The Test of Leadership as Sanders Rolls in Oregon

[eridani]

http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/05/18/test-leadership-sanders-rolls-oregon

But Sanders was careful in his victory lap not to claim that he will win the nomination. He acknowledged the “steep, steep climb” to be able to win even a majority of pledged delegates, which is increasingly improbable. He scoured Trump, and repeated his pledge to do everything possible to ensure his defeat.

The Clinton campaign does the math, wants to claim a victory not yet won, and turn its attention to Trump. But it will have more than enough time – too much time, in fact – for what is shaping up to be a brutal negative campaign, contrasting Trump’s puerile antics with Clinton’s ponderous argument of wizened experience and competence.

Sanders is speaking to real pain in the country. He is rousing young voters, showing them that there is an alternative, that America is not limited to a choice between unbridled and increasingly unhinged reaction and incremental politics as usual. Scorned as a “fantasist,” his platform revives a Roosevelt New Deal politics and policy that the Democrats once championed with pride.

That Sanders is continuing to win primaries, even after the entire mainstream media has counted him out and turned its attention to the Trump-Clinton face-off, is a clear testament to the power of his message and the passions that it evokes. Were Sanders to stand down suddenly, he would be doing a disservice not only to his cause, but also to Democrats and to Clinton. He is generating energy and interest that would otherwise be sorely lacking.

No one likes a sore loser, but the harder task in politics is to avoid being a sore winner. Clinton is clearly embarrassed by her inability to put away the challenge of a septuagenarian socialist. The campaign has to be worried about her weakness among young and independent voters, as well as among white men. It now has to be haunted by the prospect of demonstrations outside and inside the hall in Philadelphia. Clinton has unhappily countered the Sanders surge by becoming more a status quo candidate, wrapping herself around President Obama, arguing that she has the unique experience to produce the “incremental” change that is all that is possible. Competence is a weak counter to the bellow of rage, insult and P.T. Barnum that is the Trump candidacy, particularly with voters yearning for change.

[highprincipleswork]

1. So campaign as a Progressive, and welcome us with open arms - that is the answer.

[LiberalElite]

2. The solution is staring her in the face and she won't do it - WHERE'S THE TRANSCRIPTS, HILL? nt