Hill's Group: What really shaped Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders [View all]

[BlueMTexpat]

This is, on balance, a good article about BOTH candidates. But I will only post in this group because I will not put up with the mud-slinging against HRC that is the rule in GD-P or risk having it characterized as a "hit piece" against Bernie (it's not). Some of you are better persons than I and dare to do such things.

For me, life is just too short to put up with the cr** even though I still probably wouldn't see much because I already have most of the worst offenders on Ignore.

http://theweek.com/articles/611892/what-really-shaped-hillary-clinton-bernie-sanders

Let's start with Sanders. He grew up and came of age in Brooklyn, and was a student activist in college. But the most important decision he made in his political life was his move to Vermont in his 20s. A state that is both firmly liberal and almost entirely white allowed Sanders to build a political career without having to alter the radical politics he came to as a young man. He stayed an independent until his run for president, and was able to become mayor of Burlington, a member of the House, and then a senator, without being too concerned about the kind of coalitional, transactional politics that characterize the Democratic Party in most other places.

That's why the Bernie Sanders of today isn't that different from the Bernie Sanders of 20 or 30 years ago. And it's why he has stumbled from time to time in dealing with some of the party's main constituency groups, like African-Americans and Latinos, sometimes saying the wrong thing at the wrong time — not because he doesn't sympathize with them and share their goals, but because he isn't practiced at working with them.
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Clinton, on the other hand, began her career in her husband's home state of Arkansas, which contains lots of African-Americans and lots of conservative whites, both of whom Bill was adept at appealing to. From the beginning, she was deeply embedded in the Democratic Party and had national ambitions. At what point they became ambitions for herself as well as for her husband, I really can't say, but they were both always aware of where the party as a whole was and where it was headed. She then spent eight years as the wife of the party's leader and another eight representing New York, which is both incredibly diverse and a place where the party is a complex collection of characters, groups, and interests that have to be balanced.

That means that Clinton has had a lot more practice at handling the Democratic Party's constituencies than Sanders has, coming from his rather bucolic northern home. It also means that unlike Sanders, Clinton had to move as the party's consensus moved, sometimes in small ways but sometimes in larger ways.