I seem to remember the previous Clinton administration differently from other people. I don’t want the whole mess around those impeachment hearings back; and the Clintons haven’t demonstrated an ability to win Congressional majorities.
I’m not crazy about Martin “Mass Arrests” O’Malley, and Bernie needs a whole lot of new progressives in Congress to do much; but at least neither of them is the Clinton machine, which I see as, well, a screw-up machine.
If she’s the nominee, I may see what the Greens are putting up. Good luck to her, but I don’t think I can vote for her.
The whole Democratic Party has to learn that it’s not a Presidential contest, it’s a 435-district Congressional contest, if you hope to do anything.
I would prefer not being put in that position. I voted for someone with Clinton-like policies the last two times, and I suppose I could again, as a lesser evil.
But for me, Clinton is a bad candidate for non-policy reasons. It’s about the Clintons’ personal ethics, the personal baggage, and the personal vendette many other politicians seemed to have against them–and about the personal blowback on various private citizens who got caught up in the Starr investigations and such.
Add to this that Clintonistas alternately want to pretend that subsidizing private health insurance is just the same as socialized medicine :D, or laugh that it’s the best you’re going to get, sucker :p, and really, why even nominate this trash?
She’s a loser on personal issues. Her policies are about giveaways to insurance (read: crooked finance companies). She looks bad from the left and from the right. She’d probably be OK on foreign policy, but she’s neither admirable or inspiring.
She’s running on being the First Woman President? That might work with the Emily’s List crowd, but it’s a great way to actually, you know, lose. Voters aren’t really going to line up to vote for President Ladybits.
People talk smack about Sanders?* She’s* a terrible candidate with a terrible fandom. She’s just more an insider than Sanders.
From a strategic perspective, you’re not going to win every election, so it’s better to just throw one when even a win means you lose in the long run. CAn anyone argue that Republicans wouldn’t be better off today had Al Gore or John Kerry been elected? A bad President of your own party is worse than a loss.
There is the Google “Do no evil”. If the Republican maintain control of either the House or Senate, neither Clinton nor Sanders are going to have any domestic accomplishments. But Clinton is a hardcore neo-con and she is going to do negative things foreign policy wise/national security wise/civil liberties wise. Sanders won’t.
As far as I can tell this Bernie Sanders is the only one of the candidates that has any sort of vision that is compatible with an evolved and civilized society. The ® candidates are for a lack of a better word either insane or incredibly corrupt, and mrs Clinton doesn’t strike me as someone who has a clear vision, but rather as someone who is looking to triangulate herself into a position of power.
States go through different stages in their evolution, from BLUE level (pre-modern) orthodox/religious structures, to ORANGE level (modern) capitalist/democratic, and eventually move into GREEN level (post-modern). Bernie is very clearly post-modern, espousing ideas such as feminism, ecology, pluralism, social justice etc etc. If the US wants to evolve as a nation and embrace the post-modern values, it has to go with Bernie Sanders.
Whether (or rather how much) he can get done seem to depend mainly on the composition of the houses. If the (D) party can win both houses as well as the White House then I think he has a very good chance of implementing some very well needed reforms, these would consist (but not be limited to):
Universal Healthcare (seriously, get out of the dark ages USA)
Free tuition (investing in the populations education is a very good idea)
Renewable energy (yes, climate change and pollution is real and oil is a limited commodity)
Raising the tax on the rich (trickle down has never worked, you need less income difference and less deficit, raise taxes for those who can afford it).
Amnesty and pot legalization (your prisons are over crowded and prohibition is insane)
His ideas are only “extremist” if you live in a cave and/or listen exclusively to FOX news. Other nations have tried ALL the ideas that Sanders are advocating and they have been VERY successful. The reactionary fear tactics that the ® is using against senator Sanders may work, but they rely completely on actively hiding the truth from the electorate. The truth is that Universal Healthcare is more effective (as in BOTH better results AND lower costs) than the options. Free tuition for education is a great long term investment, etc etc. The ideas are tried and tested, only vested interests and ideological insanity is keeping the US population from being able to “up level” into a more civilized society.
The colors correspond to the different levels of society development in “Spiral Dynamics”.
At his core Sanders is another community organizer type. The problem with community organizers is they never do anything themselves, they just demand that others do per their demands.
He will be like Obama a president that is unable to work with anyone.
What a strange idea. This is completely divorced from my experience of community organizers, and the entire period under Obama. I mean, I see that he had difficulties, but I ascribe more of the difficulties to an obstructionist, partisan, and systemically racist Congress than Obama’s personal failings as a politician.
I can name one. I disagree, as any vote not for the Democratic candidate is effectively a vote for the Republican; but this person absolutely hates Clinton.
Please. The first two apply equally, if not more, to Obama as well. The third is a straw man argument.
Obstructionist. That is the job of the loyal opposition. Back in the Bush days I am sure you applauded the obstructionist congress lead my Nancy Polosi, so don’t complain about it now. The job of the President is to work with the opposition. In that Obama is a big fail, IMHO.
Partisian. Obama gives pretty good on that, better than Congress as I observe.
Racist. Sorry to say that is crying wolf. For the dems whenever things not go your way, pull out the race card and wave it high.
As I said community organizers never do anything, they just demand others to as they want. As in we demand XXX, need 100 million to do XXX well you figure it out, just get it done. Therefore they never learn the skills of working with those on the opposite side. Saunders is the same.
I’m white, so I don’t really “pull out the race card” very often, as non-white people can speak for themselves. In this case, it was obvious from Obama’s honeymoon period that something stronger than the usual partisan bickering was at work. Race strikes me as the most obvious feature, but perhaps it’s something else. Ockham’s razor suggests it’s more likely than that Obama is just bad at his job.
As far as Pelosi, no, I don’t like obstructionist policies. It is the loyal opposition’s job to challenge and to force (and help forge) a compromise. Stopping things until you get your way is a terrible procedural model no matter who is doing it. I’m for civil and reasoned discourse. That means I’m not fond of any of them, or the system they’re embedded in.
And finally, I don’t identify as a Democrat. I’m currently regitered as a Democrat but have been both Republican and Green. I will vote for Sanders in the primary, but I will probably sit out the general election except for the House of Representatives. As a Californian, my vote is not significant for senators or president.
The difference I see between Obstructionism under Bush and that under Obama, is that while Democrats would obstruct things that Bush wanted but they felt were bad for the country. Republicans on the other hand would actually obstruct things that they felt were good for the country for fear that if they actually worked Obama might get the credit.
Take for example their tactics in opposing the ACA. The Republicans oppose ACA, so it would make sense that delaying its implementation would be something that they would want. However when it became clear that Employer’s weren’t ready for the employer mandate to take effect, the opposed the delay. Not because they thought the delay would hurt the country, but because they knew that following the original time table would hurt the country and Obama would probably get blamed.
I’m one. I’ll do you one better: if Hillary is the Democratic nominee, I’ll do what I’ve never done before in my life and vote for the Republican candidate, even if it’s Trump.
I’m sick to death of being held a political hostage, and told by those on the left that we can’t have a candidate who actually reflects our progressive conscience because we apparently don’t stand a chance against the GOP’s elite conservative shill unless we put up an elite conservative shill of our own. Hillary has been on the wrong side of every issue until it became convenient for her to switch. Even now that Sanders’ campaign has forced her to liberalize her rhetoric a bit, she does things like hop on the anti-encryption bandwagon.
Unlike perhaps some Sanders supporters, I don’t have any illusions that putting the man in the White House will magically solve all our problems. He would face challenges just like any president would. Maybe he can only make progress on part of his agenda. Maybe only a very small part. Maybe none at all. But I think we have to start somewhere. This proposition that we must all line up behind Hillary is to me equivalent to the defeatist proposition that we can only elect conservatives in America, never progressives.
I will happily hold my nose and vote for the greater of two evils next year if two evils are all I’m given to choose from. As the “Vote Cthulhu” bumper stickers say, why settle?
Stop being so coy! Are you talking about Sanders, Clinton, or Trump?
Well, people who believe that generally either don’t believe that REALLY serious consequences would result, or believe that said consequences, even those involving institutions like the Supreme Court or actual deaths, are “worth it” for long term change — or that those consequences would come about anyway by going with the status quo, so might as well get some hope of something worthwhile out of it.
I finally got around to clicking on this thread. Before reading it in its entirety I want to fight some ignorance.
This post is so far off in looney-land it could only be discussed in the Pit.
Sanders has been an unusally effective legislator, sometimes aligning with Republicans to get his proposals passed. And his record as Mayor of Burlington was impressive:
[QUOTE=Wikipedia] Sanders’ administration balanced the city budget and drew a minor league baseball team, the Vermont Reds, then the Double-A affiliate of the Cincinnati Reds, to Burlington. Under Sanders’ leadership, Burlington sued the local television cable franchise, winning reduced rates for customers.
As mayor, Sanders led extensive downtown revitalization projects. One of his signature achievements was the improvement of Burlington’s Lake Champlain waterfront. In 1981, Sanders campaigned against the unpopular plans by Tony Pomerleau, a Burlington developer, to convert the then-industrial waterfront property owned by the Central Vermont Railway into expensive condominiums, hotels, and offices. Sanders ran under the slogan “Burlington is not for sale” and successfully supported a plan that redeveloped the waterfront area into a mixed-use district featuring housing, parks, and public space. Today, the waterfront area includes many parks and miles of public beach and bike paths, a boathouse, and a science center. **Burlington is now considered one of the most livable cities in the nation.
In 1987, U.S News ranked Sanders as one of America’s best mayors.**
[/QUOTE]
The question of how effective Sanders would be as President is interesting and deserves intelligent discussion.
But the notion that he’s a clown is ignorant. Look to the Republican candidates if you want to enjoy recreational outrage about morons who think they should be President.
With both the economy and the Middle East situation heading downhill the GOP were wise to step out of the way and let the Democrats occupy the White House in 2009 and take the blame for unfolding troubles. (Is there a way to test whether some GOP leaders played to lose deliberately? Was campaign spending low?)
The situation is different now. With demographic trends moving strongly against them, the GOP needs to win in 2016 regardless: It may be their last chance.
The ignorance in this thread rankles. Cruz is the man that tries to degrade U.S.'s credit rating. Rubio is a callow crook with, I guess, charisma. Some of the GOP candidates are unspeakably unqualified.
… And your silly contribution is to denigrate two great Americans in a single sentence? Bah!
