I wrote a comment in response to another diary ( here ) but decided that, expanded, it would explain why I have decided to vote for Clinton over Sanders in my upcoming Virginia primary.
The comment was specifically focused on banking regulation. But I veered off the specific point to address the general bash Hillary/Bernie is a saint narrative. Word of advice to some of the Bernie supporters out there: it is not productive to accuse those of us who have chosen to go down the other path of stupidity, conservatism, surrender, corporatism, etc. That is neither fair nor persuasive.
Indeed, I suspect we agree on far more issues than you would think, I am fairly radical economically and socially. But I also try to be realistic about what can be accomplished politically. It took several decades for clandestine right-wing money to get us into this current state of affairs, and electing Bernie would not magically reverse those results. A real problem I have with the left is that the conservative movement is adept at playing the long game, and we are not. Some of us tended to expect that electing Obama, or now Sanders, will solve everything. Well, the recent history using Obama as a case study should disillusion everyone on that point. We have not laid the groundwork for a political revolution, it starts at the bottom, not the top. We need to get in and influence local elections, statewide elections, and House elections, not just the Presidency. Even more important, we need to construct a counter-narrative that refutes the right-wing balderdash that, unfortunately, has become conventional wisdom for many and is even unwittingly sometimes used by progressives. Until that is done, we’ll never get the kind of change we need.
A big part of that is reversing the right-wing Supreme Court. Voting rights, Citizens United, systematic weakening of labor unions — reversal of these and other judicial decisions would go a long way to leveling the political playing field. So it becomes crucial that we retain the Presidency to prevent the Republicans from stacking a conservative Court for the next 30 years or so. Therefore, I am totally dismayed when I read statements from Sanders supporters that they won’t support, or even vote for, Clinton if she’s nominated. This seems to be primarily a one-way phenomenon — few if any Clinton supporters say that they wouldn’t support Bernie.
Obama was not able to accomplish many of the relatively modest goals he came in with because of the overall political environment. He underestimated the opposition. Part of the problem was a naivete or idealism, treating the Republicans like a reasonable, good-faith opposition party for far too long. I remember when he appeared before the Republican House conference retreat early in his Presidency. In an exchange that made me sad and apprehensive at the time, he told one of the House members — was it Ryan? — that he should be careful with his rhetoric because if he got his base too whipped up, he wouldn’t be able to reach a reasonable compromise later. In other words, Obama evidently really believed that the Republicans wanted reasonable compromise. Hence, he diddled away far too much time and political capital negotiating with them rather than ramming his program through.
I see some of this same type of naivete in Bernie and it concerns me. How would he get his free public college plan through a Republican Congress? Get a million students to march on the Capitol? Give me a break. He’d be lucky to get 10,000 people to march, and even if he had 10 million, do you really think the Republicans would give a shit? They’d laugh.
Then there is electability. It’s impossible to prove who’s more electable, and I am aware of current polling showing Bernie does better against the Republicans. That does concern me. But I tend to discount it because he is a relative unknown. He hasn’t been attacked by the right-wing onslaught yet. Socialist, honeymoon in Moscow, crazy professor — it’s all total bullshit, but can be effective. Clinton, on the other hand, is a completely-known commodity. There’s little room for the right wing to define her to the general public — she’s already defined. There are many who hate her and won’t vote for her, and they won’t change their minds, but they wouldn’t vote for Sanders either. In other words, Sanders’ negatives have room to grow, Hillary’s, not so much. And if Bernie sticks to his pledge not to take PAC money, he will be inundated with billions of dollars of dark Koch brothers money. Clinton’s “evil Wall Street fundraisers” will allow her to compete against this sea of dark money. By all means, change the system, but until it’s changed, don’t unilaterally disarm.
Finally, I think Clinton would be a more effective President. Her goals wouldn’t be set as high and wouldn’t be as inspiring, but she might actually be able to get a few of them through, especially if we can retake the Senate. In contrast to Bernie’s troubling naivete alluded to earlier, say what you will about Clinton, there is no way she would be snookered by the Republicans. If there’s one thing she’s learned, it’s how to fight them. Look at the Benghazi hearing for evidence. I believe she is far tougher than Sanders and would know how to fight them more effectively.