What I Like About Bernie

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Clarissa

August 9, 2015

. . . is that he knows very well what his role is in this election and he’s not shirking it. Here, for instance, is a message I got from Bernie’s campaign:

I know, and you know, that the best chance for this country is to discuss the issues that matter. Republicans aren’t going to do it, so we need more Democratic debates — more than the four scheduled by the Democratic National Committee before the Iowa Caucuses.

And I know that if Secretary Clinton wants more debates, we’ll get them.

Sign my petition and tell Secretary Clinton to encourage the Democratic National Committee to schedule more debates before the Iowa Caucuses and New Hampshire primary in February and to allow important constituencies within the Democratic Party to host their own debates.

Bernie is well-aware that the election is about getting Hillary elected because she’s the one with the best chances. His campaign messages are insistently telling the supporters, “Hillary is the Big Cheese here, don’t forget who’s really the boss. Hillary gets what she wants. Hillary is in charge.”

And he’s right: we should all work together to let the 10 gentlemen on that stage last Thursday know how very irrelevant and outdated their ideas are.

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9 responses to “What I Like About Bernie”

Dreidel

August 9, 2015

Well, if you like Bernie for this reason, you ought to like Donald Trump, too –since he’s also doing his best to get Hillary elected.

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1. Clarissa
  
  August 9, 2015
  
  Absolutely. 🙂 Trump is working so hard to help Hillary, it’s starting to look like he’s getting paid to do it. 🙂
  
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Stringer Bell

August 9, 2015

There’s a political term for what he’s doing: sheepdogging. Read this article recently and found it interesting. Sanders could easily create a panic in the Democratic party by threatening to run third party (just like Trump), but he refuses, for some unknown reason.

http://www.blackagendareport.com/bernie-sanders-sheepdog-4-hillary

The function of the sheepdog candidate is to give left activists and voters a reason, however illusory, to believe there’s a place of influence for them inside the Democratic party, if and only if the eventual Democratic nominee can win in November.

The sheepdog’s job is to divert the energy and enthusiasm of activists a year, a year and a half out from a November election away from building an alternative to the Democratic party, and into his doomed effort. When the sheepdog inevitably folds in the late spring or early summer before a November election, there’s no time remaining to win ballot access for alternative parties or candidates, no time to raise money or organize any effective challenge to the two capitalist parties.

At that point, with all the alternatives foreclosed, the narrative shifts to the familiar “lesser of two evils.” Every sheepdog candidate surrenders the shreds of his credibility to the Democratic nominee in time for the November election. This is how the Bernie Sanders show ends, as the left-leaning warm-up act for Hillary Clinton.

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1. Dreidel
  
  August 9, 2015
  
  Sanders won’t run third-party for the obvious reason that he doesn’t want to risk throwing the election to the Republicans.
  
  It is IMPOSSIBLE for any third-party presidential candidate to win in America under the current winner-take-all electoral system, and it would take a constitutional amendment to change that. Starry-eyed activists who convince themselves otherwise every four years are delusional.
  
  Third-party presidential candidates ultimately either accomplish absolutely nothing except giving false hope to supporters (George Wallace in 1968, John Anderson in 1980), or they act as spoilers (Rose Perot in 1992, Ralph Nader in 2000) and toss the election to the major-party candidate whose views are least like theirs.
  
  So Bernie doesn’t want to be a spoiler; Trump acts like he couldn’t care less.
  
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  1. Clarissa
    
    August 9, 2015
    
    Yes. Bernie is not self-involved to the extent that Trump is. Trump seems to care only about his own feeling of self-importance. If Hillary has to win to punish those who slight him, then he’s ok with that.
    
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2. Clarissa
  
  August 9, 2015
  
  At least, Bernie can move Hillary a bit to the left. And I think he knows this is all he can do. But it is a good thing if she inches at least a teensy bit to the left.
  
  I do not believe we can hope for anything more. Those 10 guys last Thursday – they did more to corral people towards Hillary than a crowd of Bernies ever could. Every objection I had to Hillary evaporated as I observed them. She looks like a savior against that background.
  
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  1. Dreidel
    
    August 9, 2015
    
    Hey, chill out. One of those ten — or maybe Carla Fiorina — will be our next president. 🙂
    
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  2. David P. Bellamy
    
    August 10, 2015
    
    At least, Bernie can move Hillary a bit to the left. And I think he knows this is all he can do.
    
    This sounds very much like what people said about Senator Obama eight years ago.
    
    As someone pointed out on Morning Joe this morning, it is also what most people said about Jimmy Carter in 1975-76, about Ronald Reagan in 1979-80, and about Bill Clinton in 1991-92.
    
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    1. Clarissa
      
      August 10, 2015
      
      “This sounds very much like what people said about Senator Obama eight years ago.”
      
      They didn’t say that to me, that’s for sure. Obama was not known for being very much of the Left. He wasn’t know for anything, to be honest. 🙂 Both he and Hillary lacked the experience in politics to run for president. As a result, the primary was about two very unprepared people who had to compete in terms of personal charisma for lack of anything else. Obviously, Obama won because he is a lot more talented in the area of personal charm. His campaign of “hope and change” was painfully lacking in specifics.
      
      Today things are different. We all see more clearly what the challenges of the new reality are. So now it’s all about actual issues.
      
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