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Dreaming big is fine, as long as you can also operate in the real world where 50% +- x% of the rest of the country are completely opposed to all your big dreams and you're forced to compromise.
Go ahead and dream big and talk big, but then wake back up and take all the tiny, unimpressive, little victories you can get and be proud of them because in the real, awake world, that's all you're going to get. If you spend all your time pouting about the Grand Victory you didn't get because your opponents fought you tooth and nail (as they always do), then you're not fit to be a national leader.
For me, it's Bernie or no one. What a slimy fucking hack she is.
here's a compelling argument she hasn't used, for fear of offending the feewings of old voters: Bernie is fucking Seventy-Four, 75 on election day. he'd be the old person elected POTUS by 6 years. and Reagan, the current record holder, was gormless in his 2nd term.
yeah, call me an Ageist.
She's has a highly lucrative gig as a motivational speaker for psychopathic oligarchs, and she also happens to be running for president. Not a compelling case to make, that's for sure.
Telling voters upfront that they can suck it is not a winning Democratic strategy.
Anyways, just because 8 years have passed since you last heard the criticisms, doesn't mean the same statements aren't true. For instance, her voting for the Iraq War and PATRIOT Act (twice!!) over the course of her Senate career doesn't magically disappear because she became Secretary of State. That's like saying "Hey, I know that George Zimmerman shot that kid in 2012. But, that was four years ago. I'm sure he's a good guy now."
Because pie-in-the-sky optimism doesn't mean jack in the political arena, as @2 quite correctly points out. There's a good reason Otto Von Bismark coined the phrase, "politics is the art of the possible", because effective governance requires compromise; you fight for your ideals, but in the end you still have to work with the opposition if you want to actually get things done. "My way or the highway" is pretty much guaranteed to result in gridlock, because our system is set up to not only allow a single Senator to throw a metaphorical sabot into the legislative machinery, but to make it as difficult as possible to extract it once it's in there. So, pragmatism has to be the modus operandi, otherwise, even in the best of circumstances nothing gets done - and we are far from the best of circumstances in our current political climate.
If Hillary is the nominee while scaling back any expectations that we can catch up with Western Europe fuck it...I'm staying home on election day. God knows Gov. Inslee isn't much of a reason to show up and vote.
PARTY UNITY MY ASS!!!
@10: no, I remember 1998, too. she's being saddled with Bill's policy failures and infidelities as well.
Republicans get elected by:
1) Running in gerrymandered districts, and
2) Doing everything they can to disenfranchise voters.
In big, general elections where they've failed to disenfranchise voters, republicans tend to lose.
All their promises are sort of meaningless. They rarely accomplish anything they say they're going to do, not in a grand scheme anyway. They only accomplish bits and pieces of their promises in tiny victories. Death by a thousand paper cuts.
When Democrats tell their voters to give up and just accept that their goals can't be achieved, it kills turnout and volunteering real quick.
So who would you vote for: Clinton or Cruz? That's the real decision. The other crap doesn't matter.
And it's precisely that sort of attitude that allows the GOP to run roughshod over the electorate at the local and state levels. Keep in mind: you don't HAVE to vote on every race or ballot measure for the ones you DO vote on to be counted. If you simply cannot stomach voting for HRC in the general election, should she be the Democratic nominee, there are plenty of down-ballot candidates who could still benefit from your vote.
Care to wager on those outcomes?
Right now, it's a battle for the Republicans to win the national election. The national electorate, including the establishment, isn't the same group taking Foghorn Leghorn to the Republican convention.
You're delusional.
Tepid as it is, Obamacare just barely managed to pass the house and senate during a democratic majority. How, exactly, do you think Bernie is going to give you "Medicare-for-all" and get it passed a now republican controlled house and senate?
While I agree with the sentiment that Medicade-for-all would be a great thing, there is zero chance of that happening any time in the near future. The best we can hope for is any democrat being elected so they can continue to veto more attempts by the republicans to get rid of any health care at all.
Precisely and what we have seen for the last 30+ years is that it is impossible to run a neoliberal candidate under the guise of a lesser evil and stop moving to the right.