Slate Exposes Sanders Electability As A Myth

[LebaneseDude 6,146]

Michelle Goldman, once a profound Clinton hater, exposes Bernie's insistence on perpetuating the electability myth through misdirection or deception, ignoring the fact that he has not been held in remotely the same scrutiny as Clinton. 

The rest of the post is directly taken from the article. Bernie supporters are welcome to discuss this article. For once let's try to keep discussions civil on both sides.

Over the past year, Bernie Sanders’ supporters have repeatedly criticized the undemocratic role of superdelegates in choosing the Democratic presidential nominee. In February, for example, MoveOn, which had endorsed Sanders the month before, started a petition saying, “Democracy only works when the votes of the people—not the decision of a small number of elites—are what determines the outcome of elections.” The fear, then, was that Sanders would win the most pledged delegates but that Hillary Clinton would use her pull with insiders to trump the popular will.

It is more than a little ironic, then, that Sanders is now urging those same insiders to ignore the intention of the primary electorate—which has given Clinton an edge in both pledged delegates and raw votes—and bequeath the nomination to him instead. 

“The evidence is extremely clear that I would be the stronger candidate to defeat Trump or any other Republican,” he said. Sanders reiterated this on Monday at a rally in Evansville, Indiana, saying, “We appeal to virtually all the Democrats, but we do a lot better with independents than Secretary Clinton. And I hope the Democrats at the national convention understand that while independents may not be able to vote in certain Democratic primaries, they do vote in the general election.”

I have no idea if Sanders is serious about this superdelegate plan. It might just be a rationale for him to keep fighting until the end of the primaries, garnering delegates that he could leverage to push Clinton and the party leftward at the convention. But if he is serious, then what he is proposing is a presumption based on a falsehood

The presumption is that there is anything progressive about a plan that asks powerful figures to cast aside an electoral majority built on the choices of women and people of color. The falsehood is that Sanders’ superior electability is, as he asserted on Sunday, “extremely clear.

It is true, as Sanders pointed out, that polls show him doing better than Clinton against Republicans in November. But it is also true that Clinton has not hit Sanders with a single negative ad. Because Sanders has high favorability numbers with Democrats, Clinton would have damaged herself by attacking him, especially since she didn’t have to in order to win. The source points to the New York primary as confirmation of this view, arguing that Sanders hurt himself by going negative on his opponent.

The right, meanwhile, had no incentive to rough up Sanders, a candidate who, by all accounts, Republicans would love to run against in the fall. And the mainstream media often failed to treat Sanders as a plausible contender, which would have entailed a much greater degree of scrutiny than he received. As a result, issues that, fairly or not, would be obsessively scrutinized in a general election have gone almost entirely unexamined.

Perhaps Sanders is capable of virtuosity. Right now there’s no way of knowing, because there’s been only scattered excavation of Sanders’ radical connections

1) He has never been asked to account for his relationship with the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party, for which he served as a presidential elector in 1980. At the time, the party’s platform called for abolishing the U.S. military budget and proclaimed “solidarity” with revolutionary Iran. (This was in the middle of the Iranian hostage crisis.)

2) There’s been little cable news chatter about Sanders’ 1985 trip to Nicaragua, where he reportedly joined a Sandinista rally with a crowd chanting, “Here, there, everywhere/ The Yankee will die.” It would be nice if this were due to a national consensus on the criminal nature of America’s support for the Contras. More likely, the media’s attention has simply been elsewhere.

3) The Clinton campaign has also ignored Sanders’ youthful sex writings (  ). Republicans are unlikely to be so decorous. Imagine an ad drawing from the old Sanders essay “The Revolution Is Life Versus Death.” First it might quote the candidate mocking taboos on child nudity: “Now, if children go around naked, they are liable to see each others [sic] sexual organs, and maybe even touch them. Terrible thing!” Then it would quote him celebrating girls who defy their mothers and have sex with their boyfriends: “The revolution comes … when a girl pushes aside all that her mother has ‘taught’ her and accepts her boyfriends

4) It would remind viewers that Sanders was one of 14 congressmen to vote against the law establishing the Amber Alert system and one of 15 to vote against an amendment criminalizing computer-generated child ****ography  

5) Support for Sanders’ positions tends to fall apart when people hear the details—particularly if they learn their own taxes would go up. As the nominee, Sanders would have to address his former opposition to public schools and praise for parents who believe that it is “better for their children not to go to school at all than for them to attend a normal type of establishment.”

6) He’d have to explain whether he still feels that sexual repression causes cancer, whether he still opposes the concept of private charity, and whether he still supports the public takeover of the television industry.

7) One also assumes Republicans would, in keeping with Karl Rove’s playbook, try to hit Sanders where he’s strongest—on issues of financial integrity. They’d probably do it by going after Jane Sanders, who has been accused of trying to defraud the Catholic Church on a land deal she undertook as president of Burlington College. (After being forced out of that job, she received a $200,000 golden parachute.) If you think this can’t blow up, remember that Hillary Clinton never personally profited off of Whitewater, the land deal that became a pretext for endless investigations of her and her husband.

It’s understandable that Sanders, like anyone, would be carried away by the experience of hearing tens of thousands of people deliriously chanting his name. Perhaps it seems like the revolution might really be at hand, and thus any means are justified. But it’s not. He’s just losing.

 

[Luiz 4,253]

fox news already talks a lot about those points against sanders. he has no shot against trump. 

[Whispering 18,865]

And this doesn't even go into his other past opinions on medicine and science, his employment history, his family history.?..or the black box that is his personal life, and all the scaremongering the GOP could do about "what's he keeping secret?"

The Republicans would have spent a billion dollars screaming,"Godless Commie!" which would've not only wrecked Bernie in the South and in swing States, (among religious black voters especially) but it would've also poisoned down ticket Dems in crucial red state races, by association. 

 

 

[LebaneseDude 6,146]

Just now, Luiz said:

fox news already talks a lot about those points against sanders. he has no shot against trump. 

Mildly, because for now they want him to win. If he wins, they'll go into full gear.

[Bt1 5,213]

Wasnt Bernie the one who was attacked by everyone? Thats what a supporter said in another topic.

Well. Look at how much material there is outhere. I dont know anything about any of the points in this article and I read a lot about this campaign. Its crazy how easy Bernie had it and he still didnt win.

[Nemo 4,410]

I guess we'll never know, will we?

I can defend most of those points, but why bother?

[LebaneseDude 6,146]

30 minutes ago, Nemo said:

I guess we'll never know, will we?

I can defend most of those points, but why bother?

There's nothing to defend. They're historical facts regarding actions he's taken such as travel to dubious places. There's no contention or conspiracies here. The GOP is going to exploit that to demonize him, much like they have done to Hillary over the course of decades. The same smear campaigns that many overzealous Bernie supporters were more than happy in quoting when it came to Hillary.

You can downplay their relevance however, such as stating that they were done in the stupidity of youth or something. (while unfortunately shading his base).

 That's up to the Democratic party to do so if Bernie is the nominee. It's exactly why Hillary has not stooped to that level. She's learned her lesson after Obama. Don't give them ammo.

This isn't meant to discredit Bernie. Sorry if it comes out that way. It's meant to show how much ammo the GoP (and Clinton) have yet to use against him and perhaps shatter the disillusionment Bernie Or Bust supporters have.

[Morphine Prince 109,653]

Oh, well. We'll never really know what could've been now.

Let me sit back and enjoy the GOP going full force on Hillary.

I wonder how far they'll go. 

[LebaneseDude 6,146]

4 minutes ago, Morphine Prince said:

Oh, well. We'll never really know what could've been now.

Let me sit back and enjoy the GOP going full force on Hillary.

I wonder how far they'll go. 

Implying they haven't been full force for decades now  

There's nothing they haven't said before really. They'll probably target the BernieOrBust people and use Bernie's rhetoric against her.

[Morphine Prince 109,653]

5 minutes ago, LebaneseDude said:

Implying they haven't been full force for decades now  

There's nothing they haven't said before really. They'll probably target the BernieOrBust people and use Bernie's rhetoric against her.

Implying nothing, actually.

I'm sure they have more to attack her with. I bet they've been waiting for her to actually be the nominee to go IN like never before. 

And with Trump not holding anything back and getting a free pass from his supporters.... 

We're not ready. 

[LebaneseDude 6,146]

7 minutes ago, Morphine Prince said:

Implying nothing, actually.

I'm sure they have more to attack her with. I bet they've been waiting for her to actually be the nominee to go IN like never before. 

And with Trump not holding anything back and getting a free pass from his supporters.... 

We're not ready. 

No. They're already going hard because they want Sanders to win.

You can't top the lies of the Benghazi trials, the overblown drama on e-mail servers, and a general history of smearing from accused murders to being a closet lesbian.

Remember this little satirical article I posted a while back?

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/all-the-terrible-things-hillary-clinton-has-done-in-one-big-list-2016-02-04

Basically mocks all the **** they've said about her for years.

They'll just rehash them. Remember she's been running for elected office for years now. They've already dug it up and used it all.

Maybe they have something on her since she started the presidential campaign. I don't know. It seems that Bernie is doing the work for them though.

[Goosey 3,017]

@LebaneseDude how did I know this would be your thread? 

You are insanely pro-super PAC *cough* I mean, pro-Clinton.

Can't wait till this woman is either Stumped or Berned.

 

 

 

 

 

[MJHolland 12,725]

2 hours ago, Whispering said:

And this doesn't even go into his other past opinions on medicine and science, his employment history, his family history.?..or the black box that is his personal life, and all the scaremongering the GOP could do about "what's he keeping secret?"

 

 

Are you kidding? I hate Sanders and even I can see that Clinton has a far shadier past than Sanders.

Employment history? Clinton has been unemployed for the last 5 years unless you count her secret paid speeches to powerful banks. That doesn't even scratch the surface of her Clinton Foundation donations from shady places. There is no more secretive family in America than the Clintons, and that's why ever young person in America who hasn't become pessimistic about their politicians hates her guts.

1 minute ago, Goosey said:

@LebaneseDude how did I know this would be your thread? 

You are insanely pro-super PAC *cough* I mean, pro-Clinton.

Can't wait till this woman is either Stumped or Berned.

 

 

 

 

 

I can't wait to see her indicted on federal crimes for her negligent handling of top government secrets lmao!

[LebaneseDude 6,146]

26 minutes ago, Goosey said:

@LebaneseDude how did I know this would be your thread? 

You are insanely pro-super PAC *cough* I mean, pro-Clinton.

Can't wait till this woman is either Stumped or Berned.

 

 

 

 

 

Same way we know it's a Goosey thread.  

Also how can you, a renowned Trump supporter, have an issue with PACs?  

[Goosey 3,017]

2 hours ago, LebaneseDude said:

Same way we know it's a Goosey thread.  

Also how can you, a renowned Trump supporter, have an issue with PACs?  

I'm not a Trump supporter, I support whoever makes it onto the Republican ticket.