Attorney in Texas
Attorney in Texas's JournalClinton team looking for a VP who will be fighter, excite Sanders supporters
Source: USA Today
Hillary Clinton is considering a running mate who could make a direct appeal to supporters of Bernie Sanders, bridging a generational and political divide, according to four people close to the campaign.... The campaign’s vetting also prioritizes demographics over someone from a key swing state as she seeks to unify the Democratic voting base, said the individuals coordinating with the campaign, who were not authorized to speak on the record about early deliberations.... One obvious candidate who would fit the Sanders anti-Wall Street populist profile is Elizabeth Warren, the Massachusetts senator who’s been in a Twitter war with Republican Donald Trump. Her tweetstorm during the past week shows she’s capable of being the kind of scrappy surrogate Clinton needs to take him on.... If Warren is not the pick, the hope is to choose someone who would both appeal to a younger demographic of the party that is identifying as independent and to the left of Clinton.
“We’re no longer playing the Bill Clinton-era win-the-middle, win-the-Reagan-Democrats presidential election politics,” said Jamal Simmons, a Democratic strategist who worked in Bill Clinton’s administration. “People have gone to their corners, and you’re wearing a red jersey or a blue jersey. The question is, can you get enough blue jerseys to show up? That’s your first test.”
“I don’t think she’s going to pick anybody who isn’t progressive,” said Bob Shrum, who has served as a senior aide to Democratic presidential candidates Al Gore and John Kerry. ...Others who may be interested include:
-- Rep. Xavier Becerra, the highest-ranking Latino in Congress and House Democratic Caucus Chairman, campaigned for Clinton in a dozen states and is a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
-- Sen. Chris Murphy, of Connecticut, billed himself during his campaign as a "fresh, progressive voice."
-- Labor Secretary Tom Perez is popular with labor unions and spent years working on voting and civil rights issues.
Read more: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/05/15/hillary-clinton-running-mate-democrat-vice-president/84288814/
I'm still hopeful of Sanders' performance in the remaining contests, but if it is Hillary, please don't pick a 2016 version of Joe Lieberman. Please show that you have learned from the Carter-Reagan, Gore-Bush, and Kerry-Bush campaign fiascoes.
Bernie Sanders Is Already President Of Liberals and Populists
Link to Bernie Sanders Is Already President: Of Liberals and Populists | Because of Sanders a great progressive movement is rising; excerpt:
Against this tide of progressive populism is the counter-revolution of the political establishment, the Wall Street and financial establishments, and the corporate-owned media establishment. ... The winner of the public battle of ideas in this historic battle that has only begun is the Democratic candidate for president who, according to the average of all polling on Real Clear Politics, would defeat Mr. Trump by an average of 13 percent—and who runs significantly stronger than Hillary Clinton against all candidates in match-up polling. That candidate is Mr. Sanders... When the television cameras scan across the floor of the Democratic convention viewers will see a huge number of Sanders delegates who will be cheering wildly for their champion and for other progressive leaders who will be addressing the convention, and challenging the Democratic Party to enact a platform that stands for the things that Democrats are supposed to stand for.
...
In another sense Mr. Sanders has already become the president. He may not be inaugurated in January 2017 as president of the United States, but he has already been inaugurated by the people as the president of the progressives, the president of the populists, and the president of men and women who believe politics should be an honorable profession of ideas and ideals and not a get-rich-quick scheme for greedy and selfish insiders! ... When Mr. Sanders make his case against Mr. Trump at the convention and beyond he will have a moral and political credibility unmatched in American political life.
When Mr. Sanders takes his case to the people in November on behalf of the issues and ideas and values and candidates whose visions and dreams he shares he will be the single most powerful voice on the American political stage.
When Mr. Sanders continues his quest for the revolution he seeks in 2017, and 2018 and beyond, he will mobilize even more people to great causes worthy of the battle that will never end until our country becomes everything it can be.... Think about this: the more Mr. Sanders campaigns the more progressive Ms. Clinton becomes. And the stronger Ms. Clinton appears the more Mr. Trump will move left of where he was the day before, which is why he is already showing signs of backing off his plan to bar all Muslims from entering the United States.
Do you agree or disagree that Hillary Clinton is honest and truthful?
As of May 10, 2016, more than three times as may people find Hillary dishonest and untruthful as find her to be honest.
Do you agree or disagree that Hillary Clinton is honest and truthful?
Disagree 62.1%
Agree 20.3%
Sanders: We're 'fighting for the soul of the Democratic Party'
link to Sanders: We're 'fighting for the soul of the Democratic Party'; excerpt:
“We’re also fighting for the soul of the Democratic Party, whether the Democratic Party remains dependent on Wall Street contributions or whether we move in the direction" of the Sanders campaign, he said Wednesday evening on WABC Radio's "Election Central with Rita Cosby," touting his more than 7 million individual contributions.
Members of Democratic establishment, he said, are "not enthusiastic about my candidacy and are certainly not overjoyed by the fact that we have now won 19 states and are poised to win even more."... Sanders remarked upon "a philosophical difference of opinion, a strong difference of opinion" within the party as its superdelegates decide between him and Clinton. "Do we fight for working families, do we work with working families, do we bring them into the Democratic Party or do we remain more dependent than we should on big-money interests?” he said.
Hillary demanded a Secretary of State appointment in exchange for calling off her PUMAs.
Sanders is not making any similar demand.
If Hillary is nominated, party unity should not be hard to achieve for three reasons:
1. Party rules and platform issues mean a lot to Sanders and his supporters. I have not ever run across a single Hillary supporter who has said "I LOVE the super delegate process for installing a wall of lobbyists to keep grassroots Democrats out of the nomination process," and I have not heard anyone say, "wow, if I didn't already love Debbie Wasserman Schultz for her passionate support of America's vital payday-loan industry, I'd still want her running the show because a smaller Democratic party with fewer elected officials is SO much easier to manage!" Likewise, I think I'll puke if I hear Hillary say I'm in "vigorous agreement with Senator Sanders on this issue" one more time. Let's document all of these vigorous agreements in out platform and adopt a plan that more Democrats are proud to stand upon. If fixing the party rules and platform ares good for the party and important to Sanders and his supporters and not a thing that Hillary and her supporters oppose, that is an easy compromise.
2. We all benefit from re-taking the Senate. Hillary is not universally liked, and her appeal is weakest in many states where Sanders did very well and there are key Senate battles looming. Key races include Colorado, New Hampshire, and Wisconsin where Sanders is beloved and they are not Hillary friendly (these are also important battleground states). Sanders also has a different, but comparably strong, base of supporters in Illinois and Missouri and Nevada and Ohio, venues for four more key senate races. Hillary should do what she can with the party rules and platform to make it easy for Sanders to motivate his supporters in these key eight senate races to feel the Bern for our Democratic candidates. If our platform sucks, if our top-of-the-ballot candidates include no one to excite independents and millennial Democrats, if the rules of the Democratic Party are not even remotely democratic, Sanders job of motivating his supporters down ballot is much tougher (and maybe unachievable). Put Sanders to work in those eight states AND MAKE HIS JOB EASIER.
3. A progressive running mate will help in the general election and would help Sanders get his supporters to support the ticket. Gore-Lieberman, The Sequel will not sell. Consider John Hickenlooper. Consider Elizabeth Warren. Consider Tulsi Gabbard (the ultimate party unity choice). Avoid picking some centrist white male just because he comes from a swing state. Please.
Can we agree that the Deep South is a unique region within our country and shares many issues?
The Old South is an important but unique part of America, and some people nevertheless seem to balk at the idea that the states of the Old South tend to operate more or less as a solid voting block.
Don't we agree that the Old South is a fairly unique region religiously:
Don't we agree that the Old South is a fairly unique region in its slowness to accept LGBT equality (possibly because of its religious uniqueness):
Don't we agree that the Old South is a fairly unique region in its reluctance to acknowledge collective bargaining rights:
Don't we agree that the Old South is a fairly unique region both in terms of its historical approach to education and it current approach:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PevJxpViUcE/U2mmb0OzPYI/AAAAAAAAHCU/0aWhygBX5gk/s1600/high+school+graduation+rates.png
Don't we agree that the Old South is a fairly unique region in terms of its poor access to health care and poor transportation to health care facilities and resulting obesity and diabetes and teen pregnancy:
http://notunlikeresearch.typepad.com/.a/6a0133f1fb8812970b014e89d296b1970d-pi
If we do not agree that the Old South is a unique region with special gifts and special needs, we are fooling ourselves.
We need to address the Old South as a political region that has unique strengths and unique requirements, but we also need to accept that political ideas that are suited to the Deep South will not necessarily carry the same weight outside of the Deep South:
Hillary is beloved regionally and a close 2nd choice outside her region. How to broaden her appeal
In the 13 states of the Old South, Hillary is beloved. She has swept 12 of the 13 Old South states (Kentucky hasn't voted yet).
Hillary is not the favorite in the 47 states outside the Deep South.
Give Hillary credit where credit is due for big wins in 12 of those 13 states which are a good match for her conservative/centrist/Christian-church-going ideology and persona (they are also a noticeably bad match for a Jewish progressive candidate from New York). That is a real victory for Hillary that counts for about 20% of the country and no one should doubt Hillary's appeal in those Old South states.
But if Hillary was as well liked outside this region as she is loved within her region, the race would have ended long ago. We cannot forget to look at how Hillary does outside of the 13 states of the Deep South:
SANDERS HAS WON 18 STATES
New Hampshire
Colorado
Minnesota
Oklahoma
Vermon
Kansas
Nebraska
Maine
Michigan
Idaho
Utah
Alaska
Hawaii
Washington
Wisconsin
Wyoming
Rhode Island
Indiana
HILLARY HAS WON 12 STATES
Iowa
Nevada
Massachusetts
Illinois
Missouri
Ohio
Arizona
New York
Connecticut
Delaware
Maryland
Pennsylvania
If you look at the contest outside of the Old South, Sanders won 60% of the states, but if you add her 12 states in the Old South to her 12 states outside of the Old South -- as we all agree you MUST -- she's got over 55% of the states.
This is a regionally important factor (not a racial factor), and it is a significant data point to note that Hillary performs worse than Sanders outside of her region and whips his ass within her region.
Without her overwhelming support in the Deep South, Hillary is losing this race. This is an important thing to know.
If Sanders is our nominee, it would be important that he strengthen his support in the regions where he is weak and maybe not retool his campaign so much where he's pretty much already on fire.
It is equally important information if Hillary is the nominee because Hillary would need to be aware that she's not winning this race outside of her region and she should make adjustments to her campaign accordingly.
These are facts. Some Hillary supporters will try to force an artificial racial construct on these facts, but that's superfluous and, even if it weren't superfluous, it does not change the fact that Hillary is winning overall only because of her regional appeal in the Deep South. Hillary needs to know when she is trying to broaden her appeal, she's Democrats' second choice in almost half the states. It is not a racist thing to point this out; it's a demonstrable fact.
Given this fact, what does Hillary need to do to broaden her appeal outside of the Deep South if she is nominated? Three points:
1. Hillary needs to emphasize the progressive aspects of her campaign (her Old South region is the least progressive region within the US in terms of social issues such as LGBT acceptance, and far less progressive than the West, where she performs poorly as compared to Sanders).
2. Hillary needs to emphasize the populist aspects of her campaign (her Old South Region is the least accepting of collective bargaining rights and similar economic populist issues, and far less accepting of these issues than parts of the Mid-West and Rust Belt where she under-performed).
3. Hillary needs to consider a progressive, populist running-mate from the West, Mid-West, Rust Belt or North East if she is nominated.
“The economy is rigged. The banking system is rigged... you haven't had an effective wage increase"
“The economy is rigged. The banking system is rigged. There's a lot of things that are rigged in this world of ours, and that's why a lot of you haven't had an effective wage increase in 20 years, folks. And we're going to change it. We're going to change it. We're going to change it fast.”This is not a Sanders' quote -- this is a quote from Trump.
Hillary needs to take steps to make her campaign more responsive to the needs of those seeking economic fairness NOW or Trump WILL TAKE THOSE VOTES just like Reagan took those votes from Jimmy Carter.
I'm not talking about phony campaign rhetoric and empty promises that everyone sees through. That will not carry the day.
If she wants to win the nomination and the general election,
* Hillary needs to enlist Sanders' help (or Elizabeth Warren's help if she hasn't yet come to terms with the fact that she's lost about 45% of the party to the Sanders-Warren-FDR wing of FDR's party) in crafting the platform to embrace economic populism.
* Hillary needs to kick the lobbyists and payday-loan vultures out of the DNC and, if she can't bring herself to wield the axe, she ought to enlist Sanders' help in the process.
* Hillary needs to reform the Democratic Party rules literally designed to "protect" the nomination process from the grassroots Democrats by installing a bunch of lobbyists and other "superdelegates" to make the Democratic party less democratic, and if she does not want to be the person who returns the power from the lobbyists to the grassroots voters, she ought to enlist Sanders' help.
Hillary must not wait to the convention to re-tool.
Hillary is playing chess and Trump is playing checkers, and it has not yet been decided whether this is a chess match or a game of checkers.
Those independents, millennial Democrats, and economically downtrodden voters of all parties will be deciding whether the game is checkers or chess, and if Hillary cannot retool to increase her appeal beyond conservative and middle-aged-and-older Democrats, it won't matter if she wins the nomination and skates past the FBI investigation and numerous civil FOIA lawsuits.
If we nominate Hillary, we give up a huge advantage we'd have with independents; she's negative 42%
Just 20% of independents view Hillary positively, compared with 62% who view her negatively. These are historically bad numbers, and independents now outnumber both Republicans and Democrats (and almost outnumber Republicans plus Democrats) and so no candidate can win without appealing to independents.
Hillary's problem with independents is huge, but her bigger problem may be with the dis-empowered (of both parties) who see that the system is rigged against them and tilted in favor of the wealthiest Americans:
Many of these dis-empowered people (lots of whom are Democrats) do not prioritize immigration issues (either regarding the stupid fucking Mexican-border wall or the blatantly bigoted policies toward Muslims) or foreign militaristic issues (illegally interventionist against ISIL and otherwise neo-isolationist) and so they are not as troubled as you or me by Trump's buffoonish rhetoric on these topics.
The dis-empowered voters see the main issue of the campaign like this: the economy is broken and I am forgotten, and whatever else you might say about Trump and Hillary, he gets it and she doesn't.
When Hillary supporters say they do not see how any Democrats would find Trump's populist message tempting, they sound like the Carter Democrats who said the same thing about Reagan.
I do not disagree with those who say Hillary is the strong favorite to win the nomination and - if nominated - the general election is hers to lose. But if Hillary does not see the pathway to losing against Trump and persists in failing to work toward fixing her gaping weakness, she may be destined to achieving only the level of success that Jeb, and Rubio, and Cruz managed when they underestimated Trump.
John Kasich, Marco Rubio, Chris Christie, Rick Scott, Mary Fallin, Nikki Haley or Susana Martinez?
Is there anyone else on Trump's short-fingered short list?
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