Kunin: When Bernie Sanders ran against me in Vermont

[question everything]

Cross posted from GDP

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511158039

Hillary Clinton is not the first progressive Democratic woman to be challenged by Bernie Sanders. He ran against me in 1986 when I was running for my second term as governor of Vermont. At that time he had little affinity for the Democratic Party. When advised that his third-party candidacy might result in a Republican victory, he saw no difference between Democrats and Republicans, saying: “It is absolutely fair to say you are dealing with Tweedledum and Tweedledee.” Voters did not agree. Sanders received 14 percent of the vote, the Republican candidate, Peter Smith received 38 percent, and I won with 47 percent.

By any measure I was regarded as a progressive governor. If I was vulnerable, it was for being too liberal. As a legislator, my maiden speech on the floor of the Vermont House was in favor of ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment. My first priority as governor was universal access to kindergarten. I set a record for a Vermont governor’s appointees; women filled half of my cabinet. I sought out talented women, many of whom were the first women to head their agencies.

Women draw on a different network than men and can share an alternative definition of “qualified.” Hillary Clinton’s campaign staff, according to Fast Company, is over 50 percent female. Sanders’ campaign began with a a predominantly male inner circle and continues to face accusation of keeping women out of the top ranks.

When Sanders was my opponent he focused like a laser beam on “class analysis,” in which “women’s issues” were essentially a distraction from more important issues. He urged voters not to vote for me just because I was a woman. That would be a “sexist position,” he declared

(snip)

An angry female voice works against women but is a plus for men. It demonstrates passion, outrage and power. Sanders bristled when he was accused of sexism after he implied that Clinton was among the shouters. Ironically, it is he who has, according to his doctor, suffered from laryngitis.

(snip)

One of the criticisms Clinton has received is that she is not authentic, that she is too political (i.e. scheming) and that she has been around for a long time so that she is a captive of various institutions.

If we’re counting from when Sanders was elected mayor of Burlington, he has been around for some time, too: 35 years. In part because he is a man, he can run as the ultimate outsider. Clinton can’t be the outsider even as her very candidacy defies precedent. Ever since women got the vote, we believed, like the good students we are, that the path to political participation, as instructed years ago by the League of Women Voters, was to be informed, understand the system and play by the rules. That’s how we could make it in a man’s world.

More..

https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2016/02/04/when-bernie-sanders-ran-against-vermont/kNP6xUupbQ3Qbg9UUelvVM/story.html

[Nonhlanhla]

1. This part stands out:

"When Sanders was my opponent he focused like a laser beam on “class analysis,” in which “women’s issues” were essentially a distraction from more important issues. He urged voters not to vote for me just because I was a woman. That would be a “sexist position,” he declared."

It stands out for two reasons:
1. Sounds awfully familiar, this Rovian tactic to accuse a female candidate of sexism (much like right wingers accusing the nation's first black president of racism).
2. There is a long history of revolutions pushing women aside. For one historical example, look up the history of women in the French revolution. And that would be just one example.

[Skidmore]

2. Yes. He plays the ultimate

male insider card.

[pandr32]

3. Excellent! Thanks for posting this!

He hasn't changed much either. He has lucked out that a politically naive group of young people believes every single one of his decades old messages--verbal and otherwise-- and is giving him a huge boost.

The non-verbal and off-handed messages he gives are causing many of us to bristle, and he often delegates the dirty work of being a hard-boiled politician to others--still another form of messaging, but one that gives him plausible deniability. He seems like Chris Christie in that regard. Let's not forget he hitched his post to the NRA when he thought it would help him win once, and it worked.

The fact that the bulk of his supporters are so young helps his negative messaging of Hillary Clinton (because they grew up hearing it and do not remember her before millions got spent to demonize her), and helps him in that they don't know that his speeches have been pretty much identical for almost four decades, and that in spite of his rhetoric he has been living very well under capitalism and has never known anything different except for when he went to visit the "socialist" dictator Daniel Ortega, Fidel Castro (who rebuffed him) and a honeymoon trip to Russia. He doesn't know any more about really living as a "social democrat" than any of the rest of us do, except in his reading material and in his imagination. He is now in his mid-seventies--has lived his whole life in the U.S. after being born in Brooklyn.

Another point to make: while the gay rights movement has received national attention and has been embraced widely, the women's rights movement seems to have lost the populism it once had. It is as though those powerful, political and economic mechanisms that were put in place to help raise awareness and to fight for marriage equality packed up shop and left the women's movement, and the fight against racism (huge movements that happened together during the turbulent '60s) to fend for themselves. Meanwhile, the right-wing is systematically rolling back hard won voting rights, and needed resources for minorities; and access to needed resources and health care for women (and of course the children and families that depend on them). Women's rights cut across the socioeconomic spectrum and blend right into other civil rights battles. Women come in every size, shape, income bracket, religion, and skin color.

Thank goodness for women who fight to help others. Thank goodness for Hillary Clinton.

[book_worm]

4. Interesting

[mgmaggiemg]

5. thanks for the post

I am trolled constantly by bernie/GOP for voting for her because she is a woman....it's sexism in the highest degree...when you consider that men have been voting for men because they are men since the beginning of time.....let us all thumb our noses at these losers together and vote HRC 2016

[question everything]

6. Great observation

I lived in California in the 90s when Kathleen Brown, the sister of Jerry Brown, was running for governor.

I was at a meeting and a man sitting next to me said: we already have two female senators so now we are going to add also a female governor? And I just looked at him and made a similar comment: you did not have a problem when the governor, the senators and members of the house were all men, now, did you?

[mgmaggiemg]

7. exactly....;)

[SunSeeker]

8. K & R