This evening, I’ll be traveling to a polling place somewhere in the Empire State and casting a ballot for Bernie Sanders. I certainly won’t do it with the same level of conviction that I had in 2008 when I voted for Barack Obama — but you only get that a few times in life, if you’re lucky.
I’m not doing it because I think Sanders has run an Obama-quality campaign (he hasn’t, especially lately as the rhetoric has gotten a bit nasty), nor am I doing it because Sanders would be more likely to get his proposals enacted, nor even because I am feeling a Bern of some sort. (The only burn I’m feeling right now comes from sitting on a bike saddle for 45 minutes on the way to work).
I’m doing it for the same reasons a lot of our fellow Democrats are voting for Bernie — I see it as a message to the lazy, sloppy, “centrist” party establishment, of which Debbie Wasserman-Schultz is patient zero. I also see it as part of a continuing effort to keep the Clinton campaign on its toes, because the inclination to phone in a shitty “inevitability” primary campaign is apparently very tempting to Clinton’s campaign advisers. It happened in 2008, and 2016 is just too important for Democrats for that to happen again.
As for the tone of the campaign: Does anyone here really think that whatever awful thing the Sanders campaign has said about Hillary is a hundredth as awful as the stuff that will come out of Trump or Cruz’ mouth this Fall? There’s nothing wrong with the Clinton campaign getting practice responding to the mild critique that Sanders is offering, because it’s going to get a hell of a lot worse later.
Finally, Bernie Bros are the PUMAs of 2016. A few idiots may not vote for Hillary this Fall because of some slight, real or imagined. It won’t be a significant phenomenon. Once the primary is over, everyone nursing butt hurt acquired in the heat of political battle will have had plenty of time to realize just how bad a Trump or Cruz presidency will be. That will be a powerful motivator, especially after Hillary and her team strip the bark off of whichever of those two fuckers prevails at the coming riot in Cleveland.
As I cast my vote today, I’ll be thinking about my next trip there, which will be in November, Dios Mediante. That’s when I’ll be marking my ballot for Hillary Clinton, and I’ll be happy to do it.
Just Some Fuckhead, Clinton Supporter
Why do I have to keep reading front page opinions I disagree with? Is this a conspiracy against me? And what’s up with all the New York bloggers? Can we get some bloggers that represent real America: Orange County, California?
WJS
I suppose that one could point out that this sort of thing just encourages the bastards, but seriously. The Sanders campaign could be gearing up to run as a third party insurgency, a la Ross Perot. Instead of this electing a Clinton, this will elect a Republican. They certainly don’t act like they will support the Democratic Party’s nominee (and it’s no use pointing out that Sanders, is, in fact, not a Democrat).
YMMV on that, but my fear is that we don’t fully understand the implications of the “fuck you” vote as it relates to encouraging Sanders to play spoiler and elect the Republican this fall (which will give the far lefties something they can organize around and oppose).
gogol's wife
@WJS:
While the little people suffer and die. (looking at you, Sarandon)
PST
I respectfully disagree with voting to send a signal at this point. If someone thinks Sanders will be the better candidate and president, then I understand voting for him. But voting as a way to goad Clinton and the party is too much of a good thing. That has been accomplished. In the last couple of weeks I sense from many sources a rising anger on both sides. I find myself emotionally less inclined to meet the Sanders wing halfway than I was recently, and I sense a greater (and I believe false) mentality of “we’ve been cheated” from that wing, which could reduce our ability to pull together in the end. Enough is enough.
Hoodie
I’m not big on protest voting, it almost never works out as intended and the wrong people get the wrong message. At least in my case, voting for PBO had absolutely nothing to with sticking to the establishment, the DLC, etc. He was simply the better candidate at that time. Bernie is not, notwithstanding the issues with DWS and some parts of the party leadership.
JGabriel
I’ll be right there with you, mistermix. At a different polling place, but otherwise voting for Sanders, for much of the same reasons, and with the same attitude.
I do still nurture some small hope that Bernie will win, but I know it’s not likely, and I’ll be nearly as enthusiastic pulling the lever in November for America’s first female President as I would be for America’s first democratic socialist President. In other words, it’s one of those lucky primaries where even if my first choice loses, I still kind of win.
mistermix
@WJS:
Is there any evidence for this anywhere? Seriously, I haven’t voted yet – if this were at all plausible I would not vote for Sanders.
Bobby Thomson
@mistermix: he’s suing the party and setting up a Trumpian doltschloss narrative that he was cheated. He’s clearly written off super delegates and literally can’t win the nomination without them, so there’s no other play.
Just Some Fuckhead, Clinton Supporter
@mistermix: Some commenters on my friend’s Facebook wall, friends of his friends, said they wouldn’t vote for Clinton, ever, for any reason. So there’s clearly a movement.
Sorry if you don’t like that rhetorical move I always do.
ThresherK (GPad)
I don’t care about “conviction”, per se. Unlike the coverage afforded pep rallies that passed for debates among the Rs, fewer people shouting louder are still fewer people.
Plus I think it feeds into that idea our press has: A Dem pres needs to be transformative in their third year in the WH, and if we can’t see that from springtime before the election, all hope is lost, even if they win in November.
All our media demands of a Republican is to win. The hagiography is already under construction.
NCSteve
Call me crazy. I have this strange old-fashioned notion that one should vote for the person one wants to see win the election rather than trying to play 11-D messaging chess with one’s franchise.
gogol's wife
Well, Omnes Omnibus called for there to be some pro-Bernie front page posts, so that he could see what the arguments are. We now have two, and I’m not seeing anything I could recognize as an argument.
mistermix
@Hoodie:
I agree with Sanders’ position on the issues more than I do with Hillary’s, so that’s the basis of my vote. The protest vote is just frosting on the cake…
JGabriel
Just Some Fuckhead, Clinton Supporter:
More than 1 out of 40 Americans lives in New York City; 1 out of 16 Americans lives in New York State.
What’s up with all the New York bloggers? There are a lot of New Yorkers. It’s just statistics.
nastybrutishntall
Usuncut is Berner central, so this is eating up my FB feed right now. But if you read it, it’s pretty clear that there’s a good explanation for the voter purge. Of course, it’s possible there’s some Boss Tweed style party machine shenanigans happening, but it’s also possible it’s overworked employees getting everything done at the last minute. Since we hate spending money on stupid things like public services, we get inefficient and slow public services…
Also, anyone challenging their registration status will get a provisional, it looks like. But it really looks like the Berners are preparing to go full conspiracy theory if they lose, based on what FB is screaming.
http://usuncut.com/politics/nyc-mayor-responds-to-brooklyn-voter-purge.
Chris
This is largely my opinion, as well. But it also gets to the heart of what Sanders is, and isn’t. I do find it valuable to have a rabble-rouser out there, as you say, making a point to the party establishment… in the same way and for the same reason that I think it was valuable to have Huey Long around in the 1930s. However, I definitely would not have wanted Huey Long anywhere near the White House.
No disrespect to you and your vote intended. The salient fact of this election, as far as I’m concerned, is that if Sanders is the worst of the two Democratic candidates (and I think he is), the worst of our candidates is still leagues ahead of the best of the Republican ones. (Whoever that is).
Roger Moore
I don’t necessarily think that what Sanders is saying is nastier than what Trump or Cruz will say, but I think it’s likely to be more effective. The stuff Trump and Cruz will be peddling will be pitched to rile up the troglodyte Republican base, and as such it’s unlikely to do much to people outside that group. OTOH, the stuff Sanders is saying is pitched very specifically at wavering Democratic voters, and it seems designed specifically to discourage them from voting in the general election if Clinton wins. That’s really dangerous.
mistermix
@Bobby Thomson:
Other than the play that every other Democrat in recent history has made after they lose: supporting the winning candidate.
skerry
For what it’s worth, I just early voted for Clinton in Maryland. She is the better candidate and I look forward to voting for her again this November. Of my 3 millennial children, 2 votes for Clinton and 1 for Sanders.
Gin & Tonic
@Bobby Thomson: He doesn’t have the organizational skill (IMO) and does not have the time to run third-party. Filing deadlines start coming up soon. If he waits until the convention, it’s too late for several significant states already.
JGabriel
@mistermix:
None. There is no evidence for it whatsoever.
Sanders has been very insistent, from the start, that he would not run as a third party candidate – he’s said all along that the stakes are too high to risk giving the Presidency to a Republican the way Nader risked it, and lost, in 2000.
Anonymous At Work
@mistermix: I’d think the protest vote would mean more if Bernie had done anything with down-ballot races, like, at all. DWS has a primary opponent that Bernie could/can stump for and maybe get her kicked back to Wall Street. Not one word from Bernie. He’s protesting the Clooney fundraiser that raised substantially more for state parties and down-ballot races than he’s ever raised in his lifetime. I don’t know if he knows or don’t know if he cares, but the Presidential Nominee is Fundraiser-in-Chief, Party-Leader-in-Chief, Campaigner-in-Chief for the entire party.
Hillary Rettig
@JGabriel: Besides this NYer lives in Kalamazoo now.
mistermix
@gogol’s wife:
I think you mean that the arguments given were not convincing to you. Another argument, that I didn’t make since I thought it was obvious and the post was going long, is that I’m more liberal than Clinton so I am voting for Sanders, who more closely matches my beliefs. And, he passes pretty much any reasonable person’s competency threshold for the Presidency (unlike, say, Trump).
Hillary Rettig
Huzzah mistermix!
Kropadope
@WJS:
Severely unlikely
Less likely still.
ThresherK (GPad)
@nastybrutishntall: I never heard of them until this election. Are they obscure or just a Jeff Gannon/Karen Ryan assistance source created for this purpose? And did Bernie ask for their “help”?
Kropadope
@JGabriel:
But that’s the most popular dead horse here. Don’t take it away because it’s starting to stink (as of several months ago).
marduk
@mistermix: No, there is no evidence of a third party Bernie run whatsoever. It’s just more Clintonista ratfuckery.
JGabriel
@mistermix:
Seconded.
mistermix
@Anonymous At Work:
I think there’s something to this. Still, I don’t think we have a rich history of candidates running for President in the primary stumping for others. In the general, yes. I accept the critique that Bernie does not have a history of helping other Democrats, and he would have to change if by some miracle he wins the primary.
Kay
@skerry:
I have 3 too. One IL vote for Clinton, one OH canvasser and voter for Sanders, and one is on the fence for the PA primary. She was Sanders but she’s undecided now.
burnspbesq
@Just Some Fuckhead, Clinton Supporter:
This is Real America? Coulda fooled me, and I’ve lived here for 29 of the last 31 years.
kindness
I like Bernie. Except when he is trying to take down the Democratic Party because Bernie is losing. And in that same vein, Bernie saying Hillary is fraud by fundraising for the Democratic Party is pretty damn ugly. I like Bernie. I could not at this point vote for him. I’ll be voting for Hillary in California’s primary and I won’t even have to hold my nose.
mistermix
@Just Some Fuckhead, Clinton Supporter: Are you saying some people on Facebook won’t vote for Clinton no matter what? That changes everything! /s
Iowa Old Lady
Samantha Bee on the Republican candidates. Take a few minutes to laugh.
Elie
@mistermix:
So despite the fact that he can’t articulate any kind of PLAN, and does not support down ticket Democrats, you like his “position”? Yay! I believe in Freedom and Joy, Freedom from hunger and rainbows — that is my position. You should write my name in cause its as good a reason as the one you gave for Bernie…. Other than “positions”, there is no there there. Man, he is also way too old.. He would be 80 years old at the end of his first term (79 if you want to be precise). He is un-electable in every way. You risk harming a good candidate and destroying the accomplishments of a sitting, successful Democratic President, for what again? Because, that’s why?
rp
I don’t agree with this post, but it’s 1000x more logical than Rettig’s.
Just Some Fuckhead, Clinton Supporter
@JGabriel:
Could he have been lying? Because nothing else makes sense to my incredibly paranoid fears.
burnspbesq
If by some bizarre happenstance Sanders becomes the Democratic nominee, I will walk barefoot on broken glass if that’s what it takes to vote for him in November. But I sure as shit hope it doesn’t come to that.
mistermix
@Kay: I have one – she’s supporting Sanders.
schrodinger's cat
@gogol’s wife: Grandpa’s finger wagging makes them feel good. He calls out the meanies and has promised them lots of goodies.
eldorado
voted for bernie a couple of weeks ago. it was an easy call.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@gogol’s wife: I had no idea that Omnes had such influence. I am now envious.
::waves at everybody in the thread::
Hillary Rettig
Here’s how much Clinton cares about downstream candidates (not to mention fair elections):
“But the states have yet to see a financial windfall. Meanwhile, Clinton’s campaign has been a major beneficiary, getting an infusion of low-dollar contributions through the committee at a time when rival Bernie Sanders’s army of small donors is helping him close in on her financially. The fund is run by Clinton campaign staff, and its treasurer is Clinton’s chief operating officer.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/democratic-party-fundraising-effort-helps-clinton-find-new-donors-too/2016/02/19/b8535cea-d68f-11e5-b195-2e29a4e13425_story.html
WJS
@mistermix: There is no mathematical formula where he wins enough delegates to secure the nomination; he’s running as a third party candidate right now, if you want to use logic.
What makes you think he’s going to accept the outcome of the California primary? Each and every public statement he makes about the primary indicates to me he will sue the Democratic party and run as a third party candidate. He does not behave like a losing candidate. He behaves like someone who knows he can play spoiler in November.
Calouste
@mistermix:
FTFY.
I can’t remember any Democrat running for the Presidency attacking the Democratic party like Sanders does, so there’s that.
Major Major Major Major
Thanks, mistermix. If I were in your position… well, we all know I’m a Hillbot. Bernie strikes me as temperamentally incautious, which is not a quality I look for in a president. Since voting for either candidate means voting for somebody who might actually be president, this is fairly decisive for me, and rules out a protest vote.
(I also generally prefer Hillary’s policies, but they’re close enough that I feel I can state the above in good faith.)
But, you know, for me. Anyway thanks, we weren’t being sarcastic when we said we actually would like to see some front-pagers about Bernie, at least I wasn’t.
david10
@Gin & Tonic: Just more corruption, and voter suppression, and Debbie, Goldman Sachs, and, and, and why can’t I vote for anyone I want, anytime I want to- It sucks, they suck, you suck-not that that’s always a bad thing.
WJS
@Kropadope: Then why the lawsuit? To delegitimize Clinton’s win and justify a “pure” candidacy.
Mike J
Because of all the recent vitriol, John Cole has posted his new list of people who are banned.
Just Some Fuckhead, Clinton Supporter
@burnspbesq:
I’d like to believe you, Burnsie, but there was a internet post somewhere by someone who said they’d never vote for Sanders if he stole the nomination from Clinton and a bunch of people upvoted it so I have no choice but to assume you are part of the huge group on the left that wants to see a Republican president elected.
Major Major Major Major
@Kropadope:
How so? In the (admittedly very unlikely) world where Bernie does run third-party, wouldn’t he receive votes from voters who would otherwise have voted for Hillary, and since votes are a finite resource, etc.?
mistermix
@Elie:
Oh come on. The notion that a candidate in a Presidential primary is doing something unprecedented and wrong by running an aspirational campaign is just silly. The accepted conventional wisdom is that Obama was a centrist Democrat in 2008 but I think we all remember the hope and change rhetoric. As for Bernie’s age, that is a real issue. but Trump will be 70 when the election is held – he’ll be chucking his bricks at 75-year old Bernie from a 70 year-old glass house.
St. A
@JGabriel: He said that a while back, but I’m trying to think of the most recent time he said it. His campaign has evolved in ways that could undercut a Dem win in Nov. IMO.
Bergman
Looks like Ted Cruz has set New Jersey on fire as a distraction technique.
WJS
@Major Major Major Major: That’s the reality no one wants to accept. If you peel away 10-12% of the vote that should have gone to Clinton, you throw the Electoral college to any Republican running, no matter how insane or evil they are.
The Bernie Bros don’t care–a Republican President is the “same” as Hillary anyway, right?
Ampersand
@schrodinger’s cat:
“promised them lots of goodies”? Whoa, let’s ease up on the GOP talking points…
Major Major Major Major
Oof, wow, yeah, this is way better than Rettig’s post. That’s the sort of thing you make fun of Bernie people for writing.
Bobby Thomson
@mistermix: he’s not a Democrat. And he’s so far out on the branch he can’t credibly make it back to sanity at this point.
Calouste
@Hillary Rettig: Well, if Sanders had joined the Democratic party 25 years ago instead of playing purity pony, he could have had his people in positions like that as well. Politics is a team game, something that Sanders singularly fails to understand.
msdc
I understand these reasons, and I could see this as an option if Clinton were running an inevitability campaign (she hasn’t yet) and Sanders were still running as a message candidate. But at this point Sanders seems to think he can actually win the nomination, math be damned, and he’s busily engaged in tearing down the party’s actual nominee. The message he gets from your vote may not be the one you plan to send.
False comparison. Smears from Trump and Cruz don’t interfere with her ability to unite her own party and turn out her own base. They also won’t be prefaced by the inevitable “Even the liberal Bernie Sanders…” tags that Sanders is scripting right now.
Schlemazel (parmesan rancor)
Mixmaster, you bastard! We had a real chance of breaking a record for number of posts in a thread and you come along & screw that all up!
I also thought that with a little effort the last thread could take the record for the most times someone was called an asshole, that would have been a real accomplishment but you went & wrecked it! I don’t think, however, that the last thread could ever have achieved maximum “fuck you/off” but now we will never know.
So here I am, in this pale imitation, this glory stealing thread. What can I do?
FUCK OFF, ASSHOLE!
parmesan rancor
mistermix
@WJS:
Well, if you want to use that logic, Hillary Clinton was running as a third-party candidate around this time in 2008. So I don’t think you want to use that logic.
Sanders’ position is that superdelegates will switch if he surges. Highly unlikely but not impossible. That said, you fight until the last hope is exhausted in a political campaign, and Sanders is a politician like the rest of them.
Bobby Thomson
@Gin & Tonic: he doesn’t have to win, just make Clinton lose. Isn’t he running on the WFP line?
Elie
@mistermix:
Nice dodge on the age issue. Trump is not fit to be president for numerous reasons. HIs age is the least. Anyway, we are not discussing voting for HIM. You are proposing voting in the primary to select a presidential candidate for the Democrats who is “aspirational” (meaning he cannot demonstrate the skill and plan necessary to carry out his “positions”. You are willing to bring disruption not only to a very solid candidate who can actually govern AND the legacy of a successful, sitting, first black, Democratic president because, what again? All for a candidate who is unelectable and lately, has shown himself to be without class AND unable to defend his own positions with clarity? Give me a break!
Bobby Thomson
@JGabriel: in case you hadn’t noticed, he’s said a lot of things in this campaign that aren’t exactly true.
Chyron HR
@Ampersand:
“Hillary is an evil scandal-plagued witch”? Whoa, let’s ease up on the GOP talking points…
Major Major Major Major
@mistermix:
I read Obama’s policies in 2008. They were available. BO and Hillary were squabbling about mandates and public options and both supported TARP. Bernie and Hillary are arguing about whether or not to dissolve JP Morgan and if college should be free. 2008 was Switzerland vs. Switzerland, 2016 is Switzerland vs. Denmark.
@WJS: “Should have gone to Clinton”? Careful with the phrasing or you’ll get dragged into a “nobody is entitled to anybody’s vote” rant.
Bobby Thomson
@mistermix: competency? Now you’re just trolling us.
Shell
I guess I should count myself lucky…Politics is the last thing any of my FB cronies talk about.
msdc
@NCSteve: Yeah, when the most calm and rational pro-Sanders voters are essentially banking on Clinton being the nominee in November, well, that ought to tell you something.
Hoodie
@mistermix: Then that’s fine, but it completely contradicts what you said in your post.
Just Some Fuckhead, Clinton Supporter
@mistermix:
I know you want to do your little mockery thing but it’s serious shit that some people will exercise their voting franchise in a way that will not benefit the preferred candidate of someone else. And as a result, someone could be elected or even NOT ELECTED.
It’s our job as blogcommenters to rage against these people in the desperate hope that it will somehow seem meaningful and not pathetic.
Princess
@mistermix: He’s been running so hard against the Democratic party this week, I don’t think it is out of the question. I heard one idiot on NPR talking about protesting the convention if he isn’t the nominee. He isn’t allowing much room for a return to the party.
I don’t care that much what he says about Hill — as you say, she’ll face much worse. But I won’t forgive him for turning a generation against working through a party because it is only in a party, however imperfect, that we have the weight to get things done.
Kropadope
@schrodinger’s cat:
Who’s repeating Republican talking points again?
Chyron HR
@mistermix:
HA HA HA OH WOW
No, I’m pretty sure YOU guys don’t want to use the “Bernie is only doing the same shitty things Hillary did in 2008” logic.
Kay
@mistermix:
Yeah, I’m sympathetic to “the youths”. I do think they have it harder.
Brachiator
The only problem I see here is that Sanders is not a Democratic Party regular, nor are most of the the Berniebots. So it will be easy for the Dems to shrug off any valid criticisms. It also muddies things that the worst Berniacs and even Bernie himself are often such jerks that they invite active dismissal of anything they say.
This is not the best of reasons, but it’s not the worst of reasons.
Ultimately, though, I think that Bernie had a chance to make a strong case for himself coming into the New York primary, and he failed to do so. Instead of voting for him as a protest or corrective, Democratic voters should instead crush his dreams, push him into support mode, and get this shit over with.
I would like to see how many Bernie true believers there actually are. People who intend to vote for HRC in November, but who want to play political sugar daddy or sugar momma to keep Bernie in the race are wasting his time and everyone else’s.
Davebo
Who hired her anyway?
Oh.. right..
guachi
My mother gave me this as one of her reasons she supports Sanders. I think it’s about as terrible a reason to vote for someone as there can be.
“I support whoever is losing”.
Also, however bad DWS is at getting Democrats elected, Sanders is vastly worse.
Here is a man with a vast network of small donors who is hoovering up the money all for him.
schrodinger's cat
@Ampersand: He is promising free college and medicare for all.
Amir Khalid
Here’s my outsider’s take on Bernie: he sings a sweeter liberal song than Hillary, but that’s all he’s got. He lacks the intellectual breadth and depth to grasp the nature and scope of the president’s job. He doesn’t have the executive skills to lead an administration. He lacks the political and diplomatic chops to cut the deals that get things done. He won’t have allies to speak of in Congress. He would be a poor fit for the Oval Office compared to Hillary. Preferring Bernie to Hillary is stupid.
Elie
Do you Bernie folks understand what is at stake to make a symbolic vote? Supreme Court, a legacy of progressive legislation even in the face of unprecedented opposition? Really you don’t think any of that is important?
Major Major Major Major
@Hillary Rettig: That money usually goes to the DNC, which then runs and funds the state-level campaigns. It’s what Obama did in 2008.
Mnemosyne
I strongly suspect that the worst of them — like the assholes who doxxed the superdelegates or the guy who thought it was a *great* idea to throw dollar bills at the female candidate and call her a whore — are actually Paultards who are trying to get a foothold with the Dems now that they’ve been repelled from the Republicans. Most other Bernistas are just a little caught up in the moment right now and will calm down by the time the election rolls around.
I still can’t figure out what Tad Devine was thinking to decide to run against not just Clinton, but the Democratic Party. Most of the Obama coalition would rather reform the party from the inside, not blow it up. I really think he shot his candidate in the foot with that decision.
Kropadope
@Major Major Major Major:
I was factoring the unlikelihood of the former in together with the latter. He can’t throw an election with a third part campaign he doesn’t embark upon. And in the far-removed chance he does, I doubt the 0.5 percent of votes he gets will be determinative.
ETA: Also, the people I know who are determined to vote for Bernie in the GE regardless of the outcome of the primary (OK, just my sister) will do it regardless of whether he launches a third party campaign or not. So, I’d say the anti-Hillary vote is pretty well baked in already.
Davebo
I mean seriously. I think “I don’t particularly care for Bernie but I’m voting for him in what could be a close NY primary because DSW hurt my fee fee’s.”
You is a serious voter!
Miss Bianca
@Bobby Thomson: he has not “written off” super delegates – his followers are actively, ineptly, and belligerently DEMANDING that they vote for BS – at least, in the great state of CO they are. They don’t get how the process works, evidently, and act entitled to the votes of elected officials that they are crapping on as part of the corrupt “Establishment” – which is only going to alienate and PO these elected officials more, IMHO – if I had been screamed at and booed as Senator Bennet and Ken Salazar had been, I’d be scratching my nose with my middle finger every time I looked at my “colleague” Sen. Sanders.
@Amir Khalid: This. I wish *you* were voting.
Bobby Thomson
@Schlemazel (parmesan rancor): I blame Omnes.
singfoom
@Major Major Major Major:
But, but, if you point out that a third party candidate garners votes from one giant pot of votes, with that vote ostensibly no longer available for the Democrat, you’re obviously talking about “entitlement” to votes.
Except you aren’t, you’re just pointing out how the allocation of scarce resources works. Oh that was a good conversation, I doubt we’ll ever have to have it again.
Eric U.
Republican fb friend was approvingly quoting bernies bullshit about fundraising. No way in hell I’m voting for him. Is Jill Stein running?
mistermix
@WJS:
People say a lot of things they don’t mean in the heat of a political contest. PUMAs are a prime example of that phenomenon in 2008.
Hildebrand
@Elie: Yep. My biggest beef with Sanders is that he doesn’t actually seem to show an understanding that he needs to ‘govern’. Even in the midst of Obama’s most soaring rhetoric, you saw the structure and content of how he would govern. He knew the process, knew the issues, understood the difficulties inherent in our messy form of government. I don’t see the same evidence for that in what Sanders says. A revolution that doesn’t know how to get the job done, or doesn’t seem to want to talk about how to get it done, isn’t a revolution I want to sign on for.
Mike J
If you want to send a message, call Western Union. Except they don’t want to listen to you any more either.
Iowa Old Lady
@Davebo: Until this campaign I hadn’t even thought about how the party chair is selected but not long ago someone posted about it and it turns out the president is not the one making the choice though I assume s/he had influence. Here’s Wikipedia:
Just Some Fuckhead, Clinton Supporter
@Elie: Thank you. I’ve been trying to tell Mistermix that a vote for Bernie Sanders in the primary is a vote for Zombie Scalia on the Supreme Court but he’s got this fancified notion that a primary election is different from the general election in which he pledged to support Clinton.
I’ll be damned if I can get him to understand sense.
JGabriel
Elie:
And Hillary Clinton will be 74 at the end of her first term (73 if you want to be precise).
I mean, seriously, I don’t think anyone should be running for president past the age of 61. The oldest successful American President was Eisenhower, who took office at the age of 62 years and 98 days. Historically, all five presidents older than that (Reagan, Harrison, Buchanan, Bush I, and Taylor) either died early in office and/or were lousy, terrible for the country, presidents. Of the lot, Bush I was the best, and that hardly even begins to give you an idea of how bad the rest of them were. (Source: Sortable List of Presidents by Age, Wikipedia.)
But we don’t have any viable younger candidates in this race (unless you’re working from some heretofore unknown definition of viable that includes Ted Cruz). Clinton is 68; Sanders, 72; Trump, 69. They are all way past the historical age threshold for good presidents. I’m just hoping that improvements in health care since the 1980’s can make a difference, or, if Clinton is president, that the age threshold is different and higher for women (which it might well be, given that women usually live longer in the US).
So, anyway, my point is that an age argument against Sanders is pointless, given that none of his viable opponents are significantly younger, and that he and Clinton both seem to be in robust health. (Trump, on the other hand, looks like he’s about to have an aneurysm or heart attack any day now.)
raven
@JGabriel: Buncha fucking draft dodgers!
mistermix
@Brachiator:
NY is essentially Hillary’s home state. The only outcome of the NYS primary that would affect this election would be a Sanders victory. A Hillary win is already baked into the expectations.
Bobby Thomson
@Miss Bianca: no, he has written them off with this bonehead “sharing funds is evil” play. That’s a tell that he knows he can’t get them anyway. Everything he says to the contrary is to keep the 27 dollar Visa charges coming from the marks.
Mnemosyne
@Brachiator:
New York was probably the wrong hill to die on since Hillary was a popular and twice-elected Senator from that state. It might have been possible to do it if they’d started laying the groundwork last fall or even summer, but now it’s like trying to run against Obama in Illinois. Like it or not, she is now the hometown girl and Bernie is the guy who walked away.
different-church-lady
@nastybrutishntall: Facebook is evil. It should die.
Just Some Fuckhead, Clinton Supporter
@Mnemosyne:
One of the rare times we’ll agree. 20% of the Sanders supporters are Republicans who never had any intention of voting for Clinton and are very likely only Sanders supporters inasmuch as it can help prevent a Clinton nomination. OTOH, Pumas in 2008 were actually Democrats, mostly the kind that don’t like black people.
Davebo
@Iowa Old Lady: I feel pretty confident that DWS wouldn’t be party chair if Obama didn’t want her to be party chair.
And he could cut her loose I’m pretty sure with at most two phone calls.
Punchy
Sanders has the Yungz voting bloc, it would appear. Not surprised that the spoiled Millys will refuse to vote if they dont get their way (a Sanders nommy); that’s a pretty immature stance but consistent with their relative immaturity. Hard to grasp the importance of abortion rights and unions and immigration with SCOTUS judges when your life events revolve around pitchers of beer, rec league softball, and occasionally a final exam.
mistermix
@Elie:
Yes I do understand what’s at stake, in NYS, Clinton’s home turf. She’s going to win this one. So I’m voting to make the margin a little less comfortable for her. This is not a vote for the apocalypse.
chopper
@JGabriel:
sanders isn’t going to go third party. there is a good likelihood he’ll switch back to an indy when he heads home to vermont (apparently he’s already filed paperwork for his next senate race as an independent). there’s also a good likelihood that he’ll really phone it in when it comes to supporting clinton in the general, but i hope i’m wrong about that.
i just don’t see a guy who has railed against the democratic party for decades and ran a primary like he has (running as much against the party as he is the other candidate) pivoting and full-throatedly telling his supporters to vote for hilz. he isn’t a guy who pivots. he’s gonna go through the motions, half-ass it and go back home.
Davebo
@mistermix:
It’s also, like all the Dem primaries, a proportional state for delegates.
But hey, whatever helps you maintain your sense of superiority go for it. This could buy you another month of it.
D58826
@Roger Moore: And the GOP can say in their ads -‘even the democrats think Hillary is a …..(fill in the blanks)’. For the casual voter who doesn’t start paying attention till the fall it could be effective.
Iowa Old Lady
@Davebo: You’re probably right. I’m terrible at inside politics because I personally blurt out whatever I’m thinking at meetings.
raven
Hey, youse can take your dog to vote in the Apple!
Miss Bianca
@mistermix: A Pet Rock would be more qualified to be President than Trump. That’s the best you got?
starscream
Yeah, what is with all the old candidates? And why didn’t O’Malley get more traction? Quite liberal himself, a governor with some real accomplishments, etc.
gbear
Vote for Bernie in NY to show the south that they really don’t matter anyway.
//
(that’s reason enough to do a FU vote against Bernie)
MomSense
@Amir Khalid:
I agree with your take on this.
different-church-lady
@mistermix: I could be gearing up to win the U.S. Open.
In the meantime, Bernie is past gearing up and is now Poised.
Kropadope
@Davebo:
What helps you maintain yours?
Ella in New Mexico
Loved this from Charlie Pierce:
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a44109/press-ted-cruz/
MomSense
@Davebo:
I’m pretty sure nobody wants to be party chair. Too much aggravation.
Mnemosyne
@Kropadope:
I think the baked-in anti-Hillary vote is pretty small. Even the most annoying Bernista on my Facebook feed has calmed down — I think the whole “whore” thing bothered her. She’s still a Bernie supporter, but I think she’s becoming reconciled to voting for Hillary in November.
raven
@starscream: Too many people watched “The Wire”.
Miss Bianca
@JGabriel: I love his commitment to progressive politics! Hijack the Democratic Party to run for President, bern shit down, then back to VT as an independent, no harm, no foul. Sorry – that’s complete yutz territory as far as i’m concerned. Whatever slogans he mouths about it being “we, not me” – he’s in it for the ego trip and the glory – he’s not actually interested in building a sustainable movement. So, I don’t get it. His “policy statements” are just simple answers to complex questions, and then when he’s asked a simple question about his simple answer – “what laws have the banks broken, Bernie?” – duhhhh, I dunno, but they sure did, and I’m gonna get them – somehow. Break up the banks? I dunno how to do that, they’ll have to be in charge of that! His signature issue, and he whiffs. And you’re not *embarrassed* to be voting for that?
chopper
@msdc:
at this point he’s busily engaged in tearing down the party itself.
Just Some Fuckhead, Clinton Supporter
@starscream:
I thought O’Malley was creepy. I admit it’s not the best reason to not support a candidate but was there any reason to dig deeper? It wasn’t like he was going anywhere fast.
opiejeanne
@Just Some Fuckhead, Clinton Supporter: Haha! I love this comment so much I want to marry it.
Bobby Thomson
@JGabriel: 73 is significantly younger than 79, especially when you factor in gender.
Brachiator
@mistermix:
The problem is that Bernie’s aspirations are silly. He has had decades to come up with some articulate vision of what he wants, but instead he just keeps spouting how we need to do “something something” because that’s how they do it in unspecified European countries. And his latest pronouncements idiotically slamming rich donors like George Clooney clearly indicate that he foolishly believes that at some mystical point, “big money” becomes by definition corrupt. His “purity of the little guy” nonsense is infantile, as is his belief that banks will immediately spout longs as soon as you break them up.
BTW, I don’t think that any candidate, GOP are Democrat has been honest about the fact that manufacturing jobs are likely gone forever, and that structural changes to the economy will require more than clicking heels together and wishing away NAFTA.
Chyron HR
@different-church-lady:
$27 DOLLAR TRUCKS BACKING UP
Ella in New Mexico
And, thank you, too mistermix. Like I said to Hillary below, it’s getting really hard to be here lately if you don’t fall in line with the Clinton supporters. It takes courage to say what you did.
Mnemosyne
@starscream:
IMO, O’Malley looks good on paper, but a lot of people in Baltimore and the rest of Maryland — particularly people of color — didn’t think he was All That. And given that African-American women are now the most reliable Dem voters (possibly of any voters across parties), O’Malley wasn’t going to get anywhere unless he could get traction with them.
JGabriel
@Bobby Thomson:
Sanders gets the WFP line only if he wins the Democratic nomination. The Working Families Party is not going to endorse a third party candidate for President. Not this year. They will cross-endorse whoever is the Democratic nominee.
Iowa Old Lady
@Mnemosyne: The “whore” thing bothered me too. I know a surrogate said it and Sanders denounced it, but it really shocked me anyway. And flinging money at Clinton’s car didn’t help.
starscream
@Just Some Fuckhead, Clinton Supporter: But why did Bernie do so much better than him?
Amir Khalid
@starscream:
And as charismatic as a tree stump, so I gather.
Major Major Major Major
@Amir Khalid: @MomSense: As do I.
raven
@Ella in New Mexico: Oh bullshit, what courageous, it’s a fucking blog.
Miss Bianca
@Bobby Thomson: Omnes vincit amores.
Elie
@JGabriel:
Age does matter and I think Bernie seems like all of his currently 75 years. Its a very tough slog. We aren’t even through the primaries and he would still have the general election campaign which would be very tough on this guy who has generally been given a pass by the media and the Republicans — for now. The whole last debate with Clinton, his face and hands were fire engine red. In case you are wondering, that is not a good color for a candidate of 75 or for any candidate of any age. It demonstrates emotional lability. He is thin skinned and quick to anger — that is a well known trait. Think about that a while when we approach the general. Does temperament mean anything to you for a president? Is he going to be putting his finger in Putin’s face? Most importantly, do you think this guy who has reveled in peeing into the tent, in picking comfortable issues with little risk for him, is going to be able to pick and choose what issues he can take on as President? Do you see a guy, who clearly has not worked with a solid group of people, including apparently the progressives in his own state, could even put together a cabinet? He has received how many supporting endorsements from his fellow senators? From any other elected official? He clearly does not support and has not historically supported the Democratic Party and yet you assume that would not be a problem for governing? There is nothing there, man. Nothing. You are voting for a cardboard cutout who spouts a few of your favorite “positions”. And you are willing to actually risk something more important for a person that by any measure is a high risk candidate….
Ella in New Mexico
@WJS:
Because even though he has explicitly stated he WILL NOT pull a Nader or Perot, you gotta worry about ALL the possibilities, right? I mean, what’s to stop him from building dirty suitcase bomb and taking it into the convention this summer?
Brachiator
@Just Some Fuckhead, Clinton Supporter:
20%? Sez who?
chopper
@MomSense:
thirded.
mistermix
@Davebo:
I’m well aware of the delegate rules in NYS. A few more or less delegates in the Sanders column in the NYS primary will make zero difference in influencing Sanders to quit the race. Sanders has raised a ton of money and has a lot of dedicated supporters. He will not be running for any office but the Senate again. Given that he’s not going to run out of money, he’s going to quit when he feels he has done enough to satisfy those supporters, and to satisfy his own big ego.
And, yes, Sanders has a big ego, just like every other man or woman who’s ever run for the office he and Hillary are seeking.
Just Some Fuckhead, Clinton Supporter
@Brachiator: I said it, bitch.
WJS
@Ella in New Mexico: Then why the lawsuit? Why continue campaigning when he has no chance at the nomination?
That’s the part I don’t get. Sorry, but he’s not going to stop running just because the Clinton/DNC people are able to “steal” a nomination from him.
mmeep
I’m with NC Steve and mistermix. Vote for the one you want, and in IL I went Bernie. I’ll vote for the centrist who’s better than the R’s if and when she’s the nominee. Not convinced that Bernie has no chance.
Major Major Major Major
@mistermix:
Hillary is wayyyy to ambitious to be the first woman president. It’s just gross.
@WJS: Ehh, Hillary pulled that stupid stunt with Michigan and Florida in 2008. Cornered rats and all.
singfoom
@mistermix: My state’s primary (IL) already happened and I voted for Bernie. I don’t regret it, but at this point, despite defending him here for a while, I’m done.
I prefer the economic policy positions that Sanders advances. But after the NYDN interview where he just flubbed, flubbed his signature issue and couldn’t name a single illegal incident in the response when I could name like 4 off the top of my head, I’m done with his campaign.
I too, despise DWS and the third way centrism bullshit and I truly think HRC will tack to the economic center after winning the white house if she does. I think she’ll support the TPP.
I’m all for cheaper/free college and Medicaid for all, but you need Congress for that, so yelling about the goals you have while NOT supporting those you will need to enact said policy planks is incompetence.
Even with all that said, given the whining coming from Sanders campaign and the lawsuit against HRC in Ohio and his not supporting down-ticket races WHILE swinging for the fences legislatively, that’s effectively switched me from Pro-Bernie totally more than willing to vote for HRC to anti-Bernie because I think he’s hurting her chances in the general and that his lack of downticket support shows that he’s not serious about enacting his agenda, just highlighting contradictions more.
YMMV
Ella in New Mexico
@raven:
Uh, opening himself up to crap like that and worse is what it means. Speaking truthfully and respectfully, to people who literally want to punch you in the face if they could. He could just stay in the background and maintain neutrality, because it’s much, much easier than the dealing with the ugliness within these threads.
mistermix
@Brachiator:
Medicare for all (as a concept, I know there are implementation details) and a free four-year public college education are silly. Today I learned.
Mike J
@raven: The dog is actually registered as an independent.
? Martin
@Just Some Fuckhead, Clinton Supporter: You loved me that much – and I never knew.
?
WJS
@mistermix: You mean like calling her a whore?
Chyron HR
@Ella in New Mexico:
That’s nice, dear.
raven
@Ella in New Mexico: So if it bothers you so much why do you read them? It’s all bullshit.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
Sanders has done about everything he can to blow up Obama’s coalition by driving wedges through young and old, north and south, men and women, black and white. He’s a net negative.
Bob In Portland
@gogol’s wife: Little people are suffering and dying now. Your point? Trump will be more efficient at generating suffering and death than the current Democratic Party and its occupants?
raven
@Mike J: Cute lil dude!
Major Major Major Major
@Ella in New Mexico: @raven: Hey, he’s putting himself out there to a not-small audience, that’s worth some respect. Where’s your blog, raven?
Kropadope
@WJS:
I would say his odds are non-zero but vanishingly small.
Not helping. In the only instance where voters were arguably disenfranchised, the AZ primary, I haven’t seen a single scrap of evidence of Hillary’s involvement. Better explanation, red state.
cleek
@Hillary Rettig:
1. that article was written more than two months ago.
2. the state allocations from that fund are (reportedly) for use in the general election, not in the primaries. so it’s not surprising that they haven’t been distributed yet.
Davebo
@Kropadope:
I manage to get through the day without it.
singfoom
@Bob In Portland: Villagers. Villagers. Villagers.
chopper
@WJS:
continuing to campaign is fine. play til the whistle blows even if you can’t catch up. just don’t try to work the refs and take the other players out of commission out of sheer spite.
Just Some Fuckhead, Clinton Supporter
@starscream: Bernie is running as a straight up populist at a time when a whole lot of people desperately want – no need – the change they were promised.
Bob In Portland
@Just Some Fuckhead, Clinton Supporter: I won’t vote for Clinton. Not because I like Sanders. I won’t vote for Clinton because I don’t like her politics, her corruption, her foreign policy.
JGabriel
Elie:
I’ve self-identified my entire adult voting life as a social democrat. In this election, I’m voting for a man who has espoused many of the same policy positions I have, and has self-identified, and won elections as, a democratic socialist for 36 years.
Frankly, not only do I want to vote for Sanders, at this point, I kind of feel like I have an obligation to vote for him. What kind of social democrat would I be if I didn’t vote for one in a Democratic primary when I finally get the chance?
You can call that a vote for a “cardboard cutout” if you like. I’m calling it a vote for experience and hope.
Major Major Major Major
@mistermix: I don’t happen to agree with those positions, particularly as articulated by Bernie, but I don’t think they’re silly.
Cacti
@WJS:
And throwing dollar bills at her.
Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA
I think the first time the Republican nominee says something about sex and who should have it or how depraved minorities/women/LGBT people/the poor are, or the first time we see a supporter at the Republican convention with a button or t-shirt ripping Hillary by saying “[something something] Bitch” and the candidate doesn’t repudiate it (because you know he won’t), Bernie Sanders will be more or less forgotten. The vast majority of Dem voters will rally around her, regardless of what a few people on FB are saying now.
Honestly, I really don’t see the point in us ripping each other now — most of us will be back on the same side soon enough.
Bobby Thomson
@Bob In Portland: mistah we could use a man like Vladimir Putin again.
Kropadope
@Bob In Portland: Just what we needed.
@singfoom:I appreciate what you’re trying to do by mocking his favorite abused term, but maybe wait til he uses it?
Miss Bianca
@mistermix: How is Bernie Sanders going to get to Medicare for all and free four-year college for all? I am with child to know his ways and means…he sure hasn’t articulated them in any meaningful way. Persuade Republican-controlled state legislatures to open up the purse strings and raise taxes to fund the education they’ve been starving to *that* degree? H’mmm….and when we get all these hundreds of thousands of new students who will flock to take advantage of this Free College, – h’m, what? Quonset huts at the campuses? Whole new campuses? With what money?
Medicare for all…h’m. How many times has a Republican-controlled Congress voted to repeal the ACA, which at least keeps the insurance industry as a player? 76, 77, 78…kind of a blur after all. But Bernie will do it by Sheer Force of Will. or wagging that Waggy Finger of Doom at them, that’ll do it.
Wow. Just…wow. That’s some Deep Thinking on display there.
Davebo
@raven
Obviously, you don’t have the courage to believe!!
Luckily if you have access to an AM radio Limbaugh will give you that courage!
Bob In Portland
@Bobby Thomson: Did you read the letter to the DNC? You think it’s cool to launder money from lobbyists through state Democratic parties and then into Clinton PACs?
FlipYrWhig
@Ella in New Mexico: Oh my God, will you knock off this bullshit? The few, the happy few, the proud, the people who emote over Bernie Sanders, there are hardly any of them because it’s all so scary to be on the receiving end of THE MACHINE and they have to recognize each other by a coy shy code before their fleeting opportunity to connect vanishes forever.
Brachiator
@mistermix: RE: Ultimately, though, I think that Bernie had a chance to make a strong case for himself coming into the New York primary, and he failed to do so.
The larger point is that New York is media central and Bernie should have made the most of his platform. Despite all the attempts to explain it away, his NY Daily News interview was really weak sauce.
And New York is diverse (and less carpetbagger HRC’s home state than people think). New York is just as much Bernie’s hometown, and he’s a real Brooklyn guy, not a transplant.
Bernie scored with the NY activist fringe, but he should have done more to set himself up for states to come and to have more of an impact in the state even if HRC claims ultimate victory. Instead, he just kept doubling down on his same weak themes, with added whining and attacks on the unfairness of the primary process. Oh, yeah, and there was that Pope detour thing. Dumb.
Just Some Fuckhead, Clinton Supporter
@Bob In Portland: She loses then, Bob. Thanks for single-handedly ruining the election and putting the Supreme Court on a conservative path for 40 more years.
Aimai
@marduk: sanders doesnt have to run third party to essentialy refuse to release his delegates or his voters. And his most vocal voters online (at least) are in fact insisting that they wont vote for that noted republican enemy of the people hillary clinton. Thats not ratfucking on the part of the clinton campaign. Ive seen people make this point over and over from inside the bernie voting bunker. Probably these people are really greens/non voters so perhaps it doesnt matter in the general. But bernie has not shut down this talk of betrayal, corruption, theft, etc… He is explicitly running on an end to politics/pox on the democrats line. How does he turn on a dime snd work to bring his voters over? He doesnt. Id be thrilled if he acted like a mensch and I will personally apologize to him and contribute to his reelection campagn (if he runs as a democrat) if he is as gracious and hardworking as hillary was for Obama. But he wont be.
Major Major Major Major
Why did it take me so long to decide to learn all the wonderful things BiP has to say about pie?
WJS
@Kropadope: Did you read what his lawsuit against the DNC is about? They’re violating FEC laws–a clear indication that the de-legitimization of Clinton’s entire campaign is their legal strategy here. They’re going to attack her with the legal language being used by Republican operatives. He’s convinced that they’re “stealing” the primary from him because she only has two million more votes. This sets the stage to allow him to run as a third party candidate against the “corrupt” Democratic Party. This will strip a significant number of votes away from Clinton and throw the electoral college to the Republicans.
And, please. This is my half-assed opinion as to what will happen. I don’t pretend to actually “know” anything more than anyone else.
singfoom
@Kropadope: I’m trying to be a proactive pedant today. I thought we’d just get it out of the way initially that way we don’t have to worry about it later, but I respect your restraint.
Chyron HR
@Kropadope:
It’s so hard to whine that these people don’t exist when they insist on posting here all day long, isn’t it?
Bob In Portland
@mistermix: He’s actually campaigned for progressive candidates. Unfortunately, the DNC is running candidates further to the right of them in the primaries.
Davebo
@Miss Bianca:
Your missing the point. Mistermix made it clear he doesn’t care for Sanders. He knows Sanders has no chance of winning the nomination and if by some miracle he did he’d lose the general.
But, being aware of all that, he’s going to vote for Bernie in what could be a close primary because…..
Honestly, I have no fucking idea why but he has reasons.
Mike J
@cleek:
Which makes sense. National candidates usually just pledge to support the winner of the primary in downticket races rather than trying to raise money for both sides, which would be silly. There are exceptions (people do endorse their friends or people they’ve worked with), but staying out of the primary fight is the norm.
chopper
@Ella in New Mexico:
oh get the fuck over yourself. mixie has been blogging here for a long time, we all (most of us) know each other. it’s an election year at a political blog full of alter cockers who like to tell each other to fuck off. take a deep breath and get off the cross.
? Martin
@mistermix:
None of us are saying it’s silly. We’re saying we don’t see a path there and we don’t want to waste time hunting in the bushes for another however many years looking for one when there are more directly achievable goals before us. I think the free community college is both a great idea and easily achievable. Free is well aligned with how community colleges work now. Free is not well aligned with how 4 year public universities work, and getting those in alignment is non-trivial. Either you are going to exclude the very populations you should be trying to serve (low income, first gen) or you need to add admissions guarantees to certain populations (which are exceptionally difficult to get right when institutions are already at capacity) or you need to add capacity. Free is one budget, and actually the smaller budget. Adding capacity is a much larger budget and really needs to be thought through, and there doesn’t even seem to be any acknowledgement that these ‘details’ even need to be considered. Paying for something is trivial compared to providing access to something that is constrained. We’ve known how to pay for elections for a century and that is uncontroversial, but providing access we still struggle with. It trivializes the challenge to just ignore these things.
I think the idea is far from silly – I think it’s a great idea. I just wish that the great idea came with a great execution effort. That’s my gripe – if you have a great idea, you can’t just flop it out there like a dead fish – great ideas require fantastic amounts of effort because the implementation is where the idea earns its greatness. Healthcare.gov should be proof enough of that. The folks we recognize for great ideas aren’t the ones that put the idea in a book, they’re the ones that busted their ass and delivered on the idea. All ideas ultimately get their value in execution. Execution is Bernie’s weak area, which is unfortunate because I like his aspirations.
WJS
@Aimai: I’ve seen it as well and you make my point better than I have. Thanks.
WHAT AIMAI SAID.
Cacti
The past few weeks have shown that Barney Frank had Bernie dead to rights.
His general lack of Dem Congressional endorsements isn’t because he’s anti-establishment. It’s because he’s a strident, self-righteous dick.
Brachiator
@Just Some Fuckhead, Clinton Supporter:
An who da fuck are you?
raven
@Davebo: Everybody must believe in something, I believe I’ll go fishing!
msdc
@Chyron HR: Bravo.
Eric U.
Sanders is here today. Told some of my students they could skip class to go see him. I hope he shows up
Calouste
@Ella in New Mexico: Sanders also explicitly stated about his tax returns that “we will get out as much information as we can.” and “we have released them in the past.”, and the only thing he has released is an update to his 2014 return that was already available for months. Link
Sanders has been lying too much about his tax returns to trust him on anything else. Releasing tax returns is really straightforward, you can send a form to the IRS and they will send you copies of up to 8 years of your returns.
Bob In Portland
@schrodinger’s cat: If you disagree with his positions, fine. If you’re critiquing debate styles, whatever.
Miss Bianca
@JGabriel: So have I, and I consider Bernie Sanders an embarrassment who would set the cause of democratic socialism back for generations if he became President. I felt an obligation to vote *against* him, for that reason. His rhetoric is great. I hope it will inspire a better candidate some day, one who who exhibits a demonstrable clue about how we’re gonna get from point A to Point Triple Z.
D58826
@Amir Khalid: That sums it up pretty well. And he can still push his ideas as a Senator on a major committee, maybe even as chairman.
Mike J
@Brachiator:
He left because he couldn’t play in the bigs. Brooklyn has four times the population of Vermont and probably more black people on one block.
Nelle
I’m glad that Bernie joined the race and I’m drawn to his rhetoric. I’m not drawn to his lack of planning and lack of strategy. He’s gathered a lot of excited voters but they won’t be in the halls of Congress working for him.
It does seem like the dog that caught the car, but had no idea he could do that. And he’s flailing.
I’m most concerned about beating the Republicans. Today, a Republican was asking me,” Who is in the middle? I don’t like those on the left or the right. I think Kasich must be the moderate.” I did have a chance to correct that impression – think of Cruz policies but with a nicer, Midwestern face on them.
But I think you are deluding yourselves if you think that the general election will vote in a Jewish, atheist (despite rushing to meet the Pope), socialist, a guy in his 70’s who has fathered a child out of wedlock. None of that is a problem for me. But oh, the Republicans are salivating at the chance to run on those issues, especially for low info voters who think Kasich is a moderate.
I look at my husband, in his 70’s, who is in top intellectual form, just having learned the glass cockpit in less than a month, flying all kinds of planes, and working at a top law firm. Someone recently guessed his age at 58. He swims and bikes and is in good physical shape. And he just falls asleep in his chair after a day of intense work. Aging is real and I’ve heard many of my older friends say, rather ruefully, I’m worried about an aging man as president. We know what is happening to us. I actually think Hillary is too old, but we go with what we’ve got. Rather an older person that what the Republicans are throwing up.
goblue72
@JGabriel: 1 in 9 Americans lives in California. I don’t think there are any FP bloggers from California. 1 in 12 Americans lives in Texas. I don’t think there are any FP bloggers from Texas.
Combined, those two states account for 20% of the U.S. population.
WJS
@Davebo: I don’t know about you, but this mistermix fellow seems to be trolling people for the first time ever today.
Kropadope
@Miss Bianca:
Piecemeal, most likely. Also, debt-free, not free four year college. My preferred version of that legislation would also include educational opportunities other than four-year programs, but I suppose that’s why legislation is a cooperative process, huh?
cleek
@Major Major Major Major:
so much pie. so much.
Major Major Major Major
@? Martin: My problem with flopping out “Medicare for all! The end!” like it’s, well, my metaphor would probably involve an appendage of some kind, is that it fails to account for all of the problems with Medicare. That, and I happen to like the Swiss system better, which kinda sorta resembles how the ACA was supposed to work, before Scott Brown and John Roberts. (I like Switzerland.)
@Bob In Portland:
You know, I’d never thought about it before, but that’s probably right. Interesting!
Davebo
@Brachiator:
Obviously it was more important that he sit on a plane for 20 hours round trip to hang out at the Vatican at 6:00AM. Right place, right time and all.
Mike J
@Eric U.: You in PA? He slunk out of NY this morning before the polls opened.
FlipYrWhig
@Cacti:
The other day it dawned on me that people have been equating Sanders and Trump, but maybe the real point of comparison is Sanders and Cruz.
Davebo
@WJS: Not at all the first time.
There’s a reason we had to cough up a tip for Alain.
Kay
@Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA:
There’s already a “bitch” bumpersticker on Clinton. I saw it last week- “Trump the Bitch” with her picture. My 13 year old wanted to take a pix of it with my phone but we were parked behind the vehicle with the sticker and there were people in it. I said “they might shoot you” and I (honestly) wasn’t kidding although I hope he thought I was. I wouldn’t let him.
raven
@chopper: I was downtown with the pups last night and ran into a young lady who said she loved cockers and she proved it!
Just Some Fuckhead, Clinton Supporter
@Brachiator: I’m the person who can glean through Facebook profiles and posts to determine what’s really going on “online” and speak to it forcefully. Before the social media revolution, I was a mindreader. Now I’m a political expert.
Davebo
@raven:
I went yesterday. If I’d been in town I could have done it from my driveway!
Took me 2.5 hours to make it home today, normally it’s an hour and fifteen minutes.
Paul in KY
@marduk: It would flabbergast me if Bernie made a 3rd party run. Will not happen.
goblue72
@Mike J: So, what – Sanders left because he didn’t like black people? And that as a young hippie dude he knew decades later he wanted to be Senator so moved to Vermont because it would be easier? (as opposed to be the reality – he was a city kid who when he grew up, decided he wanted to live in bucolic countryside?)
Are you high?
Paul in KY
@burnspbesq: Evidently you’re in the foreign portion of Orange Co.
raven
@Davebo: Do any good?
marduk
@Aimai: As an argument, “don’t vote for Bernie today because my powers of precognition tell me he won’t campaign for Hillary in the future despite his promise that he would do so” leaves something to be desired.
starscream
I like Brad DeLong’s take. We’ve already made a bunch of huge bets on health insurance. Give them a few years to see how they materialize. (Did any of us expect to be at 92% covered at this point?) Spend your political capital somewhere else.
Kropadope
@Chyron HR: Now to be fair, Bob in [wherever he needs to change it to in order to circumvent blocked nym] has been a Putin apologist pain since way before the campaign season.
Brachiator
@mistermix:
Bernie has mumbled shit about Medicare for all, and health care like they have in the UK and France (which are very different systems). Any fool can utter magic words regarding health care programs. And Bernie is one of those fools.
Millions are unemployed or underemployed right now. What is free college going to do for them?
The money that Bernie wants to throw at free college could better be used elsewhere. And free college sounds good, but this would be a huge boon to the 1 percent and the upper middle class and would squeeze out the people Bernie pretends to care about.
And free college is a cruel joke to those who are grappling with shitty public schools that leave them unprepared.
And increasingly even a college education is no insurance against unemployment and economic dislocation. My Uber driver yesterday is an unemployed university researcher.
So, yeah, it’s silly.
Miss Bianca
@Kropadope: Yeah, and Bernie Sanders is so noted for his collegiality and ability to persuade people to go along with his legislative efforts. Except oh, no…he isn’t. His colleagues, if Barney Frank – an actual, effective, progressive legislator, rather than just a moral scold, is to be believed – think he’s a douche. How likely are they to work with him? Not.bloody.likely. If we’re going “piecemeal”, HRC has a much better chance of getting Democrats, at least, if not Republicans, to work with her. Bernie Sanders will have no one, because he’s got no one now.
Just Some Fuckhead, Clinton Supporter
@? Martin:
You caught me. Well, actually it was you and Burns I was thinking of when I commented. I was specifically thinking how the two of you are the two most Republican Democrats I know and both of you are in Orange County. I don’t think one ever really escapes their class aspirations.
Cacti
@goblue72:
Not enough to want to share a neighborhood with them, apparently.
What is it that you think white people were fleeing during the urban white flight era?
marduk
@Paul in KY: Well since the reality based arguments against Bernie haven’t had the desired effect as he’s consistently gained in the polls to achieve parity with Clinton, time to invent some fantasy arguments against him and see if those stick.
Davebo
@raven:
One black bass that was maybe 2 1/2 lbs. Water was like chocolate milk with all the rain and a lot of debris had come down river.
But it’s not about catching, I just like to practice my casting skills!
I don’t weigh my fish when I catch them, I just take note of how much the lake level dropped….
Mike J
@starscream: Or make incremental improvements to get that 92 up to 93, and then 94 and so on. If you could nibble around the edges you might actually get something passed. Each of those 1% improvements is an extra 3.5 million people covered.
Would we rather get all 8% covered tomorrow? Sure. Should we ignore chances to make things better for millions until the great day everything is perfect for everybody? I say no.
raven
@Davebo: Nice!
Kropadope
@Miss Bianca:
Actually, his record is pretty good in this regard, which has been discussed at length then handwaved away like so many other inconvenient facts.
ETA: Also, if somehow elected, the Democrats would own him and his outcomes. If Congressional Democrats won’t do their jobs because Bernie Sanders is president, the nation is going to hold the whole party responsible, not just Bernie.
WereBear
Just back from primary voting, where I cast a vote for Bernie because I agree with him. Let’s see what comes of it :)
Ya’ll may bash me now. Yes, I’ll vote for Clinton in the general. No, I haven’t fooled myself that the likely first woman President is as awesome as our first African American President. (Who I also preferred in that primary.)
But ah well. It won’t make me sabotage our side.
? Martin
@goblue72: 1 in 8 in CA: 38.8M/318.9M. And that doesn’t include the estimated 2.5M undocumented.
The site would really benefit from a FPer that was/is undocumented from one of the border states, who can bridge the communication gap with the mexican/latino community. Spanish language radio is an entirely different communication space that virtually everyone here (myself included) is completely oblivious of.
One of my bigger criticisms of the Democratic party is that they need to treat civil rights issues for people of color/immigrants as a much higher priority than they do. It’s not that latinos will suddenly run to the GOP, but on a variety of social issues that is a better alignment, and the net result is that too many latinos simply don’t vote. Democrats win when everyone votes, and Dems need to do a better job of converting these non-voters. I think their best work is being done on the ground, but they need to try harder in the legislative bodies.
Davebo
@marduk:
The trick is to only poll 300 people nationwide.
Just Some Fuckhead, Clinton Supporter
@WereBear: You are dead to me.
Elie
@Nelle:
Well said, Nelle….
jl
I don’t need to read HRC versus Bernie food fights anymore. My Democratic primary candidate voodoo dolls just arrived in the mail.
gwangung
@? Martin: Hear, hear!
Paul in KY
@Miss Bianca: I am assuming he will stay in the Democratic Party. Should see the advantages, even if he loses the nomination.
David Parsons
@schrodinger’s cat:
Well, not exactly free when you look at his revisions to the tax code, but they are certainly worthwhile things for the government to provide. It’s certainly better value for money than a distressingly large segment of the military-industrial complex.
Kropadope
@Cacti:
Translating cacti: All Vermonters are racists.
Cacti
@Kropadope:
No little Bernfeeler, all white flighters are racist.
ETA: Maybe Bernie’s pals Ben and Jerry can honor it with a new flavor. White Flight Vanilla Delight.
starscream
@Paul in KY: No, he has filed to run as an independent in 2018.
Gin & Tonic
@David Parsons: Good chance you wouldn’t have had this here Internet without the military-industrial complex.
schrodinger's cat
@David Parsons: My problem is not with his goal but his means of achieving them. He says that transaction taxes on the sale of financial assets will generate revenue for free college, I say the math does not add up.
Starfish
@Cacti: Drugs.
Gin & Tonic
@starscream: The filing deadline is two years in advance?
Paul in KY
@JGabriel: I think you should definitely vote for Sen. Sanders.
Just Some Fuckhead, Clinton Supporter
You can all thank me now for making this a Bernie Sanders thread worth reading. I have to go do my job and save the world.
Davebo
@Kropadope:
Who could they possibly have racist feelings about? Folks from New Hampshire?
Brachiator
@Just Some Fuckhead, Clinton Supporter:
Oh, a seer sucker. Suits ya.
D58826
@WJS: @Bob In Portland: I’ve said this before but I’ll say it again. There are not enough progressive votes in the country to take control of the House and the Senate. The Senate is skewed to small and red states. As for the House, a Bernie progressive would not break double digits in many red state districts. If you are serious about taking back the House and regaining control of state governments then you have to pick candidates that fit the political temper of the district they are running in. Elizabeth Warren is not going to win an election in Louisiana. Heck, even Mary Landreu could not hold her seat and she had the advantage of being an incumbent. Landreu might not have voted for every progressive position but she did provide a vote to make Reid Majority leader and was one of the 60 votes needed for cloture. In the House I can think of Gabby Giffords, probably more conservative that a Mass. democrat but still helped put Nancy in the speakers chair. You all prefer Paul Ryan? So yes a 50 state strategy involves supporting candidates who are not as progressive as I might wish. Obviously there is a line that would put a candidate outside of the boundaries of the party but that has to be looked at on a candidate by candidate basis.
Kropadope
@Starfish: Seems short-sighted.
eemom
Not that it’s constructive, but as one who did start out this election liking Bernie, I will note that I’ve never seen anything to equal the utterly insufferable — and utterly delusional — smuggery of himself and his supporters. No, not even the PUMAs of 2008 — cuz at least they had a candidate who was QUALIFIED. Frankly, it’s sickening.
Gin & Tonic
@Cacti: Ben & Jerry’s, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Unilever PLC.
MazeDancer
@WJS:
It is almost impossible to get on the ballot in all 50 states. Even the Green Party hasn’t been able to do it. And there are even write-in qualifications and deadlines in many states.
The filing deadline for the Presidential Ballot in Texas is May 9th.
Because I was worried about Bernie being so drunk on the adulation, I did a little research. Felt better to learn there is no easy way to go 3rd party. And that there is no existing 3rd party already on every ballot to which sizeable monetary leverage could be applied to use their established line.
It could be a little easier for Trump to patch together a range of wacky parties and write-ins, but it would require more than a desire to give speeches. And then he wouldn’t be able to duck out under cover of “I was robbed”.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@starscream:
Has Sanders said anything or done anything to get Medicaid expanded through the ACA? That would serve to cover a lot of underserved people, mostly minority. He hasn’t? Huh. This is my not shocked face.
Ella in New Mexico
@Miss Bianca:
At least open the dialogue about it? At least create some demonstration projects to show it’s actually a doable thing? Start committing ourselves to accomplishing it?
I know you probably have heard of it, but here in New Mexico we have the “Lottery Scholarship”. The state decided that in order to help our state start to become more economically competitive, we HAD to address workforce quality and make it a goal that more New Mexicans got a higher education. It was set up so that every kid, regardless of income, could go to any state two or four year school and potentially graduate debt free as long as they took at least 12 credit hours and maintained a 2.5 GPA . When it started, covered almost 100% of my oldest kid’s tuition, except for about $50 bucks in fees. He’s 31 now, so that was 12 years ago. It was a blessing, especially because right about then I was in career transition with four kids under the age of 19 and had lost my full-time income, but we were still too “wealthy” for a Pell grant for him. )He kept it all the years he was eligible, but he ended up borrowing because he changed his major and was also working almost full time his last two years so he needed some help.)
What has happened since then? Well, New Mexico still has the Lottery, but it’s in grave danger of being cut and/or being changed to need based aid. All kinds of reasons are being given–poor management of the State Lottery itself leading to smaller proceeds going into the program; an exponential growth year to year in the price of tuition at the state universities (some blame on the “free” money from the lottery that didn’t restrict the total amount and instead covered “tuition”, giving them license to ramp it up), the 2007 and beyond national financial crash coupled now with the fall in oil and gas revenues the past few years reducing state revenues and thus money for higher education. The bloated administrative staffing and sports budgets of our colleges and universities which suck the budget for teaching faculty and gets passed on to students…it goes on and on.
But with a little tweaking, we could get the whole thing right back on track. We could start holding the state to its previous commitment to having a well-educated workforce here in NM in the budget, which would attract all kinds of high tech and green employers with decent paying jobs. We could fix the Lottery Commission and make more of the profits go to our kids rather than be sent out of state to the big Powerball coffers. We could change some of the rules that have resulted in some waste of funds when kids start out but drop out–they’re required to go right into college after high school and go full time, 15 credits and maintain a 2.7 now. I think we need to encourage more part-time attendance, and we should let kids take a little more time figuring out what they want to be before we lock them into a career at 19. After all, the goal is not to weed out people from college, it’s to get more college graduates. We could just say NO to the ridiculous tuition increases that have not resulted in better education but only more administrators and beautiful workout facilities for the football teams.
So anyway, here’s the thing: our governor and a lot of her buddies don’t give a rats ass about the Lottery. She’s done NOTHING to secure it, and neither have her friends on the R side of our legislature. And the conservadem on our side who has talked about it just wants to do some funky accounting with the Lottery proceeds that ends up giving away MORE of the income as winnings in hopes that more people will buy tickets and the money will just trickle down….
I just wonder what a really progressive set of values at the helm of not only my state but my Federal government could do with all this opportunity to give all the student in New Mexico a free college education for, really, not a whole hell of a lot more money than we’re spending now.
Mike J
@schrodinger’s cat:
WHen Jeb! was in the race, his plan to pay for tax cuts was a 4% GDP growth rate. We laughed at him because every economist in the world said it was so far outside the realm of possibility it was laughable. When Sanders has given numbers, he’s counting on 5% GDP growth for eight years. It’s literally worse than no math at all.
Kay
@Brachiator:
Both Clinton and Obama are promoting “free college”- 2 years at a community college. Why does no one ever object to this as a “joke”? Ohio offers “free college” right now- you can get as many credits as you can in high school. WILDLY popular. People are putting together elaborate “free college” plans for 7th graders.
Bernie is closer to reality than you think. They recognize that it’s a requirement for a slightly-higher-than low wage job, like high school once was. That’s why it’s not fair to make them pay for it. The goal is “equitable” opportunity, not “the same as someone in 1950 got”.
PhoenixRising
@goblue72:
Cute. He stated closer to the time that he and his then-wife bought the closest property to the Canadian border they could afford. He didn’t want to ship out to a jungle and kill brown people over bullshit colonial leftovers, and that is laudable.
His supporters ought to be leading with it, not hiding it under a barrel as if this nation won’t benefit from Yet Another Fucking Election hijacked by The Issue of Sanders’ (and Trump’s and Clinton’s) youth. Oh wait, my bad, go with the bucolic countryside thing.
Sloegin
Remember, if you voted in an early primary the way you wanted, then good on you.
If you vote the way you want in one of the last primaries, then you’re just being an asshole.
JGabriel
@Miss Bianca:
How will Hillary? Oh, right, she won’t even try.
Anyway, personally, I’m thinking that single-payer health care, free college, anti-trust with teeth, all become a lot easier if we just let Texas secede (and maybe a few other wingnut states too).
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@David Parsons:
Public universities are funded and administered by each state. What exactly is the mechanism for a federal law to implement this policy?
David Parsons
@Gin & Tonic: Thus my qualifier of “a distressingly large segment of the”; I was there at the time and the amount of money being tossed into the internet was pretty minimal.
Paul in KY
@starscream: When did he do that?
Kropadope
@PhoenixRising:
So, now we need to be intimately familiar with the candidates’ entire life story? Like I don’t have enough to focus on….
Betty Cracker
@MazeDancer: I’m not worried about Sanders going third party. As you said, it’s not possible to get on the ballot. I worry about him and his top surrogates convincing enough followers that both Clinton and the Democratic Party are so irredeemably corrupt that the Sanders supporters will refuse to vote for Clinton or a down-ticket Democrat.
Two weeks ago, I was not worried about that. Now, with the escalated rhetoric from the Sanders campaign, I am. I just hope the people who fall for that steaming load of horseshit are too few / lightly affiliated with the political process altogether to affect the outcome.
Brachiator
@Nelle:
I don’t know. The GOP is close to nominating a brash businessman who has probably had tons of mistresses, who pretends to be religious, and who has suggested that his own daughter is so smoking hot that he would date her.
Part of me would love to see a Sanders v Trump showdown in November. It would be a wild contest. And yeah, I think that Sanders would prevail.
Miss Bianca
@Kropadope: These folks might beg to disagree with you.
goblue72
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: Oh I don’t fucking know – maybe the Taxing and Spending Clause of the U.S. Constitution.
Davebo
@Brachiator:
All of Trump’s wives have been immigrants. Proving yet again that they are will to do jobs Americans won’t.
PhoenixRising
@Ella in New Mexico:
Say what? Who is this impure office holder or aspirant, and why didn’t you force this to a vote at the state convention last month? I haven’t heard anyone say anything that could be characterized as ‘let’s fix the lottery scholarship by selling more poor folks tickets’.
The rest of your ideas are excellent and I’d like to see someone in the Oval with a proven track record of pushing complex federal-state solutions to implement them–hey maybe we could nominate someone that crafted a program to make rich people in MA help pay for my kid’s health care in the event that I can’t…which is why I’m voting for Clinton, who got CHIP passed despite a Congress so full of GOP crazies they literally impeached her husband.
FlipYrWhig
@Kropadope:
Not really. Apart from the VA effort, for which I’ll commend him, what I’ve seen of the “amendment king” stuff was his agreeing to lend his vote to someone else’s priority by getting something progressive included. That’s useful, yes. Savvy, even. But not an attempt “to persuade people to go along with his legislative efforts,” which was the matter at issue.
JGabriel
goblue72:
Those are fair points. You should probably talk to John Cole about that, though I suppose – being based in West Virginia – he might have an East Coast bias.
goblue72
@PhoenixRising: I got it from this – http://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/06/20/415747576/leaving-brooklyn-bernie-sanders-found-home-in-vermont
Calouste
@goblue72:
Sanders first ran for Senate (and Governor) in 1972 when he was 30, 4 years after he moved to Vermont. It wasn’t decades later.
Robert Sneddon
@Gin & Tonic: The Web came from CERN, a European research agency (Sir Tim Berners-Lee). TCP/IP is a bit long in the tooth and not fit for purpose for a lot of the traffic currently running over the internet but it’s what we got (along with UDP).
Frankensteinbeck
@mistermix:
Agree with you or not, I find this post as decently substantive as any other, and polite. I am quite happy with it as a Sanders supporting post!
David M
@JGabriel:
Some of us are voting for her for that very reason. Wasting time and resources for nothing [at best] isn’t high on the list of things I look for in a candidate. And I’m a voter who considers improving access to health care as probably the most important factor when considering candidates.
Kropadope
@Miss Bianca: The approach he took to getting his policies passed wasn’t covered in the listed metrics.
Technocrat
It’s kind of cool to see some FP’ers come out for Bernie. Even as a Clinton supporter, things have felt somewhat lopsided as of late.
Good luck to both candidates!
Davebo
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: In theory it could be done. Medicare is administered and partially funded by the states as well.
Now, there’s no way in hell it’s going to happen, but theoretically it’s possible.
goblue72
@JGabriel: Not only will she not try, she’ll do such a bang-up job running straight to the center, that she could easily kill any excitement amongst the base to actually show up for mid-terms – or re-election.
Too many Democratic voters buy into the “But…but…but…we have to stop Republicans” fear mongering bullshit that they can’t look past the current election to the long game to figure out what they actually stand for. I have absolutely no clue after listening to Clinton this entire primary seasons what the fuck she is actually for. Or what the fuck she is actually planning to do. Except be “not a Republican”.
Its pathetic weak ass tea.
burnspbesq
@mistermix:
The goal may not be silly, but the willful refusal to put forth a plausible implementation strategy is silly.
Brachiator
@Kay:
Community college is already often free or cheap in many states. But here in California, the quality of community colleges varies enormously. And in some places, community college is really remedial high school, and largely an intellectual dead end for students. And the public costs for the community college system here is barely sustainable. Even Clinton and Obama proposals here, even if they could pass Congress, are not realistic.
If Ohio can keep this going, great for them. This does not make a federal level guarantee viable.
schrodinger's cat
@Robert Sneddon: The predecessor of the internet were DARPANET and ARPANET, both DoD programs.
Kay
Ponies! Stop that man before he ruins the Democratic Party’s reputation for seriousness!
“Free college” is coming. They can’t harangue people to “skill up” and “compete in a global marketplace” without giving them some way to afford it, especially since employers no longer train people.
Miss Bianca
@Ella in New Mexico: @JGabriel: I really don’t see that Bernie Sanders has a more effective plan for getting to a laudable goal than Sec. Clinton does. And as someone who is intimately involved with adult and basic ed heading to higher ed and training, I follow this issue closely. NM’s lottery system is, as you have rightly pointed out, Ella, real great but *highly* dependent on getting Democrats back in charge at the state level. *that’s what it is going to take* to move the needle on this issue – the most the Feds can do, seems to me, is what Clinton is promising to do – lower debt for four-year, free for two-year. Seems reasonable to me, but heck, what do I know…I’m one of those dreaded pragmatic idealists. ; )
Gin & Tonic
@PhoenixRising:
Sorry, doesn’t pass the laugh test. By the time he moved he was past draft age (he’d applied for CO status and was denied, BTW, but was never drafted.) And Burlington is about an hour and a half from the border, with plenty of much-more-affordable properties up there as compared to Burlington.
FlipYrWhig
@goblue72: At what point has Hillary Clinton “run to the center”?
Roger Moore
@Davebo:
Actually only 2 of 3. Marla Maples was born in Georgia. That’s the one in the American South, not the former Soviet republic.
cleek
@goblue72:
speak for yourself.
schrodinger's cat
Promising something that you have no way of delivering is what the Republicans do. Bernie’s goals may be laudable but he has no realistic plans to achieve them. His platform quite literally is a noun, a verb and a slogan.
goblue72
@Calouste: As a far left protest candidate with the Liberty Union Party. Somehow “I want to move to some small state so I can run as a protest candidate” seems like a lot more horsehair than “I want to some small rural state so I can go be a hippie”. Especially given that he wasn’t the only East Coast hippie who move to Vermont at that time for that same reason.
But please, keep attempting to read the coffee grounds at the bottom of your mug to try to find a conspiracy.
JGabriel
Miss Bianca:
Oh well. I think we’re just going to have to agree to disagree on this one Miss Bianca. I mean, I like you, and I think you like me too, so I’m not going to take it personally.
And, hey, at least we agree on that much.
WJS
@MazeDancer: You’re correct; however, my point was that they would run as a third party and “throw” the electoral college. You only need to get on the ballot in about a dozen states to do that.
I have no problem with the Bernie vs Hillary debate–it shouldn’t be made personal on any level. It’s a political opinion and nothing more. But let’s not forget that the end result of electing a Republican this fall means people are going to lose their foodstamps, people are going to lose the health insurance, people are going to lose their legal protections for their gender and sexual orientation, and people are going to die.
So it’s life or death. But civil, nonetheless. Weird, huh?
Miss Bianca
@Kropadope: Maybe because there’s no “there”, there. Kind of the point, ain’t it?
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Davebo:
The fight against the expansion of Medicaid under the ACA is a pretty big tell on how likely any of his proposals will happen.
Gin & Tonic
@Robert Sneddon: “The Internet” =/= “The Web.”
Davebo
@Roger Moore: You had to go fuck up a good joke didn’t you?
You’re dead to me now!
Marc
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: And why didn’t Clinton enact her entire program while in the Senate? It’s almost as if a single Senator can’t do that.
Miss Bianca
@JGabriel: I do like you, JGabriel, very much from what I’ve seen, which is, of course, why I am bothering to argue this point with you. That’s actually a compliment. : )
dollared
@FlipYrWhig: No need to run to the center when you’re sitting right there, sharing her dad’s Republican bromides with the American people.
Look, there are good reasons to vote for her. Pretending that she’s left of center on anything but civil rights is not one.
Marc
@WJS: You seem to be under some sort of conviction that Sanders will do something that he’s repeatedly stated that he won’t; a thing that requires actual planning to achieve; and a thing opposed by the vast majority of his current supporters. Seriously, it isn’t going to happen.
Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA
@Kay: Aaarrghh.
Starfish
@FlipYrWhig: That time that she was a war monger in 2008. That other time that time when she was supporting the transpacific partnership last year.
Chyron HR
@goblue72:
Ha ha, it’s funny because the only conspiracy around here is whatever Sanders is accusing Clinton of doing today!
Marc
@dollared: I think that he’s one of a group of people motivated by animosity towards Sanders supporters more than anything to do with the candidate.
FlipYrWhig
@dollared: Apart from her stand on the issue that defined liberalism in the 20th century, she’s very disappointing.
jl
@Brachiator: Sanders has explicitly included free community college and post HS vocational school as part of his free college proposal, at least in his stump speeches. I don’t hear anything in the Sanders plan that would exempt public community colleges from his zero tuition policy.
@Kay:
” Both Clinton and Obama are promoting “free college”- 2 years at a community college. Why does no one ever object to this as a “joke”? ”
Because the HRC/Bernie contest has driven quite a few people over the edge into an absurd frenzy.
I see the basic problem as two flawed candidates, both with flaws that might seriously hinder their chances of winning the general election. HRC has the numbers and details worked out, but the basic thrust of her platform is so narrow bore that I wonder whether it will be inspiring enough to get people to the polls. I hope she shifts her tone in the general when she does not have to contrast herself with Sanders. And Sanders does have a serious problem with details and how to get from here to his dream of what ‘there’ should be. Health care reform is my main gripe with both of them. For a lot of people, I just don’t think PPACA is working well enough, or provides enough security over the long term for HRC to assume everyone will be pleased as shit for very small bore tinkering. And Sanders should really say at least something about what he will do in the meantime if his Medicare for all proposal does not pass on day one.
Similar problem with their college proposals. HRC has the numbers worked out in more detail and she may say that it is more effective in reducing overall debt. And people are puzzled why these damn kids don’t favor that. But I think that I can see why. HRC’s proposal is a means tested welfare program. From the kids’ perspective, some bureaucrats someplace will get a bunch of family info, punch it into some formulas and the family will get back some scheme to minimize their debt, and if the kid is lucky, he or she will be poor enough to be on the college welfare plan.
With Sanders, they can see and feel very clearly how better off they would be today if there recent tuition fees had been zeroed out. It’s much more concrete for them. And Sanders’ financing plan is fine if it is, as I understand, a standard financial transaction tax (Here Sanders flunks on the details by calling it some kind of tax on ‘speculation’, whatever that is supposed to be.) Many countries have long experience with a financial transactions tax. Evidence is that the incidence is mainly on the financial industry, it reduces their profits, reduces trade volume, and raises a lot of money. There is quite a bit of evidence, from radical ;purity pony places like the IMF, that recent increases in sizes of financial sector are associated with reduced productivity, and some research that has evidence pointing to causal mechanisms for the association. It is a perfectly fine financing system. And from the kids’ perspective, they are not on HRC’s college welfare program, they are all in the same boat, equal recipients of a program that is more like a social insurance scheme to increase productivity and prepare the US to be more competitive (at least that is how Sanders sells it, a little misleadingly, IMHO, but it is more attractive vision for the recipient).
gex
@eemom: It’s like you read my mind.
Roger Moore
@Davebo:
Sorry, but the facts messed up your joke. I was just pointing it out.
Kropadope
@FlipYrWhig:
Oh, you mean the one where she tried to shoehorn one of those highly detailed plans you love so much through Congress and got thoroughly rebuffed because she didn’t let the legislators do the legislating?
Bob In Portland
@Cacti: You played this game a month ago, accusing me of moving out of the SF Bay because racism when it was because I couldn’t afford to live there on a pension. You call racism too often without any justification, sort of like the Republican who worries about trans people in bathrooms.
A word of advice: Whatever your problems with race, how about you work it out with yourself before you cast aspersions?
A Ghost To Most
@mistermix:
FlipYrWhig
@Starfish: Those can be things you disagree with her about, but not necessarily cynical and insincere “runs to the center.” There are plenty of Democrats who believe in military strength, and plenty of Democrats who believe in expanded exports and free trade. I have no problem with ideological disagreements with Hillary Clinton. I have ideological disagreements with Hillary Clinton. I have a big problem with this suggestion that Hillary Clinton is a weathervane and/or bought off by corrupting influences that determine her stances on issues.
@Marc: Sanders himself is worse than his supporters, because he actually believes his ridiculous fable about how One Weird Trick can fix America, that being getting big money out of politics. To support Bernie Sanders on hope and vision is kind of… precious, I’ll say, but it’s not nearly as bad as being Bernie Sanders and supporting Bernie Sanders because Bernie Sanders is awesome.
FlipYrWhig
@Kropadope: You mean the one where her plan failed because Congress decided, out of spite, not to support it, and she learned her lesson, and Obama did too, and the result was something clunky but helpful, unlike Bernie Sanders, who’s never learned any lesson of any sort for 50 years and still believes that if you get _enough_ people good and angry, politics just spontaneously organizes itself and a rainbow appears?
Keith G
Some of my fellow Hillary supporters are certainly part of a nasty and dismissive lot. A few even seem to have an unhealthy relationship with distortions and personal attacks.
? Martin
@Just Some Fuckhead, Clinton Supporter:
I can see that. I know I come off as very free-market, but that’s mainly because I think we fight that battle the wrong way. We fight too much on the supply side, which is what Republicans do, and not enough on the demand side. As someone with a lot of experience dealing with policy, that’s a dangerous approach. 320 million people will overwhelm any policy that denies them the thing they demand, and to those that can’t overcome the policy it becomes just another form of class discrimination. Policies work best when you acknowledge the demand side and try and align that with the public interest. It’s usually possible, but it’s almost always harder to do.
I think it’s highly un-progressive to adopt an attitude that low-skill workers can’t convert to high-skill workers in order to compete globally, and that they instead need to be protected from competition, and that we can’t shape issues like trade through social policy (demand foreign goods meet US standards, raising those standards as appropriate) rather than tax policy. And I think the entire NAFTA argument is completely pointless since it’s at most a minor contributor to the economic transformation that nobody wants to deal with head on, which is that all jobs are moving (statistically speaking) to higher skill, not just in the US but globally. That’s the approach Germany takes – they prepare their workers for a higher-skill future. We just want to shield ours from it.
tobie
@Major Major Major Major:
Not quite…or only if you paint with broad brush strokes. HRC has advocated for free college based on need. This is a smart position as it does not cut into the already shrinking state budgets for state universities which has led to the rise in state-college tuition. (You know, doing science is expensive.) Tuition aid can come out of the federal budget… Devil’s in the details. This election is becoming like a Rorschach test. Either you read something like the Daily News interview with Sanders and are appalled at the lack of policy chops or you’re thrilled to bits at the “aspirationa”l message.
Mike J
@Robert Sneddon:
Imminent Death Of The Net Predicted!
WJS
@Marc: I hope you’re right; however, there’s no indication that the Sanders campaign intends to stop, to fully support Hillary Clinton, or abandon the people who support the campaign by bringing things to a logical conclusion.
I don’t see him stopping. Running for President, as Mike Huckabee and Ben Carson no doubt learned, is very lucrative.
Marc
@FlipYrWhig: I’m a liberal and I agree with him on a ton of issues. Clinton is pretty good on them too, but not as close to my views. I’m expecting that she wins and that I’ll vote for her in the autumn, but the entire point of a coalition set-up is that you’re supposed to advocate for the candidate closest to your own views in a primary and then support the winner in the general. The theme that people on the left shouldn’t even try to advocate for a left candidate is pretty odd; it amounts to asserting that some people have no right to even advocate for candidates that disagree with the mainstream.
He has a sustained and effective critique of our system and there’s nothing wrong with that. A straightforward message and philosophical approach is not just more effective than a convoluted compromise approach. A lot of the time you end up with a better outcome than the one that you get by pre-compromising and then finding yourself with only scraps after the inevitable negotiations. In the limit of a GOP congress neither Clinton nor Sanders accomplishes much. In the limit of a wave, I think that Sanders has potential to achieve a lot more.
Bob In Portland
@Betty Cracker: Do you think that laundering money through state Democratic parties is a moral and upright way to fund your campaign and avoid those pesky campaign contribution laws? What do you say? Is it okay to go around campaign financing laws if you can? Really simple question. Do you even care about campaign finance laws? Do you see any problem in circumventing them?
I get the feeling that Clinton supporters can’t even address the issue because it would expose their hypocrisy. But it’s a pretty strong bubble that protects the Hillary crowd here in Balloon Juice Village.
Davebo
@Bob In Portland:
You could have just moved to Daly City!
Enhanced Voting Techinques
I have to say for me the real thing I find unforgivable about Bernie is the damnable lack of specifics how he expects it to get done. Talk about feeding the Right’s mem that all liberals are just daydream believers full of noble but impracticable ideas.
Kay
@jl:
I think that’s one of the reasons the Ohio program is so popular-it isn’t a means-tested program. More affluent parents won’t use it because they can afford the “traditional” route (and they want their kids to go to selective schools) but they support it because they could use it.
That used to be conventional wisdom in the D Party- you protect a benefit for poor people by putting middle class people in front of them. Make a bigger group of people – harder to attack them. It bothers me that Clinton is now portraying this as “free stuff” for rich people. Does she feel that way about Medicare?
patroclus
This thread seems a LOT more civil than last night’s (man, Ella was really getting a lot of undeserved shit) – kudos to mistermix for calming us down. I think one of the main reasons there’s been vitriol is because it’s New York and because there really aren’t a lot of issues on which our candidates and we voters disagree. There’s the gun issue – Sanders’s prior position was that gun manufacturers should not be held liable even if negligent and they voted differently on the 2005 law that the NRA supported. There’s the I/P issue; Sanders appears to be more supportive of Palestinian rights and Clinton more pro-Israel, but it’s really a matter of emphasis. There’s the minimum wage; Clinton was for $12; Sanders for $15, but Hillary seems to have moved. There’s women’s liberty – they both basically agree but Clinton seems to emphasize it more. There’s Wall Street – Sanders voted against the 2008 bailout and seems to think that high finance is inherently corrupt while Clinton voted to save the economy and help the auto industry. There’s LGBT rights, they both basically agree but Clinton seems to emphasize it more. There’s foreign policy, Clinton is a historic hawk but her SoS experience seems to have turned into more of a diplomat; Sanders is more of a non-interventionist purist.
To me, they’re basically close enough on most issues that I wouldn’t have any problem voting for either of them; they’re both vastly better than the opposition. I’m still in the Bernie has helped move Hillary to the left, brought new people in and made the race exciting camp even though I voted for Hillary in the Illinois primary and want her to win. As long as we unify after this is over, if this is all the vitriol we’re going to experience, then I’m fine with it.
Cacti
@Bob In Portland:
Help, help, I’m oppressing the resident purity troll who chose to move to a state that’s less than 2% black.
MazeDancer
@Betty Cracker:
The Dems are corrupt malarkey is very worrisome. Especially with Trump choosing “Crooked” as his Hillary nickname.
Hoping someone, somewhere can get to Bernie and make him see his life will be Ralph Nader pariah, scorned in history, miserable forever if he sabotages this election. And/or that he has gotten so used to the being important and in the high life he won’t want to go back to Senate to be even more shunned and spurned.
Marc
@tobie: This is an interesting case where I come down strongly on Sanders side. We used to have nearly free college or free; I know because that’s how I got to go to college in the first place in the 1980s. It’s simply a question of priorities and tax levels as to how much college costs, and there is absolutely no structural reason at all why we couldn’t afford to make it free if we wanted to. The upper middle class would pay higher taxes and the world wouldn’t end.
I’m struck by the fact that things that we used to have are now cast as impossible pipe dreams to even propose recapturing.
Bob In Portland
@FlipYrWhig: Putting people in jail for twenty years on a drug conviction is the most effective segregation of all.
Brachiator
@jl:
Some good points. Taking the time to post.
Obviously, both Sanders would find it near impossible to get anything through a GOP dominated House. But I think that Clinton could lay down a challenge, that the GOP has never offered an alternative plan to Obamacare, and that revisions to the existing plan are vital because it is in place and helping people.
The college plan is problematic. And as I noted, I think that any additional revenues can better be spent elsewhere.
Aside from all this, I will be watching the results to see how this primary turns out.
Kay
@Marc:
I watched a documentary on Jerry Brown’s father and free college in CA. There were moderate Republicans who backed him. Now it’s the craziest thing anyone has ever heard, apparently. That’s kind of sad.
Technocrat
@Marc:
It works both ways though. Interracial Cheerios commercials? Probably not in the 70’s. And it’s unlikely we’ll go back to demonizing them. We’re also probably not going to build a Saturn 5 again anytime soon, or an interstate highway network.
Economically, we were much closer to the absolute dominance we enjoyed post WW2. I think the arrow of entropy points one way from there.
Heliopause
@Nelle:
Really? Bill Clinton was widely regarded as a philandering, pot-smoking draft-dodger with a radical feminist shrew of a wife, was running in a more conservative time than now, and he easily won twice. And perhaps you noticed that a black guy named Hussein with an unorthodox childhood and who attended a church full of scary black panthers just won a couple in a row. I think your analysis here is from a bygone era.
Bob In Portland
@Cacti:
Look, I already know that you’re an asshole and a closet racist, and you don’t oppress me, merely annoy me. But I take racism seriously, so watching you use it as a cudgel to gain points in your mental ego game is an exercise you will keep doing until you’re called on it. You’ve backed off your homophobic bon mots, so there is still some slim hope for you, but probably not.
caboodle
@rp: You could cut and paste that comment onto any post on this blog.
Cacti
@Bob In Portland:
Que?
Kropadope
@FlipYrWhig: So, she supposedly learned her lesson, yet she continues to offer these great plans (and I mean I really like them, I actually prefer her policies over Bernie’s) but gets bent all out of shape when alternatives are offered and aggressively mischaracterizes what her opponents are proposing. This is high on the list of reasons I didn’t support her in 2008 and this year. For all the pragmatism talk, she’s not much of a compromiser.
Citizen Alan
@Just Some Fuckhead, Clinton Supporter:
For some reason, O’Malley gave me a Scott Brown vibe. I don’t know why but it was just this vague sense of “Look at me! Aren’t I good-looking! Please pay no attention to my actual policies!”
Bob In Portland
@Technocrat: Well, we can consider that “That’s just the way it is” with all of the increase in wealth going to the top 1% and accept it as common wisdom, or we can do something about it. It all boils down to money, and who buys the government. We know who owns H. Clinton.
John D
@dollared:
Jesus Christ. Do you even read the tripe you post? Here’s a look at her positions
Women’s rights. Gay rights. Green Energy. Gun Control. Abortion. And on and on and on.
She’s a fucking liberal. I’m so tired of everyone calling her “Republican-light”. Her positions and her voting record are solidly liberal. Not centrist. Not moderate. Liberal. Stop attacking the strawman you are creating to score political cheap shots.
Kay
@Citizen Alan:
Someone on Twitter described him as “the Lifetime movie husband” which made me laugh out loud. They’re always secretly up to no good, those perfect-looking husbands.
patroclus
@Marc: We had cheap college back in the day because the states took the responsibility (Texas, for example was $4 an hour for tuition at state schools) – Bernie’s proposal is different in that he’s suggesting that the federal government take the funding responsibility. Which means (mostly) higher federal taxes, not higher state taxes. Here in Illinois, because of Rauner, state schools are barely being funded at all, and Chicago State and other schools are being threatened with closure. Traditionally, education, even higher education, has been a state responsibility. The switch occurred in the 80’s when states gradually began to fund their schools with less money and became more reliant upon loans; guaranteed by the Feds. Then, gradually, the loans became less available or only at higher rates. Clearly, something needs to be done – I think I favor more of a state/federal partnership, with federal matching funds available to those states that make their own funding commitment.
Technocrat
@John D:
Well, that’s the Catch-22, isn’t it? Her centrist positions define her. Her liberal positions are lies. It reminds me a lot of how Republicans hated the Obama in their heads,
tobie
@Marc: I actually don’t think there’s a quick fix to this. It’s not only that state contributions to public universities have plummeted since the days of Reagan. The cost of doing science, the kinds of services (IT, grounds, buildings, student laps, medical and psych services, tutoring) now expected at a public or private university, the salaries of administrators (aaargh!) have driven up the price of universities exponentially. Additionally if state universities became free they would be governed by the state legislature and that, I believe, would mean the switch to a more professionally-oriented curriculum. You’d be seeing not only more engineering support (good!), but also new-fangled departments like “Entrepreneurship and Leadership” and you could all but kiss the humanities good-bye. As aid could be channeled through the federal government, and would be based on need, you wouldn’t face these threats.
About 15 years ago, Germany woke up to the fact that it didn’t really have first-class public universities any longer and has been steadfastly working to redesign its system to look more like the US. They now have elite universities and teaching universities. I don’t like the distinction. But it’s interesting to see what other countries view as positive in American education.
By the way HRC has supported free community college for quite some time.
Kay
@patroclus:
They manage that with public K-12 schools though. You don’t get the federal money unless you have X amount of state money in play. They knew states would just cut state funding and replace it with federal. Has to be + state. No cheating.
Cacti
@Kay:
And they’ve done a terrific job of ensuring that every kid gets a free public education of equal quality and value.
patroclus
@Kay: Exactly – that’s the way ESEA works for elementary and high schools. I think that’s the model we should follow for higher education as well. In Illinois, even Rauner signed a bill to fund K-12, but there has been no compromise whatsoever on higher education. So the UofI, which has a high endowment, can still operate, but Chicago State, which doesn’t has had to cut funding by 30%. I think Bernie’s plan should be modified in Congress to follow the way LBJ and Adam Clayton Powell did it on ESEA.
Bob In Portland
@Davebo: I lived and rented in SF until my wife and I moved to Daly City in the early 1980s. When we divorced I bought a condo in Daly City. I next moved in with my then-girlfriend who owned a house in Pacifica. When she sold her house and went back to school I could not afford to live in the Bay Area, so that’s why I moved to the Portland metro area in 2011. I have moved because I am on a federal pension that brings in about 20k after taxes. One of those fat federal pensions.
Need any more help with this? No, then why does that moron Cacti have to draw some kind of hidden racist context to this? Why? Well, he does it to score points in that imaginary game he’s playing in his head. But when you use racism for your own profit then you are essentially a racist. Smaller payoff than slave-owning, these imaginary points that Cacti is scoring in his brain, but it’s still racist.
? Martin
@jl:
The detail that Clinton seems to get which Sanders does not (or does not address) is that access to college isn’t just cost, but also getting selected. How the cost plan intersects with selection is important because presented as Sanders has, a lot of wealthy and middle class kids are going to get a free ride and a lot of poor and first generation kids are going to be excluded from college entirely. There are economic realities to how students are selected and those realities already substantially favor kids from higher income backgrounds. So the rich kids will get the opportunity and then get it paid for. The poor kids will be excluded, and once you are excluded what the fuck do you care what it cost to go?
That’s an unintended consequence of the Sanders plan that isn’t being addressed. It doesn’t exist at the community college level because community colleges aren’t selective, but 4 year schools are. Clinton’s plan at least maintains the existing balance as it would affect selection because it doesn’t bias the high income students away from private schools, allowing more public seats to go to the lower income students. Sanders could compensate by making selection mandates or by expanding the number of 4-year seats, but the former is almost impossibly tricky to get right, and the latter would more than double the cost of his program.
FlipYrWhig
@Kropadope: I haven’t noticed her getting “bent out of shape.” I do think rhetorically she puts a lot of emphasis on thoroughness and complexity because that’s her “brand,” as it were, and I get the sense she’s temperamentally disinclined to or perhaps even suspicious of easy answers, crowd pleasers, and red meat. TBH I think Hillary Clinton is running not on what she will do but on the feeling that whatever she does she’ll work hard to do well: “vote for me for President because I’d be a good President.” And I think that’s right. I think Bernie Sanders is a decent gadfly, and has done a good job getting people to rally and vent about problems, but I think he’d be bad at the job of President. It seems to involve a lot of meetings with stubborn people. That’s really not his thing. His thing is _being_ one of the stubborn people.
Cacti
@Bob In Portland:
Bob-O, I’m waiting for some proof of my “homophobic bon mots”.
Did you confuse me with the voices in your head?
Kay
@Cacti:
I was just talking about federal funds. They put it in every education bill- it can’t be used to replace state funding. They’re fighting about that exact issue right now in the new ed law (ESSA)- the GOP Senators want more “flexibility”.
Soylent Green
Well, Bob, we are in Oregon, a blue state that Hillary will win handily in November without you, so you may as well write in Vladimir Putin.
Bob In Portland
@John D: Supports waging war for big oil companies? Oh, it wasn’t on the list.
Bob In Portland
@Soylent Green: So all the guilt thrown around here I should just ignore? Okay, will do.
singfoom
@Bob In Portland: Village! Drink!
Peter
This is literally the stupidest possible reason to cast a vote for someone, but at least you’re real with yourself about why you’re doing it.
Bob In Portland
@Cacti: Keep waiting. I’m not going back two years reading your inanities. You show yourself eventually, like you do with your racism. Did you score any points for the last comment? Good. Enjoy it.
Kropadope
@FlipYrWhig: You’re right, she totally hasn’t gotten bent out of shape. So shame on Barack Obama and shame on Bernie Sanders too, just cuz.
RaflW
Late to this little shindig here. But let me just say, if voting for Bernie would help get rid of Debbie Whatshername-Schultz, then I’m behind ya 100%, mistermix.* She is emblematic of all that I hate about mainstream Democratic politics.
One of the stains on Obama’s record (though I think on balance he is a great president) is his endorsement of DWS this cycle. Total headdesk for me when I read about that.
*If you’ve seen my comments of late, you know I’m not a Bernie fan, so this is me sayin’ something!
Bob In Portland
@Peter: Not voting for someone who is part of a corrupt political machine is the dumbest reason to vote?
Can we just agree that your version of what is corrupt is different from other people, and what you accept will give America four more years of the last twenty five years?
Miss Bianca
@Marc: There’s more to it than that; I’m sure Martin could weigh in with a more informed opinion, but there were a *lot* fewer students going to college back in the 80s.
ETA: Well, MArtin already did weigh in, but the point still stands.
Technocrat
@? Martin:
Very much this. Visit the best high school in your city. It’s going to be in a nice area, probably near the burbs. Now visit the worst high school. Chances are you won’t even want to drive there. Kids from both of those schools are going to be competing for newly-free slots.
patroclus
@Peter: No, Bob’s stupidest reason is his continual harping on the 2009 Honduran coup as some sort of evidence that Clinton is wrong on foreign policy. Despite all the evidence, he continues to believe that she supported the coup, when, in fact, the U.S. led the settlement negotiations, was not involved in the coup and 2 presidential elections have taken place since then. He refers to the democratically-elected government there as a “regime” when, in fact, Zelaya’s wife was the principal opposition candidate, having fully accepted the 2010 settlement. He goes on and on about the CIA, which wasn’t involved, and blathers about how Clinton must have masterminded the whole thing. He’s been told – repeatedly – to read up on Honduras, but nothing seems to affect him at all. it just gets more ludicrous and ridiculous every single time he brings it up.
Peter
@Bob In Portland:
@patroclus:
You guys do realize I’m quoting from mistermix, and not something Bob said, right?
aimai
@Keith G: None that I know.
Padraig
@schrodinger’s cat: Oh what an excellent idea! Let’s attack the young’uns for voting differently! Let’s also dismiss the youth of the party just when their votes are absolutely critical!
Seriously, the fact that some Bernie bros are dicks is no justification for attacking your allies. And infantilizing comments are just another species of ageism. For Fuck’s sake.
RaflW
@Peter: My above comment notwithstanding, I don’t think mistermix’s idea will work. But I fully appreciate his disdain for DWS. She’s awful.
Cacti
@Bob In Portland:
So you got nothing?
As I thought.
Carry on, Bob-O.
Peter
@RaflW: Oh, I hate her too. But voting to send a message while actually hoping for the opposite outcome is a really garbage idea.
patroclus
@Peter: No, I didn’t realize that. It seemed like you were responding to Bob. Honduras is still Bob’s stupidest reason though. Regarding DWS, I’m not a fan, but it’s not a voting issue, at least in my view.
VFX Lurker
@Bob In Portland:
The fate of the Supreme Court, women, minorities and LGBTQ is of no consequence to you. Duly noted.
aimai
@RaflW: I do not understand this. I really don’t. I don’t like DWS but she was chosen by the DNC itself, not Obama. And backstabbing and defenestrating a member of your own team,who is working for you, no matter how odious, is simply not how politics gets done. The DNC (and the whole 50 state strategy which the DNC fails to properly execute) is all about replacing Republican congressmen and Senators with Democratic ones because that matters at the top level. Flipping the house and the senate happens when we have a majority. Not a minority of really, really, great Dems who make great TV and are sooooooper progressive. A bare minority of ok Dems gets us where we want to go. And without that we are nowhere. So neither Obama nor any sane President is going to support an insurgent over an incumbent of his own party, in a difficult election, when the balance of the house is on the line. Its not going to happen. And it shouldn’t happen. Because it makes it impossible for people to work together in the house if they are being backstabbed by their own leadership. DWS’s voters, and she does have them, can make up their own mind if they like her or not. If her voters are more progressive and a more progressive alternative is available they can vote her out. If not, not.
Gin & Tonic
@Technocrat:
Anecdata, I know, but still… One of the very best public high schools in Mass is a 4,000+ student behemoth in Brockton, a hard-luck city with a huge proportion of minority, ESL and poor kids.
Cacti
@VFX Lurker:
Bob lives in a state that’s less than 2% black, and thinks Vladimir Putin is one of the good guys in foreign affairs.
You’re not dealing with a rational actor.
Gin & Tonic
@patroclus: You know you’re never going to get anywhere with this, right?
RaflW
@Anonymous At Work: Unfortunately, if Sanders has given any thought to being a senator after this November, he wouldn’t stump for DWS’s Dem opponent. He will not be warmly welcomed back in the Dem caucus as his independent self anyway. But if he were to take DWS head on? He’d be a caucus of one in a cloakroom somewhere in the basement.
Kay
@Technocrat:
But kids from both schools are competing for those spots now. How does “free” possibly disadvantage the lower income kid?
joel hanes
@mistermix:
[Sanders] passes pretty much any reasonable person’s competency threshold for the Presidency
Opinions differ.
I’m with you in that his ideals are a better match with mine, but I’ve found this primary season pretty disillusioning with respect to other characteristics I desire in a President.
Perhaps I’m not a reasonable person. That was certainly my ex-wife’s position on the matter.
If Sen. Sanders is the nominee, I’ll contribute to his campaign and vote for him without a qualm, but I’d rather see Sec. Clinton running the country.
aimai
@Kropadope: That’s just so weird. Obviously she is a compromiser–she has been working in the Senate in a bipartisan fashion all along. She was SOS for christ’s sake–that’s a diplomatic position in which “my way or the highway” is simply not an option. Just because she rejects negotiating or compromising with people who believe that fairies will come down and fix the economy once the banks are broken up doesn’t mean she is a person who refuses to compromise in order to get things done. You would have had to literally pay no attention at all to her history which includes being knocked down and backwards trying to get a national health care plan and then picking herself right back the fuck up again to get CHIP and then S-Chip. HRC’s entire shtick is “I’ll get it done” just like Nancy Pelosi’s take on the ACA. You couldn’t be more wrong with your analysis if you were trying.
Cacti
@Kay:
It doesn’t disadvantage lower income kids, so much as it doesn’t make them significantly more likely to attend college in the first place. It’s a solution that ignores the primary reasons most kids from low income backgrounds don’t go to 4-year college: unequal public education quality and minimal external support.
The Sanders free college program is one that will primarily give to the haves, without addressing the additional obstacles to the have-nots.
aimai
@Kay: The devil is always in the details. Better the pretty good deal that you can get today than the made up,fictional deal that you can never get.
Kay
@Technocrat:
There’s a narrowness to this discussion that assumes everyone graduates high school and heads off for 4 consecutive years in a dorm. That just isn’t reality. “Free college” would arguably have the most value for a kid who lives at home and commutes to a non-competitive college. It doesn’t even have to mean “college”. The community college here has 40-some certificate programs. They qualify the graduates for an entry-level job- “credentialing”. It’s a “college”.
The anti-“free college” debate is weirdly ..elite.
RaflW
@aimai: My understanding is that outgoing presidents usually don’t endorse in situations like DWS. He did in this particular case, which I find annoying. He could have just stayed out of her local FL race.
And I absolutely understand that the DNC is tasked with trying to win back the House. (DSCC does the senate). As you readily admint, the whole 50 state strategy which the DNC fails to properly execute is why I want DWS defenstrated. I think there are Democrats who are much smarter and much more in tune with what can motivate voters and get the turnout we need. Maybe she doesn’t need to lose her FL seat, but IMO the DNC and the folks who selected her as leader need to hear loud and clear from rank and file Dems that we have no confidence in her leadership.
And @Peter, I think you are correct. Protest votes rarely work. I realized too late that what I meant to say at first was “if voting for Bernie would help get rid of Debbie Whatshername-Schultz, then I’d be behind ya 100%, mistermix”.
Miss Bianca
@aimai: Yup. This. I may have my issues with DWS, but that’s a hard job. Can’t wait to see what the purity ponies squealing to get elected to the DNC from CO, who are all committed to “getting rid of DWS!” and “getting rid of super delegates!” are gonna do and say when they’re actually…you know…on the inside, dealing with keeping the Party together.
patroclus
@Gin & Tonic: Not necessarily. Bob was quite sane on the gun thread a few nights ago and we actually reached agreement on our respective positions on the 2005 Act which limited the scope of liability for gun manufacturers. He’s actually very bright – a lot of you guys misjudge him. But he’s wrong on Honduras and I’ve been trying to convince him of that for weeks. So far, without success. Maybe I’ll eventually give up. But at least I tried.
Kropadope
@Gin & Tonic: Whar did my post go?
In any case, a teacher friend of mine was talking about the impressive results Brockton schools are getting. While this is true, it somewhat hides the fact that a lot of students still aren’t doing well. She says the most reliable indicator of student performance is support at home.
RaflW
Oh, and, FYWP! (You do not have permission to edit this comment … even though 3 minutes and 22 seconds remain)
Kropadope
Why does WordPress hate my posts about Brockton schools?
Kay
@aimai:
I love you aimai, but President Obama was never getting 60 billion for free community college, which is what it would cost for ten years.
Kropadope
@Kay:
Elitists don’t want no competition.
Technocrat
@Gin & Tonic:
Anecdata or not, that’s interesting. Is that where the wealthy kids go? I’m not familiar with Boston.
chopper
@Cacti:
he also thinks the US gubbermint made HIV.
aimai
@Kay: I guess I don’t think we are actually debating anything. Bernie’s plan is either a non starter or could be worked out in negotiations with the House and Senate. The way he thinks about things is so divorced from reality that I don’t think its necessary to really think it through. When we get in the next Democratic President, and if/when Nancy Pelosi gets back in control of the House, we can start to dicker over the details. Until then the entire discussion is like arguing over the number of angels on the head of a pin. Its not elite or not elite to query Bernie’s numbers and plans. Free college for everyone would be great. I, personally, don’t see a problem with it except there are probably very good reasons why it would have some serious effects on the economy of college tuition, and not necessarily good ones. As someone who has two daughters in (or soon to be in) private college I am well aware of the cost and debt issue. I don’t expect my children will (or should) benefit from any of the advances I hope the next Democratic administration will make. But I see no reason to think that HRC’s approach is materially worse than Bernies. Its just a different approach. Its an approach focused on getting something done that will make a measurable difference in a lot of people’s lives. We saw the same damned thing with the ACA. I wish we could stop demonizing the political actors who have the temerity to tell us that they think they can get us some of what we want, but not all.
Kropadope
@aimai:
Except this is a lie and has been from the beginning.
Miss Bianca
@Kay: Nobody is saying they don’t *want* “free college”, Kay. At least I’m certainly not. I’m saying, “show me the money that’s going to pay for it. Show me the ways and means. What’s it going to take? What’s going to have to change?” You may call that “elitist”, I call it “realistic”. But let’s *not* call the whole thing off…
HRC shows her work better than Bernie Sanders does. A “transaction tax”, enacted at the federal level, to pay for schools that have been traditionally funded – or underfunded – at the state level seems strangely…pie-in-the-sky, given the current make-up of the Congress. And I see no reason to suppose that a Sanders presidency is going to shift the needle in any significant way on the current make-up of the Congress.
aimai
@Kay: What does this even mean? If President Obama couldn’t get it what makes President Bernie going to get it?
Marc
@? Martin: In practical terms, you’d increase admissions pressure and the average GPA of admitted students would go up. You could then ratchet up capacity if there was sustained demand, probably with new campuses. It’s not a problem in principle; it does cost money, and I think it’s a good use of money. The price discipline would impact private schools too – all to the good in my view. The key point is that it sets a basic vision – an academically talented kid should be able to go to a state school without paying tuition – and then you can work out systems on how this gets handled.
I think that a means-tested system will be treated as welfare; it won’t help the median income family; and it won’t get any support as a result. And you can always tilt the taxes so that the wealthy end up paying for it, so a system that benefits students with parents at the 75th percentile of the income distribution isn’t a problem.
Rich kids will go for the status education at the expensive private schools anyhow.
Technocrat
@Cacti:
Agreed.
@Kay:
From my perspective, part of the problem is the difficulty in graduating in the first place. I’m not against free college, as much as I think it exacerbates an existing inequality. It makes me a little sad. Personally, I’d love to hear about programs to improve K-12. Not “instead of” free college, but “in addition to”.
Ella in New Mexico
@Cacti:
That’s the excuse Hilary gives for not wanting to do the deed, not a good reason.
If I wan’t on an incredibly annoying IPad right now , I could cut and past data that would show you that a lot more kids in my heavily poor, Hispanic state started going to college 10-15 years ago simply because we implemented a way for all students in the state to attend both 2 and 4 year schools, tuition-free. The rich kids still go out of state if they want to. The rest of our state’s kids who can’t afford to do that, even with the good grades and the scholarships they offer, get to stay here and can graduate with little to no debt. It helped encourage a welcoming mindset to poor and underserved communities who now are a wonderful presence on our campus communities. It also helped middle class people like me who’s kids don’t qualify for Pell grants and yet would have to borrow a a mortgage for their kid to go to school in other states.
So when I heard Hilary arguing that free college is bad because it will just help rich people’s kids, I had to disagree. There’s all kinds of ways to make this work and it would be an incredible asset for the nation. And it has to start somewhere, even if it’s just with a commitment to do it.
And guess what? I don’t care if she or Bernie does it, SOMEBODY needs to start the process.
Marc
@aimai: No Democrat gets anything with an obstructionist GOP congress. The question is what the candidates could do if they also get Congress.
Kropadope
@Marc:
It would also have higher administrative costs and a more cumbersome application process.
aimai
@Kropadope: Its not “a lie” its my opinion of Bernie’s plans and his followers. Because his plans lack details or don’t add up. I really think that calling my opinion “a lie” is kind of strong language. People aren’t “lying” about Bernie’s plans. He does not have clear cut plans or they rely too much on wishful thinking for my taste. YMMV. But you fail to address my actual point which was that HRC’s reputation for compromise and diplomatic and negotiating skill stands despite her unwillingness to argue with Bernie about whether his plans will work out, or move towards incorporating his plans into hers. I presume this is what you meant when you complained that:
I should have quoted you in my response because, on reflection, that line just seems absurd. HRC is under no obligation to passively accept the “alternatives” Bernie is pretending to offer but, in any event, “bent out of shape” is just a weird criticism. Is she just not making Bernie feel good about his proposals? Not humble enough? Not smiling enough? Does she have to make the case for Bernie’s proposals as well as her own?
aimai
@Marc: Well, sure, but what could Bernie do? Apparently every dem currently in congress is fatally compromised, wholly owned, and basically evil. How is he supposed to work with satan’s tools like that?
patroclus
@Kropadope: I agree with you there. Nobody has been specific about what sort of financial reforms should be implemented – not Clinton and not Sanders. The only person I’ve seen be anywhere near specific is Barney Frank, and he’s not running. Should Basel III be implemented with a 9% capital adequacy rule? Silence from the candidates. Are the Volcker rule and the push-out provisions in Dodd-Frank adequate as an effective replacement for Glass-Steagall? I’ve heard nothing. Should the FSOC be subjected to the APA’s rule-making and public comment provisions as the Republicans in the House proposed just last week? No positions. Should the Fed have direct lending arrangements with SSFI’s? Nada. For all the rhetoric about breaking up the banks, the real issues have yet to come up. Thankfully, these sorts of issues are best handled by the banking regulators and not the Presidential candidates.
FlipYrWhig
@Ella in New Mexico:
I think this is the definition of “plan” in the Funk, Wagnalls, and Bernie Sanders dictionary.
Kropadope
@aimai:
How about publically shaming Obama for differing with her on details and outright lying about Bernie wanting to dismantle the ACA and Medicare without providing an alternative?
Also, my assertion that Bernie doesn’t believe
should stand up to scrutiny. Not because Bernie has explicitly denounced this theory, but because no adult human believes in fairies.
tweedstereo
@Punchy: How’s the weather up there?
Kropadope
@patroclus: That’s probably because when people start talking about complex financial instruments, probably more so than any issue, people’s eyes glass over.
Marc
@aimai: And what could Clinton do with the current Congress? Nothing. I just don’t see why this argument helps Clinton at all; it’s an assertion that all of their plans are dead on arrival, so there’s really no point to any of them. Hyperbole aside, Sanders is not Cruz.
Gin & Tonic
@patroclus:
Never said he wasn’t. It’s just on some issues he’s completely blinkered. I’ve spent more time and energy on one such issue than I ever wanted to and got nowhere, which is why I think your Honduras issue will have the same (non)result.
Miss Bianca
@Kropadope: You might be surprised. There are plenty who seem to believe in angels. And unicorns.
Technocrat
@Ella in New Mexico:
Does that data show a similar increase in admissions across the socioeconomic spectrum? Did admissions increase equally for poor kids and middle-class kids? I’d be curious.
aimai
@Kropadope: Bernie’s plans amount to a dismantling of what exists in favor of what does not exist. Its clear Bernie doesn’t intend any of the harm that would come from having a President who takes his eye off the ball and fails to fight for the ACA. But that doesn’t mean that its possible to get to where he says he wants to go while also maintaining the important parts of the ACA against strong opposition. Also Bernie has roundly attacked Obama and the ACA and has failed to support the President on many occasions and specifically during this election. While Obama seems to have no problem with Hillary. So its not necessary to pretend that Hillary has attacked Obama while Sanders has supported him. Because its obviously not the case.
Gin & Tonic
@Technocrat: No. Brockton HS is overwhelmingly, as I said, non-white, ESL and poor. It serves the city of Brockton only. Here’s an article from a few years ago.
aimai
@Marc: I’m not such a binary thinker. Obama has shown just how much a canny President can get done tinkering around the margins. And how important party solidarity and working to get back the House and Senate matter. Its obvious that those issues are not important to Bernie so, yes, I think that a Hillary Presidency and a Bernie Presidency would be two utterly different animals even if both were to come in with the exact same House and Senate composition. Also: foreign policy. I absolutely trust her more than I trust Bernie and that is an area where the President has both more free reign and more to fight with congress over.
Technocrat
@Gin & Tonic:
Yeah, I read too fast and missed the “mostly” non-white, ESL and poor. I read the article, and it’s really impressive. I especially liked this part:
I suspect people from multi-generational educated families tend to underestimate the power of expectation. When I went to college, I was the first one in my family. It was like “Wow, good for you. We’re so proud!”. To this day, few of my peers have attended. With my daughter, it was always just assumed she would go.
Cacti
@Technocrat:
Same here.
patroclus
@Kropadope: Agreed, but it’s just bizarre, in my view. The media and political junkies can wax rhapsodic about technical delegate selection rules in all of the states and get super-wonky about campaign strategy and targeted ad buys, but when it comes to actual financial issues and actual financial policy, it’s like a vast wasteland. And, it’s not really THAT complicated. Since 1988, the capital rules have been all-important to regulating the banks; they drive every single banking decision. The push-out rules in D-F function like a mini-Glass Steagall, separating commercial banking from the more risky and speculative investment banking. The FSOC, under D-F, is our brand spanking new inter-agency review commission. Other than the ACA, Dodd-Frank was THE most important statutory change of the Obama years and THE most important and far-reaching reforms of our financial system in 80 years.
aimai
To me, and then I’ve got to sign off and do something else, this whole discussion of college funding or whatever is just too deep in the weeds. I take for granted that Bernie wants to do great things. And I also know, because of hher history, that Hillary does too. Both are on the side of the angels. Personally, Hillary’s approach jumps with mine. And Bernie’s doesn’t. But that doesn’t mean that they aren’t both liberals–they are. And it doesn’tmean that they both wouldn’t promote progressive policies–they would. And to my mind the rest of this is just commentary. I voted for HRC in the primary and I’ve sent her money. If Bernie were to win I would not only vote for him, I’d send him money and work my heart out for him. However I don’t think Bernie would be a good President. Maybe his heart is in the right place. I don’t really give a fuck about people’s hearts. But he does not have a good head for politics, he doesn’t know how to fight, he doesn’t know how to apologize, and he has almost no friends on the Hill after 30 years there. So I’d happilly fight for and vote for President Sanders and I think he might even be able to get in. But I am really, really, sure he’d fuck it up once he got in there and tarnish the good ideas he does have. Thats my opinion based on watching his campaign and his supporters. If you don’t understand politics and respect it you can’t use it to do the stuff you want to do.
But I really don’t see the need to demonize each other. I have certainly used intemperate language in discussing some of Bernie’s supporters and their ideas. And I apologize for that. Unreservedly. With the exception of Bob I assume that Bernie’s supporters want the best for the country even if we don’t agree on how to get there. I just wish they extended the same courtesy to Hillary’s supporters and to Hillary. We just aren’t all elitist, corporate, whores who don’t care about the poor or income inequality. We are just absolutely ordinary progressives and liberal democrats who think Hillary makes a fine candidate to continue President Obama’s forward momentum.
FlipYrWhig
@Marc: But it’s also a process argument. IMHO Clinton’s whole pitch has been “I can draw up detailed plans about anything you bring up, and I’ll revisit them as conditions warrant,” while Sanders’s whole pitch has been “Plans? Plans schmans. The important thing is making a lot of noise about what you want.”
J R in WV
@skerry:
Well, you report 75% for Clinton and 25% for Sanders out of your immediate family. That’s pretty good.
Thanks for the good news.
FlipYrWhig
@aimai:
And he’s proud of that, because if they liked him it’d mean he was going soft.
Yes, this.
It seems rude to co-sign an apology. Bad form somehow. But, yeah, I know I’ve been doing the same thing, actually far worse than aimai has been. Because it’s SO. FRUSTRATING. to be on the receiving end of these lectures about virtue and corruption and caring and compassion. I do genuinely hope that the best of the Bernie ’16 brigades go on to become the innovators and idea-makers of liberal politics, because we definitely need more of those.
Kay
@Ella in New Mexico:
It’s a ridiculous argument. Rich kids were going to college free anyway. Their parents pay for it.
Hillary Clinton knows all this. She’s much better versed on education issues than President Obama OR Bernie Sanders.
When Nancy Pelosi put student loan reform in the D list of issues for the 2006 she didn’t pitch it as welfare, because that’s politically stupid. She pitched it to “working families”. Democrats have been covering poor people programs with a layer of middle class benefits for years. It works.
J R in WV
@Hillary Rettig:
Is that near Timbuktu, also?
;-)
Chyron HR
@J R in WV:
Yeah, they can each take turns voting for Clinton while the other two keep the Sanders voter trapped.
Kay
@Ella in New Mexico:
We just put in a free public school prek where I live. It ISN’T pegged to income.The best thing you can do for poor kids in a public school is put some better-off kids in there. When we go back for continuing funding we’ll need some people in my neighborhood with skin in the game. They all win.
Betty Cracker
@aimai: Well said, Aimai.
@Kay: I agree about the “free tuition” angle. It’s political argle-bargle, just as Obama’s denunciation of the individual mandate for healthcare was back in aught-eight. He was wrong and he almost certainly knew it back then. She is wrong and she surely knows that now.
Just Some Fuckhead
@FlipYrWhig:
I wanna be the first to congratulate you and aimai for recognizing your bad behavior (name calling, smearing all supporters with the sins of a few, etc.) was provoked by others’ bad intentions towards you but apologizing anyway. Wow, powerful stuff.
Mr. Mack
Not sure if this has already been addressed, but there are nearly 100 colleges (and by that I mean well respected universities) that are already “free.” An example would be Vanderbilt. When my daughter was accepted, I was so happy for her but I really didn’t know how we were going to pay for it. Turns out, they are among a growing network of “needs blind” universities that do not consider ability to pay when selecting students for admission. In addition, they guarantee to pay for tuition, room and board and even some fees with grants…so the students do not have to repay them. I guess it’s their way of finding deserving candidates who otherwise would not apply. Maybe it’s a market solution finally coming about. (Those are actually a thing, no?) Note: of course it’s a sliding scale, if you are wealthy you’ll likely pay full price.
? Martin
@Marc:
You are mixing a free market model with a welfare model – and that does not work. The free market obtains its capital for expansion through a pretty simple formula – demand exceeds supply, price goes up until balance is achieved, whereupon some market players decide they are more competitive taking their profits and putting that into expansion in order to shift the point of competition downmarket. That system often but not always works. But government doesn’t operate that way. Government demands predictable costs for budgeting purposes so any cost of expansion is allocated external to the welfare model. That is, the feds are not going to fund universities above their cost to operate, and most likely below with the expectation that there would be some cost recovery from the more predictable funding model. Universities will not have the freedom to raise tuition prices in the face of higher demand because that eliminates the budget predictability for the feds – so tuition will necessarily be regulated (go ask Mayhew).
The capital to expand will need to be a secondary appropriations model and one that will need to sync with the states. Alabama is not going to be happy funding California’s massive expansion, and California likely won’t have the funds to do it because the feds aren’t picking up as much of the tuition tab as the state would need. CA is probably 100,000 seats short of where we need to be at the bachelors level. It’s a big challenge. And it omits a whole pile of details. Will our AB 540 students (undocumented) still be treated like in-state students or will their seats go away in favor of free tuition students?
The bottom line question you have to answer when subsidizing an already selective system is “When you promise this thing will be free and are unable to deliver on the promise, who do you say no to?” ACA addressed that by eliminating the ability to say no, but you had free market entities that had the ability to expand and had other revenue streams to tap into, where they could adjust price (group policies, etc). Public universities have none of that. We cannot put 9 students in a dorm room designed for two and three students in a single auditorium seat. We have no other acceptable revenue streams to tap into. UC is trying to do that now with non-residents and the public is pissed, so we’re going to start giving up hundreds of millions of dollars of non-taxpayer money which we were using for taxpayer benefit.
These realities can’t be handwaved away.
FlipYrWhig
@Just Some Fuckhead: As Arnold Schwarzenegger says in _True Lies_, “Yes, but they were all bad.”
? Martin
@Mr. Mack:
Yes, the top privates are generally cheaper than the publics for most middle to low income students (Vandy is a top). The bulk of privates are not – they don’t have multibillion dollar endowments (Vanderbuilt: $4.3B generating annual returns on the order of $21K per enrolled student). But the problem with relying on this is that it applies to a small fraction of students. The privates that put forward full tuition are responsible for a fraction of 1% of students at 4 year universities. Understand that all of the Ivys in aggregate enroll about what a single large public university does. California 4 year public universities have 15x the enrollment of the 8 Ivy league universities (with a combined endowment of about $120B).
There is an outsized focus on these elite campuses, but they serve a tiny, tiny fraction of students.
I think there’s a lot more merit in the idea of shifting the cost burden on the institutions themselves by taxing student income for a fixed period of time at a fixed rate. If we got 5% of your income for 20 years returned to the campus, you’d effectively be building an endowment system for public universities but one whose returns weren’t dependent on which blood diamond mine you invested in, but rather how well you taught and placed your students. You’d be left with all of the problems I noted above, but a successful university would have a predictable future return on investment which they could rely on to fund expansion. The taxpayers would then have an incentive to additionally capitalize the system to expand opportunity because they wouldn’t be on the hook for recurring costs. Universities would become self-supporting infrastructure paid for directly by the people who benefit and because the return is after the service is delivered, the risk is shared between the student and institution instead of falling entirely on the student and the taxpayer.
But it would need to be done nationally because it would be impossible to enforce at the state level.
Mr. Mack
@? Martin: I completely agree. The year my daughter applied there 30,000 plus applicants, only 1600 were admitted. I very much like the idea you put forth, to shift the burden to the instituion but also let them reap what they sow. (not a great paraphraser, sorry) I only mentioned it because I saw it as a step forward, even if it only served a fraction of potential students.
Terry chay
@Just Some Fuckhead, Clinton Supporter: I agree. This front pager obviously never watched Nader steal the election from Gore. My brother was in CA and said his vote didn’t count but it did because it convinced a bunch of idiot floridians to vote for Nader as “both parties are the same.”
Not saying mistermix shouldn’t vote for Bernie, just saying he should vote for who he feels is the better candidate and stop falling into the bs and costly meme about “sending a message”
WJS
All this talk about free college is nice and all, but which party is pushing cuts to the 21st Century GI Bill? Yes, the Paul Ryan controlled House (I think they’re Republicans but who can tell because both parties are the same, emirate?)
Do you really think Sanders or Clinton would sign legislation cutting Veterans off at the knees? I don’t think either one of them would. Trump and Cruz would sign that shit in a New York minute and laugh at the people lying on the sidewalk.
cbear
@aimai
@FlipYrWhig:
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Yep–and very much appreciated from someone who SLIGHTLY prefers Bernie, but will vote for Hillary quicker than a cat covers shit.
I’m also gratified to see it coming from aimai and Flip, both of whom I have always respected.
aimai for many, many years, and Flip for more than a few.
Fucky, sorry about stealing “/record screeches” the other day–way too funny to not steal–I almost fell off my couch when I first saw it.
Keith G
@Cacti: @Technocrat: Stating the obvious, Money Matters. The more money made available for kids to use in paying tuition for colleges means that more kids from all sections of our economic spectrum will have the ability to attend some type of post High School education or training.
Speaking anecdotally, in the 25 years I spent teaching in public high schools in urban areas, when my students were facing serious barriers to being able to continue their education, money was the issue. Money was the issue in them starting their post high school education, it was the issue for them continuing that education. And as often or not money was the issue which led to them being unable to have the type of study schedule that would allow them to work for the academic success that motivated their continued pursuit of a post high school education.
If you want to help break the chain of poverty that is often continued when a teenage mother has to decide how to continue her education, one of the simplest ways to do that is to make sure that college is cheap enough that she can afford to take care of her kid and also go to school.
Yes, it would be a great deal better if we were making more progress in public education in the elementary through high school years. In fact there are attempts being made at that. Can you say Common Core? The problem with that argument however is that the states have so much more authority to make decisions over that level of education. The federal government has more strings to pull when it comes to doing things that make post high school education more of a reality to more of our kiddos.
Ella in New Mexico
@Technocrat:
New Mexico higher education institutions have very generous admission standards by comparison to the east coast public schools I went to. It’s not just that we have dumb kids, it’s intentionally low so as to encourage all folks, particularly those from disadvantage and non-traditional backgrounds, to go to school. We try to steer kids towards the community colleges if they have struggled in high school or have deficits but in general, at kid with average ACT scores and a 2.5 GPA can get into one of our two major universities pretty easily. We also have some smaller four year colleges in more remote areas with easier admission requirements.
I really think we have a special kind of climate for high school to college transition in our state. People here in my town, from barely legal janitorial staff at my hospital to blue collar construction workers to Native Americans to low-middle class parents expect they or their kids will complete at least some college. When I moved here I was pleasantly surprised at the wide range of socio-economic backgrounds of the people here who are so positive about their ability to obtain a higher education. When I lived in the PA/MD/VA area in high school, far fewer kids thought they’d be going to college. My husband’s two siblings never did because it “was for rich people”–and they are actually very bright and capable people who if they had lived here, probably would have attended.
Technocrat
@Keith G:
Thank you for the great comment, especially given your experience. I never taught, but I did attend urban schools, and in my experience (mid-1970’s) many of the kids didn’t even have college on their radar. Has that changed over the decades?
@Ella in New Mexico:
Oddly enough, I grew up in PA. That may account for my perspective.
Keith G
@Technocrat: Yes it certainly has changed, in some ways it has changed a bit for the worse. By that I mean that some school districts are so college centric that they have gutted what used to be called vocational programs. The last school district where I taught had a program where students could complete a cosmetology program in such a way that upon graduating from high school they also had earned a statewide cosmetology certification.
That was a hell of a good way for many students to start immediately earning an income. And that certification was a lot cheaper than the process that one would have to go through post high school. Unfortunately, that was one of the vocational programs that got amputated in an effort to create more budgetary room for more college oriented classes.
Madness.
aimai
@Just Some Fuckhead: I did not smear anyone. I talked about statements that I had seen, and arguments that I had been in, all around the net. The Sanders team and Sanders supporters, specifically at Dkos, have said everything that I have mentioned at one time or another. I did not misattribute or misrepresent anyone’s arguments.
Just Some Fuckhead
@aimai: I’m not sure you can see what you’re doing when you’re up on that high horse yelling down at everyone.
Sophie
I’m sorry, but this post is such sexist horseshit.
Because Sec. Clinton is a small child and she needs to be herded in the right direction. I cannot imagine anyone using such a condescending, patronizing tone with any male candidate.
More patronizing horseshit. Perhaps we should also pin the Clinton campaign’s mittens to its coat so it won’t lose them at kindergarten?
As for the “mild critique” Sander is offering, what he’s actually doing is slandering Sec. Clinton’s character with the same Republican propaganda the right wing has dishing for years. His whole campaign is just breeding little Republicans. Cannot wait for him to go the hell back to Vermont and stay there.
Sophie
We need to be consolidating and growing the coalition President Obama built. We need to be working to flip the Senate and take back the House. Instead Bernie’s on an egotistical scorched earth campaign. Per the email from Robby Mook:
So sure, vote for Sanders. Way to send a signal, dude.
WJS
@Sophie: Exactly this. Bernie Sanders is not running for President. Bernie Sanders is running to deny the presidency to the Democrats and he’s running in order to build a fundraising scheme that will keep him flush for the rest of his life. “If only they would have listened to me!” is the classic refrain that he’ll use from November going forward to build a moneymaking machine that will fleece people for years to come. See: Sarah Palin.
Paul in KY
@Terry chay: Any Floridian who voted for Nader in 2000, I would love to kick them in the nads.