Question HRC's civil rights record:OK Question Sanders' civil rights record: Flamebait-shut it down!

[wildeyed]

26. Well he was very liberal on poverty issues,

at least white poverty. I am clearly not a scholar, but my sense with Civil Rights is that he wanted to do it, but maybe because of his ego and his recklessness more than compassion. He said, if I recall, and I paraphrase, This will be the crowning achievement of my political career. No politician has ever done something this huge before. And he also understood how the electoral math worked. He wanted the black votes the deal would bring, but he know he was trading a bunch of white votes to get that.

LBJ was a bare knuckle, badass politicker. Love him or hate him, he knew how to get a deal done. I think he was enamored of the challenge of doing the deal, of bending so many other politicians to his will, as much as anything. And it was in line with his overall policies too. He did care about the poor. But remember it was a War on Poverty. LBJ was a fighter, for sure.....

I have been thinking about him and FDR recently, how they both passed huge, earth shaking, liberal policies, but were also incredibly ego driven and hawkish on foreign policy. FDR gets a pass because WW2 was the right side of history. But he wanted war very much earlier than most. Interesting to contrast with the anti-war view of many modern progressives.