The Nation: "Start Making Sense: Why We’ve Endorsed Bernie Sanders"

Link to "Start Making Sense: Why We’ve Endorsed Bernie Sanders" (access podcast at link).

Here is an excerpt from the original endorsement:

A year ago, concerned that ordinary citizens would be locked out of the presidential nominating process, The Nation argued that a vigorously contested primary would be good for the candidates, for the Democratic Party, and for democracy. Two months later, Senator Bernie Sanders formally launched a campaign that has already transformed the politics of the 2016 presidential race. Galvanized by his demands for economic and social justice, hundreds of thousands of Americans have packed his rallies, and over 1 million small donors have helped his campaign shatter fund-raising records while breaking the stranglehold of corporate money. Sanders’s clarion call for fundamental reform—single-payer healthcare, tuition-free college, a $15-an-hour minimum wage, the breaking up of the big banks, ensuring that the rich pay their fair share of taxes—have inspired working people across the country. His bold response to the climate crisis has attracted legions of young voters, and his foreign policy, which emphasizes diplomacy over regime change, speaks powerfully to war-weary citizens. Most important, Sanders has used his insurgent campaign to tell Americans the truth about the challenges that confront us. He has summoned the people to a “political revolution,” arguing that the changes our country so desperately needs can only happen when we wrest our democracy from the corrupt grip of Wall Street bankers and billionaires.

We believe such a revolution is not only possible but necessary—and that’s why we’re endorsing Bernie Sanders for president. This magazine rarely makes endorsements in the Democratic primary (we’ve done so only twice: for Jesse Jackson in 1988, and for Barack Obama in 2008). We do so now impelled by the awareness that our rigged system works for the few and not for the many. Americans are waking up to this reality, and they are demanding change. This understanding animates both the Republican and Democratic primaries, though it has taken those two contests in fundamentally different directions.

At the core of this crisis is inequality, both economic and political. The United States has become a plutocracy—one in which, as Sanders puts it, “we not only have massive wealth and income inequality, but a power structure which protects that inequality.” America’s middle class has melted away, while the gap between rich and poor has reached Gilded Age extremes. The recovery that followed the 2008 economic collapse has not been shared. Indeed, in the United States it seems that nothing is shared these days—not prosperity, nor security, nor even responsibility. While millions of Americans grapple with the consequences of catastrophic climate change, fossil-fuel companies promote climate skeptics so that they can continue to profit from the planet’s destruction. While Americans have tired of endless war, the military-industrial complex and its cheerleaders continue to champion the reckless interventions that have drained our country, damaged our reputation abroad, and created a perfect storm of Pentagon waste, fraud, and abuse. While Americans of every ideological stripe recognize the need for criminal-justice reform, African-American men, women, and children continue to be gunned down by police officers on the streets, and mass incarceration continues largely unabated.

Americans are fed up and fighting back. Seen in isolation, the Fight for $15, Black Lives Matter, the climate-justice movement, the immigrant-rights movement, the campaign for a financial-transactions tax, and the renewed push for single-payer healthcare may seem like unrelated causes. Taken together, they form a rising chorus of outrage over a government that caters to the demands of the super-wealthy, while failing to meet the needs of the many. They share a fury at a politics captured by special interests and big money, where pervasive corruption mocks the very notion of democracy.

Senator Sanders alone has the potential to unite the movements emerging across the country.

UPDATED: CNN is a live poll; Gravis and KBUR/Monmouth polling uses the controversial robo-call

polling methodology that has a huge in-house pro-Trump and pro-Clinton effect (I have not seen a convincing explanation for this, but the effect is well documented).

This explains why you see CNN polling that shows Sanders leads in Iowa and New Hampshire with contemporaneous polls from Gravis and Monmouth that show Clinton ahead in Iowa and a tighter race in New Hampshire.

If you do nothing other than exclude robo-call polls from the Pollster aggregator, Sanders is ahead in Iowa and Sanders is comfortably up by double-digits in New Hampshire:





It does Clinton no favors to set her expectations in Iowa based on robo-call polls because, historically, falling short of expectations is almost worse than losing in Iowa.

Two Predictions for Monday's Iowa forum: 1st -- Clinton will sound like a Republican on all issues

except 2nd Amendment rights in a transparent effort to cast Sanders as "out-of-the-mainstream" and "unrealistic" in his goals for America;

2nd -- this tactic will backfire on February 1.



It remains true that Clinton is the favorite and Sanders is the underdog. Yet Clinton appears to be doing everything in her power to help Sanders change that dynamic.

If Clinton's campaign was smart, they would stop attacking Sanders and his agenda and simply focus on why they believe their agenda is better for America. If it is true that "Bernie is too liberal" as all of the Clinton surrogates are being programmed to say this cycle, then Clinton should win a straight up debate on the issues and the added benefit to Clinton is that these debates would position her as a relative moderate going into a general election against whichever right-wing nutjob the Republicans nominate.

This debate on the issues is Clinton's pathway to victory. It is also Sanders' pathway to victory (the only difference being that Sanders is betting against the Clinton position that he is too liberal for America).

Such a debate on the issues is also best for the Democratic party in the general election no matter which candidate wins the nomination.

Bob Dole Warns of ‘Cataclysmic’ Losses With Ted Cruz, and Says Donald Trump Would Do Better

Source: New York Times

Bob Dole, the former Kansas senator and 1996 Republican presidential nominee, has never been fond of Senator Ted Cruz of Texas. But in an interview Wednesday, Mr. Dole said that the party would suffer “cataclysmic” and “wholesale losses” if Mr. Cruz was the nominee, and that Donald J. Trump would fare better.... “I don’t know how often you’ve heard him say the word ‘Republican’ — not very often.” Instead, Mr. Cruz uses the word “conservative,” Mr. Dole said, before offering up a different word for Mr. Cruz: “extremist.”

“I don’t know how he’s going to deal with Congress,” he said. “Nobody likes him.”... The remarks by Mr. Dole reflect wider unease with Mr. Cruz among members of the Republican establishment, but few leading members of the party have been as candid and cutting.

“If he’s the nominee, we’re going to have wholesale losses in Congress and state offices and governors and legislatures,” said Mr. Dole, who served in the House and Senate for 35 years and won the Iowa caucuses twice. He described Mr. Cruz as having falsely “convinced the Iowa voters that he’s kind of a mainstream conservative.”... He said he had met Mr. Trump only once, 30 years ago. “But he has toned down his rhetoric,” he added. As for Mr. Cruz, he said: “There’ll be wholesale losses if he’s the nominee. Our party is not that far right... We are conservatives, we are traditional Republican conservatives. And then, of course, he doesn’t have any friends in Congress. He called the leader of the Republicans a liar on the Senate floor.”... Mr. Dole’s comments came a day after the governor of Iowa, Terry E. Branstad, said in an interview that Mr. Cruz’s opposition to federal ethanol mandates would erode his lead in polls heading into the state’s caucuses on Feb. 1.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2016/01/20/bob-dole-warns-of-cataclysmic-losses-with-ted-cruz-and-says-donald-trump-would-do-better/?_r=0

Clinton's foreign policy is 'troubling', says everyone who wants to avoid the next war over oil

Huffington Post: "CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES"

I know that this story has been broken elsewhere, but you have to love the front page headline CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES:

Hillary sounds like the most reasonable Republican running for president

You'd think she was debating with the goal of locking up the endorsement of the chamber of commerce.

Bernie Sanders calls on Michigan’s governor to resign over water contamination in Flint

Source: Washington Post

CHARLESTON, S.C. -- Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders on Saturday called for Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) to resign amid mounting criticism of his administration’s slow response to a crisis over lead contamination in Flint’s drinking water.

“There are no excuses,” Sanders said in the statement. “The governor long ago knew about the lead in Flint's water. He did nothing. As a result, hundreds of children were poisoned. Thousands may have been exposed to potential brain damage from lead."

The statement came as the senator from Vermont prepared for a full weekend of political events in South Carolina, including a high-stakes debate Sunday night with former secretary of state Hillary Clinton and former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley.

...

“The people of Flint deserve more than an apology," Sanders said.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/01/16/bernie-sanders-calls-on-michigans-governor-to-resign-over-water-contamination-in-flint/

If Hillary is the nominee, will the people excited about electing the first Jewish prez stay home?

I don't think so.

Nor do I think that people excited about electing first female president will stay home if Sanders is the nominee.

I do, however, think Clinton would draw a historically low number of independent votes and crossover Republican votes and, as a result, would lose against Rubio and (maybe) Cruz.

Sanders would draw more independent votes and crossover Republican votes and would win.

Today's good polling in Iowa - Sanders 45%, Clinton 48%, O'Malley 5%

Today's NBC poll is a live cell/landline poll of likely voters.

The overall numbers are good (showing Sanders within 3%) and the trend from the last NBC poll in Iowa is also good:



NBC has not been very active in Iowa so it may be useful to add in the Iowa polling by Quinnipiac (which also uses live cell/landline poll of likely voters and has done the most live phone polling in Iowa) and the Iowa polling by the Des Moines Register (which also uses live cell/landline poll of likely voters and has the best record for accuracy):



The trend still looks very good.

This is really a nice follow up to yesterday's massive polling result in New Hampshire - Sanders 50%, Clinton 37%, O'Malley 3%

A poll is not a vote so we need to keep on working, but this is a good report card for the campaign which tells us we are on the right track.

KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!