2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumHow is Hillary any different than Bernie in getting legislation passed?
When someone asks how Bernie is going to pass legislation once elected, I have to ask the same thing about Hillary.
One can argue that Bernie has fewer foes in Congress.
Skwmom
(12,685 posts)She is soooo bipartisany.
NCTraveler
(30,481 posts)and this question even needs to be asked, is the answer in itself.
"One can argue that Bernie has fewer foes in Congress."
Not successfully they can't.
merrily
(45,251 posts)NCTraveler
(30,481 posts)merrily
(45,251 posts)Holding office is not the be all and end all of being a politician, although she has done that and aspired to do that for a long time too.
pandr32
(11,548 posts)And one that needs to be made often. Sanders has a so-so record for someone who has been in Congress as long as he has and has very few fellow members of Congress (can count them on a couple of fingers) supporting him.
ViseGrip
(3,133 posts)This has been written about, that Sanders has the most experience here of anyone running!
snoringvoter
(178 posts)Bjorn Against
(12,041 posts)I can't tell you how she will get good legislation that actually benefits the people passed, but she has shown in the past that she is willing to stand with Republicans to pass bad legislation.
merrily
(45,251 posts)that a Democratic President would try to get through Congress as Obama got ACA through Congress.
merrily
(45,251 posts)While a Senator, Hillary had zero success working with Republicans to get bills she wrote passed, except for strictly ceremonial bills, such as re-naming a post office, remembering Harriet Tubman's birthday and remembering the anniversary of the American Revolution. She could not even get her two unconstitutional flag desecration bills passed. (For that matter, she could not even get Billarycare through a Democratic Congress when her husband was head of the Democratic Party.)
Since then, she has been gratuitously disrespectful to Republicans, calling them the enemy of which she is most proud and acting a certain way during the Benghazi hearings.
Contradistinctively, Bernie and McCain worked on a veterans' bill that passed. The Brookings Institute made a case study in working across the aisle. http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/07/how-bernie-sanders-fought-for-our-veterans-119708 Bernie also managed to get a number of substantive amendments passed. The most important of his amendments may have been $11 billion in health care passed as an amendment to the ACA
See also, http://www.nationaljournal.com/s/71225/bernie-sanders-is-loud-stubborn-socialist-republicans-like-him-anyway
retrowire
(10,345 posts)merrily
(45,251 posts)livetohike
(22,118 posts)he is hard to work with. Like it or not, Hillary has many in Congress on her side.
merrily
(45,251 posts)The law has been laid down to Democratic politicians about endorsing Hillary. Some of the few who have dared to buck it have revealed that, as if the near unanimity itself and DWS's conflict of interest were not alone a huge clue.
azmom
(5,208 posts)She even said so during one of the debates.
Motown_Johnny
(22,308 posts)Hillary will just end up doing what Republicans want and calling it "finding common ground".
I would rather have a liberal who won't pull that crap than a "moderate" who does.
Samantha
(9,314 posts)I know she once mentioned in an interview on Social Security, "Well, we could raise the retirement age." When she was asked in another interview if she would consider running with a Republican as Vice President, she paused for a moment and said, "I can think of a couple I could work with." (Paraphrasing in both quotes). When I heard that I wondered if she would consider appointing a Republican to the Supreme Court if she would consider running with one as her Vice President ....
Sam
Gregorian
(23,867 posts)And it makes sense considering many of the replies in this thread. She is willing to reach too far to compromise with the other side. That appears to be a good thing, on face value, had we not given away the entire store over the last 35 years.