I am a Hillary Clinton supporter but have been impressed with Bernie Sanders’ campaign. Amazingly, he continues to pile up victory after victory, most recently sweeping Hawaii, Alaska and Washington on a Saturday when most Americans were watching the Elite 8 NCAA tournament games. And while he clearly has the momentum, he is still trailing in the delegate count and has practically no chance to win the nomination even if he wins the rest of the democratic races, unless Hillary Clinton drops out.
As a Hillary Clinton supporter, I am concerned about her performance and worry that her wins to date have been mostly in states that typically vote for the Republican candidate in the General election. Bernie seems to be winning the states that Hillary needs to carry in the General to have a chance at victory. My fear is that Bernie supporters in the states he’s won so far that went to the Democrats in 2012: WA, MI, MN, VT, ME, NH, HI, and CO will refuse to back her, or only do so if she adopts positions that he supports. In fact, Bernie has indicated that he won’t campaign for her without getting something in return. The problem is that if she does turn sharply to the left in the general, she will lose and lose badly. And she may lose anyway, even if Bernie accepts defeat with humility because so many of BS supporters simply do not like her, thanks to Bernie’s portrayal of her as an establishment hawk wedded to Wall Street, wealthy donors, and Obamacare that Bernie and the Republicans reject, the very health care system that allows many of the Millenials, who make up a large portion of his supporters, to stay on their parent’s health care plan until they reach 26 years of age. This same Obamacare has provided coverage for many people in the U.S. who formerly had no insurance at all. Unfortunately, BS supporters don’t seem to understand that if BS loses (and he inevitably will) Trump or Cruz could be their (my, our) next President. BS supporters, I know it will be difficult for you to embrace HC, but I urge you to read up on what a Cruz or Trump presidency would look like.
Not all is gloom and doom for HC. While Bernie has won states that vote Dem. in the General, so too has Hillary. In fact, for comparison sake, if the contest were a General election between Bernie and Hillary, she’d have won the equivalent of 103 electoral votes in Blue states to date, while BS would have won just 57. She’s won the big ones that went DEM in 2012: IL, OH, and FL. He’s been winning the smaller Blue states (Blue in 2012) like HI, VT and NH. He’d have to nearly run the table of the remaining Blue states to best her in electoral votes (taking all the Red States out of the equation) meaning Bernie would need to win NY, NJ, CA, CT, PA, DC, OR, RI, NM, MD and DE, a highly unlikely scenario.
If Hillary wins the nomination, as she’s on pace to do despite Bernie’s momentum, she will need to win most of the Blue states that President Obama won in 2012, including the blue states that Bernie has already won which include: WA, HI, VT, CO, MN, MI, NH and ME. He and his supporters HAVE to deliver these states to HC in the General. I know cooperation is not in Bernie’s DNA. For the record, he is notorious for rarely compromising in Congress which is the basis for governance in a democracy. He is as well known for his failure to seek or attract bipartisan support for legislation he has put forth or to support moderate legislation. In fact, he and Cruz are on opposite extremes of the ideological spectrum and have done very little in their careers to help break the gridlock on capital hill and have actually, in many ways, contributed to it with purist and angry views. The truth is, ideologues have a hard time uniting people and governing.
BS supporters, take a close look at HC. Whether you like her not, she WILL appoint a supreme court judge who WON’T take us back to the stone age; she’ll protect Obamacare and try to expand it; she BELIEVES in climate change and science; she’ll protect Social Security (expanding it is a pipe dream, sorry) and won’t raise the retirement age to 96; she’ll work to address the issues of racism, including prison and police reform and will challenge states who insist on suppressing the vote; she’ll support an INCREASE in minimum wage; she’ll support women’s rights; she’ll support the LGBT community; she’ll fight for sensible gun control laws; she’ll fight ISIS intelligently; she’ll continue to improve relationships with our allies, which is vital in a global community – we cannot allow the U.S. to become an isolationist nation, nor to promote protectionism which will spark a trade war and kill the economy.
An HC presidency would be infinitely preferable to a Trump or Cruz regime. With all due respect to BS and to his supporters, he can’t win – the delegate math is against him. After the convention, when Bernie’s defeat becomes official, please support and more importantly, VOTE for HC in the General. Your future – OUR future is at stake.
Filed under: Opinion, Politics, Uncategorized | Tagged: Bernie Sanders, BS, Clinton's path to victory, Electoral College, HC, Hillary Clinton, Politics, The General Election |
Ribbie's Weblog 
Despite backing Sanders right now, I’ll have no problem voting for HRC if she wins the nomination. But I have strong objection to this section of the article, which is factually incorrect and provably false:
“For the record, he is notorious for rarely compromising in Congress which is the basis for governance in a democracy. He is as well known for his failure to seek or attract bipartisan support for legislation he has put forth or to support moderate legislation. In fact, he and Cruz are on opposite extremes of the ideological spectrum and have done very little in their careers to help break the gridlock on capital hill and have actually, in many ways, contributed to it with purist and angry views.”
Sanders has been in Congress since 1990, and never joined either major party. That limited his opportunity to sponsor and co-sponsor bills. He still has sponsored or co-sponsored 6,000+ bills, many of which went into the same GOP committee vortex where bills from Democrats get “disappeared”. (https://www.congress.gov/member/bernard-sanders/S000033)
So, by thinking out of the box, he found another way to make things happen and advance progressive goals through law – writing amendments. Sanders has written more changes into more bills that are now law than any other current member of either the House or Senate.
That simply could not happen without both an ability to build bi-partisan coalitions, and a willingness to compromise in support of common goals.
Bernie is regarded as pragmatic, not an ideologue, and is well-liked by his colleagues on both sides of the aisle. (http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/07/bernie-sanders-is-a-loud-stubborn-socialist-republicans-like-him-anyway/450597/) You can’t say that about Ted Cruz, who is respected for his skills but equally disliked for his intransigence.
I wouldn’t call being one of only a few Independents and the only self-described (democratic) socialist in Congress as being pragmatic. Nor would I call insisting on a single payer health care system any more pragmatic than the Republicans voting to repeal it time and again (something like 70 separate votes) particularly when they had nothing to replace it with. And I’m sorry, single payer would not fly and would have doomed health care reform – Obamacare was the practical compromise. He doesn’t seem to get that people don’t want to pay high taxes for “better” cradle to grave services like in Finland. He doesn’t seem to understand that we live in a capitalist society for better or worse. He’d like to dismantle capitalism but it ain’t going to happen certainly not in this election cycle and not in his life time. He is talking about a populous revolution, which also doesn’t strike me as pragmatic except in one regard – campaign finance reform. BS (I use the initials affectionately) perhaps not even intentionally, has proven that big money can’t necessarily buy an election. He’s done just fine with the 27 dollar contribution from millions of Americans. Notice that the mostly idiotic superpacs have failed to buy establishment delegates or crush Trump’s candidacy. Citizens United vs. FTC may prove not to have been so ruinous after all although it should be overturned and hope that it will be soon.
Bernie may be well-liked on both sides, but this did not translate to reaching across the aisle and getting something done in 2015. See my recent twitter posts below:
Wribbie @wribbie Mar 14
Bernie was the only senator in 2015 who sponsored more than 10 bills to have 0 bipartisan co-sponsors for any of them.
govtrack.us/congress/members/report-cards/2015/senate/leadership … Bernie ranked 96th in ability to get co-sponsors for his bills in 2015.