07-24-2016, 10:08 AM
(07-24-2016, 09:54 AM)xxlt Wrote: He has caucused with the Dems his whole career as an independent. It is a minor miracle he was elected to senate as an independent. Running for president as an independent or third party candidate is pretty much signing your own death warrant of your political life (see the thread about debate rules, see lack of media coverage of third parties, see the hx of the U.S.) He would have fit squarely within the democratic party in the 1930's on many issue, and in the 1960's and 1970's as well. The Republican party (allegedly "center right") is now so far right that it would not accept Nixon or Reagan or Bush I as a candidate. The Democratic party (allegedly "center left") is now so far right that it would run Nixon, Reagan, or Bush I. (This is why Sanders stopped affiliating completely as a Dem and ran as an independent but still caucused with Dems.) In fact Obama was in many ways the second coming of Ronald Reagan (which explains the contempt so many have for him - the whole Black Jesus thing makes them puke in their mouths since they like their nation's saviors old and white and male). Bernie has done a great job of dragging the Dem party (kicking and screaming) back toward the center. His supporters, standing on the left, are numerous and continue to call the party back across the middle and to the left. If Hillary heeds the call she wins in a landslide. If she runs like Gore did (not quite as far right as Bush) it is conceivable she loses to Trump or wins a close race hence being tagged with the "she does not have a mandate" label and governing like Obama (stalemates) or worse capitulating to the Republican nuts like Ryan and McConnell.
I get this. I guess my problem was truly that if you're not willing to claim the D next to your name and instead caucus with them, then why are you going to jump into the mix just for the structure of the party during a POTUS race. Seems disingenuous to me.
And yeah, the DNC is center-right and has been for a bit now. But, you know, most Americans don't have that perspective that comes from geopolitics.
"A great democracy has got to be progressive, or it will soon cease to be either great or a democracy..." - TR
"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little." - FDR
"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little." - FDR
