Both the recent US and UK elections had a stiff, female, not easily relatable, centre-ish candidate (HRC and Theresa May). They also both had ‘blow up the system’/new paradigm opponents despised/dismissed by most mainstream media but who overcame that; Trump, a non-politician, promised to drain the swamp, Corbyn is an old-school socialist. So, coming at the ‘problem’ from opposite ends of the spectrum, you might say …
The UK result made me curious to think about a US election between a centrist and a socialist. It was, for example, fascinating to see the newly engaged u25s almost make the difference, first for Sanders, then for Corbyn. It seems they just don’t have the baggage most of us carry and pick a winner based on, crazy as it is, the merits.
I voted for Clinton in the primary so I’m not sure what would supposedly change my vote today. I appreciate where Sanders was coming from but felt many of his keystone ideas were unworkable.
I’m still waiting on the final figures to see exactly how many younger voters turned out for Corbyn. They certainly didn’t for Sanders. Sanders was all but mathematically eliminated after Super Tuesday, and any sane candidate would have thrown in the towel after his New York debacle.
I would entertain a further left candidate, but in this matchup I have little assurance that Sanders would be any good at actually doing the job. Obama had little managerial experience, but I thought he would be able to get things done. I just don’t think I can say the same about Sanders.
Bernie tried to save us from being RULED BY MOM and all right-thinking young people MUST have voted for him! (…Even if they actually didn’t. As with Trump’s “amazing” Inaugural crowd, some find it easy and comfortable to re-write history.)
That’s interesting. Part of the discussion has been about left/socialist candidates who have spent entire careers opposing the status quo - it’s not their fault but they have zero experience of real responsibility, even withing mainstream party Opposition.
It’s hardly their fault that their views excluded then previously, so do we therefore now give them more latitude to develop …
Given the three-way similarity of a candidate who a lot of people hate and who will have trouble accomplishing anything in the presidency, I chose Sanders, as the one least likely to be pushing to do stuff that is detrimental to the country.
The main reason Sanders put up a decent fight against HRC is that HE WAS LITERALLY THE ONLY OTHER OPTION IN THE PRIMARIES. Jim Webb & the Rhode Island Muppet dropped out before a single vote was cast. O’Malley dropped out after getting 1% in Iowa. What other choice did Democrats have if they wanted to show their dissatisfaction for the DNC’s Chosen One?
If there was an actual choice offered, say with an assortment of decent pols like Cory Booker or Gillibrand or Fiengold etc, does anyone honestly think HRC would’ve won? For that matter, Sanders would’ve pulled in roughly the same amount of votes as candidates like Kucinich did in previous cycles, because there would be other options.
I have talked to so many self-described democrats and moderate independent who literally think HRC murders people. All nonsense, of course, but it doesn’t matter. The decades-long smear campaign did its irreversible damage, and while a more skilled and charismatic politician could have brushed all that aside, HRC is definitely not that. Why the DNC and around 60% of democrats couldn’t see it, I’ll never know. They nominated one of the most despised politicians in the US, and were shocked when she cratered in November, taking down the rest of the party with her.
I also think it’s become clear though that if Sanders had been the nominee instead, he would’ve at least held on to the rust belt states. Maybe he loses Virginia though. But maybe he also wins Florida, thanks to the Jewish background. Who can know at this point? All I’m certain of is that the so-called democratic party should’ve listened to the people warning against nominating HRC & her crippling baggage.
So the argument is that Sanders would have been demolished in any other Democratic primary race but yet he was going to win more states in the general than Clinton? I’m not seeing it.
Sanders was uniquely suited to stop the bleeding among white working class support for the Dems. Against Trump, that’s a very useful advantage. HRC, who was rightly or wrongly considered the Mother of NAFTA & TPP, never stood a chance among those voters.
Against any other candidate, aside from Ted Cruz perhaps, Sanders probably would have lost, true. But so would’ve HRC, by even larger margins than she did against Trump.
I don’t think so. Trump would have still made the same bullshit promises about NAFTA and stopping job-stealing Mexicans and preserving Medicaid and making “really great deals” to stop businesses from closing plants and just changed the other rhetoric to Sanders is an Anti-American Socialist. What was Sanders going to promise that Trump wasn’t just going to falsely promise as well? I get your argument, I just don’t believe it.
Clinton’s bigger issue was that she just straight up neglected WI, MI & PA and spent approximately zero time there. Had she made an effort there (hell, even spent more money polling to see how the tide was shifting) she could have held them.
Al Franken just might be the happy medium between lefty pop-tart idealism and centrist pragmatism. By next election, progressives (even moderate ones) are going to be in a fighting mood and they’re not going to accept a Madison Avenue candidate. They’re going to want someone a little different. I never thought of Al Franken as presidential material but if he ever does it, 2020 is his year. I am beginning to suspect that his decision to bail out on Bill Maher in light of his recent controversy was a calculated one, indicating there just might be some serious consideration of going higher than the Senate. Not that I doubt Franken’s sincerity, but I don’t know – he just seems to be more camera-ready these days than in that past and I don’t think that’s by accident. I, for one, welcome him.
And they definitely did neglect Wisconsin (and Michigan to a lesser extent), but I don’t know that amplifying the chosen message would have helped. Ohio was saturated with ads and received a bunch of visits (although not quite as many as in previous cycles) and just moved even more in the wrong direction.
I definitely think that Clinton dropped the ball on the working class whites demographic. I just never heard anyone making any claim there. I also think she dropped the ball by not pushing Kaine’s religious credentials. He also should have taken on the Biden version of being anti-abortion but pro-choice (a position I actually find a lot of anti-abortion people being okay with, as long as you don’t call it “pro-choice.”)
Sure, she didn’t push as hard in those all important states, but her data indicated she didn’t have to. I don’t think that’s the issue as much as the message they did receive.
It even frustrated me back when I thought she’d still have enough to win. It seemed ridiculous that Democrats were not pushing that they were the only ones actually trying to provide real answers to those problems. There is no means by which nationalist policies would make life better at this point. What’s needed is to push the jobs and training aspects.
Sanders did a much better job with this. But he also unfortunately doubled down on the narrative on Clinton. There’s still all this talk about corruption in the Democratic Party after all of this. He really should have realized he couldn’t actually win, and just pull things leftward without playing into that, as we all assume was his original plan. But the higher than expected numbers went to his head.
As for the OP, I still go with Clinton. Sorry, but I do not think you can win except if you run as a moderate, and Sanders ran as far left as he could go. Trump ran as a moderate in weird ways, but he still did it.
I also think there was way, way too little push on “first female president.” It should have been as big as “first black president,” but it wasn’t.