The Atlantic: ‘Hillary 2016’ Has Never Made Sense for Democrats

[LiberalElite]

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/09/clinton-2016-has-never-made-sense-for-democrats/401597/?google_editors_picks=true

-snip-
As Hillary Clinton loses ground to Bernie Sanders in Iowa, where her lead shrinks by the day, it’s worth noticing that she has never made particular sense as the Democratic Party’s nominee. She may be more electable than her social-democratic rival from Vermont, but plenty of Democrats are better positioned to represent the center-left coalition. Why have they let the former secretary of state keep them out of the race? If Clinton makes it to the general election, I understand why most Democrats will support her. She shares their views on issues as varied as preserving Obamacare, abortion rights, extending legal status to undocumented workers, strengthening labor unions, and imposing a carbon tax to slow climate change.
-snip-

[djean111]

1. This -

But most Democrats hold similar positions on those issues. So why are Democrats supporting her in a primary bid? She’s awful on other issues they’ve deemed hugely important. Most Democrats regard the Iraq War as a historic disaster. Clinton voted for that conflict. That hawkishness wasn’t a fluke. She pushed for U.S. intervention in Libya without Congressional approval and without anticipating all that has gone wrong in that country. She favored U.S. intervention in the Syrian civil war as well. Why haven’t Democrats concluded that she has dangerously bad judgment on foreign policy? She certainly hasn’t done anything to distinguish herself in that realm.
........

Then there are her financial backers.

Many Democrats are sympathetic to Occupy Wall Street and to the notion that wealthy special interests on Wall Street are rigging the system by buying off politicians. Who is more bought off than Clinton? It isn’t just her campaign coffers and her family’s foundation that benefit from Wall Street money. Her family’s private accounts are flush with funds from big banks, including at least one that benefitted from her tenure at State and paid her husband seven figures for a speaking gig. It is naive to think that she won’t look out for the interests of Big Finance in Washington.

Things like this - seriously - make me wonder just why I would hold my nose and vote Democrat, if she is the nominee. The Democratic Party will have left the station and headed to the Right, and would be the Debbie Wasserman-Schultz Party, the one where everything is done with profit and power in mind, no ideology to be found except conveniently changeable stands (pauses?) on social issues.

[LiberalElite]

2. Except for Bernie

I think it's long gone from the station.

[LiberalArkie]

10. I think HRC and a lot of Democrats that were of the Viet Nam era are still fighting the stigma

of being called "soft on defense", "soft on crime" etc that the Democrats were labeled for so many years. It was so bad that no "self respecting" Democrat would be seen in the same city with a "Liberal" "elitist" "non-warrior" like Jimmy Carter. So I think like the Clintons really over compensated by being hawkish, anti-welfare, pro-business all the things that the Liberals were opposed to.

It may not have been their nature, but by pretending to be "not like those Liberals" they became that way.

[merrily]

13. Which era are Sanders, Chafee, Feingold and Ted Kennedy from?

Besides, no one gets to unleash war so no one sees him or her as soft on defense.

[LiberalArkie]

16. You know as well as I do that a lot of Democrats fell for that crap, that they had to move away

from liberalism and more to the middle, and then more to the middle while the Republicans kept moving to the right. If they had stayed Liberal, I don't think we would now have the crazies on the right in the Republican party. But I think that Sanders, Chafee, Feingold and Ted Kennedy were already established. It seemed to affect the "up and comers" the most.

[merrily]

18. Again, what right does anyone have to unleash a war for the sake of their image?

That was my question.

I didn't make a statement about electability of liberals vs. centrists. I made a statement about when people have the right to vote fir kids to die and bleed and get PTSD and for destruction and destabilization of another nation, all at great cost, and possible danger, to everyone in the US.

But I think that Sanders, Chafee, Feingold and Ted Kennedy were already established. It seemed to affect the "up and comers" the most

Not accurate. 126 House Democrats voted against the invasion, plus one indie (Bernie).

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/107-2002/h455

They were not all well established--and Feingold's seat was obviously not guaranteed, either. Besides, Hillary was not an up and comer anyway. If anyone is established in the Democratic Party, it's United States Senators and the President and the President then was not a Democrat.

21 Democratic Senators voted against it. https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/107-2002/s237 The others had incredibly bad judgment or self interest of such a degree that there is no excusing it.

[LiberalArkie]

20. I don't know. I don't believe in pre-empted war anyway.

[zeemike]

24. Well that is how triangulation works.

But you could accuse me of being a conspiracy theorist because for it to be triangulation it must be a plan not an accident of nature.
And so we must believe that it just happened like that without any plan...or put on the tin foil hat and be mocked.

[LiberalArkie]

28. I think a lot of our problems started with China.

I remember that we were taught and everyone believed that the reason that the U.S. was prosperous was because of our "freedom". That the free expression is what enabled us to invent and be successful at it and in manufacturing. Business people found out that after shipping the small parts and simple stuff to China, that it did not depend on freedom of thought and such for business to prosper. Business found out that indeed business could prosper with a totalitarian system of government. This to me was the one thing that started our problems.

[zeemike]

29. Well that is an interesting point.

But it may have started before that even...Henry Ford was a big supporter of Fascism and Prescott Bush funded the Nazis before WW2...so right, they have never loved freedom for anyone but themselves...slavery is far more profitable.

[TBF]

3. Of course it doesn't -

she lost the primary in 2008 to a virtual unknown. But she wants to be president and like Donald Trump she has the money to throw around, along with the fact that she knows all the decision makers after serving as first lady. She's not a horrible person and she is in fact very intelligent. I've said over and over that she should be sitting on the supreme court. I don't think, however, that she has the personality to successfully win in the general. I guess we'll see. If she's the candidate we'll have no choice but to support her, but it's going to be very lukewarm support at best from the progressive wing of the party (and all of the Reagan dems Bernie is attracting - who I think will look elsewhere because of NAFTA).

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

4. Connections, she's got em.

She's plugged in to the old boy's network, and has more juice with the moneymen and powers behind the politicians than most other folks, that's why she's 'kept so many out of the race'.

(Just noticed this is in the Bernie group, shouldn't it be in GD : P maybe?)

[Demeter]

9. And they dislike her just about as much as I do

[Sinan]

5. Bernie is the heart of the left

Hillary is not going to energize the nation to voting for her like Obama did. However, if she wins the nomination, everyone on these boards that say they are Dems better get out and vote for her. Whether we like it or not, she is very likely going to be our nominee and we simply cannot lose to the far right.

[peacebird]

8. Nice. Hopefully she isn't our nom but rgardless I will vote my conscience, thank you very much.

[Tommymac]

25. ^^^ This ^^^ eom

[secondwind]

17. I could not agree more... if it comes to a choice between Hillary and a Republican, we need to

realize that there are at least 2 or more SCOTUS seats that will be vacated.

Not to mention that we may not be able to take back the Senate, although I think we will, we just CANNOT afford to give the GOP all the reins!

anyone who says that he/she is a Democrat, but will not vote for Hillary, should reconsider his/her position.

[Tommymac]

26. If we totally lose control of the Exec and Legislative branches to the oligarchy's chosen ones ...

then not sure how relevant the National Judicial Branch is going to be since the other two branches CAN and WILL write law and enact policy that overrides the Supremes.

No arguments re the Supremes wanted or needed. Have had that line of thought pounded at me head since the mid 90's - maybe it's time for the Party Leaders to get in line instead.

My conscience will tell me what to do when the occasion arises - I am truly undecided if Bernie is not the nominee. But until then I refuse to accept that Bernie will not be the nominee - and I am going to be wearing out a lot of shoe leather and getting keyboard calluses to insure he wins.

[tularetom]

30. What guarantee do you have that Clinton's SCOTUS nominees would be any better than a republican?

She's a finger in the wind type on social issues. She doesn't really believe in things like gay marriage or prison reform. Right now she's in her comfort zone talking favorably about these issues because she perceives that public opinion is on her side. If for some reason it changes, she will too.

But its on economic matters that she won't change. She's the poster child for Citizens United. Do you honestly believe she will appoint justices that would vote to overturn it? Ban fracking? Not a chance. She gets a ton of money from the energy industry.

I don't get the warm and fuzzy feeling that I would actually like her SCOTUS appointments. But it's actually a moot point, since she won't get elected anyway. The only reason she's in such a dominant position in the polls is that she's been running unopposed since the day after Obama's election in 2008. For seven years its been assumed that she would be the nominee. And she may well be. But she'll never be president.

[SoapBox]

33. ^^^^^^ THIS, THIS, THIS!!!!!!^^^^^^

Finally! Someone says it!

There are NO guarantees the her nominees would be anything warm and fuzzy.

She could just push more of the right of center, DINO, Third Way, Bankster loving types.

Just because she's a Cross-the-Aisle in compromise Democrat, she's probably not going to pick people that will stand up to Citizen's United, etc.

Best be thinking of that folks!

[merrily]

6. Ask Democrats if they prefer Medicare for All to preserving Obamacare, expanding OASDI to reducing

OASDI, free public university education to somewhat more affordable college education.

Even when a publication acts as though it is a leftist publication that is not writing establishment-desired bullshit, it's writing establishment-desired bullshit.

The point of the article: "By urging more candidates to get into the race, there’s nothing for Democrats to fear but the alleged vindictiveness of the Clinton machine." aka Do anything to make sure Bernie doesn't win.

Fuck you.

Twice.

[LiberalArkie]

11. You know, considering that I would bet that 90% of the Democrats do not know Bernie even exists,

he is doing fantastic. Think of what it will be like when they hear his viewpoints. (Note: I am just going by talking to people here in rural Arkansas)

[HereSince1628]

22. The media establishment are acting to keep people from hearing his viewpoint.

In rural WI there isn't a whole lot of access to alternative media. I don't know with certainty what it's like in urban WI, but when I was teaching a few years back, students from the inner city regularly complained they didn't have access to internet and alternative media.

Sanders message is very popular among the people who hear it. But it has to be heard.

[Android3.14]

12. It's a mystery

Unless you consider the money.

[merrily]

15. And the fact that control of the Democratic Party is in the hands of Clintonites and other Third Way

types.

[FlatBaroque]

14. Never. Never ever.

Not a chance in hell

[antigop]

19. WTF??? "strengthening labor unions"???? What has HRC done for labor? nt

[merrily]

21. Please see Reply 6

[Laser102]

23. Substitute any of the repug candidates for her name and it begs the same questions. But we aren't asking them that q

[DonCoquixote]

27. Because

There have been people since well before 2008 who have wanted Hillary, and who frankly will not care what they have to do to get her. Some parts of this is "It's about time we had a woman in power" types, people who genuinely feel that this is their best shot to elect a woman. While only the thick headed could not see a natural desire to finally get someone in charge of abortion policy and equal pay who has herself been at the mercy of said policy, I would warn that the UK and Brazil have shown an ugly fact:just because the ruler is a woman does not mean she will govern for the benefit of women.

Then there are those who say they are liberal, but are really scared about the fact that many on the left are tired of liberals, namely because they have been leaning right for so long that the party's rudder snapped off! They are tired of the fact that no matter how far the GOP goes to the right, many self declared "liberals" will seek that spot which is never too far from the right, thus assuring that even if the GOP wants to drive off the cliff, we will follow shortly. Sadly, the person that embodies that idea is Hillary Clinton who has defended the enemies of the left, the Military Industrial complex and Wall Street. What is worse is that when she defends these enemies of the left, she does it with a smirk, as she did when she made the "we came, we saw, he died" joke.

No one is saying she had to be Bernie, but people should not scratch their heads and wonder why great enthusiasm cannot be whipped up about someone that the left KNOWS will start working with their enemies the minute she gets in. It's is not enough that we are the ones working in the kitchen, but then we will be expected to throw ourselves into the soup, so that the Lloyd Blankfelds and Bibi Netanyahus can give Chef Hillary four stars.

And again, I know that would still be better than Chef Jeb Bush or Chef Donald Trump, but when you suddenly realize that you need ENTHUSIASM to get that one spare inch of turf that will get you over the finish line, do not yell at us and wonder where it is. I need, not want, need the GOP to lose, period, but that does not mean I will not keep my energies ready for the fight or flight I will need come January 2017, which is when Hillary's dinner patrons will start demanding their supper.

[djean111]

31. Well and truly stated. Thank you!

[seafan]

32. Most excellent post, thank you.

Incisively stated, DonCoquixote.

[Scootaloo]

34. Oughtta be an OP n/t

[fbc]

35. K&R

[kenfrequed]

36. Agreed

Also kicked and rebooted tot he top!