Bernie Sanders will speak to local supporters at an event at the West Newton Cinema this Wednesday evening, July 29. This meeting is the one of several kick-off events to organize Newton volunteers for his Presidential campaign — and one of over 3,500 such events that evening nationwide, with 100,000 currently expected to attend. I say “virtually” because Bernie will speak by video link. The meeting starts at 7PM. Space at the West Newton Cinema meeting is limited and currently just about filled. You can check here to reserve a seat. If it’s filled, you can stop by to see if there’s room. For more info — or to sign up to volunteer for the campaign — write to [email protected] or visit BernieSanders.com.
And to kick off the V14 discussion… How about that column by Barney Frank in Politico explaining “why progressives shouldn’t support Bernie”?
Unfortunately, I agree with Barney Frank’s reasons not to support Bernie Sanders in a primary, as much as I would like to.
An Excerpt:
“But wishful thinking is no way to win the presidency.”
“[Republicans] are boosting Sanders’ candidacy [a]s their only way to prevent Clinton emerging as the nominee with broad support early in the process, strengthening her position in November.”
“If Hillary Clinton is nominated fairly easily, while they are locked in a bitter, lengthy, ideologically charged series of primaries with a large cast of characters of varying degrees of plausibility, she gets a head start for the real fight.”
“Bernie Sanders has consistently, forcefully and cogently made the case for a larger federal government role in improving both the fairness and the quality of life in our country, refusing to soft-pedal in the face of declining support for this view in public opinion.”
“His very unwillingness to be confined by existing voter attitudes, as part of a long-term strategy to change them, is both a very valuable contribution to the democratic dialogue and an obvious bar to winning support from the majority of these very voters in the near term.”
I’m pleased that Bernie Sanders had the courage to throw his hat into the ring for the 2016 nominating primaries and caucuses. I take exception to the argument that Bernie’s presence in this race is going to lead to an “ideologically charged round of primaries” that will hopelessly divide the Democratic Party and lead to the election of whatever candidate the Republicans finally decide to nominate. If it does then there is something wrong with the Democrats and not with Sanders. He’s never personally attacked an opponent and he’s not about to start now. He’s as mainstream as they come, or at least he would have been in the world I grew up in as a kid.
Howard Dean talks about campaigning in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom and seeing house after house that had lawn signs for Bush Cheney, Dean’s Republican opponent and Bernie Sanders. I have 4 friends who haven’t voted for a Democrat since Jimmy Carter. All 4 of them have told me they want to help Bernie along. They like him. They trust him because he’s a leader. The Democrats lost the knack of appealing to these voters many, many years ago, but Bernie seems to know how to do it. Bernie, like Tip O’Neill, is talking about fairness. Bernie is more in the mainstream than the media would acknowledge.
This is pretty basic and common sense, but it seems to elude the high price political consultants. Please Google “Bernie Sanders and Dwight D. Eisenhower” and you will find several articles (not all from the left) that show a remarkable similarity in many of the things Ike was saying in 1956 and what Bernie is saying now. These range across the board from higher income taxes on the well to do and strong unemployment insurance programs to a cautious prudence about committing American military personnel to land wars in foreign countries, strong labor unions and a positive role for government in reducing economic inequality and runaway capitalism. Ike also talked a lot about fairness.
I bring this up only to point out how far to the right this country has drifted in the last 40 years and how often Democrats were complicit in moving this country to the right. The important legacy of Ike, Adlai Stevenson and other great post war statesmen like Konrad Adenauer, French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman and Italian premier Alcide De Gasperi was that they lived through the 30’s depression and World War II. They saw the grim reality of what happens when people lose confidence in their governmental institutions and turn to radical extremism. They knew instinctively that instability would follow as night follows day if government failed to take care of its people and allowed whole segments of society to fall through the cracks. These leaders were all “Christian Democrats” of one sort or another, but they all helped enact great social, medical and educational programs that are now flippantly referred to as “socialist” here in America.
Politico, which carried Barney’s assessment, had a follow up piece about how moderates in red state areas are already moaning about “the left” having too much influence in this year’s nominating process. They took a bath in 2014, but how many of them went down the tubes because they lacked the courage or conviction to stand behind ANY of President Obama’s accomplishments or to think of much but their own political survival. They have been so cowed that the right knows they can roll them at any time.
Please come to our meetup on Wednesday night and help move this country back to some basic common sense and common decency. Go, Bernie, Go.
@ Bob Burke
FYI – In the course of doing homework for my work, I stumbled across a rebuttal of Mr. Frank’s piece that falls along the lines of issues and thoughts you raise. I pass it along in case you haven’t seen it.
http://www.youngprogressivevoices.com/2015/07/24/rebuttal-barney-franks-attack-sanders/
Bob, I agree that Bernie Sanders is the best candidate.
I know well the years you are referring too even though I was young. Estes Kefauver, at one time, lived down the street from me and was a good friend of my father. He worked with him and Adlai Stevenson in building support for the TVA. It was a very traumatic year for me at 15 when he died suddenly in August, 1963 and then Jack Kennedy was assassinated in December. So I’m most definitely in agreement there.
I just don’t think he would win in the general election, even if he wins the nomination. It’s too important to me that a democrat stays in the White House for many reasons, but a big one is the Supreme Court. Unless Obama appoints the next justices, we could end up with more who have trouble interpreting the constitution intelligently and think the right wing interpretation of the Bible should dictate decisions.
@Marti. I hear what you are saying and it’s crossed my mind several times in the past when I backed Bill Bradley over Al Gore and Howard Dean rather than John Kerry. In both instances, however, my candidate flamed out and the eventual nominees went down to defeat in November. The reasons for their loss had almost nothing to do with the fact that they had competition during the primaries. Bradley and Dean did all they could to help Gore and Kerry win, but there was something lacking in how the candidates articulated their positions and their horrendous difficulty responding quickly and decisively to Republican attacks in the general election.
If Sanders is not the nominee, I know he will do whatever he can to help the nominee because he, too, knows what’s at stake. I hope other candidates will respond as positively if he makes it to the nomination. But you really can’t ask him to withdraw or temper his campaign when 221 people have already signed up for Wednesday’s gala event at the West Newton Theater. I know you and I will be working for whoever the nominee is and I’m almost certain that Bernie’s positive positions will strengthen the Democrat’s message and constituency support. I’ll take our little tempest over the horrible display of meanness and foolishness coming from the other party.
This article makes some great points about why people may be attracted to Bernie Sanders rather than Hillary Clinton – a desire for true reform of our democracy.
Go Bernie Go.
It is silly to think that if Bernie doesn’t win the primary, he’ll be the cause of the loss in November. It’s an excuse and a weak one at that. Vote for who you think represents your ideology the best. In a general election I contend that Bernie will get the independents a lot easier than Hilary. The independents are tired of the bush/clinton thing and the reason why the Trumps/Saunders are doing so well is because they are different. Vote for the best candidate.
For the Record, I would love to see a Bernie Saunders/Bob Burke ticket!!!!
Tom, I’m certainly not surprised.
Drudge loves Bernie too. “Feel the Bern!” “Go Bernie Go!”
The next president will be consumed by foreign affairs. Does Bernie say much about how he would approach those big issues?
He’ll probably do about as well as Obama has in foreign affairs.
@Tom. Thanks for the endorsement, but I have trouble enough remembering things for our area council meetings in Newton Highlands. @Barry. I’ll take Obama’s foreign policy record over W’s. any day. Both Obama and Sanders were against invading Iraq because it had nothing to do with 9/11 and posed no real threat to either us or it’s neighbors. So many problems in that area stem from that ill-advised adventure and Obama’s been handling these prudently and cautiously.
Our meetup drew more than 150 people to the West Newton theater on a very hot and sultry evening. More than 110 of these signed volunteer forms and seemed eager to participate in upcoming events. I was impressed by the number of young people in the audience and the political savvy they articulated during the comments period. Every comment was directed at supporting Bernie Sanders. I don’t recall any that attacked any of his Democratic opponents although some of the Republicans were fair game. Tim Snyder summed it up best. “We want to do everything we can to help Bernie, and we want to have fun doing it.”