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Democratic Debate 2/11 9 PM EST in Milwaukee
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Bringing it up out of the blue? Totally a bad idea 100%.
Bringing it up as a counter to how she was trying to make him look like he Hated Obama with a capital H? Seemed reasonable to me.
How? It's not actually a counter to that, it's only an accusation that "Well, you were anti-Obama too!".
Except that runs into the problem that she's been spending the last while tying herself to Obama and his legacy. She was his SoS. She's all about saying she's pro-Obama.
It's a deflection she's already countering and doesn't address her accusation of him.
Its especially hard when he's using a bullshit "leadership" attack on Obama to freaking day.
pleasepaypreacher.net
I thought Sanders answer tonight was fine, great even, noting that there is room for criticism and mildly rebuking Hillary for bringing it up.
Trying to make 2008 a campaign issue though would be terrible though, and I think he works on not getting baited to talk about it again for the next debate.
Side note: I understand what Clinton was doing there, she has strongly tied herself to Obama for this primary especially with SC and it's huge black population coming up, but man that still felt a bit gross.
She's been tying herself to Obama for a long time now. It's about alot more then SC, it's about the fact that Obama be popular with democrats.
I mean that this was, to my knowledge, the first time she has directly attacked Sanders for his remarks criticizing Obama. I don't think it was an accident that she waited until South Carolina to bring that up.
A huge part of the early days of this thread were about how "Well it doesn't matter if you get into the nitty gritty of which candidate REALLY has a better history in regards to so-and-so, the optics don't favor them in the public perception, and that's an issue."
That was a snappy line that's going to get quoted again and again, and regardless of its logical soundness, I think it will help Bernie's numbers, if only slightly.
At this point I'd like to reiterate that I think Clinton kicked his ass overall tonight, and in the last debate, and that ever since the last debate I've been learning more Clinton than Sanders but I have loves and hates for both of them.
But I think we need to dispel this fiction that Bernie Sanders does not know what he is doing. :P
And again Sanders attacked Obama today on his "leadership" so bringing up something Hillary said 8 years ago when you're saying he's doing bad today is the height of what the fuck are you talking about.
pleasepaypreacher.net
It was snappy but it doesn't segue into a larger stab at Clinton and as it gets repeated Clinton's people will simply go back to "We like Obama, Sanders keeps saying he sucks". God knows how it will actually play out in the polls.
I don't know, I just don't think it's all that impactful cause it's such a weird statement. I don't know if it'll resonate outside the context of the debate.
The problem is that a) he's been using some GOP talking points in his criticism of Obama (like the U3-U6 line), and b) he's actively pushed for Obama to be primaried when he was the incumbent.
You can't coherently include a highlight without Clinton's attack on Sanders as antiObama. And responses are almost always worse than initial accusations.
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
It just comes across as icky.
"You were the one running against Obama"
Well, yes. That's accurate. It was a Primary. That's what happens. It's what's happening now. How about we focus on the race we're running now and not 2008.
It just came across as unnecessarily antagonistic and a bit "nannie nannie poo poo" sounding. I'd much rather stick to a more positive campaign now than go back to 2008 and rehash all of that fun stuff.
Democrats Abroad! || Vote From Abroad
I mean, I guess I don't care that he wanted to primary Obama?
This was before he had any illusions of running a serious presidential campaign; I'm not going to get mad at the guy for giving rumblings to the same very same criticisms that I saw both here and elsewhere on the progressive parts of the internet. People were constantly complaining that Obama was compromising too much with the GOP and Sanders was an independent Senator who's entire shtick was "progressive attack dog".
There's a difference between criticizing Obama for compromising too much and trying to primary him. That's red meat for opponents in a primary like this.
The issue for me, if you have a problem with your parties nominee and you are in the senate your avenue of discussion should be with the person himself. Sanders is an outsider, but then he claims he'll use his leadership to unite the party up and down the ballot in a way Obama hasn't and its like what?
pleasepaypreacher.net
I don't think Bernie comes across as composed enough to be Manfred.
He's more like a Franziska.
The idea that Obama would respond to personal correspondence with Sanders by hewing substantially to the left is remarkable. Criticizing Obama from the left in the public sphere (including contemplating primaries) is how politics get done.
Sanders has been plugging his leftist message for ages, and has tried to force that message into the national conversation in all sorts of ways. I don't begrudge him that, and Hillary chastising of him for insubordination doesn't cut any particular ice with me. Insubordination is, after all, the point of the whole campaign, which is premised around rejecting a center-left consensus that seemed to until now have completely cemented power within the party.
Yes its always best to attack your parties nominee prior to their contest instead of attempting to direct policy within the party. I always find taking complaints public is the best way to get change instead of attempting to work within, then again Sanders only became a democrat this year, curious that.
pleasepaypreacher.net
Chastising for insubordination? She was (accurately) showing he was ideologically opposed to Obama in some big ways and helping undercut his establishment/compromised argument by highlighting that he's really criticising Obama as much or more with that rhetoric rather than Clinton.
If you don't think 3rd term Obama is a winning argument in the party...well I just disagree.
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
when asked about racism he literally pivoted directly to income inequality issues
but also I think turning strength to weakness is fairly standard, see attacking her for being establishment when her ties to the sitting president and work for him are her strongest asset.
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
In other places, though, both candidates did give some great full throated defenses of government - Bernie, of course, in particular. The absolute highlight of the evening for me was Bernie's impassioned speech about FDR, where he contrasted Herbert Hoover's small-minded small government policies with FDR's new deal. That's the moment that made me go, yep, that's why I'm voting for Bernie next month.
Right, which is why I move we abolish medicaid, food stamps, and the pell grant because the programs merely disproportionately benefit black americans and do not solve structural inequality
Also why Bill Clinton was right to thrust an entire generation of black kids into inescapable poverty with his war on welfare, because providing a safety net to black families is an incredibly racist thing to do because it does not recognize the structural racism inherent in the system
or something
Definitely or something since this is not really a response to what he said at all.
Like, Knight_ never once said he was against the idea of those programs, he said the idea that they will overcome structural inequalities is false.
Anyway, if Bernie's biggest problem is that he talks about wealth inequality too much, well, wealth inequality is really friggen important so there are worse problems to have.
That's a big problem to have as a Democrat running for president. Optics are crucial here.
that's the left's version of the right's "if the markets were truly free they'd punish racist business owners..."
I'm sure it's super compelling to people who have to teach their kids that life isn't going to be so easy because they were born with darker skin
Also, I hate Bernie's laser focus on income inequality and whatnot because it ignores the fact that some boats have holes in them that need to be repaired first before they can raise with the tide and if you raise the tide without doing that first they just end up underwater.
I'm really starting to sour on the entire Democratic party, the party I volunteered time campaigning for cared about things like food stamps and welfare because they combat real suffering, but I guess all we care about these days is people using precisely the correct language and fuck whether or not they go hungry
EG: Bill Clinton would be a good president if he could run because he says the right things, despite being right up there with any Republican you could name in terms of real economic harm he did to black communities
One that virtually no politican including Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton support
I'm pretty sure no one you are talking to here is against food stamps or welfare.
I'm not really sure what you are on about here frankly.
I'm kind of amazed that anyone, least of all Democrats, would say that U3 is the most accurate method of measuring unemployment, considering how much hay was made by liberal commentators about the discrepancy between unemployment rates as measured by U3 vs U6 vs U8 during the 2008 election cycle. There's a reason that most economists use "real unemployment" as shorthand specifically for U6 - and conversely, one can easily understand why incumbent politicians invariably prefer to instead cite the misleadingly lower U3 figure when defending their domestic economic policies.
Edit: Whoops.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.