US Election: Saint Bernard the obstinant

[DanteGabriel]

9 minutes ago, Swordfish said:

Ignore the quote box above, fucking forum update strikes again. 

Following up on Simon's question, whence comes this idea that, if Clinton were to drop out or be forced out, Biden would pick up the nomination? I see no mechanism in place to do that.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

5 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

Well I think it's worthwhile to distinguish between a resume and accomplishments, and while Clinton has the best resume of any candidate in a long time, it's fair to point out that she didn't sponsor much major legislation as a Senator and that her SoS tenure was a mixed bag. But who among the candidates this year has accomplished much? Certainly doesn't seem like Bernie got a lot of legislation passed either. What passes as an "accomplishment" in a political environment characterized by unprecedented obstruction and appalling laziness and fecklessness in Congress?

To my memory, the accusation that Clinton hasn't accomplished much smacks a lot of the double standard that often exists for women, that they have to work harder to be accepted as competent.

Does she even have the best resume out of all the candidates that ran this cycle? I think Kasich could honestly say that he has a better resume and some significant achievements, regardless if you support them or not. Governors in general can make this claim a lot easier than senators. And Sanders has held public office far longer than Clinton. That said, neither Clinton nor Sanders have any major achievements during their tenure in government. But Sanders isn't running a campaign based on accomplishments and getting things done. His is a crazy pie in the sky candidacy.

[DireWolfSpirit]

I have zero qualms over Bernie debating the Donald. I'm absolutely confident Sanders would make scorched earth out of Trump in such a debate and that it would be a showcase of Trumps ineptness not a slamfest of Hillary. The Donald would be totally outmatched at wits, knowledge, and Bernie would expose it repeatedely. It would end up being a great (and possibly needed) service to liberals as well as Hillary. 

I see this simply as a case of Agamemnon sending in Achilles for some dirty work.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

41 minutes ago, TrackerNeil said:

I think that anyone who's managed to stand up against absurd accusations like murder has to be congratulated, particularly when that same person manages to win several elections and very nearly became the Democratic nominee in 2008.

As to popularity, you and I have gone back and forth over this. Clinton's approval ratings were very high when she was SecState, and politicians always become less popular when they are running for office. She's also sounding thrashing Sanders among Democrats, which also indicates just how strong support for her is.

 

 

 

I see it as more a divide between generations, but either way, when push comes to shove, the question remains: how do we get Bernie supporters to put aside their anger and vote for her come November? That's the biggest goal now. It's why I asked the question previously if Clinton's campaign were derailed by the scandals--who could replace her at this point that wouldn't cause more  division? I could see the Clinton supporters being even angrier if Bernie stepped into her role, and Bernie supporters maybe exploding if Biden swooped in from nowhere.

The only way through this is to convert Bernie supporters. I suppose we have to wait and see what Bernie does at the convention. My guess is he wants to angle for something. This will help. But the media, the DNC, etc., has to quit villainizing Bernie supporters and Bernie himself. You cannot alienate that group and then hope for their vote in November.

Clinton's "allies" are hurting her more than any of her scandals. I think you noted this before, people who care about the supposed scandals never would have voted for her anyway. The people she stands to lose in large numbers are directly being pushed by people like DWS, and other prominent Dems who paint Bernie supporters as violent and angry. The intent may not be "all Bernie supporters" but it doesn't matter, that is how they present themselves. 

[Centrist Simon Steele]

8 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

Ignore the quote box above, fucking forum update strikes again. 

Following up on Simon's question, whence comes this idea that, if Clinton were to drop out or be forced out, Biden would pick up the nomination? I see no mechanism in place to do that.

 

I don't know, I've heard it bandied about, but I'm not sure how valid a claim it is. I suppose it stems from Republicans threatening to throw someone else in over Trump.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

Double post?

[alguien]

2 hours ago, The Fallen said:

I think we progressives blew it. Sanders looks like a better bet to defeat Trump than Hillary.

[edited] I disagreed with many of the assertions in your post, but I wanted to call this one out. Early polling at this stage is meaningless. Both Kerry and Dukakis were beating their opponents in polls by higher margins at this point in the race. 

When the GOP machine trained it's attack dogs on Sanders, paints him as an old Communist, starts bringing up his illegitimate son, his essay on women fantasizing about gang rape, how he would raise taxes for middle class families... he would be hurting in the general. 

There's a reason that Republicans would love for him to win the nomination. 

[alguien]

54 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

And for what it's worth, your former Senator played a much larger role in the passing of SCHIP than Clinton.

Was curious about this. Here's a pretty decent take on it when Ted Kennedy was supporting Obama. 

Quotes from the article:

Quote

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Oct. 6, 2007: The children’s health program wouldn’t be in existence today if we didn’t have Hillary pushing for it from the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.

Quote

Adam Clymer: On balance, I would say of course Kennedy and Hatch deserve most of the credit, but Hillary helped by making sure the Administration stuck with the $24 billion in [the Senate-House] conference. She didn’t write the legislation but she played a significant role in getting it passed.

Quote

Years later, when Clinton was first running for the Senate, Kennedy’s aide Littlefield was still giving her credit. The New York Times quoted him as saying, ”She was a one-woman army inside the White House to get this done.”

I think she's justified including it in her list of accomplishments. 

[DanteGabriel]

19 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Does she even have the best resume out of all the candidates that ran this cycle? I think Kasich could honestly say that he has a better resume and some significant achievements, regardless if you support them or not. Governors in general can make this claim a lot easier than senators. And Sanders has held public office far longer than Clinton. That said, neither Clinton nor Sanders have any major achievements during their tenure in government. But Sanders isn't running a campaign based on accomplishments and getting things done. His is a crazy pie in the sky candidacy.

To me, Secretary of State tenure is a big deal. Even though she was too interventionist in her tenure, I think direct foreign policy experience is valuable since foreign policy is an area where the President gets a lot of leeway.

 

16 minutes ago, Simon Steele said:

But the media, the DNC, etc., has to quit villainizing Bernie supporters and Bernie himself. You cannot alienate that group and then hope for their vote in November.

Can you acknowledge that the alienation and demonizing is going both ways? That Bernie attacking the legitimacy of the Democratic Party and referring to Clinton as the lesser of two evils is counterproductive to the aim of defeating Trump?

What have Clinton and the DNC done lately to villainize Bernie? As far as I can tell, they're ignoring him  (besides letting him name 1/3 of the platform committee, those bastards!). Meanwhile you have Bernie supporters going Gamergate on a popular liberal Democratic Senator from California, and Bernie's utter douchebag of a campaign manager mansplaining away her complaints by telling her she couldn't possibly have felt threatened. My favorite development of recent days, though, has to be the proliferation of Vince Foster attacks from the theoretical progressives in my social media feeds, who are performing the incredible mental gymnastics of appropriating a vile and discredited anti-Clinton smear from 20 years ago, just as it was repopularized by Trump. Fuck those people.

[Shryke]

Now it's looking like Trump is claiming he was totally kidding about debating Sanders.

The only shocking thing here is he's not denying that he ever said it in the first place.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

10 hours ago, Kalbear said:

Well, this is interesting.

 

Really?

I mean seriously... I have a hard time trying to find an upside for this debate happening. 

What will it achieve?

Bernie sets up a stage for Trump to take shots at Hillary on a big stage. Sanders adds some sort of legitimacy to Trump as a politician, he clearly does not deserve (and he does give Trump some access to parts of his electorate). So here I can clearly see how the DNC would be reasonably pissed at Sanders, and rightly so. 

If I was a Sanders supporter, I would demand a refund for my donation(s). Because Sanders providing a stage for Trump would really not be what I signed up for.

[DireWolfSpirit]

20 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

 Mexal- 

Not sure I saw it posted but it looks like Paul Ryan is going to endorse Trump. Not a surprise since it was only a matter of time but it cracks me up when politicians put unity ahead of their beliefs. 

Mexal,

So, by that logic the Bernie or Bust folks should stick to their guns?

Yes well this is still an interesting question you bring up Ser Scott, even if the Ryan endorsement headlines were premature. My view is the process should play out completely until the convention and a candidate has officially won a nomination. On the other side we see the Speaker of the House hasnt even endorsed his parties presumptive nominee yet. Theres no reason millions of Bernie voters need to rush to endorse Hillary until (if and when) they are ready. You dont want a  forced hand, you want people to willingly make this choice or they will just not show in November. It's going to take a little more time for Bernie supporters to file in. It's definately not happening before the California primary imo.

[Shryke]

A theoretical Trump/Sanders debate, especially on Fox News, is trivially easy for Trump to win:

"Senator Sanders, didn't Clinton and the DNC completely cheat you out of the Democratic Party nomination?"

Boom, done.

You could go on like this with any other of his talking points too. Just set up one of Sanders' anti-Clinton/anti-Democratic-Party attacks and Sanders is now forced to either back down, repudiate his own messaging and scuttle his own campaign or he agrees with Trump and let's Trump turn the debate into a Trump/Sanders anti-Clinton/Democrat rally.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

2 hours ago, Simon Steele said:

What would happen if Hillary was shot down by the supposed scandals? Aside from it being hugely divisive and problematic, I think even worse would be throwing out someone like Biden and throwing Sanders out completely who definitely has the most votes is succession.

Well, at this point, especially after that debate announcement with Trump, I can see how a big part of the Democratic electorate can have a problem uniting behind Sanders. 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Just now, Shryke said:

A theoretical Trump/Sanders debate, especially on Fox News, is trivially easy for Trump to win:

"Senator Sanders, didn't Clinton and the DNC completely cheat you out of the Democratic Party nomination?"

Boom, done.

You could go on like this with any other of his talking points too. Just set up one of Sanders' anti-Clinton/anti-Democratic-Party attacks and Sanders is now forced to either back down, repudiate his own messaging and scuttle his own campaign or he agrees with Trump and let's Trump turn the debate into a Trump/Sanders anti-Clinton/Democrat rally.

Exactly. For Trump it'd be a win-win-win-win-win....-situation.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

25 minutes ago, alguien said:

Was curious about this. Here's a pretty decent take on it when Ted Kennedy was supporting Obama. 

Quotes from the article:

I think she's justified including it in her list of accomplishments. 

She certainly played a role. I was just pointing out that she wasn't the main player in getting the legislation passed. Which is a continuous pattern with Clinton. 

34 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

To me, Secretary of State tenure is a big deal. Even though she was too interventionist in her tenure, I think direct foreign policy experience is valuable since foreign policy is an area where the President gets a lot of leeway.

Without knowing whether a person was a success or failure, I'd take a two term governor over a 1 term SoS.

[Shryke]

47 minutes ago, alguien said:

[edited] I disagreed with many of the assertions in your post, but I wanted to call this one out. Early polling at this stage is meaningless. Both Kerry and Dukakis were beating their opponents in polls by higher margins at this point in the race. 

When the GOP machine trained it's attack dogs on Sanders, paints him as an old Communist, starts bringing up his illegitimate son, his essay on women fantasizing about gang rape, how he would raise taxes for middle class families... he would be hurting in the general. 

There's a reason that Republicans would love for him to win the nomination. 

Seriously. Sanders has been handled with baby gloves this whole time because Clinton isn't interested in burning those bridges and the GOP doesn't want him to stop since they are mostly interested in his ability to weaken Clinton, who they've always seen as the actual opponent they will face.

Sanders gives the GOP tons of easy angles to attack him from and many that both play well with their base and also allow them to frame themselves as defenders of the american way of life.

[TrackerNeil]

35 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

What have Clinton and the DNC done lately to villainize Bernie? As far as I can tell, they're ignoring him  (besides letting him name 1/3 of the platform committee, those bastards!). Meanwhile you have Bernie supporters going Gamergate on a popular liberal Democratic Senator from California, and Bernie's utter douchebag of a campaign manager mansplaining away her complaints by telling her she couldn't possibly have felt threatened. My favorite development of recent days, though, has to be the proliferation of Vince Foster attacks from the theoretical progressives in my social media feeds, who are performing the incredible mental gymnastics of appropriating a vile and discredited anti-Clinton smear from 20 years ago, just as it was repopularized by Trump. Fuck those people.

What Clinton's done wrong is, apparently, win the nomination.

"Going Gamergate" is exactly what this all feels like. A successful woman is questioned in every possible way, and her credentials are assumed to mean very little. At least Trump comes right out and says, "Clinton is winning because she is a woman." I don't respect much about Trump, but I respect that he has the guts to just say what's motivating him.

[Dr. Pepper]

4 minutes ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

I have zero qualms over Bernie debating the Donald. I'm absolutely confident Sanders would make scorched earth out of Trump in such a debate and that it would be a showcase of Trumps ineptness not a slamfest of Hillary. The Donald would be totally outmatched at wits, knowledge, and Bernie would expose it repeatedely. It would end up being a great (and possibly needed) service to liberals as well as Hillary. 

I see this simply as a case of Agamemnon sending in Achilles for some dirty work.

Eh, I disagree that Bernie would do all that well in a debate against Trump.  Sanders isn't really that great at these things and I figure it would devolve into both of them trying to out yell the other.  Though, honestly, I never actually thought either of them were completely serious.  Trump's the dude who likes to delay things with petty demands, or who backs out and says they were mean to him, or who spends five months pretending like he gave money to charity.  I figured everyone knew this, including Bernie, so it seemed like a pretty obvious joke, to me.  Even more so now that Trump has clinched the nom.

It does highlight how frustrated I am that Hillary has not agreed to another debate.  I think she does well on the debate stage.  I'm not sure there are any negatives to her giving one more debate to Bernie before she goes on to clinch her own nom.  I know there is at least one poster here who, despite being an ardent Hillary supporter, becomes enraged at anyone who so much as suggests she can do better, which baffles me because I'd have thought anyone on the progressive side of things would actually want HIllary to have the best chance at getting elected.  There are too many unforced errors, too many problems that have common sense solutions that she won't take.  I'm just at a loss for why she wouldn't want to debate before the final rounds of primaries.  

[Kalbear]

10 minutes ago, Shryke said:

Now it's looking like Trump is claiming he was totally kidding about debating Sanders.

The only shocking thing here is he's not denying that he ever said it in the first place.

I was just going to post how this would have been a brilliant bit of political judo worthy of Obama. Nothing but upside for him, nothing but downside for his opponents. Wonder why he chickened out?