"The Sanders Panic -- Democrats are loath to face their real problem" [View all]

[Attorney in Texas]

Link to The Sanders Panic -- Democrats are loath to face their real problem; excerpt:

One of the few liberal pundits not in a full-blown panic is Jeet Heer of the New Republic. “There is no reason to panic,” he insists. “After all, the Democratic primaries were much nastier in 2008, and yet the party won the White House.” Of course no one remembers that far back, so Heer offers a history lesson:

The problem in 2008 was the racial tinge to [Mrs.] Clinton’s last-ditch defense: that Obama was a doomed candidate because of his alleged inability to win over white voters. On May 8, she argued that “I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on,” and cited an article whose findings she summarized thus: “Senator Obama’s support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me.” The contrast between Obama’s base of black voters with the “hard-working” white Americans supporting Clinton, made on the eve of a primary in West Virginia, carried clear racial overtones. . . .{Mrs.} Clinton’s rhetorical strategy of insinuating that Obama was too black to be president was echoed by her campaign. . . . Perhaps the most disturbing comment . . . came from Hillary Clinton herself, who in late May 2008 justified staying in the race by saying, “We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California.” This came after months of worry that Obama, as the first black candidate with a serious shot at the presidency, would be a target for assassination. Two weeks later, on June 7, she finally suspended her campaign.

There’s no reason to panic at all. After all, it’s not as if the Democrats are about to nominate a candidate with a history of saying racist and disturbing things. Oh, wait. Uh-oh . . . To be sure, nobody will remember the things Mrs. Clinton said in 2008, unless perhaps Trump uses them in a campaign ad. True, Heer just reminded us of them, but who reads the New Republic anymore?

The trouble is that Mrs. Clinton is, was and ever will be a dismal candidate. “The conventional wisdom holds that Trump’s astronomically high disapproval numbers should make him unelectable,” Robinson writes. “On paper, this should be a cakewalk for any Democrat with a pulse” (metaphor alert). ... Still, if any Democrat is poorly positioned to beat Trump, Mrs. Clinton is. ... As the Weekly Standard’s Chris Deaton sums up:

The former secretary of state is viewed negatively by 61 percent of registered voters in a new Fox News poll, up from 58 percent in March. Donald Trump, on the other hand, has a 56 percent unfavorable rating—dramatically better than his 65 percent measure in March—and a 41 percent favorable rating, the first time he’s cracked 40 percent in that measure. . . .
Other highlights from the poll include:

• {Mrs.} Clinton is viewed as more corrupt than Trump, 49 percent to 37 percent;
• Two-thirds of registered voters think Clinton (71 percent) and Trump (65) percent will say “anything to get elected”;
• and more registered voters say Trump is a strong leader than they do {Mrs.} Clinton, with 59 percent saying the designation describes Trump and only 49 percent saying it describes {Mrs.} Clinton.

If the election were held today, a large number of voters would regard it as a contest between evils—a contest that, according to the poll, Trump would win narrowly, 45% to 42%. Of course voters could come to see one or the other candidate more favorably—likelier Trump than Mrs. Clinton, we’d venture, since they’ve known her for decades but are still getting used to the idea of him as a politician.