Hillary is "adher[ing] to coalition politics, representing the policies of most members of our current party. That's reflected in the apparent support her candidacy is receiving from many progressives in Congress."
We shall see how much support Hillary retains from progressives in Congress after we see how much support Hillary wins in the primaries.
Hillary has made so many statements in the past that belie her sudden fervor for so many progressive positions. She was against gay marriage before she was for it. That's just one example. She was a critic of "illegal" immigration before she favored amnesty (I'm assuming she now favors amnesty.) She was for the Iraq War before she was against it. I'm not creating her record. She did.
We don't know to what extent the support of Hillary in Congress among Progressives is due to their assumption that she will win the primary and their desire to be on the winning side.
They may be wrong about her being the ultimate winner. We don't know who will win the primary. We don't even know who will make it through the primary.
At this point it is the task of each voter to assess the candidates. Discussing the advantages and disadvantages and the pros and cons, strengths and weaknesses of each contender is the job of the voters. We can do it with our friends and families and that includes our friends on DU.
If you assume that Hillary will win the primaries, then the whole process seems like one annoying, dangerous, divisive exercise. But I don't assume that Hillary will win. I assume that I don't know who will win. I want Bernie Sanders to win, but I don't assume that he will. I assume that he can, but not that he will.
The primaries are the time for the party to be divided. I don't want a candidate who represents the status quo in the Democratic Party. This current party can't seem to win state or mid-term elections. That suggests to me that it is not inspiring people to vote and not doing a good job. We need to revamp the party top down. Bernie could well be the one to do that. Howard Dean made a good start at doing it until Obama unfortunately replaced him with some horribly boring bureaucratic types.
We shall see. Politics should be exciting. Bernie has both the wisdom to govern well as proved with so many of his stances and votes in the past as well as a surprising charisma that attracts young and old.
We shall see how the campaign turns out. But it is much too soon to try to limit Democrats by positing that the one of the candidates is either inevitable or already anointed. Much too soon.
= new reply since forum marked as read
