(Sen. Max Cleland (D-GA)
For me to support Sen. Sanders you need to explain to me how Republicans don't win with a simple and idiotic formula:
Socialist = Communist (like China and North Korea) and in some ridiculous iterations = Nazi (as insane as it is it has already been said)
Greywolfe359's top recommended diary on 11/2/15 rejects Secretary Clinton's nomination because the user fears another lost generation from a moderate=sellout administration failing to fix the glaring inequities in our country.
Well, I fear another Republican administration will destroy this country. Like Greywolfe359, I am in my 30's and have only known the administrations of Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama. We are not far in time from how Republicans used scare tactics and outright lies to defeat war heroes Kerry and Cleland with draft dodgers like Bush, Cheney and Chambliss. These were formative political events in my life as I am sure they were for Greywolfe359.
And so you'll perhaps understand how I do not wish a candidate who has not proven he can defeat such an effort.
Follow my logic over the orange thing . . . if you wish.
Bill Maher already asked Sen. Sanders this question and Sanders flubbed it by saying that he would build a movement to counteract this mislabeling. Cleland and Kerry spent 30-40 years being honored as true war heroes by all parties (that's why he was one of the veterans that spoke to that committee in 1972). How do you expect a movement of like-minded individuals to convince the least informed and often least educated to ignore a well-coordinated scare campaign like only the Republicans can produce. It is that assumption by activists and hacks alike that have lead to so much of our electoral woes.
Obama did not use the massive movement he built to get over the hump with those voters described above but used political skill, good tactics and the force of his personality to beat back the charges of socialism, the attacks on his pastor and so many other vicious and untrue things. I know that Clinton can too, but Sanders has not convinced me that he can fight the vicious charge outlined above or others.
You don't need to convince me on the realities of our governmental system (I know we are more Socialist than the majority acknowledge). Nor do you need to convince me on the benefit of many of the policies advocated by Sen. Sanders (although I do believe there is not much difference between the policies proposed by both candidates; just a question of how committed Secretary Clinton will be to those policies in the future. Let me though acknowledge how awesome Sanders position on Marijuana was today). Finally, you don't need to convince me that Sanders' policy proposals are popular with majorities and super majorities of the country.
I, like I am sure so many of the readers of this blog, have suffered through Bush's economy in both the 2000's and 2010's. I owe over $150,000 in student loan debts. I look at that and the massive debt that this country has and know that I will never be able to afford a house or retirement. I get the anger of Greywolfe359 and those that recommended him/her. And for me to be with you all you need to do is . . .
Convince me that Sanders can counteract a coordinated destructive campaign that compares him to the vicious tryannies and brutal revolutionaries of the past century and I will happily support Sanders. But no movement will do it. Nor any other thing outside Sen. Sanders himself and to date he has not shown he can.
We have just clawed our way out of the horror the Bush administration left. Our economy is not producing the fairness it should but it is producing. We are not out of Iraq and Afghanistan but at least we have prevented Iran from getting a nuclear weapon and we have greatly reduced our troop levels in Iraq and Afghanistan. Even if we do have to eat increased military involvement in Syria. We have introduced the concept of universal health care in our government if not the reality. And we have seen an increase in the civil rights of so many of our brothers and sisters.
But we still have a Republican Congress. Gerrymandering has given us the biggest Republican majority since 1928. Republicans owns all branches of government in nearly 30 states. Democrats are in a similar position in less than 10 states.
It could be so much worse than having a supposed sellout and I will not risk that worse unless Sanders can demonstrate the Republicans will not tie the Socialist label around his neck and choke us all with it.