The Hill is running an article to say, at the very least, if Hilary could just win the Iowa caucus, then she could "seal up the nomination". At least that's what her campaign managers say. Sounds presumptive, eh? Here is the opening of that article:
"Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is keeping her boot on Bernie Sanders’s neck.
"The former secretary of State on Tuesday released a new ad in Iowa and New Hampshire on gun control, the one issue where she can credibly claim to be to the left of the Vermont Independent senator."Ok, let's stop right there at the metaphor in the first line, you know, where a tremendous assumption is being made. Really? Hilary is enjoying such an enormous advantage right about now, that all she needs to do is hold that boot in place?
The second paragraph says it all. Gun control is the only issue where Hilary has any credibility to the left of Sanders. Love it. So gun control trumps all other issues? Even economics?
How about those shimmering bags of money from Wall Street behind Hilary? Check out her contribution sources here at opensecrets.org. Nothing but law firms and Wall Street, you know, to make sure she doesn't regulate them. She could always change her mind on the TPP later, after she's in office. I'll never forget NAFTA. Or Larry Summers.
Here's where it gets interesting from a technical perspective. I have a plugin from opensecrets.org that works in my browser. It highlights names in text that are elected officials and gives me their top donors by industry. Works on Bernie but not on Hilary. I wonder why. Maybe it's just a bug.
Now have a look at Bernie's contributors. 97% of his contributions come from individuals. The rest? A few unions.
Anyway, that article from The Hill goes on and on about how Hilary's campaign committee decided to go negative early on to avoid make the same mistakes they made with Obama. In 2008, Hilary was the presumptive winner then, too. But somehow, that didn't work out as planned. Hilary's campaign says they were too late to go negative. So, you know, they just want to get a jump on Bernie with the one issue that they think he's weak on.
Sounds interesting, Hilary, except for a few things. First, Bernie has won 14 elections without running a negative ad and in his most recent election, he got 25% of the Republican vote in Vermont. Without a PAC or a SuperPAC. But then, some would say that Bernie is unelectable now, wouldn't they?
I was so incensed by that article on The Hill's website that I did a little more digging. They're right. Hilary is swimming in good polling news. Take a look at the Real Clear Politics site and you'll find that they have a very nice summary page with all the latest polls. I looked at the most recent polls and sure enough, Hilary is doing very well in all the major polls.
She did that in 2008, too. For example, The Washington Post ran an article about her great polling. It's dated July 1st, 2014, and goes into great detail on her polling back then. Then they take notice of how Obama played the race and won. Hilary won every major poll during that election season and still lost.
After the drubbing I gave the WaPo yesterday, I feel it only fair to offer another source. How about the DailyKos? They're a bit more liberal than the WaPo, so we get a different point of view. In this list, we see pundit after pundit talk about how Obama is going to lose, big time. But, they were all wrong, too.
This isn't to say I wouldn't want Hilary for president compared to anyone in the GOP clown car. This is to say I prefer Bernie over Hilary for so many reasons like those mentioned above.
So if you want Bernie for president like I want him in the oval office, and I hope you do, get mobilized. Write about him, talk about him with your friends and family. Share links about him on social media openly and often.
You don't have to change their minds, just get the message out and let them think for themselves. His message resonates with a majority of Americans and it hasn't been co-opted from someone else. He's had the same message for more than 30 years and I see no sign that he will change it just to be president.
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