When Bernie Sanders entered the race for President, some pundits predicted that Bernie’s progressive campaign would force Hillary to “move to the left.” Those pundits never made it clear as to whether Hillary would actually adopt the popular policy decisions or just appear to adopt them so that she could appeal to those that are excited about Bernie’s message.
Many on the far left predicted that she would eventually make the contention that there is no important difference between their platforms and policies at all. Then, since she is the “frontrunner” and she has name recognition, she would make the contention that she is the more electable one, and since their policies are the same, she would be the safer vote.
It appears that the pundits on the left were correct because this seems to be the Clinton campaign’s latest strategy. In a recent interview, Sanders stated that he disagreed with Clinton on “virtually everything.” When asked about that quote by a reporter, Clinton denied that there are any substantive differences between the candidates and listed a few issues on which their policies are similar.
SIMILAR BUT NOT THE SAME. The two candidates differ at the foundational level.
Hillary Clinton grew up in a middle class neighborhood in a mostly white suburban neighborhood. Her father was a small business owner, and she attended public schools, played softball, and participated in Girl Scouts. She participated in student government and was active in church.
She started out her political life as a Goldwater Girl, eventually joining the Democratic Party. She attended Wellesley College where her senior thesis was a critical analysis of Saul Alinsky’s model of community organizing. After turning down a job offer from Alinsky, she attended law school at Yale where she met Bill Clinton. She married Bill, joined the Rose Law Firm in Arkansas and within six years was first lady of Arkansas and a partner at the firm. She subsequently was named to the board of WalMart, one of her clients at the Firm.
As the lead lawyer for WalMart during the period from 1986 through 1992, Clinton represented a company that “fought unionization efforts at its stores and warehouses, employing hard-nosed tactics — like allegedly firing union supporters and spying on employees — that have become the subject of legal complaints against the company.” During her stint as first lady, she and Bill championed education reforms such as school choice and merit pay.
In 1989, the Clintons aligned themselves with a relatively-new group formed by conservative businessmen to “bring about real change in the Democratic Party.” The Democratic Leadership Counsel recruited Bill Clinton because, according to Al From (one of the founders),
“Clinton believed in the DLC philosophy…the importance of both the private economy and the growth of small business…was a leader among governors in calling for welfare reform and personal-responsibility measures, including requiring kids to stay in school to get a driver’s license and fining parents who missed their kids’ parent-teacher conferences.”
Bill Clinton described the philosophy and mission of the DLC in a foreward to Al From’s book, The New Democrats and the Return to Power, “to expand opportunity, not government; to recognize that economic growth is a prerequisite for expanding opportunity; to invest in the skills and ingenuity of our people in order to build shared prosperity; to expand trade, not restrict it; and to reform welfare and reduce crime.”
“It is the opinion of the DLC that economic populism is not politically viable…The DLC has supported welfare reform…supports expanded health insurance via tax credits for the uninsured and opposes plans for single-payer universal health care… supports universal access to preschool, charter schools, and measures to allow a greater degree of choice in schooling (though not school vouchers), and supports the No Child Left Behind Act. The DLC supports both the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA)…The DLC gave strong support for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Prior to the war, Will Marshall co-signed a letter to President Bush from the Project for the New American Century endorsing military action against Saddam Hussein.”
We should all be familiar with Hillary’s record since leaving the White House. She successfully ran for a Senate seat from the State of New York, and was re-elected to a second term. While in the Senate, she famously voted in favor of the Iraq War, the Defense of Marriage Act, the USA Patriot Act and the Bank Bailout. She ran unsuccessfully for President in 2008 but was subsequently named to President Obama’s cabinet as Secretary of State from 2009-2013.
Bernie Sanders grew up in a three-and-a-half-room, rent-controlled apartment in a working-class neighborhood in the borough of Brooklyn, New York. His parents were Jewish immigrants from Poland; his father was a paint salesman. He attended public schools where he participated in basketball and cross-country, wrote for the school paper and participated in student government. While he was attending Brooklyn College, his mother died young of lingering effects of rheumatic fever she had contracted as a child. He transferred to the University of Chicago the following year.
He started out political life by joining in the civil rights movement. He was an active member of the Congress on Racial Equality and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, organized sit-ins against segregated campus housing and was arrested for protesting segregation in Chicago public schools. He participated in the march on Washington where he heard the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. give his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. He graduated with a degree in political science. After graduating he lived on a kibbutz in Israel, worked as an aide at a psychiatric hospital and taught in a Head Start program before moving to Vermont, “where he worked as a carpenter, filmmaker, writer and researcher, among other jobs, before starting his political career.” Bernie joined the Liberty Union Party, an anti-war party which “defines itself as a non-violent socialist party,” and ran as a candidate four times before leaving the party to run as an Independent.
His first successful run at office was in 1980 when he ran for Mayor and won by ten votes.
He “turned out to be a popular and effective mayor, and more pragmatic than some might have predicted,” credited for overseeing successful economic development “without the…gentrification that he abhorred. His administration devised creative solutions for preserving affordable housing, including a community land trust that enabled low-income residents to buy homes. It became a model for other cities…He created a youth office, an arts council, and a women’s commission, and during his tenure minor-league baseball came to Burlington.”
He was re-elected as Mayor of Burlington three times.
He ran for Congress as an Independent in 1988, losing to Republican Peter Smith. He ran again in 1990 and won. He has represented the State of Vermont as either a Congressman or a Senator ever since and is very popular among voters.
Bernie co-founded the Congressional Progressive Caucus in 1991 and it has since grown to 69 members.
“The founding CPC members were concerned about the economic hardship imposed by the deepening recession, and the growing inequality brought about by the timidity of the Democratic Party response in the early 1990s. More importantly, on January 3, 1995 at a standing room only news conference on Capitol Hill, they were the first group inside Congress to chart a detailed, comprehensive legislative alternative to U.S. Speaker Newt Gingrich and the Republican Contract with America, which they termed ‘the most regressive tax proposals and reactionary social legislation the Congress had before it in 70 years.’ The CPC's ambitious agenda was framed as ‘The Progressive Promise: Fairness.’
Sanders’ record in congress stands for itself. It is remarkable for its consistency and for the fact that he has managed to win campaigns without PAC money, financial help from a major national party or ingratiating himself with corporate donors.
“For all their differences, there is none so bright and bold as the manner in which they have raised money for their respective political campaigns. Based on analysis of donations received since 1980, the nonpartisan organization Crowdpac found that ‘Sanders receives over 60% of his campaign contributions from small dollar donors [giving between $1-199] compared with Clinton who receives less than 10% from that segment.’”
While Sanders’ urban childhood was less than idyllic, Clinton was privileged with the security of a suburban childhood and all that it entails. Starting out life in such different environments and circumstances contributed greatly to their political philosophies today.
While Sanders was in college, he fought side-by-side with minorities for equality and civil rights. While Hillary was in college, she was wrote a critical analysis of Saul Alinsky.
While Sanders was working to build a third-party movement in Vermont, Clinton was representing union-busting WalMart and sitting on their board.
While Sanders was forming the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Clinton was helping to build the influence of the conservative Democratic Leadership Counsel.
While Sanders was fighting for progressive, populist values and policy in Congress, Bill Clinton was secretly making a deal with Newt Gingrich
“to create a centrist political coalition to fix long-term problems facing Social Security and Medicare…[amid] a growing [political] consensus around ‘middle ground’ proposals that combined some structural changes in the retirement age with some form of private accounts.”
Though it may be popular for the corporate media to claim that their voting record is virtually identical, it isn’t nearly as similar as it seems and their votes differed on critically important issues.
There are fundamental philosophical and character differences between these candidates, no matter what Hillary’s campaign and a cooperative media want you to believe. As trite as it may sound, this election is actually over the soul of the Democratic Party.
My next diary will focus on the origins and philosophy of the Democratic Leadership Counsel, the rise of the New Democrats, how the Clintons are tied to that movement and what it has done to the Party.