I see we have another poll that suggest 25% of Bernie Sanders supporters wouldn’t vote for HRC. The truth is it wouldn’t matter 100% of her supporters and 75% of his is more than enough to beat either Trump or Cruz. Bernie’s campaign manager Jeff Weaver warned Hillary not to destroy the Democratic party satisfy her ambitions to become president, maybe someone should remind him the only reason Bernie is running as a democrat is because his campaign knew he couldn’t win as an independent. He’s using the branding of the party, the access to fund raising and media attention to further his ambitions to become president. Four of his staffers got with their hands in the cookie jar on the DNC servers sifting through Hillary’s data and when the DNC did exactly what they should have done by cutting off access until they could determine what had happened Bernie’s reaction was that his campaign had done nothing wrong and filed suit against the party so at best Weaver is a hypocrite. Weaver is now using a Trump talking point blaming Hillary’s policies for the rise of ISIS.
Hillary is running her campaign as a Democrat she understands the importance of the down ballot candidates. She knows that winning the White House won’t be enough to make the real change we need. Hillary knows the party needs to win back control of the Senate and put a Justice of her choosing on the Supreme Court to reverse Citizen’s United, restore the Voting Rights Act to it’s full power, etc. She understands the importance of turning states from red to blue to reverse Republican gerrymandering and make the House competitive again. Hillary has made more than $30 million of her war chest available to help, as of this moment Bernie has done nothing.
Bernie got his knickers in a bunch yesterday when he reacted to a misleading headline in Wapo about Hillary questioning if he’s qualified to be president. Joe Scarborough tried repeatedly to bait Hillary into saying it, but she never did. Bernie however couldn’t resist bringing up her vote on the war with Iraq again. He leaves out that the vote didn’t give W unlimited power to wage war, but required he follow the strict requirements of the War Powers Act, that stated force could not be used unless sanctions and diplomacy failed and even then force was to be used only as “necessary and appropriate in order to defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq,” W choose to ignore those directives. Hillary has taken responsibility for the vote and admitted her mistake. He also leave out his yes vote for the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 which promoted the U.S. involvement in a regime change in Iraq.
I’ve tried to be as objective as I can about Bernie, but he’s not a particularly special candidate. In breaking up the big banks he talks about using legislation, but without control of the House he has no chance. Yes he wants the Federal government to provide higher education, but his plan requires being able to create a Wall St. tax, (again that problem with the House), and the states would have to pick up 33% of the funding and since 2008 47 out of 50 states have cut funding for higher education. His foreign policy lacks any real direction, his one claim to fame so far is he didn’t vote for the war in Iraq. I’m not saying Bernie is a bad candidate, but he’s not a savior he’s just a politician.