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Thread: Comments on the Democratic Race

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    Comments on the Democratic Race

    Well it's been a while since I've offered my thoughts on the Democratic race for president, but since it has intensified of late, I thought I'd offer my own opinions on some of the recent developments:

    As we all know, the dialogue on the Democratic side has descended into character attacks to a very significant degree. This said, however, some of these have been much more valid than others. I hate to validate the idea that Republicans have been forwarding this whole time about the Clintons being dishonest, but frankly there is a lot more intellectual honesty to Sanders' criticisms of Hillary Clinton speaking fees than there is to the accusation that Bernie Sanders is personally responsible for most of the gun violence that takes place in New York and that he plausibly has something to hide in his income taxes, for example. The Clinton camp's lines of attack are broadly, obviously invalid and seem characterized largely by that "desperation" they accuse Sanders of acting upon, given that the New York primary, to say nothing of national polling, has tightened a lot over the last month (more than even I thought it would!) as the result of a whole wave of Bernie Sanders victories.

    These sorts of clearly desperate lines of attack and the lack of honesty behind them frankly do go a long way toward explaining Hillary Clinton's plunging favorability numbers. It is worth adding though that they don't explain everything. For example, why does BILL Clinton enjoy a 58% favorability rating while his wife's is only 32%? In point of fact, just about all prominent Democrats currently have a net positive likeability ratings except Hillary Clinton: Bernie Sanders is currently viewed favorably by 48% of Americans, President Obama by 56%, Vice President Biden by 57%, and Bill Clinton by 58%. What this concentrates is that prominent Democrats across the board are currently popular regardless of their race, political views, or ethical history...except the woman. In this connection, I'm not so much suggesting that Hillary Clinton should be more popular, but that some of these others (namely and in particular Bill Clinton) should be less if we are to attribute this dramatic difference to something other than indeed sexism. So yes, the general sexist attitudes of the public -- the general revulsion that both men and women tend to experience when they perceive a woman as pursuing power (I would highlight that 2010 study by Yale University on this subject) -- are, I would say, a factor.

    The thing is though that one can hardly say Bernie Sanders is playing to these sentiments. The most sexist thing Sanders has said or done in the campaign so far has been his allegation in the first Democratic debate that Hillary Clinton was "yelling" at him when she was, in fact, speaking in a normal tone of voice. (Ever heard anyone complain about a man yelling in a political debate before, even when it actually happened?) There have been some other sexist lines of attack against Hillary Clinton (e.g. her supporters are apparently "$#@!s", and yes throwing money at a woman does have implications that go beyond critiques of ties to Wall Street), but you'll notice that these line of attack are not coming from the candidate himself, who describes himself as a feminist. Bernie's character attacks continue to revolve around Goldman Sachs speaking fees and the Clinton campaign's use of dark money Super PACs, which frankly are valid lines of criticism.

    The only real valid line of criticism that Hillary Clinton has leveled against Bernie Sanders so far in the course of the race for the New York primary has been the argument that Sanders is only raising money for himself, where Mrs. Clinton is also raising money for other Democrats down the ballot. The Sanders campaign's initial response to that line of criticism was to proclaim that Clinton had access to financial avenues "that we're not even interested in," as if her connections to Wall Street explained the difference. In reality, of course, the Sanders campaign has been out-fundraising the Clinton campaign for the last three months in a row and thus has had more resources, yet opted to focus them all on Bernie's presidential bid, where Hillary had divided hers up more. More recently, the Sanders campaign has marginally switched tactics and started also raising money for a very selective pool of Democratic officials: the three who have endorsed him. Now they proclaim that Hillary Clinton's method of fundraising for other Democrats is illegal.

    The most disturbing thing to me about the heated battle for New York though has been both Hillary and Bill Clinton's attacks on major activist groups one the left like Greenpeace and Black Lives Matter. Hillary Clinton has claimed the allegation false that she's taken money from the fossil fuel industry. They have shown otherwise. Bill Clinton, meanwhile, has adopted a particularly disturbing tack in opting to defend the racist term "super-predators", going as far as to claim that Black Lives Matter activists are supporters of gang violence for objecting to that term. And no, an "almost apology" tour doesn't make up for that blatant display of racism. Racism is the most disturbing aspect of the Clintons' political career to me. Another example of it was on display in the recent Democratic debate when Hillary could not be bothered with the lives of Palestinian civilians because they're just not as important as Jewish ones to winning the New York Democratic primary.

    That is my commentary on recent developments in the Democratic race for president.

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    I wish the Election was next week, so we all could take the Summer Off from Presidential Politics.

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    As far as popularity goes I don't see any sexism. President Obama's policies, republican hand-wringing not-with-standing, are pretty popular. Joe Biden has this whole crazy uncle thing going for him along with his association with the President. Bill Clinton is just a personable, likable guy. They are all relaxed confident people who look comfortable in front of crowds or cameras. Hillary Clinton has none of those things going for her and comes off as nervous and aggressive at the best of times, and down right rabid at her worst. It hasn't got much if anything to do with her being female IMHO.

    As far as attacks, there's been a lot of B.S. coming out of the Clinton camp, while Sanders has run one of the cleanest campaigns I personally have ever seen.
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    I wish all candidates campaigned like Sanders. The dem debates look like adults with differences....as opposed to the verbal food fights of the repubs.
    Through all of our running and all of our cunning, if we couldn't laugh we just would go insane. - Jimmy Buffett

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    Crepitus wrote:
    As far as popularity goes I don't see any sexism. President Obama's policies, republican hand-wringing not-with-standing, are pretty popular. Joe Biden has this whole crazy uncle thing going for him along with his association with the President. Bill Clinton is just a personable, likable guy. They are all relaxed confident people who look comfortable in front of crowds or cameras. Hillary Clinton has none of those things going for her and comes off as nervous and aggressive at the best of times, and down right rabid at her worst. It hasn't got much if anything to do with her being female IMHO.
    Oh it's demonstrable. By your logic of disliking aggressive behavior as such, you should logically like Hillary better than Bernie because there are running tallies of the number of attacks each of the candidates has leveled against the other in a given debate, for example, and Bernie's tally is consistently higher than Hillary's. For example, Bernie attacked Hillary 26 times in the last Democratic debate, where Hillary attacked Bernie 22 times. That's comparable enough, BUT it shows that your perception of Hillary as far more aggressive is objectively wrong and probably rooted in a sexist attitude.

    There have been times when Hillary Clinton has gotten boosts in the polls before and they all just happen to correspond to moments where she appeared weak and vulnerable. For example, voters rewarded her for tearing up after the Nevada Caucus and loved her when she was being berated by the Benghazi Committee. She was at her most popular, in fact, during the Monica Lewinski hearings. People love women when they appear to be vulnerable and suffering.

    What I'm trying to say is that both the public and the pundits tend to reward Bernie for aggressive behavior and encourage it while penalizing Hillary for it.

    Now as to the cleanliness factor, I agree with you. The substantive contents of Bernie's character attacks are far more valid and intellectually honest, broadly speaking, as I pointed out in the OP, and I suspect the public responds to that fact too. But the fact that Bill Clinton is nonetheless way more popular than Bernie is something that baffles and kind of offends me. Why? Because he uses sports analogies?
    Last edited by IMPress Polly; 04-19-2016 at 10:40 AM.

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    Bill Clinton's a smooth talker, Hillary's dishonest--and Democrats are sexist, yeah, I'll buy that.

    I didn't see anything on the great division splitting the Democrats. How is that going to reconcile itself?
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    Quote Originally Posted by IMPress Polly View Post
    Oh it's demonstrable. By your logic of disliking aggressive behavior as such, you should logically like Hillary better than Bernie because there are running tallies of the number of attacks each of the candidates has leveled against the other in a given debate, for example, and Bernie's tally is consistently higher than Hillary's. For example, Bernie attacked Hillary 26 times in the last Democratic debate, where Hillary attacked Bernie 22 times. That's comparable enough, BUT it shows that your perception of Hillary as far more aggressive is objectively wrong and probably rooted in a sexist attitude.

    There have been times when Hillary Clinton has gotten boosts in the polls before and they all just happen to correspond to moments where she appeared weak and vulnerable. For example, voters rewarded her for tearing up after the Nevada Caucus and loved her when she was being berated by the Benghazi Committee. She was at her most popular, in fact, during the Monica Lewinski hearings. People love women when they appear to be vulnerable and suffering.

    What I'm trying to say is that both the public and the pundits tend to reward Bernie for aggressive behavior and encourage it while penalizing Hillary for it.

    Now as to the cleanliness factor, I agree with you. The substantive contents of Bernie's character attacks are far more valid and intellectually honest, broadly speaking, as I pointed out in the OP, and I suspect the public responds to that fact too. But the fact that Bill Clinton is nonetheless way more popular than Bernie is something that baffles and kind of offends me. Why? Because he uses sports analogies?
    I wasn't really talking about the number of the attacks so much as here general demeanor on camera.

    I'm not even going to comment on your characterization of my attitude as "sexist".
    People who think a movie about plastic dolls is trying to turn their kids gay or trans are now officially known as

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    Chris wrote:
    I didn't see anything on the great division splitting the Democrats. How is that going to reconcile itself?
    Probably through the selection of a running mate that appeals to the group or groups the winning candidate normally has trouble appealing to. Frankly, Elizabeth Warren is probably the most ideal pick for either of them at this point. Hillary Clinton's biggest sticking point is her ties to Wall Street and Warren is a prominent "rock star" of a Democrat who's not too radical for Clinton, but who nonetheless has earned a reputation for opposing the interests of the financial aristocracy. Picking Warren for vice president would probably have the effect of getting the majority of the more belligerent Bernie Sanders supporters on board and would certainly increase her appeal to younger voters. For Sanders' part, one cannot imagine him picking a "moderate" Democrat as his running mate anyway and picking Warren would help him broaden out his appeal to one group he has been generally losing to Hillary Clinton: women. And, to top it off, Warren has conveniently made herself available to either prospective nominee by refusing to endorse a candidate. In fact, she's now the only Senator who hasn't endorsed; a fact that makes it pretty apparent to me that she kind of wants to be picked for vice president and doesn't especially care whether it's Clinton or Sanders.

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    Quote Originally Posted by PolWatch View Post
    I wish all candidates campaigned like Sanders. The dem debates look like adults with differences....as opposed to the verbal food fights of the repubs.
    The moderators have to not ask flame bait questions before that can happen.
    ΜOΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ


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    What is puzzling is why Bill Clinton's approval numbers are so high.

    Mostly I'd say it's the distance of his presidency in time, giving him a nostalgic appeal. Plus his famous charisma. Which Hillary lacks.

    The lack of charisma combined with bizarre levels and types of dishonesty are why Hillary's numbers are so low.



    Hillary's attempts to cast Bernie as sexist combined with incidents such as the Bosnian tarmac episode -- where she lied again about it when trying to explain her earlier lies -- show why she is not liked. Oh, and don't forget her flip-flops. She is the Democrats' etch-a-sketch. Dishonest in so many ways.

    Supposedly likable during in-person professional dealings, but that doesn't translate to the campaign trail. And without Bill's ability to do that on the campaign trail, there is nothing to buoy her numbers.



    Luckily for her, she'll be running against someone with even higher unfavorables than she has. And, hey, some may claim that's lucky for us. Some may say that "whatever it takes" to get her past the election is great, just as long as it results in getting her into office, where supposedly she'll act in both a more charismatic way and more honorable way than she has while campaigning.

    So probably her favorability numbers will rise while she is in office. Low expectations. The numbers could hardly get lower than they are now.
    Last edited by JVV; 04-19-2016 at 03:04 PM.
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