Rilgin
Rilgin's JournalLet's be clear. If Hillary loses the General. The responsibility is on her primary voters
There has been ample evidence that she was and is a risk in the General Election to lose to a republican. No candidate is perfect but people (like me) have been warning that Hillary is a risk for a while now ever since she became a candidate again. Polls showed that she would or could have problems against moderate republicans.
She, we and the democratic party got very lucky that the Republican establishment was not able to get their disliked front running candidate (Trump) out of the race. We did the opposite. The democratic party insiders desperately wanted our front running establishment candidate with high unfavorables to win. We could have selected someone with better favorables and with less problems if the early process had not looked so locked up so we could have had other candidates. Biden seems similar to Hillary policy wise but does not have her baggage. If it really looked like an open primary we might have got Warren to run which would have united a lot of parts of the Democratic Party. However we did not. We seem to be left with Hillary.
Trump is the only candidate in history who has had higher unfavorables and net unfavorables than Hillary. If Hillary wins she will be very lucky that Trump is her opponent. However, it is not a foregone conclusion. She tends to have her unfavorables increase the longer she is showing publically. It will be difficult for her to change that especially if some of the foundation and email stuff explodes. It is not certain that Trump can not change his unfavorables somewhat since he seems more of an actor than a politician.
Turning solely to Hillary as a candidate.
Hillary has high unfavorables, generates little excitement in the young and energizes the republican base. She is very intelligent but has a long history of being surrounded by scandal both real and purely created by the Republican hit machine. However, she also brings some of the problems on herself with equivocating, flip flopping and lying as a candidate and has hidden her relationship with corporate america. Most people who plan to run for president do not solicit donations and big money from corporations that they hope to regulate in a few years. It is a problem to have a cozy and personally lucrative business relationship with wall street in a party that is suspicious of the role of wall street in our economy.
We, on the left side of the party, are really left to hope she is a good liberal and will protect social security, not flip flop back on the TPP, really support a more robust minimum wage. Her image is problematic and hated by republicans but some of her votes are distrusted by the left side of the democratic party. She voted for the Iraq War, supported Doma, the bankruptcy bill, cluster bombs. She introduced a bill on flag burning. These worry the leftists in her own party which is not a great place for a candidate who needs all people in her party to support her. Her relative inauthenticity and the war vote are two of the the reasons she lost in 2008 to a relative newbie to politics although one with great political gifts and has lost 45% of the primary to an older leftist senator.
All the people who advocated for her and voted for her in the primary bear the responsibility if she loses. If she loses do not try to shift responsibility to people who do not later vote for her. She is a candidate that against our advice you supported as our standard bearer. Hopefully she can win against trump. She would have a hard time if the Republicans could have nominated a better candidate but we got lucky. However if she loses you take responsibility for voting for her. Do not blame the people who thought she was a bad candidate and wanted someone else who polls say is a better candidate against the republicans.
You can start by taking responsibility now rather than setting it up so you will blame Bernie people, young people, leftists, people not voting You have told us that she is a candidate who can win. If she does not its on YOU.
Pursuing principled bills that pin Republicans to a position is one way Bernie will progress us
For some reason the Hillary supporters attacking Bernie think the world will stop or at least Obamacare will end if Bernie submits or has a congressperson propose a single payer system against Republican and corporate Democratic party opposition. I am not sure they know that just means that vote is defeated.
However, it has a lot of benefits. It causes media debate which fosters information. Further and more importantly it reassures the base of the Politicians beliefs and that the Politician is fighting for him and it pins down the opposition. In future elections it becomes an issue and a basis of support for the party. Single payer is supported by the American People. Putting it up and losing because the Republicans will vote against anything Bernie does in the first few years or maybe even in his whole first term is part of the process of building public support for a party and a movement.
Secondly, the Hillary supporters seem to think that if you put a vote up for a vote and it loses, you can never do it again. Bernie and the progressive democrats in congress can put it to a vote every week. This by itself has the same good results put up above.
If you think this is just words. Please note that this is exactly what happens in the Republican party. Not saying that their principles are correct but they have a much better understanding of long term strategy then the mushy centrists of the current Democratic Party leadership. Reagan did not come out of a vacuum. Republicans lost election after election but kept consistent messaging until they are in a position to enact what they want. In fact, when Reagan ran, he was considered a joke. Nixon lost multiple times till he won. Republicans have much better understanding of the valude of consistent messaging over time even though their principles are consistently wrong.
You can even see this now in Congress. There is a reason that the Republicans put a repeal Obamacare bill up to vote every few weeks and it was one of Ryan's first acts as speaker. It is NOT because they think it has any chance of success. They know even if passed, Obama would veto it. So why do they do it. Its because its valuable for the Republican base and the Hillary supporters clearly do not understand this when their main line of attack is that Bernie's programs will be opposed and clearly voted down by the current Republican Congress.
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Member since: Thu May 8, 2008, 03:38 PMNumber of posts: 787
