Bernie Sanders Is a Loud, Stubborn Socialist. Republicans Like Him Anyway.

[Segami]

“..Clearly if you want to get any­thing done, you have to work with mem­bers of Con­gress and you have to work with mem­bers of both polit­ic­al parties,” Sanders said. “I have done that and as pres­id­ent, I cer­tainly would do that. But that’s kind of what you have to do — no ifs, buts or maybes...”

In the Sen­ate, Bernie Sanders should be all alone. Sanders is con­stantly rib­bing Re­pub­lic­ans in his trade­mark con­des­cend­ing Brook­lyn-ac­cen­ted tone. He of­fers up le­gis­la­tion that’s so far to the left that it couldn’t get a vote even un­der Ma­jor­ity Lead­er Harry Re­id. He’s the cur­mudgeon in the Sen­ate Demo­crat­ic con­fer­ence, rarely sat­is­fied with how far his lead­er­ship will go to pur­sue pro­gress­ive policies, and not afraid to vote ‘nay’ when his lead­ers come up short. And none of his Sen­ate col­leagues, on either side of the aisle, think he could ever be elec­ted pres­id­ent of the United States; most of them even be­lieve he shouldn’t be. But rather than earn­ing the frus­tra­tion and ire of his peers in the vein of oth­er Sen­ate hard-liners such as Sen. Ted Cruz, Sanders has man­aged to be re­spec­ted — even liked — by much of the cham­ber, ac­cord­ing to mem­bers on both sides of the aisle. The Ver­mont in­de­pend­ent ac­tu­ally has much more in com­mon with Sen. Tom Coburn, the now-re­tired “Dr. No,” whose hard-line op­pos­i­tion killed many bills in the Sen­ate but also earned him the re­spect of his col­leagues on both sides of the aisle.


Sanders also has been able to work well with his col­leagues. He’s passed bi­par­tis­an le­gis­la­tion and forged strong re­la­tion­ships with mem­bers of both parties in nearly 25 years on Cap­it­ol Hill. But most of all, mem­bers say, even when Sanders is ideo­lo­gic­ally an out­lier, he lets oth­ers know where he stands. He’s not the type to sud­denly stab a col­league in the back. And that’s earned him re­spect both on and off the Hill. “A lot of people here talk about what they be­lieve in, but they don’t act on it,” Sen. Mark Warner said. “He al­ways acts on what he be­lieves. “¦ We can agree or dis­agree, but you know where he stands.” Law­makers on both sides of the aisle, in­clud­ing Sanders him­self, point to last year’s deal to im­prove the dis­astrous, scan­dal-rid­den Vet­er­ans Af­fairs De­part­ment as a high­light. After weeks of ne­go­ti­at­ing with a cadre of Re­pub­lic­an col­leagues, Sanders helped pass the deal on a 91-3 vote in the Sen­ate. “In a pretty dys­func­tion­al Con­gress I helped pass, in a bi­par­tis­an way, the sig­ni­fic­ant vet­er­ans bill, which in­creases health care to vet­er­ans and lowers wait­ing times, and I’m proud of that,” Sanders said. “That was a sig­ni­fic­ant step for­ward.”


“He knew when to hold and knew when to fold and, I think, max­im­ized what we could get for vet­er­ans,” said Sen. Chuck Schu­mer, who also par­ti­cip­ated in the VA talks. Sanders has also passed an amend­ment to the Dodd-Frank bill that led to the first audit of the Fed­er­al Re­serve. He and Sen. Robert Men­en­dez se­cured fund­ing in the 2008 stim­u­lus bill for clean-en­ergy ini­ti­at­ives. And he in­ser­ted lan­guage in­to the Af­ford­able Care Act to in­crease fund­ing for com­munity health cen­ters. Those le­gis­lat­ive wins are roughly on par with those of his fel­low class­mates of 2006, in­clud­ing more mod­er­ate mem­bers whose ideo­lo­gic­al lean­ings more eas­ily lend them to com­prom­ise with the oth­er side, such as Sens. Jon Test­er and Bob Cork­er. But as with Coburn, Sanders’ will­ing­ness to stand up and say no has also helped him to score vic­tor­ies on Cap­it­ol Hill. Sanders high­lights his battles to pre­vent Re­pub­lic­ans from cut­ting So­cial Se­cur­ity be­ne­fits as well as “the com­plete decim­a­tion of the U.S. Postal Ser­vice.”


Des­pite those rough mo­ments, Re­pub­lic­ans still say by and large they like the sen­at­or. Sen. Jeff Ses­sions, who served on the Budget Com­mit­tee with Sanders, said that while the two couldn’t be more op­pos­ite ideo­lo­gic­ally, they still share a mu­tu­al re­spect. “So of­ten he would ar­tic­u­late the lib­er­al — very lib­er­al — line. And I would ar­tic­u­late the con­ser­vat­ive line. And it would go something like, ‘We need to tax the rich, we’ve got too many poor.’ And I said, ‘That’s right. We’ve got so much gov­ern­ment, so much taxes, we really, you know, cre­ated the poor. It’s your prob­lem,’ ” Ses­sions grinned. “But you know, I’ve al­ways re­spec­ted Bernie and we’ve got­ten along per­son­ally well.” Sen. John Mc­Cain, who ne­go­ti­ated the VA deal with Sanders after Sen. Richard Burr, then the rank­ing mem­ber on the Vet­er­ans Com­mit­tee, said he couldn’t get any fur­ther in the ne­go­ti­ations with Sanders, gave the in­de­pend­ent high praise, not­ing that “his word is good.” But he ac­know­ledged that Sanders can be can­tan­ker­ous, adding with a laugh: “Both of us have that repu­ta­tion.” “We worked very, um — with a lot of con­ten­tion and a lot of spir­ited de­bate. We were able to come to an agree­ment be­cause both of us wanted an agree­ment. And I found him to be hon­or­able and good as his word. And his word was good. So I found it a very sat­is­fact­ory and some­times, shall I say, col­or­ful ex­per­i­ence,” Mc­Cain said.



cont'

http://www.nationaljournal.com/s/71225/bernie-sanders-is-loud-stubborn-socialist-republicans-like-him-anyway

[daleanime]

1. K&R.....

[Segami]

2. Bernie's popularity

crosses ALL party lines. So many republican voters who've attended Bernie's 'Feel The Bern' rallies have admitted, overall, they like what they hear from him.

In a general election, Bernie versus ANY of the nominated republican clown candidates one-on-one, would mop the floor with them.

[phantom power]

3. People like a fighter. It's funny this is a surprise.

[azmom]

4. K&R

[Spitfire of ATJ]

5. I keep saying that talking about expanding Social Security is a winner....

Especially since we just heard there was no COLA again.

[sabrina 1]

6. He doesn't reach across the aisle with the people's money SS eg, 'on the table'. He reaches across

and HE makes it clear, 'this is what is possible' but 'don't even think about this'.

He doesn't start out with a compromise then go downhill from their.

He lets them know what he wants and then looks at what compromises THEY are willing to make.

[winter is coming]

7. Makes sense. We like the "socialist" part, they like the "loud, stubborn" part. n/t

[Uncle Joe]

8. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, Segami.

[JonLeibowitz]

9. Kick

This is important to see.