Weekend at Bernie's

My nephew tweeted a link to a New York Magazine article explaining why Bernie Sanders is a Bad Thing.  The very liberal NY Times columnist Paul Krugman has a column with similar arguments in the Jan 18 New York Times.  And on one level, I agree with both. Sanders is too bombastically left wing to have any chance of winning.

There is just one problem.

Hillary's problem putting Bernie away is indicative of the essential problem with Hillary.  She will lose to any Republican who runs, because the closer we get to an actual election the more there will be way too may people who decide they just don't want to have Hillary and all the Clinton baggage in the White House, just like people are doing in the early primary states.  I fear the people complaining about Bernie Sanders don't understand that the alternative is as unelectable, in part because they are part of the establishment, like Hillary has been part of the establishment, and they just don't understand how little appeal Hillary has to anyone who wants the country to take a different direction. Hillary won't lead the country Bernie's way, she won't lead it the Republican way, she'll just be another same-old same-old when we need something different.

Suggested reading:  Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen rates Hillary's comments on the Flint, MI water crisis.  She sent an aide, she put out a statement, she went on TV.  Something that should be red meat for a Democrat to chew on, and she can't do it.

Of course Bernie Sanders is right about single payer health care.  However long and potholed and rutted the way might be, if rather take my chances with a candidate who is willing to fight for what we need and compromise from there rather than pre-compromise.  Because the Republicans don't do much of that any more.  Whatever their promises, they want something and they just keep going for it.  The Republican governor in North Carolina who wouldn't add abortion restrictions and is adding them.  The Republican governor in Wisconsin who was only after the public employee unions and is now after all of them.  The Republican governor in Kansas who is leading a failed experiment in supply side economics and is happy to keep leading it, leading it, leading it some more and was re-elected.  I might not agree with any of these people,but I have the utmost respect for them.  They have power. They use it.  They lead unapologetically.  That doesn't describe Hillary. If she has a point of view, no one would know what it is. 

You spend a week in my office, you'll have an idea what I stand for and care about, what JABberwocky stands for and cares about.  Spend thirty years with Hillary, and you end up with her caring less about Flint, MI than Rachel Maddow.