Wow, my DailyKos accout is 11 years and 11 months old today. I created it back when our other famously blunt Vermont politician, Howard Dean, ran for president. I supported him because he was the only major candidate to point out that Iraq was a strategic disaster. But now it's time to figure out who I'm supporting in this primary.
Bernie Sanders
Bernie has an excellent reputation in Vermont, for a variety of reasons.
- Bernie has proven himself competent, as both a mayor and a legislator. Seriously, for all the jokes about "The People's Republic of Burlington", it's a lovely small city, and it routinely winds up on lists of Best Places to Live and Best Places to Raise a Family. There's a walkable downtown, with excellent restaurants, outdoor music, plenty of interesting shops, and a gorgeous waterfront area. Here's an interesting article about the Burlington waterfront and how it got converted from an old railyard known for being an "eyesore" into a collection of parks, pathways and public space. Sanders' role was a bit complicated: He fought a protracted court case to give the city control over the land, and then he backed a controversial "hybrid public space plus commercial development" plan that would have been very inexpensive for the city. But when local environmentalists pushed hard against the development half of the plan, he worked hard to make a more expensive option work, and converted almost the entire waterfront to public space. This is an interesting article, because it shows how Bernie works. And on the legislative side, well, the best article on Bernie is still Rolling Stone's "Four Ammendments and a Funeral" from 2005, which shows Bernie's raw determination and incredible tenacity in a hopeless fight against a corrupt House leadership. Bernie, it turns out, is very good at writing amendments, finding allies on both sides of the aisle, and making legislation suck less. For a more recent example of his legislative work, Bernie was the "lead negotiator for the Veterans Access, Choice and Accountability Act" which helped win him the VFW's 2015 Congressional Award.
- Bernie works for the public good. I may not always agree with Bernie's position on an issue, but long experience suggests that I can safely assume he's working hard for the public good, as best as he can—and as (1) suggests above, he's usually doing so in a practical, competent fashion. I wouldn't necessarily vote for just any "democratic socialist", but I've always been delighted to vote for this particular one.
- Bernie can reach out to a surprisingly wide range of people. In Vermont, the most famous examples of this were the front yards with "Bush/Cheney" and "Bernie" signs side-by-side. In Congress, it was Bernie's ability to ally with libertarians like Ron Paul on trade issues. Most recently, it was shown by his speech at Liberty University.
- Bernie is good at retail politics. Seriously, back when Bernie's poll numbers were through the roof, and he had basically zero chance of losing, he still campaigned tirelessly all over Vermont. He'd show up in some local VFW hall, and give one of his trademark speeches, followed by a local Vermont country band and a free spaghetti dinner for everybody who showed up.
So that's the argument in favor of Bernie: He fights for the public good; he's practical and competent enough to actually do a good job; he gets along with a huge range of people; and he somehow enjoys the nitty-gritty of politics (campaigns, committees and amendments) without having been corrupted by the system. He'd be a pretty darn interesting president.
On the downside, Bernie has some weaknesses as a presidential candidate. He hasn't yet been faced with the right-wing smear machine that Hillary has survived for over two decades, his foreign policy is a bit of an unknown (besides "avoid stupid wars and support veterans"), and it's possible that he's so much of an outsider that the system would do everything in its power to destroy him. So if Bernie is going to be our nominee, I want him to prove that he can run a competent, national-scale political campaign and appeal to a wide range of voters. He can only win this if he runs an incredible campaign.
(Hillary and Biden after the jump.)
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