TIME Newsmaker Interview: Bernie Sanders Says He’d Make a Better President Than Hillary Clinton

[BeyondGeography]

100. I agree...And this is how discussions get pear-shaped around here

I was responding to a post that suggested being in Congress says something about being able to handle the stress of the presidency. It doesn't.

Obama's evident character and temperament gave many people the comfort level that he could handle the pressures of White House, much more than the fact that he had served in the Senate. On that score, you have to give his supporters high marks for prescience. Obama had also been through the ringer of Illinois state politics, which obviously prepared him (some might say over-prepared) to not make the perfect the enemy of the good.

Sanders has all the integrity in the world and is no shrinking violet when criticized, but I don't look at him as someone who would naturally reconcile himself to dealing with the nihilistic opposition he would face as President, not to mention the back stabbing he would receive from his own party, who would stick it to the old socialist from Vermont from the get-go. Not many people could, in fact. On that score, I would give battle-hardened/scarred Hillary the edge. A big edge, in fact, especially when you consider the forces she could marshall in her favor, compared with someone whose national constituency doesn't reach far beyond these keyboards we are pounding away at.