The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age

    This is how Democrats win

    It looks like the Democrats have picked up a seat in the Missouri state house. 20-something Mike Revis won in a district that went for Trump by over 30 points. How'd he do it? He ran as a progressive populist. The first two of five issues at his website:

    1) "Support public education" over charter schools.

    2) "Defend the rights of working people" and oppose right to work which he calls a "bad idea pushed by corporations to lower wages."

    He also lists opposition to "cuts to health care and senior services" and attracting "more jobs to Missouri" as priorities. In order to win, Democrats must adopt strong support for economic justice, i.e., pro-union, anti-trade, pro-Medicare-for-all, as a litmus test.

    Comments

    um you certainly have not convinced me that he did it with progressive populism by that one link. That is all he had on that website, this is it, nothing else. No different than standard Dem boilerplate. He obviously did something else to win, but this link is far from proof what it is:

    https://revisformissouri.com/page/

    Issues

    Support Public Education:

    Missouri has been robbing our public schools of public tax dollars to give money to private for-profit charter schools. This hurts our kids in our districts and drives up property taxes.

    Defend the Rights of Working People:

    Right-to-Work is a 60-year old bad idea, pushed by big corporations to lower wages. When it was passed by the Missouri General Assembly, I felt the call to take action and run for office. This constant assault on the rights of working men and women is funded by just a few multi-millionaires who buy influence with elected officials.

    Stand with Our First Responders & Veterans:

    Our police, deputies, firefighters and EMTs deserve to know we have their backs and support them in protecting our communities. I will also always support the mission of our men and women in uniform and honor our veterans.

    Oppose Cuts to Healthcare & Senior Services:

    I’m angry that our elected representatives allowed the Governor to cut Medicaid to 8,000 handicapped and older Missourians.  We are better people than that and deserve better representatives who will opposed cuts to healthcare and services for seniors.

    Attract More Quality Jobs for Missouri:

    We must promote Missouri as a great place for innovation, to relocate an existing industry or business, and encourage new business start-ups. We must inspire and support those with dreams of starting a business of their own and teach our young people how to become entrepreneurs.

    This is the only other content:

    Home

    I’ve been fortunate in my life to be surrounded by so many hardworking and selfless people: those who put family first and help their neighbors, all while dedicating themselves to the trades, business, education, and agriculture. I’ve inherited several views through wisdom shared by many of you on what is best for our community, state, and country. It’s with these beliefs and dreams in mind that I am happy to announce that I have accepted the nomination to run for State Representative in Jefferson County, District 97.

    This will not be an easy task. With the current representative resigning, the Governor has called for a special election to fill the vacant seat on February 6, 2018.  With your support, you can help me get to Jefferson City to fight for other hardworking Missourians. Please read more on our website about my background and the issues we share. If you have any questions please contact me. Then I would kindly ask for you to consider a donation or volunteering to help my campaign for this fast-approaching special election.  Together we can put people before politics in Jefferson City. Thank you!

    Respectfully,

    Mike Revis

    May have had a great personality, went door to door, whatever. But this link is proof of nothing about progressivists vs. Dem message, doesn't tell us anything much at all except that he'd be left of center, doesn't tell us a thing how the kid won.

    Actually, it amazes he won if this is all he had on the internet. Probably has a Facebook page or something....not going to look it up leave it to others.

    Just pointing out that you are not going to convince very many on what you are saying by pointing to this. Show me something more concrete.

    Edit to add: How your blog post appears to me: textbook case of confirmation bias, seeing what you want to see out of very thin air.


    He ran for public schools/against charters and for unions. That's pure economic populism. There's no other way to spin it. He specifically called out "right to work" as a con. He won in a district that went for Trump by 30 points. Edit to add: the Facebook page is nothing but boilerplate. https://www.facebook.com/RevisforMissouri/

    From Commondreams: " Revis was driven to run after the Missouri General Assembly passed a right-to-work law, weakening labor unions. He promoted funding for public education over charter schools during his campaign, as well as vocally opposing cuts to Medicaid and other social services."


     I think of most local Democratic candidates as against charter schools, it's a classic Dem theme.  Same for opposing cuts in social services. All Dems do that.

    The only thing you got is against a right-to-work law, the specifics of which aren't clear. 

    Show me that he's a Bernie follower or something like that. Not convinced at all. This is classic Dem stuff, thin gruel to support an approach  of Trump type populism or Bernie type populism.

    If you think of like, RFK as a populist, I don't understand why you end up in so man disagreements with people here. Pelosi argues for "the people" every day.


    So far I suspect: interesting kid,  fresh face, seems nice and honest, cares about people,youthful energy, will work hard, PLUS anti-Trump-populism vote got up off the couch and showed up to vote. So in the end, more anti-populist than pro.

    Brings to mind: if you are going to proudly wear the populist label, you are going to run up against the problem of Trump haters. MAGA is ruined as a meme to many it would have previously drawn. I think it is a meme that people left of center who are running for office are wise to stay away from.


    If you think the Democratic establishment is pro-union, you've been sleeping since the Bush administration. The first Bush administration.


    If you compare Revis's website with loser technocrat Hillary Clinton backer Jon Ossoff's (also a fresh-faced kid by the way), you can easily see the differences. Ossoff's is full of boilerplate. He commits to nothing populist. The word union is not to be found except in a paean to the United States's "more perfect" one. Charter schools aren't mentioned. Unlike Revis, who commits to defending "the rights of working people," By contrast, Ossoff wants to "maximize opportunity for entrepreneurs, workers, and investors." https://electjon.com/priorities/


    Your confirmation bias is blatant, there is no there there, you are not presenting data, you are wishing it to be so.


    Are you open to the possibility that you're the one who is so biased that you can't see what is right in front of you?


    Hal, I want to point this out to you not to rub anything in but only because downthread you asked barefooted how you can be more persuasive. 

    You criticize this here

    " By contrast, Ossoff wants to "maximize opportunity for entrepreneurs, workers, and investors." 

    But  Revis had this a very similar thing on his statement page:

    We must inspire and support those with dreams of starting a business of their own and teach our young people how to become entrepreneurs.

    You didn't see the similarity because you didn't want to see it?

    You also ignored that he has "support our police" and "support our troops":

    Stand with Our First Responders & Veterans:

    Our police, deputies, firefighters and EMTs deserve to know we have their backs and support them in protecting our communities. I will also always support the mission of our men and women in uniform and honor our veterans.

     I think that happens to be a very important thing to say when you are running in a place like Missouri, that especially gave me a hint things may not have been as you surmised.

    You just really did seem to me to be cherry picking for confirmation bias, to the detriment of your own position. Doing that makes you look like a demagogue not concerned with the truth, don't you see?


    Saying that you support our troops and emergency responders is neither pro nor anti-populism or even progressive economic populism. Thus, I didn't see any reason to mention those aspects of his platform. Saying you will "always" support the troops' mission is, I agree, anti-progressive. So, you make a fair point in that regard.

    I'm not sure that this point, however, undermines my basic argument which is that in order to win elections Democrats should campaign on progressive populist economic policies that enrich and empower the poor, working, and middle-class.

    Regarding entrepreneurs, yes, Revis, like Ossoff, tips his cap to them. But again Revis talks about workers' "rights" and explicitly supports unions. Ossoff does not mention organized labor. This seem to me to be a rather significant difference between the two.


    here you go, some info. on what went on here, Kansas City Star

    This guy has as much confirmation bias as you do:

    “There’s a new rush of energy behind Democrats in Missouri,” said Stephen Webber, chairman of the Missouri Democratic Party.

    Because, my underlining

    .....Turnout was low, the weather was bad, special elections are unpredictable and their party still holds massive super majorities in both the state House and Senate as well as controls every statewide office.

    “House Republicans are pleased to have captured 3 of 4 special elections in Missouri tonight,” House Speaker Todd Richardson, a Poplar Bluff Republican, said in a statement Tuesday night. “On a day that began with winter weather conditions, we are disappointed to narrowly lose a district that had been historically held by Democrats until recent years.”....

    Even though the Republican governor is smack dab in the middle of a big scandal. Read the whole piece.

    My personal takeaway all the Missouri Dem blather in the piece falls flat, as does the candidate's explanation to a radio station. If turnout and new Dem energy was the key, why didn't they take those other 3 seats as well?

    The fresh faced kid had a few extra union votes and Trump haters and fed-up-with-this-Governor voters come out and help him win on a bad weather night when the majority GOP faithful stayed home.

    I've read enough, I buy Eddy Justice's argument

    State Rep. Peter Meridith, a St. Louis Democrat who leads the Democrats’ House Victory Committee, said Tuesday’s results will “echo the halls of the Capitol and send a message to every Republican incumbent — if you keep putting special interests over the people of Missouri, we are coming for your seat.”

    Not so fast, said Eddy Justice, treasurer for the House Republican Campaign Committee.

    The Republican candidate in Jefferson County may have underperformed when compared to Trump in 2016, Justice said. But he ran only seven points behind Mitt Romney’s performance in 2012.

    “I understand the desire of Democrats to look for anything to get excited about,” Justice said. “This is not the beginning of the tide turning for Democrats in Missouri.”

    I think both Dems and Progressives getting their hopes up about Missouri on this one race is delusional. 

    Looks to me how it is developing is rather like this: depending upon how the scandal plays out, a very conservative Dem who doesn't fool around on his wife could win as governor next time, but the legislature would probably remain in GOP hands. There zero evidence of a Dem tide or a Progressive tide, to the contrary. 


    P.S. I think the only takeaway lesson for Missouri Senate race in 2018  from the story of this race alone: hope that GOP voters stay home because of disgust at this that or the other thing.

    Real Clear Politics analysis on the Senate race is quite detailed about the divisions in the state and recommended. Summary

    the state has swung dramatically toward Republicans over the course of the past decade; Barack Obama narrowly lost the state in 2008, while Donald Trump won by twenty points. McCaskill has a solid opponent in Attorney General Josh Hawley.  With that said, if the national environment remains poisonous for Republicans, she may survive another term.


    Other than the district that Revis won, three Republican districts in Missouri did indeed replace a Republican with a Republican in special elections. But one of those three races was very close with the Dem Jim Scaggs ahead until late in the count. Ultimately, he lost by 6 points in a southern Missouri district that Trump won by nearly 60 points. Scaggs ran on "fully founding [sic] our rural schools" and "job creation." He also proudly displays three logos from labor groups that backed him. Feel free to avoid finding any evidence that Democrats do better when they run as progressive populists rather than when they run as lackeys of Wall Street banks.


    I don't suspect any problem in Missouri with being pro-union. You better at the same time be for cutting down on immigrants, though, as taking jobs and using services.

    I could be wrong but I can't imagine that with this religious makeup, that going whole hog anti-charter and pro-public school would be popular statewide.  As far as anti Wall Street? Of course, that's a no brainer, Wall Street is NYJews and cosmopolitans, that look down on them as flyover evangelicals, after all. But that also means that Hal type socialist heaven re-distributionist agitprop would be a yuge fail, bigly, being looked at as from the same elitist cloth.

     It very much still seems to still be Reagan Dem land, where pretending you are for Main Street Rotary Club rather than Wall Street will sell, except for in the urban areas.  Overwhelming vote for Trump, only three counties went Dem, the Trump fans were the majority in every other county. They don't hate the rich, they want Main Street to be rich like Trump. And racism is a problem, yes: Ferguson fire probably still smoldering in many hearts and minds.

    To me Ii's clear that overall Missouri wants conservative populism, Hal, not socialist populism, and looks like it is still trending that way.  Granted, all just mho from looking at the data and  anecdotals. Not at all scientific. 


    p.s. on guns: they have open carry allowed everywhere but a permit necessary for concealed, in 2016, there was a majority for a "stand your ground law" and allowing concealed as well but the Dem governor at the time vetoed it.


    Yeah let's not taint our populism with any socialism like I dunno - fully "founding" our public schools (Jim Skaggs) or reversing the "right to work" law that the Republican Missouri legislature recently passed (winner Mike Revis). Here's the thing AA - you may be right. These policies may ultimately be losers but they're the right policies and since they seem to be winners, why not call for Dems to campaign on them? I mean we saw what happened with the candidate who was for the TPP before she was against it and didn't want a $15 dollar minimum wage and said we'll never have Medicare-for-all and . . . well you know the drill.


    Yes, Hal, we all do.  We also know how it reads when you're feeling defensive; when your usual just-the-facts, answer-my-question, I've-answered yours routine starts to leak around the edges.  It's really surprisingly obvious.


    I hear you BF. I'm sure my style is off-putting to those who have a different view than I have. How would you suggest I present my arguments in a more persuasive fashion?


    Just keep on keeping on. . Perhaps you could win more supporters by changing your pitch. Perhaps,

    I'd say "to thine own self be true"


    Thanks Flavius.


    I knew a 102 year old supporter of Hillary's. Tough and tough minded. Her husband , after serving in WW 2 ,a minister.  Maybe. not a popular one, tney moved fairly frequently among small towns with names  like  Silverfish. .  After his death she remained  active of course. For  while made a winter   trip to Florida. Stayed in touch with her smart competent  children and their children.

    A couple of years ago she told all of them that she had lived long enough but wanted to  be able to vote for  the first woman president. She  keenly remembered growing up when women couldn't vote at all.

    She was  surrounded by family   on election night. Usually  not democrats but  were that night. Expectant. Then sad

    She died a few weeks later. 

     


    I had my kids up at 4am to watch the results - tell me how pissed and disgusted we were. But they live on at least. Revenge served cold?


    You asked barefooted, I'm taking the liberty of answering, hope it doesn't sound arrogant.

    As to convincing voters and/or public at large, I will let Ezra Klein give you a tip:

    For elites, politics is driven by ideology. For voters, it’s not.

    Committed liberals and conservatives don’t realize how weird they are.

    You do ideology speak a lot in your blogs. Not this one so much but the more thought-out ones.

    I was reminded of this upthread when you simply said something along the lines of what's wrong with supporting public schools? My reaction was: wow, that doesn't sound like Hal, that sounds like a normal person

    Americans overall are just not prone to being ideological. Deal with it. Stop preaching and become a salesperson instead.

    Some other quick related thoughts:

    You are trying to sell some unpopular things. You have to go around that another way than you do. I don't notice many people clamoring I wish there were more labor unions again so I could join one. You therefore have to start at the beginning and try to humbly explain how a new kind would work today.

    Stop labeling groups as ideological enemies to be fought. Try to convince why what you want would be good for everyone.

    Stop bashing politicians for being "technocrats". Seems to me 2/3 of the electorate want people who kinda know what they are doing when they are running the country. You insult their intelligence, presume that what they want is to be demagogued. 

    --------------

    As to other members at Dagblog, from what I see, more than any of the above,  it's mostly that you won't admit that Hillary was a successful candidate. And she was: she won the majority vote.She lost because the opposing campaign knew how to play tricks with certain districts to win the electoral college, not because she was pushing something that the majority of voters didn't want. To them, your candidate and positions would clearly, factually, have been a much bigger loser. So to this little audience that likes to analyze, it just seems delusional.

    You did that right here upthread

     I mean we saw what happened with the candidate who was for the TPP before she was against it and didn't want a $15 dollar minimum wage and said we'll never have Medicare-for-all and . . . well you know the drill.

    What happened to that candidate? She won the majority of the vote! 

    All I can think of that I've seen work: Try admitting you're working from a position admitting you are in the minority? I.E. Where would you all think these policies would sell? Where won't they? Why don't they sell there? Just a plain simple: what you think of this? Instead of This is how Democrats Win! Which is basically saying: I'm right and you're wrong!  In your face! Seems like most members here are happy to analyze even if they don't agree, and they don't want to be preached to, either?

    ------

    Finally: when you seem to agree with parts of Trump's MAGA,theory you're always going to get blowback, simply because. 2/3 of the country hates him and his ideas and think he's a miserable failure. Can't help you with that.


    Thanks AA.


    "we saw what happened with the candidate who was for the TPP before she was against it and didn't want a $15 dollar minimum wage and said we'll never have Medicare-for-all and . . . " - yes, Hal - she won the popular vote by 3 million votes but the Russians hacked the elections illegally. And your candidate lost badly. Do we have to keep repeating forever?


    C'mon PP - you can't fairly claim Hillary's campaign was a success. She suffered a devastating loss to an embarrassingly bad opponent. Yes, she won a plurality of the popular vote but she couldn't even convince a majority of voters to support her. Attributing her loss to shadowy foreign forces is a way to avoid the necessary reckoning with her very problematic legacy and  nearly the entire Democratic establishment which put its weight solidly behind her from day one.


    What makes him "bad", dude? You're delusional. Trump *easily* mopped the 13- member Republican team without even spending any money. He siphoned up air time. 

    You don't like her so you keep ignoring reality. Fuck your "shadowy foreign forces" - they are documented as being there, as having an effect. 

    "Nearly the entire Democratic establishment..." - seems you forget about Biden who was going to "save" our democracy and others, but yeah, you played this "establishment" card with success, even killing the enthusiasm of traditional unions who she'd gotten endorsements from and your team tainted that, lowering labor turnout at the polls. How's your Trump president doing for your workers' paradise? Hope you're happy with your results. Keep shittingin that Democratic pool and asking for your outsider savior, Hal. I laugh at Hillary's reputation as "entitle" when everything you yell from Bernie to whatever screams "entitled" - we have to doall this or the implacable left will hold its breath.


    Trump was a bad candidate because the majority of Americans had and have an unfavorable opinion of him and he was recognized to be wholly unqualified. He won the Republican primaries because none of his opponents was able to harness the anti-Trump forces. Maybe John Kasich had a chance but he was not a compelling candidate.

    Yes he is worse than she would have been but workers are happy that there are no more trade deals on the horizon and wages are going up. You can curse a bluestreak and call Bernie entitled if you want but none of that changes the fact that your neoliberal ideology has decimated American's workers and middle-class and they were and remain pissed off about it.

    There's not one shred of evidence that Russian Facebook ads played any meaningful role in the election results. I do believe it is possible that some of the voting machines may have been rigged. But even if that were the case, it would not change the fact that Democratic primary voters selected a very poor candidate who ran a terrible campaign.


    Democratic primary voters selected a Democrat, who had worked in and for the party for decades.  Bernie is like you:  Democrats suck, even though he ran as a fake one in order to use them.

    In other words:

    Dog bites man.


    I vote for the best candidate in each election who has a chance to win. Party affiliation is less important to me than policies. Why is long-term membership in the Democratic party a purity test that you impose?


    How successful have your third-party candidates been?


    What is the purpose of your question? You supported Hillary in part b/c, you said, she was more electable. How'd that work out for you?

    My question is simply, why would you impose a purity test on candidates based on how long they were members of the Democratic Party? Do you have an answer?


    I have answered this question in the past. In a world where it is the Democrats vs. Republicans, I choose Democrats. I don’t expect to win every election. Sometimes you lose, just like Bernie Sanders lost.


    that's just loony More Americans voted for Hillary Clinton than any other losing presidential candidate in US history.

    Here's a chart of all the elections to compare.

    I dare say you are deluded much more than Bernie himself about how popular he would have been. Passion of adherents does not equal numbers. Could actually be the opposite! Once again: Americans don't like ideologues. How can I (and Ezra) be clear: you want to capture some of the middle vote in this country? Stop being so passionate, so fervent, so ideological, so sure of yourself. Scares people. Radicals don't win....(except if they are non-ideological fake radical crazy narcissists gaming the system with shadowy foreigners on their side cheeky)


    Further, from what I see of Bernie lately, he seems quite happy to be freed up to be his radical true self again. Moderating himself, which he knew he had to do to run for president, was not to his liking. I have never seen any evidence that he was able to tamp himself down enough to win a majority, but I do think he knew that he had to.

    You are having a tough time selling your ideas similarly to just a few people on a liberal website for years and are having zero luck. How can you possibly claim, with that example, that it is a formula that would win the majority of the voters in this country? Don't you see how that looks delusional?

    This is not about pushing the actual policy ideas. This is about delusionally claiming those policy ideas are hugely popular. When there is tons of evidence to the contrary.  When you do that, people then don't trust anything you say because: you seem deluded. You could say instead: these policies should be popular, here's why.


    Insult me if you must, but if you're going to take issue with anything I wrote, please cut and paste the offending passage and then cite to credible evidence that I'm wrong.

    I'm assuming that you dispute my contention that Hillary couldn't convince a majority of voters to support her. According to Wikipedia, Clinton lost the electoral college with 48.2% of the total popular vote. That is well under 50% +1 of the votes cast.

    You claim that Bernie and I are too ideological that we scare people. How do you square that with the myriad surveys that show Bernie to be more popular than any other active politician in America? See here and here and here and here. While you may (and I'm sure you will) quibble with some or all of these, are you aware of any surveys that suggest any other politician is anywhere near as popular? I'm not. Let me know if you find any.


    In a December Gallup poll, Obama beat Trump and Trump beat Sanders.

    http://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-barack-obama-hillary-clinton-gallup-poll-760414


    Obama is not active and many of those voting for Obama in the Gallup poll would vote for Bernie in a head to head match up with Trump.


    I didn't insult you personally, I derided what you said. You don't understand ad hominens. It would have been an adhominen to to say "you are loony.". I said that's just loony.

    Popularity as a Senator of someone's else's state that one enjoys having in the Senate as being a rabble rouser with innovative ideas is not the same as a running for president.

    Here's just one recent example from FiveThirty Eight, Jan. 19, 2018

    • Civis Analytics survey shared exclusively with FiveThirtyEight shows Oprah Winfrey in third place in a potential 2020 Democratic presidential primary with 17 percent of the vote. She trails Joe Biden (29 percent) and Bernie Sanders (27 percent). In a hypothetical general election matchup, Winfrey leads Trump by a 7 points; Biden and Sanders lead Trump by 11 and 13 points, respectively.

    None of those numbers are too impressive, to say the least, but he is behind Biden.

    You actually could improve the reaction from your writing by more closely copying how he presents himself as a Senator and tries to sell his ideas and policies. Including that he doesn't act as a fan or supporter of any one individual and that he doesn't bitterly go on and on about how he should have won the Democratic nomination.


    Thanks again for your advice. Although you derided my ideas as loony, you failed to identify anything I wrote as inaccurate. So may I assume that my arguments upset you precisely because they are well supported and undermine your world view rather than the converse.  If you think through the numbers you posted you will see that they support the proposition that Bernie is the most popular active politician in America. Do you have any other evidence?


    The Clintons were attacked by the right wing for over 20 years, and by lefties like you for years also. Nevertheless see ArtA points.

    "Popular" Bernie was not a target of the right because he wasn't the candidate, and yet there was more than enough out there to swiftboat him in a few weeks if the need arose.


    Okay. You just provided an explanation for why Hillary is so disliked. It's obviously incomplete since you elided all the bad things she's done that have caused progressives and others to dislike her. NCD - can the following two propositions both be true: 1) The right wing has unfairly attacked Hillary. 2) There are many legitimate reasons to view her as a poor candidate with harmful policies.


    Trump is in the white house

    He is a white supremacist.

    He wants to ship Dreamers to countries that are foreign to them 

    He is shifting the tax burden to the middle class.

    He heads a corrupt government.

    He is an authoritarian.

    Bernie is not President.

    Your coalition is built around one man.

    Bernie couldn’t even carry California.

     

     


    Yes Trump is really bad. I have proposed the way that I believe that Democrats can beat him and in fact have shown in this post how one Democratic winner in a deep red district followed a script similar to the one that I have argued Dems should follow.


    We are back to square one. He won by 108 votes in a very red district. Do you view that as a mandate to go full a Democratic Socialist?


    An opposite example of how Democrats can win is the case of Doug Jones in the Alabama US Senate race.  He followed a script in a deep red state that had little to nothing to do with far left politicking and everything to do with pragmatic centrism ... he knew where he was and how to get the votes he needed.  No two campaigns are ever the same, which is why where and how are essential to success.


    Cherry-picked from Doug Jones's campaign website:

    • Everyone has the right to quality, affordable health care.
    • All children deserve a first-class education regardless of where they live.
    • College must be affordable without burdening a student with overwhelming debt.
    • It is past time we raise the minimum wage to a livable wage.

    More from the same source:

    • Health care is a right, not a privilege limited to the wealthy and those with jobs that provide coverage.
    • We must ensure that quality health care is available not only in our cities, but in rural areas as well.

    and

    • Tax breaks or loopholes for the wealthiest among us hurt our ability to invest in education and other needs for lower to moderate income families. It is unconscionable to talk about lowering taxes on the wealthy while cutting funding for education, nutrition, childcare, housing and infrastructure—the very things that empower people to participate meaningfully in our economy and our democracy.

     

    • When Franklin Roosevelt proposed the New Deal, much of our state was in abject poverty, without electricity or even clean water. We must remember that those advancements were the result of U.S. government investments in the people of Alabama to improve the infrastructure of the state while creating jobs and improving our standard of living.

    Right.  He's a Democrat, Hal, and those are Democratic ideals.  I call foul when you attempt to coopt fairly standard Dem speech from a longtime, generalized Dem playbook for your own purposes.  None of what you've quoted above from his website could be considered "leftist", or remotely Bernie branded.

    He's also said:

    On the ACA:

    "I am disturbed about repeated efforts to repeal the bill or weaken it, leaving as many as 32 million more Americans without insurance, driving up rates for others and likely leading to the closure of more rural health care facilities vital in many regions of Alabama. That is a nonstarter," Jones says on his website.

    On the GOP tax bill:

    "I am troubled by tax breaks for the wealthy, which seem to be in this bill overloaded. I'm troubled by what appears to be ultimately tax increases or no tax cuts to the middle class. I generally try to support cutting corporate taxes to try to get reinvestment back into this country," Jones said.

    This Vox article, a conversation between Ezra Klein and Joe Trippi, explains the whole idea far better than I can.  For instance (and pushing against my earlier reference to his campaign style), Ezra asks, "He wasn’t particularly loud about his progressivism, but on the other hand, it wasn't a very moderated form of it either. Was that a choice?"  The answer from Trippi?  "Oh yeah. I mean, one thing, even at that dinner, was he didn't want to run by changing where he really stood on things. He's the kind of person that would go out and say, "We don't agree. Let me explain to you why I'm where I'm at, and why I think we should try to find a way for us to get to some middle ground on this." Now they could reject that. And Doug Jones was a realist. If that's why he got rejected, he could live with that."  Sounds alot like what AA tried to tell you earlier, Hal.  ;-)

    There's a whole bunch of reach-across-the-aisle, find common ground talk everywhere you look around Jones.  It's appealing, especially after a year of Trump upheaval and exhaustion. 


    Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton rarely if ever talk about the New Deal. If you look again at the website of Jon Ossoff, you'll find he doesn't mention it once. While Clinton did say in an interview and in an article in the New England Journal of Medicine that we've got to make health care a right, that concept was never a staple of her 2016 campaign. Indeed, she undermined her apparent support for health care as a human right  when she said that Medicare-for-all will never happen. Both Hillary and Obama apparently spoke positively of a "living wage," during Presidential campaigns but it was obviously not a front burner issue for either. Bernie forced her to talk about it.

    Basically, Jones ran as more of an economic populist in Alabama than Obama and Clinton did when they ran for national office. Obviously, he took a page from Bernie's book and he won. Calling for economic justice is, as you say, reaching across the aisle and that's why, in addition to the fact that it's a moral imperative, I support doing so.


    That's an astounding response.


    "Astounding," "loony," "accurate."


    ?  See below ... running into toilet paper territory.


    You're forgetting what you were even arguing about now: how to win elections. Barack Obama surely won two of them. You trying to say he too was a loser? This is exactly the ideology" uber alles" type thing that makes an American reader mistrust. You've moved from arguing "what wins" to: this is the right religion that everyone should be preaching whether it helps them win or not.

    I agree with barefooted that you are also again doing the same thing I questioned about from Rivlas' website. From standard centrist Dem type platform, you are picking out things that you think caused the win and leaving behind things that don't fit your narrative.. Certainly not the type of non-partisan analyst I would hire to work on a campaign if I was running, that's for sure!


    Its 2018, Hillary won’t be on the ballot in 2020.

    If Sanders were great, he wouldn’t be losing to Obama and Biden in polling.


    Obama is a former President with a tremendous reservoir of good will among Democrats - some of it is deserved some is not. The same goes for former Vice President Biden to a lesser extent. in the poll cited, Bernie beats Biden in a general election that includes all registered voters.


    So when you said most popular, you really meant third most popular


    While you may (and I'm sure you will) quibble with some or all of these, are you aware of any surveys that suggest any other politician is anywhere near as popular?  (my bold)

    Rm gave you a link that answered that question - here's another.


    By staying much  less actively involved here for a while I have found it much more amusing to just watch the attitudes expressed and the reasonings given to support conclusions. You won't be surprised, I am sure, to hear that I often disagree. This response ranges a bit further in context of various comments by various people here than just to this particular comment of yours.

    Once again: Americans don't like ideologues

    The success of the person who somehow ended up as our President can be ascribed, at least to some extent, to the support of those who bought into the ideology, no matter how stupid conceived or incoherently voiced, of a jerk playing at being an ideologue spouting nationalist America first ideology.

    I will not argue that Sanders would have been able to accomplish much of what he thinks needs to be done if he had been elected. He certainly would have met very strong resistance just like B. Clinton did, Obama did, and H. Clinton would have. Oh yeah, and just like Trump is now experiencing.  I also will not state as as a categorical fact that Sanders would have beaten Trump in order to counter the claims made with such confidence that Sanders absolutely would have lost against him. To deny that there is reason to believe that Sanders might have won is, IMO, just denialism expressed in a closed minded way so as to object to arguments against the tribal favorite. But, I will say that despite it being declared here every time the subject comes up that the very idea that Sanders probably would  have won against Trump is crazy, as the vast majority here, [that vast majority being composed of three or four , maybe five or six, people] always proclaim it to be is, uh, well, crazy.

    Here at Dag it was argued vociferously that "real" Democrats would vote, in the primaries, for Clinton but “real” Democrats would also vote in the general for whoever the Democratic candidate turned out to be. On that basis every vote that Hillary got from the “real” Democrats would have gone to Sanders in the general in the counterfactual situation of him being the candidate. Added to that would have been every vote that Sanders got in the primaries which did not go to Hillary in the general. Added to that would be many who would not vote for either Clinton or Trump, Clinton being considered by them to be more of the unacceptable “same ol’ same ol’ that they are sick of and Trump being Trump. Add some more to Sanders total because he generated a lot of enthusiasm in those who believe there is not enough difference between the two parties to make choosing one over the other worth the effort. Added to that are some number of Republican votes by those who agreed that Trump is unacceptable but who hated Hillary. Add some more for the enthusiasm factor. Some would have been persuaded by Sanders call for single payer health insurance even if they didn’t believe he could accomplish it just because his campaign showed what side he was on and where he put health care overage on the hierarchy of importance just like Trump’s campaign for a wall convinced many anti-immigrants what side he was on even if they don’t, or didn't, believe the wall is a realistic possibility. Add to those reasons some of the others that HSG has pointed out. A vote flipped from one side to the other obviously is like two votes gained, not just one. 

    I am far from convinced that the harm done to Hillary by claimed nefarious actions of the Russians, correction, by Putin personally, were enough to swing the general election but I acknowledge that maybe they did. I cannot know for certain anymore than anyone else can or ever will know for certain regardless the certainty they express. Exposing genuine emails, not "fake news", that revealed more of the real nature of Clinton’s campaign no doubt hurt her and maybe were the critical last straw. If that is true that the truth hurt her it is true regardless who revealed those emails.  I believe that had the Democratic Party leadership [what was once called a machine] lined up all those super delegates for Sanders before he had even announced, and if he had had a dedicated stooge running the DNC overtly but unfairly in his favor and unfairly against Hillary, that the vote gap between Clinton and Sanders in the primaries would have flip flopped. Sanders might well have won the nomination in a fair contest and would almost certainly have won in a contest stacked in his favor as much as it was in fact stacked in Hillary's. 

    Rejecting or simply ignoring inconvenient evidence is a factor facilitating confirmation bias which is often used in a way to say heads I win and tails you lose. I expect that it is easier to spot confirmation bias in the arguments of others than in your own and yes, I understand and agree with the obvious retort being that that applies to me too. Or, maybe some of us are above such simple but very common intellectual shortcomings which are so easy to spot in others, or at least we think so. Or at least I think so. 

     


    Thanks LULU. Staying away is a good way of staying sane.


     I also will not state as as a categorical fact that Sanders would have beaten Trump in order to counter the claims made with such confidence that Sanders absolutely would have lost against him.

    This is nonsense. Posting this bullshit just reveals your bias. The opposite is actually true. None of the Hillary supporters want to refight the Sanders/Clinton primary. None of us bring up the subject of whether Sanders would have lost in the general. It's Hal's schtick to constantly attack Hillary and claim Sanders would have won. We claim Sanders would have lost only in response to that. I'll admit that I, and I believe others, exaggerate the claim that Sanders would have lost but only because we're sick and tired of Hal bringing up the same tired argument over and over again.

    We can't replay history. Polls have limited validity especially polls taken before the general election began. Kerry and Gore both polled above Bush several times during the general election and both lost. In fact there were times that Bush polled so poorly against Kerry that some republicans were suggesting that he drop out and let McCain run instead. Yet Kerry still lost. It's all speculation. There's no way anyone can know what would have happened in a general election between Sanders and Trump. But as long as Hal wants to keep running his mouth with shit about how Sanders would have won I'll keep posting equally speculative crap claiming Sanders would have lost.


    Thanks for acknowledging that you have exaggerated "the claim that Sanders would have lost." I hope going forward we can have an honest debate without exaggerations and with a willingness to reconsider positions when the facts don't support them.

    Here's what I wrote by the way in this thread: "Sure Bernie might have still lost".

    I generally bring up Bernie v Hillary in response to breaking news. In this thread, the issue came up as secondary to the Democratic victory in Missouri. I think the point that I made - Democrats win when they run as progressive economic populists - is very important and I will continue to make it. I'm sorry if it offends you.

     


    I think it's quite accurate to state that Sanders published articles that would be used by the republicans maliciously and would hurt him quite a bit. He in fact did state that stories about a 12 year old girl appeals to him, that he believes sex with teen girls should be encouraged for many reasons one being that sex cures breast cancer, and that when women have sex with their husbands they fantasize about being gang raped by three men. Whether you or I think that is an exaggeration  or not that is how it will be played on the conservative media. You apparently want to discuss whether Sanders would have won the general election. You keep bringing it up. If we're going to have that honest debate of your claim that Sanders would have won you need to explain how this would not have hurt him. The only reason it appears that you are engaging in honest debate is that you believe the crap you're spouting when in fact no one can know how a general election would have played out and because you won't deal in a forthright manner with anybody's arguments against Sanders.


    If you cannot find and cite to any specific statement by Bernie Sanders that he finds stories of rapes of 12-year old's appealing, will you acknowledge that you got it wrong and state that you are going to be more open to the possibility that you've been wrong about lots of things here.


    In my best Hal voice:  That is a link to the story he wrote as a fictional fantasy piece, not a link to Bernie Sanders stating that he actually believes that what he wrote reflects a real world fact.


    Nice try. I think you'd do better if you confined your criticisms of me to my actual words. There are plenty of them here. Of course, that would be a lot less fun for you now wouldn't it?


    Look again.  Other than the silliness about your "voice", do you disagree?


    Of course, you didn't actually provide the quote but here it is: "Do you know why the newspaper with the articles like "Girl 12 raped by 14 men" sell so well? To what in us are they appealing?" By no stretch of the imagination can that statement be tortured into an admission by Bernie Sanders that he personally finds such a story appealing, i.e., attractive or pleasing.

    Young Sanders is using the word "appealing" as a verb not an adjective. The subject "they" refers to "the newspaper" and Bernie is asking in what aspect of "us", i.e., the collective human condition (not Bernie personally) is the story designed to interest or reaching out to. The obvious conclusion is a not particularly pleasant aspect.


    I'm not convinced they sell so well. I wouldn't buy one because it had that headline. Would you? "Us" at least implies it includes Sanders. Did he have data or did he just assume pedophilic gang rape stores appeal to "us" because they appeal to him? It seems to me he is saying something in him finds this type of story appealing. Are you claiming that when saying "us" he's saying it doesn't appeal to him but to other people? Do stories like this appeal to you? Who exactly is Sanders saying stories of gang rapes of 12 year old girls appeal to?


    Hal, the only national candidate that you support is Bernie Sanders. Democrats did not choose Sanders as their candidate. Hillary was chosen and Hillary lost. You interpret that as meaning Bernie would have won. You ignore the lack of appeal for Bernie’s in many quarters. Most Democrats feel.Beenie was not a winning candidate. Instead of trying to work with others, you demand that others bend and agree with you. You demand that Democrats accept a list of Bernie’s wishes that you call policies. As I said before, you want a cult of Sanders worshippers. You do not want a coalition. A coalition means there will be disagreements among members of the group on certain issues. You cannot accept that fact.


    I don't believe that Bernie would have beaten Trump because Hillary lost to Trump. I believe that Bernie would have beaten Trump because: 1) he was easily the most popular politician in America in November 2016, 2) every head-to-head poll in the spring before the election showed Bernie doing significantly better against Trump than Hillary was doing, 3) Bernie beat Hillary in two of the key states that decided the election - Wisconsin and Michigan. 4) The factors that analyses show decided the election were Hillary's support for "free trade," the war on Iraq, and other military adventures. Bernie opposes the former and has a decidedly more pro-peace record.


    It is 2018. Bernie was not elected. You need a coalition to get things that you want done accomplished. Your demand that people have to adhere to your purity test is self-defeating.


    You failed to respond to any of my points. I'll respond to yours. Yes we need a coalition to get things done. You have a purity test for your coalition don't you? Well I have one for mine. Our candidates have to have demonstrated they support poor, working, and middle-class Americans when their interests conflict with those of the wealthy. My rationale for why Bernie would have won remains of critical import as we cannot ignore the lessons of history without running the risk of repeating them. So how do you respond to my four specific arguments that Bernie likely would have won. Here they are again RMRD:

    1) Bernie was easily the most popular politician in America in November 2016/ 2) Every head-to-head poll in the spring before the election showed Bernie doing significantly better against Trump than Hillary was doing/ 3) Bernie beat Hillary in two of the key states that decided the election - Wisconsin and Michigan. 4) The factors that analyses show decided the election were Hillary's support for "free trade," the war on Iraq, and other military adventures. Bernie opposes the former and has a decidedly more pro-peace record.

    Sure Bernie might have still lost but on what evidence do you rely to conclude Hillary would have been stronger in the general election when Republicans and independents as well as registered Democrats decided.


    We are in 2018. Bernie lost the primary. Your acceptable Presidential pcandidates are Sanders and maybe Warren. I listed several candidates that I find acceptable.


    AA took a lot of time and thought to help you understand why your responses remind us all of someone scraping their fingernails down a blackboard.  Although you did say, “Thanks,” it is clear that the effort she made was lost on you.  Too bad.  

    Even in this most recent “response” to RMRD, your first two words were, “You failed...”.  That is no way to have anyone heed your comments.  There is no doubt in any objective person’s mind that Bernie would have lost big time.  I have said it before, but THE GUY DIDN’T HAVE POLICIES!  He had wishes and no way to pay for them.  He had goals, but no pathway to achieve them.  He had dreams, but no experience in his many Senate years getting others to back them.  He, like Trump, got crowds riled up.  He like Trump, refused to be transparent about his taxes (and made pathetic excuses — no time, they’re in a file in Vermont and I am in the Vatican, etc).  He, like Trump, had no clue how to make it all come true — but Trump has Congress as well as an audaciousness that he carries out because he knows how to do it — not a good quality, but for all the good that Bernie would have wanted to achieve, Trump has done significantly more harm by obnoxiously appointing a cabinet that wants to destroy its own agency.  Would Bernie have been better than Trump?  Hell, yes, but he never had a chance.

    I almost wish he had also run because then you might find something more productive to write about.


    Confronting the issues at the start of this thread, it struck me that Hal thinks that because he buys into the general idea of "MAGA" as being able to make a majority coalition of all the people that supposedly want the U.S. to start producing stuff again with well-paying jobs jobs jobs. Except his good old days are of LBJ version or whatever.

    I think it's living in the past. He doesn't see how much things are changing, how fast people who want that are going to shrink as far as the electorate is concerned. Overall millennials don't seem to want a world where we are continually making more and more stuff and growing GNP so there are more factory jobs with big labor unions and more garbage to get rid of as we all throw it away and make new stuff so we can have all those factory jobs. They are very into being enterpreneurial on a small scale and heavy into recycling and craft and trading, this is why retail is dying. Individualistic trading, almost like a bazaar, or the old silk road, is what is really really growing.  Death of big retail is not at all due to Amazon alone, though Amazon foresaw that people would want more efficiency.

    Opoid crisis has a lot of those who can't handle the change. The ugly truth: they are killing themselves off and they are not in any condition to hit the streets campaigning for Bernie.

    Pre-emptive: Yeah, I know somebody still has to produce airplanes and heavy machinery....but that doesn't mean we have to go back to the military industrial complex that fed all those well-paying 50's factory jobs. The planet can't take it.


    P.S. You just mentioned on another thread you were into craft, so maybe you know about this already. By happenstance, I just discovered there's this huge new world out there of traders growing by leaps and bounds, takes care of the "shop til you drop" problem totally: when you buy something wrong, just re-sell it. The resale market is huge and growing by leaps and bounds! Wondering what else is next? There's tons of start ups competing, and not just in clothing, either, lots of investors looking for the best ones. One of several meant for resale for downsizing boomers estates, heavily promoted in business news, so that takes care of: getting rid of many of those furniture factories.  It's a very serious and huge trend, showing signs of being bigger than EBay ever was. certainly has noticed. Young people seem to want to trade (and allover the world) on a more human scale and let the robots make the stuff, less stuff. (Of course they still do have to have that have a damn new I-phone every year.wink)


    Thanks, AA for those links.  I am going to save them and spend some time looking at them just for grins, but maybe even to sell some stuff.

    i recently broke my shoulder and the sling that I wore was so uncomfortable that my neck muscles were in constant pain.  I spent most of my time imagining a way to make a better sling.  I used fabric that I had for 10 years, and cut up old items, and sat down to my sewing machine.  In 2 hours I had a prototype that really works.  It avoids the neck altogether and gives better support.  People stopped me to ask where I got it.  Since then I’ve designed some clothes that are easy to get in and out of with a bum shoulder. My daughter has connections in China with factories because her company orders from there.  I’m sitting on it at the moment.  

    But I agree with your point that millennials don’t see factory work as appealing, or even the answer to anything.  They want to be entrepreneurs, and come up with the next big idea.

    Everything you said never got any attention from Hal.  He never even considered any of it; never took it seriously into his brain.  But it’s obvious that you certainly tried.  Enjoyed what you wrote, BTW.


    We actually consume much more stuff now than we did then. Most families have more than one car now. That wasn't the case in the 1950s. Our TVs are larger by an order of magnitude. We have bigger houses and lots more phones. We eat more.

    The problem is that we buy much more that's made overseas than is purchased from there and made here. This has all sorts of demonstrated negative ramifications for our society - especially our working and middle-class. If you want to argue with my positions, why don't you just quote directly from my myriad of posts here and lay out the facts disproving what I wrote.

    If your point is that automation is the problem not off-shoring, okay I agree that greater efficiency leads to job redundancies and we have a duty to address those redundancies. Assuming that this dynamic is causing more job losses now than it did 60+ years ago, then doesn't that make our free trade policies even more insane. I mean why would we compound the job losses resulting from automation with job losses resulting from overseas manufacturing/trade deficits?

    Regarding the problem of lower employment/stagnant working-class wages coupled with an explosion in the 1 percent's income and wealth, doesn't Bernie have the right solutions? Medicare-for-all, tuition-free public colleges and universities, higher top marginal income and estate taxes, and yes an end to the free trade deals would all address this wouldn't they?


    Much of that increased consumption comes from lower prices from trade deals. We can create tariffs to force tv manufacturing back to the US but that will increase the price. We can set the tariffs so it's economical to pay those making tvs minimum wage or raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour and set tariffs at that amount. That would reduce consumption probably across the board since tvs are considered a must buy item. I did a quick google and found that those making automobiles make about $30 an hour. Should we set tariffs to make it economical to pay those making tvs $30? When we look at manufacturing across the board we have to ask ourselves where we should set the tariff to create what level of pay and how much we should lower the standard of living for most of the population with higher prices so that a small minority of the population can get manufacturing jobs.


    I wholeheartedly agree that setting tariffs is an art and a science. I would hope that responsible Presidents would staff the FTC with the right people to engage in this alchemy. I disagree that higher prices of manufactured goods would lead to a significant reduction in the standard of living for most Americans. In fact, with tariffs generating more employment and higher salaries here much more money would be accelerating through the economy rather than exported overseas.


    You continue to ignore what might have happened to Sanders in a general election. Kerry was swiftboated for being a war hero that was awarded several medals. There is quite a bit more than that and more legitimate things in Sanders' background to  tear him down. We can't replay history so neither of us know what would have happened if Sanders had won the primary. It's all opinion on both sides but I and others have produced sufficient evidence to make a convincing case that Sanders would have been destroyed by the republican machine in the general. And that's with just what we know now. Oppo research from the hyper intense scrutiny of a presidential election would likely have found more. It's fine that you disagree with our opinions, we disagree with your opinions, just stop pretending we haven't several times posted reasonable arguments to back up our opinions.


    You're right I do not speculate, as you do, as to how well or poorly Republican attacks on Bernie would have fared. I rely on extant evidence not speculation to support my positions.

    I do note that Hillary's attack dogs were extremely vexed by the fact that every one of their attacks on Bernie seemed to increase his popularity.  See https://www.politico.com/story/2016/01/hillary-clinton-bernie-sanders-he... and https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/clinton-attacks-produce-windfall... and https://shadowproof.com/2016/03/09/hillary-clintons-auto-bailout-smear-o...

    You claim that you have "produced sufficient evidence" to support your contention that Bernie would have been destroyed. Obviously, I disagree.

    What would Trump have attacked Bernie on? Tax returns? I don't think so since Trump didn't release his. Bernie's 45 year old musings in an alternative newspaper about sex? Yeah right. The last thing Trump would want is a comparison of his record with Bernie's when it comes to relationships with women. How about Bernie's Russia connection? He did apparently honeymoon in St. Petersburg. I don't think Trump would likely get any mileage out of that.

    Ultimately, despite being both disliked and distrusted, Trump won because his opponent was also widely disliked and distrusted and because Trump was against "free trade" deals and hadn't been an ardent supporter of all of America's overseas military adventures since 2003. In contrast, Bernie is widely liked and trusted and has a much better record than Trump on trade (e.g., his daughter doesn't have a clothing line stocked with Chinese made apparel) and actually voted against the war on Iraq, I'd say he'd have been in a much better position going into the general election.


    But you do speculate. You pick the most favorable polls and then assume they would be unchanged by the general election fight. That's not a fact. Your opinion that Sanders would have won is based on that assumption.

    Sanders' sexual libertine ideas would be attacked and ridiculed. I find it hard to believe a man who openly stated that reading stories about a 12 year old girl getting raped by twelve men appealed to him could get elected. Or that he things teen girls should have sex and that it would stop breast cancer. Or that he believes that when women have sex with their husband they're fantasizing about being raped by 3 men. Maybe you think it wouldn't work when Trump says, "Sanders likes to read stories about 12 year old girls getting raped and he's attacking me over a little locker room banter. He's a pervert." But I think it would be effective.

    Trump likes to make up insulting nicknames. I think Sex Pervert Sanders would be pretty effective. And Sanders will be asked about it, over and over again. I don't think his nuanced explanation as to why he said reading about 12 year old girls getting raped by 12 men will go over well. Or that nuanced explanation as to why he thinks teen girls should have sex. Or why he thinks women fantasize about getting gang raped while having sex. Nuance doesn't translate well for the general public. But perhaps I'm wrong. Maybe the public will embrace a candidate who is open about his kinky sexual views.

    From everything I know about Sanders and his run on mouth I'm sure there's more stuff out there. The hyper intense scrutiny that comes during a presidential election would surely find it.


    Citing to polls is not speculating. Find me some unfavorable ones if you dislike the ones on which I rely. I have already made very clear why I believe Sanders would have won. The polls are one very strong piece of the puzzle but hardly all of it.  He never wrote that reading about a 12-year old getting raped appealed to him. The fact that you believe he did demonstrates how biased against Sanders you are. The fact that you insisted in the teeth of positive proof to the contrary that Hillary did not violate federal regulations with her private email server demonstrates how biased in her favor you were. I hope that rather than continuing to attempt to undermine my arguments you will take stock of your own views. I guarantee you that I never stop questioning mine.


    Polls taken before the general election begins or of a person who isn't a candidate are meaningless. Both Kerry and Gore had polls that showed them winning. Hillary had polls showing her winning. Polls throughout a general election are volatile and often swing by double digits. What causes you to think Sanders polls would have remained the same when the polls of every other general election candidate showed large swings?

    Sanders wrote that stories about a 12 year old getting raped by 14 men appealed to something in us. What does he mean by us? Us usually means it appealed to him and others. It doesn't appeal to anything in me so I'm not included with Sanders in his "us". Does something in stories about 12 year old girls getting gang raped appeal to you? Are you included with Sanders "us?"

    Do you think it's right for Sanders to encourage teen girls to have sex? I think any suggestion that a candidate encouraged teen girls to have sex would be extremely harmful to his election chances. Do you agree with him that sex can cure breast cancer? Sanders believes that when women have sex with their husbands they fantasize about being gang raped. Do you think that when you've had consensual sex with a lover she was fantasizing about getting gang raped by three men?

    Why do you think stories of Sanders sexually deviant views on FOX and other conservative news out lets won't hurt him? Even a defense of Sanders on liberal media sites will only cement the idea with some voters that Sanders has sexually deviant views.


    "Bernie Why Do You Want Little Babies to Die?"

    The Depravity of Single Payer: 

    Since a single-payer system causes people to die, it is ironic that a politician like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) wants the U.S. health care system to emulate Britain.... we need to ask Senator Sanders, why does he want people to die?

    VP Pence, July, 2017:

    Pence warned (baby Gard parents) will be “submitted to a government program that says, ‘no, we’re going to remove life support from your precious 11-month-old child’ because the government has decided that the prospects of their life are such that they no longer warrant an investment in health services.”

    “We hope and pray that little Charlie Gard gets every chance, but the American people oughta reflect on the fact that for all the talk on the left about single-payer, that’s where it takes us,” the vice president said.


    Add this to OKats rape ads, and imagine the Koch Bros and anonymous plutocrats spending hundreds of millions saturating TeeVee with 30 second spots on this for weeks before the election.


    There are questions about Jane's college problems (aka FBI investigation) and Bernie's campaign getting help from (at least?) Russian bots during the primaries, etc. (?) ... of course, he would have won before most of  (significance of) it surfaced.  Wonder where we'd be now (Congressional investigations?).


    Who needs Koch? Rbrn.com 6-26-17: Bernie Sanders' Daughter Got Paid $500,000 to Teach Woodworking at His Wife's Bankrupt College in Vermont...He is up for Re-election next year 

    It's so inspiring how Bernie is just like us. My wife also recently got 10 million from a bank and we used it to renovate our three houses too!

    Socialism 101

    Imagine how the left would feel if Bernie lost next year. Unlikely but one can imagine

    Seize the means of wood production.

    complete with photoshopped illustration of the Sanders family and a wood sculpture.

    there' plenty of other cards that could be played against Bernie that couldn't be used on Hillary, like being Jewish, but I won't go there. Could be a popular meme in places like Missouri, though, just sayin'


    Gees, that's all you got, NCD?! Disappointed in you! cheeky

    From FreeRepublic.com, posted on 1/1/2016, 12:53:48 PM by McGruff  on thread titled "Bernie Sanders May Be Taking More Rides on Private Planes (Carbon footprint? What carbon footprint?)

    Oh and took 2 seconds to find this one

    Guess Which Presidential Candidate Once Wrote “A Woman Fantasizes Being Gang Raped”?

    @ PatriotsandPolitics.com, June, 2015

    While making an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Democratic Presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) defended an essay he wrote for an alternative publication in 1972. In the essay, Sanders writes about a woman fantasizing about being raped by three men.

    While some in the Sanders camp called the essay satire, Sanders himself dismissed it as, “A piece of fiction I wrote in 1972, I think. That was 43 years ago. It was very poorly written. And if you read it, what it was dealing with was gender stereotypes. Why some men like to oppress women, why other women like to be submissive. Something like ‘Fifty Shades of Grey.’ Very poorly written 40 years ago.”

    According to NPR, the particular passage causing the controversy reads: [.....]

    Tons more at google images here, including lots of snapshots of the original Vermont Freeman pages 


    For more Commie Bernie pix, here, there's a ton of different kinds.

    Here's a T-shirt from PolitiChicks.com:

    Picture host source: Boudica 2015 blog: Bernie Sanders Socialism and Communism

    Another, you can buy this one for $23.99 @ LibertyManiacs.com

     

     


    Yeah this would have gone a long way.


    I think the socialism angle would have been bigger than the rape and teen sex articles though they would have played both cards. Once the hundreds of thousands of dollars to millions spent on oppo research on Sanders' trips to Cuba, Nicaragua, and the Soviet Union something would have been found. The guy is know for bellowing he surely bellowed something damaging while he was there.

    What's funny about all this is the polls said Hillary would beat Trump. The same pollsters taking polls at the same time said Sanders would beat Trump. Why would anyone put faith in one when the other was wrong? Election polls can be informative but are almost never probative.


    I do too and I think it would hurt a lot, that has a lot more damage power on the electoral college count level than mistrust of "it takes a village Hillary", just mho.

    People quickly began to forgive youthful marijuana use when everyone thought it would forever be a candidate killer. I think most boomers would similarly shrug now about youthful porn-like fiction writing, if he explained it the right way.

    But the socialist/commie label sticking more with a little more effort, I think that still could be a real killer running for the presidency, do a lot of damage.  It's one thing for him to be popular right now with the sane anti-Trump 2/3 of the country as the idiosyncratic Independent Senator from VT, it's quite another thing when running for president. Voters thinking: hmmm, what's okay for famously wacky Vermont might not be okay for all the rest of us. And I think this would strike very hard at  the heart of exactly the coalition that Hal proposes he can capture: "working class white" Reagan Dems hate "socialism." They hate "welfare"! That's why then turned from voting for Dems to voting for Reagan in the first place! Every Teamster probably takes an oath to beat up socialists. As do many god-fearing evangelicals, as do conservative Catholics.... (Comes to mind: Ronnie was once the famous spokesman for "be afraid, be very afraid, of socialized medicine")


    I don't think any of this would cause voters to abandon Sanders in droves but it wouldn't need to. It just needs to move the needle a bit with enough people. When Comey announced he was reopening the email investigation eleven days before the election people didn't abandon Hillary in droves but both Ezra Klein and Nate Silver, both who are very good analysts, claim that if he hadn't Hillary would have won.


    I feel more strongly than you do about the effect of the socialist thing. When he really started talking and when challenged by a GOP candidate, he could scare a lot of exactly the type of swing voters Hal is figuring he could get.in order to win.  I.E., There's plenty out there that wouldn't like turning the college system upside down right after you turn the health care system upside down and install a much higher tax rate on this that and the other entity that supposedly needs to pay more or is to be considered bad for society. All you'd need is a Romney type skill level to raise all kinds of doubts, you wouldn't need a genius.


    You could be right. Landslides do happen and Sanders could have gone down in flames. Look at what happened to McGovern.


    Those statements would have backfired spectacularly. Most Americans want single-payer and they know the Brits have it better than we do.


    You run this line constantly. One can find a few polls where a small majority claims they support single payer. They might claim that in the abstract while not clearly knowing what it will mean, but when it is threshed out in public and it is pointed out that single pay means that those with employer based health care will lose their insurance and everybody, including them, will be put on a government plan views on single payer will sink like a stone.

    That can't be proven until we have that public debate but I think this is so obvious that it can't be denied by anyone with even the slightest understanding of public opinion. Yet you continue to hold tight to your meaningless poll results with it's flawed question. Find me one poll that asks this question or something similar.

    Sanders single payer health care plan will end employer based insurance for all people and enroll everyone in a government run plan. Would you support this single payer plan?


    Okay, Hal, what does "Astounding," "loony," "accurate." mean?  I wrote "astounding", AA wrote "loony" ... I guess you're authoring "accurate"?  I'm not being rude here, I'm not beating up on you.  I'm disagreeing - as many of us are in our own ways.  You invite disagreement - so what gives?


    So let's discuss your prescription for winning. 

    1) "Support public education" over charter schools.

    2) "Defend the rights of working people" and oppose right to work which he calls a "bad idea pushed by corporations to lower wages."

    He also lists opposition to "cuts to health care and senior services" and attracting "more jobs to Missouri" as priorities. In order to win, Democrats must adopt strong support for economic justice, i.e., pro-union, anti-trade, pro-Medicare-for-all, as a litmus test.

      

    In the order of appearance

    o support public education.  What we used to call a  "Motherhood and God" policy. Let's move on.

    o over charter schools.Always? How to deal with cases where  blacks are underserved because of the racism of the  (liberal ) educational system hierarchy?  

    o  "Defend the rights etc." Mh & G                                                                                                                                               o   oppose right to work. Why? Don't the RTW laws sometimes equip Joe Lunchpail with tools with which to resist  corrupt unions? They exist. At one point I was involved in organizing  a group of labor leaders in a very anti union town. One of  the most effective and inspiring of whom  was the  President of the local Teamsters. "Inspiring" because he  took the position when vacant when his predecessor  occupant  was dredged up from the bottom of the Ohio.  . With his feet in concrete. 

    In fact , personally I  agree  but do all the Dagbpoggers. . A far useful  topic  than the tired old  Hillary and the emails.

    o opposition to cuts to health care and senior services  Mh&G

    o strong support for eonomic etc  Mh&G  

    o anti trade.Yes , important. But too important to be reduced to a slogan.Should we become another  UK clinging to dying industries while the  professions with a future are growing elsewhere?

    Take this negative tirade cum granum saltum. We should be discussing these issues On maybe rejecting my suggestion Serve me right!.

    You're  on the right track but we all have to guard against the temptation   to slip into a comfy chair and enjoy one more rerun of the 2016 Follies.

    Cheers

     

     

     

     

      .


    Wrap up:

    1) Spirited yes, but I thought there was a lot of worthwhile back and forth here.

    2) In rereading one of my comments above, I was aghast at my claim that President Obama did not run as an economic populist. He absolutely did - especially in 2008. He criticized the trade deals. His health care proposal did not include the individual mandate. He spoke about stagnant middle class wages and the need for a living wage. He ran a very smart focused campaign that included recognizing the economic harm to non-elites caused by neoliberalism and he won.

    3) I concede that some of Bernie's youthful scribblings probably would have caused him agita on the campaign trail if he had been the Democratic nominee. I do not believe they would have cost him the election.

    4) I agree with those here who decry the seemingly endless regurgitation of Bernie v Hillary. Since I am as responsible for this dynamic as anybody, I promise to do my utmost not to rehash the history. I do not promise, of course, to ignore post-election news about these figures.