For those who don't understand why Clinton said what she did about Sanders' role in Congress [View all]

[highplainsdem]

Last edited Mon Feb 3, 2020, 02:20 AM - Edit history (1)

Let's look at the exact quote again:

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/features/hillary-clinton-full-a-fiery-new-documentary-trump-regrets-harsh-words-bernie-1271551

He was in Congress for years. He had one senator support him. Nobody likes him, nobody wants to work with him, he got nothing done.

This 2015 Politico article on Sanders helps explain what she was referring to:

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/08/bernie-sanders-2016-democrats-121181

-snip-

In an op-ed in the New York Times in January 1989, he called the Democratic and Republican parties “tweedle-dee” and “tweedle-dum,” both adhering in his estimation to an “ideology of greed and vulgarity.”

-snip-

He was, when he arrived in Washington, the only one of the 535 members of Congress who didn’t identify as either a Democrat or a Republican.

“I am extremely proud to be an independent,” he told the Associated Press seven months into his congressional career. “The fact that I am not a Democrat gives me the freedom to speak out on the floor of the House, to vote against both the Democratic and Republican proposals.”

The flip side at first was this: “He screams and hollers,” Rep. Joe Moakley (D-Mass.) said to the AP at the time, “but he is all alone.” Rep. Bill Richardson (D-N.M.) called Sanders “a homeless waif.” Said Rep. Barney Frank, in ’91: “Bernie alienates his natural allies. His holier-than-thou attitude—saying in a very loud voice he is smarter than everyone else and purer than everyone else—really undercuts his effectiveness.”

-snip-

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, led by New York’s Chuck Schumer, quickly got behind Sanders when he ran, and Nevada’s Harry Reid happily welcomed him to the Senate Democratic Caucus once he won. In December of that year, a month after his election, Ted Kennedy invited Sanders and the rest of the Democrats on the Senate’s Health, Education and Labor and Pensions Committee to an intimate dinner at his Washington home. Also in attendance? Barack Obama. And Hillary Clinton.

-snip-

Emphasis added.

So, Clinton's view that no one in Congress liked Sanders apparently is due to what she'd have heard about him during his early years there, which coincided with the early years of the Clinton adminisration.

In the Senate, Harry Reid welcomed Sanders -- I'm guessing he was the one senator Clinton said supported Sanders. And she and Sanders were both in the Senate in 2007 and 2008. But she was focusing more on her first presidential run then.

So it isn't surprising that her strongest impression of Sanders would be based on what she heard about him in the 1990s.

And, of course, what he said about the Democratic Party, which wouldn't have made him many friends among Democrats.


As for how much work he got done -- Sanders focused on amendments.

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2016/mar/24/bernie-s/bernie-sanders-was-roll-call-amendment-king-1995-2/

Sanders got only three bills passed -- out of more than 300 introduced -- in his 25 years in Congress. Two of those bills named post offices, the third increased veterans' disability income.

OTOH, Clinton also got only 3 bills passed, in 8 years in the Senate, and two of them renamed highways.

But a Politico article in 2015 listed more of Clinton's legislative achievements, among her other achievements, in an article following Carly Fiorina having dared Democrats to name any accomplishment of Clinton's.

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/09/carly-fiorina-debate-hillary-clintons-greatest-accomplishment-213157

‘The SCHIP program … which expanded health coverage to millions of lower-income children’

By Anita Dunn, Democratic political strategist.

After universal health care failed in 1994, the Clinton Administration was reluctant to go anywhere near healthcare again—Democrats lost the Senate and the House in 1994, and losing the house was for the first time in 40 years. Then-First Lady Hilary Clinton ended up being the White House ally and inside player who worked with Ted Kennedy and Orrin Hatch to create the SCHIP program in Clinton's second term, which expanded health coverage to millions of lower-income children. She has other accomplishments but this one made a huge difference, and came at a time when politically the Administration was cutting deals with Newt Gingrich on the budget and not necessarily all that enthusiastic about revisiting health care.


-snip-

‘The Pediatric Research Equity Act’

By Chris Dodd, former U.S. Senator for Connecticut, Democratic party.

Having worked with her in the Senate and on the HELP Committee, the first thing that came to mind was her authorship of the Pediatric Research Equity Act. This law requires drug companies to study their products in children. The Act is responsible for changing the drug labeling of hundreds of drugs with important information about safety and dosing of drugs for children. It has improved the health of millions of children who take medications to treat diseases ranging from HIV to epilepsy to asthma. Millions of kids are in better shape and alive because of the law Senator Clinton authored.


-snip-


‘I’ve seen, first-hand, her exceptional work at every level’

By Patrick Leahy, U.S. Senator for Vermont, Democratic party.

-snip-

In the Senate we worked together on efforts to clean up Lake Champlain and to help Vermont’s and New York’s family farmers. She was at the center of securing help for New York’s 9/11 first responders. We worked together in enacting the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which was the first bill signed into law by President Obama. I was chairman of the State Department’s budget committee when she was Secretary of State, and I worked closely with her—week to week, and sometimes day to day—on a wide, wide range of issues and challenges, from human rights to global health. We traveled together to Haiti as we worked to help that country recover from the devastation of the earthquake. She had a leading role in securing tougher sanctions on Iran. We worked together to successfully overcome obstruction by House Republicans of the funding she requested to improve embassy security around the world. Some of her most important achievements were her steady, methodical efforts, with the President, to help reintroduce America to the world after the diplomatic setbacks under the previous administration.


-snip-


‘The Adoption and Safe Families Act’

By Neera Tanden, President of the Center for American Progress.

As First Lady, Hillary was the point person in the Clinton Administration on the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997, a bill that refocused adoption policies on the needs of the children, made it easier to remove children from abusive situations, provided support and services to adoptive families, and encouraged adoption of children with special needs. The bill increased foster adoptions by 64 percent by 2002.

-snip-

The rest of the list includes a LOT of her accomplishments as Secretary of State.

Anyway, THIS is what Clinton was evaluating Sanders' career in Congress against.


She had reasons for her comments.

You might argue if they were adequate reasons, or if the timing of the criticism was bad.

But I hope this puts her remarks in perspective.

And again -- as I've said elsewhere -- she wasn't saying that no one anywhere liked Sanders. But he didn't get along with Democrats in Congress, and that's what she was talking about.


______


Editing to recommend that people check reply 20 below to see Bernie's own assessment, in 1990, of his problems getting along with people.