dagblog - Comments for "Who Is the Hillary Voter?"

Sanders problem with blacks

rmrd0000 — Mon, 21 Mar 2016 15:47:14 +0000

In reply to Each group is distinct. Thus

Sanders problem with blacks is a problem Sanders created. He never reached out.He cannot deliver on his promises, You cannot come to terms with the fact that it was Sanders who never attempted to reach out directly to the black community. You see the problem as a result of flaws in black voters, not with how Sanders behaved.

Edit to add

Most black people are not poor. Most black people do not live in ghettos

Sanders transmits that he has no understanding of black life

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/bernie-sanders-black-people_us_56ddb...

Each group is distinct. Thus

HSG — Mon, 21 Mar 2016 15:28:35 +0000

In reply to Hal believes that blacks are

Each group is distinct. Thus, one group of Clinton supporters is affluent. Another group is women. A third is Democrats of color. Of course, there is some overlap but there are many distinctions between the discrete groups as well. I apologize for the admittedly somewhat confusing nature of my post.

Hal believes that blacks are

rmrd0000 — Mon, 21 Mar 2016 15:07:29 +0000

In reply to Your claims about what I

Hal believes that blacks are comfortable (This is where I address you) This was based on your statement

I will do my best to answer the question of who I think Clinton's supporters are. They are seniors, they are Americans of color, they are upper middle-class, they are well-educated, they are reasonably to very successful professionals.

.......These groups are supporting her for several different reasons. The Democratic insiders, affluent, and near-affluent (including many retired seniors) are satisfied with life as it is and fear any disruptive change (including those championed by Bernie Sanders) could impair their pleasant lifestyle.

Followed by

Americans of color support Clinton for a myriad of reasons including those set forth above

Your claims about what I

HSG — Mon, 21 Mar 2016 14:31:30 +0000

In reply to Hal cannot grasp the fact

Your claims about what I believe are false. You do not know what I believe except based on what I write and your assumptions are not justified by my writings. If you disagree with something I have written, you are free to quote me and then explain why I am wrong as I do when I dispute claims here.

I'm supporting Hillary

Ramona — Mon, 21 Mar 2016 12:18:54 +0000

In reply to Who Is the Hillary Voter?

I'm supporting Hillary because I believe of all the candidates she'll make the best president. I've outlined my reasons many times but that's the bottom line. She'll make the best president. Yes, I like the idea of our first woman president, but it's her background and experience that caps it for me. She's by far the most qualified.

Will she do everything I want her to do? If she were my own personal president it would be guaranteed, but that's not how the presidency works. Will she never make a gaffe or a mistake or a deliberate decision that will send me into a rage? Again, that's not how the presidency works. The highest office in the land will still be held by a human being given to the same flaws and weaknesses we're all guilty of.

I'm finding as I go through this campaign season that I don't want an outright revolution. I want a return to sanity. I want us all to calm down, to choose leaders who will actually lead in the direction that will benefit us most, to be patient in our expectations.

Hillary is not promising the moon and to me that's a good thing. She understands the workings of the government better than any other candidate out there. She has worked with social groups and non-profits long enough to know the gears turn slowly and it takes finesse and nuance to get the job done. She knows Wall Street well enough to work with the best of them to kill the lead of the 1% and get us back to an economy we can all live with. She is the only candidate out there who has any experience with foreign policy. And she knows the rascals in the Republican party so well she'll be one step ahead of them when they come after her. There isn't anything they can do that she won't be able to anticipate.

That's why.

Hal cannot grasp the fact

rmrd0000 — Mon, 21 Mar 2016 12:09:49 +0000

In reply to ...The Democratic insiders,

Hal cannot grasp the fact that Sanders did not consider African-American concerns until he needed votes and was forced to address the issue of racism directly. Before the confrontation, Sanders told blacks that his eco mic policies would address the issues of the black community. Sanders was tone-deaf. After suggesting a Primary challenge to Obama, Sanders chose Cornel Westvas a spokesman. Sanders had never spent time in the black community and had no idea how West would be viewed as a man who repeatedly attacks President Obama because West did not get tickets to the Inuaguration. He also failed to realize West attempted to destroy the academic career of Melissa Harris-Perry. West is despised by a huge chunk of black voters both male and female.When a person who ignored the issues of the black community comes asking for voted and produced Cornel West as his spokesman, it was predictable that it would not result in the majority of black voters siding with Sanders.

Hal believes that older black voters are comfortable. He seems to have missed the housing crisis. Blacks realize that Sanders can't deliver single-payer health care or free college education. Why would blacks trust any promise made by Sanders.Hal cannot address the failure of Bernie Sanders' appeals to the black community.

Sanders surrogate Cornel West is heavy on rhetoric with no real impact on the lives of black people compared to say Al Sharpton or John Lewis. In similar fashion, Sanders has rhetoric with no rational plan.

Yeah, you'd think it'd be

PeraclesPlease — Mon, 21 Mar 2016 09:57:59 +0000

In reply to I agree with much of this. re

Yeah, you'd think it'd be easy to accept that for example the LIBOR rate scamming and mortgage robosigning are predatory, but on the whole, banks & business & investors are needed and important to our system's success.

Much of our advantage over Europe is easy credit, easy access to venture capital, and easy bankruptcy terms to try, fail and start over.

There is no success in America being anti-business, and there's not going to be a massive revolution against all the financial, agro, industrial, telcos, energy, military and whatever other interests. There can be some better oversight and basic laws, but that's about as far as it goes.

And some of the issues we're supposedly fighting are questionable. Do fracking's dangers really override its massive benefits? Are questions about genetically modified foods worth abandoning their help for world hunger and low food prices? Are the gains in Bernie's single payer approach worth the hard battle vs. another path? If creating more manufacturing jobs (which we're doing slowly) and higher wages requires larger amounts of exports, how do we do that with trade protectionism and shunning trade deals? Are we really able to phase out fossil fuels in 10 years without huge shocks, vs the calmer 35-60 year goal?

You tore me a new asshole on vaccines once, and while I remain skeptical about reporting on side-effects (& know that the original autism report was a fraud), I agree the massive decline in worldwide deaths thanks to vaccines isn't something to lightly toss away with a "but thimerosol might have some effect" non-scientific speculation. It's a major human success, more important than getting to the moon, and while we might improve efficacy and side-effects and failures (thimerosol and swine flu), these are tweaks, not wholesale change, though there's likely a new revolution in medicine and genetics and new models of pathology that will make all this seem quite primitive.

The youth thing seems to me largely understanding incrementalism, not leaps of faith. Oddly to me, I see young professionals involved in Agile programming and cloud computing and new designs-for-success - lean, optimized, fast-chaining results and cramming schedules. These techniques don't skip process - they advance it. Same in politics, where it's often ignored. There's a nice book called The Phoenix Project that deals with software optimization in the business much as manufacturing would be optimized before. It's novelish, so a bit unrealistic, but by aligning processes across the organization, including suppliers and customers, in non-intuitive ways, you can greatly improve productivity and output and predictability and reduce mishaps. At some point we'll manage this in government as well, though it takes time - even digitized medical records has proven problematic over 20 years.

At some point I predict we'll be able to reduce the size of government while greatly increasing effectiveness - and there will be people right there complaining that we're destroying livelihoods and ruining democracy. There will never be the leisure to examine these issues objectively without a lot of pressure from existing interests and activities and people who depend on the old system.

I agree with much of this. re

ocean-kat — Mon, 21 Mar 2016 07:29:40 +0000

In reply to There's certainly path

I agree with much of this. re: Sanders, intellectual depth and nuance. There's been a thing that's been gnawing at me and for a while I wasn't sure what it was. When he broke on the scene I didn't know much about him. I don't have time to follow the career of every politician in Washington and I'll never vote in a Vermont election. Unless an out of my home state senator gains prominence by leading and speaking out on some national issue I know little about them. As I read about him I liked him a lot on most issues. But as the debates rolled on I liked him less and less and I wasn't sure why.

It crystallized for me in one debate during a long back and forth about Wall Street. Finally Sanders blurted out, "The business model of Wall Street is fraud!" I thought at that moment, That's just not true, and, He really believes it. Fraud exists, lies and manipulation on Wall Street and the banks around the world. It's a constant drain on the economy and harmful to the populace. When it gets out of hand it can be devastating to the economy. But banks also provide valuable services and most of the time they do it quite honorably, from a hard nosed business perspective. I realized that Sanders has many black/white views, a good and evil view of the world. And I don't. The world is just more complex than that. I don't think his lack of nuance is simplification for votes. I think he truly believes it.

There's certainly path

PeraclesPlease — Mon, 21 Mar 2016 06:28:10 +0000

In reply to How ever the tide rolls

There's certainly path dependency involved. If Hillary had been her own candidate in the 70's and 80's, her stance and experience would have been different, but supporting Bill closed certain doors and opened others. Considering the fate of McGovern, that's probably good, though she doubtfully was a McGovern copy. Being Senator out of New York produced a different CV and network than Senator of Illinois or Senator of Arkansas. Being Secretary of State required adapting to Obama's roadmap, so a Hillary 2009 presidency would have been quite different than a Hillary 2017. Of course you can try to buck your CV, but that's pretty hard to do - especially for Hillary. Look at the TPP flap or that statement about Sarajevo. To some extent if elected she'll have more freedom to choose her battles, but 1) it seems the White House can't tilt at too many windmills before it loses momentum, and 2) key focus is often determined externally, whether some crisis or demanding stakeholder or...

I don't equate Sanders' lack of nuance with lack of intellectual depth. Voters often aren't swayed by nuance - I think it says more about their comfort with Clinton & how long she's been around that she's still pitching nuance and it's working this time. 2008 was also a "revolution" election, and pointing out the improbable details went nowhere. Not completely - she did roughly tie, but in that case tie went to the underdog. Possibly would have this time as well - there have been naysayers and spinners ever since June, waiting on indictments, predicting the collapse, analyzing every misstep as if it was a hole in the Titanic. Even overwhelming leads with superdelegates and the South and unions are often dismissed as unfair and irrelevant. Ironically, even inroads she's made with black voters is dismissed as being too much identity politics. Who would guess that too much diversity would be a problem - for a Clinton.

The Youth vote...

...The Democratic insiders,

PeraclesPlease — Mon, 21 Mar 2016 05:53:51 +0000

In reply to Thanks for asking PP. I will

...The Democratic insiders, affluent, and near-affluent (including many retired seniors) are satisfied with life as it is and fear any disruptive change (including those championed by Bernie Sanders) could impair their pleasant lifestyle...

Most, if not all of her supporters, are for good reason very afraid of Donald Trump (and to a lesser extent the other Republican candidates). They believe Clinton would do better in the general election than Bernie. ... Clinton has been unfairly villified for so long that her supporters have tended to tune out all criticism of her even when such criticism may well be justified.

Americans of color support Clinton for a myriad of reasons including those set forth above. ... both Clintons showed respect and courtesy to African-American voters. Bill appointed many blacks to powerful and influential positions. ...Sanders is not well-known in the south and has very few minority constituents. Sanders was on the wrong side of two important gun control votes. Understandably, Americans of color have a particular fear of Trump and many believe that Clinton will be stronger in the general election.

...I believe there are some less positive reasons than those listed here that some support her but I have set those out before.

Let's break down your response. Clinton supporters have a pampered rich lifestyle they're afraid of losing and are supporting her out of fear (3x + 1 implied), hoping she's more electable than Trump, the Clintons have given out favors and respect to African-American voters, plus some less savory (than fear and blatant patronage) reasons. Plus a couple gun votes & women's identity/1st female prez + don't know Bernie well enough.

Maybe you don't realize how much your attitudes drip with contempt. You don't actually name a single positive reason supporters have for voting for Hillary - how she would govern, what issues are important to them (aside from comfortable lifestyle, guns and spoiled patronage), or the style of governing.

Note that all of this is given from the perspective of a Bernie supporter, not an attempt at understanding and expressing what Hillary supporters think.

Even with first female president, I think supporters expect her to push or be attuned to more rights and issues that affect women, rather than simply being some checkbox in presidential ascendancy.

As for fear, I don't think Hillary supporters are terribly afraid or have that as a prime motivator, nor do they think the electability issue is even in doubt.

And I think black voters are hoping for better representation and advocacy in racial and economic issues, with the usual jobs, health, education, national security, opportunity. And I'd guess black female voters have an enormous amount to gain from a president that listens harder to women's and family issues (from pregnancy/birth/infancy to raising & educating children to safety & security in communities, to health issues that especially affect the less affluent and the elderly, along with retirement and women living alone).