Missing the whole Bernie Sanders point [View all]

[babylonsister]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/opinions/wp/2015/07/08/missing-the-whole-bernie-sanders-point/

Missing the whole Bernie Sanders point
By Tom Toles July 8 at 7:00 AM


Here’s a story about how the Hillary Clinton campaign is growing worried about the crowds Bernie Sanders is drawing in Iowa.

It quotes Carter Eskew as saying Sanders has gone from being an annoyance to a threat. The story ought to have led with that. “Bernie Sanders: Annoyance or Threat?” This would put it right up there with the National Lampoon’s famous headline, “Pornography, Threat or Menace?”

Is Sanders going to force Hillary to maneuver to her left? Would that hurt her in the general? Will the Clinton camp react too late? Overreact? Make a panicky misstep? Is she still inevitable or just the strong favorite? What tactics should her team respond with here to regain the momentum?

Please pour gasoline over the questions in the preceding paragraph and strike a match.

Once again, it appears, we are in for a campaign season of endless length and measureless inanity. How about this question? Does what Bernie Sanders says make sense? Could we discuss that?

The reason he is drawing crowds is not because of his tactics. People like what he says. There’s an actual idea involved! That the rich have run away with the game and it’s time to reign them in, and spread the benefits of our economy around. Some people love to say that the economy is what it is, the results are what they are, and there’s nothing anybody can do. Really?

We lowered taxes on the rich, and they got richer and the rest of us didn’t. What, policy has consequences? Sanders says raise the taxes on the rich and spend the money on the rest of us. An idea. Not a tactic.

We will now return to our regularly scheduled horse race.