Clinton Will Make a Better President Because She IS THE Better Candidate. [View all]

[MrWendel]

Last edited Sun Dec 6, 2015, 02:02 AM - Edit history (2)

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2015/12/5/1457319/-The-Revolution-Will-Not-be-Televised-Why-Clinton-Will-Make-a-Better-President

By Gaius Septimus

I will begin with a point that many here have made already. In order to win the nomination, Bernard Sanders will have to win the support of many many Hillary Clinton supporters. At least based on the latest round of polling, he is failing to do that. If the response to this from some quarters will be that Obama did it in 2007 or that no votes have been cast yet, I will agree with you.

At the same time, I will argue, Sanders is not a great candidate. I will not discuss individual failings or missed opportunities. I would like to just step back and look at the bigger picture. The bigger picture is that his message and his campaign are not breaking through. This despite the fact that he has offered the most populist rhetoric in recent memory and the most left-leaning platform since at least George McGovern. The first test here is to win a friendly audience. The Democratic Party at large is a friendly audience. It is the friendliest audience Sanders is likely to have from here on out. That should be obvious to anyone. So, if he is failing to win here, the task of winning the general election would frankly be insurmountable. Because the national audience will not be as friendly or as partial to his platform.

For those of you who still remember, it must have been thrilling to see Walter Mondale in 1984 come out and say, “I will raise your taxes. President Reagan will raise your taxes. The difference between us is that he will never tell you. I already did.” Mondale was a great and honest public servant. A liberal at heart, supporter of women’s rights (he nominated Geraldine Ferraro as his VP pick — the first woman on a major party's ticket). If you have the time, read his memoir, The Good Fight: A Life in Liberal Politics. It is quite a read, from one of the most honest and consistent public figures of our recent history. But then came Election Night, and Reagan won everything except Minnesota and DC. The point of this history lesson is this — good platforms do not speak for themselves. They require a good speaker and a good politician. Based on his performance so far, Sanders is neither. Yes, the platform is good. And yes, the candidate falls short.

In contrast, Hillary Clinton, at least based on polling, has continued to solidify her support within the Democratic Party and, even by Quinnipiac Poll standards is now better positioned against all the GOP candidates than she was even recently. More telling is the fact that she vastly outperforms Sanders among Democrats on virtually every issue. In my book, that makes her the better candidate — she is managing to convince more people. It is that simple.

Bernard Sanders did not discover the problem that large numbers of people do not vote and that this is mostly a problem for Democrats, especially in midterm elections. This is something that has been pointed out numerous times. The revolution Sanders is talking about is bringing out non-voters to the polls, empowering them, while at the same time propelling more Democrats into office and thus giving a mandate and Congressional voting majorities for a Democratic agenda. Sounds extremely good. I am convinced. I am on fire. But how does Sanders propose to do this? How? What I hear when I listen to him and what I see when I read diaries written by his supporters on this website, I the following answer to this: he proposes to do this by talking to people about problems that matter to them, by taking positions that make them enthusiastic to support him and therefore more likely to come out and vote for him. Based on the polling, he is not very effective in this tactic. But then, on the other hand, this is a sort of a non-response on his part. This is the same platitude about voting that candidates of both parties have spouted for years. Revolution? Not. Apart from other separate issues such as Citizens United (he wants it overturned), or the gutting of the Voting Rights Act by the Supreme Court (he wants that decision overturned too), Sanders’ propositions on how to achieve this so-called revolution are piecemeal and not especially imaginative. You can read about them here, on the website created for him by his supporters.

That Sanders has built his entire campaign on this premise of revolution but does not, in fact, offer much in the way of achieving this goal, speaks volumes to me. By contrast, California Governor Brown recently signed into law the automatic registration of CA voters for election. That seems way more revolutionary to me.

But more troublesome for Sanders is how he has proposed to break the gridlock in DC. Bring masses of people in outspoken protest and demonstrate to Congress that his policies are the will of the people. Lest we forget, in the wake of the 2008 financial meltdown the anger at Wall Street boiled over. Remember Occupy Wall Street? The point I want to make here is this — Occupy Wall Street may have had a limited success in some ways, mostly as a propaganda vehicle that furthered negative attitudes about corporate greed and highlighted the plight of ordinary Americans that resulted from the 2008 fiasco. But… the larger point here is this. First. If Occupy was in some sense a preview of Sanders’ proposed revolution and method of governing… do you want this type of thing all the time? Secondly. Can Sanders hope to mobilize even that amount of people, or something similar, and keep that level of involvement throughout his presidency? Lastly, what did Occupy Wall Street achieve, legislatively speaking? You and I both know they had demands, petitions, etc. What part of that ever translated into law? If you are scratching your head, frankly, so am I. And Sanders hopes that a similar phenomenon, if he becomes president, will help him govern? I am skeptical, to say the least.

Hillary Clinton is also talking about the issues she thinks connect her to voters. Her agenda on jobs and taxes, on the proposed infrastructure upgrade strike home to middle class Americans. She has taken stand after stand for voting rights, including a major speech in Alabama where she demanded Alabama revise the closure of DMV offices in predominantly black counties. She has been most systematic in addressing both Black Lives Matter and a larger campaign for racial justice. She has been outspoken about Citizens United and the Voting Rights Act as well. Does she have a Super PAC? You bet! Because like it or not this is how you win elections in America. Obama got similar support in 2008 and 2012. Being pure and unsullied of corporate donations may sound very well on paper. But when the attack ads start coming and the other side mobilizes a veritable army for the final push in the “ground game” you better have an answer and be prepared. Purity is nice. Unfortunately, it does not win elections. Realism does. To the extent that Hillary Clinton realizes this and is doing everything in her power to win, she has a clearer vision, unobscured by the demands of ideological purity. I like her agenda. And I like what she is doing to make sure she actually wins and is in a position to implement that agenda.

Finally, Bernard Sanders has proudly enunciated an uncompromising anti-corporate stance. Judging from the bulk of diaries published on this site by his supporters, this is one of the main sources of his strength, the wellspring of his entire movement, the raison d’etre of his very candidacy. So perhaps I should have started with this. But I am leaving it for the end for a very good reason. I believe if Sanders actually believes what he is saying in this context, if he actually intends to implement it, then, forgive me but his stance is both unrealistic and, in a broader sense, inefficient. Sanders’ supporters often like to make comparisons between the US and other developed countries and find the US lacking in many respects. Sanders himself began one of his responses during the first Democratic debate with “In Denmark...” However, in the countries which are held up as examples for the rest of us, that better state of affairs did not come about as a result of either a revolution or some sort of corporate-smashing policies adopted by those governments. We are seeing in those European countries a present state of affairs that is the result of a long and painful process of negotiation between government and business… it is the result of mutual agreement. So I am really wary of a candidate who has adopted such a stringent anti-corporate logic and rhetoric and of a mass of supporters who keep saying how they would like nothing better than to “take the hammer” to Wall Street. Because that is even more “socialist” than what we see even in the most left of the socialist countries in Europe, like Finland or that selfsame Denmark.

And so. Hillary Clinton will make a far better president in this sense. Yes, her platform is progressive. Yes, she wants to raise the minimum wage. And yes, she has spoken out repeatedly against corporate greed and corporate crime. But guess what, she also spoke several times about representing “all of New York," including Wall Street in the Senate. She has a progressive agenda while being attuned to the interests of corporations. That is a far better and more realistic stand than empty bombastic rhetoric. Do you know what is seen as the most efficient solution to reducing carbon emissions? It is some version of Cap-and-Trade, which boils down to making carbon emitters pay for the pollution they cause. Do you know why even scientists and environmental leaders believe that is a good solution? Because it co opts businesses, it translates the problem into language they can understand — the language of costs. Of course, most businesses will not do that voluntarily. But, my point is, the solution includes and co opts these corporations, it does not take the hammer to them or destroy them. The Affordable Care Act is another example. Yes, single payer would have been better. But ACA reduced risks for the insurance industry by requiring all insurance companies to insure less healthy people. If you think ANY form of ACA would have passed without some insurance company support, you are really delusional. So here again, an improvement was achieved by coopting businesses and working with understanding about their interests.

Sanders, in a way, wants to have it both ways here. On one hand, we see and hear his unabashed anti-corporate stance. On the other hand, when talking about why he is the better candidate on guns, Sanders keeps saying how he, being from a rural state, understands the gun issue and can bring “both sides" to the table to negotiate common sense gun legislation. So then… he can be common sense on guns? But absolutely principled in his stringent anti-corporate rhetoric? Why?

So I will not cede any “corporate" ground to Bernard Sanders. In this, like in everything I have outlined above, his positions are one-sided and unrealistic. Hillary Clinton is proposing much sounder policies, and has a much better chance of achieving these policies once in office."