Comments

1
I'm also 100% bitankual, in that there are things I love (and dislike) about both candidates, but will support the nominee. But... I'm sorry. I am rolling my eyes at "Bernie Sanders, who always takes the correct position." Always! Has never voted the wrong way or taken a position I'd disagree with in his 35 years in public office! Is practically perfect in every way!

I mean, come on. No one is perfect. In particular, in politics, where compromises often have to be made, and we sometimes have to accept the good in lieu of the perfect (or, where elected officials sometimes vote their district, like with Bernie and guns).
2
You can be confident that Hillary will be steadfast in her support of LGBT issues as long as it polls well. Of course you'd get the same level of support from a Trump. So what exactly are you rewarding Hillary for? She'll track with the polls whether teh gays endorse her or not.

Bernie isn't always on the right side of every issue but you know he got there with some integrity.
3
Clinton cannot win against Trump.

Current Affairs
Trump will bob, weave, jab, and hook. He won’t let up. And because Clinton actually has lied, and actually did vote for the Iraq War, and actually is hyper-cosy with Wall Street, and actually does change her positions based on expediency, all she can do is issue further implausible denials, which will further embolden Trump. Nor does she have a single offensive weapon at her disposal, since every legitimate criticism of Trump’s background (inconsistent political positions, shady financial dealings, pattern of deception) is equally applicable to Clinton, and he knows how to make such things slide off him, whereas she does not.

Trump can’t clown around nearly as much at a debate with Sanders, for the simple reason that Sanders is dead set on keeping every conversation about the plight of America’s poor under the present economic system. If Trump tells jokes and goofs off here, he looks as if he’s belittling poor people, not a magnificent idea for an Ivy League trust fund billionaire running against a working class public servant and veteran of the Civil Rights movement. Instead, Trump will be forced to do what Hillary Clinton has been forced to do during the primary, namely to make himself sound as much like Bernie Sanders as possible. For Trump, having to get serious and take the Trump Show off the air will be devastating to his unique charismatic appeal.

4
Very well put argument from Bertin. Thanks for running it.
5
@1: "Always" is an overstatement, to be sure. But he does have a track record of consistent integrity over more than 30 years that should be the envy of almost everyone in Washington.
6
Well, Hillary has been for marriage equality for nearly three years...almost a whole three years. Dick Cheney has been for it for longer.
7
Anyone who could lose to Trump is incapable of running a car wash. Look at the likes of Jeb! Or Christie. Clowns.

Either Hilz or Berno will mop the floor with Trump. Or Rubio or Cruz. A "viable" GOP candidate is a Romney, and he was never going to be President either.

The White House is, and will remain, Democratic. Congress is what to worry about.
8
The thing I find tedious and absurd about the Hillary Clinton critics here and elsewhere is the harping on what she did in the past, as if she needs to be made to pay for it, as if vengeance is a totally solid reason to not vote for a candidate. The real issue with her actions in the past that seems to be obfuscated more often than not is what it indicates about what she might do in the future. The Clintons are seemingly a unit and one thing they have always shared is their tendency to triangulate, and especially their tendency to triangulate in a manor that way overcompensates for whatever threat they are getting from the right. I remember Bill Clinton talking about how we should find some way to get some sort of prayer into schools after the Republican midterm landslide of 1994 (just one example). What worries me is that when she faces the inevitable backlash in the midterms of 2018 President Clinton might just respond in the same fashion. I could otherwise care less what her position was on any particular issue 10, 15, 20 years ago.
9
Bernie will never get the super delegates and trump will never get the electoral college. All the rest of it is just a replay of every outsider candidate of the last 50 years. When are you guys going to learn your lesson?
10
What about the people who will die in Hillary's wars, Dan?

What about those who'll go under for continuing increases in inequality?

Fuck'em? because she eventually did say when it became convenient what most decent people with an interest in human right issues were saying decades ago? I fail to see the logic in this.

btw, adding to the 'Hillary Clinton is inevitable' media campaign and regurgitating the Bernie Bros propaganda like you did isn't equivalent to being neutral in anybody's imagination. Especially when we have yet to see you write anything consistently positive about Sanders.
11
The reason her decisions going back 20 (and 30) years matter so much is that so many of them were as bad and as avoidable as her email server blunder.

If Bernie wins the primary voters the super delegates will follow. That's not the hard part; the hard part is beating Hillary in all those states. Unlikely but it could happen.
12
Cory Booker, who admitted that he had "evolved" on LGBT issues

Oh, he's out now?
13
And here come the flood of people trying to convince Dan to vote for Bernie in the primary (which he already said he would)?? Or maybe they believe that the presidential race is between Hilary and Bernie and not between the Republican nominee and the Democratic nominee?? Or that "Hilary's wars" would be worse than Cruz's carpet bombing??
Unclear.
14
@13 Don't put the cart before the horse. There is a primary going on. We can choose the candidate least likely to conduct perpetual war. After the primary there is always time to consider the lesser of 2 evils.

Clinton was the most hawkish member of the Obama admin: Is Hillary Clinton a Neocon-Lite?
15
I love you too, Bertin.
Also, I consider Dan's support of Hillary to be mostly due to Terry, who loves Hillary, and has all but forced Dan to do the same. It's like a price of admission thing.
16
I apologize for being uncool and old, but what does "bitankual" mean? I can't even find a definition on the web. For those of us out of touch with hip Seattle lingo, perhaps words not in a standard collegiate dictionary could be hyperlinked to a definition?
17
Here's the problem with holding people accountable for stances they took years ago: there's no motivation to ever "evolve" on anything. John Kasich fought against the Obergefell v. Hodges decision, but now says he accepts the court's ruling on gay marriage and attends gay weddings. Surely that's better than someone who wants to change the Supreme Court to rescind that decision, like Marco Rubio? Or will no LGBTQ person or ally ever vote for Kasich, because of what he said in the past?
18
@16; it's a natty little word Dan made up a few days ago. Being link you up via my iPhone illiterate you'll have to just look thru the posts over this week.
Bitankual. Bi- tank- ual. In both tanks.
Supporting both of them, Hillary and Bernie.
19
Attitudes evolve thru Education.
As the boxer who lost the fight said; Time to Put all this Behind me...
20
Actually, Sanders wasn't pro-same-sex marriage from the beginning. he too has evolved, as has much of the country. thank goodness people change their minds over time or women still couldn't vote!
21
oh, and here's just some stuff clinton has done for LGBTs
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/07/01…

22
I don't sense Hillary is as untrustworthy as some of you guys seem to(o).
Stuff there, of course. Then she's been in the public eye for a few years. She's tough. And hopefully, she's listening to the feedback and taking it on board. She isn't a stupid woman.
It is a harder gig for her, because she is a woman.
First, she's got to throw Bill off. Run the Hillary show.
Own up to her mistakes, and talk about issues that matter to people. All the people.
23
@22 Hillary Clinton has reneged on many major positions that she took in the past when it eventually became clear to too many that these decisions weren't in the best interest of her constituency. I mean from NAFTA to Iraq to TPP, and countless issues in between this is true. So, indeed, people can change but Clinton isn't changing. Often, in fact, she denies the flip-flops, whereas acknowledging change is the first mandatory step to changing. She'll say pretty much anything to win then continue business as usual with a little window dressing to make it look different.
24
@20 Almost nobody was pro same sex "marriage" before the early 2000 because there wasn't an organized fight on the issue of gay marriage. In fact, no LGBT activist group supported gay marriage in 1993 when a few same sex couples challenged the law in Hawaii. The gay civil right fight prior to the recent past was focused on civil unions. Sanders supported LGBT civil rights from the get go even if he muddled the issue by invoking state rights, likely for political reasons.
25
anon. I just get the across the ocean/s version. Hillary is a politician. Everybody can see that. So she wouldn't come in as President, promising the world and the stars.
She's tough. Now, the world needs that. Barack and tough are not two words that go easy together.
We sorely needed him though, after RampagingBush was finished.
If it's because she's a tough woman, that some people are reacting to and looking so close in at her mistakes..
Then, get over it. A tough woman in charge now, might just be what we need.
26
I'm a straight ally too, Bertin. But I wouldn't presume to tell my gay friends whom to vote for, nor accuse them of having a character flaw if they disagree with my choice or reasoning.
27
Bernie seems great. His ideas speaking to the truth. Advanced Capitalism is a crock, except for the few.
Does he have the stamina? I don't think so.
I think Hillary does. She's sturdy.
Straight to Bernie's version of socialism.. Similar to how we fly down under.. Would be too much of a shock to the US system.
And he could be VP.

28
This letter was so great ... until the last sentence. Holy False Equivalence, Batman.
29
I guess they delete dissenting views here?? Now I know why you support Hillary. Fascism bedfellows.
30
It's just that it takes a little while after joining for your posts to show up. Here's your post in its entirety:
""f your preferred candidate loses the primaries will you ignore the fact that the other will give you 80% of what your preferred candidate would have and instead let someone win who will give you 100% of what you don't want? "

I think this is a very funny question. Are you proposing that Hillary is 80% of Bernie? If so, then you are admitting Bernie is a better candidate, so you should vote for Bernie. You should still vote for Bernie if he doesn't get the nomination, because voting for someone that gives you 100% is pretty damn amazing, and you would have to have zero integrity to vote for someone less.

As for me, I see Bernie as maybe 35% of what I want. Or a 35% move to the left. Hillary isn't 80% of that or even 0% of that. She is -40% in the opposite direction. She is a move to the right. A move into more corporatism and rich oligarchical masters controlling this country and most of the world. That is not my opinion, that is a simple study of history. She is a rich oligarch who loves to give her friends more power. Even if that means breaking the law, which she is well above. "

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