That hasn’t been true for some time now.
Yes, there is indeed that perception. And what has Bernie Sanders remarkable campaign shown to be true instead? It has shown me that voting and political activism still matter. Moreover, in today’s “go fund me” age, it’s arguably a lot easier than it has ever been to build a political startup.
Bernie Sanders has been a remarkable phenomenon, but the reality is, this phenomenon was probably right under our nose the whole time. And this phenomenon of which I speak is really nothing more than basic grassroots activism. We saw it in 2008 with Barack Obama. We’re seeing it again with Bernie Sanders. The system isn’t rigged; rather, the system is exploited by interests who are constantly seeking advantage, and they get that advantage the moment that activists such as those who have contributed their energies to the Obama and Sanders campaigns over the years begin to take their foot off the gas pedal. That’s the thing about a democracy, Damuri. There’s no let up - ever. It requires constant vigilance, constant involvement, and I think honestly that’s where I see a lot of Bernie Sanders activists making a big mistake. They think that if they can just remove Wall St donations, then it’s game over. Well, not quite. It’ll never over because they will always have interests to protect and their massive wealth will always allow them to play the game. We will still need constant vigilance, constant action.
I have problems with a lack of transparency and I have problems with calling campaign contributions “speech”. But I just don’t see the problem with a political candidate who has lots of experience, who has lots of important relationships with people on Wall Street, and who has lots of experience actually sitting on Fortune 500 boards and working in the deepest corridors of the Beltway. To me, I see that as someone who has a very keen sense of who holds the power, and whom to push and whom to pull when they feel like something needs to be done. I see someone in Hillary Clinton who actually understands firsthand what would happen if congress decided overnight to raise minimum wages to $15 per hour. Criticize her Wal-Mart board service all you want, but I’d wager she understands the effects of indiscriminate wage hikes on low wage workers a lot better than Bernie Sanders does. I would wager she has a lot more realistic assessment of how a fight over universal healthcare is going to play out in congress and at the state level than Bernie Sanders does, especially since her very first foray into this issue nearly cost her husband his second term in office and was probably a motivating factor in the endless investigations conducted by Newt Gingrich and Ken Starr.
It’s absolutely true that experience only doesn’t qualify someone to hold an office. Sometimes experience can be blinding and sometimes people get used to viewing politics through a particular lens. I’d also agree that Hillary has made errors in judgment - some of them serious. But I’d counter that by saying that she’s also had a lot more exposure. Hillary has had her fingerprints on a lot of things over the years in no small part because few people have been as involved in some of the most important decisions as she has. She’s been involved in one way or another in major, major decision-making since 1993.
“Most polls” is not evidence. Cite away.
Again, not the point of her changing her mind, or if she is correct now, but it’s just a simple admission that Hillary couldn’t admit not once, not twice, but three times when asked during that short clip when asked to simply help clarify what her previous stance was. She couldn’t do it, and it’s par for the course for her on other positions as well.
My opinion of Hillary started to change about a year ago after I read “Clinton Cash”. I do think Supreme Court justices being elected is important, people’s tolerance on gay marriage, women’s rights, Colorado’s marijuana initiative, etc, are going to be better if a Democrat is in the WH though.
Romney? He of the “45% aren’t going to vote for me anyway, they want the free handouts” (paraphrase from memory). THAT Romney? That’s your idea of an upgrade? I want some of what you’re smoking, too! Do you imagine for one moment he is* less* connected to “large donors”?
It’s as if Democrats don’t think character matters.
I want to highlight a couple of segments of your excellent post:
(Underlining mine.) Yes, these remarks get to the heart of an issue that Bernie Sanders surely must understand, yet never mentions: that making a better political landscape requires more than just voting once each four years.
He’s selling the idea that a vote for himself is the solution to all problems. Granted, this is a message that many if not most Presidential candidates try to sell, because it’s what a lot of people want to hear. The message appeals both to people’s wish-fulfillment fantasies and to our tendency to minimize effort. But it’s a distortion of reality.
This is one of the most realistic arguments in favor of HRC’s candidacy that I’ve seen; Clinton’s surrogates should read it and incorporate it into their advocacy.
She’s like LBJ and Nixon. Not honest, but effective.
On the contrary: we think that the outcome of letting someone with Trump’s “character” into the White House matters to an incalculably large extent.
Right now, Clinton isn’t facing Trump. She’s facing Sanders, a man of impeccable character.
Who’s *your *nominee? 
That contest has been effectively over for a while. I’m fine with Bernie sticking around, but he’s sticking around as a backup in case of disaster, and that’s it.
No, Democrats just don’t think that character is the ONLY thing that matters, or that honesty is the only relevant part of character.
My take on Bernie is that the man is upright, honest to a fault, and clueless about how the government really works or about politics being the art of the possible. He seems a lot like Jimmy Carter, and while I respect that man enormously, I don’t consider his presidency to have been particularly competent or to have achieved very much of lasting benefit. Given the choice between another Jimmy Carter or another Bill Clinton or LBJ, I’ll take the latter (a candidate with Carter’s integrity and LBJ’s willingness to deal not being on offer).
Most democrats would agree that Bernie Sanders is a decent guy, and in some ways, he probably is probably more willing to defend his own principles than Hillary Clinton. So in that sense, maybe Bernie Sanders has character that Hillary Clinton does not.
However, character can be defined in different ways. I respect and admire someone who has withstood nearly two-decades of brutal attacks from people who resented her and her husband and have spent a combined $100 million in federal tax dollars in attempts to impeach her husband on the one hand and lay the groundwork for her impeachment once she gets elected, without ever once unearthing any proof of actual wrongdoing.
I’d vastly prefer a very questionable politician with a track record of being close to me on the issues that matter to a perfectly honest politician with the track record of Ted Cruz. Steering the country in the right direction is much, much more important than the character of the leader.
Except that if the leader has no character they won’t go your way, they’ll go whichever way benefits them. If Clinton thinks going to war in Iran is in her political interests, she’ll do it in a heartbeat and I think you know that.
And if not, she wouldn’t? Care to finish the thought?
That would mean that a sizeable majority of We The People wanted that war, and so it wouldn’t be a “bad thing” to go there.
GWB’s sin wasn’t invading Iraq. His sin was flubbing it so badly, making a total mare’s nest of the operation, and failing in the nation-building that should have followed. At that point, the war was popular enough to be accomplished.
If Clinton were President with the same mandate, she’d be foolish not to go to war.
Democracy, remember?
Lying to us in order to justify it, now *that *was sinful.
I think you’re overlooking the President’s ability to convince Us The People that s/he has information we don’t, that security requires it to be withheld, and that we should trust him/her about it. Cheney (er, excuse me, you said Bush) had to create the mandate he wanted, and took the steps he needed to in order to get it. But even then, the country was still split, with the roughly-half of us who were never fooled literally screaming not to do it.
Claiming Clinton would do the same thing is ridiculous.
Agreed and agreed; she has her flaws, but lying to Congress to start a war just isn’t her style.