#NeverNader: A Reminder About The Perils Of Purity

It is no coincidence that the most potent insurgencies from the left come to the fore at the end of a Democratic -- not Republican -- Administration.  That is when progressives are (often understandably) angered and disillusioned by the lack of progress (often betrayals) by their own elected leaders while the disastrous policies of the Republican predecessor have receded in memory.

And so, after Bill Clinton's second term, Ralph Nader launched his third-party effort -- a quixotic exercise that had no discernible positive long term impact on the political landscape but did help usher into power one of the worst presidents in U.S. history. 

Undeterred, Ralph Nader continues to be unsafe at any speed.  He is unapologetic, myopic and arrogant as ever.  For him, the system is corrupt, there are no lesser evils, and any compromise that might entail voting for a less-than-pure candidate is nothing short of unconditional surrender to corruption.  For him, there was no difference between Al Gore and George W. Bush.  For him, there apparently is no difference between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. 

Nader rails against Clinton, using the kind of incendiary rhetoric that feeds into the frenzy of Sanders supporters convinced that she is stealing the election:  "She's going to win by dictatorship. Twenty-five percent of superdelegates are cronies, mostly. They weren't elected. They were there in order to stop somebody like Bernie Sanders, who would win by the vote."

And he praises Trump for bringing important issues to light, all but dismissing what could be a real dictatorship and discounting the dangers of electing a reckless, ignorant vulgar talking yam:  "He's questioned the trade agreements. He's done some challenging of Wall Street - I don't know how authentic that is. He said he's against the carried interest racket, for hedge funds. He's funded himself and therefore attacked special interest money, which is very important."

Thanks, Ralph.  You can crawl back under your rock now.

I have no issue with Sanders campaigning until the end of the primaries to amass as many delegates as possible.  And I agree that the more delegates he gets and the more states he wins, the more influence he should have on the party's platform, on changing the rules on how the Party should nominate a presidential candidate in the future and on pursuing progressive policies going forward. 

But the reality is that when the last primary is held next month, Clinton will have amassed the most votes and the most pledged delegates, and she will have won the most primaries (including more states where independents were permitted to vote).  Super delegates generally go to the candidate with the most pledged delegates.  That is Clinton, not Sanders. 

Thankfully, Sanders is no Nader, and he understands what is at stake in this election.  It is hard to imagine that he would willfully undermine a Clinton candidacy.  But what is critical is that he communicate this to his supporters.  He needs to make sure that what happened in Vegas stays in Vegas.

In case you missed it, the Democratic State Convention in Nevada spun out of control when unhinged Sanders supporters harassed and threatened the Party Chair, and then threw actual chairs.  They rushed the stage yelling obscenities and screaming about a conspiracy when, by more objective accounts, they were simply out organized by a Clinton campaign that understood the rules. 

In a formal complaint lodged with the DNC, the Nevada State Democratic Party ("NSDP") expressed the fear that "the tactics and behavior on display here in Nevada are harbingers of things to come as Democrats gather in Philadelphia in July for our National Convention." The NSDP was justifiably alarmed, after "having seen up close the lack of conscience or concern for the ramifications of their actions – indeed, the glee with which they engaged in such destructive behavior," that Sanders activists will engage in "similar tactics at the National Convention in July.”

Bernie Sanders has articulated better than anyone the myriad problems with how we elect our political leaders and hopefully he will remain engaged after the election to help fix it.  But Ralph Nader's recent appearance is a timely reminder of what happens when progressives lose sight of the greatest threats to our democracy.  At present, that would be the election of Donald Trump who among many other things would have the power to nominate the next justice on the Supreme Court (and probably more after that).

Let's hope that Sanders will ensure that his supporters understand what Nader still fails to see. 

Convention-al Wisdom: A Progressive Campaign Will Appeal To A Non-Neanderthal Electorate

"There's nothing in the middle of the road but yellow stripes and dead armadillos." -- Jim Hightower

Here we go.  The experts, pundits and insiders are beginning to suggest that Hillary Clinton, having sewn up the nomination by tacking to the left, must now move to the right for the general election.  For example, The New York Times, "cites some Democrats" who are concerned that if Clinton embraces positions pushed by Bernie Sanders, it "could later hurt Mrs. Clinton and other Democratic candidates."  And who are these "some Democrats"?  We don't know because they aren't named.  The only source for this bit of conventional wisdom, comes from the founder of the "Third Way," the fiscally conservative, so-called centrist group that had far too much influence over the first President Clinton.

The mainstream media continues to yearn for a candidate who magically will unite the left and right by appealing to ordinary (white) Americans  -- a candidate who will eschew the polarizing effect of embracing such progressive concerns as climate change, economic inequality, Wall Street corruption, campaign finance, mass incarceration, immigration reform, reproductive rights and LGBT rights.  According to the conventional wisdom, Hillary's failure to hew to the right will not only endanger her candidacy, but it will be the singular cause of a dispirited electorate and increasing rancor and gridlock on Capital Hill.  As the always insufferable David Brooks warned a while back, Clinton's campaign will become destructive and divisive if she "dispens[es] with a broad persuasion campaign" that fails to attract the ever-elusive swing voter.

We will continue to hear more of this fact-free claptrap about the need to resist pressure from the Sanders campaign and move to the center; about how Clinton and her fellow Democrats must seek to attract moderates and independents rather than continue to engage in narrow and potentially divisive pandering to liberals. But this unquestioned conventional wisdom is sorely out of date. 

It ignores that the Republicans have moved so far to the right and are so ideologically extreme that the center is nowhere near where it used to be. 

It ignores that while the Republican Party is moving to the right, the electorate -- increasingly younger and less white -- is moving to the left.  Indeed, the underlying premise that liberal ideas are unpopular and inherently divisive is simply wrong, with recent polls consistently showing that Americans have shifted to more liberal positions on a variety of issues.

It ignores the outsized role that Americans who are angry and frustrated with the status quo will play in this year's election.  It is a fact that independents are no longer -- if they ever were -- the equivalent of middle-of-the-road, moderate voters.  They are, instead, reflective of those energized by the Sanders campaign who decry the corrupting influence of money in politics and the widening gap between the haves and have-nots.  Moving to the center is going to alienate, not engage them.

It ignores that Clinton's leftward-leaning campaign has done nothing to undermine her support with the various constituencies of the Democratic Party that she has energized and that what she now needs to do is engage the voters energized by Sanders. 

And it ignores that Clinton actually is pretty liberal.  Sure she had a bad patch of supporting her husband's horribly misguided policies in the 1990s, and there is no excusing her Iraq War vote.  But she does have long history of supporting core progressive positions on reproductive rights, on childhood poverty, on health care, on gun control and a host of other issues.  As pointed out at FiveThirtyEight, she was one of the most liberal members of the Senate when she was there and has a history of espousing liberal views.

So, here's some wisdom for the Convention and beyond that stands at odds with the conventional wisdom:  Clinton must unequivocally embrace a progressive party platform.  She must choose a running mate to her left.  At the Convention, Elizabeth Warren should be the keynote speaker, Bernie Sanders should nominate Clinton, and other progressives must play prime time roles.   

A campaign and candidacy that focuses on progressive themes and chastises Trump, Cruz/Fiorina or whoever runs on the Republican side for not believing in climate change, for seeking to undermine women's reproductive rights, for their hostility to LGBT rights, for inhumane immigration proposals, for insisting that tax cuts for the wealthy are always the cure for what ails the economy, for facile demagoguery in the place of foreign policy ideas, might alienate extremist Republicans.  But such an approach will appeal to the wide swath of non-Neanderthal voters needed to elect the next president. 

Thanks For Playing, Bernie

I would seem to fit the demographic that has come out full throttle for Bernie Sanders -- I consider myself very progressive in my politics and live in Berkeley, California, very comfortably among my fellow progressives; I am a (relatively) well educated, white, professional; I have been a big fan of Bernie Sanders since he was elected mayor of Burlington, Vermont in 1981, when I was in college there.

Yet, as I've written before, I just haven't felt the Bern.  To me, Sanders has been a great protest candidate who has invaluably raised the profile of critical issues about the root problems of our democracy and our economy.  He has no doubt pushed Hillary Clinton to take more progressive positions than she otherwise would have.  He has excited young (white) voters and drawn wildly enthusiastic crowds of progressive-minded people who will hopefully remain engaged in the political process.

But I have never viewed Bernie Sanders as a realistic candidate for President.  If his Congressional career and presidential campaign are any guide, he is far better at oppositional politics and protest than policy.  His proposals -- from single payer health care to free college tuition -- are wonderful, worthy ideas that lack any chance of getting through Congress. His overarching goal to stop money from corrupting the political system is righteous and admirable, but he has yet to realistically explain how he would make this happen. 

And, crucially, while Sanders' national poll numbers remain high, if he were actually seen as a threat to Republicans -- or if he were to actually win the Democratic nomination -- he would be swift boated and red baited faster than you can say "Joseph McCarthy" by an enormously well-financed Republican machine.  Sanders is a socialist Jew whose radical left wing past would provide endless fodder for devastating attacks. He honeymooned in the Soviet Union.  He sought conscientious objector status during the Vietnam War.  He has called for eliminating the CIA.  He served as an elector for the Socialist Workers Party at a time when it supported abolishing the military budget and seeking solidarity with revolutionary regimes in Iran and Cuba. These positions might not matter to progressives -- indeed, they may comprise a badge of honor --  but in a time where Republicans so expertly prey on American fears of terrorist attacks, they would be used to undermine his support among moderates and independents critical to a Democratic victory.  Look what they did to John Kerry, who actually served heroically in Viet Nam.

It surely has been dispiriting and frustrating to his legions of supporters to find that Sanders' candidacy has not been embraced by the wider Democratic Party and appears to have been undermined by the Party's Establishment.  But it is important to remember that Sanders is not really a Democrat.  He has long been an Independent who as a member of Congress chose to caucus with Democrats, and has joined the Party solely for his presidential run. 

Moreover, unlike Clinton, Sanders has not raised funds to support Democrats down the ballot -- a critical step for any candidate who hopes to lead his or her Party.  And, that's a fundamental problem for Sanders when it comes to winning the Democratic Party's nomination -- he doesn't want to lead the Democratic Party.  He wants to lead a left-leaning political revolution (not that there is anything wrong with that).  But the Democratic Party for better or worse (and often, for worse) put rules in place to limit the ability of insurgent candidates to win the nomination.  If Sanders wants to revolutionize the political system, perhaps he will be able to change these rules for the next insurgent.  In any event, while the Sanders campaign complains about the unfairness of Super Delegates, the bottom line is that Clinton is beating him handily when it comes to pledged delegates and the popular vote. 

And now that Clinton has won the New York primary so decisively, Sanders' very difficult path to the nomination has become nearly impossible.  Nate Silver puts Clinton's chances to win somewhere between 95 and 99.5%. 

So what's next for Sanders? 

He doesn't need to drop out of the race.  He should keep campaigning on his signature issues.   He should go to the Convention and push for changing the rules to make it less arduous for a grassroots candidate to win the nomination.  He should begin campaigning for Senate and House candidates in key races and urge his supporters to participate in local races where they could make an enormous difference.  Most of all he should stop attacking Hillary Clinton's judgment and character.  He needs to make absolutely clear to Hillary-haters, Ralph Nader dead-enders and Independents that Clinton is not the scurrilous enemy caricatured by the right -- that it is the Republican candidates who pose a real and present danger to our society and must be defeated. 

You say you want a revolution?  Let's elect a Democratic president and a Democratic Senate (think Elizabeth Warren as chair of the Banking Committee, the return of Russ Feingold, and other progressives in key leadership positions), more Democratic representation in the House, and more Democrats in state houses.  A Democratic President and Senate will lead to the confirmation of nominees to the Supreme Court (and lower federal courts) that will tip the balance to the left for the first time in decades, and transform the Court from the most corporate-friendly one since the 1930s to one that is far less deferential to polluters and Wall Street fraudsters, and far more protective of women's health and reproductive rights, LGBT rights, criminal justice, consumer rights, voting rights and civil rights.  Citizens United and other unprincipled decisions of recent terms can be overturned.

That might not be considered revolutionary, but I'll take it. 

Down Ballot Blues: Hillary Clinton Can Better Help Democrats Take Back The Senate

Assuming a Democrat wins the White House but the Senate remains in Republican hands, there will be no political revolution as Bernie Sanders promises and little of the relatively more incremental change that Hillary Clinton proposes.  Supreme Court vacancies, including the current one, will likely remain vacant, with Republicans having no incentive to confirm a Democratic nominee -- even after the election.  Indeed, it is hard to imagine very many Republicans foolhardy enough to dissent from a rabid GOP base that would strenuously object to any nominee to the left of the late Antonin Scalia.

On the other hand, if the Democrats can take back the Senate -- and gain seats in the House -- it is far more likely that a Democratic President can successfully pursue progressive policies.  (Think Elizabeth Warren as Chairperson of the Banking Committee.)   More importantly, in my view, the balance of power on the Supreme Court would shift to the left of center for the first time since about 1970, and with that shift (along with a similar shift in the lower federal courts), there is enormous potential to transform society with a justice system that would advance, rather than impede, privacy and reproductive rights, civil rights, voting rights, consumer and workers' rights, and criminal justice. 

There's your political revolution!

The Democrats need to pick up just four seats to control the Senate (with the Vice President then serving as tie-breaker), and there appear to be at least six seats currently held by Republicans that can be had -- Wisconsin, New Hampshire, Illinois, Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania.  (Colorado and Nevada, currently held by Democrats, however, are also in play.) 

The Republicans who find Trump too abhorrent and erratic and Cruz too creepy and extremist may sit out the election altogether, greatly benefitting Democratic candidates.  Meanwhile, particularly if Trump is the nominee, Republican Senate and House candidates in these battleground states will be put in the uncomfortable position of having to distance themselves from their own presidential candidate (and conservative voters) or risk alienating independents -- especially independent women -- and whatever remaining moderate Republicans still exist.

But still there are huge challenges for Democrats, most significantly, the likelihood that the Koch Brothers and other right wing mega-donors, realizing that neither Trump or Cruz are electable, will focus their vast resources on Senate and Houses races to keep Congress in Republican hands.  Which leads to a critical question of which Democratic candidate is better equipped to help Democratic candidates down the ballot.  The answer is the only real Democrat in the race -- Hillary Clinton. 

Sanders has been an Independent for his entire political career -- as mayor, Congressman and Senator.  He only became a Democrat to run for President.  Not that there is anything wrong with that.  But his campaign staff and wildly enthusiastic supporters appear so focused on "The Bern" that they have yet to even consider supporting other Democratic candidates.

Hillary Clinton, unlike Sanders, has deep ties to the Democratic Party that go back at least to her work on George McGovern's campaign. As Clinton herself said:  “I’m also a Democrat and have been a proud Democrat all my adult life. I think that’s kind of important if we’re selecting somebody to be the Democratic nominee of the Democratic Party.  But what it also means is that I know how important to elect state legislatures, to elect Democratic governors, to elect a Democratic Senate and House of Representatives.”

And Clinton, in great contrast to Sanders, has put her money where her mouth is.  In addition to raising money for her own campaign, Clinton raised an additional $15 million for the DNC and state parties in the past quarter.  Sanders has not raised a penny for other Democratic candidates during this time.  Indeed, when Sanders was asked by Rachel Maddow last week whether he would turn his fundraising ability toward helping the Democratic Party more broadly, including helping their campaign committees for the House and the Senate, his noncommittal response was:  "Well, we’ll see. And, I mean right now, again, our focus is on winning the nomination."

As Jamelle Bouie put it "Hillary Clinton is running to lead Democrats, and Bernie Sanders is running to lead liberals."  Consequently, Clinton is more concerned with traditional party building and leading a broader coalition that includes not only the liberals and progressives that Sanders is courting.  While this often results in what appears to be Clinton's infuriating hedging and measured compromise on issues in order to please conflicting constituencies, it also means that she is far better equipped to help a wide range of Democratic candidates down the ballot.  And, it is only by taking back the Senate -- and then the Supreme Court -- and defeating Republicans in local elections throughout the Country that there is even a possibility of true progressive change.

Note To Hillary: Stop Alienating The Left

As I've written before, my admiration for Bernie Sanders and what he stands for goes back decades, but I fear that in a general election the well-honed, well-financed right wing attack machine will launch a shock and awe red baiting campaign against this socialist Jew that would drown out his ideas and undermine his candidacy.  Given the stakes in this election -- particularly, the Supreme Court -- electability trumps (pun intended) everything.  And so, I've have made my peace with Hillary Clinton because, despite her many flaws, I believe she best appeals to the diverse core constituencies that will ensure a Democratic victory in November.  But her flaws, unfortunately, continue to frustrate and, unless she changes her approach, are likely to alienate one key constituency -- progressives.

While Hillary has thankfully (and credibly) adopted many progressive positions, in no small part due to Bernie's challenge from the left, she remains remarkably tone deaf when it comes to the progressive community.
  
She must stop attacking Bernie's integrity and his voting record as somehow less than progressive.  This does nothing to shake Bernie's progressive supporters and only furthers a narrative that she is less than honest and will say anything to get elected.  It is perfectly appropriate to argue that many of his proposals -- such as single payer health care and college free tuition -- are unrealistic, and that she has better, more practical policy ideas.  It is fine to ask what specific plans he has to get Big Money out of politics (particularly given his comment that "any Supreme Court nominee of mine will make overturning Citizens United one of their first decisions," which makes no sense).  It is even ok to make the argument that Bernie is not as electable as she is.  But parsing Bernie's votes just makes her look disingenuous. Voting on bills in Congress invariably involves difficult choices about legislation that includes some good, some bad and some ugly.  It is unseemly to criticize Bernie for voting for a good bill that contained some bad and ugly sections or rejecting a bill that, in his view, contained too much that was bad and ugly.

And she's got to stop fawning over Republican icons.  Hillary has repeatedly touted her friendship with and admiration for Henry Kissinger, one of the most villainous U.S. political leaders of the 20th Century.  His role in the Viet Nam War alone, from undermining the Paris peace talks prior to Nixon's election to directing the massive clandestine bombing campaign in Laos and Cambodia, which indiscriminately killed and displaced millions of civilians, should be enough to disqualify Kissinger from polite company, much less make him a sought-after foreign policy consultant.  Apart from Hillary's close relationship with him -- which is troubling enough -- the fact that she felt compelled to name check Kissinger during the debates shows a disturbing disconnect with the left. 

Then today, in the context of Nancy Reagan's death, Hillary praised the Reagans for starting a "national conversation" about HIV/AIDS.  This is as mind boggling as it is offensive.  It is beyond dispute that President Reagan did nothing and said nothing while the AIDS epidemic became a national and international health crisis.  Despite the desperate need for federal funding and research, as well as leadership to quell the homophobic reaction to the disease, the Reagans remained silent.  By the time President Reagan ultimately addressed the issue of AIDS in 1987, towards the end of his presidency, over 36,000 had been diagnosed with AIDS and almost 21,000 people had died.  This was one of the most despicable aspects of his despicable presidency.

Hillary has since claimed that she misspoke about the Reagans' record on HIV/AIDS, but what was she thinking?  And why does she continue to say things that are undoubtedly going to alienate voters that she is going to need in November?  This is a burning (berning?) question.

Note To Democrats: Debate Policy, Not Character

Kumbaya my Lord, kumbaya
Kumbaya my Lord, kumbaya
Kumbaya my Lord, kumbaya
Oh Lord, kumbaya  
Someone's singing Lord, kumbaya
Someone's singing Lord, kumbaya
Someone's singing Lord, kumbaya
Oh Lord, kumbayah
Etc. 

In 1980, the first presidential election in which I was eligible to vote, I couldn't abide Jimmy Carter's conservatism and voted for third-party candidate John Anderson.  In 1984, I supported Jesse Jackson for president, but I had learned my lesson, and when he lost the nomination to the remarkably uninspiring Walter Mondale, I campaigned hard for Mondale.  True, Ronald Reagan handily won both these elections, but the take away for me was that at the end of the day, no matter how you feel about the Democratic nominee, a Republican president is going to be disastrous for the economy (unless you are a corporation), for the environment (unless you live in a self-sustained eco-system), for civil rights and human rights (unless you are a xenophobic, homophobic, right wing, religious bigot) and for national security (unless you are an arms manufacturer), and we need to do everything we can to ensure that there is a Democrat in the White House. That has never been more true than today.

The Democratic National Convention is being held in Philadelphia at the end of July.  At that time either Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders will become the Democratic nominee.  A week earlier, the Republicans will have nominated their own candidate -- someone who does not believe in climate change or campaign finance reform or a woman's right to choose or that Black Lives Matter or LGBT rights or humane immigration reform or gun control or foreign diplomacy or criminal justice reform or raising the minimum wage or regulating Wall Street or making college more affordable -- someone who does believe in torturing terrorism suspects and tax cuts for the wealthy and repealing Obamacare and cutting Social Security and gutting the Iran nuclear deal and deregulating industry and allowing unfettered campaign contributions.  In addition and not insignificantly, four of the nine justices on the Supreme Court are over the age of 75, giving the next president an opportunity to reshape the court for a generation.

In other words, the stakes for the future of this country -- and the world -- couldn't be higher. 

The great danger of this primary season is that unrestrained and unprincipled attacks by the Clinton and Sanders campaigns and their supporters directed against each other are sowing the seeds for deep anger and resentment that will tamp down voter enthusiasm and participation in the general election and undermine the united front critical to defeating whatever horrifying nightmare the Republicans put up. 
 
A vigorous debate between the two Democratic candidates about their policies and how to achieve them is welcome, indeed, it is essential. It is important to hash out the areas where the two disagree and the many others where there is common ground.  There is a necessary discussion to be had about whether a pragmatic, more incremental approach to pursuing policy goals would be more productive than staking out bold positions and negotiating from there.  And there are concerns worth raising about which candidate can best appeal to the core constituencies of the Democratic Party that are essential to defeating the Republicans.  But attacks on character, distorting an opponent's positions on issues (past and present) and using right wing tropes to undermine progressive proposals should be off limits.  Such tactics are counterproductive and will only provide fodder for the GOP machine down the road.

Hillary should not be implying that Bernie's call for a "political revolution" -- one that seeks to effect change through our democratic process -- is some kind of radical plot to overthrow the government.  And she should not, as she did in the last debate, raise questions about Bernie's integrity (seriously?) or, for example, mischaracterize his health care plan.  It is perfectly appropriate to argue that many of his proposals -- such as single payer health care and college free tuition -- are unrealistic given the state of the Congress, and that she has better, more practical policy ideas.  It is fine to ask what specific plans he has to get Big Money out of politics (particularly given his comment that "any Supreme Court nominee of mine will make overturning Citizens United one of their first decisions," which makes no sense).  It is even ok to make the argument that Bernie is not as electable as she is.  But, as Charles Pierce puts it:  "Bernie Sanders is running a campaign completely within what can reasonably be called the mainstream of his party and of our politics. Discreet red-baiting and disingenuous scaremongering helps nobody."

And Bernie's supporters need to tone down the vitriol and over-the-top personal attacks in which Hillary is tarred as a corrupt, morally bankrupt, untrustworthy Wall Street shill and unrepentant hawk. There are legitimate questions to raise about her Goldman Sachs speaking engagements -- what she spoke about and what impact her relationship with investment banks will have on her willingness to tighten and enforce regulations.  It is fair to draw a contrast between Bernie's grassroots fundraising and Hillary's reliance on Super PACs.  Certainly, she should be called to account for her actions as Secretary of State.  But, come on folks.  Sure she had a bad patch of supporting her husband's horribly misguided policies in the 1990s, and there is no excusing her Iraq War vote.  It is also probably true that she would not be touting her progressive credentials as fiercely if she weren't facing Bernie Sanders in the primaries.  But, at the same time, she does have long history of supporting core Democratic positions on reproductive rights, on childhood poverty, on health care, on gun control and a host of other issues.  As pointed out at FiveThirtyEight, she was one of the most liberal members of the Senate when she was there and has a history of espousing very liberal views.

So, come on all you Democrats out there -- progressive, moderates, independents -- and you disenchanted Republicans too -- join hands, and let's sing ...

On Loving Bernie But Not Feeling The Bern

The 2016 presidential campaign so far has been driven largely by fear.  The Republicans are cynically drawing on (and generating) the fear of terrorist attacks and the fear of a fading American dream for the white working class.  But what I fear far more than the overblown threat of ISIS to our country, far more than a purported America in economic decline -- and what I have to shamefully admit is driving my political choices -- is the nightmarish possibility that any of those ridiculous Republicans could be elected President. 

It has become something of a cliché to preface support for Hillary Clinton with a disclaimer about admiring Bernie Sanders while expressing wariness and weariness of the Clintons.  But I really do love Bernie Sanders and have loved him ever since 1981, when I was a senior at the University of Vermont and he was first elected mayor of Burlington.  I have been extolling Bernie Sanders as a consistent, tireless defender of social and economic justice on this blog since well before he became a presidential candidate.  (See, e.g., Vermont's Finest)  He is the real deal, a counterweight to so much that is wrong with our politics, and I have found myself in agreement with virtually all of his policy prescriptions for decades. 

And I don't love Hillary Clinton.  I probably don't have to repeat the litany of her flaws, but here are a few key ones:  As a senator she not only voted for one of the worst foreign policy decisions in our nation's history, she repeatedly went in front of the cameras to cheerlead in the run up to it.  Her coziness with Wall Street, and Goldman Sachs in particular, is deeply troubling and does not augur well for an aggressive approach to rein in the financial industry.  The incessant scandals -- self-inflicted and manufactured -- are exhausting.  Her husband is not the man I would choose to have the ear of the next president. And, most recently, her attacks on Bernie's positions, particularly on single payer health care, are offensive and disingenuous.

(Spoiler alert, here comes the "but")

But, particularly given the horrifying collection of Republicans who appear to exist in an alternate reality rooted in values from the '50s (1850s, that is), the critical issue for me is electability.  You thought George W. Bush was a disastrous president?  The current crop of GOP candidates all deny the existence of climate change, oppose abortion rights, LGBT rights, and gun control, reject any and all humane immigration reform, support gutting Wall Street oversight, and propose tax plans that would benefit the wealthy and greatly increase economic inequality.  They appear gleefully willing to torture terrorist suspects, and disdain diplomacy in favor of a hyper-aggressive and interventionist military.  Indeed, all of the GOP candidates' remarkably stupid, knee-jerk, and bellicose reactions to the release of U.S. sailors temporarily seized by Iran amply reveal their collective lack of qualifications to be commander-in-chief.  And, perhaps most importantly, with four Supreme Court justices over the age of 75, the dire consequences of having a Republican president could not be more stark -- it would solidify an extremist right wing majority on the Court for a generation.

And while it is hard to take Donald Trump seriously and we like to refer to the GOP candidates as a bunch of clowns, there is really nothing funny about them.  Trump and Cruz, in particular, have shown that they are capable of running formidable campaigns.  They have skillfully tapped into the dark side of the American psyche, brilliantly stoking anger and fear, racism and xenophobia that appeals to a shockingly wide swath of voters.  With the Republican Party becoming expert at suppressing the vote through so-called voter fraud initiatives; with the infinite amount of Supreme Court-sanctioned money available to blanket the country with dishonest ads; and with a compliant media wedded to false equivalence that renders it inherently incapable of calling out one side for its lies, fabrications and extremism without finding some nugget from the other side to balance the story, this is going to be a very tough election no matter what outrageously preposterous candidate the GOP puts out there.

Notwithstanding the enthusiastic crowds he is drawing and his rising poll numbers, particularly in Iowa and New Hampshire, I just can't believe that Bernie is more electable than Hillary.  Many others have noted that, like Howard Dean before him, Bernie's support stems largely from young, white, educated, mostly male, progressives, which is a critical demographic but only part of the electorate needed for the Democrats to win a national election.  Even if he wins the Iowa and New Hampshire primaries, states with populations uniquely favorable to him, serious questions remain whether Bernie can put together a broader coalition and draw to his campaign the remaining core constituencies of the Democratic Party -- African-Americans, Latinos, Asian-Americans, and older voters -- groups that Hillary has shown to be very capable of drawing.  (See, e.g., Ta-Nehisi Coates on Bernie's "class first" approach.)  Another question is whether Bernie can raise the gobs of money, create the nationwide political infrastructure and garner the support of the Democratic establishment that Hillary can -- and has.

Moreover, as tired as I am of the myriad of Hillary-gates, one thing we do know is that she is remarkably resilient and can not only withstand the relentless attacks on her character, her career and her marriage but can fight back effectively.  My great fear is that Bernie Sanders, a Democratic Socialist (not to mention a Jew) whose revolutionary aim is to shake up and take down the current economic and political structure is going to be red-baited and swift-boated in a way that will make the notorious attacks on Al Gore and John Kerry seem mild. 

And is it worth the risk?

Once elected, could Bernie Sanders really be an effective president?  Could he really make meaningful changes to what he believes is the single most important factor undermining democracy -- the influence of money in politics?

Particularly given the gerrymandered reality of the House of Representatives, with its entrenched Freedom Caucus, any Democratic president no matter how progressive is going to be hamstrung.  Given how a relatively moderate Democrat like President Obama struggled to get anything through the Congress, it is hard to imagine how Bernie could actually enact policies that are any more progressive than Hillary's.

As a prime example, as much as I support a single payer health care plan, it is simply not realistic to think that a President Sanders could make it so, given that Republicans are still trying to repeal the compromised health care system on which President Obama expended so much political capital.  Hillary's attacks on Bernie's health care plan are dishonest but the political reality is that the next president must build upon and improve Obamacare as Hillary proposes, rather than attempt to start from scratch, as Bernie's recently-released plan suggests. 

I fully agree with Bernie that we need a “political revolution” that takes back a failing system now controlled by Wall Street and billionaires.  But a revolution is not going to happen from the top down.  To really effect change requires grassroots organizing, non-violent direct action, and electing as many progressives as possible at the local, state and federal level.  We need to ensure a Democrat is elected president, ideally with a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, and continue to fill the federal courts and particularly the Supreme Court with progressive-minded judges.

I am grateful that Bernie is running for president and challenging Hillary from the left.  He is playing a critical role in the primaries by articulating populist, progressive ideas and raising essential issues about the crooked nature of our politics that would otherwise not make it into the national discourse.  But the great irony is that Bernie Sanders could only be president -- and could only be a successful one -- if we already had in place a political system that was not corrupted by Big Money and Big Media -- a system for which he is so passionately fighting.  In the meantime, I'm afraid, its time to get ready for Hillary.

Say It Ain't So, Joe: Time For Biden To Cut Bait

Ah! well a-day! what evil looks
Had I from old and young!
Instead of the cross, the Albatross
About my neck was hung.
-- Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

There is no room for Joe Biden.

We already have Bernie Sanders, who the mainstream press continues to treat as a quirky phenomenon, ignoring the issues that he is so powerfully raising -- particularly the issue that undergirds all the others -- economic inequality.  Bernie is drawing huge, raucous crowds and displaying remarkably successful fundraising prowess, all due, of course, to the resonance of these very issues.  Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton, being the brilliant politician she is, understands the zeitgeist (and the power of Bernie), and has moved left, taking thoughtful, progressive stances on issues from gun control to criminal justice reform to immigration to even Wall Street reform.

Which brings us to Joe Biden.  Will he or won't he?  Polls are taken that include him even though he is not running.  Breathless columns are written about promises he made to his dying son. His friends and allies whisper to the press that he is leaning one way or maybe the other.  And now there are reports that he is definitely running and will be announcing his decision any day. 

Biden needs to quell the rumors and walk away.  Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are two formidable candidates.  If Biden chooses to run he will play neatly into two media themes that are damaging to the ultimate Democratic candidate.  First, is the notion fueled by the right and perpetuated by much of the media that Hillary is irreparably flawed, proven untrustworthy and unelectable by Email-ghazi-gate.  This relates to the second theme  -- that even if Hillary's candidacy is doomed (which it isn't) that we need a more establishment Democrat like Biden to jump in because Bernie Sanders is not to be taken seriously. 

As Obama once said about Hillary, Biden is "likeable enough."  But it isn't as if he doesn't have plenty of baggage. He bowed out of the 1988 race because of  accusations that he misrepresented his academic record and plagiarized speeches.  There are the gaffes, some of which display jarring racial insensitivity.  And then there are some of his so-called hallmark achievements as a United States Senator.  Like his role in passing a crime bill in 1994, often referred to as the Biden Crime Bill, a "tough on crime" law largely responsible for mass incarceration in the U.S.  He also was hugely influential in the passage of landmark bankruptcy legislation in 2005, backed by credit card companies and railed against by unions, consumer advocates and, in particular, Elizabeth Warren, who roundly criticized Biden for his role. 

And then, for me, is the albatross that will always be around Biden's neck:  Justice Clarence Thomas. 

Biden was the chair of the Senate's Judiciary Committee during Thomas' confirmation hearings in 1991.  And his performance was unforgivable.  He failed to take Anita Hill's testimony about being sexually harassed by Thomas seriously, and lost control to far more aggressive and more overtly sexist Republicans.  In his efforts to be unstintingly fair to Thomas, he repeatedly assured him that "you have the benefit of the doubt," despite the lack of any legal justification for such an assurance.  He refused to permit expert testimony on sexual harassment.   And, worst of all, he reached a private compromise with Republican senators not to call witnesses who would have corroborated Hill, most importantly, Angela Wright, another former employee of Thomas' at the EEOC who also claimed to have been sexually harassed by him. Thomas was confirmed by a slim margin, 52–48, with the help of 11 Democrats.  Although Biden voted against Thomas, his shameful performance as Judiciary Chair is directly responsible for one of the most reactionary Supreme Court justices in U.S. history.

Joe Biden might come across as more authentic than Hillary and more reasonable than Bernie.  He deservedly garners  an enormous amount of sympathy and respect for the dignity with which he has faced unspeakable family tragedies.  But he is far from a savior for the Democratic Party.  The problem for Biden is the Party doesn't need saving.   

Of Moderate Republican Candidates, Responsible Political Reporting, And Other Imaginary Things

The mainstream media's abdication of its duty to do actual reporting, its willful blindness to the extremist nature of the Republican Party in the interest of "objectivity," and its insistence on a false equivalency between Democrats and Republicans, are things that, to quote Charles Pierce, make me want to "guzzle antifreeze."  Particularly as recent polling consistently shows Americans moving in a more liberal direction while Republicans in Congress are moving farther to the right, the insistence that the two parties are merely mirror images of each other with equally reasonable positions and equal measures of moderation with the occasional extremist outlier is mind-numbing, although that may be the antifreeze working. 

As Christopher Ingraham reports, "political scientists have known for years that political polarization is largely a one-sided phenomenon: in recent decades the Republican Party has moved to the right much faster than Democrats have moved to the left."  He details data that measures political polarization showing "in the most recent Congress nearly 90 percent of Republican House members are not politically moderate. By contrast, 90 percent of Democratic members are moderates." Thomas Mann of the Brookings Institute describes Republicans as a "radical insurgency—ideologically extreme, contemptuous of the inherited policy regime, scornful of compromise, unpersuaded by conventional understanding of facts, evidence, and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of their political opposition."

This should not be in dispute.  To disavow science, refuse to accept the existence of human-made climate change and/or the need to take any action to mitigate its impact is not a moderate position.  To categorically reject a woman's right to choose to have an abortion is not a moderate position.  To dispute the right of same sex couples to marry is not a moderate position.  To oppose not only the raising of the federal minimum wage but maintaining any minimum wage whatsoever is not a moderate position. 

These are just some of the extreme right wing positions of virtually every candidate crowding into the clown car that is barreling towards the Republican National Convention.  There is no lunatic fringe on the right -- there are just lunatics.  Nevertheless, they are treated with dignity and respect and air time.  According to the mainstream media, it is Bernie Sanders who is the crazy one not to be taken seriously.  As Dylan Byers notes, Sanders' announcement of his intention to run was buried on page 21 of the Times, while every Republican candidate's launch received page 1 treatment.

However, Juan Cole points out, Bernie Sanders' positions on a host of issues, such as the wealth and wage gaps, campaign finance reform, reducing student debt, and combating global warming are shared by strong majorities of Americans.

As Charles Pierce puts it: "What is Bernie Sanders asking of the country as he begins his presidential campaign? A fairer economic system pried loose from the people who nearly wrecked it all [six] years ago. Legitimately progressive taxation. That the country acknowledge, with its money, that we all need bridges and roads and water systems. Honest elections. Recognition that environmental crises are national crises. Theodore Roosevelt could have run on those issues, and once did."

Sanders already has more support among Democrats than any Republican candidate has among its voters (although the most recent poll was taken before such stalwarts as George Pataki and Lindsey Graham jumped into the clown car).  Jason Easley reports that the latest Quinnipiac Poll shows five Republicans (Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Scott Walker, Ben Carson, and Mike Huckabee) tied at the top of the Republican field with 10%, while Sanders is supported by 15% of Democrats.  Nevertheless, Sanders is treated far more dismissively than candidates such as Carly Fiorina (2%), Ted Cruz (6%), and Rand Paul (7%).

Easley is right that "the media is perpetuating the myth of a horse race election between Democrats and Republicans when the facts are that the Democratic Party has the two most popular candidates. One of those candidates is extraordinarily popular (Hillary Clinton) while the other is more in touch with the sentiment among average Americans (Bernie Sanders) than any candidate on the Republican side."

And so the media dismisses Bernie Sanders as a kook while treating real kooks like Rand Paul and Ted Cruz as serious contenders.  But whether Bernie Sanders has a realistic chance of winning the Democratic nomination is beside the point.  Sanders articulates important policy positions that should be taken far more seriously than those staked out by the purportedly legitimate Republican candidates.  The mainstream media needs to understand whose ideas are mainstream.

Vermont's Finest: The Importance Of Being Bernie

"It's a little-known fact, but we reporters could successfully sell Sanders or Elizabeth Warren or any other populist candidate as a serious contender for the White House if we wanted to. Hell, we told Americans it was okay to vote for George Bush, a man who moves his lips when he reads."  -- Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone Magazine

In the spring of 1978, during my freshman year of college at the University of Vermont, Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield opened an ice cream parlor in a renovated gas station in downtown Burlington.  There was no Chunky Monkey in those days but the ice cream was incredible, and it wasn't long before Ben & Jerry's became a national sensation.  Significantly, Ben & Jerry's not only made great ice cream, but they capitalized, so to speak, on their success to give back to the community and fund many charitable works.

In my senior year, Bernie Sanders was elected mayor of Burlington, another progressive, socially conscious local phenomenon that has since gone national.  In 1990, after four successful terms as mayor, Sanders -- a self-described Democratic-Socialist -- won election to the House of Representatives as an independent.  In 2006, he was elected to the Senate and has been a passionate, eloquent -- often singular -- voice for the left ever since.

Bernie Sanders has been a tireless defender of social and economic justice since well before he or Vermont's finest ice cream became household names.  He has relentlessly spoken out against growing inequality (“Our middle class is disappearing. We have more people living in poverty than almost any time in the history of America.”)  But that's not all.  He has pointed to the destructive force that Big Money is having on our electoral politics, has strenuously called for stringent environmental regulations to combat climate change -- including strong opposition to the Keystone XL, has been an ardent advocate for gay rights, has insisted on expansion of not restrictions on Social Security, and has pushed for more effective regulations on Wall Street. 

His politics can be summed up with a question he asks on his website: “Are we prepared to take on the enormous economic and political power of the billionaire class, or do we continue to slide into economic and political oligarchy?” 

Bernie Sanders is prepared to take them on.  He is running for President in order to do so.  This is great news.  Not because I think he can win.  And not because I'm not ready for Hillary Clinton -- (please read Scared Shitless Into Pragmatism for my reasons for supporting Hillary).  It is great news because it is critical for the Democrats to have a contested primary process that includes a candidate who will articulate populist, progressive ideas that might otherwise not make it into the national discourse.  Such a process will also pull Hillary leftward (a direction she appears already to be leaning, I'm happy to say, with her important speech on criminal justice reform and mass incarceration.)

As Robert Reich says, as "a strong voice to the left of Hillary Clinton, [Bernie Sanders will] give her room to be tougher on Wall Street and big corporations than she might otherwise be. More importantly, he’ll allow a national conversation about the savage inequalities that are destroying the fabric of American life, our economy, and our democracy – in contrast to the Republican clown car whose conversation for the next year and a half will be about the virtues of 'trickle-down economics' and the 'free market.'” 

Beyond how Bernie will help Hillary, Matt Taibbi makes a great point when he notes that the failure of the media to take Bernie's candidacy seriously "should really be read as a profound indictment of our political system, which is now so openly an oligarchy that any politician who doesn't have the blessing of the bosses is marginalized before he or she steps into the ring."  Taibbi is right that the mainstream media's "lapdog mentality is deeply ingrained and most Beltway scribes prefer to wait for a signal from above before they agree to take anyone not sitting atop a mountain of cash seriously."

The great irony is that Bernie Sanders could only be a legitimate candidate for president if we already had in place a political system that was not corrupted by Big Money and Big Media -- a system for which he is so passionately fighting.  Hopefully, his candidacy will help expose these flaws.  Hopefully, the power of his message will also force the media to grapple with a wider range of issues and solutions.  And hopefully, his ideas will help shape the Democratic platform. 

In any event, Bernie's candidacy is going to make the election season a whole lot more entertaining.

Vermont's Finest

In the spring of 1978, during my freshman year of college at the University of Vermont, Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield opened an ice cream parlor in a renovated gas station in downtown Burlington.  There was no Chunky Monkey in those days but the ice cream was incredible, and it wasn't long before Ben & Jerry's became a national sensation.  Ben & Jerry's not only made great ice cream, but they capitalized, so to speak, on their success to give back to the community and fund many charitable works.

In my senior year, Bernie Sanders was elected mayor of Burlington, another progressive, socially conscious local phenomenon that has since gone national.  In 1990, after four successful terms as mayor, Sanders -- a self-described Democratic-Socialist -- won election to the House of Representatives as an independent.  In 2006, he was elected to the Senate.

Bernie Sanders has been a tireless defender of social and economic justice since well before he or Vermont's finest ice cream became household names.  He has argued strenuously for stringent environmental regulations to combat global warming, has been an ardent advocate for gay rights, and has pushed for more progressive health care reform.  And, on December 10th, for more than 8-1/2 hours, this 69-year old man with his classic Brooklyn accent took to the Senate floor and heroically proceeded to filibuster the deal President Obama cut with the Republican leadership on extending the Bush tax cuts. 

Bernie's crusade began earlier, on November 30th, when he gave a remarkable speech in the Senate.  He opened by declaring that "a war [was] being waged by some of the wealthiest and most powerful people in this country" against working families and against "the disappearing and shrinking middle class."  After detailing the growing income disparity between rich and poor, he belittled Republicans for expressing deep concern for the deficit while insisting on extending the Bush tax breaks for the wealthiest 2% and eliminating the estate tax.  And he went further.  Sanders made clear that many Republicans will not stop at tax cuts but "want to bring the United States back to where we were in the 1920s, and they want to do their best to eliminate all traces of social legislation which working families fought tooth and nail to develop to bring a modicum of stability and security to their lives," including Social Security and Medicare.  He concluded with a plea to his colleagues to "stand together and start representing those [middle class] families [or] there will not be a middle class in this country."

On Friday, in an effort to stall Senate passage of the tax cut compromise, Bernie Sanders spoke virtually uninterruptedly for 8 hours and 37 minutes (with a little help from  Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA)).  He promised "to take as long as I can to explain to the American people the fact that we have got to do a lot better than this agreement provides."  Echoing the themes of his earlier speech, Bernie slammed the Republicans as hypocrites for evincing concern about the deficit, saying that if they voted on this deal, there should be "no more lectures" from them about spending.  He warned that the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy would likely be made permanent, contending that although Obama only agreed to a two-year extension of the tax cuts, if Obama "caves in now, who's going to believe that he's not going to do the same thing in two years." 

Sanders' epic performance was not technically a filibuster because there was no vote pending, but it received an enormous amount of notoriety, hopefully reaching people who might not otherwise be paying attention and serving to energize the left.  It remains to be seen whether it will create a tipping point and spur enough other members of Congress to stand up to the President.

Perhaps most importantly, Bernie Sanders has shown what it means to use the tools of the Senate to take a principled stand.  It is outrageous that the Democratic majority has allowed Republicans to bottle up important legislation by doing no more than demonstrating they have the 41 votes to filibuster.  When, despite having a majority of votes to repeal DADT or pass the DREAM Act or the Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act or confirm qualified judges or provide strong climate change legislation, Republicans indicate a refusal to allow an up-or-down vote, Democrats must insist on making them do what Bernie Sanders did -- stand up and defend their position for as long as they can.  My guess is that it will invariably take a whole lot less time than 8 hours and 37 minutes.

[Related posts:  Anger Management, No Se Puede, Lame and Lamer]