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When Bernie Met Hillary-Long before challenging Clinton, Sanders reached out to her. He got nowhere
Last edited Wed Feb 3, 2016, 05:18 PM - Edit history (1)
Fascinating Read By BEN SCHRECKINGER - about healthcare, NAFTA and more. Recommend reading the whole thing.
. . .
As one of Congress’s most liberal members in the 1990s, Sanders went back and forth between clashing with Bill Clinton and warily embracing the leader of the centrist New Democrats. But even before the Clintons were in the White House, Bernie was playing the role of pragmatic progressive, making overtures directly to Hillary and working to pull her to the left.
In 1992, the lone socialist in Congress, Rep. Bernard Sanders, as he was then known, wasn’t wild about the centrist Arkansas Governor running for president, and he let it be known publicly. “Bernie was the founder of the progressive caucus. Clinton was the founder of the Democratic Leadership Council, the whole point of which was to exterminate the progressives,” said Bill Curry, who served as counselor to the president during Clinton’s first term. “They weren’t even two ships passing in the night. They were two ships sailing in the opposite direction.”
But in May of 1992, Sanders wrote to the First Lady of Arkansas at her Little Rock law firm to tout a bill he had written to provide federal funding for state cancer registries, attaching his testimony on the bill’s behalf and a Reader’s Digest article calling registries “THE CANCER WEAPON AMERICA NEEDS MOST.”
In 1992, the lone socialist in Congress, Rep. Bernard Sanders, as he was then known, wasn’t wild about the centrist Arkansas Governor running for president, and he let it be known publicly. “Bernie was the founder of the progressive caucus. Clinton was the founder of the Democratic Leadership Council, the whole point of which was to exterminate the progressives,” said Bill Curry, who served as counselor to the president during Clinton’s first term. “They weren’t even two ships passing in the night. They were two ships sailing in the opposite direction.”
But in May of 1992, Sanders wrote to the First Lady of Arkansas at her Little Rock law firm to tout a bill he had written to provide federal funding for state cancer registries, attaching his testimony on the bill’s behalf and a Reader’s Digest article calling registries “THE CANCER WEAPON AMERICA NEEDS MOST.”
<snip>
That summer, Sanders issued what the Vermont newspapers described as a “reluctant” and “half-hearted” endorsement of Clinton, saying that a second Bush term would be disastrous. In September, Clinton traveled to Vermont for a campaign rally in Burlington at Perkins Piers on Lake Champlain. Sanders was in attendance, and Clinton made sure to point out just how vast the gap was between Sanders and the Republican nominee on Sanders’ pet issue: health care.
<snip>
In February, Sanders requested a meeting with Hillary, “to bring in two Harvard Medical School physicians who have written on the Canadian system,” according to the records of the administration’s task force. Those physicians were Stephanie Woolhandler and David Himmelstein, leading advocates for single-payer health care.
They got their meeting at the White House that month, and the two doctors laid out the case for single-payer to the first lady. “She said, ‘You make a convincing case, but is there any force on the face of the earth that could counter the hundreds of millions of the dollars the insurance industry would spend fighting that?’” recalled Himmelstein. “And I said, “How about the president of the United States actually leading the American people?’ and she said, ‘Tell me something real.’ ”
They got their meeting at the White House that month, and the two doctors laid out the case for single-payer to the first lady. “She said, ‘You make a convincing case, but is there any force on the face of the earth that could counter the hundreds of millions of the dollars the insurance industry would spend fighting that?’” recalled Himmelstein. “And I said, “How about the president of the United States actually leading the American people?’ and she said, ‘Tell me something real.’ ”
<snip>
By October, Sanders’ next invitation for the Clintons to come to Vermont was not in a note to the White House, but in a hostile letter to the editor in The New York Times. “You report Oct. 25 that President Clinton believes the economy has turned the corner, on the path of a steady recovery. To get a better perspective on this view I urge the President to visit Vermont, where in the last year a Digital plant has closed, St. Johnsbury Trucking has closed, Johnson Controls is planning a shutdown, I.B.M. and G.E. have slashed hundreds of well-paying jobs, and workers from several companies are negotiating give-back contracts,” wrote Sanders. “I would hope that a President as intelligent as Mr. Clinton does not repeat the absurd economic dogma of Reaganomics.”
At the time, Sanders was a vocal opponent of the administration-backed North American Free Trade Agreement, which the House approved in November.
At the time, Sanders was a vocal opponent of the administration-backed North American Free Trade Agreement, which the House approved in November.
<snip>
With the moral support of the Heritage Foundation, Sanders led the bipartisan opposition in 1998 to the Clinton Administration’s plan to infuse the International Monetary Fund with $18 billion to bail out the economies hit by the 1997 Asian financial crisis, which Congress ultimately rejected. He also voted against the Financial Services Act of 1999, which passed and repealed the Glass-Steagall Act’s prohibition on mixing commercial banking, investment banking or insurance in a single institution.
By the time Sanders arrived in the Senate in 2007, Hillary Clinton was already gearing up for her first presidential run, though the two did find opportunities to join forces during their two-year overlap in the upper chamber. In 2007, they co-authored the Green Jobs Act, which funded renewable energy and energy efficiency programs and passed as part of a larger energy bill. They both served on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee, and in July 2008, along with Barack Obama and Ted Kennedy, the pair co-sponsored the Access for All America Act to expand the availability of primary care medicine, which died in committee.
By the time Sanders arrived in the Senate in 2007, Hillary Clinton was already gearing up for her first presidential run, though the two did find opportunities to join forces during their two-year overlap in the upper chamber. In 2007, they co-authored the Green Jobs Act, which funded renewable energy and energy efficiency programs and passed as part of a larger energy bill. They both served on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee, and in July 2008, along with Barack Obama and Ted Kennedy, the pair co-sponsored the Access for All America Act to expand the availability of primary care medicine, which died in committee.
More . . . http://www.politico.com/story/2015/06/bernie-sanders-hillary-clinton-119082
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