Hillary Clinton is running a campaign based on incrementalism. Unlike Bernie Sanders, who proposes full throated solutions to major problems, Clinton argues that Republican control of Congress makes it unrealistic to attempt anything more than defending the status quo or perhaps, at best, fighting for minor reforms.
Enough is Enough, 1944 Edition
Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication, WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a frequent contributor to The Wall Street Journal, a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "The Stringer."
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Yes yes yes.
: eh-HEM :
“Ja Ja Ja” (daĂź uns die Liebe vereint)
Let us look at Nevada. Last year, February 2015, Clinton led by 30-40%. And it’s now a dead heat. For Clinton, a dead heat is a dead loss. Why?
Clinton needs this over now. Why? Three main reasons:
First, the Goldman Sachs speeches are simply not going away.
They’re going to keep being talked about. Server security classifications? Top secret vs. super-double-secret-top-secret classifications? Watch my eyes glaze over. But speech transcripts? Pretty much anyone can grasp what a speech is saying. And the longer it takes to come out, the worse the effect will be. Look at Watergate. It wasn’t the crime, it was the cover-up, and it went on for an eternity because the common person who didn’t eat and breathe politics could understand the issues.
Second, Hertz used to have an ad campaign: We’re #2, we try harder.
Sanders’ campaign is still growing. Nevada will (unless the polls are completely off) be a push. Possibly, the candidates will split the pool down the middle. That’s a triple agony for Clinton: Sanders campaign will take encouragement from the results, Clinton’s campaign will take it as a crisis because they should have won by double digits, and Clinton supporters and the undecideds in South Carolina will start thinking. …
Third. Campaigner fatigue.
A lot of Clinton’s supporters have maxed out. They can’t send any more money. Now look at the previous two points again. Put yourself in their shoes: Clinton was supposed to cakewalk this one: she’s American royalty. But all this crap keeps circulating: the server, the speeches. People who donated to Clinton didn’t think that they’d have to get down and dig for the nomination. She was supposed to win Iowa, win New Hampshire, and then go on to face the Republican candidate.
And it isn’t a cakewalk, it’s just a hot mess. A lot of the donors can’t give more money, and all they can do now is the hard work: phone banks, door-to-door canvassing, that sort of thing. And as they do it, Sanders’ people are coming up fast in the rear-view mirror.
I still think South Carolina is the point at which it will all simply collapse for Clinton. Her campaign will keep going — she’s given up too much for too long to the political machinery to accept defeat — but the Sanders people will just swarm.
My crystal ball sez Bernie takes NV by ten+ points.
On some earlier post, I said Sanders would lose Nevada by a hair. And I think I then said he’d win South Carolina by a couple points and then the whole thing would fall apart for Clinton. Clinton isn’t surging, and a significant number of people, I think, only planned to vote for her because any other vote would have been wasted. The longer Sanders remains viable numerically, the more people will switch to him.
I think I proposed a gentleman’s bet a year or so ago. I bet on Hillary winning, and the GOP not repealing the ACA.
The ACA is still in place, but it’s not looking so good for Ms. Rodham. 50% ain’t so bad for a crystal ball – it’s at least as accurate as the weather service. 🙂
We’ll know in few hours.
dang, lost by 5 points. My crystal ball must need new batteries.
Still & all – given where Bernie was just a year ago, it’s a huge step up. (See “moral victory” AKA “losing”)
In other news, chocolate rations are up!
Claus Philipp Maria Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg was hardly a revolutionary, even measured by Bernard Solomon Sanders’ criteria, cf, eg theWikipedia article on him. Among other things, he wished to continue the war on die Ostfront (which, of course, was where Germany lost the war in Europe) and retain the territorial gains that Germany had made there, while negotiating a peace agreement only with the Western powers. That,I suspect, cynic that I am, is the reason that only the 20 July 1944 attempt on Hitler’s life at FĂĽhrerhauptquartier Wolfsschanze, rather than, say, Johann Georg Elser’s attempt on 8 November 1939 at the BĂĽrgerbräukeller in MĂĽnchen, is generally known (to the degree it is) among non-specialists in the US. Graf von Staffenburg, was, after all, no Communist, and thus eligible for the status of hero in the US….
We shall have to see whether Bernard Solomon Sanders, who comes from an entirely different background, makes the grade….
Henri