OK, Bernie, I give up. [View all]

[Admiral Loinpresser]

I have looked at three presidential hopefuls for 2016: 1) Elizabeth Warren; 2) Martin O’Malley; and 3) Bernie Sanders (Hillary is right out for obvious reasons if you research fracking, TPP, Wall Street coziness and the Iraq War Resolution for starters). The first three potential candidates are acceptable to me even though each one has warts (as does every politician I have ever studied).

Elizabeth Warren is not running and I do not believe the American electorate is sophisticated enough to respond to a draft movement. Martin O’Malley is running and has the potential to be a great president. I gravitated toward him a couple of months ago and considered supporting him for the long haul, but his decision to wait to declare at the end of May was a strategic blunder. Bernie Sanders has gained momentum since entering the race and is starting to garner some positive press.

Initially I shied away from Bernie because I believed in the political “expert” perspective: Sanders cannot win the nomination and even if he could, he couldn’t win the general election. Here is my list of original reasons for rejection and my current thinking:
1) He’s old;
2) He’s funny looking and has a funny accent;
3) He’s Jewish;
4) He’s not the right physical type for the TV age; and
5) His socialist ideas are too radical.

Bernie is 73 years old, so he’s no spring chicken. Reagan was 69 when he first ran. Bernie is much more vigorous than Reagan and in terms of gerontological progress, the age of 74 today is perhaps relatively younger than 69 in 1980, when Reagan was running.

Bernie sounds and looks funny to many people I suppose, but I don’t think that is a show stopper for being taken seriously. Ross Perot sounded and looked much funnier than Bernie, but until Perot started acting crazy in the 1992 campaign, it seemed likely that he would win the election (he was ahead in the polls until his meltdown).

He is Jewish, but after a black president and viable women candidates, is this a big deal? I don’t think so.

In anthropological terms, Bernie may be what’s called an endomorph. He doesn’t look like the mesomorphs commonly elected (e.g. Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama). However George W. Bush is a little short by presidential standards, and also see the comments above about Ross Perot.

So it all comes down to his “radical” political beliefs. Bernie is a self-described social democrat, favoring the policies of Scandanavian countries. What’s radical about it is that it is largely the way American policies were headed before Ronald Reagan. Northern Europe provides college education for whoever wants it, without any cost. Everyone is guaranteed adequate food, clothing and shelter. Medical care is free. They can do this because they do not try to police the world and the rich and corporations are required to pay their fair share.

Except for health care, America did most of this before Reagan and still had enough wealth left over to engage in a very expensive cold war. Scandanavian health care costs less than half per capita compared to American health care. They insure everybody, while we have tens of thousands who die every year because of a lack of health care. His radical idea is to tax the rich and return to the values which gave America the largest, most robust middle class in the world.

Bernie’s other radical idea is that he believes in science. Scientists tell us climate change is our greatest threat and we need to get serious about it.

Bernie is gaining momentum because he is telling the truth and people are listening to him, another old-fashioned, radical idea. They are not reacting to his “image.” He walks the talk. He has fought his whole life for the 99%. Because of Reagan and the morons who have followed him, wealth inequality is at its worst level in history, rivaled only by the end of the Gilded Age. Americans have become “radical” because they have been layed off, pensions lost, homes foreclosed and no way to send kids to college. Meanwhile bankers not only don’t go to prison, their profits are bigger than ever. The American people have had enough and so have I. OK, Bernie, that’s it. I’m in.