The Democrats' Bernie Sanders Problem

[Tidewater]

She really strikes me as the type who feels "I'm in the ruling class. I don't have to follow the rules the rest of you do."

 

[selmaborntidefan]

She really strikes me as the type who feels "I'm in the ruling class. I don't have to follow the rules the rest of you do."

There's an old saying that politicians generally come across as they really are.

I had a med school prof who was Gore's physician for a few years and traveled the world with them in the late 90s. He said that everything you would think is true via TV and the way they come across basically was. Bill Clinton was a gregarious, fun-loving and calm guy, a sort of mature party animal kind. Tipper Gore was sweet as punch. Otoh, Hillary was every bit the five-letter B word you'd think and Al Gore was an arrogant little you know.

He literally said you saw them and figured Bill and Tipper belonged together and Al and Hillary would have made a great "War of the Roses" couple. The movie, not the fifteenth century English wars.

I also had a friend with the police that provided security in Little Rock for the Clintons and her "rules don't apply to me" personality was known even back then. There IS a reason she's called "Lady Macbeth of Little Rock." I'll tell you who she reminds me of - Jesse Jackson in the late 1980s. Not in terms of flowery preacher rhetoric but in terms of coming across as, "You're lucky to have me, and I should be the king (queen) of this country and you should vote for me BECAUSE I'M ENTITLED to it. And if you don't you're a racist (sexist)."

Sanders is connecting with that desire for authenticity; for better or worse, so is Trump. You know what would REALLY shake up the system? If these two won their party's nominations and then after the Conventions cut themselves loose late enough that the parties couldn't get anyone on the ballot. Remember, it's the two parties in general that have rigged the game so that it's impossible to get names on a ballot. Simply announce say after Labor Day that you're no longer the party nominee.

This would be incredibly easy for Trump because of his money, probably not so much for Sanders (but maybe - if he can raise Obama-style money).

It's not that I want either guy and I'm sure the parties have thought in advance about how to change the rules to their own benefit - but it might be just the kind of wake-up call the whole country needs.

(I'm not trying to be rude or morbid, but I half expect Sanders to get the nomination in the bag and then croak next summer and Hillary come to the rescue as the back-up nominee).

 

[Tidewater]

Megan McCardle: Hillary's Trust Problem
McCardle notes that most Americans don't trust Hillary. In part because the Clintons' "cavalier belief that rules are for other, smaller people."
She still believes that Hillary getting the nomination is inevitable, however. I think that says a lot about the Democrats.

 

[selmaborntidefan]

I think Hillary strikes everyone as precisely what she, in fact, is - a woman so hungry with ambition to be "queen of the world" that she turned a blind eye to infidelity after infidelity of her philandering husband so she could get in place to get what she craves. Bill's adultery is legendary, it's not the stuff of a one-night foul-up or even a couple of them because "I was lonely." Any person with one ounce of self-respect would have fled town after about the tenth affair. And the fact she has no self-respect but is overcome with the most blinded ambition I've ever seen in any person who has sought this office since 1980 - that's why nobody respects her at all.

Pretty difficult to respect someone who has no self-respect.

(And before you come back at me, YES, most folks seeking the office have quite a bit of ambition - but if you look at most of them close enough there ARE lines they're not willing to cross even if it would help. To give one well-known example, in 1984 Mondale was told to lower the sound of his voice to see if Reagan was as deaf as rumors had it - he wouldn't do it. Humphrey could have buried Nixon with a cable about Vietnam in the final week of the 1968 race but he concluded that Nixon hadn't known about it. And Dukakis actually backed up Bush 41 as a war hero with an admirable service record in August 1988 when the tail-gunner from Bush's downed plane in WW2 tried to suggest maybe Bush should have saved the other guys in his plane).

My point? Most people have ambition for the Presidency but it is limited - I get the idea that if she were told to offer Chelsea as a burnt sacrifice and she'd be President - she'd actually do it. (She might not but that IS how she comes across).


Let me point out the difference here I guess: I see Trump and Hillary almost as twin sides of the same coin as far as ambition and self-importance go. But Trump lays it all out there and acts precisely that way; Hillary tries to act like she isn't. That's why you have two folks who are essentially the same types of ambitious personalities and yet one is seen as authentic (because he is) and the other as a phony (because she is).

Authenticity is still the most important attribute a candidate can have - just be yourself. Ronald Reagan was a bumbler who mis-stated facts, misquoted people and remembered movie scenes as actual events. Nobody cared except the Left and they failed at making it an issue. Why? Because Reagan was who he was. Gore was damaged in the first debate by doing what Reagan did - which was unacceptable because after years of posing as a "strong on details" science junkie, he suddenly wanted to exaggerate problems others didn't have.

Bill Clinton would have had much less trouble if he had just come right out and said, 'Yeah, that intern gave me a happy ending.'

Go back and look at the TV age races - and you'll find authenticity beats the guy trying to act like something other than he is every single time. (Perot failed in 1992 but given how wretched a campaign he didn't actually run, his 1/5 of the vote in a high turnout election was actually quite impressive).