Category: Clinton

Sanders Still Rising; Republican Nightmare Worsens


By Robert Borosage
Campaign for America’s Future

March 7, 2016 – Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders won three of four state contests over the weekend. On the Republican side, Ted Cruz emerged as the leading challenger to Donald Trump in what is quickly becoming a two-man race. And the seventh Democratic debate, in Flint, Mich., highlighted the differences between the parties as much as the differences between the two contenders.

Democrats: Sanders Still Rising

Sanders took the caucuses in Nebraska, Kansas and Maine, while losing the Louisiana primary, as Clinton continued her sweep of the red states of the South. While the mainstream media – egged on by the Clinton campaign – edges towards calling the race over, Sanders keeps on rising. His expanding army of small donors continues to fuel his campaign. And he can look forward to growing support – particularly in the contests after mid-March, as he introduces himself to more and more voters.

For Clinton, the victory in Louisiana showed her “firewall” of African-American voters continues to hold. The two candidates ended dividing the delegates won over the weekend, showing the tough challenge Sanders faces. But Clinton’s losses in the caucuses should raise concern. Unlike 2008, she is organized and intent on competing in the caucus states. But she clearly has trouble rousing the passions of the activist voters who tend to dominate caucuses.

Republicans: The Donald Is The Moderate

The Republican race is rapidly turning into a two-man faceoff between Donald Trump and Texas Senator Ted Cruz. Trump won the Louisiana primary and the Kentucky caucus over the weekend. Cruz won the caucuses in Kansas and Maine. Marco Rubio and Governor John Kasich trailed badly in all four. Rubio did pick up the Puerto Rican primary on Sunday.

Clearly, the much ballyhooed plan of the “Republican establishment” to rally around Marco Rubio has collapsed. Rubio’s schoolyard taunts at Donald Trump haven’t helped him. If Rubio doesn’t win Florida on March 15 – and he trails badly in the most recent polls – he is gone. If Kasich doesn’t win Ohio, the race may be virtually over.

Now Republicans must look on their works in horror. Trump – the xenophobic, racist, misogynistic blowhard – is the moderate in the race. Cruz, the most hated Republican in the Senate, is a right-wing zealot. He criticizes Trump not for being extreme, but for being squishy – on abortion, on immigration, on judges, on government. Moderate Republicans may now try to rally around John Kasich, if he wins Ohio. Good luck with that.

Their choice is winnowing down to the disruptor against the zealot. The politics of resentment and racial division have blown up in their faces.

The Democratic Contrast: We Do Substance

The most notable contrast during the seventh Democratic debate in Flint, Michigan was not between Clinton and Sanders, but between the Democrats and the Republicans. As Andrea Bernstein, editor at WNYC, tweeted: “Democratic debate so far: guns, schools, health care, trade, infrastructure, transportation, welfare, racism. GOP debate last week: hand size.”

The Democratic exchange was feistier than normal. Clinton is perfecting the technique of interrupting Sanders, hoping to set off a testy explosion. The campaign and the press tried to make much of Sanders telling her “Excuse me, I’m talking.” But after the Republican melee, this is pretty hard case to make. Sanders remains the courtliest of contenders. (Continued)

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A Populist Challenge to Hillary Clinton

By Katrina vanden Heuvel

Washington Post

April 14, 2015 – Hillary Clinton’s decision to “go small” by formally announcing her presidential campaign in a video, before heading off for “intimate” meetings in Iowa, touched off saturation national press coverage that other contenders can only envy. The former first lady, former senator, former presidential contender, former secretary of state has been in the public eye for nearly a quarter of a century. She’s the prohibitive favorite to get the Democratic Party nomination this time, and odds-on to win the presidency.

Yet hurdles remain. Clinton’s biggest challenge probably isn’t in capturing the middle from the Republican nominee. Republicans have already virtually ceded that. Her challenge is to inspire the Obama majority coalition to vote in large numbers, not only to guarantee her election but also to help Democrats take back the Senate, gain seats in the House and capture a clear mandate.This won’t be easy. Historically, after eight years of one party in the White House, voters are ready for change. The Republican base will be roused by venom toward Clinton that is almost as poisonous as that directed at President Obama. In contrast, many Democrats are discouraged by the disappointments of the Obama years. Key parts of Obama’s base — African Americans, Latinos, millennials — haven’t exactly thrived during his presidency. The election of 2014 took place in a low-turnout, by-election year, but it showed how destructive a lack of enthusiasm could be on the Democratic side.

Some pundits suggest 2016 will be a foreign policy election. Some Democrats are tempted to turn it into a culture clash, since Republicans are now on the wrong side of a growing range of concerns — gays, women, immigrants, voting rights and global warming. But as Clinton’s campaign acknowledges, the central question is still about the economy: how to make this economy work for working people once more, to rebuild a broad middle class, increase wages and reduce income inequality. Here, although Clinton has been in the public eye for decades, her views are largely unknown, if not unformed.

And on these questions, a populist temper is building in the party — symbolized by the split between the “Warren” and Wall Street wings of the party, and by the spread of the movement to draft Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) to run for the presidency. And Clinton will find that this movement will force her to decide where she stands early and often. (Continued)

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Why the Country Needs a Populist Challenger in the Democratic Primaries

By Robert Borosage
Campaign for America’s Future

Feb. 17, 2010 – Polls show Democrats want a contest, not a coronation, for their presidential nomination. The press yearns for a primary contest, if only to have something to cover. A raft of reasons are floated for why a challenge would be useful, most of them spurious.

Hillary Clinton doesn’t need a contest to get her campaign shipshape. She’s already been central to three presidential campaigns, as underdog, incumbent and, disastrously, overwhelming favorite. She has every high-priced operative in the party. If she doesn’t know how to put together campaign by now, an upstart challenger won’t help.

Some suggest a challenger could move Hillary to the left, as if Hillary Inc. were a bloated ocean liner needing a plucky tugboat to put it on the right path. But the Clintons are adept at running more populist than they govern. Hillary found her populist pitch in 2008 when it was too late to save her. She’s knee deep in pollsters and speechwriters. She won’t need a challenger to teach her the lines.

There are two compelling reasons for a challenge in the Democratic primaries: We need a big debate about the direction of the country, and a growing populist movement would benefit from a populist challenge to Hillary.

The Divide

This isn’t conventional wisdom. Matt Yglesias argues that Clinton is the prohibitive favorite for the nomination not because of experience, name recognition or the Clinton money machine but because no large ideological divisions separate Democrats. New Dems have embraced the social liberalism they once dreaded. Foreign policy differences are minimal. All Democrats sing from President Obama’s populist songbook. All favor raising the minimum wage, pay equity, investment in infrastructure, bank regulation.

New York Sen. Charles Schumer agrees that the “differences among Democrats are small compared to the chasm on the Republican side.” Democrats, he argues, are united on “fundamental issues,” like the minimum wage, pay equity, paying for college.

In fact, there is a deep divide between the party establishment and the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party. All affirm, finally, that this economy works only for the few and not the many. But after that, the differences are immense.

The center of the party – which Hillary occupies – argues that our extreme inequality just happened, sort of like the weather. Globalization and technology did it. Republican trickle-down economics made it worse. We can fix it with sensible reforms packaged as “middle-out economics.” We’ll give everyone a “fair shot,” as the president puts it, echoing Bill Clinton, “with everyone playing by the same set of rules.”

The Democratic wing of the party understands, as Sen. Elizabeth Warren has put it, that extreme inequality is the result of the “rules being rigged” by the few to favor the few. The deck is stacked. Playing by the same set of rules doesn’t change the outcome if the rules are rigged. The core structures of our politics and our economy have to be changed to get a clean deal. (Continued)

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