An interesting choice to restrict the choices. Two frontrunners and a middle of a very crowded pack name.
Other both overall and who I’d prefer get their party nominations.
Clinton. No question among those three, but to be honest, there’s no one else in the race who particularly appeals to me. Though I’m pretty liberal Sanders doesn’t do it for me, and the other GOP candidates…nah.
Why? This isn’t any sort of gotcha, I’m just curious what you don’t like about Bernie.
Fair enough. Several things:
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I don’t think that Sanders has any real chance of winning a general election. Among a variety of other things, I think the “socialist” label is seriously problematic. I’m much more of a pragmatist than an idealist, and so I’m happy to support someone I think CAN win (and who I agree with 80% of the time) over someone I think CAN’T win (and agree with 90% of the time). (I’m making up the numbers for the sake of argument…)
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The numbers may change, and if they do I’ll rethink this, but to date Sanders’s support seems to be coming overwhelmingly from Americans very much like me: white, well-educated, professional. That’s problematic partly because I don’t think a Democrat can win without substantial minority appeal (see above), and also because I believe that a presidential candidate needs to speak in some significant way to the people who need government most, which, let’s be honest, is not me.
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I’m sure that Sanders is honest, genuine, trustworthy, brave, etc., etc…but I find his career arc a little troublesome. He graduated from the U of Chicago in the sixties, a time when huge changes were coming up on the South Side of the city (I grew up there, by the way); there was a wonderful opportunity there to get his hands dirty, get involved in defending minority rights, combating urban poverty, taking on gang violence, etc. Or he could have returned to NYC, which was dealing with many of the same problems. But he didn’t; he went to the whitest state in the nation instead, where things were much more peaceful. (Not to say Vermont has no problems, but it seems to me that he could have a much greater impact elsewhere.)
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Again, I value pragmatism. I’m sure there are some issues where Sanders has worked well with others, shown an ability to compromise, etc. But much of his career has been built on a steady succession of NOes–no to the Patriot Act, to Wall Street, to tax proposals, etc. I don’t see as much building of coalitions as I would like, don’t see as much recognition of the give-and-take of politics as I’d like; I see him as often more interested in scoring points than in working to craft legislation that will get the country where it needs to be. There’s value in that, but I think that perspective is a better fit for a senator than for a president. #3 and #4 go together to make me think of him more as an academic chair than as someone focused on getting things done.
Well, I’m sure many people’s mileage varies! And I suspect some of them will be along to point out all the ways in which I am wrong. 
But you asked, and so here you are.
Stupid idealists, butting their heads against the brick wall of intractable inner-city problems, instead of pragmatically attempting more achievable change in a less difficult area :p.
Of course I wouldn’t vote for him ( in a primary ) either, because of your reason #1. Bernie Sanders has about as much chance of being elected president as Trump. Probably less chance, really.
Did someone institute an award for “Worst SDMB Poll of 2015”? Did I miss that email? I looked around but I didn’t see a sticky about it anywhere either.
There’s a need to look past the election. People need to ask how effective a President will be at getting things done when they’re in office. If you ask yourself “Who will get more laws enacted? Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders?” I think the answer is Clinton. I feel she will promise less but be able to deliver more.
Clinton will probably do great in that respect, but is there anything that Clinton and a GOP Congress would agree on that a Bernie Sanders fan would like?
Good point
Which is why I avoided describing Sanders as an idealist. While I don’t think of him as especially pragmatic, I don’t think the idealist label fits all that well.
adaher–I get what you’re saying. However, even at my most leftist I’d a lot rather have something in place that a relatively conservative Democrat and the GOP agreed to than something that just the GOP agreed to. (Not that I think Clinton is “relatively conservative,” because I don’t, just making the point.) OTOH a real Sanders fan may see things differently.
If you’re saying that Clinton-Republican rule is better than Republican-Republican rule, then from even a Sanders’ fan’s perspective, that’s true.
In addition to the things earlier mentioned, it irritates that me that he has, his entire political career, insisted he is not a Democrat. He has run against and beaten actual Democrats in Vermont. And now he wants to be the party’s nominee for President in his first race as a Democrat? Feh.