Miriam, that is still only 26 percent of the vote, and that assumes every one
of his supporters shows up to vote. It is still capitalism with a smily face
sticker on it; certainly not revolutionary and probably not even evolutionary.
Frank
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Miriam Vieni
Sent: Saturday, July 30, 2016 4:59 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: You Go to War With the Hillary Clinton You Have
Yes, Bernie Sanders did that and it got him 13 million voters, not counting the
ones that were blocked from voting for him and the votes that were stolen from
him, the uncounted 2 million California votes for example. And it got him poll
figures which shoed him beating Trump. Just think what it would have gotten
him if the media had covered him fairly, and from the start and if the DNC
hadn't been plotting against him. And he did what he was able to accomplish,
starting with almost nothing and with all of those barriers. People are hungry
for someone who will speak truthfully to them about issues that concern them.
But Sanders became frightened and he didn't want to risk continuing to tell the
truth at the convention, so the trust and hope of many of the people who
supported him has been damaged.
Miriam
________________________________
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Alice Dampman Humel
Sent: Saturday, July 30, 2016 3:56 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Cc: Miriam Vieni
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: You Go to War With the Hillary Clinton You Have
Bernie came closest to doing that, and look where it got him?
On Jul 30, 2016, at 3:29 PM, Carl Jarvis <carjar82@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
So once again it comes down to a vote for the lessor fo two evils.
If
we are to prevail over Donald Trump, it is Hillary Clinton.
It would be so refreshing to have a presidential campaign in which at
least one of the candidates moved to higher ground and showcased
positive plans for rebuilding the many social programs that have been
falling into neglect. Instead of being told that a Donald Trump
presidency would be the worst thing to ever befall Americans, why not
give voters some positive stuff as an enticement to back Clinton.
How
about it, Hillary? Can you outline the steps you will take to bring
about the increase of a national wage minimum of at least $15 per
hour?
What plan do you have, and how can we support your efforts in removing
student debts and bringing about "free" education for All students?
How can we work together to bring an end to private prisons and the
"inmate slave labor" that is lining the pockets of Privateers?
What are your plans, and how can we become involved in rebuilding our
public education, including the building of quality facilities?
What are you planning to do, and where do we come in, to create a
Green environment, bringing to an end the death grip of the Oil
Cartel.
See what I mean, Hillary? The list is endless, thanks to the neglect
over the last 36 years. You could put together the most positive
campaign, never having to sound as if you are talking down to us,
telling us over and over just how horrible Donald Trump would be.
Carl Jarvis
On 7/29/16, S. Kashdan <skashdan@xxxxxxx> wrote:
You Go to War With the Hillary Clinton You Have
She may not be an inspirational candidate, but her job now is
to persuade
voters that she's the last best hope against Trump.
By David Corn
Mother Jones, Friday, July 29, 2016 12:15 AM EDT
http://www.motherjones.com/print/310376
Hillary Clinton's convention message: She's good enough to beat
Trump
She may not be an inspirational candidate, but her job now is
to persuade
voters she's the last best hope against the mogul.
When Bill Clinton spoke to the Democratic convention on Tuesday
night, he
warmly recalled the time in 1985 when Hillary Clinton learned
about a
preschool program in Israel that taught low-income mothers how
to become the
first teachers for their children and then introduced it in
Arkansas. When
Joe Biden was at the podium, he declared, "Hillary understood
that for
years, millions of people went to bed staring at the ceiling
thinking, 'Oh
my God, what if I get breast cancer or he has a heart attack? I
will lose
everything. What will we do then?'"
Tim Kaine on Wednesday night pointed out that Clinton had
fought "to get
health insurance for 8 million low-income children when she was
first lady."
He added, "When you want to know something about the character
of somebody
in public life, look to see if they have a passion that began
long before
they were in office, and that they have consistently held it
throughout
their career." And President Barack Obama, in a rip-roaring
stem-winder,
asserted, "Hillary's still got the tenacity that she had as a
young woman
working at the Children's Defense Fund, going door to door to
ultimately
make sure kids with disabilities could get a quality education."
With Hillary Clinton's disapproval ratings nearly as high as
Donald Trump's
record-setting numbers, the message of the Democratic gathering
in
Philadelphia this week has been simple: She is better than you
think,
whether you're a Republican predisposed to dislike a Democrat
but now
concerned about Donald Trump or a Bernie Sanders supporter who
views Hillary
Clinton as the flag carrier for a corrupt corporatist elite.
Bill Clinton
even acknowledged that his wife, thanks to her detractors, has
become a
"cartoon" for many. He added, "Cartoons are two-dimensional.
They're easy to
absorb. Life in the world is complicated."
And so is Hillary Clinton. She is a onetime former McGovern
Democrat who
voted to let George W. Bush launch the Iraq War. She did help
create a
health insurance program for millions of low-income children in
the 1990s
but also supported welfare reform that progressive social
policy experts
decried. She has denounced big-money politics and called for
overturning
Citizens United but pocketed personal and campaign funds from
Goldman Sachs
and other Wall Street interests. She has resolutely stood up to
false
charges from her say-anything foes regarding the tragic
Benghazi attack, but
she did screw up with the emails. She can be highly competent
and also
possess tremendous blind spots. She knows policy and campaigns
awkwardly.
The Clinton White House years were marked by her unsuccessful
but
well-intentioned effort to achieve national health insurance,
her husband's
fight to beat back draconian GOP cuts in Medicare, Medicaid,
environmental
and education funding, and assorted controversies, some real
(her cattle
futures trading, last-minute pardons, the Lewinsky affair) and
some trumped
up (Travelgate, Filegate, Vince Foster's death). She has long
supported
progressive causes (abortion rights, affordable child care,
LGBT rights,
family leave, immigration reform, women's rights, gun safety,
climate
change) but was a partner in her husband's ideological
triangulation and,
more recently, has been less than steady in opposing the
proposed TPP trade
deal. It's no wonder that one leitmotif of the Dems' week in
Philadelphia
was the difficulty many Sanders delegates have coming to terms
with Clinton
as the Democratic nominee.
As the convention managers and leaders of the Clinton campaign
pushed a
message of party unity in celebration of the first woman to win
a major
party's nomination--and Sen. Bernie Sanders joined in by
declaring in his
prime-time speech that it was essential to support Clinton and
that she
would make an "outstanding" president--a large chunk of Sanders
delegates
noted they were not ready for her. Though the Sanders campaign
had achieved
so much more than past within-the-party insurgencies (Jesse
Jackson in 1984
and 1988, Jerry Brown in 1992) by winning significant victories
during the
party platform and rules deliberations, many Sanders delegates
during the
week focused on grievances and slights: the leaked Democratic
National
Committee emails that showed (no shocker) that some Democratic
staffers were
not Sanders fans; the Clinton campaign's embrace of Debbie
Wasserman Schultz
after she resigned as party chairman; the convention managers
preventing [1]
a prominent Sanders supporter from speaking from the stage.
Rather than
celebrate their triumphs, many Sanders delegates groused
repeatedly that the
Clinton campaign had not reached out to them. They openly
rejected Sanders'
instruction to refrain from protests during the convention
proceedings and
to embrace Clinton in the crusade against Trump.
Throughout the week, numerous Sanders delegates said, "I'm not
there yet."
They insisted it was still up to Clinton, whom some dismissed
as a
"neoliberal hawk" and phony progressive, to win them over and
to convince
them she would stick to her opposition to the TPP (the policy
issue that
most engaged Sanders delegates). They voiced disappointment
that Clinton had
not adopted the Sanders position on fracking, single-payer
Medicare for all,
and Middle East policy.
Norman Solomon, a Sanders delegate and coordinator of the
Bernie Delegates
Network (which is not affiliated with the Sanders campaign),
complained that
the convention was full of "cheerleading for war." Chuck
Pennacchio, a
Sanders delegate from Pennsylvania, warned that Sanders
delegates were not
content to "hand the ball" to Clinton. He added, "Clinton and
her surrogates
need to get out in the field and say [to Sanders supporters],
'I really want
to hear you.' And that has not happened." He griped, "When I
talk to the
Hillary people, they say, 'Get over yourself.'"
Older Sanders delegates routinely noted that the millennials
who had boarded
the Bernie Express as volunteers and delegates needed more time
to process
their defeat and that they had to be courted by Clinton. A
senior Sanders
strategist insisted that Clinton had to accept the
responsibility of
engaging with this group via texts, tweets, and videos.
"There is a lot of
mistrust among our young Bernie voters about how the process
was conducted,"
said Donna Smith, the executive director of Progressive
Democrats of America
and a Sanders advocate. "To think young people would make a
pivot in four
days is not very realistic...It is not a given that people will
hold their
nose and vote for her." On the last night, many not-there-yet
Sanders
delegates attended the convention wearing yellow T-shirts
emblazoned with
the slogan "Enough is enough."
It was unclear how many Sanders backers were in such a dark
place. Ten
percent? Half? More? It did seem that some of the independent
senator's
supporters would never accept Clinton and that despite Sanders
own
statements many of his ardent followers had not absorbed the
message that
their insurgency had racked up impressive gains. After
listening to several
Sanders delegates say that Clinton was not addressing their
concerns, Tony
Russomanno, a Clinton delegate from California, wondered if the
Sanders
die-hards could ever be satisfied and deal with the reality
that Clinton had
won the nomination. Sanders "people are conflating being
listened to to
getting their own way," he said with a sigh.
Whether or not energizing Sanders-ites is a top priority for
the Clinton
camp--and it's open to debate whether it's more important for
her to excite
the progressive base or to draw in moderates (or to do both) in
order to bag
the few swing states necessary for victory--she did reach out to
independents and Republicans. Throughout the convention,
speakers and videos
made the case to moderate Rs and independents (see Michael
Bloomberg's
speech [2]) that in a world where Trump could end up in the
White House and
in command of nuclear weapons, Clinton is a just fine if not
perfect
alternative.
With her acceptance speech, Clinton sought to depict herself as
an advocate
of compromise, steady leadership, and across-the-aisle
conversation. She
came across as a workhorse. She noted, "I sweat the details of
policies."
The level of lead in drinking water. The cost of prescription
drugs. The
number of mental health facilities in a state. She confessed
she might not
be the best politician: "The service part has always come
easier to me than
the public part...I get it: Some people don't know what to make
of me." And
she went the Full Bernie, declaring she was prepared to
collaborate with the
Sanders crowd to advance the "progressive" platform the two
campaigns
developed together. Addressing Sanders supporters, she
declared, "I heard
you. Your cause is our cause." She touched all the Sanders
issues: economic
inequality, big-money corruption, Wall Street greed, climate
change, unfair
trade deals, expanding Social Security, tuition-free college,
and more. It
was an outright play for their support.
Clinton slyly slammed Trump, casting him as the candidate of
fear, division,
and insult. She poked at his habit of stiffing small-business
contractors.
"Donald Trump says he wants to make America great again,"
she jabbed. "He
could start by actually making things in America." She zeroed
in on his
temperament: "Imagine him in the Oval Office, facing a real
crisis...A man
you can bait with a tweet is not a man you can trust with
nuclear weapons."
Her overall theme was "stronger together." And she is trying to
build a
non-Trump coalition that stretches from Sanders progressives to
Reaganesque
Republicans who fear Trump. She juxtaposed her desire for
communal politics
with Trump's politics of the ego. It was an effective speech,
and Clinton
succeeded in illustrating the stark choice this presidential
election
presents.
Within the convention hall, there were plenty of Democrats
excited to be led
by Clinton, inspired by her work and stances over the years,
and thrilled by
the historic nature of the moment. But for many Democrats,
progressives,
independents, and GOPers horrified at the prospect of a
bullying, bigoted,
and erratic celebrity tycoon becoming president--and perhaps
not fully
enthused by Clinton--Clinton has to sell herself as the best
option
available. Hours before her speech, Robby Mook, the Clinton
campaign
manager, acknowledged that some voters are "skeptical" of
Clinton and noted
that she must show them her "core values and core motivations
and her
lifetime of work." In a way, her task in the next three months
is to show
those skeptical voters, in the words of Stuart Smalley, the Al
Franken SNL
character, "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it,
people like
me." And if some voters feel they are settling by voting for
her, so be it.
Clinton has spent decades in public life, and there won't be a
new Hillary
in the weeks ahead. She is unlikely to become an inspirational
candidate.
She is unlikely to lower dramatically her approval ratings.
She won't become
a progressive hero. She won't become trusted by Republicans who
have long
eyed the Clintons with suspicion. She is, though, the only
chance to stop
Trump's takeover of America--and her job is to persuade voters
that for now
she is indeed the last best hope.
Source URL:
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/07/hillary-clinton-dnc-speech-messa
ge
Links:
[1]
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/07/bernie-sanders-delegates-convent
ion-protest-walk-out
[2]
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/07/michael-bloomberg-democrats-foun
d-perfect-foil-donald-trump
