[US Election 2016] Democratic Primary Megathread III

[Kelinfort]

Don't be delusional. Hillary's utter lack of self-propelled liberalism and her millions in corporate lucre has utterly disqualified her from being considered a liberal. Maybe she'll accidentally take a progressive stance on something if enough people push her on it, but she's little more than a weather vane, blowing where the wind goes rather than where things ought to be.

It's baffling, frankly, that anybody who could consider themselves on the left could prefer her uninspired liberal credentials to a consistent champion of nearly every one of those values for decades.

You can sink your own ship if you want to. Honestly, it can only help me and mine in the future.

[The Romulan Republic]

Don't be delusional. Hillary's utter lack of self-propelled liberalism and her millions in corporate lucre has utterly disqualified her from being considered a liberal. Maybe she'll accidentally take a progressive stance on something if enough people push her on it, but she's little more than a weather vane, blowing where the wind goes rather than where things ought to be.

It's baffling, frankly, that anybody who could consider themselves on the left could prefer her uninspired liberal credentials to a consistent champion of nearly every one of those values for decades.

You can sink your own ship if you want to. Honestly, it can only help me and mine in the future.

No, it won't, unless you're a conservative.

Do you actually think "Bernie or Bust" type attitudes will help Clinton?

This is the kind of thing I'm talking about- an insistence by Clinton supporters on arrogantly dismissing Sanders supporters. Not even saying you don't need to win them over, but that being at odds with them is beneficial to you.

It is, frankly, insane arrogance and pettiness. Its the very definition of being an ungracious winner.

You are helping the Republicans just as surely as Bernie or Bust is.

[Eol Sha]

You can sink your own ship if you want to. Honestly, it can only help me and mine in the future.

No, it won't, unless you're a conservative.

Do you actually think "Bernie or Bust" type attitudes will help Clinton?

This is the kind of thing I'm talking about- an insistence by Clinton supporters on arrogantly dismissing Sanders supporters. Not even saying you don't need to win them over, but that being at odds with them is beneficial to you.

It is, frankly, insane arrogance and pettiness. Its the very definition of being an ungracious winner.

You are helping the Republicans just as surely as Bernie or Bust is.

To be fair, I don't think Kelinfort is a fan of Clinton. She's just the best of, in Kel's eyes, a bunch of horrid candidates.

[Kelinfort]

You can sink your own ship if you want to. Honestly, it can only help me and mine in the future.

No, it won't, unless you're a conservative.

Do you actually think "Bernie or Bust" type attitudes will help Clinton?

This is the kind of thing I'm talking about- an insistence by Clinton supporters on arrogantly dismissing Sanders supporters. Not even saying you don't need to win them over, but that being at odds with them is beneficial to you.

It is, frankly, insane arrogance and pettiness. Its the very definition of being an ungracious winner.

You are helping the Republicans just as surely as Bernie or Bust is.

I am not a solid Clinton supporter. Regardless, I wasn't referring to Clinton, I was referring to neoliberalism. I meant my economic positions.

[The Romulan Republic]

Clinton has been to Sanders' left on guns and immigration pretty consistently.

Really?

I seem to remember her attacking Obama for being too anti-gun back in 2008, as you acknowledge.

I also feel that the idea of Sanders being anti-immigration was played up falsely as part of the Sanders is a white man's candidate narrative.

We can debate about where her positions on gun control in the 2008 primary disqualify the consistency, although I'd say that even in that case she comes out to Sanders' left. Her record on transgender rights as SoS is arguably to Sanders' left too, in the sense that, while he's long said the right things, he hasn't been in a position to implement policy on them.

You can hardly blame him for not being able to do more.

As for opportunism and inconsistency, the aforementioned guns and immigration issues are ones on which Sanders has indeed been inconsistent. The amount of political capital that he, as a legislator (to be clear, let me underline, I am not talking about his student activism), has put down on social issues has been negligible, although he's quick to claim credit for having said, at one time or another, generally the right thing. I would call that opportunistic.

Why shouldn't he take credit for saying the right things?

And why should he be blamed for being limited in what his position allowed him to achieve?

You could say he could have tried to do more, but at the same time, one has to prioritize, and he has his issues which generally don't get much attention from anyone else in Congress.

In fact, if you examine his legislative career, he's put down precious little political capital on any issues that aren't one of his hobbyhorses: Generally financial reform and welfare are his go-tos.

See above.

Now we can debate, the power structure of the legislature being what it is, whether or not that's a meaningful criticism.

Indeed.

[The Romulan Republic]

No, it won't, unless you're a conservative.

Do you actually think "Bernie or Bust" type attitudes will help Clinton?

This is the kind of thing I'm talking about- an insistence by Clinton supporters on arrogantly dismissing Sanders supporters. Not even saying you don't need to win them over, but that being at odds with them is beneficial to you.

It is, frankly, insane arrogance and pettiness. Its the very definition of being an ungracious winner.

You are helping the Republicans just as surely as Bernie or Bust is.

I am not a solid Clinton supporter. Regardless, I wasn't referring to Clinton, I was referring to neoliberalism. I meant my economic positions.

If you're a neoliberal, then obviously the Left sabotaging themselves could be to your benefit. A lesson both the Bernie or Busters and the excessively anti-Sanders Clintonites here could take to heart.

But I hope even you realize that Left wing infighting resulting in the current Republican Party taking power would benefit no one. They aren't neoliberals. They're more or less fascists.

[Kelinfort]

I am not a solid Clinton supporter. Regardless, I wasn't referring to Clinton, I was referring to neoliberalism. I meant my economic positions.

If you're a neoliberal, then obviously the Left sabotaging themselves could be to your benefit. A lesson both the Bernie or Busters and the excessively anti-Sanders Clintonites here could take to heart.

But I hope even you realize that Left wing infighting resulting in the current Republican Party taking power would benefit no one. They aren't neoliberals. They're more or less fascists.

I agree completely. I just hate to see people act like a left wing tea party.

Also my earlier post was a potshot at radical Bernie or bust supporters, not you.

[Ngelmish]

Clinton has been to Sanders' left on guns and immigration pretty consistently.

Really?

I seem to remember her attacking Obama for being too anti-gun back in 2008, as you acknowledge.

I also feel that the idea of Sanders being anti-immigration was played up falsely as part of the Sanders is a white man's candidate narrative.

We can debate about where her positions on gun control in the 2008 primary disqualify the consistency, although I'd say that even in that case she comes out to Sanders' left. Her record on transgender rights as SoS is arguably to Sanders' left too, in the sense that, while he's long said the right things, he hasn't been in a position to implement policy on them.

You can hardly blame him for not being able to do more.

As for opportunism and inconsistency, the aforementioned guns and immigration issues are ones on which Sanders has indeed been inconsistent. The amount of political capital that he, as a legislator (to be clear, let me underline, I am not talking about his student activism), has put down on social issues has been negligible, although he's quick to claim credit for having said, at one time or another, generally the right thing. I would call that opportunistic.

Why shouldn't he take credit for saying the right things?

And why should he be blamed for being limited in what his position allowed him to achieve?

You could say he could have tried to do more, but at the same time, one has to prioritize, and he has his issues which generally don't get much attention from anyone else in Congress.

In fact, if you examine his legislative career, he's put down precious little political capital on any issues that aren't one of his hobbyhorses: Generally financial reform and welfare are his go-tos.

See above.

Now we can debate, the power structure of the legislature being what it is, whether or not that's a meaningful criticism.

Indeed.

Sanders and Clinton have both been inconsistent on guns, but I would say that Sanders has been more, overall. As far as immigration has been concerned, with the one exception of the 2013 bill, Sanders has opted to not support any major immigration reform efforts. I don't think it has anything to do with being a white man's candidate or not, it has everything to do with his protectionist economic ideals, and he wants to apply those to immigration as well. In the meantime, whether one finds those goals laudable or not, Sanders is culpable for the legal limbo and shadow economy that thousands of immigrants find themselves in. Additionally, some of the language that he's used in the past to voice opposition to various guest-worker programs has been quite nativist.

I think there's a double standard of scrutiny when it comes to Clinton and Sanders. Sanders gets credit merely for saying the right things, whereas Clinton is expected to apologize and take responsibility for anything that a piece of legislation she was involved in, or one of her husband's policies she was involved, that has had some negative effect, regardless of what (if any, there are examples on both sides) positive effects in may have had.

And furthermore, there's more than one way to measure ideology. We can measure by intentions, which, when it comes to politicians generally means taking them at their word and what they say about what they want to do. Or we can measure them by the results that ensue from their policy footprint. Sanders has been limited in the second metric, not particularly through faults of his own, but I don't believe in the former method. So I do take issue with the priorities argument. Of course members of congress have to prioritize, but what they prioritize, and what the merely take public positions on, tells us a lot about them. And I don't give Sanders a lot of credit merely for positions that he takes.

My wider point, however, is that it's disingenuous to treat Clinton like she's a typical politician who constantly changes positions and that Sanders is a paragon of unusual political consistency. There's always a matter of degree, and it's fair to draw comparisons. They're both career politicians however, who have been selective and opportunistic at different times for their own reasons. And Hillary Clinton is a fairly conventional Democrat.

None of that is to say one way or the other which one of them others should support. I simply find it frustrating and obnoxious when people insist that Hillary Clinton is somehow not a Democrat.

[Guy]

Don't be delusional. Hillary's utter lack of self-propelled liberalism and her millions in corporate lucre has utterly disqualified her from being considered a liberal. Maybe she'll accidentally take a progressive stance on something if enough people push her on it, but she's little more than a weather vane, blowing where the wind goes rather than where things ought to be.

It's baffling, frankly, that anybody who could consider themselves on the left could prefer her uninspired liberal credentials to a consistent champion of nearly every one of those values for decades.

This character assassination of Clinton is utterly disgusting, and frankly, I've seen it all before. Interestingly (or maybe not), it seems to be much easier to pull off on a woman. It's based on falsehoods and lies, and the fact that the electorate is utterly uneducated, lives in echo chambers, and would buy anything that you tell it, especially if it's young and it's contained in a meme.

She holds positions. Very leftist ones, in the US context. And she's held them consistently. If you didn't know this, go educate yourself.

[Guy]

You're repeating the same lines ad nausaem.

I'd advocate for any candidate who is in Sanders' position to close shop and move on. If Clinton was in this position, I'd say she should get the hell out of there too. I suppose this is informed from my own experience with campaigns: Once we know a certain race is won or lost, we get the hell out of there as quickly as possible, and divert resources so they're used more efficiently. It's won us real races, real outcomes and real impact on people's lives.

Your experience is in the Australian Labor Party, if I may hazard a guess. You say you're Australian, you're no Liberal, and you're too hardass and practical to be a Green. That leaves only Labor.

So really you should recognize what's going on here. Sanders is staying in for the party Convention. You have those in the Labor Party don't you? (Or pardon me if my guess was wrong: Liberal Party also have conventions). Your delegates come from the local branches statewide, rather than being elected by primary voters, then the state conventions choose delegates to the national Labor Party convention. But it's pretty much the same thing. The Convention delegates get to vote on versions of the party platform for the election (usually in such vague and blovinated terms that it's really not very binding on the nominee or any candidate for lesser offices) but noneless the official platform is influential. At the least, it's a nominal 'party center' position that no party nominee should stray too far from. Does that sound at all familiar from Australian politics?

But then, in the US, the National Convention also elects most of the members of the DNC (the remainder coming from the state branches) and they have the power to decide how many delegates each state gets, how much of the significant election funding chaneelled through to DNC goes to each state or each party nominee for House or Senate positions, and many other details which could favor or hinder progressives running for office in the next four years.

Sanders should definitely take a piece of that action. If he could do it by reducing his campaigning and "de-escalating" the contest that wold be great, it would save his funds and Clinton's funds to fight the common enemy instead of fighting each other, but I don't think that's a likely outcome. Clinton must be aware of the importance of DNC elections, she's been through this process all the way to the convention before (and SHE didn't drop out before the convention then). If Sanders drops, Clinton will pound him into the ground and get the abssolute maximum possible number of delegates to the National Convention. Because quite apart from the longer term, the next DNC will have influence in the midterm less than three years from now, and her re-election campaign two years later. She does NOT want a bunch of lefties in there, particularly considering that the DNC can call a national convention for the presidential nomination in 2020.

I was actually speaking of general election campaigns - seat by seat, specifically.

National Conference actually elects the National Executive, a 20-member body which is like the DNC on steroids (has absolute plenary rights over all party matters, including candidate selections, apart from the ones reserved to the parliamentary caucus). Also, next NatConf will have direct elections, but that's a separate matter. And the Platform matters much more, since ALP parliamentarians are bound to the Party's position (crossing the floor results in automatic expulsion from the Party).

I also think your overstate the importance of the DNC and party platform. It's not worth the amount of money they'll throw at it. Very little practical impact, since the organisational side of the Party the DNC is in charge of is generally non-controversial, no one reads the platform, and supedelegates are rarely called into action.

[The United Territories of Providence]

Don't be delusional. Hillary's utter lack of self-propelled liberalism and her millions in corporate lucre has utterly disqualified her from being considered a liberal. Maybe she'll accidentally take a progressive stance on something if enough people push her on it, but she's little more than a weather vane, blowing where the wind goes rather than where things ought to be.

It's baffling, frankly, that anybody who could consider themselves on the left could prefer her uninspired liberal credentials to a consistent champion of nearly every one of those values for decades.

The idea...that Hillary Rodham Clinton is not a liberal...it's so ridiculous that I can't understand how anyone could force themselves to type that out. No one forced Hillary to believe in Climate Change, or Abortion Rights, or Racial Equality, or Raising the Minimum Wage to $12, or Making College more Affordable, or Moving the Country towards a more progressive Health Care System. Hillary might not be a Democratic Socialist, but to question her credentials...it's ridiculous. Is Barack Obama a liberal? He took corporate money. It's baffling frankly, how anyone could look at this woman...who has defended those who could not defend themselves...for literally decades...and be so ideologically pure that they deem Hillary "not liberal enough".

[MERIZoC]

Clinton and Obama are very certainly liberals. That's one of their problems.

[Ashmoria]

Don't be delusional. Hillary's utter lack of self-propelled liberalism and her millions in corporate lucre has utterly disqualified her from being considered a liberal. Maybe she'll accidentally take a progressive stance on something if enough people push her on it, but she's little more than a weather vane, blowing where the wind goes rather than where things ought to be.

It's baffling, frankly, that anybody who could consider themselves on the left could prefer her uninspired liberal credentials to a consistent champion of nearly every one of those values for decades.

she always been liberal. I don't know why you think you get to define what is and isn't liberal.

how has she betrayed liberal values?

[USS Monitor]

Not that it matters much. The most radical ones would demand that we burn our white skin, give up our male privilege, and eat shit; the others have already made up their minds on who they'll vote for, Clinton or otherwise.

Sarcasm aside, perhaps more people will come to support Clinton, but I doubt it'll be a high percentage. A lot of these people, unlike in 2008, aren't registered Democrats.

This is a foolish argument.

If you haven't written off winning over a significant number of Sanders supporters (out of an apparent need to preserve the false "Sanders isn't a real Democrat, only independents really like him" narrative), you are likely conceding the general election, practically speaking.

I'm not sure I understand your race/gender-based ranting, though. Is it directed at Sanders supporters or Clinton supporters? In either case, I don't think its helpful.

Sanders supporters obviously hate white men and want to kill them all. That's why we voted for Bernie Sanders. *nods*

[The Romulan Republic]

This is a foolish argument.

If you haven't written off winning over a significant number of Sanders supporters (out of an apparent need to preserve the false "Sanders isn't a real Democrat, only independents really like him" narrative), you are likely conceding the general election, practically speaking.

I'm not sure I understand your race/gender-based ranting, though. Is it directed at Sanders supporters or Clinton supporters? In either case, I don't think its helpful.

Sanders supporters obviously hate white men and want to kill them all. That's why we voted for Bernie Sanders. *nods*

Its even more ridiculous because one of the narratives from the Clinton side has been that Sanders' support is pretty much just white men.

[Guy]

The de-escalation begins: Sanders is firing hundreds of campaign staff.

[The Romulan Republic]

The de-escalation begins: Sanders is firing hundreds of campaign staff.

Does that necessarily equal "Sanders is backing out of the race?"

I mean, I know the Clinton side might want to portray it that way because it paints Sanders as dishonest for saying he's still trying to win while secretly backing out and plays into the narrative that the primary is over. But I can think of other reasons why Sanders would fire some of his staff.

Possibly they wish to use that money in other ways (like more money to television adds, for example).

Possibly they're letting people go in states that have already voted.

Hard to really say what the context is, though, as you did not provide a source.

[USS Monitor]

Who's In-n-Out then?

Joe Biden obviously. He's got the old man charisma of Bernie Sanders, He's got the Experience of Hillary Clinton, and He's as consistent of more consistent than Barack Obama on the issues.

It's too bad he's not in the race.

[USS Monitor]

Sanders supporters obviously hate white men and want to kill them all. That's why we voted for Bernie Sanders. *nods*

Its even more ridiculous because one of the narratives from the Clinton side has been that Sanders' support is pretty much just white men.

I'm a man now? How do I collect my male privilege benefits?

[USS Monitor]

The de-escalation begins: Sanders is firing hundreds of campaign staff.

Does that necessarily equal "Sanders is backing out of the race?"

I mean, I know the Clinton side might want to portray it that way because it paints Sanders as dishonest for saying he's still trying to win while secretly backing out and plays into the narrative that the primary is over. But I can think of other reasons why Sanders would fire some of his staff.

Possibly they wish to use that money in other ways (like more money to television adds, for example).

Possibly they're letting people go in states that have already voted.

Hard to really say what the context is, though, as you did not provide a source.

Even if it is people in states that have already voted (which I would guess it is), that still says something about what Sanders thinks his chances are. People that expect to win the primary will usually keep their campaign offices open to have them ready for the general election.

IIRC, Trump closed some of his campaign offices in states that had voted, but that was pointed out as evidence that Trump doesn't know what he's doing.

[The Romulan Republic]

Does that necessarily equal "Sanders is backing out of the race?"

I mean, I know the Clinton side might want to portray it that way because it paints Sanders as dishonest for saying he's still trying to win while secretly backing out and plays into the narrative that the primary is over. But I can think of other reasons why Sanders would fire some of his staff.

Possibly they wish to use that money in other ways (like more money to television adds, for example).

Possibly they're letting people go in states that have already voted.

Hard to really say what the context is, though, as you did not provide a source.

Even if it is people in states that have already voted (which I would guess it is), that still says something about what Sanders thinks his chances are. People that expect to win the primary will usually keep their campaign offices open to have them ready for the general election.

That makes sense, but I'd still like to know more about the context before drawing conclusions about Sanders' plans.

I suppose he might be shifting some of his effort towards alternative plans, though he has certainly not conceded.

IIRC, Trump closed some of his campaign offices in states that had voted, but that was pointed out as evidence that Trump doesn't know what he's doing.

Or that even he didn't expect him to do as well as he has.

[Maineiacs]

Its even more ridiculous because one of the narratives from the Clinton side has been that Sanders' support is pretty much just white men.

I'm a man now? How do I collect my male privilege benefits?

They'll have some paperwork for you to fill out at Man Cave Central.

[USS Monitor]

I'm a man now? How do I collect my male privilege benefits?

They'll have some paperwork for you to fill out at Man Cave Central.

Hitler must be rolling over in his grave knowing it's a Jewish guy that finally figured out how to make us all white men.

[Corrian]

I believe it was said that he "fired" people in states that already voted.

[The Romulan Republic]

I believe it was said that he "fired" people in states that already voted.

Yes, that's my understanding as well. The idea is to put more of a focus on the remaining states, basically.

Of course, that means that if he somehow wins, he'll have to build up his infrastructure nationally again, as discussed previously in this thread, but if he's not dropping out, he kind of has to focus on the primary.