If you are planning to back HRC in '16, is it because...

[Ken Burch]

2 votes, 0 passes | Time left: Unlimited
	You believe that we can ONLY win with a Dem in HRC's place on the political spectrum
	0 (0%)
	You think she'll be the progressive she wasn't in 2008
	0 (0%)
	You agree with her on the issues more than you agree with other possible candidates
	1 (50%)
	You buy the "experience" argument
	0 (0%)
	0 (0%)
	1 (50%)
	0 DU members did not wish to select any of the options provided.
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[demwing]

1. let the flame war begin! /nt

[LeftofObama]

2. ...

[BainsBane]

3. I suppose it depends on what you think the President's role is

to think pure thoughts or get stuff done. I'm going with getting stuff done.

[Ken Burch]

4. Getting stuff done doesn't HAVE to mean being a hawk

or forming alliances with bad guys in bad places.

And it DAMN sure doesn't have to mean backing what she knew was an unnecessary and unjustified war in Iraq(a war based on what she KNEW were lies).

You can get things done and still have humane, progressive values, y'know. It's not as if only thugs and cynics can be effective.

And what's wrong with getting PURE things done? Or at least things that don't require doing as much harm as good(like the coup in Honduras and rigging the elections in Haiti to make sure the right-wing upper-class Creole candidate who was pledged to ignore the poor got the presidency).

[BainsBane]

7. Do you know what country you live in?

Which US president in modern times hasn't been a hawk?

What's wrong with getting "pure" things done is they have to get through congress. The Tea Party is big on pure. Look how that's working out.
I don't know who is going to run for the Democratic Presidential nomination in 2016.

I learned some time ago that no politician will ever reflect my values. If that's what I cared about, I'd join a socialist party. Democratic Politics is about practicality, not validating your feelings.

[Ken Burch]

10. At one point, you could have said "what US president hasn't abetted slavery?"

At another, you could have said "what US president hasn't opposed votes for women?"

At another, you could have said "what US president hasn't been violently anti-union?"

At another, you could have said "what US president since 1876 hasn't been pro-Jim Crow?"

More recently you could have said "what US president hasn't opposed same-sex marriage?"

Past presidential unanimity on something doesn't have to mean the subject is closed to debate and discussion for all times.

Perhaps I shouldn't have said "pure things"...but "things that are more good than bad on balance at all times" would at least be a refreshing change. We will never need to make the kind of compromise we made on the Bush tax cuts in 2010 again, just to "get things done". Nothing meaningful GOT done in that compromise, by the way, and it made the budget situation far worse than it had to be.

I'm not saying NEVER compromise...I'm saying you don't have to make compromises that keep wars going and get people killed, just to get things done. The American people want US territory protected from outside attack. That's easily done. It doesn't require signing on to the status quo on Middle East policy. And it doesn't have to mean accepting the same definition of US "national interests" that Republican presidents would offer(i.e., access to foreign markets for US corporations at slave labor wages and with no requirements to protect the environment or treat workers decently in US-owned overseas workplaces).

And any compromise made in one situation has to ALWAYS be predicated on undoing that compromise in the earliest possible future.

In the 2010 congressional campaign, for example, Obama could have made it a point on the stump that, if Dems held the line in the vote(or even, as they could have done with a strong campaign, made some gains)he would fight to remove the poison pills from the ACA through amendments. That, at least, would have been how to use a bad initial outcome to get a better later outcome.

[Chan790]

5. Which option for "Not No, but Fuck No!" n/t

[Ken Burch]

8. That answer wouldn't actually make sense for this poll.

n/t.

[Chan790]

9. I know, but...

I'm afraid if I don't constantly reaffirm it people might forget exactly how opposed I am to the notion of Hillary Clinton ever being the Democratic nominee or President.

Buying into the theory of a multiverse, there is no universe in which I would cast a vote for Hillary Clinton. Given a choice between voting for Clinton and not, I write in a vote for myself. I'm deeply offended by the notion of her candidacy.

[lumberjack_jeff]

6. I'm planning to back the nominee

I think HRC has a massive advantage over anyone else I can imagine from a fundraising perspective, and she is tolerable, policy-wise.