Bernie Sanders for President...

[flabbybody]

I can't begin to imagine what the cost of living (i.e. taxes) would be in California if Bernie was President.

Just waiting for Biden to make it official....

At this point even Biden's biggest fans are getting annoyed at his indecision

[broncofan]

So who here thinks that a more socialist system would make this a better country? I have not seen Bernie's tax plan, but I imagine that a more graduated tax system with more brackets, extending towards the much higher income ranges, would be a more fair system. I also like the idea of having better social programs and moving towards a single payer healthcare system (which will never happen I think).

But at the end of the day I don't have confidence that's what enough Americans want and I don't think Bernie could get elected as I said. I also have doubts about how efficiently we could administer that system given our federalist structure and what kind of backlash we get for moving that far left given our political culture. I also do not know how good Bernie would be at governing and whether he would let some of his big ideas get in the way of making tough decisions. So I'm not sure I would support Bernie over Hillary even if he were electable.

Anyway, his campaign has had a bit more legs than I thought it would. And as I think Trish said, it affects how the other candidates present themselves. When they see another candidate with a cult following advocating socialist policies they realize there is a segment of society that is not averse to broader social programs and a more egalitarian economic system.

[trish]

So who here thinks that a more socialist system would make this a better country?

Oo ooo! I do! I do! (Arm aimed straight at the teacher and vibrating for attention). Social security, medicare, planned parenthood, federal support for public education, I’m in favor of them all.

‘don’t know Bernie’s plan either, but I agree we could simplify the tax code, removing loopholes, add more brackets at the higher end with higher rates, drop the tax cap on social security and tax capital gains in the higher brackets at the rates we tax income in those brackets.

I doubt whether Americans has a whole think enough about these issues to know what they want. Everybody likes and expects the social benefits they get but hate the idea that their tax dollars might benefit somebody else in a different way. The elderly love Social Security, yet you can always find people and politicians who want to get rid of it or privatize it (as if scooping a profit off the top of the take will reduce the price of the product and increase it’s value). Young people don’t always realize that without Social Security, they’d be making up the difference, feeding and financially supporting their parents to help them make ends meet. I love the tea-party sign that read, “Keep Your Gov’ment Mits Off My Medicare.” We live in villages, towns and cities because we learned that to survive we need to depend on each other. We increase the quality of our lives by depending on each other.

To the political question: Bernie or Hillary?

Presently, I’m leaning toward Hillary. She has experience in State and Federal Government. As Secretary of State she skillfully and diplomatically handled any number of crisis. She got a tough skin and has experience handling herself in the political arena. Bernie has less experience, although as a Senator he still has considerable experience and knowledge about domestic and foreign, political and commercial issues. I like the way he pushing the issue of economic equality and pulling the discussion in that direction. At the moment, he seems to me a bit less savvy politically. I think Hillary has a better chance at getting elected.

Of course all of this is in flux. I may revise my assessment next week.

[Stavros]

Just as I was watching as much as I could take of the Democrat Candidates debate, I learn that Jim Webb has dropped out (one wonders why he bothered dropping in), and that Joe Biden will definitely not stand. Of the remaining four, Chafee seems to me to be 'nice, but dim', Martin O'Malley comes across as a reasonable man but with a questionable record (he says as Governor Maryland now has the best performing public schools in America, how one judges that I don't know). His main problem is that he has no charisma, he doesn't ignite any passion in an audience, and I think the voters want someone who fires them up.

Hillary Clinton has charisma in abundance and came across as the candidate most keyed in to practical policy making, but I fear after so many years in public life it is her presentation skills that lift her above her competitors. When she was challenged on the way she has shifted her policies to suit her audience, I thought her response was weak, yes her values might not have changed in the last 40 years, but it is the policies not the values that were under scrutiny. I have also read somewhere that she is not a collegiate person, she makes up her mind and expects everyone else to fall into line, and can bully those who are reluctant, whereas one hopes a President would take counsel before making decisions, or maybe that is what Bill is for, since he doesn't seem to be good for much else these days (other than making money giving speeches).

Sanders, if selected, and I don't think he will be, would not win the Presidency. His aggressive stance and his negative tone smacks of resentment where voters are looking for hope. Playing on resentment and fear is undoubtedly part of a good speech, but people want something to vote for, not against, they want something they think will work, and that requires a positive message which Sanders does not deliver. It is like someone who goes to the doctor with an illness and all they get is an explanation from the doctor of what it is, when what they want is a remedy to get rid of it.

Sanders calls himself a 'Democratic Socialist' but on the basis of what he said he is not a socialist of any description other than his own, but is a 1960s Democrat who believes in Big Government of the kind one associates with LBJ and the War on Poverty. He uses resentment at the super-rich to peddle the policy which would re-structure taxation to be more equitable across income groups, but cannot explain how, if at all, this would in any way create jobs. Yes, the spread of income in Sweden, Norway and Denmark might be fairer than it is in the USA, but that is not what either sustains or creates jobs in those countries, and the long term issue in the USA, as most of the candidates did acknowledge, is that over the last 12 (if not more than that) years, wages have stagnated relative to other costs, while over the last 30 years it is the loss of jobs indeed entire industries to overseas markets and the corresponding decline in heavy industry and sources of work for a mass of low or unskilled workers that has caused such trauma to the US economy.

We have the same arguments in this country and while I think the rich and super-rich should pay more tax, I don't think it makes much difference to job creation, investment patterns or business start-ups, if people are given more money they will be spending it on drawing down their debt, paying off their mortgage and so on.

As usual, Clinton parrots the line that job creation 'will come' from 'investment in the infrastructure and green energy' but Obama was saying this in his first campaign in 2008, what happened to this policy? Sanders lashes out 'we need to take back our government from a handful of billionaires' as if a Democrat had not been in the White House for the past seven years, and if he is referring to Congress why has his party failed to control it since 2008?

On the available evidence, Hillary Clinton will get the nomination, unless she dies suddenly, falls seriously ill, or someone we don't yet know of enters the race. I have no vote in US elections, and looking at the emerging candidates between the Democrats and the Republicans, I am relieved I don't have to make the choice.

[fred41]

Jim Webb kind of straddles a bit of the gray area between both parties, and unfortunately nowadays there isn't much room for that. He also sounds lost - he complained that he didn't get any time , which is true, but then when he did get some , he did nothing with it. Goodbye.
I give Bernie Sanders credit for having the class to deflect the medias critique of Clinton's emails...but it also showed he may not have the stomach for this, because truth be told, if the positions were reversed, there is no way in hell that Hillary Clinton would have given him the same benefit. That's not how it works.
At this point almost every political contender is in pander mode...so when they asked Hillary Clinton about changing her message depending on the audience, well..to be fair, a lot of them do that, it's just that some contenders aren't interesting enough to be continuously quoted at every dinner or event they show up in. Also, none of the other politicians on that stage ever had the spotlight on them often enough to see how they waffled. Hell, these are primaries...everyone waffles.
She did try to deflect some responses by shifting to an occasional message of unity against the Republican Party...but that is usually just drivel: Save that for the election debates, these are the primaries -voters want to see the differences between the candidates in the same party , not a rallying call against the other party...but she did time it well when she did it, and usually the crowd approved.
In my opinion, Hillary Clinton clearly won that debate. She was the most polished...she threw the message left when she had to and then reeled it slightly back, closer to the center when she had to. There were no gaffes worthy of more than a shrug.
The contest here, is clearly between Clinton and Sanders. The passion is behind Sanders - he has a clear message that he's sticking with and the extreme left of that party can usually be counted on empathizing with his "revolution" stance.
Clinton and her team have lots of experience at this now, and it clearly shows. Forget Biden...she'd probably crush him. (she already got him to spew a small lie about how he, not her, told President Obama to go ahead and unleash the Seals on Bin Laden ...that turned out false according to Gates and the President).

But,...she does come across (now) as old establishment against a fresh (but not young) passionate face.
I agree with Stavros and probably most of the world - Hillary will get the nomination, "unless she dies suddenly, falls seriously ill, or someone we don't yet know enters the race".

Can't tell you much about the republican debate, I only saw the first one...and that herd needs to be thinned Waaaaaay down first.

[Stavros]

The obvious, and ultimate question, Fred, is -if Hillary Clinton does get the nomination, can she win the Presidency? It would be easy to sit here and ridicule Donald Trump, or Ted Cruz (apparently George W Bush doesn't like him), and there may yet be late comers to the party, but there is still a long way to go. And I imagine the dirt and vitriolic abuse that will be levelled at Mrs Clinton by her enemies will make the campaign a rough one indeed.

[fred41]

She can very well win the presidency...most betting sites give her the best odds by far. The closest Republicans at this point are usually Marco Rubio or Jeb Bush...but their odds are way behind her.
But as you said - "....there is still a long way to go."
The economy may dictate the presidency but it's 'foreign policy' that may help decide this, only because almost anything can happen out there , on any given day, with so much time in between.

[VKC]

If Hilary runs I will vote for Trump (ie... Republican no matter what) , if Bernie runs I will vote for him no matter what.

A debate about abortion on a transgender webite? Really. Red Herring Fallacy? Maybe? Just a little. Transfemale here.

Anyway, there is no way to deport illegals. There are just too many. The idea is unrealistic and stupid. As far as i am concerned, since the U.S. nation builds, Mexico, our neighbor, needs rebuilt. Seriously, the U.S. travels half the world away to help others when 10,000,000 Mexicans left 'their' homeland for a better life (not an exact number, but still.) Why would I care about what is going on half the world away when our neighbor needs help.

[trish]

A debate about abortion on a transgender webite? Really. Red Herring Fallacy? Maybe? Just a little.

Some of us have mothers, sisters, women friends, women lovers, nieces etc. Some of us just care. Why wouldn't abortion be a topic of discussion here? We're women too. The fallacy is thinking that women's issues concern only women; or that pro-choice concerns only fertile women.

Anyway, there is no way to deport illegals. There are just too many. The idea is unrealistic and stupid. As far as i am concerned, since the U.S. nation builds, Mexico, our neighbor, needs rebuilt. Seriously, the U.S. travels half the world away to help others when 10,000,000 Mexicans left 'their' homeland for a better life (not an exact number, but still.) Why would I care about what is going on half the world away when our neighbor needs help.

I agree -for the most part (what's going on half a world away can easily enough impact our economy and security, and people are still people even if they're on the other side of the world)-but yes, I agree that we should be helping Mexico (as well as Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador). Ninety percent of the fruit grown on U.S. soil is picked by immigrants who came from below our border. So why would you vote for the idiot who wants to build a wall along our southern border, instead of Hillary? I would think that on most of the issues one associates with Bernie's campaign, the difference between him and Clinton is far smaller than the distance between Sanders and any one of the clowns now running for the GOP presidential nomination.

[broncofan]

Anyway, there is no way to deport illegals. There are just too many. The idea is unrealistic and stupid. As far as i am concerned, since the U.S. nation builds, Mexico, our neighbor, needs rebuilt. Seriously, the U.S. travels half the world away to help others when 10,000,000 Mexicans left 'their' homeland for a better life (not an exact number, but still.) Why would I care about what is going on half the world away when our neighbor needs help.

It is interesting because I find Trump's policies with respect to illegal immigrants to be unrealistic, punitive, and racist. And while I agree that we cannot deport everyone here illegally, what we need is immigration reform so that people who are undocumented can be put on a path to citizenship. In principle, I have no problem with the idea of people who avoided the immigration process being deported, but if it's impracticable and comes at a high cost to those who are here legally, there must be a better answer.

I also think the idea of nation building is a red herring. We are not bombing Syria to rebuild their society but because we think it protects our interests (and for humanitarian reasons that are not really nation building). And there will probably be a persistent disparity between the wealth of the U.S. and Mexico for decades. I don't think it's a legitimate object of U.S. policy to increase the economic prosperity of Mexico...

I also don't understand your comment about abortion unless you were just joking. We discuss all sorts of issues and not only out of self-interest but because they are relevant subjects.