Comments

1
"Sanders handily won the Washington primary this spring".

No, he handily won the caucus. Hillary beat him in the primary (which had much greater turnout) by nearly 5%, although it doesn't count.
2
Hillary Clinton, if elected, knows that she doesn't have to listen to the hardcore Bernie supporters because they've indicated that they won't vote for her. Like it or not, that's how it works.

If we had an organized liberal/progressive movement in this country (instead of a collection of people who do things like feel "grieved" when their cult-of-personality candidate doesn't win) there could be some real changes made to how we run our government. But the left is splintered and mostly self-absorbed.

I'm hard on liberals, because most of them are smart enough to realize this. They're not morons who vote for whomever their minister tells them to, or because of "the babies" or because there's an R by the candidate's name. But as a movement, they lack discipline, drive, and a goal. That's why Republicans hold the Congress.
3
@2

I'm aggrieved at the embarrassing gap in your vocabulary. And I do understand that this is not quite the same thing as saying that I feel grief when I witness such lapses.
4
Bejeebus, how could anyone get a job writing about politics when they don't even understand the difference between a caucus and a primary.
5
Camilla Jayapa's ads are only about two things: she's running because she's a woman, and she can fight climate change. All anti-fossil, all pro-vagina, all the time.
6
Hillary is still a candidate people don't like beyond the swaths of retards baying for Trump. I didn't want her in '08 and I sure don't want her now. Just because she's the choice doesn't mean reasonable left-leaning/progressive people are required to be happy about it.
7
@5 Wow. Pramila. Jayapal. Pramila Jayapal, not Camilla Jayapa. Can't tell if you're a troll, a racist who can't be bothered to learn a non-Western name, or both.

Her website outlines her positions far beyond climate change and women's rights (although those are two very important issues, even if you don't think that they are.) I'm looking forward to canceling out your vote, if you even bother to vote at all.
8
@6 - I've been a left-leaning progressive voting since 1986 and I've been "happy" about it exactly once, in 2008. Even that one turned out to be a bit of a disappointment and by 2012 I was back to whatever-ing it again.

This is our wretched fate, because American politics is not particularly liberal.
9
@5: I'm commenting on her ad campaign. Climate change issue, valid but lofty. That she's a woman ("Too many boys") campaign - silly considering and actually patronizing to women because we vote on the merits of the candidate - not on the genitalia between their legs.

As far as typing Camilla, that was a mistake as the last time I wrote such a feminine name was in reference to the Duchess of Cornwall.
10
* 9 refers to 7
11
Lucky for Hillary the media has its head shoved up her ass otherwise there would be a hysterical gloating rash of stories about how the Democrap Party is falling apart and splintered etc etc etc

Esp lucky since the polls have closed back to within the margin of error….

You have to be smoking mighty fine weed not to see that Clinton is just as divisive and unpopular with the country at large as The D.
12
@11 "Esp lucky since the polls have closed back to within the margin of error…."

According to Real Clear Politics, Hillary is up by 5.5% - outside the margin of error. According to 538, Hillary is up by a "6- or 7-point lead" - outside the margin of error. According to Pollster, Hillary is up by 7.6% - outside the margin of error.

Of course, none of these polls mean anything because we elect based on the Electoral College not the popular vote and in any analysis of the Electoral College, Hillary is the prohibitive favorite.

Oh, and in 100% of all polls, Bernie is out of the race.
13
robotslave dear, "grieved" was from the article. That's why I put in in quotes.

Alden dear, that's the conundrum: Americans, when questioned about a variety of positions, are quite liberal. But liberals don't know how to capture that sentiment, and they don't know how to talk to everyday people. They're too busy conducting purity tests so that they can isolate themselves into their little cliques.
14
@2 Hi. Bernie supporter here who would have also booed but will almost certainly be voting for Hillary. You don't understand all of us. I can dislike the candidate I'm voting for. I can be disappointed in the country I support. I can also be disgusted by the line of thinking that says "follow this or your vote is for that" when some policy shifts could have garnered the support of those who opposed your candidacy. But when you're running against a buffoon and nearly assured to win in a landslide, there's little incentive to sway from corporate glad handing politics. Eight more years of the same. Thanks, Obama. (I mean that in the liberal way, not the conservative way.) Prove me wrong, Hillary. Prove me wrong.
15
I caucused for Bernie, and I donated to his campaign, even though there was a lot I didn't agree with him about.

Here's something else on which I'm just going to have to disagree with Bernie. I'm disappointed that, even though he couldn't take time to campaign for Debbie Wasserman Schultz's primary challenger in Florida, he could somehow take the time to campaign for Pramila Jayapal in the general election. Never mind that she's running against another Democrat in the general. Never mind that that other Democrat, Brady Walkinshaw, is very much a progressive himself, and enough of a change agent that I'll be voting for him over Jayapal.

And sadly, not a mention of the man's name in Ms. Groover's entire post.
16
Hillary weighed in:

"Are those Deplorable Little Shits still buttsore?
"those Losers -- they are Irredeemable, but thankfully they are not America."
18
snapshotist dear, of course I don't understand all of you. I haven't met you all. And there's many people I don't understand, that I've known for decades (myself included).

My point is that I have been around contemporary liberal politics all of my adult life. Growing up, I was steeped in FDR/New Deal Democratic politics. All told, that's more than a half a century.

The FDR crowd was the older generation who were used to collaboration, because that's what they grew up with. They went from the Depression to the war to union halls. They had their issues - racism, sexism, ageism - but they were a bit more focused. Certainly much more focused than their conservative counterparts who muddled around with the John Birch Society and the like.

The liberal Baby Boomer and subsequent generations have been all over the place ideologially, and lack focus. They all want to be their own special creation. And the conservatives - who are dimwitted and authoritarian, but understand their "duty" - clean our clock regularly because of it.

I know that most Bernie supporters will vote for Hillary (they're not dumb, after all) but will they hold her accountable if elected? Or will it be a repeat of the 2010 mid-terms, when liberals decided that they were "disappointed" and "disenfranchised" with Obama, and gave the congress over to the GOP, thus ensuring that nothing could be accomplished?

It's fine to be angry and disappointed. But you can't overturn the game board and lock yourself in the bathroom for a good cry at the first disappointment. Liberals don't seem to get that.
19
Listen to @18, people. They're right and the current state of things is the fault of lefties, libs and progressives having a pout in 2010 because Obama didn't magic away the previous twenty five years of rightward creep.
20
People love to live in denial. Or they think this is some kind of show of support for Sanders, who has graciously moved on (while they refuse to do so).

Sanders lost. That's the end of it. He didn't appeal to the majority of Democratic primary voters. That's a fact. Don't try to argue the fact is untrue. A loss is a loss, no matter how you struggle to call it a rigged win.

This is one of those major life lessons - you can't always get what you want (a hat tip to Jagger/Richards for reminding us of this uncomfortable truth).

Act like a petulant child and refuse to vote, or vote for a third party sure loser and you'll get Donald Trump. You want something to really boo at? How about a Trump presidency?
21
mubhappy dear, there's no need to be so defensive. It took us many decades to get to this point.

Liberals can either figure out how to compromise amongst themselves, learn the virtues of patience and goal setting, and how to communicate their ideas without trying to prove that their the brightest kid in the room, or we can continue down the path we're on.

Our track record hasn't been particularly successful. Don't you think we should try something new?
22
Your new photographer is TERRIBLE. whats up with this over edited crap?
23
@22 he does this super-high-contrast thing to try and put some print flavor on it but it always just looks overprocessed.
24
@2 et al liberal voters may be bad at movements. but so are (so called?) liberal politicians at governing. i suggest that the GOP is more effective at achieving their goals with merely a minority in congress vs dem control both congress and the white house. exhibit A in 09 the best they could (or were willing to) achieve on health care was a giveaway to health insurance companies that screwed over any workers and employers with good plans. exhibit B we still haven't stopped the iraq war. if the dems were serious about stopping the iraq war back when they were campaigning so hard for us to vote for them so they could all they had to do was sit on their hands and stop funding it. we gave them a majority and we and our contractors are still over there. meanwhile the GOP knows how to exert their will with strategic filibusters and hold outs. how many justices on the bench now? so yes, please, purity tests to ensure we're actually voting for liberals. because many dems are not.
25
I have never liked the Clintons and I don't like them today. They are corporatists who gave away the store to the right wing, brought more corporatists into the power in the Democratic Party, and killed a lot of the FDR heritage that had made the party great. I supported Bernie Sanders and I support him now.

But I'll vote for Clinton without a second thought, because the election is about outcomes for the nation, and not about my personal wish fulfillment. The election has only two possible outcomes. Either Trump will be president, or he will not. I am dedicated to the proposition that Trump will not be president.

I don't have to "like," or even support, Clinton for my vote to affect the outcome. I would rather that my vote affect the outcome than vote for some unicorn candidate like Jill Stein because WA will go for Clinton. If I felt strongly enough that a third party should become viable, I would be supporting Socialist Alternative, which has actually won two elections around here, whereas the Greens haven't won any, and are not likely to.
26
For another "grassroots" campaign that is wresting free of traditional 2-party control, check out Tony Ventrella's People's Campaign in WA-08 Congressional District: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/10/15…
27
@13

Had it been in the article, I'm fairly sure it would have turned up when I searched the article for it.

My dear.

The grammatically correct paraphrase of Cynthia Engle's statement was:

His loss left her feeling "grief," she said.


Why the word was scare-quoted, I have no idea. But I do know that your hapless blunder was entirely your own, and that your attempt to dodge responsibility for it is making this even more embarrassing for you.

28
hooray for #15 why the fuck is Bernie wasting time on this shit when he could be working to flip the house? If I still lived in the 7th I would vote for Brady Walkinshaw anyway, in most states it's legal for an employer to fire someone because they think they're gay, and Brady's openly gay.
29
robotslave dear, I apologize for my error, and stand chastened and rebuked.
30
Hillary's chances of flipping the House are a lot better since she had the lucky foresight to play to the center instead of the left. If she had picked Warren and kissed up to the Greens and whatnot, that would have been great and all, but not what she needed. Kaine was a disappointment to me, but there's votes there that can change the course of history. It turned out, surprise, Trump dug his own grave and is still digging as fast as he can. Which means there's vast swaths of disaffected conservatives who can be enticed with a little of that DLC centrism. Boring white guy VP pick and centrist message will draw those conservatives, some of them. Maybe a lot.

I think it was dumb luck. Sure, team Hillary predicted Trump would run an terrible campaign, but they couldn't have known it would be this bad. Could be, maybe, they decided Hillary makes a terrible fake lefty and going around pretending to want that much reform and change would incite and irritate those who already don't trust her. She's naturally genuine when she delivers her center-right message. It's from the heart, and maybe it will make some of those conservatives trust her. Kind of trust her.

It's a lucky break. Or an incredible bit of genius. Now Alaska is in play. Supposedly safe House seats are tossups. Far more than anyone could have hoped for. Still pointless to berate the Bernie holdouts and Greens and socialists. When you yell at them it depresses turnout, and they're not needed to win the White House but you need them to win back Congress.

A vote for Jill Stein is a vote for Democratic house districts. Dan Savage scorned them for not running Greens up and down the ballot, but since they didn't, that means Stein's loyal fans are going to help build a Democratic majority where it can do the most good, in Congress. Your welcome, Dan.

Give them space.
31
@30

I'm confused: why would Jill Stein's "loyal" fans vote for a Democrat on the local ticket rather than a Socialist Party candidate, or an Independent, or a Libertarian, or a write-in candidate?

Lord knows the menagerie of wierdy-beardy lefter-than-left political clans in the US have little in common with each other, but one thing they do seem to share is a seething hatred for Hillary Clinton and everything she represents, not least the Democratic party.
32
Sure, some of them have a third party option. But most of them don't.

You should be seeing a spectrum, not loyal Democrats on one side of a bright line and beardy nuts on the other. The extremists you describe were never going to vote for Hillary, no matter who her VP was or what she said. But they are only the end of the bell curve. There's a whole range of others who will either stay home, or turn out. The ones who turn out but don't vote for Clinton are still more help than nothing. Pissing them off doesn't get you even that. Pissing the off guarantees nothing; keeping your mouth shut gives you a shot at a little help.

Trump, and Dan Savage, are the ones who fling insults because they have to compulsively hit back, whether they have something to gain or not. Clinton doesn't do that. She doesn't open her yap unless it's for a purpose. "Deplorables"? Maybe a mistake, but it's a wedge, splitting Republicans, and a wedge helps. She's telling moderate Republicans these loons are a boat anchor, dragging them down.

Conservatives come in a spectrum too. That's the whole reason why Clinton has a shot at winning some of them over. We know this because Alaska and lots of other states are in play. Don't get too excited because the center-right coalition that Hillary leads when it's all done is still center-right, and it's not going to do anything radical. But at least they won't burn the country to the ground in the first 100 days. That's nice to know.
33
Hey Bernie,who paid for that very expensive house you received after you switched to Hillary??
34
@28: Brady Walkinshaw is a bourgeois yuppie from the Gates Foundation whose only platform is himself. Pramila Jayapal has been on the front lines for the working class for years. This campaign is such a no-brainer it isn't funny.
35
I really can't stand the Bernie or Busters with their purity tests and apparent lack of knowledge of how politics and campaigns work. As a pragmatic progressive, I'm supporting Hillary Clinton and Brady Walkinshaw. And yes, enthusiastic Hillary supporters do exist in Seattle; we've just learned that it's easier to stay quiet. Our votes will speak for themselves.
36
20

You punks listen to Purris.
YOU LOST!
Hillary stole the nomination Fair and Square!!
Now you get to vote for her.
Don't forget to smile when you do it.
Because Leftist Humanism is a bronze age cult where you have to marry your rapist.

.

.

btw 'you can't always get what you want ' is what they play at Trump rallies these days.

Remember America, you just might get what you need.
37
Cat, you may be being a little tough on the kids.

They have plenty of reason to be disappointed.

Obama has been a miserable failure as a leader and President.
He is lazy, prickly, arrogant and condescending.
He did not ever work the Congress the way LBJ did, to get support for his programs.
He did not ever go to the people to buildup support for his proposals, the way Reagan did.
He was a total failure at working with the other side of the aisle, the way Clinton and Reagan did (and the way any President who will be successful must) (and before we blame the mean GOP for not working with him they were no tougher a nut to crack than the Tip O'Neil Democrats were for Reagan or Newt and the boys were for Bill…)
He made no progress on adapting to and dealing with Climate Change (squealing and blaming and finger pointing are not progress)
He made no progress on making the nation Energy Independent.
He was a passive cynical follower on social issue changes.
The international scene is literally falling apart going to Hell at warp speed, and there is no one at the wheel.
His one "achievement", ObamaCare, is a slow-motion unfolding disaster with ever increasing crescendo.

So for kids whose only experience with a Democrat is Obama (and Hillary) it would be surprising if they weren't a little underwhelmed.

They don't share the memories we do of FDR,
or that lovable rascal Jack,
they never had Bill feel their pain or other parts.

They probably need a hug.
38
oh, and we forgot the, again 'literally'- crippling debt he has saddled them with;
a burden that will weigh down the economy for a generation,
on top of the astounding amounts of school debt they are racking up.

Prince Barack seemed to feel all he had to do was say he wanted it and it should have been made so, while he golfed and vacationed.

History will dump him in the bin with James Buchanan, another president who was AWOL as the nation lurched into crisis.
39
Commentor Comltatus dear, I'm curious - are you using a Telex machine with an internet interface or something? Your posts are not only completely unhinged (which I personally think is part of your charm) the stream-of-conciousness composition style adds a certain steampunk tone to the whole thing.
40
Hillary's actual platform includes an awful lot of positions I agree with and am excited about: pro-choice, anti-private prison, many more. Her campaign is making an effort to keep talking about her policy positions, despite media focus on emailghazi and Trump's latest assholery. Her positions on the financial industry and foreign policy are more business-as-usual Democratic Party than I like, but that was true of Obama, too, and the country hasn't imploded in the last 8 years, despite Republican efforts. Like a lot of your neighbors, I caucused for Bernie. But, also like a lot of neighbors I've been talking to lately, I have a fair bit of optimism that Hillary will be good at the job.

(What a boring comment, eh? Being a grown-up is hard.)
41
39
You are very perceptive,
we tell our kids we were steampunk before steampunk was cool.
Telex? haha
No, the Commodore 20 still works fine (but we're hoping if we're good Santa might bring a color screen to replace the old amber…)
42
@35, those people sure didn't know how a campaign worked before the emails came out - back then it was all just a conspiracy theory, right?

The Clintons have never been pragmatic or progressive by any measure, unless you define pragmatism in politics as pure, unadulterated insincerity.
43
@37: Right. So, it's Obama's fault that he couldn't get Congressional Republicans to work with him?
Never mind that their leadership refused to even CONSIDER a deficit reduction plan that would cut $10 of spending for every $1 in tax increases on the wealthy. Never mind that they openly stated that their #1 priority was to make Obama a one-term president. (How'd that work out for you guys?) Never mind that they've wasted their time on 50+ votes to repeal Obamacare, a symbolic gesture that they admitted had no chance of passing. Never mind that they shut down the government (costing the economy $24 BILLION), an action opposed by non-Tea Party members of the GOP, and an undemocratic attempt by a minority to dictate terms to the majority. Never mind that they've refused to even hold hearings to CONSIDER judicial and departmental nominees, even non-controversial ones who had previously been confirmed by large bipartisan margins. Let's forget about all of that.
Congressional Republicans went into this determined not to get anything done, and yet you're faulting the President for not wheedling them into doing their jobs. Sorry, but Americans as a group aren't quite dumb enough to believe that, and they're certainly not as dumb as YOU are. That's why the President currently enjoys a ~55% approval rating, while Republicans in Congress are hovering around 20%.
44
Hils is a crypto fascist.

But Trump is an actual Fascist.

Holding my nose to vote for her and gladly voting for a Pramila Jayapal and I-732 and min wage
45
@43
Whaaaaaaaa……...
46
Venomlash you big meanie you made Commentor Comltatus cry again. *hands CC some tissue* There there CC don't worry someday you will grow up.
47
@27, @29
I do believe the author can edit the article, unlike us down here in steerage with our comments, so it's possible that Ms Vel-duRay correctly perceived the "grieved".
48
Ummmm. excuse me.
Hillary has already won Washington State.
11 Percent is a landslide.
No need to pile on and add your mandate for HER agenda.
Vote Green and give the real progressive platform a chance
Better she gets there thin, needing progressive, because she has a lot of Repub allies that are gonna pull her towards neo-con-ville.
What we need is RESISTance against that, and you ain't gonna get it by joining the Rethugs.

Please wait...

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