I’m from the Mid-Atlantic, you know the place where Chris Christie’s act kinda sorta works most of the time. So, I’m not the best judge of how things go over in the rest of the country, but I do like a candidate who’s willing to just say “That’s crap.”
“If you look at politics as a baseball game or a football game, then I’m supposed to be telling the people that my opponents are the worst people in the world and I’m great. That’s crap; I don’t believe that for a second…. I don’t need to spend my life attacking Hillary Clinton or anybody else. I want to talk about my ideas on the issues.”
Bernie Sanders is really from Brooklyn, not Vermont, and it shows when he talks like this. Some will like the sentiment behind his words, others the bluntness and honesty. I guess some will clutch their pearls and reach to cover the children’s ears.
I think his ethnicity/religion, regional personality and his age are all huge obstacles for him. But they’re not obstacles to me. This is how my people talk.
There is nothing at all similar between that quote from Sanders and the usual over-the-top quote from Christie. In fact, as I read this the first time I thought the quote was from Christie, and I was wondering why this was in any way remarkable as it was so ordinary compared to a typical outrageous Christie statement.
This seems a pretty run-of-the mill sentiment, especially when the opponent is of the same party. It is a bit more direct than we sometimes here, which will win points for Sanders.
Sanders isn’t the candidate with an authenticity problem.
Authenticity and a quarter will get you — well, used to get you — a ride on the subway.
Ask any recent two-term president.
Bernie is talking about what most of the American people want to know about. It is called the ISSUES folks. This is something that the GOP members can not do for they have no solutions to many of the issues. At least not solutions that do not make large financial deficits in any and all budgets. While giving huge tax cuts to the rich and corporations.
Bernie’s the man. Don’t worry about whether he can win or not. If you lke him support him. Send him some dough, pop up some corn, sit back and watch what happens.
Thanks priscianus. I’m reluctant to look for the yellow brick road agin, but maybe it’s time for “once more into the breach”. You know they used to call the first into the breach “the forlorn hope”.
Sent him some and am waiting for my Bernie coffee mug, to be used in front of my right-leaning coworkers.
And when you tell them he’s an admitted socialist they will clutch their pearls and gasp. Makes me smile.
Conversation with a right wing friend at work in 2008, pre-Illinois primary:
Me: “Having trouble deciding who to vote for in the primary. My grandson is pushing Obama.”
Friend: “Don’t vote for Obama, he’s a socialist.”
Me: “He’s not a socialist. If he was I would definitely vote for him.”
Friend (Aghast): “Oh Tony! You don’t know what you’re saying!”
absolutely, I totally agree
I would add that if he doesn’t win the nomination don’t sit on the sidelines find the next person closest to your positions (hopefully the Democratic nominee) and support and work for them.
I was in Vermont last weekend, in Montpelier, and Bernie is The Man. It’s clear that he is much respected and supported there, and I hope he continues to impress.
A congress full of Bernie Sanders would be wonderful. Imagine politics actually working on issues instead of working on campaign contributions to cement their legacy so they can get hired to be the people handing out campaign contributions after their terms.
Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders are the only two in the current crop who sound like Dems use to sound. And Bernie isn’t a Dem! The Dems need to take notice and get on board, soon. If they try to be GOP lite, they are going to get killed in 16.
There are a few others, Sherrod Brown for one. The few that The New Democrats haven’t managed to purge from the party. New Democratic politicians and their professional teams know exactly who and what they are on board with. It’s just the public that has been really, really slow to catch on to the transformation in the party. Electorally, The New Democrats have found a good balance. Winning when the GOP totally screws up, but not winning by enough that they have to actually govern like traditional Democrats which would reveal their true colors and give the game away. Otherwise, they lose and blame the left and voters for being stupid.
You know, I never found this conspiracy theory particularly convincing. Why the hell would the people most vulnerable to a governing backlash (the centrists located in swing states) decide to undertake a course of action that will by and large put their necks on the chopping block before the hippies? For the sweet lobbying gig that comes with being defeated after a career getting plutocrats their sugar? Okay, so why do they fight so voraciously for their seats? Why don’t these putatively sell-out Dems just retire peacefully after delivering the goods?
Nah, you know what I think it is? The centrist wing really and truly believes in what they’re preaching. The New Democrats aren’t assuming the guise of a useful hypocrisy to gain money while they, deep down, know better — they honestly truly think that the business of America is business and that surpluses are a good thing and that drugs are eeeeeville and all of that other centrist horseshit.
How did you read a CT into what I said?
The New Democrats absolutely do believe in a USA, Inc. fully aligned with the corporate interests of big business including “defense” contractors, financial “services,” and whatever other for-profit industries not in sync with “christian” fundie personal morality.
Once upon a time, the GOP went sniffing into the homes and bedrooms of the people and the DEM into boardrooms. The GOP hasn’t changed but in the spirit of bi-partisanship, they both snoop into the private communications of the people. The oligarchs are free to eat babies in their boardrooms.
This is the CT:
The CT came when you implied that the New Democrats intentionally seek to limit their power in order to avoid governing. That’s a pretty fanciful claim, not least because A.) when the centrist-induced recessions and warhawkery backlash and financial crises come a’knocking, it’s the centrists who are first on the chopping block, not the hippies and B.) because of A it implies that the centrist wing has some ulterior motive other than winning elections.
This is also woefully inaccurate:
That’s not true. Obama and the rest of the Democratic Party being willing and even eager to drastically cut military spending to achieve a balanced budget is ample counter-evidence for the first claim.
I have no love for the Clinton wing of the Democratic Party, but seriously, you’re painting them as much more willful and malicious than you have evidence for.
You misunderstand. They have accommodated themselves to the electoral outcomes of New Democrats v. Republicans which in the past two decades has meant that the GOP has controlled the House for all but four years and the Senate for all but seven years. How did ND Senate candidates (incumbents and challengers) that positioned themselves as more conservative than Obama* fare in 2014?
*(The public perception of Obama as a liberal and not the New Democrat that he is.)
Mark Warner is a poster boy for New Democrat. As an incumbent he won re-election by a mere 0.8% against a man with negative charisma that has never held public office. Kay Hagen went down to a GOP loon challenger. The NDs lost big time. And the highest profile ND challenger, Grimes, wasn’t even competitive.
If not for the interference of “the people,” the NDs were fine with Senator Scott Brown.
2015 Defense Budget proposals
President: $631 billion
GOP: $619 billion
2013 – F-35’s ability to evade budget cuts illustrates challenge of paring defense spending
2015 — Business Insider Here are the most damning parts of the report on the F-35’s dogfighting problems
DOD cuts men (and women) and not machines. That’s consistent with neoliberal outsourcing economic policies. While less dramatic, federal civilian personnel has also been reduced. US population 1962: 187 million. Federal civilian (non-judicial) employees: 2.5 million. Population 2010: 310 million; federal employees 2.8 million. From 1.34% of the population down to 0.9%. (At the 1962 rate, there would be 1.35 million more federal, civilian jobs.)
Your impressions aren’t consistent with facts.
You are assuming that blunt honesty when people know from their experience that its honesty is not geographically transferable. I think that the times and the mood of the voters is such right now that I would like to see that tested when Bernie starts contesting South Carolina.
The blunt honesty might have some crossover appeal for frustrated voters of both parties who are tired of the partisan bullshit. Bernie’s form of honesty is what voters are seeking, not the Nolabels bullcrap.
I’m not yet convinced he can make that geographical leap, but I think he has a better chance of crossover appeal cross-regionally than any other candidate in this election. That potential has yet to be proved however because Bernie has not rolled out his Southern and Western strategies.
uh huh
uh huh
……………
A Study Documents the Paucity of Black Elected Prosecutors: Zero in Most States
By NICHOLAS FANDOS
JULY 7, 2015
WASHINGTON — Sixty-six percent of states that elect prosecutors have no blacks in those offices, a new study has found, highlighting the lack of diversity in the ranks of those entrusted to bring criminal charges and negotiate prison sentences.
About 95 percent of the 2,437 elected state and local prosecutors across the country in 2014 were white, and 79 percent were white men, according to the study, which was to be released on Tuesday by the San-Francisco-based Women Donors Network. By comparison, white men make up 31 percent of the population of the United States.
The numbers are being released as debate continues about racial imbalances in the criminal justice system in the wake of police-related deaths in Ferguson, Mo.; Staten Island; and Baltimore.
While the racial makeup of police forces across the country has been carefully documented, the diversity of prosecutors, who many law enforcement experts say exercise more influence over the legal system, has received little scrutiny. Prosecutors decide in most criminal cases whether to bring charges. And, because so many criminal cases end in plea bargains, they have a direct hand in deciding how long defendants spend behind bars.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/07/us/a-study-documents-the-paucity-of-black-elected-prosecutors-zero
-in-most-states.html?rref=us&module=Ribbon&version=context®ion=Header&action=clic
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