It is not Secretary Clinton's credibility on social issues that many Democrats

[BainsBane]

25. Whomever you decide to support for president

I hope you give some thought to what is an artificial distinction between social and economic issues. Lefitshbrit explained it very well here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=6537286

Some of us genuinely detest the fact that wealthy oligarchs and wealthy private interests have so much control over our government. Oligarchs who very obviously use their wealth to subvert our democratic ability to govern ourselves.

I agree entirely with that view. However, where I diverge from you is in the assumption that the power of capital rests on an individual candidate. It is in fact systemic: on one hand it is the nature of the capitalist state, but it has also worsened and become more obvious due to recent supreme court decisions laying naked the cash nexus.

This is not an unreasonable expectation of any Democratic presidential candidate, or Democratic president, and any Democrat who believes that this is an unreasonable expectation may want to consider that oligarchy is exactly what the republican party is fully committed to preserving.

I wish that were so. However, my background as historian tells me that the state has always served the interests of capital. Even FDR, whom you favorably quote, was the savior of capitalism because he cobbled together enough band-aids on the system to ward of incipient revolution. It's important to understand that FDR implemented the New Deal in the face of widespread social movements that threatened to bring down the capitalism economy. That is what he sought to prevent. In that way, it was the unemployed people's movements, the farmers, the veterans, and countless other groups of ordinary Americans who truly made the New Deal. A modern-day New Deal would require a similar degree of activism. "Expecting" Democrats to deliver is a fool's errand. Entrenched interests never willingly yield ground. They must be forced to act. The history of social movements shows that has always been the case.