Today for the first time she publicly stated her opposition, having previously remained mum in order to let the administration continue the process she was involved in starting. She said she thought the decision would have been made by now, but feels she could no longer wait. Unfortunately, many of the Democratic “tea party” that had used this as a litmus test rather than celebrating that she agrees with them is instead saying things like too little, too late and doubting her sincerity. She instead wants to repair existing pipeline infrastructure so they don’t spring so many dangerous leaks.
Please share widely!
We are wasting billions in leaking gas lines causing methane to pollute the air we breathe and contribute to global warming.
Clinton wants to put tens of thousands of Americans to work rebuilding this energy infrastructure.
We don’t need to import dirty Canadian sludge. Oil prices are dropping with the worldwide economic slowdown and Iranian oil coming online.
She wants to expand solar and wind and make us clean energy self-sufficient. We can do this. Let’s get to work !
Fred Rich LaRiccia
Hillary was for the pipeline when she held executive office. Now that she campaigns, she is against it. But will not bring herself to say that the pipeline is bad for the environment.
We should be thankful Hillary at least holds fast to a half truth, and does not speak from both ends of the mouth at the same time.
She DID say the pipeline was bad for the environment.
Fred Rich LaRiccia
File this under #boldleadership.
I rest my case:( I don’t have much patience with those who can’t take yes for an answer.
I only commented because of the snark in your post.
I am glad she made the right choice.
She may be a much shrewder politician, and she may make a much better President, but given the choices available in this Democratic primary, it seems foolish to applaud her as a progressive champion when on issue after issue she has come late to the party and the other guy was there before the party even started. And yes, that may be a sign that one of them couldn’t win a national election, but I don’t think it will be for a failure in policy leadership.
Clinton is a great example (as is Obama) of a politician that needs to be pushed and pulled in the progressive direction if we want her to “evolve” and fight for certain positions. That is exactly what Bernie Sanders is doing so far in this race and it is working.
If she becomes President, I hope you’ll join me on the side of those who would push her to be better rather than cheerleading her every move.
So, Secretary Clinton, welcome to the party. Now, about that carbon tax…
As you correctly observe, Barack Obama was pushed and pulled in the progressive direction during his campaigns. It worked well enough to get him elected.
As President, his policies have been to the right of Richard Nixon’s. He has most certainly NOT been a progressive President. Yes, he has been a better President than either John McCain or Mitt Romney would have been. A cheese sandwich with Wonder Bread and Velveeta is a better sandwich than last week’s moldy rye smeared with rotten mayonnaise.
I want more than Wonder Bread and Velveeta in my next President.
n/t
How about the phrase
Unfortunately, many of the Democratic “tea party” that had used this as a litmus test rather than celebrating that she agrees with them is instead saying things like too little, too late and doubting her sincerity.
Maybe you are right that it was not snark. Maybe it was just offensive to people who actually work in the field of climate change.
Though not the offense part. I do not like the perfect being the enemy of the good on either side. We should be happy she is on the right side of this issue no matter when she chose to say so. I’m sure the people who actually work in climate change rather than politics appreciate the support.
I have been involved in climate change politics for over a decade, including the creation of RGGI, four years worth of negotiation on the UNFCCC and international work in forestation and the REDD+ program. I don’t “appreciate” her changed position but recognize it for what it is, political pandering that means nothing in reality. She already did her damage.
And Conway’s point to the contrary, her work as SoS was not good diplomacy. My friend Jack Layton, the late great leader of Canada’s NDP, disagreed with almost everything that Clinton, Bush and now Obama did around climate, although I am sure he would be happy with many of Obama’s actions with the Chinese but not in re-opening Alaska to ocean drilling.
Please do not try to speak on behalf of those of use who actually work in this arena.
strikes again ! Proving once again that the perfect will always be the enemy of the good.
Fred Rich LaRiccia
Calling people who question Hillary’s commitment “The holier than thou crowd”? Maybe you’re taking a cue from Christopher, with his “Democratic ‘tea party’.”
Do you guys have any idea how petty these remarks make you look?
LOL
…than those who gripe about how she didn’t come out earlier rather than claiming victory that the pressure got her to agree with them.
The international press has a different view of Hillary’s conversion than some of us in the US. The Guardian (UK) opens its story with:
“Hillary Clinton completed the biggest environmental conversion of her presidential campaign to date on Tuesday, pronouncing herself opposed to the controversial Keystone XL pipeline as a “distraction” in the fight against climate change.
Clinton’s newfound stated position on Keystone – offered up during an event in Iowa – follows months in which she has refused to divulge her views on the controversial project, claiming it would be inappropriate as a former member of Barack Obama’s administration.”
Foreign Policy had this to say:
Her newly-stated opposition to the project, while entirely symbolic now, nonetheless will find resonance in the presidential campaign as she seeks to shore up support with the more liberal wing of her party. One of her rivals, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, said in a statement that he was glad she “finally” opposed it. Another, former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, pounced on her announcement Tuesday to lambast her finger-in-the-wind approach to tough issues.
Bold leadership, indeed!
…but silence previously doesn’t mean a change of mind, just strategic timing. If there were statements of hers previously in support you would have a case for that, but I am not aware of any.
Hillary supported the Keystone project when she was SoS. What part of this did you miss?
…that as a Cabinet officer she subordinated her own views to the President whom she served, a President who, let’s not forget, has not made a final decision himself.
Years ago, I owned a very recalcitrant German Shepherd. We dutifully attended training classes with her in the vain hope that we could mold her into the well-behaved companion we envisioned when she was a puppy.
The trainer and his associates hammered a lesson into me at that time: NEVER PUNISH A DOG FOR COMING LATE. When training a dog to fetch or “come”, you ALWAYS reward the dog if it comes — even if it seems to take an eternity (there were always so many thing fascinating things to sniff).
Ms. Clinton has arrived at the position we want her in. This is not the time to bust her chops.
…people listen to voice that are likable. We who believe climate change is the greatest danger to human civilization (and it will cause instability, disaster, and war) need everyone to listen to us. So when an influential politician like Hillary Clinton starts to march with our parade, it only hurts the cause to berate her because it makes us look self-righteous & unlikeable.
Environmentalists, take note of the LGBTQ movement welcoming Pres. Obama when he spoke in favor of marriage equality. We all knew he personally was cool with it in the 1990s but Obama as presidential candidate had more conservative positions on gay rights than did Hillary. When Obama did express his own approval of marriage equality, the LGBTQ movement didn’t diss him, they used his position to build more momentum.
We owe it to future generations to heed that lesson.
Remarks like this are absolutely out of order.
Let’s be absolutely clear. The Tea Party is a group of irrational people pursuing irrational policies, the Hillary wing of the party would be willing to trade rhetorical arms for programs they continually hold hostage in an effort to look reasonable and competent to the beltway press and donor class, the Warren wing of the party shares the Tea Party’s zeal for a purer and more grassroots oriented party but we do so since we want more rational and more reasonable policies.
The Warren wing accepted Obamacare, the Warren wing voted for flawed budgets, and the Warren wing went out in force for Barack Obama You don’t negotiate with terrorists, which is what the GOP opposition to this President continually chooses to be. No not the bin laden kind, but they are always Snidley Whiplash putting the budget on the train tracks for asinine causes, this weeks cause is destroying a public health organization dedicated to women’s health supported by over 60% of Americans and nearly 75% of American women.
That said, I absolutely welcome Hillary Clinton to the right side of this issue. Whether she is doing it for political reasons or out of sincere concern is beyond the point, all politicians respond to pressure. Tom’s dog analogy and Joel’s reminder of Obama’s LGBTQ evolutions are instructive. LBJ was a hardline Southern Democrat in the Senate who passed the most extensively socially democratic economic agenda in the American presidency while simultaneously committing the federal government to racial justice. He did so since it was good politics, since that’s the direction the party wanted him to go. Same here. Hillary knows she will need us in the general, and Bernie’s challenge is forcing her to adopt his policies and his rhetoric on economic issues. So far, they seem to be making each other into better candidates by the day. It’s a good race and an issue based primary in stark contrast to the Springer like clown car on the other side.
“That said, I absolutely welcome Hillary Clinton to the right side of this issue.”
You mean, to the left side?…
If Keystone is not built, the oil will flow transported by trains or trucks. We all know the safety record of train transport has been abysmal. Every few months, a train explodes.
Opposing Keystone is a great symbolic stand – nothing more. It’s a litmus test for who supports the Environment; never mind that scratching the surface reveals opposition to Keystone is just a way to raise visibility to other more effective issues which never get addressed (e.g., introducing a carbon tax; or forcing complete transparency in carbon emissions for residential and industrial consumers).
Let me hear what Hillary has to say about a national carbon tax, and how she proposes to put that in practice. Then I will get more excited about the prospects for saving the environment.
And I don’t view the environment as a left right issue, like the Pope made clear, it’s a human rights issue affecting all of us.
Several things.
1. We don’t solve the safety issues of rail transport by building pipelines. The oil those trains carried is in the system before Keystone and will be in the system after Keystone.
2. The most effective way to address the rail safety issues is to invest in rail safety — to wit, invest in railroad infrastructure (right-of-way, equipment, signalling). To the extent that rail safety is a motivator for the Keystone pipeline, the funding for the Keystone pipeline should instead be spent on improving rail safety.
3. Beware of media impact and how it affects rational analysis. Train crashes make GREAT broadcast stories — lots of flame, smoke, explosions, and of course live interviews with terrified neighbors and heroic bystanders. Pipeline failures happen in mostly-remote locations and leak for months, years, or even decades before discovery. The loss of natural gas because of aging pipelines is a significant issue in Massachusetts. Leaking oil is quite similar. It is very hard to make an exciting video of a leaking pipeline.
I agree with you that a national carbon tax is an absolutele requirement. The primary environmental issue, in my view, is climate change. Building the Keystone pipeline will not reduce our carbon footprint.
Not at $2 a gallon and not at anywhere near the same degree at almost any price, and not in a way that the gas is primarily designed to be shipped out of seas (which is the real, true purpose of the Keystone XL pipelines — and far from making gas cheaper, KXL will make it more expensive by creating a large int’l market for US/Can Gas that doesn’t currently exist).
You can repeat asinine industry talking points all you want. It doesn’t make them true.
To help the environment, we need a better notion of:
– which industry/residential activities emit carbon, and by how much
– which energy sources are lower cost, and emit less carbon.
It is essentially an optimization problem, and of keeping track accurately of sources and sinks of carbon. In the era of big data, this should be something eminently solvable.
But that requires a good dose of realism that is eminently absent in all this – from campaign platforms to news coverage to the comment thread of BMG.
Why don’t we get to work to set up the back end framework allowing the collection of data – solving complicated problems like tracking of heating oil shipments in the state, gasoline usage at the pump, use of airline fuel per capita, keeping track of industrial energy usage. The goal would be to model the effect on environment for various human activities.
Without this, there isn’t enough basic infrastructure available to build any policy on it, and the discussion becomes the usual whack-a-mole game we’re all to familiar with.
There are some great resources for exactly what you seek. Aside from the obvious places like RGGI and CARB, the folks at the Greenhouse Gas Management Institute http://ghginstitute.org and the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) https://www.unitar.org train thousands of people in these areas annually. I have participated in a few of their programs, which are not cheap but are better than you can get at virtually any world class academic program.
There are also daily offerings for webinars that train thousands of people people in these areas that can be easily accessed through the IISD Reporting Service subscribe-land-l@lists.iisd.ca . We are developing both an infrastructure for GHG management and the people to do the work. More money would help. More people like you would help also. There are great careers open to those who want to be part of the solution. And if you play it right, you can see the world while you work.
No, ours isn’t hateful or fact free, but I otherwise stand by the reference.
If it weren’t for the bombing, Damascus would be a lovely place to live. The fact that the tea party IS both hateful and fact-free is what makes it so loathsome.
I strongly suspect that what you describe as “irrational calls for purity” others describe as “passionate commitment to shared values”.
Those of us who are more enthusiastic about Bernie Sanders than Hillary Clinton are NOT making “irrational calls for purity”. Those of us who, like me, have expressed grave concerns about her ability or willingness to put the national interest above her personal (and quite legitimate) concerns about personal privacy are not making irrational calls for purity.
Speaking of “hateful and fact free”, we currently have Carly Fiorina surging in the polls because of her outright lies about the non-existent Planned Parent video she swears she saw and Donald Trump claiming that birtherism started with Hillary Clinton. Both of those are being aided and abetted by the mainstream media coverage of each.
The GOP leadership in the House and Senate is now, as we speak, attempting to shut down the government unless the rest of us embrace their delusional lies about Planned Parenthood. The GOP war on women continues, as the “leadership” of the GOP panders to their most extreme factions — the party’s legislative agenda is both hateful and fact-free, and has been since 2008.
Your comparison of fellow Democrats who share your values to the Tea Party — especially when you so readily acknowledge that we are neither hateful nor dishonest — is needlessly polarizing.
I encourage you to perhaps walk back your utterly false comparison.
…but when I start to get the vibe from some Sanders supporters, as I sometimes did from Berwick supporters last year, that their candidate is the only true progressive and that everyone else is either just shy of being a DINO or not sincere, that is the tea party comparison. HRC is and always has been firmly planted on the left side of the political spectrum. The similarity is where both seem to form their party’s manifestation of the never-satisfied caucus. I’m sure it is also a passionate commitment to values, but you can say that about the tea party of the right too.
Since the work of making a better America is never ending. So I take issue with that, I also take issue with the idea we are equivalent to the Tea Party. Look, I’ve called for a ‘tea party of the left’ but use it to mean a force that
a) bothers with intra party primaries and b) wins intra party primaries. And mostly at the local level, the Miceli’s and Garry’s of the world.
With Sanders we are fulfilling part A, it’s obviously made Hillary a more progressive nominee and forced her to become a better candidate. In that way, their campaigns reinforce one another. Sanders is making socialist mainstream and becoming a player within the party, Hillary is forced to move to the left with him so he doesn’t occupy all the passion in the base becoming a more progressive nominee and president. This is what primaries are supposed to do.
Tim Toomey used to be a DINO, Avi Green primaried him, and he moved to the left on choice, gay rights, gun control and the death penalty. No need to primary him anymore, no matter his sincerity.
So to me what’s relevant are policies a candidate is committed to implementing. And Sanders challenge is forcing her to commit to implement more progressive policies if she becomes President, all the better in my book. Don’t see the need to denigrate the movement that is moving her to where you want her to go.
I’ve sometimes wondered what keeps them Democrats. I have never wondered that about Clinton.
Many or most of us here on BMG who are supporting Bernie Sanders in the primary have said over and over again:
1. We will support Hillary Clinton in the general if she is the nominee, and
2. We think that the Sanders campaign strengthens Ms. Clinton if she is the nominee
This is the primary season, and surely the reason a primary season exists is to allow many candidates to be examined before one is chosen. A legitimate part of that examination, for those of us who are committed to progressive values, is a comparison of the candidates along whatever dimensions we use to measure how progressive a candidate is.
Whatever the reasons are, the plain truth is that Ms. Clinton voted for the 2003 Iraq invasion and Bernie Sanders voted against it. Ms. Clinton supported fast-tracking, and Mr. Sanders voted against it. Ms. Clinton has taken positions significantly more friendly towards Wall Street than Mr. Sanders. Those are plain facts.
Since you’ve already stipulated that our criticisms of Ms. Clinton are not “hateful” and are “fact-based” (in stark contrast to our other-winged counterparts), there is little left to support your objections unless you simply don’t like it when some of us measure the candidates and come up with a different answer from you.
Frankly, your commentary on this thread is more demanding of “ideological purity” than anything I’ve read criticizing Ms. Clinton.
It feels to me, from here, that YOU are making the perfect (in your eyes) the enemy of the good.
…I’m not complaining that Sanders came out in opposition earlier. He may very well strengthen her as a nominee. My complaint is against those who can’t just graciously accept that she now publicly agrees without questioning her motives or sincerity.
You are confusing “purity” (which is not, in my experience the defining motif of the Tea Party btw) with the usual dumbass behavior of people in the grip of an electoral campaign. Certainly saw a lot of that from the Obamitarians in ’08 too.
In my experience people snap out of it after the campaign ends.
I think we keep having these discussions, where people keep talking past each other, because some of us invest in a person, and defend that person, while others value issues above personality. For us issue-oriented people, it doesn’t matter that a person is seen as “more electable,” if that person doesn’t have strong positions on issues we care about. To us, supporting such a person weakens support for our issues, and leads to a drift away from things we care about. When the candidate changes their position in response to political pressure — even when the change is to support our own positions — it looks to us like opportunistic pandering. We have doubts about whether that person will actually invest any effort for those issues if they are elected. We will support a candidate who has consistently supported our issues, even if pundits insist they can’t win. Sometimes, they DO win.
And I count myself among the Obamatarians who went for the jugular against Clinton and made it a personal race last time. I won’t do that this time. I think we can all agree our party is producing better candidates and will produce a better nominee than the other side.
I think my fellow Sanders supporters should be respectful and diplomatic and follow our candidates lead. Whether it’s Hillary or Black Lives Matter-Sanders supporters should rely on dialogue and persuasion rather than personal attacks. I don’t think this is an issue on BMG, it’s a far more cordial primary than 2008 was, and I have apologized for the way I treated Hillary and her supporters here and pledged as early as 2011 to back her as our nominee in this cycle if she wins the primary. I do see what Christopher sees on social media-in my circle it has been the counter active way some white friends went after the Black Lives movement and took the movements legitimate concerns as a personal affront to their annointed champion. I can imagine he sees that with Hillary supporters getting similar criticism. We can keep it is uses focused on BMG.
who pointedly refrains from attacking Clinton. Why do that?
Those sort of tactics might make sense if you are first and last competing for the nomination.
But Sanders says he wants to build a movement and talk about issues central to most Americans, issues that are taboo in “normal” political discourse.
That’s a different prize to keep your eyes on.
One of the problems that Hillary faces is that she has changed her PUBLIC position on so many issues from her past stance while continuing to embrace the people who brought her to her previous hacking. How else to explain her massive suck-up to Wall Street, soliciting their money and advice, yet claiming to be independent of them? Does anybody truly believe that she won’t fill her Cabinet and sub-Cabinet with the Rubin/WS crowd? Does anybody believe she will be better than Obama on climate change (and even he came late to the game)? I don’t think for one minute that she would appoint a kick-ass EPA administrator like my friend Gina McCarthy or someone of her ilk.
Her support of same sex marriage was easy for her. You cannot get the nomination without it, she will barely touch the issue if she is elected, and she won’t be held responsible for work that was done by those of us who were active in making that great change happen.
No, Hillary and Obama and Bill Clinton before them are card carrying members of the ruling class. And Tom’s metaphor was inappropriate. These are not dogs with limited brain power. They are the smartest people in the country who have learned to dissemble and outright lie to further their long-term game plan, which does not include the people I most care about.
I mostly don’t do Presidential election politics because it is a black hole for time and money, but listening to people here like FRLR and Christopher has convinced me to vote for Bernie, who really does care about my peeps, and hope that HRC’s campaign implodes from its dishonesty soon so we can find a real adult who is not owned by a lifetime of deal making and dishonesty in furtherance of their career.
If you have ever done serious work with a politician(s) you learn that they remember when they have been spanked hard, know who gave them the spanking, and they work to avoid the next spanking. I would be happy if HRC learned that the left is not going to kiss her with the same fervor that we reserve for people who were there for all of the dance.
of Presidential politics whatever I say is speculation, but there aren’t any other candidates. If HRC isn’t elected this time, she’s done. No need to worry about how she works in the future.
I don’t think her past is prologue, however; the play has changed. The Left is already making itself felt, and she’s going to have to deal with it.
When you serve as Secretary of State, or serve in the State Department in general, you are doing so at the behest of the United States as a corporate entity. In this case, one whose closet neighbor and largest trading partner wanted to pursue economic development into you country and threatened to take that project elsewhere, like to China. The impact a rejection of that pipeline would have on US-Canadian relations and bilateral trade was something to consider, which is why a stern and early rejection would’ve been good base politics but poor diplomacy. If you want good base politics and poor diplomacy then vote for another Bush, if you want reasonable diplomacy continue to keep the Democrats in charge.
Now the Obama strategy of waiting the Harper government out is looking more brilliant by the day. Harper is polling 3rd next to Mulclair of the Social Democrat NDP or Trudeau the center-left Liberal candidate, who won’t openly say they will form a coalition government but would do so to remove Harper from power. His reign will soon be over, Canada will likely reject his pipeline for us. Which is why Hillary’s statement was well timed. By October the Canadians will likely have a new government committed to green policies, not the priorities of Alberta’s gas industry.
It’s not like, as Secretary of State, she helped shepherd it through to begin with or anything. /snark off
Christopher — I’m very, very glad she came out against Keystone. Great on her.
But it’s for one reason and one reason only: Bernie Sanders.
In my view, this is exhibit A in the case for the candidacy of Bernie Sanders making Hillary Clinton a stronger nominee.
how strange that on the same day of Yogi’s passing, this debate takes me back to 1972 when I had this argument with my friends who supported the ‘pure liberal’ George McGovern against my candidate Ed Muskie, the most electable liberal, in my opinion.
I couldn’t convince them that Nixon feared Muskie, the chief sponsor of the Clean Air and Water Act over McGovern, who he ended up beating in 49 states.
Not wanting to repeat that fiasco is one of the main reasons I support Hillary.
Fred Rich LaRiccia
Do you REALLY think that Ed Muskie could have done better against Richard Nixon than George McGovern?
I think the Nixon campaign would have crushed him as presidential nominee even more decisively than they did as the vice-presidential nominee.
In my view, the combination of:
– The disaster of Vietnam, and
– The disaster of the LBJ role in Vietnam, and
– The murder of RFK,
– Chappaquiddick
Combined to destroy the possibility of Democratic win in 1972. We had a heavy burden of baggage (much of it of our own making), and our best prospects were either dead (RFK) or effectively banned (Ted Kennedy).
Hillary Clinton is NOT Ed Muskie, Bernie Sanders is NOT George McGovern, and this is NOT 1972.
The economy is a catastrophe, and the two parties share that burden. Thankfully no major Democratic players have been assassinated or disabled by scandal (of the Chappaquiddick sort).
Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are speaking to the overwhelming majority of Americans — of BOTH parties — suffering in today’s economy. Bernie Sanders appeals to disaffected former Republicans in ways that Ed Muskie and George McGovern did not.
If Ms. Clinton prevails in the general, she will do so because Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and the “Warren Agenda” of progressive populism resonates with hurting American workers in a way that no GOP candidate can.
Finally, I feel compelled to add that if Donald Trump is the GOP nominee (perish the thought), I see Bernie Sanders are FAR more able to win anyway than Ms. Clinton. I think Mr. Sanders has spent an entire political career winning elections against opponents who attack his liberalism — in stark contrast to Ms. Clinton.
Ultimately, I see no evidence so far that Ms. Clinton has the “street-smarts” to prevail in the knife-fight that a campaign against Donald Trump will surely be.
…Nixon himself thought Muskie would be the more formidable opponent and thus engaged in some of the early dirty tricks against him.
I don’t doubt that Ed Muskie might have been the more formidable opponent. Part of the irony of that time is that Mr. Nixon would almost have certainly won against any Democratic opponent without the dirty tricks. Mr. Nixon was known to be almost pathologically insecure, and that insecurity brought about his downfall.
Perhaps Ed Muskie might have carried ten states instead of just one, but I am quite certain that he would still have lost.
we have very sophisticated polls now. They may have existed in the past, but they weren’t anywhere near as sophisticated and prolific as they are today. They aren’t perfect, but they give us an understanding of politics at a level that didn’t exist when George McGovern was running for President.
What these polls tell us today is that even though almost half the country has never heard of him, Bernie Sanders already does about as well or better than Hillary Rodham Clinton against any of the Republicans.
That is, quite frankly, astounding — given that the country knows Hillary very, very well.
And as Bernie Sanders’s trendline has gone up, up, up, as people get to know him, he’s only likely to fair even better in Republican match-ups as time goes on.
Meanwhile, Hillary’s numbers and trends have been going in the reverse for months and months now, and stories that should have been small have been so poorly mishandled by her incompetent campaign that the trends seem likely to continue.
Hillary Clinton may just be the single solitary high tier candidate that the Democratic Party could nominate who would have a difficult time winning in a high turnout Presidential election year. Everyone knows her and almost 50% of the country ranges from actively disliking her to outright despising her — and they’ve had 25 years of her in public life in some form or another for those feelings to cement.
If politics were baseball and Hillary Clinton had a WAR rating, she’d be below average league replacement level. Any random credible Democratic Senator or Governor would be likely to do as well or better than her in the general election. That’s just what the numbers tell us, when she does so poorly in general election matchups despite the fact that everyone knows her.
The ceiling for a Hillary Clinton campaign is a very narrow win. That’s the absolute ceiling, even if Donald Freaking Trump is nominated. Jeb Bush would probably beat her.
Bernie Sanders, on the other hand? Let’s look at the only wide-ranging group of voters who know him well right now — Vermonters. He’s not only winning the Democratic Primary in Vermont for POTUS right now — he’s tied for first with Vermont Republicans for POTUS. Talk about a high ceiling!
He’s had a long career of not only knowing how to appeal to liberal, progressive voters, but also knows how to appeal to conservative rural voters, as well. Bernie Sanders’s ceiling isn’t a narrow victory — it’s a massive, colossal electoral victory, attached to a wave election that brings Democrats back into the majority in the Senate and huge swaths of big wins in the House.
So, with all due respect, when you bring up George McGovern… you couldn’t be more wrong.
—
BTW: I say this as someone who voted for Hillary in 2007 and likes her a lot. I’d happily support her in the general election. She’s just not nearly the candidate that Bernie Sanders is, either in policy or even “electability,” not by any way I know how to measure it.
I enthusiastically agree with everything in this comment.
Once again, I am strikingly reminded of Martha Coakley’s last campaign. Each had long public records. Each was a bona-fide “Democrat” with impeccable party credentials. Each entered the primary season as the “inevitable” nominee. Supporters of each argued that any opposition was disloyal to the party, foolishly naive, and so on. Each entered the campaign season with high negative ratings among the larger public. Each struggled to find a theme that resonated with would-be voters and generated genuine enthusiasm during the campaign season.
I, at least, will be able to support and vote for HIllary Clinton if she is the nominee. In that regard, she is the far superior candidate of the two. Still, I would do so without the enthusiasm that I felt (inappropriately, as it turns out) for Barack Obama or Deval Patrick or that I feel for Bernie Sanders (and that I did not feel for Don Berwick).
My own good-rather-than-perfect enthusiasm for Ms. Clinton. combined with the progress of the campaign so far, suggest to me that her future trajectory with the voters is likely to also be comparable to Ms. Coakley’s.
Hillary Clinton is a far better nominee than John Kerry was. She is comparable, to my mind, to Al Gore. She is not nearly the candidate that Bill Clinton was. I don’t know what to say about Mike Dukakis. Any Democratic nominee who could walk and chew gum at the same time would have defeated Gerry Ford in 1976. No Democratic candidate could have defeated Richard Nixon in 1972.
I much prefer Bernie Sanders today. I think Bernie Sanders is likely to be much stronger against Donald Trump than Ms. Clinton. While I think Ms. Clinton will defeat Jeb Bush if he is the nominee, I am bone-numbingly weary of the Clinton-v-Bush soap opera — almost as much as I am of “The Bush’s” that it spun off of.
I think KS pipeline encapsulates so well the issues that she has (and will continue to have). Is it great that she’s opposed, of course. But, I’d argue that the way she dealt with the issue has two drawbacks. First, by taking so long to say that she was opposed, true-progressives will wonder (or, continue to wonder) about HRC’s core convictions, and guiding principles. If you’ve studied KSP, and you’re a progressive, you’re obviously opposed and shouldn’t be able to straddle the fence. If you’re a moderate/independent voter who might vote for HRC but aren’t really sure about her, her approach to KSP makes it look like everything she does is borne out of political calculus, and not just doing what she believes is right. If she’s going to win, she has to do a better job (1) convincing the progressives that she’s a progressive at heart—so that we go out and bang on doors in purple states, and go to the mat for her, and (2) convincing moderates, that she acts not out of pure political calculus but by a sincerely held motivation in doing what she believes is right. If she can do those things, I think she maybe able to win. Unfortunately, I think KSP (even though she’s clearly right in the end) is a(nother) example of the difficulty she has in making these two ends meet.
I intended the tea party reference as neither offense on one extreme or snark on the other, maybe more like a friendly tweak. I was not even necessarily referring to anyone here. At the time I wrote it I had just been on FB and read a newsfeed full of this nonsense about sincerity or childish bragging that Sanders got there first. I have just gotten so sick of the purity tests. Ironically I’ve taken a few of those online quizzes where you answer issue-based questions and the website calculates whom you should support based on your answers. Clinton usually yields to Sanders, but the quizzes don’t ask about qualifications, experiences, or preparedness which I place a higher premium on. I’m sorry I’ve convinced TBD to vote for Sanders, but frankly if a few blog comments is all it takes he was probably leaning that way anyway.
For what it’s worth Christopher, I wasn’t offended by the tea party reference. Carry on.
I guess that’s my word of advice on all sides. Too many Democrats who support Clinton get into ‘beat the right wing conspiracy’ mode whenever factually accurate criticisms are made of her political strategy or policy record. The emails have definitely hurt her standing in the polls, that’s a fact. Her response to the scandal and the emergence of the Sanders campaign has been a little anemic, that’s a fact. And some of her policy prescriptions seem tepid compared to the ones he is advocating for, I think we can all agree that this is true, even if we disagree about whether this is good or bad politically.
That said, I also think we should avoid the conspiracy theories on our side, it was incompetence not ulterior motives that led to the email issue. It has been campaign mismanagement that has led to the anemic campaign, and while there are issues whenever money and politics intersect, it would be a stretch to call the Clintons corrupt or bought. She also isn’t a DINO and to me ‘calculating’ or ‘machiavellian’ adjectives always seem to land on female candidates and never on male ones who are ‘guile’ or ‘nimble’ or ‘flexible’. I think in the last primary I crossed that line many times myself, and let my policy disagreements turn into personal animus. I don’t have that animus now, she has my vote if she wins the primary, but if she wants my vote in the primary she will have to do a better job earning it.