Like many other Democrats I am looking at the two main candidates, Senator Bernie Sanders and Former Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, and I am very close to making a decision on who to support. I am very interested in hearing what friends have to say about who they think wold make the better president.
Who would make the better president?
- Senator Sanders (76%, 13 Votes)
- Hilary Clinton (24%, 4 Votes)
Total Voters: 17
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The poll is closed, but feel free to leave a comment.
I’m voting for Bernie Sanders because I am tired of the Clintons and all the political establishment/cronyism that comes with them. She has taken money from the very same banks and corporations that practically brought this country to financial ruin in 2008. Also, the Republicans will most likely spend the next 4 or 8 years going after any hint of scandal like they did during her husband’s presidency wasting millions of taxpayer’s dollars on an impeachment only to have him acquitted two months later. They are part of the problem with this country. I will not vote for her just because she’s a woman. Hillary did not understand the voters in 2008 and she does not understand them in 2016. Bernie all the way!
Bernie is less aggressively anti gun, and less obviously a crook, liar, and genuinely mean person. Plus, Congress has antibodies for most of his wackiness.
Clinton has no discernible — or, at least, stable — core principles or goals, other than to get elected. I am also unswayed by claims that she has a great deal of experience; there is a big difference between ‘being around’ and ‘getting things done. She actually has a very short list of accomplishments. So while choosing her will seem the safer choice, the economic state of the the country and the world and the environmental state of the planet, apparent safety is probably the least-safe path to take.
The California primaries are one of the last in the country so, I doubt I will have any say in who becomes the Democratic nominee since the decision is usually made by then. Eliot, I did not vote in your poll because I am unsure who will be better. I like Bernie’s idealism but I also liked Obama’s idealism, which was met with too much resistance from the GOP party. If Bernie won the general election, my fear is that the GOP will continue stonewalling progressive efforts. I actually wonder if Hillary, with all her connections, could be more effective than Bernie. Meanwhile, my vote doesn’t really count because California is last on the primary election list. I will support either candidate in the general election.
Benghazi!!!
They’re both great, but the pull for me is how Sanders is moving the Overton window.
I’m not sure how a Republican congress (which, due to gerrymandering, we’re likely to keep) will act with a white president, but we’ve seen how inflexible they are with a black president. I’m honestly not sure how much of it is petty party politics and how much is just plain old racism (there’s certainly a lot of both).
Given the power of the president is not in making law, but in moving the conversation and directing the executive branch, I think Sanders is more likely to move that conversation to a better place.
This would be a Jewish President. I am already seeing antisemitic comments on my Facebook page. One came as a distortion of his Socialist principles. It had such a historically intelligent antisemitic twist that I don’t think the Facebook friend who posted it realized its meaning. I did. I was upset (I am Jewish). It was a slogan that was built upon the history of Socialism/Communism and the Eastern European Jewry around the turn of the 20th century.
Paul,
Just to add: I don’t remember the offensive Facebook banner that a friend innocently posted but within three or four sentences, it had the words “The Banker Jew”, “The Socialist Jew,” and “Bernie Sanders.” How it was written, had strong undertones to the Eastern European Jewry lifestyle before and around the Bolshevik Revolution. For one, Jews were not allowed to be land owners so, careers often included: Merchants, Bankers, and Craftsmen. Secondly, the Jews were marginalized by the Tsarist autocracy to the point that they were persecuted by pogroms. Because Russian Jews were a marginalized population, many very much supported the Red cause, believing in the ideals of Socialism. Unfortunately, Communism was a poorly adopted form of the Socialism the Jews had wanted.
I don’t think congress will ever go a long with Bernie’s ideas and ideals. But I also think they will stymie HRC at every turn as well. The Republicans have shown they’ve had it out for her since 1992. I can only imagine the ghost of Vince Foster revisiting us in 2018 when the Republicans feel their base growing soft. So I don’t think either will get much done until we take back both the House and Senate.
Given this, I want to cast my vote for someone whose ideals, I believe, are directionally correct. I don’t actually agree with totally free college for all because I think people have to have skin in the game. I do think however we can make it far cheaper and financial aid more generous. I don’t think we’ll get to single payer, but we should have it. I don’t think he’ll reduce the prison population to less than every other industrialized country per capita by the time his first term is up, but it’s a great goal. HRC on the other hand seems very incremental to me. Every debate so far has sounded like running for either President Obama’s third term or fix a little/tweak a little in policy. “We’ll add more people to the insurance roles and make Obamacare better,” for example. I think the time for incrementalism has passed.
Lastly, Bernie has been saying exactly what he’s saying now since 1963. Longer than I’ve been alive. This includes the “bringing people together.” I read a great article in the Atlantic about Bernie’s history and they interviewed republican land owners/developers in Burlington who initially HATED the idea of having a socialist mayor but ended up respecting and voting for Bernie despite the labels and party. They said, they didn’t always agree but he worked to find common ground and solutions that were the best for everyone. No higher praise in this time of political divide. HRC just seems to me to say what she needs to say at any given moment. I really do feel like the incrementalism is a cover for broken campaign promises and the fine line between donors and voters. I might be wrong but I don’t think so.
Thanks, Rob, Charlotte, Paul, Dave, Rose, and Dean!
More to come.