FrankTrollman wrote:He voted the same way as Clinton 93.1% of the time, and he was only in the right slightly more often than he was in the wrong in the less than 7% of the votes where they went separate ways. If you agree with Sanders 96% of the time, you probably agree with Clinton 94% of the time.
Yes, Bernie Sanders is a real progressive by the standards of the United States. But that means that Hillary Clinton is a real progressive by those standards as well.
-Username17
No it doesn't, because the best political-science research shows, that if you want to predict politician behavior,
you follow the money. Clinton is taking the money, and Sanders isn't, therefore Sanders would be less-dominated by wall street. This is also a major weakness for Hillary, because money rapidly saturates in general elections, but enthusiasm does not - and there is a big enthusiasm gap. Yes, the vast majority of sanders will vote for HRC over (especially) Donald Trump. But, will they knock on doors and bring their friends to the polls?
On immigration: Sanders did oppose the 2007 bill - which included the vile guest-worker provisions. From his floor testimony, it's clear that his big concerns were domestic - domestic workers, and so forth. It's hardly immigrant-bashing since he advocates a path to citizenship in the same speech. Also, he supported both the 2003 bill and the 2013 bill. He has some spectacularly-poor rating, like 7% or something, from FAIR (the Orwellian-named Federation for American Immigration Reform).
This is not to say that Sanders is perfect or angelic. He supported expanding the existing exemptions for low wage immigrant labor in exactly one context... dairy farming. Because he's from Vermont. But this just goes to show how much you can predict about a politician from their affiliations - and HRC's are with Wall Street. If your chief concerns are Israeli aggression or greenhouse gases from cattle, Bernie is not your guy.
Both of their legislative agendas are largely irrelevant, except from a negotiating standpoint. If you start a negotiation having ceded everything to the other side (in order to be realistic), then once negotiations start, you end up making further concessions. So if Sanders comes in, having won an election on single payer, he has negotiating room to get the public option, in the event there is legislative movement at-all.
As far as Wall Street reform, Clinton's proposal is better in terms of preventing the next Minsky moment; but Sanders' proposal is better in the political economy of breaking the domination by the financial sector long-term, and that's more important. But, again, their legislative programs aren't going to be enacted.
The President has tremendous
executive power of the financial sector, and as we mentioned, Clinton
took the money. Between that and the Iraq war - the President has tremendous executive power over the use of force - everything else is speculation but Sanders is Pareto-dominant on the two issues that count for the office they seek to hold.
Finally, he's also substantially more popular, better liked and trusted, and does better in head-to-head polls: which have high variance against the final result but give him a projected edge of 2% or so, big enough to swing the election if it would otherwise be close (and Sanders and Clinton are similar enough that, if it wasn't otherwise close, it doesn't matter.)
Sanders is expected to lose but it is by-no-means a sure thing (for comparison, he's doing better than Obama did at this point!) If Sanders does manage to pull off a win, it will likely be a reflection of HRC's weaknesses as a candidate - which have been exposed by Sanders' unexpected success, even if she (as is likely) pulls out the nomination anyway.
Chaosium rules are made of unicorn pubic hair and cancer. --AncientH
When you talk, all I can hear is "DunningKruger" over and over again like you were a god damn Pokemon. --Username17
Fuck off with the pony murder shit. --Grek