Bernie's plan to beat Hillary...not really much of a plan after all

[Sheepshank]

So I didn't go into this interview with Bernie Sanders's "brain trust" by Bloomberg News's John Heilemann thinking to myself, Aha! Now we'll finally learn details of how Sanders thinks he can win. This was despite the headline promising essentially that: "The Sanders Brain Trust's Plan to Beat Hillary Clinton."

What's outlined in the interview is a strategy that can be summarized as follows: Don't be afraid to get dirty, emphasize Clinton's policy flips, leverage Sanders's small-donor advantage. There are some other points, which we'll get to, but that's the big picture. Team Sanders would like Heilemann (and Bloomberg readers) to come away thinking they've got a good shot at the ring. (The most-picked-up line from the interview is an awfully presumptuous — however joking — assertion that Clinton would "make a great vice president.&quot

But if the plan is close to what's articulated, it must be very, very early in the process — because it hasn't done much.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/10/28/bernie-sanderss-plan-to-win-must-be-in-its-very-very-early-stages/

And it's not for lack of trying on the part of the Bernie Supporters her on DU.....they are following the plan to the letter. it just isn't a great plan because it's simply not working.

And this plan and it's liklehood for success, seems to be in line with all of the other policy plans I've seen.

[frylock]

1. Maybe he could get some vapid pop star to sing at a rally or something.

that'll bring in the votes.

[Sheepshank]

3. you mean like the has been Belinda Carlisle?

you must be so proud of Bernie. I wonder which one would bring in more votes?

But let me get off the stupid sarcasm boat.....Frankly I can match you vapid entertainer endorsements 1:1. Not sure why you are wanting to go with that arguement?

[frylock]

7. Belinda Carlisle is one of the founders of the west coast punk scene..

she has cred.

[NurseJackie]

8. I know why.

Because Bernie followers see the same poll results that Hillary supporters see. They're frustrated, worried and angry. It's a substance-free knee-jerk response to attack anything ANYTHING at all. (Just wait until she wears something red. I can hear it now. "See? Red? That's the color of the Republicans.&quot

[RobertEarl]

12. Bernie supporters are frustrated

But the Hillary people are scared. Now we see the media circling the wagons around Hillary, because the revolution is coming on and the media hates Bernie. Bernie promises to upset the M$M profit schemes by not providing them much revenue in the TV and newsprint ad streams. Hillary, tho, is their cash cow.

Your downright ill comment presupposing that we talk about the color of her dress is just ridiculous and disrespectful of a great many people who want what's best for the country.

[NurseJackie]

23. Her poll numbers and endorsements invigorate me. I'm more confident than ever.

Recalling all the absurd critiques about the "red-arrow-logo" being a subliminal indication that Hillary is really a Republican because the arrow was (gasp) RED! and because it pointed to the (horrors) RIGHT, it seems that that the great many people you're defending still have a lot of work to to do before they can live up to your high expectations of them.

You strike me as being an intelligent fellow, RobertEarl, and it's difficult for me to imagine that anyone with your high IQ could be so personally taken aback by my needling the Bernie supporters who fall back on trivial criticisms of Hillary. You and I both know it's true. It's not the end of the world, for me or for you. It's all rather amusing. Amusing to me that they do it, and amusing to point it out. The self-righteous finger-wagging is just an added bonus.

I'm constantly amazed (and sometimes amused) at how so many of Bernie's followers are convinced that there's some sort of grand conspiracy against him. For those people, it's inconceivable that any criticisms could possibly be valid. Blaming it on the media ("M$M" seriously, with a dollar-sign?) is just a way to deflect and to avoid having to confront Bernie's apparent weaknesses, and to more easily deny that his campaign isn't performing to everyone's expectations. (Besides, aren't those Ted Cruz's and Chris Christie's evasive talking points?)

[Florencenj2point0]

53. Why would Hillary people be scared?

I think it is three polls now saying she is about 40 points ahead if Bernie and gaining. He has peaked and will probably start sliding. Eventually the media is going to get tired of propping him up. Hillary may mean big money to the media but that doesn't mean they are writing positive stories about her. They just write about her. In fact since media is all owned by conservative corporations it makes no sense to claim they do anything but trash her in general.

[Metric System]

20. Hey now, Belinda's son James Duke Mason, a gay rights advocate, is a huge Hillary supporter:

"Happy Birthday to my hero whom I've supported since 2006 when I was 14, the 45th U.S. President @HillaryClinton"

https://twitter.com/JamesDukeMason/status/658722046189285376

[Sheepshank]

22. Everyone has history or background...that's why I didn't want to go this route

...and start comparing what that poster called "vapid" entertainers. Truly, deingrading a person because they are entertainers was not a brilliant way to counter the OP anyway.

[Yavin4]

44. Belinda has an adult son??!?!?!

I'm so old.

[Blue_Adept]

6. That's hilarious

It's things like this that really makes me believe a good number of people here really don't understand how politics, primaries, elections and vote getting works.

[frylock]

9. We all know elections are decided by polls conducted over land lines..

using mostly 50+ year-old voters months ahead of any actual vote being cast.

[Blue_Adept]

10. Way to zag!

So fast I even missed the zig.

[riversedge]

32. You would not have missed anything of truth value.

[KittyWampus]

59. Hey, he's got Cornel West. What could be better than that shiny object!

I mean, who DOES campaign rallies with concerts and stuff?

[frylock]

60. I bet he dances better than Katy Perry.

[Sheepshank]

61. did you know Stevie Wonder endorsed Hillary?

I didn't until today.....is he vapid too?

[frylock]

62. Of course not..

Stevie Wonder is an incredibly talented entertainer whereas Katy Perry was manufactured by some A&R rep to move units.

[Vattel]

2. Here is my plan. Inform people about things like this:

Last edited Thu Oct 29, 2015, 08:33 PM - Edit history (1)

Sanders wants to remove marijuana from the federal scheduling system altogether. Clinton has not even said that she wants it taken off the Schedule I list. She wants more research.
Clinton voted to authorize Bush to wage war in Iraq should he judge that the “threat” posed by Iraq warranted it. Sanders voted no on the Iraq War Resolution.
Clinton wanted an even bigger surge in Afghanistan.
Clinton supported regime change in Libya, with disastrous results. Sanders opposed going to war in Libya.
Sanders has a history of being honest, Clinton has been caught being dishonest on many occasions.
Sanders is opposed to all capital punishment, Clinton is not.
Clinton worked behind the scenes to help consolidate the coup in Honduras.
Clinton said that refugee minors who fled violence in Honduras and other parts of Central America should be sent back as soon as their parents are found. She said this even though a large percentage of those refugees had a right to seek asylum, and that process requires staying in the United States for months or even years.
Clinton voted to build a wall along the US-Mexican border, and once said that she is “against illegal immigrants.”
Clinton supports raising the cap for the H1B visa program for tech workers which would further undermine tech wages in the USA and cause unemployment among American tech workers.
Clinton said that TPP “sets the gold standard” for trade agreements.
Clinton supported DOMA and has recently received the honor of four pinocchios from the Washington Post for her distortions in trying to make excuses for her vote.
Clinton opposed marriage equality until 2013.

[restorefreedom]

13. great summary

of the differnces between the real progressive and the imposter. this is all pretty clear.

[840high]

40. ....x10+

[Thinkingabout]

4. Read where Sanders has had 250,000 at ralies, he only needs 16,750,000 votes to perhaps win the

Nomination.

[restorefreedom]

14. i haven't been to a single rally

same with all the bernie supporters i know.

[Thinkingabout]

15. Yep, just need 16,750,000 more voters maybe more to win.

[restorefreedom]

25. that will not be a problem for bernie. nt

[Thinkingabout]

28. Then it isn't a problem for him.

[restorefreedom]

30. exactly! :) nt

[ColesCountyDem]

36. ...

[whatchamacallit]

5. Yes, yes, he sucks and it's all over

did I miss anything?

[Armstead]

11. The endless cycle of money and power feeding on themselves to get bigger and fatter

The sanders campaign is not as slick and moneyed as the Clinton (TM) brand.

Wal Mart uses its profits to go into new markets and crush the comopetition by losing money until it has cornered the market. Then it starts to make money from the new market, and gets a little fatter and bigger, and moves into te next market with even more ability to crush the competition.

The Clinton/Third Way Machine is the political version of Wal mart.

[Thinkingabout]

16. Maybe Sanders needs to see of Lockheed Martin or the NRA can help him.

[Armstead]

17. Oh so clever

[Thinkingabout]

29. Thank you.

[Fawke Em]

19. Well, she learned it first-hand since she was on their board for years. eom

[Art_from_Ark]

43. She got to rub shoulders with "America's Richest Man"

who also happened to be "America's Biggest Skinflint", so no doubt that had some influence on her.

[Fawke Em]

48. Are you talking about Sam Walton?

I actually don't hate him. He tried to sell only American-made products and was overly extravagant. His kids, however, are a bunch of spoiled brats who have never known a hard day's work a day in their lives.

That said, she certainly learned a lot on that board.

Her years on the Wal-Mart board, from 1986 to 1992, gave her an unusual tutorial in the ways of American business — a credential that could serve as an antidote to Republican efforts to portray her as an enemy of free markets and an advocate for big government.

But that education came via a company that the Democratic Party — and its major ally, organized labor — has held up as a model of what is wrong with American business, with both groups accusing it of offering unaffordable health insurance and mistreating its workers.

So rather than promote her board membership, Mrs. Clinton is now running from it, even returning a $5,000 campaign donation from the giant discount chain in 2005, citing “serious differences” with its practices. But disentangling herself from the company is harder than it may seem.

Despite her criticism, Mrs. Clinton maintains close ties to Wal-Mart executives through the Democratic Party and the tightly knit Arkansas business community. Her husband, former President Bill Clinton, speaks frequently to Wal-Mart’s current chief executive, H. Lee Scott Jr., about issues like health care and even played host to Mr. Scott at the Clintons’ home in New York last July for a private dinner.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/20/us/politics/20walmart.html?pagewanted=all

This article is pretty even-handed and mentions how she wanted to promote more women, which is fine, but it also discusses how she never said a word about the disgusting union-busting. With all the talk about sexism this week, I think it's rather sexist when one of the few progressive things you do is fight to get women promoted. I'm all for it, of course, but allowing unions to be annihilated, yanking poor mothers off welfare and sending their children into unnecessary wars isn't very "woman-friendly."

[Art_from_Ark]

49. Yup, Sam Walton

Around the time he was pushing his "Buy American" campaign and Hillary was on the board, I was a temporary Walmart worker, working on an on-call basis at one of the warehouses along Arkansas Highway 102 in Bentonville. It was obvious at the time that there was some dissatisfaction among the warehouse workers, because, among other things, there was a notice posted in the breakroom that stated something to the effect that "You may think we're only paying you $784 a month, but when you add all the extras we pay, it's actually $924 a month". Of course, even with all the extras included, the Richest Man in America was only paying them less than $6/hour (for comparison, I was getting $4.50/hour).

So yeah, America's richest man who wouldn't even pay his warehouse workers, there in his hometown, even $6/hour while he was rolling in billion$$$, qualified him as "America's Biggest Skinflint" in my book.

[Fawke Em]

50. Thanks for the info.

I was just a teenager during that time, so I don't remember much about him. I just remember the Buy American stuff. My dad was an engineer who was constantly losing his jobs as more and more companies moved their operations overseas. My family tried to buy American as much as we could and, I'll tell you this, those products were far better made.

I think I started realizing how horrible Wal-mart was to their workers when I was in my 20s and a friend of mine was one of the hundreds of women who joined the class-action suit against the company for its failure to promote women. I haven't shopped at a Wal-mart in 14 years, now. The last time I did was only because someone had given me a gift card. Before that, I hadn't shopped in one for about six or seven years prior.

[NCTraveler]

18. Going from a Vermont Senator...

To leading in NH and competing in one or to more, and polling where he is nationally, isn't something I would describe as not working. This has been a good start but there has to be more. More depth. I don't think he can get there but I wouldn't say what he is doing hasn't worked.

[Armstead]

21. Unfortunately, time is not on his side

A month or two ago, I thought well there's plenty of time to get his message and plans out there and make people aware of who he really is.

Realizing now the clock is ticking. All campaigns have their ups and downs, but as it gets towards the actual primatries, things tend to get more fixed and set in stone.Clinton is on an up because of a confluence of factors, and there isn't much time before the setting in stone phase kicks in.

I know you disagree, but I find it discouraging because I really don't like the idea of another election where we don't try to do better, instead of just a holding action against the pugs. Especially since I think people really do want a change in course from the gridlock and corporate dominance of everything.

[Sheepshank]

24. I agree he's gained much more traction than I thought he could

credit, where credit is due

[NCTraveler]

26. The next hurdle is the one I see as insurmountable.

I think at this point outside influences would have to come in to play.

[SunSeeker]

27. K & R

[bravenak]

31. I think he did well even getting this level of support, I mean 25 percent is nothing to sneeze at.

It is just not enough to win, not enough time to build a broad enough coalition. I do not see this plan working either.

[Blue_Adept]

35. 25% is solid. what's lacking, and what a lot of supporters sneer at, is...

the infrastructure, the years of working with people, connectings and networking.

One of the things that proved difficult back for the Clinton's in the 90's was that they were Washington outsiders. Remember all the petty stuff about how the social scene was utterly aghast at them? And that translated into a lot of legislative battles because it was about taking them down.

But the pair have worked these connections over the years as one generation died out and theirs and the next took positions of power. I get why a lot of people sneer at it, but it's a part of politics for thousands of years. it's the nature of mankind and the beast.

Clinton in particular took everything that she learned back in 2008 about what went right and wrong and has honed it. The anger by some about delegates and superdelegates is understandable, but at the same time the thing about winning elections isn't riding just the populist wave. It's about showing who can actually do the hard work of forging connections and building the network needed to mobilize voters. All these superdelegates are going to stump for her and other candidates and likely provide a pretty sizable wave for turning some red seats blue in 2016.

[bravenak]

38. You said it much better than I can.

I agree with you.

[Blue_Adept]

56. Thanks

I got into politics in my early 20's and that coincided with the time just before the impeachment started. At that time I worked at a Fortune 500 company that had some pretty great Internet connectivity and a lot of downtime watching systems work through processing.

So I got to spend a good part of my day reading politics sites, such as Bartcop, APJ, Salon and others. That proved to be quite the education, getting writers from then talking about the events of that time and providing recent context at that time back a decade or two depending.

That definitely colors my view of how Hillary is working, why she's doing what she's doing and what she's faced, resulting in a clear understanding of how the system works and how to use it.

Which, frankly, I want out of a politician. As much as I like Obama, he was going for something different and let others use the system against him in a big way, resulting in some real problems.

I imagine Hillary, should she get the nom, will be returning the favor to quite a number of politicians up for re-election and will be stomping with them. And that will result in a solid wave to bring us more seats at the table.

[Spazito]

55. Well said n/t

[Beacool]

39. They are getting a little cocky.

“Look, she'd make a great vice president. We're willing to give her more credit than Obama did. We're willing to consider her for vice president. We'll give her serious consideration. We'll even interview her.” Jeff Weaver

http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-10-28/bernie-sanders-brain-trust-says-he-can-beat-hillary-clinton

As if........

[Vattel]

41. Hi Beacool. I remember you very effectively defending Clinton against smears in 2008.

I also did that, although I favored Obama. Now I am very much in favor of Sanders, but I still don't like smearing.

[Beacool]

45. To me, Weaver sounded like a condescending jerk.

I don't like smearing either. This is Sanders' response to Weaver's comment.

"Bernie Sanders said today that he has never signed-off on any kind of sexist attacks against Hillary Clinton, and said that his campaign manager’s recent statements about her being his VP were “inappropriate.”

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/bernie-sanders-campaign-managers-hillary-veep-comment-was-inappropriate/

I think that Sanders is a decent man, although I don't think he will be the nominee. For one, 75 years is too old to start a presidency. Hillary will be 69 and that's already pushing the envelope, but time will tell.

[Vattel]

52. I agree that Sanders is not likely to win the nomination (sadly IMHO).

I don't think he's too old, though. I agree that Weaver did come off as obnoxious with that remark, though there was nothing he said that was untrue. It should be added, though, that Sanders has not been sexist towards Clinton, and implicit suggestions to the contrary by Clinton are unfair.

[Beacool]

58. No, I don't think that Sanders is sexist.

[dreamnightwind]

42. Come on, argue somethng real

It was a dumb statement, he shouldn't have said it. What's it got to do with anything real? I know of no Sanders supporters who would even want Hillary for VP, nor any who think the election is locked up for Bernie.

If Bernie wins, he will do so against long odds, by taking down a political machine the size and funding of which has never been seen before. We're working hard to make it happen, and realize we have a lot of work to do.

[Beacool]

46. Something real like the myriad on inane attacks on Hillary?

There are plenty here to choose from, but frankly I don't give a fig what her opponents think of her.

[dreamnightwind]

47. Not sure which thing you're trying to divert to, not playing anyway.

[Florencenj2point0]

54. something real? Here it is

he might as well have said "Tell Hillary to go make me a sandwich and grab me a beer". It was sexist and Sanders should fire the moron. In addition, the jerk also said something about sharp elbows and on another occasion that they would hit Clinton like a Mac truck. His talk about her is violent. That is disturbing. These are the people Sanders surrounds himself with.
Now add that too the fact that he lied about his son, saying he was born to his first wife during his marriage and then allowing the real mother to go basically nameless for the rest of history for political expediency, kind of makes me sick.

http://vtdigger.org/2015/07/09/bernie-sanders-early-days-in-vermont-his-life-loves-and-circuitous-route-to-politics/

His son's mother says she just figures it was a mistake and she let it go etc... but come on, Bernie could have corrected the record just out of common decency and respect for his son and his son's mother.

[dreamnightwind]

57. Damn, that was a vile post

Not playing. And welcome to ignore.

[Vattel]

63. Your post makes me sick.

[Cha]

51. Thank you, Sheepshank~