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always worth reading - Josh Marshall's take on things - his debate wrap from tonight
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/a-quick-take-on-tonight-s-debate"I think we have two basic questions coming out of this debate - vision for the Democratic party and electability. Nor are these questions distinct. The issue of electability goes to the heart of the vision for the party, since it goes to the root of questions about pragmatism, risk aversion, settling for half or quarter loaves or ending up with nothing. After several of these encounters - after last night and tonight - these basic questions, dividing points seem very clear and well illustrated."
In terms of the debate itself, the first segment was very hot. In part, the pressure of the campaign is boiling over in the exchanges between the two. Campaigns involves hundreds or millions of people, with each candidate as a fulcrum for the directives, hopes, antipathies, aspirations of so many people. The intensity of emotion, pressure, the stakes can be overwhelming. And you could see some of that coming out this evening.
That said, I also think the Clinton camp made a decision to shake things up, to push Sen. Sanders maybe more than he's used to being pushed. It got intense and kind of personal. But after that first segment both Sanders and Clinton seemed to step back from the tone and budding climate of acrimony. In the remaining segments it was much more similar to the earlier debates.
As I said at the outset, Sanders has the virtue of coherence, a tightly argued, interlocking set of critiques and explanations of what is wrong, how the different parts fit together and what he believes needs to change. There's very little of that with Clinton. It's more of a barrage: I'm going to do my best to improve things on each front. I'm also going to protect our gains.
snip
read the rest, it is interesting.
I am curious about this comment he posted earlier
"10:29 PM: I will put my cards on the table. I think Sanders would be cut to pieces in a general election. I think he's great. I'd support him like crazy if he were nominated. But I think he'd be cut to pieces."
98 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
Since Reagan was elected in 1980, and he started union busting, things really started to go downhill.Trickle-down economics, blather from Milton Friedman and the Chicago School. Utter contempt for Jimmy Carter because of the secret deal on releasing the Iran hostages until Reagan was inaugurated, which was blamed on Jimmy Carter. Carter was a brilliant and decent man.
Since then it's been downhill. More of the same with Poppy Bush, who was still fairly moderate. Then we got a moderate Republican named Bill Clinton. The economy improved some, but I remember looking for jobs in the late 90s and having problems. Then we got Shrub selected by the SCROTUS, not elected. Things were a disaster, we were the laughing stock of the world, but it was unpatriotic to criticize the President.
Then we got 7 years of Obama, who is moderate, and got a lot of things accomplished in spite of having a Congress that hated his guts and stonewalled just about everything he did. We thought he was a liberal just like we thought Bill Clinton was a liberal. Wrong. The one thing he did that affected my life was that I was able to get health insurance because of the prohibition of using pre-existing conditions to deny health insurance. I had not had health insurance in ten years. I wish we had universal single-payer with the insurance companies completely out of the picture, but that didn't happen.
Since Obama was elected twice, by huge margins, the racism seething in the U.S. has gotten open and ugly. The same accusations hurled at Bill Clinton were also hurled at Obama, plus some more like the birther issue (HELLO! Hawaii was a state when Obama was born there. Hawaii is STILL a state, NOT a territory). The bigots have not learned a damned thing since the Civil War started 150 years ago. No, Texas CANNOT secede from the Union. That didn't work out the last time.
I think with Bernie telling the truth about money in politics, maybe people are starting to wake up. I saw the downhill slide start back in 1980. My dad got to the point where every time he saw Reagan on TV he wanted to spit.
A lot of Baby Boomers have just wasted the majority of their working lives not getting jobs, not getting raises, not making enough money, even though we were the best-educated generation in history because college was affordable before student debt and tuition became ridiculously high. I finished my graduate degree thirty years ago, just before tuition went sky-high. It was creeping up, but I was still able to make enough money at work to pay for night school. I had degrees from two expensive private schools (a bachelor's and a doctorate) that didn't impress anyone enough to offer me a job.
I hope Bernie can snag independents and people who don't vote and we can have an actual Democrat instead of a triangulator and a corporate shill in the White House. Bernie is a New Deal Democrat. Nobody who is of voting age has ever seen one, unless they're about 80 years old.
reads.
Didn't seem to be looking for a well thought out debate 
. All I can do is vote for my candidate, arguing in here will not change anyone's minds.
Let's remember that there have been relatively few attacks on Sen. Sanders by Repubs thusfar. But you can bet all those millions their superpacs have raised will be brought full force against him. Being called (wrongly. of course) a "Communist" certainly doesn't resonate the way it did back in the fifties, but it's still enough to scare people...and the fear factor has already gone a long way this year--look at The Donald if one doesn't believe me. They have unloaded on Hillary for over twenty-three years now, and they haven't scratched yet.
Bernie Sanders is a good, decent--and usually, very correct--man, but he may well end up being the early 21st Century's version of George McGovern. And THAT would cost the Party's candidates down-ticket enormously..including here in North Carolina, where we really want to kick our spineless Republican governor out of office.
yep! Here we go again!
From the Article:
Bernie Sanders is the kind of people I come from. I like the guy a lot. I could explain the various ways. Some negatives and positives. As I said during the debates, I think he'd be cut to pieces in a general election. As a general matter, I think Democrats underestimate the structural challenges to winning the 2016 election with any candidate. And the damage Sen. Clinton has sustained to perceptions of her trustworthiness is a big, big deal in political terms - though I think many Democrats are dishonest with themselves not recognizing the concerted campaign from the right that is behind much of it.
I remember reading Josh was a young reporter before he even started "Talking Points Memo." He was full of fire and idealism. When he founded "TPM" it originally was focused on Political Investigative journalism. He had a "Muckraker" feature which featured corruption in Government. I think his caption was "You find Muck and We Have Rakes" (something like that). He even asked for tips from those who felt they had corruption to expose that TPM could investigate.
Through the years his site changed its emphasis. He got married had children and his site became more "establishment journalism." My feeling from all my years reading "TPM" is that Josh identifies with Bernie because he grew up with very little and they have their Jewish background in common--although Josh's mother was not Jewish and Josh, himself, often said he was not particularly religious. His mother died in a tragic car accident when he was very young and his father had different jobs, etc. Josh talked about his growing up experience a lot on "TPM" in the early days and always seemed surprised at what he had achieved. But, he also realizes (through his own experience) that being "radical" doesn't always work out so well when one has to find a place in the "establishment," and being an "investigative journalist" in the current times wasn't going to put food on the Marshall's table or support his kids going forward.
As to Bernie's being "Cut to Pieces:" it stands to reason, that since Bernie has never changed his lifestyle, outgrown his idealism or his basic Democratic Socialist's beliefs, that the Media, Corporate, Military Industrial Complex will not tolerate someone like Bernie to be elected President because they couldn't contol him. And, we can already see this with his lack of endorsements from his fellow Democrats in House and Senate and the Labor Unions, Newspapers and all the others who have endorsed Hillary even before the first Primary. He's already had his first cuts...and they will keep coming.
Sorry to rant on, but just my impression from the years of reading "TPM" and being there from the beginning. I haven't read Josh as much in the past couple of years because he became too "establishment" for me. :-D but, that doesn't mean that I don't appreciate his writing, keen insight about politics and his basic populist leanings which I think he still has ...buried in there, deeply.
