Whether you like it or not, presidential politics is overwhelmingly determined on image - not substance. We already know Bernie Sanders has substance. What remains to be seen is whether he can translate the substance of his views into a larger, shallower, more broadly-applicable image that convinces people who don't know very much that he is their candidate.

If he is serious, then learning how to be shallow will be the subject of his study for the campaign. If his only intent is to "steer the debate," then he will fail: Hillary Clinton will not learn anything, no matter what. She has proven that too many times over now. She learns nothing. At most he would make her use some unfamiliar vocabulary for a while before reverting to form. So I hope that his candidacy is serious - that he intends to be President of the United States.

If so, he needs to quickly start learning how not to be so genuine. How to instead spread his substance more thinly, into more shallow threads that normal, uninformed people can relate to. That is the reality of politics in this country. If he plays the self-gratifying game of running the campaign he wants rather than the campaign we need, then nothing will happen. He will be just another lightweight in a long list of them.

Bernie, be the candidate we need. Whatever you've been before, whatever you want to be, forget that and be what we need. Don't be another lightweight making symbolic points. Fight so hard and so deeply you sicken yourself. Let people into your campaign whose soulless mercenary hearts make you sick.

This is what it is. Don't be our ennobling loss. Rise to the day. You're all we've got. Don't repeat the stupidities of history, and don't embarrass us by being a new Ralph Nader.

Win. That is all we require of you.

Pending any unexpected candidacy announcements, I will support Bernie in the primaries. His ideas are our ideas, even though thus far I see little reason for hope in his candidacy.

I might hesitate if I had any confidence whatsoever in Hillary's ability to win a general election, but I see how she operates and it's sickeningly defensive.

Every time I think she's learned something, she proves otherwise and does "that thing" again - putting out some press release belittling Obama because she once again believes she needs (or can possibly get) Republican approval.

It's also goddamn infuriating to me. In my view, Barack Obama is one of the best Presidents we've ever had - and I'm pretty certain that's how all history not written by Texas textbook committees will see it too. But Hillary doesn't get that. She doesn't see more than two millimeters in front of her face. That's why she voted for the Iraq War. It's why she does everything she does.

So the two main official candidates at the moment are this person who doesn't know how to lead, but refuses to follow or get out of the way, and whose perfect-world outcome is some razor-thin margin of victory with no mandate or coattails based entirely on the public rejecting the Republican rather than opting her way; and someone who does lead, consistently, at least in speeches, but probably is not (yet) adept at anything other than making good points - which, sadly, is only about 10% of politics even under the best of circumstances (the rest is image and knowing how to choose people).

I hope that Bernie Sanders takes the opportunity of his candidacy seriously enough to learn the other 90% of presidential politics, quickly, on the off chance that we choose wisely rather than (like 2004) failing due to fear of failing.

Still, I want more people running. It's not good for the health of the party to always be so certain of who's on the ticket.

Vladimir Putin loves to preemptively dispel comparisons of his regime with Hitler by constantly calling his enemies "fascists," but it seems literal fascist political parties are a source of strong support for him outside of Russia.

In particular, evidence has emerged that the Kremlin has been collaborating with the far-right French National Front to cultivate support for Russia's territorial claim over Crimea, and attempts to legitimize its invasion and annexation of the peninsula contrary to international law, UN-recognized sovereignty, and treaties signed by Russia explicitly recognizing Ukraine's ownership.

"French media site Mediapart has reported that hackers have leaked thousands of texts and emails sent between the Kremlin and the French far-right party, the National Front.

According to French newspaper Le Monde, the hackers posted the messages on their website and many of the texts discuss Marine Le Pen, the leader of the National Front, and her support for the annexation of the Crimean peninsula, which occurred in March 2014."

http://www.newsweek.com/hackers-claim-leak-messages-between-kremlin-and-frances-front-national-319442

Interesting company you're keeping there, Herr Putler.

will the fauxgressives who have mocked Obama's Nobel Peace Prize finally admit he deserves it?

Personally I don't have such amnesia about this country or the world that I think that was ever in question, given the level of positive change he achieved just by getting elected, let alone how he has rebuilt global diplomacy from the ashes of Bushian fascism.

But a nuclear agreement with Iran that stands the test of time would be a nice cherry on the sundae of his achievements, and the disgrace of those who hold him in contempt from the left.

Just after 9pm each day, a long line of workers files out of 55 Savushkina Street, a modern four-storey office complex with a small sign outside that reads “Business centre”. Having spent 12 hours in the building, the workers are replaced by another large group, who will work through the night.

The nondescript building has been identified as the headquarters of Russia’s “troll army”, where hundreds of paid bloggers work round the clock to flood Russian internet forums, social networks and the comments sections of western publications with remarks praising the president, Vladimir Putin, and raging at the depravity and injustice of the west.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/02/putin-kremlin-inside-russian-troll-house

Shocking, right? Even DU has at times felt the slimy touch of that Lie Machine, not that it profited them anything. What surprises me is that the Putin regime still wastes time and money on such transparent garbage. It must be the mind-warping effects of being an isolated dictator surrounded by sycophants and a country he already succeeded in cutting off from the world.

Who does he think is being persuaded by that nonsense - bad-grammar-filled ideological rants praising someone everyone outside of Russia loathes and demonizing pretty much every country on Earth other than Russia. The article mentions that it's mostly older Russians who are deceived due to lack of familiarity with the internet, but Putin is in trouble if that's his political foundation. Moreover, all he's succeeded in doing outside of Russia's borders is reminding everyone what a psychopath he is.

It would be laughable if weren't also so unbelievably insulting, not to mention a desecration of the free speech enabled by the internet. It's as if people like that just can't help themselves - they absolutely have to shit on everything that's benign in the world, sabotage and corrupt every possible source of human enrichment.

The internet is a pretty silly place a lot of the time, but individually-motivated trolls are merely a spice on an otherwise nourishing resource. But this kind of nationally-organized and funded troll army is an attack on the fundamental purpose of the internet, and all who believe in it.