sadly, most of the American public still equates socialism with communism. And you say you want a revolution?
The ads write themselves. I dunno if it makes him actually unelectable, especially this year, but golly, it is indeed taking one helluva chance. And I like Bernie, a lot.
Gallup Most Admired Man and Woman.
This year 17% of respondents named Barack Obama as the most admired man. That made him number one. Donald Trump and Pope Francis tied for number two with 5% each.
For woman, 13% named Clinton which put her in first place. Carly Fiorina and Queen Elizabeth tied for fifth place at 2% each.
As the current POTUS is rarely not the “most admired,” this annual poll doesn’t mean much of anything. However, do agree that Michelle Obama not being the most admired is racist and especially doesn’t reflect well on partisan Democrats She’s been an admirable FLOTUS. I’d rank her higher than any of the others in the past few decades. However, Lady Bird made admirable public contributions and was never “most admired” either.
Both political parties take a chance on a nominee every four years. What could have been higher risk than nominating an AA man in 2008? Except “out with the old” and “something new and different” captured a majority of the population that year. Both attitudes would have been weaker with Clinton as the nominee. Both contributed to the highest voter turnout since 1968 and a solid majority of the vote at 52.9%.
Where will the electorate be next year on this macro-measure? I don’t know. Only that in the seven (I’m including Ford b/c he wasn’t elected) open seat Presidential election subsequent to 1948, “more of the same” only decisively won once.
I would have been willing to give Hillary Clinton a mulligan on her vote for the Iraq war if her actions since then had given evidence she’d learned from it. Instead, she was supportive of the disastrous intervention in Libya, and attempted to push the administration to the right on Syria. I worry as President she might get the country into some disastrous foreign engagement.
On the other hand, the I agree Bernie’s lack of experience and interest in foreign affairs is troubling.
What I want to know is why the HRC and more broadly the Democratic establishment wing have any credibility at all.
Their record since 2000 has been pretty damn poor. They’ve only had 2 years of winning the House, 6 years of winning the Senate, and they blew two eminently winnable Presidential elections. 2010 and 2014 should’ve completely undone the New Democrats. Even the most successful icon of the New Democrats, Barack Obama, struggles to rise above average when viewed in historical context. For all of his vaunted charisma and organizational skills, his actual turnout % and registration numbers have when compared to every other post-WW2 Democratic unremarkable. He’s not even like Bill Clinton and outperformed base demographics; if Dukakis had faced Obama’s electorate, he would’ve won. If Obama had faced Dukakis’s electorate, he would’ve lost.
So… why are we listening to what these unimaginative Pharisees have to say about safe choices? Sanders might not have the beef, but the faction he’s opposing doesn’t even have the damn bun.
The number-one thing that pisses me off about the HRC campaign is that they have completely given up on trying to win the House.
Their best plan, I shit you not, is to whine relentlessly about how young people should vote more and attend city council meetings. Their second best plan is to double-down on the “GOTV” flotsam — you know, listicles on how HRC is like your Abuela, waving more voter registration cards under peoples’ noses, putting up more campaign signs… you know, everything but retooling the party platform to motivate people to vote.
Are the people backing HRC as a supposedly safe choice not aware that if she doesn’t have the House, she’ll be at the complete mercy of the GOP for the next four years? What the fuck are you going to do if there’s another economic contraction? If Ginsburg/Scalia/Roberts don’t retire in the first two years, what’s the plan then, huh? Do you really think that the GOP isn’t just going to break another norm and refuse to confirm any SCOTUS justices throughout 2019 and 2020 even if this gums up the machinery of government?
Let me just post this little gem again. Because I want you people to think long and hard about declaring Clinton the safe choice.
Hey, Beahmont, a flyby 1 rating is pretty strong, don’t you think?
Why don’t you tell me which part of my analysis you disagreed with? Was it the part where I said that the HRC team was uninterested in winning the House? Or that she’d be an ineffectual President without it? Or was the 1 for that copypaste (which, in my defense, was over half of a year since I last did it)? Ha ha, don’t be shy.
Up voted to counter troll rating. Stop troll rating people for disagreeing with them. It isn’t cool.
A retaliatory up-rating from me as well. Our resident troll raters follow their own set of rules and feel fully entitled to do so. It’s fairly simple – any comment about the DEM Party or HRC that they see and view as critical gets trolled.
Right… every comment that’s critical of HRC and the Dem party gets a troll rating… A basic examination of my comment history and my rating history as well as the rest of the comments on this page shows that to be such a bullshit statement. There are lots of critical comments on the DNC and HRC on this page. I personally have only made two troll ratings. This one that contains an implied declaration that HRC will de facto destroy the US if elected so vote for Sanders, he’s our only hope because HRC is going to start war(s) and destroy the Dem Party! The other one is a personal nihilistic invective by Voice against Booman. I count at least half a dozen other ‘critical’ arguments against HRC, Dems, and the Dem Party on this page. But none of them rise to the definition of trolling as I am given to understand it by the best understanding of the English Language I have.
I don’t like HRC. She’s a corporatist hack. I don’t like the way the Dem Party is being run. I really don’t like DWS. But posting ridiculous over the top inflammatory statements about those things that extraneous and/or off topic are trolling by Booman’s posted definition of trolling. Just click the FAQ button on the right side and then click the link to what trolling is on the FAQ page. The definition on that page is virtually identical to the definitions of trolling I use.
And yet, know one seems to remember the first rule of dealing with someone who you think is trolling, “Don’t Feed the Troll(s)!”
Your post is long on whining and short on refutations.
What part of my analysis do you disagree on? The part where she’s going to encounter gridlock because she doesn’t have the House? The part where HRC is going to start a war because she’s a warhawk and after two years of said gridlock she will be dying for a quick boost in the polls by opening up a can of police action? The part where if she starts a war, it’ll likely go to shit as wars tend to do and the failure of said war will slime the Democratic Party? The part if the Democratic Party is covered with the shame of an ill-advised war, it’ll crush the party at the next election?
Toss me a frickin’ bone here.
” … The part where HRC is going to start a war because she’s a warhawk and after two years of said gridlock she will be dying for a quick boost in the polls by opening up a can of police action? … “
I have not yet troll rated anyone, but I can understand that claim triggering a troll rating. The implicit premise of that claim is that HRC is stupid, venal, irresponsible, and clueless, facts that are egregiously not in evidence.
Then explain the AUMF vote.
Every excuse I’ve heard from Democrats over that uses one or more of those justifications. Either ‘she believed the lies from the W. Bush administration!’ or ‘she’d get killed in the next Senate/Presidential election if she didn’t’. Maybe you’ll come up with an explanation for this debacle that cost trillions of dollars and killed hundreds of thousands of people that doesn’t rely on HRC being some combination of stupid, venal, irresponsible, or clueless.
Perhaps she just shared the same cowardice or cynicism that led to most of the other Democrats in Congress also supporting the AUMF, fear of getting on the wrong side of public opinion..
I concede she did not exactly cover herself in glory, but I think people like you are excessively self-righteous over that.
Oh, so she’s venal, then.
Two things.
1.) It’s a war. Hundreds of thousands of people needlessly died. That’s something that should haunt her and the rest of the other cowards/idiots for the rest of their lives. Of course we should fucking be self-righteous over it, hundreds of thousands of people needlessly died to, in your words, further her ambitions.
2.) More importantly, I see no convincing evidence that she refuted the mentality that led her to that war. She had her chance in the first debate and she fucking blew it with her no-fly zone and ‘I’m proud to make Iran my enemy’ responses. She’s still an American exceptionalist who is quick with bellicose rhetoric.
I can bring myself to eventually forgive someone who killed my brothers in a drunken driven accident if they’re remorseful and never touch recreational drugs ever again. But I’ll never forgive someone who ran over my cat and continues to drink and drive after a perfunctory ‘sorry’ — even if the harm caused by the latter is less.
The worst part is did anyone think she was running in 2004? Did she herself? Dumb as this vote was on policy grounds, in the fervor of war at the time it makes a dumb sort of political sense in this country — just look at the majority support for boots on the ground in Iraq…again. But she wasn’t running until 2008, a full 6 years later (5 if you want to count 2007 early primary). It had a tiny, minuscule chance of being seen as successful that late on, and a very large chance it would be seen as a failure.
I don’t want to hear this “But NY!” BS from her and her supporters anymore than the people excusing Schumer’s disgraceful behavior.
The answer to your question isn’t that difficult if one accepts the premise that “two terms for Bill and then two for Hill” was the Clinton agenda, but it is somewhat long.
When HillaryCare went down in flames and the ’94 midterms put Newt in charge of the House, they had to do a bit of retooling. Soften up Hillary’s public persona. Publish “It Takes a Village” (Jan 1996), send her on book tours, and foreign goodwill trips. The ’96 election results were just okay enough that Hillary as Bill’s successor could remain on the table. But Starr and Paula Jones wouldn’t go away and Whitewater involved Hillary somewhat more than it did Bill. So, they lost a year in positioning Hillary for a run. Then in Jan 1998 the Lewinsky matter hit the news. Late that month, Hillary appeared on TV and hit back hard at the accusations. Whether that helped or hurt in real time (IMO it was politically ham-handed), Bill’s confession in August took any direct succession notions completely off the table.
From a PR perspective, “standing by her man” while portraying herself as the wounded and duped loyal wife was quite brilliant. Then it was just a matter of finding the perfect open political office in which to exploit all the empathy for her that had been established. It was not until a year later that I recognized the larger game that was in play.
Gore has disclosed that part of his difficulty in raising campaign funds for 2000 was that Hillary was hitting up the same larger donor communities which reduced the amount he was able to raise. Also, from day one of the Clinton administration, Gore’s political future wasn’t of interest to the Clintons.
With Gore’s “loss” and Hillary’s win, a 2004 Presidential run was back on the table. (A Clinton always beats a Bush, doncha know?) The Clinton’s through their BFF McAuliffe immediately assumed control of the DNC. Can’t recall another time when a politician that was not only extremely competitive in a general election but actually won was so quickly exiled from the party power base. In the media it returned to being all about the Clintons — their upcoming books and book advances. Hillary’s awesome performance as a Senator without actually producing anything of substance.
9/11 vaulted GWB from being the “selected one” and a doofus to the most admired man in America. And his high approval ratings remained high over the subsequent year. That’s when a political calculation had to be made.
A couple of “successful” wars hadn’t helped GHWB in 1992. By then they were irrelevant. Curiously, over the years, those that hadn’t supported the Gulf War were the political losers. Salon
So, in Oct 2002, if GWB were to become vulnerable in the subsequent twelve months, it would most likely result from a crappy economy and/or possibly a mess in Iraq (but with Daddy’s FP team that wasn’t seen as likely by the Beltway geniuses). The decision to go to war wouldn’t be criticized. All the DEM wannabe Presidents made the same calculation. Clinton, with a nod to the seriousness of her vote, strongly supported it in her Senate floor speech. Edwards was a co-sponsor. Gephardt backed it before the issue was submitted to Congress. Kerry, who felt stung by his opposition to the Gulf War, struggled with his decision, but did vote for it.
The only DEM guy out there that publicly opposed it before others began to weigh in was Gore. (He might have also been the only politician that had supported the Gulf War and opposed GWB’s Iraq war proposal.) As usual, He was mocked by the media. The midterms came and the GOP retook the Senate and increased their House majority. Unlike the Gulf War, support for the Iraq War was far softer with the public. OTOH, the economy was beginning to pick up in early 2003. By Summer 2003, it should have been obvious that the Iraq War wasn’t going to end within the next twelve months and the continuation of massive deficit spending made an economic downturn unlikely. What exactly were Kerry, Edwards, Gephardt and Lieberman going to run on? ’04 for Clinton was taken off the table.
The war did become unpopular enough by ’04 that Kerry’s “I was for it before I was against it” was good enough to get the nomination. And Party operatives/elites managed to take out the one guy that had opposed it. ’08 held much better prospects for Clinton because it was an open seat and the Iraq War would be a distant memory. Plus, Democrats had demonstrated in ’04 that they wouldn’t hold a a pro-Iraq War vote against a candidate. Hillary could run on “the economy” as Bill had. Good plan.
Except the Iraq War didn’t become a distant memory and the economy didn’t crap out until after the DEM primaries.
…and you know it, beahmont. Any of us may read any half-dozen of Deathtongue’s comments here and it’s evident his posts have never been worthy of a troll-rating. I read every post here, and most of the comments every day, and I can not recall even one that deserves a 1 (troll) rating. The closest we come here are folks like you that are trigger-happy when it comes to applying that rating to others without explanation.
Everywhere you’ve troll-rated a comment, all of the others were 4s (Excellent) ratings. And most of the time, you fail to offer a response to justify the extreme rating.
Deathtongue doesn’t need the defense, but you’re way out-of-line by any reasonable standard. I’m sure you’re so used to being labelled one that my exhortation won’t stop you, but stop being such a dick.
Argumentum ad Populum is a logical fallacy. That I give a one and others give a 4 is not a logical or rational argument or defense of anything.
The basic rule of internet commenting is “Don’t feed the troll(s)!” If you think someone is trolling, you don’t engage with them. So of course I’m not going to engage with someone I think is trolling.
Well, I’m not inclined to downrate you, but I will say your claim that Hillary is uninterested in regaining a House majority is hostile horse hockey. Your opinion that her electoral strategy will not provide coattails is your opinion. I don’t care to talk you out of your opinion, but you are reporting it as if it were fact, which it is not.
Well, I’m sure that Hillary Clinton would like to have a House majority. Love, even. In much the same way that my sedentary relative would love to lose 40 pounds of fat and gain 15 of muscle. But at the end of the day, if their strategy to do these things is more or less ‘do pretty much what I’ve been doing the past few years that I’ve gone to pot’, you should ultimately conclude that they’re uninterested in getting into shape.
If you think that I’m being too pushy with my opinion, riddle me this: what is HRC going to do to win the House that Obama (and pretty much any post-Mondale Dem) didn’t? Since New Democrats have a pretty crappy record in regaining the House, why should I believe that unless she’s doing or at least being something substantively different from her predecessors that she’ll have more luck?
In 2007, Clinton raised $11 Million for the Democratic Party. Obama raised $1.7 Million. This quarter, she has raised $18M for the party. Sanders reported nothing.
I don’t know how that money will be used, but the Clintons have been huge supporters of down-ticket candidates for decades. If you don’t like her, that’s fine, but her dedication to electing Democrats is well established.
This is what I’m talking about when I say that HRC has no plan. How is this current downticket fundraising shit any different from what the Democratic Party did in the past 20 years?
You’re waving those fundraising numbers in my face like I’m supposed to be mollified or impressed by it, I don’t see what it’s supposed to change. How is that $18M supposed to get more people voting for the Democratic Party? Is that supposed to buy more ads or fund more phone banks or some shit? Why would that encourage more people to vote for the Democratic Party?
Yes, campaign money buys more ads and funds more phone banks and “some shit”. That money helps candidates get elected, and the lack of money can prevent good candidates from getting elected. That money helped create the Congressional majorities that have been held by the Democratic caucuses over the last 20 years. Perhaps you think a thing the Democratic Party should do differently moving forward is run financially impoverished Congressional campaigns. I fail to see how that would help, or how it would have helped in the past.
It was entirely predictable that the Clinton’s various contributions to Congressional campaigns would give them an edge in the Democratic Primary over a candidate who has helped comparatively few Democratic Congressional candidates, and had not helped the Party at all until recently. As a Bernie supporter I could see that this would be a difficult deficit for Sanders to overcome.
You may choose to see this as corruption; I don’t. It’s human nature, and it reflects political realities which are unwise to ignore.
I agree that it is necessary for the Democratic Party to do things differently moving forward. I am happy that the Party candidates are running on the Affordable Care Act; a chief cause of the loss of the House majority in 2010 was the many candidates who foolishly ran away from the ACA. I am also happy that the Party is running on a very large increase in the Federal minimum wage, on supporting the Iran nuclear deal, on increasing Social Security benefits, on improving K-12 and making higher education affordable. More could be done differently, but let’s recognize that different things are being done.
What Congressional majorities?
No, that’s a strawman. Avoiding soft drinks and eating more whole grains might be good steps of a diet plan, but as the whole of the diet plan itself it’s distinctly lacking, especially if you’ve been doing it for several years and you’re still dozens of pounds overweight.
Similarly, while raising money might help the Democratic Party win Congressional elections, the fact of the matter is that they aren’t winning elections and it doesn’t look like they will anytime soon.
Why should I believe that doubling down on the fundraising while keeping everything else the same should change anything?
I don’t see it as corruption. I see it as incompetence. Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures, but you can’t use extraordinary times to justify failure.
If the Democratic Party’s plutocratic coziness still isn’t winning it elections despite the money it brings in, you can’t justify the money from the plutocratic coziness under the excuse that it’s necessary to win elections. And the Democratic Party should be looking for other ways to win elections.
Is that so? Or is that just something centrists tell themselves so they can feel better about their previously discredited plan to more-or-less run the same ideological tenor with the same faces?
I’m suspicious by nature of plans that go ‘if we tweak this minor thing that doesn’t require much effort, maybe we won’t suck so bad’. You should be, too. Sometimes tweaks like that exist, other times they’re just the latest in a long line of superfoods and diet pills.
Personally, I think that the wipeouts of 2010 and 2014 were caused by lopsided midterm demographics and economic stagnation. I don’t have hard empirical proof of that other than the fact that most post-AMC Congressional wipeouts came during a time of economic stagnation and the fact that post-Clinton electoral preferences within demographic subgroups have been stable.
But I doubt that if the Democratic Party had stood their ground and embraced the ACA, things would’ve been hunky-dory.
I have some bad news for you, then. Regardless of what the Democratic Party actually does, the public does not see them as credible on the issues of economic security. This is true across the ideological spectrum even if their exact complaints differ. The only people who see the Democratic Party as being credible on economic issues are unsurprisingly either already Democratic partisans or are upper-middle class WASPs.
You can whine all you want about it being unfair or that the public is ignore or that the Democratic Party is being slimed in the media or whatever, but it is what it is.
“Regardless of what the Democratic Party actually does, the public does not see them as credible on the issues of economic security.”
This is not true:
http://www.people-press.org/2015/01/08/the-politics-of-financial-insecurity-a-democratic-tilt-underc
ut-by-low-participation/
There are reasons for us to work to diagnose and address the reasons that a disproportionate number of people who are economically insecure and prefer Democratic candidates on economic security issues choose not to vote. I acknowledge that this is a problem which needs solving, and that I want my Party to do a better job of solving it. It’s just important to identify the base problems correctly, and important to acknowledge that your claim here, a claim made by others, is factually incorrect.
Try something a bit more recent.
http://www.people-press.org/2015/12/22/as-election-year-nears-public-sees-mixed-economic-picture/
Bottom line: people on the lower income strata feel pinched and that things aren’t going to get much better anytime soon. Even Democrats feel much less optimistic about the economy than they were a few months ago.
The only two slivers of short-term good news:
That the ‘better able to handle the economy’ question (not shown in this poll) has improved slightly over the past year or so, going from a small GOP advantage (about 2%) to a small Dem advantage (about 2%).
The other sliver of good news: a lot more people are saying that jobs are more easy to find.
So yeah. Not credible. At least not compared to the Republican Party, unless you want to make a ‘getting stabbed 5 times is still better than getting stabbed 10 times’ argument.
I don’t understand how you believe this poll supports your claims that the public does not consider the Democratic Party as credible on economic security policies. The evidence isn’t there. Unlike the poll I shared, there’s no polling at the link you share about Party preferences on economic security.
And, to the relatively small degree that voters are less optimistic about the country’s economic future in this latest poll, it is hard for me to understand why you believe that the Party which wants to strengthen Social Security/Medicare/Medicaid benefits and sharply increase the Federal minimum wage will lose votes in 2016 to the Party which is running on eviscerating these programs Because We’re Bankrupt.
From February:
http://www.people-press.org/files/2015/02/2-25-2015_03.png
From July:
http://www.people-press.org/files/2015/07/7-23-2015-1-55-46-PM.png
Combine the factoid of the Democratic Party’s fluctuating but minor advantage with the fact (from my previous link) that people by-and-large don’t really see their economic situation as noticeably improving in the next few years and you get the conclusion of ‘not really credible on economic security’.
Careful with the ‘lose votes in 2016’ wording. I didn’t say that the Democratic Party would lose votes. I said that their policies to improve the economic situation of America would not lead to an advantage, because they’re not credible. And I’ve also said that the Democratic Party will not with their current strategy win the House in 2016 or any time soon.
As to why it’s the case that the Democratic Party can’t open up a clear advantage on the party of granny starvers? Who knows. Does the public think that the Democratic Party is writing a check it can’t cash? Do they not think that the Democratic Party doesn’t go far enough? Do they think that while those effects on the economy are positive that they value some other metric much more (like take home income) that the GOP might still have a perceived advantage over?
Nonetheless, it’s been like that for quite some time. And there’s no reason to think that in absence of a new strategy or at least a new perspective it’ll suddenly translate into an advantage.
OK, you really moved the goalposts there, didn’t you? You originally wrote that the Democratic Party is not viewed as credible on economic security issues, both very strong and specific claims. I provided evidence that there is, in fact, a wide gulf between opinions of the Parties favoring Democrats which increases as people become more economically insecure.
I hope you can understand that polls which show the Democrats and Republicans polling statistically even on Americans’ view of which Party would do best with “the economy” are factually much different from both of the very strong and specific claims you made earlier.
And:
“Similarly, while raising money might help the Democratic Party win Congressional elections, the fact of the matter is that they aren’t winning elections and it doesn’t look like they will anytime soon.”
I do not know why you believe that. Did you believe that after the 2004 election, a year in which the losses by Democrats were much worse than 2008 and 2012? We won historical victories in 2006 and 2008 under a Democratic Party leadership which you claim was little different in its strategies, and the Party’s 2012 electoral victories were meaningful as well.
Our job in regaining Congressional majorities has been made more difficult this decade by the tremendous gerrymands by many Republican-controlled States and the Senate construction which is not representative of the American voting public. It is not excuse-making to note that these things are true. These challenges can be overcome, and I believe will be overcome, relatively soon.
I think the way the campaigns are breaking make it likely that the Democratic Presidential candidate will win relatively or very easily in 2016 and the Dems will regain majority control of the Senate. I also think the gerrymands which make it less likely that we regain the House are the deal with the devil the Republican Party has very shortsightedly made. These gerrymands have encouraged and increased the radical retrograde intransigence which the Republicans are rightfully becoming known for. It will hold them in extremely bad stead in 2020 and beyond, as the voters continue to absorb and respond to the toxic policy brew the Republicans are choosing to sell, an brew which, as you have noted, is demographically deadly.
Who gives a care about historical? I mean, that’s great that you scored those three touchdowns in the last quarter, top-notch work. And I really like how you went undefeated in every previous game. But look: you still lost the Super Bowl.
Secondly, about those supposed historical victories: I think you’ll find very few people who’ll say that the Democratic Party won Congress in 2006 and 2008 under their own power. A trifecta of things called ‘Hurricane Katrina, Iraq War, and the 2007 Financial Crisis’ was more responsible for those victories. And even if they weren’t primarily responsible we still had three Congressional elections since then and the results have ranged from disappointing to disastrous.
Okay, so how is the Democratic Party supposed to overcome these challenges ‘soon’? They didn’t overcome them in 2014. And as far as I can tell, the overall strategy of electioneering for 2016 and 2018 isn’t much different than 2014.
So why should I think that 2016 and 2018 should be any different from 2014? What factor should change between then and the future that will allow the same failed strategy to lead to victory?
Personally, I think plans that rely on your enemy being stupid, like most plans that rely on factors outside of your control, are plans you should not rely upon. Even if the factors that lead to said stupidity are fairly immutable.
You should only make plans like that if you have no other choice. In all other instances your plan to victory should rely on what you can do against known knowns.
Even beyond that, relying on voters to come see the light about the Republican Party and punish them for that is extremely questionable. Partly because it commits a rather grave ecological fallacy about Congressional voters (that the people who are turned off by the GOP will also be the ones voting in this election) and also because it relies on the assumption that the voters will properly assign the blame for their malaise to the right villains. It sure as hell didn’t work for Roosevelt in 1938 or Truman in 1950 or Carter in 1978 or Clinton in 1998 or Obama in 2014.
Great. So how’s the House and the Senate in 2018 looking?
We’re talking past each other a bit; I hope the discussion is helpful to the thread, though.
Let me conclude my responses for now by noting that you claimed that elections in 2016 and beyond will turn out badly for Democratic Party candidates because they are not viewed as credible by the electorate on economic security issues and that the Party candidates are doing exactly the same things they did in previous elections. These are opinions, they are not facts. I’ve provided evidences that neither of these claims are true. I can’t make you deal with those evidences.
If we’re going to improve the Democratic Party, and I agree that the Party should be made to improve, I want us to be making the right diagnoses in policy and politics. What we see here at the Frog Pond is that liberals/progressives often have substantially different opinions on both policies and politics. I dislike arguments from one person or another that they Represent The True Liberal Ideal And The Path To Electoral Victory Forever. I certainly don’t wish to claim that, and when my statements verge on doing that, my statements are their weakest. I’m fine with not fully convincing Frog Ponders who disagree with my views. I hope we can move things, together, in a better direction by strengthening our arguments and dealing with facts as often as possible.
And the results have been losses or blue dogs or both. Usually both.
It is good that in recent elections Democratic Party candidates who were defeated in their Congressional campaigns were disproportionately Blue Dogs. I believe you agree. But I think you might be seeking to make another point.
I would like to see data which proves that major Democratic Party institutions have put their fingers on the scales in ways that has both dragged the Party to the right and lost winnable Congressional races. In considering this frequently repeated claim, I think of a couple of things.
First, I remember the Democratic primary for the 2006 Ohio Senate campaign. There was a whole bunch of screaming that the Party was denying the people a great Senate candidate in Paul Hackett, and that choosing the institutionalist Sherrod Brown would make for an inferior Senator or, worse yet, a loss in the general election to incumbent Senator DeWine. How’d that all work out?
Second, I look at statistical analyses of the balance of the votes of the Congressional Caucuses, which show that the votes of the Congressional Democratic Caucuses have moved continually to the left in recent years. It’s documentable:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/10/why-this-is-not-just-washington-dysfunction-in-1
-more-graph/280161/
It’s easy to see that the sharp increase in the liberalization of the votes of the Congressional Democratic Caucuses after 2010 was caused by the devastating electoral losses of the Blue Dogs. But the trend has taken place ever since the Great Society programs and the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts were passed and voters persuadable by implicit and explicit racist appeals switched Parties.
The other thing these measures of Congressional Caucus voting patterns show us is that claims that the differences between the Parties has reduced are delusions which enable the dissemination of false information, false information which encourages Americans to incorrectly believe that voting does not matter.
Where were you on the Hackett or Brown question in early 2006?
I was quite vocal that I thought the bloggers and lefty radio/cable folks were naive and ignorant. Hackett didn’t stand a chance against DeWine. Schumer wasn’t dumb enough that he couldn’t see that. In addition to that Hackett was a very conservative Democrat which would have been fine with Schumer if he weren’t a loser. Schumer’s choice was accept the progressive Brown with a chance to win or a DEM loss. Smelling a potential for a DEM majority, he set aside his preference to run DINOs for the Senate. It was the blue tide that arrived late in the ’06 midterms that pushed Brown into a solid win. Without it, his win would have been narrower.
All of your negative presumptions re. Schumer’s motivations as DSCC chief are held even when he and his Committee take actions which you approve of. This is often true of your analyses re. others you dislike as well; you appear to be unwilling to let go of the frames and give zero credit to politicians you dislike when they do good things.
It doesn’t feel like a style of advocacy which is likely to lead to the outcomes you want. If the bad Democratic leaders remain bad even in the act of doing good things, they have no incentive to improve. And critiques which are appropriate and valid may be less effective when they are seen as coming from those who lack perspective.
Politicians need carrots and sticks. When it is claimed that the legislative and regulatory records of President Obama and the 111th Congress were huge, barely mitigated disappointments, it is difficult to get even the most liberal politicians to listen to our critiques.
Forget about the carrot and the stick. Schumer needs the boot.
A very dangerous man for income/wealth fairness and peace in the world. But he has his supporters among the partisan DEM neoliberalcons.
You didn’t answer my question. Please do so as I provided you with my views of the OH 2006 Senate race at that time and why I wasn’t one of the Hackett for Senate bloggers.
I evaluate the merits of actions by politicians — and even when the weight of their actions puts me disagreement with them most of the time, I’m still quite able to recognize when they get it right even if it’s likely that they did so for the wrong or not so admirable reasons.
Lack of perspective? Me? That’s rich! I’m somewhat nicer than to say that of you — prefer to consider it merely a difference in perspective, collection, weighting, and analysis of facts, history, characters, etc, and putting that all together to form my opinions. A little more work than wearing some rose colored glasses to lumping everything into black and white.
I didn’t have a strong opinion on the Brown/Hackett primary. How would I know what your views were in 2006? I didn’t draw your views into the discussion.
What I did discuss was the position taken by many some rank-and-file progressives who are on 24/7 critique mode of the DNC/DCCC/DSCC/Congressional Democratic leaders/Democratic Presidents. As you reference, most of those people did not share your views that Hackett was more conservative and less electable than Brown. God bless you if you laid off the Purity Parade during that primary. You recognize that criticisms of the Democratic establishment were white-hot during that primary, becoming even more bitterly stated by some after Hackett dropped out of the race.
This, though…
“…I’m still quite able to recognize when they get it right even if it’s likely that they did so for the wrong or not so admirable reasons.”
…strikes me as a corrosive and ultimately unpersuasive viewpoint. “Bad” politicians are bad politicians even when they do what I want; even their motivations for doing the right thing are likely to be bad.
Proceed with this if you wish. I just don’t see how we prevent Schumer from becoming Senate Caucus leader, or how we get the Caucus and other elected leaders to move the best policies/candidates/campaigns, with such rationales for judging policies and politicians.
We won the house for the establishment. We pushed for attack everywhere and sought to bring potential candidates to their attention. Consequently when it became a wave the dems were positioned for total.victory not leaving sets on the table because of narrow targeting.
I remember when republicans declared dems were ‘cut and run’ on Iraq. The online guys declared the GOP was ‘stay and pay’ and not two days later thats the tactic national dems took and made election a referrendum on Iraq.
I can’t hold foreign policy against Sanders. On the contrary that is at least one of the problems I have with Hillary. She said on a few occasions that she wanted a no fly zone in Syria. That is a non starter for me. The last thing I want is a hawk in the WH who may think it is just fine to keep the near conflict with Russia going like two tall dogs dancing around each other. I want to stop this endless war. I don’t see her doing that. And if anyone thinks Russia is going to walk away from their naval base in Crimea or Syria, think a little more. Not gonna happen even with more sanctions. Time to back away from those goals. She frankly worries me. And don’t get me started on domestic policy, with or without congress. I suspect she also likes things like “Grand Bargain”. She is only a back up, if that, to the damn clown car.
Dems remember to be Dems when Republicans try to shred the net. But get all third way and we have to be seen governings…when Dems have the presidency. Worse things happen as we have seen> Not to mention neoliberals have some very bad notions about education and law enforcement all on their own. Part of Triagulation that became embedded?
I’ve noticed how an increase in taxes is attributed to Samders economic plan. You can hear the cry. ” we can’t afford Sanders” . But no one wants to ask if the supposed increase in taxes is offset by lower personal spending.
We now spend about twice the money other developed nations spend on health care for example. And we pay very high deductibles and premiums and live with narrow networks for the privilege to enrich the insurance companies. As a consumer might the lower cost of health care paid with taxes lead to net more money in our pocket? Is that a bad bargain? And if we end war, what dividend might that yield. And just maybe our corporate world would gain a dividend as well.
The same applies to free community college education. We ought not dismiss Sanders for a supposed tax increase, which could in the end mean it is self funded.
You can’t? Why? He’s not ending the drone program. He’s not for immediately withdrawing from our present conflict zones. He’s quite hawkish IMO. The best you can say for why you’re not holding FP against him is because our populace is violent and bloodthirsty, and it’s too hard to be a peace candidate and hope to win the presidency. But then why bother holding Clinton accountable for her vote?
Because when we compare Obama/Sanders policies versus Hillary Clinton policies, we’re talking thousands dead versus hundreds of thousands dead.
Bit of a bloodthirstiness gap you’re eliding, seabe. Why did you do that?
Bit of a bloodthirstiness gap you’re eliding, seabe. Why did you do that?
Because he said he cannot hold Sanders’ FP views against him. That’s a pretty big absolute here. The ability to hold Clinton’s FP views and Sanders’ FP views against them are not mutually exclusive. This is the same lesser-evilism BS peddled by the Clintons’ and their respective supporters — of which I am not, if that comment at the end (“Why did you do that?”) was in any way an insinuation that I support Clinton and am being disingenuous in my comments about Sanders.
No, you’re just projecting this ‘big absolute’. An uncle who doesn’t return library magazines and an uncle who raids his kids’ piggybanks for cigarette money are both technically thieves, yet most people wouldn’t hold the first uncles’ thievery against them yet most people would hold the second uncles’ thievery against him.
Yeah, and? What’s your point?
How is that example remotely comparable to holding a persons’ views/ideology/voting record to account?
The point is, of course we weigh our options. However, we are weighing them. You’re acting like “Well, Sanders’ views on FP are the best of anyone serious running, so we can automatically ignore his record simply because it’s better than anyone else’s. Therefore, we cannot hold it against him simply because he has said best record.” I don’t agree with that. How else is space created for someone better?
Because the phrase ‘holding someone’s views to account’ is a huge equivocation? Because holding your library magazine thief uncle to account would require a different perspective and response than holding my kid’s piggybank thief uncle to account? And that when you use a weaselly phrase like that in order to draw broad conclusions from two separate degrees of malfeasance people should suspect that you’re eliding the differences?
‘We need to hold arsonists, rapists, and murderers accountable for their crimes’ and ‘we need to hold tax cheats, rapists, and murderers accountable for their crimes’ are not the same class of statements. And I think the number of people who would let you elide the gravity of those situations with an excuse of ‘but tax cheats are criminals, too, and they need to be dealt with!’ without calling out your equivocation would be very small.
That comment had to do with Sanders lack of FP experience. How many Presidents have that on day one? Compared to Hillary and her record, I find it impossible to hold Sanders more accountable to her who is assuredly a hawk. If she ever declared a no fly zone and then shot down a Russian plane, then what? The best I can say is I think he will move to end the conflicts. That is something I can not say about Hillary. He is, after all, looking to fix some of our economic problems which are difficult when you are always at war. So I won’t hold his supposed lack of FP experience against him. Hillary not so much.
I’m a bit confused by your point.
Do you think Mrs. Clinton a fool?
Fly zone or no, do you the think Mrs. Clinton would order the downing of a Russian bomber or jet if it weren’t in America’s national security interest?
NO, but then again Barack Obama didn’t order the bombing of a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Afghanistan, but it happened on his watch.
Far too many accidents waiting to happen: when you have many people between the President and each individual trigger on a missile, in a no fly zone with both American President saying NO (with military backup) and Putin ignoring what we say there. (Ask Turkey)
Good point.
Apt metaphor. This is my concern also.
Sanders was also against the first Iraq war. IMO this war was a proper use of military force, with backing from the UN, to stop Saddam from taking over a neighboring country. I would like someone to ask him under what circumstances, if ever, he would authorize use of force.
That would be a good reason to vote for Jeb?
If it was so right and proper why the GHWB lie about Iraqi troops massed on the border of KSA? And the Kuwaiti babies tossed out of incubators?
There was a real point in time when Iraq did challenge a neighboring country, but that was with the full support of the US. Saddam did fail to get a similar approval from us in 1990 as Kuwait was tapping into Iraq’s oil reserves.
Wars may sometimes be right; they’re never proper. Saddam may have thought he had approval from us for his Kuwait adventure, but he didn’t, and rightly so. I didn’t much like Poppy but I have to give him credit for putting Saddam in his place without completely fucking up the region as did his son. As for Jeb, the actions of father and brother have no bearing on his fitness for the job. Unlike some of us, I don’t hold the actions of family members against a candidate. (But no, Jeb is not fit for the office, for his own reasons.)
Excuse me, but how was Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait a non-choice war for the US? Other than a direct attack on the US (granted “direct” is a bit stretched considering the hundreds of US military outposts on foreign soil in the world), it’s always a choice. Not much of one if a NATO country is attacked, but still a choice.
Why is Yemen less worthy of US support as it’s being pounded by KSA? Iran’s estimated death toll from the US supported aggressive war by Iraq was 1 million.
We pick and choose which countries/dictators/monarchies we support with weapons and US military engagements. Then ginned up propaganda is used to justify those choices at home and abroad. Pretending that our actions are based on a cohesive standard of high moral and ethical principles is hogwash. Israel had been invading, occupying and appropriating lands within the Palestinian territories for decades, disregarding UN resolutions, and what has the US done? A little hand-wringing as we send off more weapons and military hardware to Israel.
Yes, the US picks and chooses who to support militarily, based on a range of factors, some of which are obvious, some not; and morality rarely enters into it, which make the US no different from any other country in history.
For example, why support Kuwait and not Yemen? The simple answer might be the answer to this question: how much oil does Yemen export compared to Kuwait? And one might also factor in our current domestic mood that is tired of war compared to 1991.
But back to Sanders vs Clinton, the question to me is which is better equipped to make the right decisions. I’m undecided. I want to hear more from both candidates on both foreign and domestic policy.
Why is Yemen less worthy of US support as it’s being pounded by KSA? Good question.
Also, who provided Hussein with those weapons, hmmm? Did they appear out of thin air?
Oh, and by virtue of the Gulf War, we had troops in Saudi Arabia, a huge pretext for 9/11 and al Qaeda recruitment. Of course, this is a suitable recruiting tool because of Wahhabism, which we also ignore/de-facto support because Oil.
But, you know…what does any of this matter? Bernie Sanders clearly doesn’t support the use of force enough! What a hippie…
Also, who provided Hussein with those weapons, hmmm? Did they appear out of thin air?
For Bush Sr and Reagan he did, for the weapons delivery photo-op.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-LP85194UJKU/T_wjP9LgZJI/AAAAAAAAFlg/DrymW-Q0Ig4/s1600/Rumsfeld+&+Sadda
m.jpg
When “most experienced” foreign policy team ever was installed.
Clinton in her own right has made numerous and atrocious FP decisions. In addition to that is the FP company she and her husband keep (and no, there’s no real dividing line between the two at that level).
When he’s had the opportunity to weigh in on FP, Sanders has a good record. Sanders thinks and weighs all the variables including likely outcomes of a decision without old baggage. Clinton is a reactionary.
For an unknown like Obama or Sanders you have to go with temperment. And Sanders seems more calm and clear than HRC.
I’m going to disagree somewhat with you on that. When Sanders began his campaign for POTUS, he was very knowable to anyone that bothered to evaluate his record. Obama, OTOH, had such a thin resume that he wasn’t all that knowable on policy through the general election. So, the question for progressive/liberals boiled down to would he be more conservative than Clinton? (The worst case scenario.) I stretched on that question and couldn’t come up with a yes answer to it.
With possibly no difference on policy, the style/temperament comparison became more important. Once Obama got comfortable in the debate format, he didn’t get rattled and deftly handled attacks from the other candidates. He kept his emotional displays within a narrow range and appropriate to the issues/topics and attacks on him. He wasn’t without moments when it was evident that he was suppressing a more authentic emotion, but “biting one’s tongue,” even when others can see that, need not be a negative. Emotionally Clinton swung more widely, and yet, less authentically compared to Obama. She also is often emotionally inappropriate. Being polite and gracious doesn’t flow naturally from her as it does with Obama and Sanders. Can’t imagine either Obama or Sanders going on a “shame on you …” rant over a mailer.
(As an aside, b/c some here accuse me of always criticizing Clinton, I have never criticized anything she did or didn’t do wrt Benghazi. Including her “what difference does it make” response at the first Congressional hearing on the issue. Her emotion in that instance was completely appropriate and authentic.)
That said, Sanders seems not to have hit the emotional stride he’s capable of in the debates. Of course, he’s only had about fifteen or so fewer opportunities to do so than Obama and Clinton had at this point in the ’08 election. Needs to mix up his passion with a bit more cool and warmth. Hit a few more emotional notes.
Good point. I ended up going Obama in 2008 simply because I thought he had a higher lefty ceiling than Clinton.
But imo the temperment contrast is important because Sanders has no executive branch experiences to draw on compared to HRC which will probably carry weight with voters. I’ll defer to you on Sanders on the debates. Theres really nothing HRC can do or say that will make me choose her over Sanders as long as its an option. Consequently I don’t watch the debates.
I ended up going Obama in 2008 simply because I thought he had a higher lefty ceiling than Clinton.
“Hope and change” facilitated that perception. The optimist in me wanted to buy it. The conservative analyst in me always checks out the potential worst case scenario and weigh it against the likelihood of an optimistic projection. Still it was murky enough for me that a range from slightly to the left of Clinton to a few more steps to the left was the best estimate I could make in projecting his in-office performance. So, for me, the disappointment was merely that a few more steps didn’t materialize which was a far more conservative expectation than many had.
Another factor that I weighed was the potential for growth (political maturation) while in office which had more to do with his age than anything tangible. He was too young and too ill-defined for me to have any expectations of significant maturation in my preferred direction, But some seemed better than none.
Sanders does have executive experience. Small compared to being in charge of the Dept of State. OTOH far more hand-on than whatever Clinton did at State.
The question you raise is the question that every challenger candidate without substantial foreign policy experience faces; few new Presidents have foreign policy experience. That goes to all of the candidates in the GOP clown car—every single last one of them (and even Lindsey Graham when he was in).
So what does someone have to do to convince a sufficient number of people that they can be trusted to be prudent when it comes to foreign policy? Obama did it; he got elected in 2008 and got re-elected in 2012 based on his record. Even George W. Bush got re-elected on his record after having promised a “humble foreign policy”. (Most voters in 2000 forgot that the successor to Humble was Exxon.)
For Sanders, gravitas comes easy. Putting some lighter touches on it without miscueing is the challenge. Educating without slipping into Obama’s pedantry is where Sanders needs to step up; the public needs to know enough about the current world to make the informed choice that the right-wing does not at all costs want made. Clinton is incapable of educating on foreign policy because it exposes the serious stinking thinking that the national security establishment has engaged in for 70 years. Sanders has to walk the tightrope between criticizing the establishment, educating the people, and keeping the actual national security workers on board his approach. This is more a complicated political stance, style, and act that mere understanding of what’s where and who’s who in the world (something Bush never mastered mainly because he could ask Poppy).
3. Sanders has to frame the way that his foreign policy will be different from that proposed by the other candidates in sufficient detail to force them to abandon the debate and allow him the foreign policy wonk space. Then all he has to do is deal with attempts to delegitimize him. Again, this is going to require some narrative about what it going on the world and the unique opportunities for bringing resolution to conflicts. On this he must be and seem to be a small-r realist and contrast his approach with large-R Realists, neoconservatives, and neoliberal imperialists without ever mentioning those labels. This tags the boxes into which his campaign can put each of the other candidates. Being a small-r realist does not require one to chain oneself to a single set of principles although identifying the core principles of your foreign policy makes good introductory rhetoric. FDR and JFK were among the best at this sort of rhetoric. At the end of campaign and when voters go to vote, on foreign policy they need to be of a mindset that “Grandpa’s got it and I know how he’s going to do it.” There needs to be fundamental trust instead of the fear that that the GOP is whomping up.
If Hillary Clinton wants to drastically change her institutional commitments and take a small-r realistic approach to foreign relations and a commitment to totally rework what has become 70 years of rot in the US national security institutions, she likely has the moxie to do that and carry it off in office. I’m not sure she can disappoint personally so many of the people she has worked with for so long nor am I sure that she can persuade them to make so drastic a turn.
Most folks take the attitude that geezers don’t change. The mindset that Bernie Sanders is frozen into seems more conducive to a better world than the one that Hillary Clinton is frozen into by this logic. But substantial change is possible even for geezers. Especially when it is patently clear that the current way of doing things is not working and will not work no matter how many resources are sunk into it. Sanders at least knows that fact in his bones; it’s the same fact that has persisted since it became clear in 1965 that the US Vietnam War was going to be a failure–what a recent column in American Conservative called the US Dictator Problem.
Between now and SuperTuesday, Sanders has to step up on foreign policy and other more Presidential areas of government operations. He must leverage that experience as mayor of Burlington for all it’s worth. He just saw the other end of the federal administrative and funding pipeline; he knows the issues of large departments. Between now and November, it is his own campaign that will demonstrate that he can manage the complexity of the federal government, including its foreign policy aspects. Can he deliver 3080 separate successful county organizations? Can those coordinate 192,480 precinct GOTV operations and deliver? Can he recruit and deliver at least 520,000 volunteers in the field? How about 3 million volunteers? Can that force deliver at least 70 million voters to the polls and pull of a downticket wave election as well?
Convincing voters that that is possible is what it takes to convince them that Bernie Sanders can handle foreign policy.
Doing that with a minimum of marketing and in the face of massive media propaganda from the other candidates will convince them he can face down most any political tricks another leader (and anxiety about political tricks and “appaeasement” are voters’ main ones) can gin up.
Do you have any imagination what it takes to actually do that day after day for four or eight years? And the sorts of personal interactions and disciplined behavior to pull it off? Most people don’t. So they are quite comfortable taking the clown car at face value or peremptorily writing off Sanders.
Hillary Clinton has proven both during the Impeachment Crisis and during the email investigation that she has the discipline under extraordinary pressure. That is all that Bernie Sanders is being asked to prove for foreign policy. What do you do after the you answer the phone and say, “Oh shit!” W. hightailed it for Omaha.
First of all, I just want to say thanks for posting here. I always enjoy reading your comments because even when I don’t fully agree, I learn something and find them thought-provoking.
I’m not disagreeing, but I think there’s a bit more to it than that. I think Sanders’ biggest foreign policy problem is that he projects that he would really rather discuss domestic economic issues and that foreign policy is secondary to him. Whether or not this is really true is besides the point; in debates, he sometimes redirects FP questions to domestic economic issues and I remember a press conference a while back where he refused to answer a FP question because that wasn’t the focus of the event. I understand where he’s coming from, but the fact of the matter is Americans have a lot of anxiety over international terrorism right now, and appearing to consider FP as a secondary issue is a doomed strategy. He lends himself to caricature by not engaging more forcefully.
Barack Obama is President today because Hillary Clinton made the huge blunder of voting for the Iraq War and being sooooo slow to apologize and articulate why she was wrong. He has lots of other strengths, but without that gaping hole in her record, I doubt he would have even run in 2008. I think Sanders made a probably fatal misstep in not fleshing out a strategy on how to run on FP early on. He needs to prove that he can handle FP crises as they come up and he doesn’t view them as distractions (even if he thinks the media reaction IS an overblown distraction), and he’s running out of time.
Bernie has a real heavy lift because he has to both steer the conversation to a place on economic policy that the media and elites really don’t want us to go AND he needs to compete 100% on the same policy terrain as everyone else. At the moment, he’s struggling.
If that is where Bernie Sanders is coming from, being upfront with the logic and not letting people keep guessing will, IMO, help him. Something on the order of, “For almost 70 years, we have allowed politicians to avoid necessary domestic policy by being distracted by contrived foreign policy crises.” He has ample room now in histories of the Cold War and after to make that claim and to show how foreign policy has been used to distract from labor, from civil rights, from prosperity, and from building a peaceful world. The history is out there. It might be contentious, but it is out there. And then he pivots back to his main theme by asking, “Who has benefitted from these distractions that cost so many lives?” Who wanted us in Vietnam and why? Who benefited from 20 years of warfare there? And name it. Who wanted the sort of Cold War that we got? Who always wanted to escalate the Cold War and why? Who wanted a Middle East war after the Cold War was over and why? Who does not want the wars in Afghanistan, in Iraq, and Syria to end, and why? And what has the cost been to our patriotic members of the military, our veterans, their families, and the innocent civilians living in the countries in which we took military action? And why haven’t we brought these conflicts to an end?
The key to pulling off this bold an approach is crafting it so that the American people understand exactly what has been going on while existing heads of state (of any country) don’t feel singled out for attack. That’s pretty high-wire but it is a dramatic demonstration of diplomatic skill.
Hillary Clinton’s obvious way to pre-empt this is with more currently informed candor as there is information that she knows that Bernie Sanders, even as a Member of Congress, is prohibited from knowing. That is one of the interesting realities in a Presidential campaign.
The other side of it is that Hillary Clinton is prohibited from acknowledging directly what she knows to be the case and cannot answer attacks that falsify the what actually happened.
But the bottom line for Bernie Sanders on foreign policy is general public understanding of what sorts of agendas and policies he will pursue and his ability to succeed on behalf of the USA at that.
The most helpful thing for Sanders would be consistent head-to-head polling that shows him doing as well or better than Clinton in match-ups with Republican candidates.
Haven’t you been paying attention? He does!! I know I’ve seen polls where he beats Trump by more than Clinton does. Does someone have numbers for Bernie against “Tailgunner” Ted Cruz?
The polling is sparse. At this point, the numbers for Clinton v. Trump are probably better than the others because they both have near 100% name recognition. RCP average 12/16-12/23 is Clinton 45.6% to Trump 40.8%. Clinton v. Cruz – 45/45%. Clinton v. Rubio 44/45%. Not sure why she would drop a point against Rubio, but it may be nothing but irrelevant noise.
Q – Sanders v. Trump — 51/38%, but that’s more a measure of Trump’s unacceptability than Sanders favorability. Q – Clinton/Trump 47/40%; so,”not Clinton” performs better against Trump than Clinton does. When we get down to Sanders v. the other GOP candidates, the unfamiliarity with both kicks in. Average Sanders/Cruz is 45/41.7% and Sanders/Rubio 42/45%. Cruz weaker against “not Clinton” but Clinton and “not Clinton” the same. “Not Clinton” two points worse than Clinton against Rubio but Rubio holds at 45%.
Difficult not to conclude that the GOP floor for Cruz, Rubio, and Bush isn’t near 45%, close to what McCain/Palin received. Christie’s numbers against Clinton look better than the others but he is less known and for whatever reason, the NJ scandals haven’t attached to his name.
Clinton loses a bit more against Rubio and Christie than the other match-ups. That suggests more softness in her numbers than her supporters are acknowledging. Likely frosts the GOP that they don’t have a decent candidate in their field.
Thanks forthis, I think this firmly falls into Booman’s as well as clinton or better requirement. I am surprised he didnt know.
Hard to prove.
Sounds true. But is it? Without deeper polling impossible to know. And why don’t pollsters throw in a true control case in these polls? Your analysis seems to say that if you ask voters: Thomas (D) v. Trump (R), that Jimmy Thomas, the Democrat, would get the same 51% against Trump in a general election match-up that Sanders would. A more reasonable guess would say that Trump would get better numbers since Jimmy Thomas is an actual abstract, where as Trump is a real person. Sanders, an actual candidate, vs Trump is a more reliable measure.
Same (inverse) analysis would hold true for Hillary’s lower numbers against Trump than Sanders 51% to Trump’s 38%. The fact that she exists shows she loses, reliably, and pretty badly in a match-up with Trump (a point I think you implied in your analysis).
I thought I had explained that from a reading of the polls (limited though they may be). So, I’ll try again.
If candidate Sanders had authentic support at near 50% as the Trump head-to-head match-up suggests, his numbers in the other match-ups would be close to that number. They’re aren’t. Whereas, in the Clinton v. Trump match-up she does slightly less well than Sanders and Trump does slightly better than in the Sanders match-up. In both match-ups Trump is in loser territory. In the other Clinton match-ups, she only drops a few points from that of her Trump match-up.
We can accept as fact that Clinton and Trump have near 100% name recognition, and that Trump’s campaign messages are getting out to more people than that of the other candidates. And it’s perceived as a negative by a plurality if not a majority. Clinton’s campaign is standard issue DEM since 1996. Not loathed but not loved either. Nationally, the floor for such a DEM candidate is at/near 45%. As is generic GOP. Shouldn’t be surprising that Clinton v. Rubio or Cruz at this time is 45/45. Unlike Trump, Rubio and Cruz have yet to be subjected to critical scrutiny or been seen all that much. Thus, both currently enjoy a high fav:unfav rating that’s exceeds their public personas and policies.
It was sloppy of me to say that Sanders is unknown or simply perceived as “not-Clinton.” So far, he’s perceived as a good guy with no chance for the nomination against Clinton. Therefore, with little else to go on, the “good guy” does better against the recognized “bad guy” than Clinton does. The difference is her perceived baggage.
Right. And I said it wrong in my last statement above that Clinton loses badly against Trump. Of course she’d beat him according to current polls. Meant loses badly compared to Sanders / unknown / not-Clinton only slightly overstating the reality that that margin for our best-known Democrat against Trump is too close for comfort where it should be a wipeout, especially this early.
Clinton’s numbers against Trump look good to me. Eight points with her well-known baggage is strong IMO. Trump excites a faction of the GOP, but appalls too many that are open to voting Republican. A Clinton-Trump general election won’t excite much of the electorate because the outcome will be a foregone conclusion (except among the delusional that secure the nomination for Trump).
For what it is worth: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/2016_presidential_race.html
Sanders beats Cruz whereas Clinton and Cruz are tied.
Note that the averages in the Sanders-Cruz match-up are based on three polls and the best one for Sanders is from Oct/Nov before Cruz began to gain support and after the attack on Sanders by DWS/team Clinton. The Clinton-Cruz match-up averages are all from DEC polls.
The situation is not unlike the one that FDR faced in 1932. And it’s a mistake to think no capitalists are sympathetic to Sanders’ ideas, or that there’s no reason why they might be. For example:
http://usuncut.com/politics/30-year-wall-street-veteran-only-bernie-can-stop-wall-streets-greed-and-
corruption/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/capitalists-should-listen-to-bernie-sanders/2015/12/27/e16eb
aa0-ab2b-11e5-bff5-905b92f5f94b_story.html
http://thehill.com/policy/finance/bernie-sanders-federal-reserve-wall-street-larry-summers
Second, I don’t think the fact that Wall Street will fight him would be a deterrent to most voters, because most American voters — democrat, republican and independent — fucking hate Wall Street. That is the main reason Sanders is doing as well as he is.
Yeah. I had to do a double-take when I read that statement. Until I remembered: “oh yeah, most Western political pundits internalize if not sublimate the narrow perspective and value sets of WASP upper-middle class yuppies and have a hard time seeing outside that bubble if not called out on it.”
If you want a Trumpist and a Sandernista to bob their heads in agreement for a few minutes, start railing against corporatism. Shit, even the American white supremacists (the hardcore ones, the one that existed well before Trump’s rise or even #cuckservative) hate the plutocracy. They hate it because they see it as an economic oppressor of whites and promulgator of multiculturalism, but still.
I totally agree.
And getting back to my first point, here are two more articles about bankers and investors who support Sanders:
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/10/bernie-sander-bankers-wall-street-213295
http://usuncut.com/politics/bernie-sanders-hedge-fund-andrew-weeraratne/
Also instructive is a recent interview with Robert Reich in which he praises Bernie Sanders. This is in connection with Reich’s new book Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few.
http://www.alternet.org/economy/bernie-sanders-right-robert-reich-sums-why-sanders-surging
I have no real objection to either candidate. I agree largely with both of their stated opinions, slightly more with Sanders than Clinton but it’s marginal at best since their positions are very close across the board.
Right now, Sanders is a big unknown on the national stage and his performance in the early states and how he runs his campaign is going to be a major factor. He’s had some missteps already, but they’re minor in the scheme of things. We’ll see how he does if he makes it a race and actually gets some major scrutiny. Right now Clinton is a known factor and the default choice for many Democrats.
We’ll have to see how the race plays out for now before I make up my mind as well.
Regarding Clinton vs. Sanders, one issue that really separates them is reinstatement of Glass-Steagall, and that, in my view, is no ordinary issue but a marker as to their true views on the US economy and their intentions for reforming Wall Street. Furthermore, even many bankers and capitalists would favor reinstating Glass-Steagall, as indicated by the Fortune article linked below.
Here are some basic points: (a) Clinton does not want to reinstate Glass-Steagall; (b) Sanders does, and has co-signed a bill to that effect recently introduced by Sen. Elizabeth Warren; (c) Warren is the only female senator who has NOT endorsed Hillary Clinton.
I think this is an extremely significant difference, and it will become more and more significant as the campaign develops.
https:/berniesanders.com/yes-glass-steagall-matters-here-are-5-reasons-why
http://fortune.com/2015/07/20/glass-steagall-banks/
http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/run-2016/2015/11/30/elizabeth-warren-only-female-senator-not-to-end
orse-hillary-clinton
I understand that, but I also see HRC’s position that it’s largely symbolic that our banking system is much more complicated than just that change will fix.
It’s nice of him to say that’s what he would do but it wouldn’t solve the overall problem either.
Again, there are pluses and minuses to both of their positions even on this issue.
Well, that’s Hillary’s line anyway. I think it’s largely BS.
I believe I said I was quoting her but I’m just saying the positions are close enough together that it borders on meaningless.
Read Robert Reich on this too:
http://inthesetimes.com/article/18493/hillary-clinton-bernie-sanders-glass-steagall-wall-street
Where’s the beef? It’s meant to be ironic, right?
Of course, the inference in replaying that slogan from the 1984 campaign (against incumbent Republican Reagan) is that it was used by the eventual Democratic nominee (Mondale) that lost the presidency in the biggest landslide in modern history.
Funny.
Mondale used it against Gary Hart, who was using the mantra “new ideas” without a whole lot of substance.
Turned out the public did not want substance and elected Ronald Reagan rather than grapple with understanding tax and budget issues.
Yes, that would be a great idea if it was possible- but very few Democratic professionals are going to risk being on the wrong side of Clinton and her money machine. Unfortunately, this is probably just another example of how corrupt and money dependent our politics have become in the first place. Or possibly how little they really care about progressive reform.
Now if Sanders actually beat Clinton, sure, you would have a whole slew of prominent Democrats pounding on his door for a job.
Really, I would flip the question around and ask why so few of our “progressive” Democratic member’s of congress have endorsed the clearly more progressive and reform minded candidate in the race. Have they come to the conclusion that reform of Wall Street is no longer possible? That a reformer can’t get elected? Or possibly that their campaign chests and future career opportunists are better served by supporting the status quo? Or perhaps they just feel that Bernie Sanders is too liberal for America. Whatever the reason, I would love to know…
If Sanders is specifically asked to compare himself to Clinton on foreign policy, and he comes back with Iraq, it is a perfectly reasonable response, but, one could argue limited. One could say he should also draw contrasts on how he would handle Syria, or his voting record in general on FP versus hers. But to talk about various other reasons people might not vote for Sanders as critiques of that answer is ridiculous, particularly as a “where’s the beef argument”. There was no way for Sanders to address Clinton’s femaleness or electability as responses to that question. It would have been taken, correctly, as avoiding the question.
Honestly, I’m quite taken aback to hear something like “where’s the beef” from someone who has treated Bernie and his struggle with the Democratic Establishment as something to be all but ignored as a fringe effort or him as a protest candidate while focusing almost 24/7 on Trump and the Republican train wreck.
I think you’re right if you mean that Hillary’s vote for the Iraq war and Bernie’s vote against it should end the debate on which candidate is most qualified to become President. Obama might have been trying to strengthen Hillary’s weakness on foreign policy by appointing her as Secretary of State but I don’t think it worked. I can’t think of a single thing Hillary did as SOS that she could run on remembering Obama was the boss making the judgment calls. Kerry in the same job with the same boss has had quite a run.
The most important quality to consider when choosing someone as President of the most powerful nation in the world is judgment. Both Bernie and Hillary had access to the same information about the Iraq war when both had a real judgment call to make. It’s not like no one told Hillary about the potential terrible consequences of a yes vote because Hillary had the benefit of a floor speech made by Bernie. It may be cruel for me to say but I think both Hillary and Kerry knew better but with their eyes on the White House both voted yes for political reasons, the worst possible reason for a decision of such great magnitude.
More important than that vote so long ago is where we go from here. The very people who back the Clinton Machine need perpetual war to continue making a profit. Bernie, just like JFK will say no to these people. What Bernie says about this being a fight between Muslims for the soul of Islam is a very powerful statement. Those rich Muslim countries will not want to spend money and force their own citizens as troops into a land war but they will do it. Why; because it’s a simple Nash Equilibrium. The alternative for these rich Muslim counties if they do nothing is to risk getting their own heads chopped off by ISIS. Corporate oil interest is not going to work with Bernie.
The electable issue seems silly to me. I tend to think it’s a given that low voter turnout favors Republicans and high voter turnout favors Democrats. This is true for top as well as down ticket races provided the right candidates are running (I’m talking to you DNC). Hillary offers nothing to vote for except hold your nose to vote for me because, you know, the potential USSC nominations. Bernie offers something to finally vote for resulting in enthusiasm and the very large crowds to hear him speak. You do the math. Corporate media, in bed with Hillary, does not like the answer these match up polls give so they don’t do them.
They ask Bernie in the linked interview how did he plan to get something like single payer health care passed even with a Democratic controlled congress. We elected Obama on hope and change with the added slogan “Yes We Can.” After the election Obama said to us, thank you very much but I’ll take it from here. What we got was a grand bargain with Republicans too stupid (fortunately) to take advantage of it. Bernie says this election is the start of a political revolution he will lead as President. This revolution can best be described as the realignment of the Democratic Party with the interests of the people instead of their corporate masters. Bernie will give those Democrats every opportunity to adjust before asking voters to send them into retirement (I’m talking to you Chuck Schumer and DWS).
I think it’s our duty as progressives in the following weeks to examine in detail every difference between Hillary and Bernie. This is a long list. Bernie loves small d democracy and so do I. I’m optimistic.
Here’s the historical presidential election voter turnout list. The blanket statement that low turnout supports a GOP win. The turnout in 1928 and 1932 was the same – 56.9%. Turnout in 2004 was higher than in 2012.
Thanks, that is a very interesting list but it is presidential turnout and not mid-terms which have become even more important today. It was mid-terms where we lost the most power.
It is very hard to see who benefits from high voter turnout from a historical perspective because the Democrats and Republicans have changed sides on issues and coalitions many times. Teddy Roosevelt was a Republican and a progressive. There was a time when no self respecting white man would ever vote Republican because that was the party of Lincoln (at least what I heard growing up in white Oklahoma so many years ago).
Bernie says the reason his victory margin this cycle in a GOP match-up will be higher than Hillary (I think she could be a loss) would be due to higher enthusiasm because he presents something to vote for, especially for people who have given up on politics. I think if the Clinton Machine stays in power the Democratic base will go back to sleep during the next mid-term with the expected consequences. This next mid-term will be the point of proof for Bernie’s revolution because if he succeeds the Democrats will take back control of both houses maybe with wide margins plus get rid some DINOS, a wonderful thought indeed.
Polls of head-to-head matchups of the general election are completely worthless at this stage of the campaign cycle. To say that this is more predictive than winning primaries is silly. Clinton looks like a juggernaut for the same reason she looked like a juggernaut in 2004 and 2008; she’s almost universally known, well connected, and has high favorables with both the Democratic party insiders and with Democratic voters. If Bernie Sanders starts winning primaries against her it will imply that he is much more electable than she is.
It’s a dilemma.
The fact that Sanders doesn’t have “anyone behind him,” except for me and ten million primary voters like me, is one of the main reasons we support him. How he’ll get the six or seven million more votes he’ll need to win the nomination is anyone’s guess, but at the rate his campaign is growing, his chances remain similar to Obama’s at this point in the race eight years ago when about 31 million Democrats voted in the primary and Obama won the most delegates with about 250,000 fewer votes than Hillary got.
When you compare Sanders 2016 to Obama 2008 about this time, his numbers, the ones that count (polls and fundraising), are comparable or better than Clinton’s. Her endorsements, (those couple hundred anyones), are fat, gristle, and pink slime. But it’s remarkable: We’ve never seen an election where someone, like Sanders, without “anyone behind him” has such a meaty warchest and such a juicy number of votes lined up.
No offense, but it would help if you had a remotely accurate understanding of what happened in 2008.
Obama was backed by Tom Daschle who had been the most powerful Democrat in DC for most of the Bush Era. Obama won the endorsement of Democrats from all over the geographical and ideological map, including most of the senators and governors from the Plains States and Mountain West. He won most of the progressives’ endorsements, which is absolutely not the case this time around for Bernie Sanders.
Bernie has essentially no support from elected officials, and no heavyweight supporters from the ranks of likely State, Defense, or Intelligence officials.
Obama also did quite well with the financial sector which should have lined up behind the senator from New York, but actually split their support.
Sanders doesn’t have any demographic strength comparable to Obama’s strength in the black community that vaulted him to huge delegate-rich wins in states like South Carolina and Mississippi.
For good or ill, a Sanders presidency would be an orphan in search of people to run the administration. He’d find them, of course, but we’d like to know who these people are beforehand.
” … Obama was backed by Tom Daschle … “
I recall other names like Edward Kennedy and Nancy Pelosi as well. Also, the way the DNC showed its colors on the issue of seating delegates from Florida and Michigan.
You and Neal are looking at slightly different sets of data from 2008. He’s more focused on the marketplace while you’re accenting the power brokers that were behind Obama. Neal’s conclusion is spot on:
In the marketplace, Sanders is performing as well or better than Obama in ’08. That’s interesting because Oprah (who mid-class women trusted very much at that time) was his earliest big name supporter. Political junkies got it that Hollywood (a support base that the Clintons have counted on for a long time) and Wall St. split. Also we can’t overlook the fact that before Iowa it was very much a three person race there and in SC. In Iowa the bulk of the old and older line DEM party institutional support split may not have been much different than it was in ’04. State level Clinton and local level Edwards. It was Obama’s superior ground operation that facilitated the largest portion of the increased voter turnout. Clinton and Edwards weren’t asleep on turnout. For example in ’04 Edwards got approximately 40 thousand votes and in ’08 his total was 72 thousand. Clinton received 70 thousand; whereas, Kerry only got 47 thousand.
Clinton had lined up more SuperDelegate endorsements early on than Obama did, but you’re correct that Obama had some lined up. This, however, is off:
Clinton had close to a lock on the SuperDelegates from that demographic and their voters were expected to follow their lead. What upset the apple cart was Iowa. Coming in third there and with Obama leading in the NH polls, team Clinton calculated that she had to win NH to remain viable. So, they played the race card and squeaked out a win. Then came the blowback in the marketplace and among a few high profile SuperDelegates (Carter and Ted Kennedy). Team Clinton was then left scrambling in SC and again focused on pulling in Edwards’ supporters and in the process turned off even more AAs and non-racist white folks.
Rep John Lewis endorsed Clinton early on and only switched after Obama won Georgia. IIRC, that infuriated Bill Clinton.
It’s a bit of a wild guessing game as to how the votes in IA and NH materialize and divide. While the ’08 outcomes are somewhat stale at this point, it’s still advantage Clinton.
“Obama was backed by Tom Daschle who had been the most powerful Democrat in DC for most of the Bush Era. Obama won the endorsement of Democrats from all over the geographical and ideological map, including most of the senators and governors from the Plains States and Mountain West. He won most of the progressives’ endorsements, which is absolutely not the case this time around for Bernie Sanders.”
You are absolutely right. Obama was a Democratic Establishment candidate. If you’re waiting for a progressive revolution from inside the Democratic Party to come from the Democratic Establishment you’re in for a very long wait. Both Republican and Democratic voters are sick of their establishment. The fact that Bernie is an outsider with 40 years of elected experience is both rare and a plus. If Bernie was supported by the Democratic Establishment, I would not support him.
“Bernie has essentially no support from elected officials, and no heavyweight supporters from the ranks of likely State, Defense, or Intelligence officials.”
These are the same officials who have managed to keep us in perpetual unnecessary wars creating the ISIS crisis we face today. This is opposite of what Bernie is about so of course they do not support him.
“Obama also did quite well with the financial sector which should have lined up behind the senator from New York, but actually split their support.”
My biggest disappointment with Obama was when after the nomination he opted out of public finance for his campaign while McCain stayed in. What he was after was big money from Wall Street. What Wall Street got for their money was a sweetheart deal that allowed the people who wrecked the economy to stay out of jail, to become even larger with more power while being enriched even further. It is true that when Wall Street gives money they expect something for it, something Hillary denies after they gave her a great deal of money. Hillary (and Jeb) is the darling of Wall Street. This is another giant plus for Bernie simply because he’s not bought off.
“Sanders doesn’t have any demographic strength comparable to Obama’s strength in the black community that vaulted him to huge delegate-rich wins in states like South Carolina and Mississippi.”
This is exactly why Hillary got her operative installed as DNC Chair to limit the debates and hold those debates at times to ensure the smallest audience possible. Hillary has name recognition while Bernie is ignored. Obama had 26 debates to deal with his name recognition problem. Once the black community gets to know Bernie and what he stands for, Hillary and her half measures to solve their problems will fade into the background.
As long as you look through a conventional political lens you will never understand Bernie’s political revolution. The point here is that Bernie is resonating in a way that could cut across party lines leading to a landslide victory. What we mean when we say Bernie is ahead of Obama at this point in the election cycle is all about the strength of the true grass roots movement behind him. The Democratic Establishment should worry.
I remember enough about 2008. I think you’re wrong to see Sanders lack of endorsements or “anyone behind him” as a liability, even if it were proven true, though it’s clearly not. It’s his strength; we’ll see if it catches on more over the coming weeks, and we can say fairly confidently that it will based especially on what happened in 2008. (Daschle’s endorsement of Obama in 2008 was a mixed blessing IIRC, for one example, but ultimately meant little.) If we, far and wide, loved the Democratic leadership in Washington (polls show that we don’t) I think your argument would make more sense. Given the general revulsion most of America feels toward Washington-based politicians, it’s hard to see much value in the endorsement primary. But I agree it would be bold for Sanders to reveal his proposed “team” early on. Has any candidate ever done that?
(I do not pretend to be a political expert in re 2008 or any other year, though my understanding is that the history of that race is just dimly starting to become clear. What happens this year, of course, will rewrite the current conventional wisdom about it drastically, whatever the outcome between Sanders and Clinton. History is dynamic; we’re making changes to it every day.)
If Sanders is nominated the powers that be will do everything in their power to destroy him.
Until Americans realize the fake pasteboard Coney Island that they’re living in then pseudo liberals like Clinton will flourish along with the demagogues.
This is America. A hundred different brands of soup for sale, two different brands of politicians. Demagogues versus neo-liberals.
“If Sanders is nominated the powers that be will do everything in their power to destroy him.”
Well, they have their work cut out for them, don’t they? Remember, we still have the vote. Bernie is correct when he says, there’s nothing we can’t do if we all stand together.
“This is America. A hundred different brands of soup for sale, two different brands of politicians. Demagogues versus neo-liberals.”
You could very well be right and if so it’s a sad state of affairs for our 240 year old experiment with democracy. Only in America could a 74 year old Independent Jewish Democratic Socialist capture the hearts of young people and those who still think young to create the largest grass roots movement I’ve seen in my lifetime.
Historically speaking we’ve seen worse times and we made the right adjustments to make our lives better so buck up.
Slow and steady as she goes.
Not picking on your post,
However early on Bernie was gaining approximately 4% per month
…. lately down to 2% per month ….
with only 1 month to go,
Bernie needs 13%, +1 vote to beat HRC.
I’m not saying it cannot happen,
I just don’t expect it will.
Would be very happy if he pulls it out.
Agree. Slow and steady isn’t fast enough to rise to 45% or 46% in Iowa in time to beat Hillary there. Something needs to happen to pump up the campaign. We’ll see if his tax plan announcement has any effect when that comes in a week or two.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/29/upshot/are-primary-polls-finally-predictive-no-but-this-is-when-th
e-fun-starts.html
Come on. The reason why Clinton’s campaign seems like a juggernaut is because the media doesn’t talk about the other guy. They are doing their job defending the ruling class by not mentioning him.
If Sanders manages to do well in the Iowa caucuses and win New Hampshire expect the high-powered rifles and the Donna Rices to suddenly appear.