Both are traitors to the party and deserve to be kicked out of it.
But the group that would flip from Hillary to Rubio if Bernie is the nominee may not even be in the party. And even in these more polarized times, we can’t win general elections with Democrats only.
By your reasoning, this excludes for example strongly leftist voters who are -100 and are only willing to vote for candidates up to a certain “leftiness” level like say -50. Not to mention that RL politics doesn’t work that way-people are going to be voting on the basis of issues emphasized and if someone say votes for Hillary because she supports strengthening healthcare, protecting SS and Medicare, and raising the minimum wage then Sanders is going to be offering them the same essential package with different details while Rubio would be offering them something completely different.
I know which is why Sanders will emphasize his socioeconomic populism to get the vote of disaffected independents.
And a radical leftist might well legitimately view Bernie as just barely progressive enough to be worth supporting, while seeing no significant difference between Hillary and Rubio. I agree that it would be ridiculous for such a person to vote Republican, but not to abstain or vote 3rd party.
Don’t have time to dig up a cite now, maybe someone else can oblige. But the fact that you are even asking for a cite on this demonstrates that you don’t follow politics all that closely.
I thought my question was a rather polite and straightforward response to your snarky, loaded comment about Sanders supporters. It’s a simple question, why won’t you answer it? Do you think Sanders supporters in general are making their decision based on less rational thought processes than supporters of other candidates, or of Hillary in particular?
I follow politics extremely closely, so this might get my dander up if it didn’t instead give me the opportunity to let you enjoy the egg on your face:
Oops. (I won’t blame you if you slink away in embarrassment now, and are not to be heard from again in this thread.)
Glad to see you Clinton supporters aren’t spiteful at all, like those crazy Bernheads.
Oh, come on. I pride myself on being a big politics junkie, and I had just been sneered at for supposedly not following politics closely enough to know something basic. You really expect me to not swing at that fat pitch? If so, you’re clearly more of a Zen monk than I am, congrats.
Well, this is quite embarrassing. I must retract some statements. I had forgotten that the Democratic primary calendar started much earlier in 2008, and that in that year, unlike this one, there were quite a few states that had voted by the end of February, with 22 states voting on “Super Tuesday”, February 5, though I wouldn’t call Obama’s 53-47% lead in delegates at the end of the month all that overwhelming.
I was also mistaken about the financial gap between the Clinton and Obama campaigns, and particularly apologize for my snarky comment on that subject. Clinton did enjoy a significant advantage during the earliest stage of the campaign in 2007, but Obama had caught up with her by the time the actual voting started and surpassed her after the first few primaries.
That’s cool, and good on you for coming back to take your lumps. Kudos.
I still think that last part is a bit inaccurate though. He passed her in fundraising earlier than you seem to indicate.
This is more vapid lame failed mindreading.
You start from a different position–namely, that the system currently more-or-less works in a positive way. There’s another position, that our current system is deeply corrupt and works, whichever party is in power, to concentrate power among the elite. In this view, voting for a candidate who will participate in that power-concentration is an act of legitimization of the corrupt system, and it’s better not to participate at all than it is to prop up the system with a vote.
I wholeheartedly disagree with that position, mind you, and I’ve spent a fair amount of time over the last quarter century trying to persuade some fellow leftists that nobody gives a shit about whether their vote legitimizes the system, that they should be more practical than that. But, and this is the thing, it ain’t spite. It’s a principled disagreement over the power, symbolism, and ultimate purpose of voting.
A person unable to understand the principled position of their opponents is a person unable to participate in a principled and fair discussion of politics.
Well, it’s like with racism – the GOP might not be entirely sexist, but it has become the party to which sexists naturally gravitate.
Some of whom, I think, are now favoring Trump but could conceivably be talked over.
I do think the political system works now, other than some of the structural issues in the government that lead to too much gridlock. A radical position these days, more radical than anything Trump or Bernie says… But it doesn’t leave me with much patience for the other kind of radicals you want me to try to coax into the Democratic Party.
Oh, for pity’s sake.
???
It’s hardly radical that “there’s too much gridlock”.
Saying, in effect, “I think government works, look how radical I am!” is pretty offputting.
No, that doesn’t make you a radical. And if it did, being a radical doesn’t equal being a hep cat. We’re not discussing who’s awesomer, who hated government before it was cool, who’s gonna get the most radical action. So there’s no need to brag about how you’re more radical than thou or whatever.
Thinking government works is the opposite of radical. The radical right, the radical left, radical Islam are different in so many ways, but the one belief they have is that current social structures don’t work. That’s kind of what it means to be radical.
There are plenty of principled reasons to support Hillary Clinton. There are plenty of principled reasons to support Sanders. There are plenty of principled reasons to support Rubio. There are, og help me, principled reasons to support Santorum or Trump. And there are principled reasons to refuse to vote.
Nobody is saying you should coax radicals into the Democratic party (at least, nobody in this thread–I cannot account for people you’re having conversations with elsewhere). All I’m saying is that rather than continuing to engage in super-lame attempts at psychoanalysis of your opponents, you’d do well to debate them on the principles, not on what you fantasize is happening in their head.
No, what’s radical is that I don’t think we need a “political revolution”, or to get money out of politics or make other fundamental changes to our electoral system, or that America needs to get great again, etc. If you call me up and poll me, I’m one of the “right track” people. I was also one of those who approved of Congress when Democrats were in charge, and liked everyone in the leadership. I do not believe we live in an oligarchy, or that the vast majority of Democratic elected officials at least are corrupt.
Are you going to tell me that someone can openly say these things in either party and get anywhere with voters? If not, that makes it radical.
Then you’re about as radical as HRC. Who ain’t.