If I had to design a candidate for public office whose views matched mine, I couldn't do better than Bernie Sanders. He says all of the things I want said. He understands the current situation we face deeply. He knows how big money is corrupting our politics. He stands with the poor. He is the star defender of the middle class. He supports labor and public education. He bases his views on science and reason. He is a hero in the support of equal rights for all Americans. He is a champion of peace. He stands for just about EVERYTHING that I support. He tears into the deranged and demented Republicans. He is honest almost to a fault. I admire him tremendously, and am glad he is a part of our public life.
And he must not be the nominee of the Democratic party for President of the United States.
Follow me below the orange Kos croissant and hear me out. Then you can vent at me in the comments if you wish.
I am in my mid-60s now. A measure of how ill-spent my life has been is the fact that I started following American politics when I was 12. I grew up in a small Midwestern town filled with Republicans. My mother was one of them. I was a Goldwater kid. I would have voted for Nixon in 1968 had I been old enough. I turned against Nixon bitterly once I got older, and in 1972 I voted for McGovern. Let me tell you something about 1972 from one who was there.
George McGovern was an enormously decent man. He truly was the conscience of the Senate. He was humble, intelligent, good-humored, and generous in spirit. He had also been a brave warrior in World War II. I liked him very much, but I didn't support him for the Democratic nomination. Why? Because even at the age of 20, I knew he would be crushed. I watched as Nixon's brutal political machine tore him to shreds, with the help of a compliant media. I saw the bumbling amateurism of McGovern's campaign and was utterly dismayed by it. (What kind of fools allow their man's nomination acceptance speech to be pushed to 2:30 in the g-d damned morning?) Richard Nixon, who was an outright criminal, swept 49 states and won by a popular vote margin of 23 points. I was deeply disheartened by this outcome, but I wasn't surprised by it.
And I never want to go through anything like that again.
[Deep breath here. A lot of you are really not going to like what I have to say next.]
I understand why many of you are so enamored of Bernie. There's a lot to like in him, as I said. But let's have some hard truths.
In an age of cable television and the Internet, where visual images are of paramount importance, Bernie comes across like a professorial old man. He is highly intelligent and thoughtful, but his manner is not particularly compelling. His ability as a speaker is modest, at best. I don't want to say that many of my fellow citizens are superficial or shallow, but let's just say they don't follow public life as much as most of us on DKos do. I believe they will look at Bernie and be baffled by him more than drawn to him. Politics is, in part, an act of public theatre. In Barack Obama we have someone who understands that and is superb at it. But God love him, Bernie ain't so superb. He is not a particularly powerful communicator. His message resonates with those who are already predisposed to be receptive to it. He excites liberals and progressives. They don't care if he comes off like everyone's favorite history teacher from college. But I don't really think the great mass of Americans will see him that way on the national stage. A lot of them will see this old guy with white hair and an unusual speaking style and say, "Where did HE come from?" The awful thing is that even though Bernie's positions are popular, he isn't the best person to represent them.
[Another deep breath.]
Then there's the whole socialist thing.
The United States, for many reasons, has never had a truly powerful socialist movement. Socialists had their moments (Eugene Debs, Norman Thomas) but they never posed a serious threat to the two major, entrenched parties. To his credit, FDR stole some good ideas from them, so one might say the socialists had their victories. But this is not Europe. Europe has a long socialist tradition, and social democratic parties have real clout in European politics.
But not here.
Today we are faced with a corporate-dominated media. The very word socialist has been made poison by decades of right-wing influenced corporate propaganda. If anyone thinks the big media outfits and their corporate sponsors will not go out of their way to discredit Bernie, I can only say this: get real. Understand me, folks. Let me spell it out for you:
I HATE THIS SITUATION. BUT MY HATRED OF IT WILL NOT CHANGE IT.
This is America in 2015. No one--NO ONE--who calls himself a socialist can politically survive as a presidential candidate. I'm sorry, but I am convinced this is a fact. If Bernie were to be nominated, he himself and his self-applied socialist label would be the major issues in the campaign. He would be drowned out. He would be shouted down.
And he would lose. Big time.
"But look at the rally he had in Madison! Ten thousand in one place!" Yes. In Madison, Wisconsin, the hardcore liberal bastion of the state. But Madison is not typical of the rest of America, to say the least. Our candidate has to be competitive all over the country. Only one major league Democrat is.
Her name is Hillary Clinton.
Hillary is the only Democrat with the money, the clout, the name, the experience, and the general political mojo to win the presidency in 2016. Not Bernie. Not O'Malley. Hillary. She is popular in demographic groups that have shunned Obama (such as white women in Red states). She has the potential to lead us to a blowout Democratic victory, one bigger than 2008. If the Republicans were insane enough to nominate Donald Trump (which I don't think will happen, but hey, a guy can dream, can't he?), she would win by Johnson over Goldwater proportions. She makes us competitive in places like Missouri, Georgia, North Carolina, Indiana. She would be strong even in West Virginia and Kentucky. She would walk away with the Northeast, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Minnesota, Iowa, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, and the West coast without even breathing hard. Bernie wouldn't. She is in a strong position to win.
Is she a corporate Democrat? Yes.
Does she have ties to foreign policy hardliners? Yes.
She is not my ideal. Bernie is my ideal.
But ideal doesn't cut it in American politics. Hard experience has taught me that. You go with the best you can do, and that's all you can hope for.
Oh, and one more thing:
WE MUST WIN IN 2016.
There is no choice in this matter if we care about the future of our children and our grandchildren.
I returned to the Republicans in the 70s, after Nixon was chased from office. I was on the Dark Side for many years, until my disgust grew too overwhelming for me. I refused to be a member of the Fundamentalist Christian White People's Party Devoted to the Memory of Jefferson Davis. I saw the Republicans from the inside. I left in the early 90s. They have only gotten worse since then. Most of you know how dangerous and even downright insane much of the Republican Party has become. I'm here to remind you of some hard truths that you already know, but sometimes don't want to admit.
The Republicans really mean it when they say they are committed to destroying Obamacare. They really do intend to pack the Supreme Court with far right fanatics who will help them do that. And they don't give a rat's ass what the polls say.
The Republicans really do intend to strangle Medicaid. They really do intend to privatize Social Security. They really do intend to destroy Medicare. And they don't give a rat's ass what the polls say.
The Republicans really do intend to reverse progress on gay rights. They really do intend to keep waging the drug war. They really do intend to wipe out all labor unions, cripple environmental standards, destroy worker safety protections, and strip the average person of the means to fight corporate power. They will ignore all evidence of global climate change as a "hoax". And they don't give a rat's ass what the polls say.
The Republicans really do intend to establish plutocracy at the top. They really do intend to impose a right-wing fundamentalist "Christian" theocracy on everyone else. They really do intend to curtail voting rights more and more brutally. They really do intend to coddle the neo-Confederates and placate the white supremacists. They really do intend to abolish the IRS and shift the tax burden down toward the poor and middle class. They really do intend to utterly destroy the safety net. And they don't give a rat's ass what the polls say.
And most ominously, the Republicans, driven by apocalyptic lunatics from the Religious Right, intend to have a war with Iran, and if necessary, one with Russia to help bring on the Apocalypse. You think I'm kidding or exaggerating? Look in Tom Cotton's eyes if you think I am.
You may say that the polls say the American people mostly stand with us on the great issues. But you know why the Republicans don't care about that?
POLLS DON'T VOTE. PEOPLE DO. AND THE RIGHT-WINGERS VOTE.
I just shake my head in disbelief when I read articles about how the Republican Party is "dying" or "on the way out" or doomed. I hate to break it to you but the fact is this: they're winning.
They control 69 out of 99 legislative chambers in this country. (Nebraska is unicameral.)
They have 3/5 of the governors.
They have a gerrymandered stranglehold on the House.
They run the Senate, however ineptly.
Why? Because those angry old white people VOTE.
Sam Brownback, a lunatic and fanatic, is destroying Kansas. HE WAS RE-ELECTED.
Scott Walker, a frightening sociopath who will lie about anything, is crippling Wisconsin. HE WAS RE-ELECTED.
Rick Scott is an outright criminal who should be in prison for several reasons. He is strangling Florida. HE WAS RE-ELECTED.
In 2010 and 2014, we were massacred. Humiliated. Crushed. We got our asses kicked. We got our clocks cleaned. Why? In part because the turnout was disgracefully low (only 36% in 2014, worst in 72 years). The Republicans run the states. ALEC is writing the laws. They are gutting us locally, where it counts. If we lose the presidency, this country is finished. The Republican radicals want to abolish the 17th Amendment and go back to legislatures choosing senators. Guess who that would give a PERMANENT Senate majority to? The Republicans want constitutional amendments outlawing gay rights and declaring America a "Christian" nation. Thirty-four states can call a constitutional convention. When the Right wins control of 38 states, they can push those amendments through, bypassing Congress. And again, they don't care what polls say. They get their way because they vote.
Hillary Clinton can help us stop this nightmare. She will inspire millions of women who never thought one of their own could reach the White House. She can rally white working class voters who have fond memories of Bill Clinton. She can rally black voters. She can take the worst the Republicans can throw at her and spit it right back at them. The only thing that would hurt her would be angry progressives sitting out the race because their ideal candidate wasn't nominated. That, by the way, is what the Republicans are counting on. That's what got Nixon elected in 1968, for example. And we all know how that came out.
Is Hillary what I hoped for? No. But she is all that is standing between us and a group of lunatics and criminals so vile I would scarcely have thought it possible in this day and age. The Republicans are a mortal threat to this country and to the rest of the world. Their policies are driven by masses of hate-filled people whose minds have been sickened and poisoned by right wing hate radio and Fox "News". Look at what they did to Obama. There is no ugly smear they will not launch. I am not going to hand my beloved country over to these nutjobs and thieves without one hell of a fight.
Hillary Clinton can win this fight.
Bernie Sanders, in my humble opinion, cannot. He is a wonderful man. He has the better positions. But his nomination opens the door for the radicals who are destroying this nation.
For the sake of everyone, he cannot be our nominee.