How Bernie Sanders lost me ... and Hillary Clinton won me over

[MrWendel]

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/2/14/1483010/-How-Bernie-Sanders-lost-me-and-Hillary-Clinton-won-me-over

By Laura Clawson



The first presidential election I voted in was in 1996. I voted for a third-party candidate—I don’t remember more than that it was the one with “socialist” in the party name—because after welfare reform, I was not voting for Bill Clinton. The first time I voted for a Democrat in a presidential election was John Kerry in 2004—I had voted against him in the 2002 Massachusetts Senate election, voting for write-in candidate Randall Forsberg in protest over Iraq.

I’m not a natural Hillary Clinton supporter, is what I’m saying. When she looked like the only meaningful Democratic candidate in the 2016 presidential election, I was fine with that, committed to a Democratic win but also committed to the work of pushing from her left whenever and wherever possible. When Bernie Sanders got into the race, I was pleased to be able to support a candidate on Clinton’s left. I gave him a little money and assumed I’d give him more.

Then he lost me. Not all at once, but, by now, thoroughly. And along the way, Clinton impressed me more than she ever had.

(More in link)

[comradebillyboy]

1. One of the very best critiques of Sanders I have seen...nt

[Cha]

8. I know, huh!

[Starry Messenger]

2. This was excellent.

Over 1300 comments, whoa! She's been one of my favorite labor writers over there for years.

[Cha]

9. WOW, that's a lot comments! She's so good. I don't do dkos but I definitely

recognize her name.

Starry

[dlwickham]

3. Very nice

[cosmicone]

4. Kicked and highly recommended n/t

[wysi]

5. Thanks!

Just don't read the comments (hint: the author gets accused of anti-Semitism).

[Cha]

7. Haha.. I didn't think of reading them.. it was so good! But, yeah that sounds like one of

their buzzword insults because they can't debate what she wrote.



wysi

[Treant]

11. Ugh, the comments really are vile.

I made the mistake of reading down. Don't, if you haven't, they leave a rather bad taste in the mouth.

Simply put, there are a lot of people who agree with Clawson, but don't say it because the Bernistas scream them into silence. I was one of them--it's just that Bernie lost me at Datagate. If you read down, one commenter noted s/he was in the same boat, and got roundly battered.

Honestly. Does that actually work to get anybody to vote for their candidate? I don't think so. If anything, it simply turns people strongly against Bernie. That worked for me, too--I went from neutral but interested to slightly negative to strongly negative.

[Cha]

12. You were for bern until datagate, Treant? Interesting!

That turned you off their campaign ?.. and you must be really grateful for them since so much more has come out?

They're useless as supporters.. it's so funny how there's so many just like each other.

[Treant]

13. I was neutral...

...but interested in what he had to say, while being slightly Clinton-positive and leaning in her direction. Post Datagate, I wasn't going to vote for him and had committed firmly for Clinton.

Nowadays, the Bros are piling on with the insults and the condescension (yes, I have heard his message, thanks, and I find it wanting). Plus the fact that Sanders' message isn't evolving, he's indicated no interest into expanding into what he does not know, and in debates he's developing into a rude, classless person.

At this point, I've evolved into open disgust with him. Even if neutral on Clinton, I'd be voting for her.

[Nonhlanhla]

17. Datagate was the clincher for me too

I was neutral, slowly starting to lean slightly towards Hillary, but still open to Bernie, until datagate. The Bernie supporters' nasty behavior had already started to disgust me before that, but datagate was the last straw, especially the fact that immediately placed the blame for it on Hillary. I then knew that I don/t want to be part of this 'revolution.'

I was told today by a Bernie supporter that there is something wrong with my decision making skills, when I shared this, LOL!

[Treant]

20. I'm sure that comment

flipped you right back to being a Bernie supporter, yes? Yes.

I've gotten to the point that I simply state facts, let them fire barbs back, and allow those to stand (on another site, this one's far too rabid). I figure every time a Bro flips out, a Clinton supporter is born (and gets his/her wings).

Right now, they're riding high on this NH thing. Wait until after Saturday (I'm calling it a near-tie due to lack of data) and SC (extremely strong Clinton win). The Bernies will be getting progressively shriller and Super Tuesday will be right around the corner.

I'll spend the evening sowing my flats of Profusion zinnia and quietly gloating.

[Cha]

6. I thought it was going to be from you, MrWendel.. but this is good.

I wish more would have the critical thinking level of Laura Clawson.

No, she is not a natural Hillary supporter!

snip from your link//

Except … somehow Sanders has lost me on even that. I simultaneously want a more serious and nuanced class analysis—something deeper than the talking points, more flexibly targeted to specific questions rather than broad strokes—and more willingness to depart from the talking points, to acknowledge that sometimes you really can’t turn a question to your
subject of choice. When the time is right to talk about inequality, try to fit the statistics to the moment. When the time is wrong, at least pretend to notice. Clearly Sanders’ talking points are working for lots of people, and I don’t doubt his commitment on these issues, but the repetition has failed to give me anything new or interesting to hang onto
And beyond inequality, the repetition is a problem with how he talks about—or avoids talking about—other major issues, which he so often dismisses. A president has to be willing to take on issues they don’t necessarily care the most about, able to become an expert on anything, able to pivot and start to care. I need more than “trust me,” and I don’t see Sanders failing to give me that, I see him refusing to do so. That’s not confidence-inspiring.

Finally someone gets it who thought he was so great in the beginning!

Mahalo, Mr Wendel

Happy V Day!

[MrWendel]

14. Thanks CHA.

Glad you liked it.

[Cha]

15. Oh I did.. it's a pass arounder!

[peggysue2]

10. Kudos!

Sums it up quite nicely. Not a rant for Hillary Clinton but a sensible, reasonable affirmation of who would make the better president. Simple really. Honest, eloquent. Can't beat that.

Hillary 2016
"I am not a single issue candidate . . ."

[fleabiscuit]

16. She echoes many of my thoughts and feelings.

Right down to the giving a "little money." It was my ill informed heart catching up with my rational self, and the bros put a dagger in it. F'er's!
My latest "little money" went to HRC. I'm more than OK with that.

[still_one]

18. what a refreshing analysis

"A president has to be willing to take on issues they don’t necessarily care the most about, able to become an expert on anything, able to pivot and start to care. I need more than “trust me,” and I don’t see Sanders failing to give me that, I see him refusing to do so. That’s not confidence-inspiring."

[Cha]

19. I know, huh?!

[SunSeeker]

21. Great piece. My favorite two paragraphs:

The problem is, as Al Gore or John Kerry can tell you, once you start seeing a politician in a certain light, you start seeing it more and more. Things that would have been insignificant start to loom large. So once I’d first questioned Bernie Sanders’ honesty, I started seeing a lot more reasons to question it. What could be called little stuff—the campaign’s response to the NGPVAN data breach, the repeated strong implications that Sanders had endorsements he doesn’t have, the staffers posing as Culinary Union members—seems bigger than it might in isolation. But even in isolation, that’s quite a pattern of, at rock-bottom minimum, the kind of campaigning the authentic and honorable Bernie Sanders is supposed to stand against. Of course he didn’t make those decisions himself, but he hired Jeff Weaver and Jeff Weaver has built a campaign organization that did all those things. And his arguments about his progressivism vs. Hillary Clinton’s require us to ignore a lot of history:

...

I believe that while Sanders supports things like paid family leave, Clinton would be a bigger step forward in those areas. Not just because she’s a woman, mind you, but because, as Walsh points out, Sanders “has more than a tin-ear on gender. He routinely talks about ‘mothers’ needing family leave.” That’s a problem, one that made me take a real step back in early Democratic debates. Also because, as Madeleine Kunin implicitly points out, some of the same ways Sanders is being dismissive of Clinton's commitments on gender have a long history with the Vermont senator, and while Sanders has pushed back some against the raging sexism coming from a vocal bloc of his supporters, I wonder how much his incomplete vision on the realities of sexism bolster his appeal to some of his supporters to begin with.