Bernie Sanders' Shrewd Move That May Push Clinton Left

[Demeter]

FORGET PUSHING HER LEFT; PUSH HER OUT! FIGHT CRIME AND CORRUPTION--RETIRE HILLARY (AND BILL) FROM PUBLIC LIFE.

http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/bernie-sanders-shrewd-move-may-push-clinton-left?akid=13525.227380.dmkrH7&rd=1&src=newsletter1043107&t=9

When Bernie Sanders’ Senior Advisor Tad Devine announced in August that the Democratic presidential candidate would not be running any attack ads against Hillary Clinton, many saw the move as simply being consistent with his previous campaign strategies and his progressive platform. Sanders has said he “hates and detests these 30-second negative ads” and has never run one. He sees the ads as part of what’s broken with American politics, and his disavowal of them fits with his electoral reform policies, which condemn super PACs and the buying and sensationalizing of U.S. elections.

But Sanders’ refusal to produce attack ads has proven to be more than a matter of simple moral consistency. His pledge represented a shrewd political decision by the Sanders campaign—a decision that has now paid off.

Electoral reform is central to Sanders’ platform for president. By swearing off attack ads against his opponents and cash from super PACs which often fund such ads, he has attempted to show that unlike his opponents, he can actually carry out the ideals he speaks so often about. In fact, shortly after Bernie’s announcement, his campaign sent a cease-and-desist letter to a PAC supporting him, which was first formed by Congressional lobbyist Cary Lee Peterson to encourage the Vermont Senator to run.

Meanwhile, Clinton, who earned a reputation for cutting attack ads during her 2008 presidential bid against Obama, is running on a similarly progressive electoral reform platform—while also gladly accepting more than $20 million in support from Priorities USA Action, her Super PAC. At the same time as her own website criticizes the Supreme Court’s Citizen United case, saying it “helped unleash hundreds of millions of dollars of secret, unaccountable money into U.S. elections that is drowning out the voices of ordinary Americans and distorting our democracy,” Hillary is seeking some $2 billion, much of it PAC money, for her campaign....

[JDPriestly]

1. K&R.

[secondwind]

2. Kicked for Bernie!

[Enthusiast]

3. drowning out the voices of ordinary Americans and distorting our democracy

Kicked and recommended!

Can't we all see this?

[merrily]

4. I am so over the "push Hillary left" meme. Among other things, it's delusional.

Then again, I was over it the first time I heard it, when it was about Warren and/or DeBlasio pushing Hillary left.

Hillary has been in Democratic politics since her twenties and before that in CONSERVATIVE Republican politics. She was not only a founding member of the DLC, but she was the only one of the members who traveled abroad with Al From to try to spread the DLC gospel in Europe, giving us poodle Tony Blair--and we all know his role in, among other things, the Iraq invasion and taking his own party right.

Hillary not only voted for the Iraq War, but advocated for it, on national TV, putting the imprimatur of a Democratic First Lady and U.S. Senator on that abomination. At one point or another, she has approved of most or all of the things her husband did in office that most Democrats do not like. Her personal ambition kept her weathervaning a long time on things like equal marriage and flag "desecration." She ran a "racially tinged" campaign against a fellow Democrat in 2008 and practically said that people would be safer voting for McCain than for Obama.

She is who she is. She has recently said so herself; and I, for one, respect her admission. Or, to put it in the terms she used when asked if she thought Obama was a Muslim, "I take (her) at (her) word.

You may be able to get her to campaign left, especially during a Democratic primary, but, if you think you'll also get her to govern left, dream on.

Anyone who thinks Sanders does not know everyone in this post, you are mistaken. He is not trying to take Hillary left. He is running to win. You can tell by the killing schedule he has been maintaining. And, he is also trying his damndest to take Americans left, so they carry on after Super Tuesday, whether he wins the primary or not.

[Ed Suspicious]

5. This. /\

[merrily]

6. Thanks, Ed!

[Robbins]

8. Thank You

The idea bernie is running to push her left is BS.He's In to win.You can't move her left.She never has been left despite what MSM and GOP say.

Any liberal talk during primarys would start to go out the window at convention if she won nomination and she sure wouldn't govern as liberal on anything.

For this revolution to succeed she has to go.She Is done in politics if she loses to Bernie.
Time for her to join her husband making corporate speeches and let those like Bernie worry about the country.

Under DWS we know the Democratic Party is just as corrupt and undemocratic as Republican party with all the attempts to rig game for Clinton.

This revolt against establishment is last chance to fight corporate rule.Clinton or republicans winning you should chance name of united states to Corporate States of America.

[merrily]

9. .

[swilton]

10. YES!

[merrily]

11. Also, this writer is extremely naive to say the attack from Brock's Hillary PAC was the first attack

against Sanders from Hillary's side. Where does the author assume all the stuff has been coming from?

[djean111]

7. Hillary is never going to move even a millimeter to the Left. Her campaign blather will, though.

Hillary is pushing the Democratic party more and more to the Right. As the DLC/Third Way intended. Pretty soon the GOP will be the Tea Party, and the Democratic Party will look like the GOP, with some gestures towards social issues when convenient. I won't be sheltering under that tent, thank you very much.