Charles Pierce: This Is Not the Way the Democratic Campaign Should Be Conducted

[eridani]

http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/02/03/not-way-democratic-campaign-should-be-conducted

This doesn't have to be the way it goes. HRC is perfectly within her rights to campaign against Sanders on the ground that he is not electable or that his proposals are fanciful. But this is edging dangerously close to marginalizing him and his campaign as somehow extremist and/or vaguely un-American. For example, Matthews really went to town after the interview was over, talking pragmatism and evincing a curious view of 20th century history. He lumped the New Deal and, most spectacularly, the Civil Rights Movement as examples of the kind of incremental centrist change that characterizes American political history.

This is something of my bollocks. Good god, the New Deal was so centrist that the plutocrats of the time tried to organize a goddamn military coup against it. And the reason that the Democrats became the party of the Civil Rights Movement is that thousands of people in the streets, and more than a few martyrs, forced a series of presidents to move, however deliberately, and forced the party to change an identity to which it had clung since Stephen A. Douglas was the party's nominee. This is not the way the Democratic campaign should be conducted. Bernie Sanders is running a campaign completely within what can reasonably be called the mainstream of his party and of our politics. Discreet red-baiting and disingenuous scaremongering helps nobody.

[LiberalElite]

1. Kicking nt

[daleanime]

2. Hell yes....

[appalachiablue]

3. K&R It's clear for quite a while that Matthews' knowledge of US and world history is

limited. In this latest con he's mangling major American progressive and historic movements and ideologies. It's an embarrassment but he's on a mission to scare. And permitted to do it. Kathleen Matthews his wife is running for office in MD in 2016 and so needs the Dem. establishment, another probable factor.

[democrank]

4. Many of us know

that the center button on the Democratic Party`s horizontal scale has consistently been moved to the right. Many Democrats have decided they`ve had enough of this and they`re trying to wrestle the party back from the Corporate Wing.

According to Hillary Clinton and her supporters at Party Headquarters, Sanders is a radical....the candidate whose average contributor sends $27.00 and who was against the war in Iraq. Clinton, who got $600,000.00 for three speeches and is a hawk up there with the best of them, is mainstream. That is an example of what has happened to the Democratic Party.

[Betty Karlson]

5. K&R for exposure. eom

[Bluenorthwest]

6. Matthews sounded like McCarthy, just as baiting and just as uninformed.

His verbiage has been of a nature that I find personally insulting, it seems to play up to some very nasty sets of bias and it reminds me that Matthews' wife is a centrist candidate right now and that he has never, ever been a decent ally to LGBT and that he was gung ho for Mission Accomplished Politics. He seems to be pushing an agenda that would increase his own family's power and wealth.
Plus I get sick of hearing about Tip O'Neil and Dutch Reagan, Chris' version of Butch and Sundance.

[DirkGently]

7. The "It's a center-right country" theme is expired.

No one seems to be acknowledging the pendulum is swinging back to a truer "center" than the one given us by the post-Reagan nightmare from which we are slowly awakening.

Barack Obama, a true moderate, does not get elected twice in Center Right America. Center Right America does not see candidates arguing about who is the real "progressive."

It's not 1990, much less 1980, anymore, Mr. Matthews.

[bullwinkle428]

8. "I DO THIS FOR A LIVING!!1!" Matthews' incredibly condescending tone, as he

delivered that "stone cold lock" of a prediction, regarding Rand Paul's ascent as the 2016 nominee, was perhaps the most "nails on a chalkboard" irritating part of that commentary.

Never ever take Tweety's grasp of history as anything close to gospel.

[Doctor_J]

9. I have read, on du, heritage care compared to LBJ' s war on poverty and great society

Which included the CRA, VRA, and Medicare and Medicaid. The dinos and dc lifers and their minions are either clueless or shameless. Or maybe moles

[bvar22]

10. ...deluded, or outright liars.

HeritageCare (or the ACA) are not even in the same universe as the Democratic Party programs of the New Deal and the Great Society.


The two programs mentioned above enrich the already RICH.
The Programs of FDR and LBJ helped EVERYONE in the USA.

[ViseGrip]

12. This is why I cut my cable cord. Get an HD antenna for your home 59.00 and a roku 69.00 and stream.

[Dark n Stormy Knight]

13. Matthews' show, like too many, is infotainment. If that meant factual information presented in

an entertaining way, that would be great. Unfortunately, often the info is not factual, nor is the presentation particularly entertaining. Well, at least not to those not part of the idiocracy.

[BigBearJohn]

14. Kickety Kick