Don't take my word on it. Listen to kos. Sanders missed the very issues Hillary Clinton discovered during her "listening tour":
In fact, while Clinton has staked out strongly liberal positions on immigration and the “black lives matter” movement, Sanders inexplicably failed to mention those two key issues in his announcement speech, issues that are now pillar planks of the Democratic coalition, alongside income inequality and global climate change.
To be crystal clear, the problem wasn’t Sanders’s bona fides on those issues; his record shows consistent support for both immigration and criminal justice system reform. Rather, it was the sense that he didn’t think to mention them in such a critical address.
See, it's not that Sanders hasn't
spent his entire career fighting for the rights of low-income Americans, minorities and women (his
"bona fides"), it's that Sanders has the same problem that Howard Dean had back in 2004: He's the candidate of "white, college-educated liberals."
They certainly aren’t issues that have driven the debate in any of his previous elections, and their omission serves as a painful reminder as to the last Vermonter to give a presidential bid a shot. Former Gov. Howard Dean also had a tough time garnering support beyond white college-educated liberals in 2004.
(Though to be honest, reading back on kos' posts here in 2004 both before and after Dean blew up in Iowa, I never saw an inkling of that notion from Markos. In fact, just before Iowa, kos thought Dean was a lock to win the nomination, with both big unions and the Beltway Dem establishment lining up behind him. After the Iowa blow-up, kos never attributed Dean's loss to only being a candidate of "white, college-educated liberals." The truth was that Dean was ripped to shreds by a threatened Dem establishment running ads that
used images of Osama bin Laden to suggest that the anti-war Dean would put us at risk. In addition, Dean's and Joe Trippi's own missteps took a toll. So this idea that Dean was only the candidate of "white, college-educated liberals" must be a recent insight for kos.)
So now let's take this to the next logical step: Not only has Sanders not said the right things, and shown himself to be a candidate supported almost exclusively by white liberals, the second part of that statement is eminently provable! His audiences to-date have been damn near all white! Listen to brooklynbadboy:
Bernie Sanders is a successful politician.
As long as the voters are highly liberal and predominantly white. Like every single picture of every single audience so far.
But the Democratic Party is much, much bigger than that as he will soon learn.
by brooklynbadboy on Sun May 31, 2015 at 11:21:51 PM CDT
(Now, I could be mistaken, but Sanders made his announcement in Vermont,
95.2% white. He then traveled to New Hampshire,
94.2% white, and Iowa,
92.5% white. I suppose he should have bussed in some people of color to these events like typical candidates would do. Stupid Bernie.)
In fact, to-date, Sanders' campaign has not been inclusive. He has excluded Latinos, African Americans and women, among just a few constituencies! But not to worry. Once his campaign is inclusive, this poster (who loves, loves, loves him) may change her mind about his candidacy:
IMO Bernie is wonderful
I've always liked him. The fact that I don't believe he is electable in the general is one of the things that keeps me from throwing my whole support to him.
When and if his candidacy becomes inclusive to Latinos, African Americans and women among other constituencies I might change my assessment of his chances.
That said, again I think he is great. Still I must say, I'm in big for Hillary and he would have to give me a damn good reason to switch. So far he hasn't.
(There has been a lot of this passive-aggressive,
He's-great! I-love-him-I-really-do-but..." here ever since he announced. This is but one example which I have encountered, and this was from today which is why I used it.)
Today, when I criticized kos' Hill column, kos sought me out in Kerry Eleveld's front page post and delivered this response:
If he's running for president of you (7+ / 0-)
Then sure he doesn't need to mention anything. And if the entire party base looked like you, like it does in Vermont, then sure. He'd be kosher. But people that don't look like you? We're 40% of the party base. And a serious candidate would make sure their current top issues would be part of his dialogue.
You don't build a winning democratic coalition with white college educated liberals. And that's exactly who is supporting Bernie now.
If you don't have a problem with that, well then, it's because you don't look like that other 40%. But if you want him to be competitive? Then you should care, because he won't get anywhere near competitiveness with his current approach.
by kos on Wed Jun 03, 2015 at 02:34:18 PM CDT
I explained
Sanders' situation to kos:
kos, his is a long-shot campaign, right?
He is going nowhere, right?
He has no huge PAC funding him. He has no billionaire donors and he's not courting any. He will get no corporate money. He has neither the time (he's a sitting senator) nor the money to go on a "listening tour."
So he is going to spend what little time and money he has campaigning in Iowa and New Hampshire. If he survives those two states, he will move on. But even that's a long-shot, is it not?
Iowa is 92.5% white. New Hampshire is 94.2% white. He'll be lucky to survive beyond that.
I imagine he will speak to these constituencies when he hits South Carolina, if he makes it that far. And that's a huge "if."
Meanwhile, we can all cheer Hillary's "listening tour" and her highlighting of issues relative to that tour including immigration, criminal justice reform, pay equity, raising the minimum wage and improved drug treatment initiatives -- all things any and every Dem candidate has supported and will support because those issues are no-brainers.
Frankly, I hold no illusions that Sanders is going to be "competitive."
But, unlike you, I am not so easily going to ignore the fact that while Clinton goes on a "listening tour" and starts tallying up "progressive policy wins" (on issues that Sanders and probably O'Malley also back 100%), she has ignored the substantive issues that matter most to the biggest problem in this country: the ever-widening chasm between the rich and the rest of us jamokes -- which also happens to be the issue that has the greatest impact on people of color, the poor, women and everyone else.
Nothing on tax policy
Nothing on jobs creation
Nothing on TBTF banks that drove our last economic crash
Nothing on trade
Nothing on her foreign policy
But Sanders is serving a useful purpose,
according to kos:
The more he presses the former secretary of State on issues like the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal and breaking up too-big-to-fail banks, the more likely she’ll be to clearly stake out populist positions.
Not only does full-throated populism sell in the Democratic Party, it’s popular among the general electorate as well. Clinton has already gotten closer to Sanders on economic issues than would’ve seemed possible even a few short years ago. If she wants a strong, unified party heading into the general election, she’ll let Sanders help her close the remaining gap.
Really, kos? Do you
really believe that Clinton is going to step up on the TPP? And do you
really believe, even for a second, that regardless of what Bernie Sanders says or does, she will support breaking up TBTF banks? Seriously?
And, let's face it, she's never going to adopt Bernie's tax policies, policies intended to fund the creation of 15 million jobs rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure from coast-to-coast.
She's as far left as she's going to get, kos. She stepped out on immigration, criminal justice reform, pay equity, raising the minimum wage and improved drug treatment initiatives. That's all great stuff, and it's stuff that any and all Democratic candidates would present, believe and support. But the truth is, it's not enough. Our problems are bigger. Much bigger.
kos, she's going to win the nomination, barring disaster. But, please, don't keep repeating the nonsense about her moving left on the fundamental issues that have been driving this country into a ditch since the Reagan years. She's not addressing those, nor will she.
It ain't in the cards, regardless of what Bernie Sanders said -- or didn't say -- in his announcement speech. And as far as his audience being too white? Let's all hope he makes it to the South Carolina primary.
It's worth sending him a few bucks. God knows, he isn't holding $10,000-a-plate fundraisers.