From 2007 - NYT: The Socialist Senator

[ehrnst]

Pertaining to the newly public comments that HRC made in an interview last year:

Few would describe Sanders’s personality as “winning” in the classic politician’s sense. He appears to burn a disproportionate number of calories smiling and making eye contact. “Bernie is not going to win a lot of ‘whom would you rather live on a desert island with’ contests,” says Garrison Nelson, a professor of political science at the University of Vermont. No matter. Sanders’s agitating style in Washington also constitutes a basic facet of anticharm, antipolitician appeal at home.

“I’m not afraid of being called a troublemaker,” Sanders says, something he’s been called many times, in many different ways, many of them unprintable. “But you have to be smart. And being smart means not creating needless enemies for yourself.”

In this regard, Sanders has not always been smart, especially when he was first elected to the House in 1990. He called Congress “impotent” and dismissed the two major parties as indistinguishable tools of the wealthy. He said it wouldn’t bother him if 80 percent of his colleagues lost re-election — not the best way to win friends in a new workplace.

“Bernie alienates his natural allies,” Representative Barney Frank, the Massachusetts Democrat, said at the time. “His holier-than-thou attitude — saying in a very loud voice he is smarter than everyone else and purer than everyone else — really undercuts his effectiveness.” The late Joe Moakley, another Massachusetts Democrat, waxed almost poetic in his derision for Sanders. “He is out there wailing on his own,” Moakley said. “He screams and hollers, but he is all alone.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/21/magazine/21Sanders.t.html

[redstateblues]

1. The French expression "The more things change the more they stay the same" applies here

[empedocles]

2. Wapo headline: 'Sanders and the Specter of socialism'

2nd wapo headline: 'Who will expose Sander's liabilities first? Democrats or Trump?'

'So far, candidates in the Democratic presidential primary race have been reluctant to go negative on him.' . . .

'If other candidates continue to pull their punches, Democrats may not learn more about Sanders until the whole country finds out this fall.'

[highplainsdem]

3. K&R! Great find!

[Thekaspervote]

4. The gop has a gold mine in this..already made attack ads that would sink sanders

Link to tweet

?s=21

[Gothmog]

5. trump would love to run against socialism

Link to tweet

[ehrnst]

19. The GOP is chomping at the bit to run against Bernie, both for POTUS and down ticket.

[Cha]

6. Thank you for this, ehrnst!

[ehrnst]

17. You're welcome!

[Cha]

21. KICK!

[sheshe2]

7. 2007

K&R.

[Scurrilous]

8. God, I [redacted] him.

[ismnotwasm]

9. K&R

[NYMinute]

10. Hillary's statement corroborated. Boom!!

[ehrnst]

11. Yep.

[NurseJackie]

12. We can do better. We need better.

[ehrnst]

24. We have done much, much better. And we can do so again. (nt)

[Tarheel_Dem]

13. Which is why none of his agenda has a snowball's chance in hell of passage. n/t

[Gothmog]

14. Socialism polls poorly

Link to tweet

?s=20

[ehrnst]

16. That perception has to be acknowledged.

Understanding what the general populace thinks socialism is vital to how one messages public programs.

You tailor the message to the audience you are targeting, that's not "tolerating bullshit" that's basic communication theory, whether it's an audience in Iowa or your progressive colleagues in the Senate.

And if there's anything that a POTUS needs to be able to do is communicate.

[brer cat]

15. K&R

[sheshe2]

18. K&R

[Gothmog]

20. Former Biden advisor: Socialism 'has no chance of beating Trump in 2020'

Link to tweet

And Moe Vela, the former Director of Administration for Vice President Joe Biden and current CEO of the Vela Group, is critical of Sanders’ self-proclaimed socialist ideas.

“I feel relatively confident that socialism, or anything close to it, has no chance of beating Trump in 2020,” Vela told Yahoo Finance. “If Bernie Sanders is his opponent, [Donald Trump] will use the word socialism. And polling shows very clearly that centrist, moderate Democrat doesn’t like the word socialism. And in particular, Latino voters in Florida, for example, they see the world socialism, they run the other direction. Because many of them, either their families or they, themselves, have come from countries where they were victimized by socialism.”

Sanders and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) have both proposed forms of Medicare for all as their solutions to the current health care system in the U.S. And according to a poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation, more Democrats support building upon the Affordable Care Act (ACA) — which is basically Biden’s plan — rather than replacing it with a type of Medicare for all.

[Cha]

22. I do too.. I want to beat #45IMPEACHED.

[Gothmog]

23. Steve Schmidt warns that the sociopath will beat the socialist.

Link to tweet

[ehrnst]

25. I saw that. (nt)