Bernie Sanders Faces Feisty Democratic Challenger

[Ken Burch]

308. That comparison wouldn't work. Neither Fillmore nor Pierce were independents.

Fillmore was a Whig and Pierce was a Dem.

We're not going to see a straight race between a D and an I anywhere, anyway.

What matters is that I wouldn't ever argue for voting for an I against a D in a race where such a vote would threw the race to an R.

Strom Thurmond represents a political sensibility that existed within living memory.

I'll update that a generation later:

If George Wallace had somehow won the Democratic presidential nomination in 1972, would anybody here vote for him on the argument that he was the Democratic nominee and that was all that mattered?

Here is my larger point...there have to be SOME hard rightward limits on what Democratic voters and activists should be made to accept from whoever happens to be a Democratic nominee for any office...there needs to be some ABSOLUTE point past which a Democratic nominee. There needs to be some issues that such a nominee must, unquestioningly must, keep faith with progressive values in order to be considered a Democrat at all. If not, we will inevitably end up reducing our purpose to seeking power for power's sake-and when we reach that point, we will be morally unworthy of holding power and have no further reason to exist as a party. We will then be a collection of would-be officeholders and nothing more at all.

Does anyone disagree with that what I said in that last paragraph?