Sanders Telegraphs His Pitches

84 Comments

1. 

   Deathtongue on February 12, 2016 at 1:01 pm

   Other than attacking Henry Kissinger,

   Other than punching the opposing boxer so hard in the gut that he vomited right before the end of the round, he did nothing to change his fortunes in the boxing match.

   Are you fucking kidding me, Booman? I know you hang out in the Washington Monthly circles i.e. bourgeois identity politics starring the departed Ed Kilgore, D.R. Tucker, and Nancy LeTourneau take a backseat to economics and foreign policy, but are you fucking kidding me? Aside from this asshole having an unprecedently huge spike in searches on Google, 60s-70s era Dems on DailyKos/Balloon Juice/Twitter were apoplectic at HRC trying to whitewash Kissinger. I have never seen such raw anger from this crowd this whole election.

   And I can’t blame them. I mean, really. Kissinger? KISSINGER?

   • 

     Deathtongue on February 12, 2016 at 1:04 pm

     Hey, HRC voters: tell me some more lies about how Hillary Clinton won’t fuck over the fragile Obama Coalition with warhawkery were she to become President. I could use a good laugh after the Kissinger apologia from last night.

     Do I need to post that ‘Hillary Clinton is the vehicle in which a radical conservative will ride to the White House in 2020.’ post from Balloon-Juice again? Because it’s looking increasingly prescient as she and the rest of the establishment do bullshit like roll back lobbying donation prescriptions and apologize for Kissinger.

     • 

       mino on February 12, 2016 at 1:37 pm

       Yep.  Debbie has declared the DNC open for business to lobbyists of the federal government.  

   • 

     Deathtongue on February 12, 2016 at 1:06 pm

     Sorry, I meant economics and foreign policy take a backseat to bourgeois identity politics on Washington Monthly.

     And don’t even try to deny it. I didn’t see a single article today or last night about the Kissinger apologia.

     • 

       BooMan on February 12, 2016 at 1:11 pm

       Nancy writes about feminism, which I guess is identity politics if you insist.

       I don’t see how D.R. Tucker or Ed Kilgore even loosely fit that description.  

       None of them strike me as purveyors of some bourgeois ethos, either. But I’m a philosophy major and I probably have no idea what you mean by that term.

       • 

         Deathtongue on February 12, 2016 at 1:21 pm

         D.R. Tucker is a bit hasty, I admit, but that absolutely fits the description of Kilgore and LeTourneau.

         Though not a socialist, I admit to using the ‘bourgeois’ term of art in the same way that actual socialists do: that is, instead of referring to upper-middle-class large-P property owners I refer to the ideology of liberals who mostly surrendered on class politics and American exceptionalism to protect social liberalism.

       • 

         Arthur Gilroy on February 12, 2016 at 1:34 pm

         None of them strike me as purveyors of some bourgeois ethos, either. But I’m a philosophy major and I probably have no idea what you mean by that term.

         Ask a fish about water and it will say much the same thing.

         Water??? What’s that!!!???

         AG

         • 

           BooMan on February 12, 2016 at 5:55 pm

           yeah, I don’t think you have any earthly clue what he means by bourgeois either.

   • 

     BooMan on February 12, 2016 at 1:08 pm

     Loved Sanders attack on Kissinger but nobody gives a fuck.

     • 

       Deathtongue on February 12, 2016 at 1:17 pm

       We’ll just see about that. Clinton absolutely needs ‘liberal/very liberal’ Democratic Party partisans and 1st/2nd gen Asian and Latino voters. Embracing Kissinger is the last thing she needs to do with this group, especially after that ‘deport kids to send home country a message’ gaffe.

       • 

         BooMan on February 12, 2016 at 1:36 pm

         There are six people who know Kissinger’s real history vs. the story we’ve been told, and three of them are in this thread.

         Give it up.  

         • 

           RedDan on February 12, 2016 at 2:05 pm

           I’ve been asking my 18 to 20 something students what they know about kissinger.

           They would surprise you with the material they come up with.

           Just sayin’

         • 

           Deathtongue on February 12, 2016 at 3:35 pm

           Yeah, and whose fault is that?

           We keep having Kissinger and his intellectual groinspawn slither into and infect our polity because people like you are ‘meh, won’t hurt her election chances, so who cares?’ and normalize a mass murderer being a feather in the cap of a Democratic Presidential election candidate.

           Don’t think you’ll get away with this indefinitely. The wheels are already coming off of the wagon of liberal Democrats’ malaise towards neoliberalism — see Gen-Y’s support for socialism. You may as well be on the right side of history when that veil of silence eliding the neoconservative infestation of American liberalism gets torn off, too.

         • 

           Shaun Appleby on February 12, 2016 at 3:55 pm

           The essential problem of neoliberalism is that its capitalist hosts destroy themselves soon after the regulation they abhor is lifted. It seems a law of nature like locusts or lemmings. Sooner or later it’s off in the tumbrils to the Place de la Révolution. They can’t help themselves, there is no moderation of their venality.

           FDR, in his top hat with a cigarette holder firmly clenched in his teeth, understood this; he was there, as one of them, to protect the plutocrats from themselves.

         • 

           pillsy on February 12, 2016 at 5:10 pm

           I… um… really think you’re underestimating how notorious Kissinger is.

           I have no idea what the fuck Clinton was trying to do by bringing him up. It was such a bizarre, unforced error. Even if you’re right and it has no impact, it was very poor politics. I like Clinton a lot and want her as the Democratic nominee, but watching her campaign just makes me want to slam my head into a wall.

         • 

           BooMan on February 12, 2016 at 5:53 pm

           Kissinger is the single most respected diplomat in the history of this country. Every National Security Adviser since him was mentored by him or one of his proteges. Both parties call him, consult with him, and drink his leftover water hoping to get a piece of his brilliance.

           It’s disgusting and depressing, and it’s true that the public is less enthralled with that butcher. But that’s mainly because they’ve forgotten him or are too young to give a shit.

           The amount of people who agree with Christopher Hitchens about Kissinger is approximately equal to the circulation numbers for Vanity Fair. No one cares.

           It wasn’t exactly a good moment for Hillary to have to defend Kissinger, but the overwhelming reaction was either a shrug or to Google Kissinger to try to find out what he did that was worth of criticism, since he’s mostly known for being our best statesman ever.

           For old hippies still pissed about Vietnam, they don’t even know what they’re really supposed to be pissed about, which isn’t Cambodia but a million other things, including sabotaging the 1968 Paris Peace Talks. After all, Kissinger didn’t make decisions like whether to bomb sovereign nations.  

           Look what he did in Latin America and South Africa and Indonesia and with the Kurds. Look at how arming up the Shah worked out.

           Who knows about that stuff? Who cares about it?  

           Almost no one.

           What they know is that he opened up China.

           For the rest, they’re grateful that he ran the government when Nixon was too drunk and depressed to get out of bed. That he ran the ship of state when Ford was thrust into a job he didn’t understand.  

         • 

           Rachel Q on February 12, 2016 at 6:41 pm

           That’s a very interesting insider perspective, Booman. I’m about your age, and I’m a political junkie or I wouldn’t hang out at your site. However, I didn’t have a feel for how Kissinger is perceived by the elite foreign policy camps of both parties.

           I do know that he’s been widely panned as evil by most liberals for as long as I’ve been following politics. I have very little knowledge of his specific actions; he’s just an evil archetypal figure to me.

           I wonder if Hillary doesn’t know that association within her own party? Regardless of the merits, it’s crazy she would choose to open this can of worms when the success of her tenure as Secretary of State is not even an issue in the primary campaign.

         • 

           BooMan on February 12, 2016 at 7:13 pm

           Probably the most informative book on Kissinger is David J. Rothkopf’s RUNNING THE WORLD The Inside Story of the National Security Council and the Architects of American Power which came out in 2005.

           Rothkopf used to work for Kissinger and also served in the Clinton administration.  

           Here’s a reaction from NYT’s review of the book:

           Rothkopf shows that Kissinger’s acolytes have essentially become the modern foreign policy establishment. He plays a game he calls “Two Degrees of Henry Kissinger” to illustrate that every national security adviser since Kissinger, all 13 of them, either worked for Kissinger or worked directly for someone who did.

           But Rothkopf’s true hero is not Kissinger, who seemed locked in a fatal embrace with Nixon. It’s Brent Scowcroft, who was Gerald Ford’s, then George H. W. Bush’s national security adviser. Scowcroft is a retired Air Force general, but there is no hint of Wild Blue Yonder about him. Short and a little gnarly, he looks more like Yoda than the square-jawed fighter jock he once was (until a plane crash cut short his flying days in 1949). Scowcroft is funny and disarming but also low-key; he prefers to operate behind the scenes. Less flashily brilliant than Kissinger or Zbigniew Brzezinski, Carter’s national security adviser, or McGeorge Bundy, who held the post in the Kennedy administration, Scowcroft was effective as a shrewd but honest broker who made sure the president heard from all sides of a foreign policy debate and considered the consequences before acting.

           Scowcroft, Rothkopf explains, always planned for failure as well as success, on the well-grounded assumption that failure — or at least unintended consequences — was a possible if not likely outcome in a messy, balky world. His most difficult challenge as Bush 41’s national security adviser — the 1991 Persian Gulf war — was a model of clever hedging through alliance-building. Working with the equally cagey secretary of state, James A. Baker, Scowcroft even got America’s allies to pay much of the cost of the war.

           Interviewed by Rothkopf, Scowcroft called himself a “traditionalist,” meaning that he is in the mainstream of foreign policy makers who believe that the United States cannot succeed in the world without working through friends, allies and international organizations. He contrasted himself with the “transformationalists,” the true believers in the George W. Bush administration who argued that after 9/11 the United States could not afford to dicker with the United Nations or foreign appeasers before getting on with the urgent work of democratizing the Middle East — by force, if necessary.

           Rothkopf is openly critical of Condoleezza Rice, Scowcroft’s onetime disciple and Bush 43’s first-term national security adviser. In his view, she allowed herself to be pushed around by Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney. Rice saw herself more as a personal adviser to the president than as a referee of bureaucratic battles. But by narrowly defining her role, she let Rumsfeld’s Defense Department become, in Rothkopf’s words, a “thumb on the scales” of debate, and permitted Cheney’s shadow national security staff to end-run the regular foreign-policy-making process.

           Bureaucratic histories like this one can be dull reading, but Rothkopf enlivens his with an appreciation of human foibles (he begins with Dr. Strangelove’s admonition, “Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here — this is the war room”). His insider status also serves him well; he seems to know everyone in the foreign policy world and has interviewed most of the former national security advisers, as well as various other heavyweights. Rice was unusually reflective with Rothkopf. It appears that she, too, has been pondering cold war history. She seems to have taken comfort in the realization that the world looked just as frightening in 1947 as it did after 9/11, and that the great architects of the Western alliance and the Marshall Plan were constantly adjusting and compensating as they went along. Rice candidly predicted to Rothkopf that it would take 30 or 40 years before we know whether the initiatives of the Bush administration were “really creative responses” to 9/11 or “disastrous” ones. Maybe, Rothkopf suggests, she is finally learning the wisdom of her onetime mentor, Brent Scowcroft.

           The reviewer chose to focus on Scowcroft, which is fine, but the book is largely about Kissinger and his enormous influence of the bipartisan foreign policy establishment.  

         • 

           Rachel Q on February 12, 2016 at 7:25 pm

           I’ll follow up on the recommendation. Thanks!

         • 

           Shaun Appleby on February 12, 2016 at 7:46 pm

           From the declassification of tapes made in the LBJ oval office in 1968:

           In late October 1968 there were major concessions from Hanoi which promised to allow meaningful talks to get underway in Paris – concessions that would justify Johnson calling for a complete bombing halt of North Vietnam. This was exactly what Nixon feared.

           [Anna Chennault, a senior campaign adviser,] was despatched to the South Vietnamese embassy with a clear message: the South Vietnamese government should withdraw from the talks, refuse to deal with Johnson, and if Nixon was elected, they would get a much better deal.

           So on the eve of his planned announcement of a halt to the bombing, Johnson learned the South Vietnamese were pulling out.

           He was also told why. The FBI had bugged the ambassador’s phone and a transcripts of Anna Chennault’s calls were sent to the White House. In one conversation she tells the ambassador to “just hang on through election”.

           Johnson was told by Defence Secretary Clifford that the interference was illegal and threatened the chance for peace.

           David Taylor – The Lyndon Johnson tapes: Richard Nixon’s ‘treason’ BBC 22 Mar 13

           This was an incident with ‘world historical’ consequences at least as significant as Nixon’s 1971 pivot to China. And guess who betrayed his current masters to catapult himself into power?

           The politically ambitious Kissinger–a protégé of New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller–was then a trusted advisor to Democratic President Lyndon Johnson at the critical Vietnam peace negotiations in Paris. But the brilliant foreign policy expert actually had dual loyalties in that sensitive mission: He also served as a mole for Republican presidential nominee Richard Nixon.

           From Paris, Kissinger regularly fed highly classified intelligence on the talks to Nixon, who used it in back-channel communications with South Vietnam’s President Nguyen Van Thieu to prevent any pre-election progress toward peace by the Democrats.

           A circumspect spy, the Harvard professor always used pay phones and spoke exclusively in German to his young Nixon campaign contact, Richard Allen (who spoke that language even better than the German-born Kissinger).  Allen recalls that Kissinger “offloaded almost every night what had happened that day in Paris.”

           These leaks of top-secret information were of immense assistance to Richard Nixon.  

           Don Fulsom – Henry Kissinger: President Johnson’s Benedict Arnold Crime Magazine 8 Jul 13

           Treasonous? Ruthless? Destructive? Megalomaniacal? He is a reptile with cold, dead, black eyes.

         • 

           BooMan on February 12, 2016 at 8:05 pm

           yup.

           That’s exactly who he is.

         • 

           Phil Perspective on February 12, 2016 at 10:57 pm

           Kissinger is the single most respected diplomat in the history of this country. Every National Security Adviser since him was mentored by him or one of his proteges. Both parties call him, consult with him, and drink his leftover water hoping to get a piece of his brilliance.

           Brilliance in what?  Rat-fucking Democrats?  How he hates democracies, if they’re not right-wing?  He’s a bigger blood-gurgling psychopath than Bill Kristol for God’s sake.  Sanders is right.  Why be friends with people that respect a scum bag like that?  Or don’t things like the horrors of Pinochet’s Chile bother you?

         • 

           BooMan on February 13, 2016 at 1:44 am

           The New Evidence

           The Indonesian invasion of East Timor in December 1975 set the stage for the long, bloody, and disastrous occupation of the territory that ended only after an international peacekeeping force was introduced in 1999.  President Bill Clinton cut off military aid to Indonesia in September 1999–reversing a longstanding policy of military cooperation–but questions persist about U.S. responsibility for the 1975 invasion; in particular, the degree to which Washington actually condoned or supported the bloody military offensive.  Most recently, journalist Christopher Hitchens raised questions about the role of former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in giving a green light to the invasion that has left perhaps 200,000 dead in the years since.  Two newly declassified documents from the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library, released to the National Security Archive, shed light on the Ford administration’s relationship with President Suharto of Indonesia during 1975. Of special importance is the record of Ford’s and Kissinger’s meeting with Suharto in early December 1975.  The document shows that Suharto began the invasion knowing that he had the full approval of the White House.  Both of these documents had been released in heavily excised form some years ago, but with Suharto now out of power, and following the collapse of Indonesian control over East Timor, the situation has changed enough that both documents have been released in their entirety.

           Other documents found among State Department records at the National Archives elucidate the inner workings of U.S. policy toward the Indonesian crisis during 1975 and 1976.  Besides confirming that Henry Kissinger and top advisers expected an eventual Indonesian takeover of East Timor, archival material shows that the Secretary of State fully understood that the invasion of East Timor involved the “illegal” use of U.S.-supplied military equipment because it was not used in self-defense as required by law.

           Although Indonesia was a major site of U.S. energy and raw materials investment, an important petroleum exporter, strategically located near vital shipping lanes, and a significant recipient of U.S. military assistance, the country–much less the East Timor question–barely figures into Henry Kissinger’s memoirs of the Nixon and Ford administrations.  Gerald Ford’s memoir briefly discusses the December 1975 visit to Jakarta but does not mention the discussion of East Timor with Suharto.  Indeed, as important as the bilateral relationship was, Jakarta’s brutal suppression of the independence movement in East Timor was a development that neither Ford nor Kissinger wanted people to remember about their time in power.  That the two decided on a course of action of dubious legality and that resulted in the slaughter of thousands of Timorese may well have also discouraged further reflection, at least in public.  No doubt the omissions from Ford’s and Kissinger’s memoirs also reflect the low priority that East Timor had during the Ford administration.  For senior officials, the fate of a post-colonial East Timor paled in comparison to the strategic relationship with the anti-communist Suharto regime, especially in the wake of the communist victory in Vietnam, when Ford and Kissinger wanted to strengthen relations with anti-communists and check left-wing movements in the region.(1)  But it is not simply a matter of omission; on several occasions Kissinger has explicitly denied that he ever had substantive discussions of East Timor with Suharto, much less having consented to Indonesian plans.(2)  The new evidence contradicts Kissinger’s statements: Indonesian plans for the invasion of East Timor were indeed discussed with Suharto, and Ford and Kissinger gave them the green light.  As Kissinger advised Suharto on the eve of the invasion: “it is important that whatever you do succeeds quickly” but that “it would be better if it were done after we returned” to the United States.

           Although these new documents shed important light on U.S. policy toward the East Timor question in 1975, much more needs to be learned about U.S. policymaking during 1975 and 1976.  Unfortunately, most of the relevant sources are classified.  The large collection of Kissinger-Scowcroft office files at the Ford Library remains unavailable, as are the records of the State Department’s Indonesia desk and the Bureau of East Asian Affairs for the 1970s.  The State Department’s recent acquisition of Henry Kissinger’s telephone conversation transcripts might include important material, although they will probably reflect the relatively low priority that the policymakers gave to the East Timor question.

           link

     • 

       esquimaux on February 12, 2016 at 1:19 pm

       disagree that nobody gives a fuck, but it was only one point and mostly you called it right. Sanders needs another speech. We’ll start finding out whether Nate Silver knows what he thinks he knows.

       • 

         The Voice In The Wilderness on February 12, 2016 at 3:51 pm

         Well, Hillary got a new speech — Bernie’s! She has now turned hard left. Problem is she will turn hard right in the General. And in office? Who knows? except for “come with the cash”.

     • 

       Arthur Gilroy on February 12, 2016 at 1:45 pm

       Here we are again, Booman.

       Loved Sanders attack on Kissinger but nobody gives a fuck.

       “Nobody?”

       It all depends on with whom you associate.

       Some people obviously did.

       

       I think you oughta begin to get out more, Booman. And I don’t mean to Washington Monthly meetings. (If they ever really meet in person, of course. Personal contact? That is so last month!!!)

       AG

       (From deathtongue’s link above)

       As I said elsewhere on this thread:

       Ask a fish about water and it will say much the same thing.

       Water??? What’s that!!!???

       AG

       • 

         fjallstrom on February 12, 2016 at 3:30 pm

         And their first hit (Google, US IPs, Well known person) should be:

         Henry Kissinger – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

         Henry Alfred Kissinger (ˈkɪsɪndʒər;[1] born Heinz Alfred Kissinger [haɪnts ˈalfʁɛt ˈkɪsɪŋɐ]; May 27, 1923) is an American diplomat and political scientist. He served as National Security Advisor and later concurrently as United States Secretary of State in the administrations of Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. For his actions negotiating the ceasefire in Vietnam (though never realised), Kissinger received the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize under controversial circumstances,[2] with two members of the committee resigning in protest. After his term, his advice has been sought by world leaders including subsequent U.S. presidents.

         A proponent of Realpolitik, Kissinger played a prominent role in United States foreign policy between 1969 and 1977. During this period, he pioneered the policy of détente with the Soviet Union, orchestrated the opening of relations with the People’s Republic of China, and negotiated the Paris Peace Accords, ending American involvement in the Vietnam War. Kissinger’s Realpolitik resulted in controversial policies such as U.S. support for Pakistan, despite its genocidal actions during the Bangladesh War.[3] He is the founder and chairman of Kissinger Associates, an international consulting firm. Kissinger has been a prolific author of books on politics and international relations with over one dozen books authored. Some scholars have ranked Kissinger as the most effective U.S. Secretary of State in the 50 years to 2015, with a commanding lead over “Don’t know” in 2nd place.[4] A number of activists and human rights lawyers have sought his prosecution for alleged war crimes.[5][6]

         • 

           The Voice In The Wilderness on February 12, 2016 at 3:49 pm

           That’s pretty positive article, full of peace negotiations and honors. And “alleged” tucked onto war crimes.

         • 

           fjallstrom on February 12, 2016 at 4:06 pm

           That is the introduction, which I guess most people will read.

           There is both peace negotiations and war crimes and genocide support in that. So the reading is likely to reflect priors, whatever those are.

           Checking the article history there is in the last 24 hours a lot of edits from different IPs (meaning the users were not logged in/most likely did not have a login). Most are one-liners with variants on “not a friend of Bernie Sanders”, either in the text or just below the picture. There are also a lot of undoing of such oneliners. If that says anything, the vandals (Wikipedias terms, no connection with the actual 4th century Germanic tribe) were on the side of Sanders.

           Some content added on Chile and East Timor.

       • 

         Shaun Appleby on February 12, 2016 at 4:32 pm

         This is another reason why Booman reads these comments.

         • 

           Arthur Gilroy on February 12, 2016 at 4:53 pm

           I hope so.

           AG

       • 

         BooMan on February 12, 2016 at 5:43 pm

         Proves my point. No one googles Dick Cheney because they know why they’re supposed to hate him.  

     • 

       ejmw on February 12, 2016 at 1:46 pm

       Agreed.  I was chatting with a friend of mine (another strong Bernie supporter) during that point in the debate and this was our exchange:

       Me: She is crushing him on these foreign policy questions.
       Friend: Dammit, yeah basically.
       Me: He’s in a tough position because she does have a lot more experience here.  But he isn’t helping himself at all.
       Me: I just want to yell STOP at him.
       Me: He’s getting too wonky.  Technically correct isn’t the right kind of correct during a debate.
       Me: The Kissinger angle was a hard fail.  Dammit.
       Friend: Yeah, this is bad.
       Me: This is painful.  Bernie needs to phone a friend.
       Friend: He needs to stop repeating himself.
       Me: Clinton just obviously has a much more nuanced and informed view on foreign policy and she is blowing him out of the water.  
       Me: Senators don’t do foreign policy and it is painfully clear right now.

   • 

     Marie3 on February 12, 2016 at 1:26 pm

     For some strange reason in every Sanders-Clinton debate the public response, to the best of our ability to measure it, overwhelming rates Sanders above Clinton and almost all the pundits including sorta leftie folks like Charles Pierce and Martin, say Clinton wiped the floor with Sanders.

     Suspect a difference it that ordinary people like straight-forward and authentic responses.  And pundits like Ivy League word salad.  The latter can never be wrong and held to account because it’s parsed and twisted to such a degree that no there exists at the end of the statement.

     • 

       BooMan on February 12, 2016 at 1:35 pm

       I said Sanders clobbered her in the NH debate.

       • 

         Arthur Gilroy on February 12, 2016 at 2:09 pm

         No, you didn’t. Not really.

         Obviously, Sanders absolutely crushed Clinton tonight, exceeding the expected margins in all but one poll that I noticed. He could hardly have done better and his performance in the first two contests has exceeded all reasonable expectations. As I’ve said all along, he absolutely needed to do this to have any chance. Well, he did it. Now he has a chance.

         But, to be frank with you, he’s still behind the eight ball. If you include the superdelegates, who can of course change their commitments at any time, Clinton is now ahead with a 394-42 delegate lead. And the contest heads to Nevada and South Carolina where Clinton has so far held big leads with the Latino and black voters who were mostly absent in Iowa and New Hampshire. Even with his big win tonight, Sanders probably only picked up a small handful of net delegates. He has a long way to go to get close to knocking Clinton off.

         Still, as I said, he has so far done exactly what he needed to do.

         This is not a clear set of statements. It roughly equivalent to saying “Well, that batter certainly did have a couple of good at bats last night, but really, folks…any rational sports fan knows that he doesn’t have a chance of continuing at that pace.” t’s aback-handed compliment, at best.

         Followed by an entire post titled:

         Why Sanders is Still Behind the Eight Ball

         I’m sorry, man…I really am, because I think your heart is in the right place…but writing in that way plays exactly into the hands of the PermaGov mass media. That’s how they’re going to try to defeat him.

         Oh…he’s a good man and all, but he’s a dreamer. He doesn’t have a chance.”

         

         Like dat.

         Like this, too. Only subtler.

         

         I think you know better. In your heart, you know better. In their hearts, a lot of Americans know better.

         Let’s start speaking from our hearts, Booman. Enough of being reasonable; enough of parsing “possibilities”.

         Look where that’s gotten us.

         

         Please.

         AG

         • 

           mino on February 12, 2016 at 4:08 pm

           It’s called damning with faint praise, I think.

         • 

           BooMan on February 12, 2016 at 5:56 pm

           you’re quoting what I said about the election in NH to dispute what I said about the debate in NH?  

     • 

       mino on February 12, 2016 at 1:51 pm

       Last night’s Nevada focus group thought Bernie won.  I wonder if they choose people who are not that familiar with their stump speeches and therefor do not find the replies stale.

       Curious, did you find the debate audience trended towards the older adult deciles?

       • 

         fjallstrom on February 12, 2016 at 3:23 pm

         Booman Tribune ~ Comments ~ Sanders Telegraphs His Pitches

         Curious, did you find the debate audience trended towards the older adult deciles?

         I recently saw this on DailyKos:

         Let Me Tell You About the Debate “Audience” In Milwaukee (Update)

         I LIVE in the Milwaukee area, so you’d think I could manage to wrangle a ticket to tonight’s debate, right? Wrong! The closest I could come was the chance of “winning” a ticket via the Wisconsin Democratic Party’s donation request email. I entered for my change of winning the ONE ticket they offered. Never heard from them. I guess I lost. Maybe I should have donated a pile of money to boost my odds.

         The debate was held at my alma mater, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. You think UWM students could get a ticket? Wrong! They had to register for a lottery and then only 25 tickets were handed out to the lucky “winners”.

         So….who WAS in the audience? Beats me. Certainly not activists or ordinary citizens. I suspect they were State Party loyalists and hangers-on. Martha Lanning, chair of the Wis Dems, like other members of the establishment, has already endorsed HRC. Otherwise, it was 25 lucky UWM students and 1 lucky winner of the Wisconsin Democratic Party’s email donation contest.

         The game was rigged, my friends. Just like the rest of our Democracy has been.

         Felling the Bern at home rather than sitting at the Debate.

         • 

           mino on February 12, 2016 at 4:06 pm

           Was the Kissinger kerfluffle one of the places where Bernie got significant applause?  That older audience might well know Kissinger’s and his works.

         • 

           Marie3 on February 13, 2016 at 5:53 pm

           Others have answered the debate audience question.  The tip-off that it was an almost completely pro-Clinton audience is when they clapped and cheered for Clinton on the Kissinger issue and were silent after Sanders’ responses.

       • 

         fjallstrom on February 12, 2016 at 3:25 pm

         Booman Tribune ~ Sanders Telegraphs His Pitches

         Last night’s Nevada focus group thought Bernie won.  I wonder if they choose people who are not that familiar with their stump speeches and therefor do not find the replies stale.

         In contrast to political junkies who watch every debate?

     • 

       on February 12, 2016 at 2:11 pm

       When Hillary scores Kissinger points and bomb Khadafy points, I think that a large percentage of older folks like myself, maybe we’re the Vietnam Generation, really are turned off by Hillary’s use of the old war horses. As far as we know from last night, women who don’t vote for Clinton are still destined to hell. I’m sure that Albright’s remark would have been better received fifteen years ago. That’s why her Kissinger remark sounds so bad for my crowd.

       By the way, is her crazy pandering to blacks really going to work? I have no clue but it fills me with sadness.

   • 

     mino on February 12, 2016 at 1:33 pm

     If a good chunk of her coalition is older voters, Kissinger was a very ill-considered own goal.  

     And I find Nancy near unreadable.  So she is a feminist?

     • 

       BooMan on February 12, 2016 at 1:34 pm

       you’re not?

       • 

         mino on February 12, 2016 at 1:43 pm

         What I am is immaterial, no?

         • 

           mino on February 12, 2016 at 1:45 pm

           By that, I mean my difficulties with her positions are not on that subject at all–in fact, I am surprised to read she has that assignment.  

2. 

   on February 12, 2016 at 2:04 pm

   Last night I got that sick feeling that I always seem to get at some point in the election season. The argument over the 2007 immigration bill, I think, set it off.

   It wasn’t really about immigration at all, because, as I recall that bill was a bracero program. In other words, Clinton supported a bill that would weaken organized labor. I felt that this is just another untruth that Sanders left on the table.

   Plus, I’m really disliking Clinton these days. I see her as the candidate of bought endorsements, half-truths and big money. I probably have disliked her since I didn’t have to defend her hubby anymore, which would have been in the late nineties (and it had more to do with his foreign policy and economic policy than his blue dress), but it’s getting visceral now.

   But I shouldn’t complain. This is a bonus

3. 

   on February 12, 2016 at 2:19 pm

   It was a tiresome, and tiring debate. Woodruff and Ifill mumbled and their questions often were hard to understand. The pastel, washed out background was hard to look at, but it sure made Hillary’s yellow thing pop.

   Clinton sounded as canned as ever, but oddly snottier and even less believable in tone than usual as well. Sanders remains sharp as always, but begins to look a little impatient having to stand listening to the former first lady go on (and on and on and on). He has to be polite or there’ll be a firestorm backlash from middle-aged and older women, but damn if it isn’t getting harder and harder to listen to Hillary go on (and on and on and on). Didn’t she ever learn to keep an answer on point and short, or when to let it go?

   All that notwithstanding, they both keep saying the same stuff. Moderators keep asking more-or-less the same, mostly questions of interest to Hillary’s establishment supporters. And of course, at this point, if you’ve been following Sanders since last summer, what he has to say is starting to sound repetitious. It’s still outrageous stuff, so it packs the same wallop every time, but it’s the same stuff, short and potent, and to the point every time.

   Not surprising to see the gap between them in Nevada has closed. Surely a good sign for Sanders and a bad one for Clinton. And the point Martin makes here about South Carolina and other states in March relies on polling that’s mostly a month out of date now just like Nevada’s was until this morning. Not surprising these gaps keep closing, but still hard to take in that Sanders continues to rise.

4. 

   charon on February 12, 2016 at 2:29 pm

   There is a graphic here that shows what sort of clients TargetPoint has.  Just saying …

     http://www.targetpointconsulting.com/pages/clients

   • 

     charon on February 12, 2016 at 2:43 pm

     Is it possible to infer here which candidate the GOP prefers to win?

     • 

       mino on February 12, 2016 at 4:20 pm

       LOL  That is funny.  What an opportunity.

     • 

       Deathtongue on February 12, 2016 at 5:29 pm

       Who cares what the GOP establishment is planning? They’re not Xanatos-tier masters of strategy. Despite all of their piles of money and slavering media toadies and regiments of campaign consultants they’re ultimately clowns and buffoons who’d be outwitted by Sgt. Schultz. They can’t even take down Donald fucking Trump. They’re so worthless and out-of-touch pushed Rubio and Fiorina as standardbearers out of desperation despite the fact that one’s a de-aged Huckabee clone and the other one is nuttier than Palin.

       Biting your nails over the possibility of being ratfucked by these goons is a waste of time. It’s more likely that they’re sticking the rats up their own anuses this time.

   • 

     OldCoastie on February 12, 2016 at 6:31 pm

     Good catch!

     • 

       charon on February 12, 2016 at 6:48 pm

       What I find interesting is the confirmation bias/wishful thinking way most posters here are interpreting/spinning information.

5. 

   Arthur Gilroy on February 12, 2016 at 2:33 pm

   Booman writes:

   I also think Sanders needs to kick the nasty cold that’s been tormenting him since Iowa. It can’t be fun to travel and compete when you feel like death.

   I reluctantly agree. We are approximately the same vintage, Sanders and I, only I essentially am a professional athlete still playing in the big leagues and he is essentially a professional sitter. I play an extremely physically demanding brass instrument in physically demanding idioms about 6 hours a day on average (counting practice and work), and walk two or three miles several days a week up and down hills and subway stairs carrying about 30 lbs. of gear on my shoulders. I also eat mostly organically and take no drugs other than caffeine and dinner wine. No prescription or over the counter drugs whatsoever.  I only have to look at Bernie to know that he is neither as strong nor as healthy as am I physically, and I am not sure that I could stand the gaffe of the kind of campaign he is running.

   Watch him walk. He looks like maybe he has a back brace or something. Very stiff through the upper back and shoulders. I am really not sure that he…or HRC for that matter, who is so weak and overweight that she needed both hands on the guardrail and someone else’s helping hand to get up off of the ground recently when she tripped at the top of the stairs leading into an airplane, and she looked none to steady even then…..could survive 4 years of being the president, let alone 8. That’s not just “a nasty cold,” really. That’s a nasty cold that he cannot shrug off under the kind of pressure he is experiencing.

   All the more reason for Sanders to convince Elizabeth Warren to run with him on the ticket.

   Soon!!!

   

   Later…

   AG

   • 

     The Voice In The Wilderness on February 12, 2016 at 3:54 pm

     If only we could draft the re-incarnation of JFK.

     • 

       mino on February 12, 2016 at 4:18 pm

       I’d chose RFK.

       • 

         on February 12, 2016 at 4:30 pm

         There was a reason they were shot, and why Donna Rice ended up on Gary Hart’s lap.

       • 

         Arthur Gilroy on February 12, 2016 at 4:52 pm

         They were both in the process of understanding what was really going on. So were Malcolm X and MLK Jr.

         Can that happen again?

         I hope not.

         AG

6. 

   MikeInOhio on February 12, 2016 at 2:50 pm

   I’ll say one thing. This thread is proof that confirmation bias is alive and well!

   It is interesting to see how often we will see and hear exactly what we want to see and hear.

   FWIW, I include myself in this observation.

   • 

     LeonS on February 12, 2016 at 2:57 pm

     Yeah, short of huge embarrassing mistakes (*cough*Rubio*cough*) judging the “winner” of a debate, or what effect it will have out in the real world, is a fools errand.
     But there’s no damn polls! What else to we have to over analyze!?

7. 

   LeonS on February 12, 2016 at 3:13 pm

   Holy crap, did you look at the breakdowns in that poll? It makes you wonder how so many people could still say they are voting for Hillary when they think Bernie cares about them more and is more trustworthy. Don’t know anything about these pollsters, but if they are good, I would be very worried if I was on Hillary’s staff.

   • 

     MNPundit on February 12, 2016 at 3:30 pm

     From what I can tell support for HRC is mostly predicated on “she can beat the Republicans.” That’s it. Aside from glass ceiling there’s nothing about her that is particularly energizing. And judging by what has happened so far in 2016 she is once again calling her competence into question because she has not learned the right lessons from 2008.

     Even her fund-raising emails talk about how awesome Sanders is and they need help to match him.

   • 

     The Voice In The Wilderness on February 12, 2016 at 3:57 pm

     It’s the electability crap. Coupled with Bernie sailing against a full force Democratic Party insider gale and Hillary running with it pushing her sails.

8. 

   MNPundit on February 12, 2016 at 3:27 pm

   I don’t think Bernie came off as best he could, but I just don’t get why people think Clinton did well. Her single issue closer reads to me as a total misread of the situation. Are we a single issue nation? I think we are. Economics is the linchpin of ALL the barriers.

   Race? Progress has been best made on race when it’s been more difficult to turn the races against each other because of economics AND when the country is riding high. Increasing the economic prospects of blacks and latinos helps fight the white stereotype of poor thugs. Improved economic equality will also mean that individuals have more resources to fight within the system so it’s harder to get screwed and more leisure time to try and fix the system rather than expending all that energy on survival.

   Will fixing income inequality remove racism alone? No! But it creates conditions where real progress can be made. It’s all holistic.

   If Clinton can’t see how it ties together then she is missing something very obvious.

   • 

     mino on February 13, 2016 at 12:23 pm

     Neoliberals have consistently used social issues to blurr the economic reality.

9. 

   Shaun Appleby on February 12, 2016 at 4:08 pm

   Hillary is going to have to pivot away from agreeing with Sanders’ dystopian view of the US economy if she’s going to run on experience and incremental progress. The time she spends deflating Sanders’ arguments on this point by agreeing with him will all have to be reeled in later; otherwise I’m failing to see a coherent narrative for her general election campaign against any opponent not named Jeb.

10. 

    Kennymack1971 on February 12, 2016 at 4:25 pm

    So in one corner we have a cynical triangulator governed by polls and pundits and in the other we have a progressive purity warrior promising the sun, the moon and the stars with no realistic plan to deliver any of the ponies he’s promising. This is depressing. But as lame as both of these candidates are whatever the GOP vomits up in a few months is going to be infinitely worse. Feel the excitement.

    • 

      JoelDanWalls on February 12, 2016 at 5:15 pm

      A commentary I read by a BBC reporter is that Hillary Clinton just doesn’t do inspirational speeches; she’s too much of a policy wonk. She’s into details while Sanders is into inspiration with few details.

    • 

      AustinSax on February 12, 2016 at 5:19 pm

      I know you’re excited but be patient, Republican vomit is almost here.

    • 

      JCK on February 12, 2016 at 5:40 pm

      This exactly sums up my feelings.

      I initially read your “Feel the excitement” as “Feel the excrement”.

      Tells you where I am on the whole thing.

11. 

    Jonf on February 12, 2016 at 4:28 pm

    My take was Hillary won this one. Bernie needs to retool his speech. And he needs to talk to someone about foreign policy. But what is really depressing is the identity politics surrounding the AA vote. It seems clear with all the endorsements Hillary has that vote. There is always a chance Sanders can close the gap, but somehow I can’t see it. Also, I thought he walked into too many traps as Hillary aligned herself with Obama and took swipes at him from there. And she borrowed liberally from some of Bernies stump speech. Tell me again what the difference is?  Unless something chances very soon, Super Tuesday will end his bid.

    • 

      Shaun Appleby on February 12, 2016 at 4:38 pm

      His chances of winning the nomination are as good or better then they have ever been. Seems to me he’s played his hand, such as it is, quite well. We need new polls.

    • 

      on February 12, 2016 at 4:38 pm

      Yes, he left too much on the table.

      Now, partly it’s because Clinton comes with off-the-wall stuff, like bringing up the 2007 immigration bill. It was a modified bracero program which essentially weakens the workforce and eventually sends workers back to India or Mexico. Then a good percentage of them stay here and become illegals. Great system.

      So why did Sanders leave that on the table?

      The fact is Clinton tells a lot of half-truths, or little lies. And she leaves a lot of little cuts.

      • 

        Spiny on February 12, 2016 at 5:15 pm

        Unfortunately, it appears that is what a lot of what the pundits call “being a good politician”. It seems like they really believe that the average voter is a dolt that can’t figure this stuff out and the job of a “good politician” is to mislead the rubes into voting against their own best interests.

        Now, obviously the voters have made some doozies over the years… but I think times are changing and the internet is making it harder and harder to mislead those of us who exist in the reality based world. But somehow, in the “make our own reality” Republican world… that’s a whole different story.

      • 

        anegadagino on February 12, 2016 at 7:19 pm

        Democratic politicians tells half-truths.  Republicans just make stuff up (and take pride in it).  They’ve been making so much stuff up about the Clintons for so many years that it has become the accepted reality, even to many Democrats.  They haven’t even started on Sanders yet — probably because they think he would be incredibly easy to beat and because they are distracted by their own problems for the moment.  But they will settle on a candidate, of course.  They will have tons of money.  And they will create a wholly new reality about Bernie Sanders out of half-lies and whole lies.  Remember the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth?  I’ll leave it to you to create the rest of the list.

12. 

    JoelDanWalls on February 12, 2016 at 5:12 pm

    I’ve been on the fence, but hearing Hillary Clinton invoking Henry Kissinger has pushed me off. As with Bob in Portland, I’m old enough to remember Kissinger’s war crimes on behalf of Nixon.

    Not that I think the Oregon primary is going to matter this year. I expect Clinton to have things sewn up by the end of March.

13. 

    on February 12, 2016 at 8:52 pm

    “The trajectory of the race favors Sanders, but he needs to keep improving because his act is getting stale”

    This based on anything other than your own opinion? Got like, any data or anything?

    Sanders has come from nowhere – I find it amusing that people who didn’t take him seriously now seem to think they have anything relevant to offer his campaign.

    Sanders has had the same message for about 40 years.  It hasn’t changed and it won’t, which is basically the biggest strength of his campaign.

    He is still a long shot – but most of the debate analysis saw a tie.

    There is nothing “New” about Sanders if you have known him.  

    And there won’t be.

    It’s called authenticity.

    • 

      Marie3 on February 13, 2016 at 5:50 pm

      This:

      I find it amusing that people who didn’t take him seriously now seem to think they have anything relevant to offer his campaign.

      Sanders has been one step ahead of his supporters since last summer.  Five steps ahead of “mushy middle” pundits.  And ten steps ahead of Clinton.  He knows exactly how the coronation was planned to go down and has been doing end runs for months.

      Have yet to see anyone here articulate how he pulled off a draw in Iowa and a blow-out in NH.  

14. 

    karl pearson on February 12, 2016 at 9:20 pm

    Since Henry Kissinger was mentioned, I thought I’d share this article from Mother Jones.

    http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/02/hillary-clinton-kissinger-vacation-dominican-republic-de
    -la-renta

    In reference to last night’s debate, here is an interesting quotation from the article:
    “What Clinton did not mention was that her bond with Kissinger was personal as well as professional, as she and her husband have for years regularly spent their winter holidays with Kissinger and his wife, Nancy, at the beachfront villa of fashion designer Oscar de la Renta, who died in 2014, and his wife, Annette, in the Dominican Republic.”

    • 

      mino on February 13, 2016 at 12:28 pm

      Hmm, Ukraine…

15. 

    TarheelDem on February 12, 2016 at 10:02 pm

    What is the current undecided vote in South Carolina?

    It occurs to me that the interval between the contests is now where Sanders has the opportunity or not to close the deal in the next state or to stay even. When the reality comes is when there a multiple and even a large number of states to juggle schedules and manage travel.

    A cold is not something to take lightly with this sort of intense schedule.