CrowCityDem
CrowCityDem's JournalClassless Again, Bernie
https://twitter.com/bykowicz/status/725029426841440256This primary can't be over soon enough. The 'good' man running the 'positive' campaign is now resorting to fundraising off a picture of Hillary and Donald Trump being in the same room. It's getting disgusting the lengths he is willing to go now that he's lost.
Bernie is HONEST??
Last night, during the MSNBC town hall, Bernie said two things, which taken together, show him to be as much of a two-faced politician as the people he has spent the past six months decrying.
He said that he will do everything in his power to make sure a Republican doesn't win the White House.
He also said that it's up to Hillary alone to convince his supporters to vote for her.
I'm sorry, but those two things do not jive at all. If Bernie is serious that he will do everything he can to stop Republicans from winning in November, the single biggest thing he can do is fully endorse Hillary and make sure he tells his supporters they need to go out and vote for her, and for other Democrats. They might not listen, as is their right, but it's his job as a Democrat now to make sure he is putting the message out there to support the party. The fact that he is hedging on that, while saying he's all-in for Democrats, is only a whisper away from being an outright lie.
Hey Bernie, I know why the poor don't vote for you:
You're the only candidate promising to raise their taxes. Sure, you say there will be savings in other places, but if you live below the poverty line, and are already receiving Medicaid, you would cost them money.
Huh, people don't want to vote for the person raising the taxes they can't afford to pay. Who would have thunk it?
Another Double Standard (But This One Doesn't Matter Now)
Let me preface this question by saying that it is now moot, since the math is the math, and we know who the winner of this primary season is.
At every turn, when it has looked like Hillary has pulled away enough to be the Democratic nominee, the same question keeps popping up, and with increasing amounts of force: What is Hillary going to do to win over Bernie supporters?
To a degree, that question is fair. We all (aside from the crazies) want the party to be unified come November, and that responsibility falls on all of us, so yes, Hillary will have to make some overtures to win over Bernie supporters. Many of them say that should include adopting large portions of Bernie's platform, whether it be free college or single-payer healthcare.
My question is: If Bernie had happened to win, what was he going to do to win over Hillary supporters? Was Bernie willing to take on some of Hillary's positions to get our side to coalesce with him?
Or is this one of those cases where Hillary needed to appease Bernie, whether she won or lost?
Momentum - Time Of Death: April, 19 2016
Momentum has always been a nebulous thing when it comes to politics, but it is now officially dead. Bernie and his campaign can talk all they want about how they have momentum on their side, but we have seen time and time again that no such thing exists.
Hillary crushed on Super Tuesday, then lost Michigan.
Bernie staged a 'monumental upset' in Michigan, then lost all five states following that.
Hillary won those five, then lost the caucus round.
Bernie won the caucus round, and added Wisconsin, only to lose big in NY.
The moral of the story is that momentum is a pittance, and demographics are far more important.
End The Talking Point: Crowd Size
After last night's large defeat for 'native son' Bernie Sanders, can we officially end the talking point about crowd size? For weeks now, all we've been hearing about is the massive size of the crowds Bernie has been drawing. It didn't make a difference in Texas, or Florida, or Ohio, but it was supposed to matter here in NY. This was different.
No, it's wasn't.
Bernie's big crowds look to be the entirety of his support in some areas of NYC, and they were not even close to enough to have him catch up to Hillary's support. Also, let's keep in mind that in the most populated city in the country, Bernie was drawing crowds that Syracuse University draws for a random basketball game... when there's a foot of snow on the ground.
Crowd size does not matter. It has been proven.
Votes matter.
“Supporters of Bernie love rallies. Supporters of Hillary love to vote.”
A very interesting article by Joan Walsh talking about her experiences in NYC this weekend:
http://www.thenation.com/article/surprise-new-york-democrats-like-the-democratic-party/
There are very good anecdotes in there about why Bernie's supporters turn off so many people, and why Democrats are not warming up to Bernie's "democrats are corrupt" schtick.
Welcome to Clinton Country!
Regarding Crowd Sizes
For all the talk that Bernie's crowds get, there's two things I would like to make sure we remember.
1) In the biggest city in this country, with millions of people surrounding him, the 'once in a lifetime' candidate was able to draw less people than the Syracuse basketball team can draw up here in the 'rural' area of the state with regularity and ease.
2) Crowds at rallies aren't indicative of anything. I have been enthusiastically waiting to vote for Hillary since the first time I voted for her eight years ago, but if she held an event here in town, I don't think I would go. Why? Because I know who I'm supporting, and because of the amount of coverage politics gets, I don't need to hear a stump speech. By this point in a campaign, I feel that a large percentage of people who attend these rallies are doing so because they know they're going to hear what they want to hear. That's not a good measurement of someone's intentions.
Flipping The Script: Questions For Sanders Supporters
I was responding to one of the many posts trying to understand how people can support Hillary. I expressed my deep concerns regarding several of Bernie's proposed plans. Let's take three issues, for the sake of brevity.
1) Minimum wage: I think we can all agree that the living conditions in NYC are far different than in a rural town. While both candidates support large increases to the federal minimum wage, there are serious economic questions regarding whether less affluent areas can absorb an increase to $15 as quickly as other areas. Like the bill New York just passed, phasing in the increases, and seeing the economic impact being made before going even further, is a prudent way of making sure that we balance the need for a higher wage with our interest in making sure not to stunt economic growth. Why does Bernie, in his speeches, refuse to acknowledge the potential negative consequences of acting too fast?
2) Fracking: Banning fracking would be an easy solution, as would eliminating nuclear power. But if we do that, we do not currently have the supply of clean renewables to satisfy our energy needs. We would therefore have to either burn more coal for the time being (a worse option for the environment), massively reduce our energy needs (unlikely), or return to buying gas and oil from other countries (which is both costly, and supports unfriendly regimes). The end result is that, until clean power sources scale, we would face large price increases in energy costs that lower and middle class families can't afford. Has Bernie thought through the effects of a complete ban on fracking?
3) College: Free tuition sounds good, I'll admit. But for starters, the plan relies on Republican states to chip in 30% of the cost. That won't happen, as we have seen with the Medicaid buy-in. Furthermore, that plan does nothing to address the costs of room/board, fees, and other ancillary costs that colleges can continue to raise at will to make up the difference. The quality of education would be questionable with millions of new students flooding into the system, and there has not been much talk of how to keep those tuition costs from rising exponentially when the government is paying the bill. This plan would require large tax increases at the state level to cover their share of the cost. Does Bernie have answers for any of these issues? And why did he build a plan that relies on Republicans to opt-in, when the ACA proves they won't?
All three of these fall into the same category; has Bernie thought about what happens if his plans pass? The scope of these concerns make me think he hasn't.
Bernie's 'Distorted Reality'
With Bernie's camp going all in on the racially-tinged criticism that the South 'distorts reality', I think we should return to a salient question about the primary calendar:
Why do Iowa and New Hampshire get to go first?
If Bernie thinks he's only losing because the South got to vote before the all important states of Idaho and Wyoming, let's consider the inverse.
Bernie Sanders might have been out of this race in January if the race did not start out with perhaps the two most unrepresentative states in the country. Crushing forty point losses in truly diverse states would have ended the Sanders candidacy before it started.
Is Bernie complaining about the outsized voice white voters get at the start?
Profile Information
Member since: Wed Mar 30, 2016, 10:09 AMNumber of posts: 2,348
