A well-reasoned article up on Salon by Steve Almond:
Hillary will never survive the Trump onslaught: It’s not fair, but it makes her a weak nominee
The author’s caveats:
First, I myself was a Hillary supporter until Sanders entered the race. (More precisely, until I read his policy positions.) Second, I will enthusiastically support Hillary when and if she is nominated. Years ago, I interviewed the secretary and I say now what I said then: She is a brilliant and compassionate public servant. If presidential elections in this country were based on policy positions and moral intention, on how each candidate hopes to solve common crises of state, Clinton would win going away.
And then he gets into it:
Alas, the reality is that Hillary is among the most hated politicians in America. There is, to begin with, her dismal favorability rating, which stands at 53 percent, with a net negative of 12 percent. (Sanders has a net positive of 12 percent.) But even more important is the intensity of the animus against her, and the sad mountain of baggage she carries with her as a candidate. No matter who the GOP nominee is, the battle plan against Hillary will be the same: a tawdry and unrelenting relitigation of all the phony scandals cooked up by the “vast, right-wing conspiracy” that she identified nearly two decades ago.
The two lines of attack that Trump (or his substitute) will use against her:
The first is the same one Bernie just used to upset her in Michigan: the fact that free trade pacts are wildly unpopular with many Americans….And he’ll blast her for backing our trillion-dollar boondoggle in Iraq, too. These accusations will be framed in terms of a larger narrative: that Hillary represents business as usual in Washington, that she’s just another career pol beholden to the donor class and to the Wall Street swells who paid her millions to deliver her secret speeches.
Almond closes with what he sees as Bernie’s strengths:
All of which brings us back to that credulous waif from Brooklyn, by way of Ben and Jerry’s. Donald Trump can holler all he wants about how Crazy Bernie is a socialist. But he (and the super Pacs) won’t be able to distract voters by digging up scandals in his past. Nor will Trump be able to portray him as a corporate stooge. In fact, the shocking success of the Sanders campaign is predicated on many of the same essential frustrations Trump is exploiting: corporate influence, wage stagnation, trade. This is why polls consistently show Sanders beating Trump more convincingly than Clinton does.
These are just a few excerpts from a lengthier rationale. Whether you are for Hillary or Bernie, it’s a good read and I recommend viewing it in its entirety. Hillary fans will appreciate the author’s final graf (not included here, due to fair use, and not wanting to spoil the conclusion) .
www.salon.com/...
Should make for an interesting conversation...
Update: 10:38pm — Thanks everyone for the good discussion. Lots of good points made by many of you for each of our candidates, and everyone kept it civil. I enjoyed the exchange and hope you all did as well.