all of those DUers like you, who merely like Hillary as the next candidate - those who do not like Hillary as the next candidate for President, and then those who dislike the DUers who do not like Hillary as the next candidate for President.
Some Hillary supporters believe that by going after, say, Warren or Sanders, and gleefully pointing out perceived flaws or "unelectability", the DUers who support them will become Hillary supporters, and that is not going to happen in the way that they wish, I think. Or they think that by chastising, insulting, using condescension and sarcasm, or invading any thread about not-Hillary for president with links and charts and whatever, they will force or sway the recalcitrant ones to their cause. Nah. What is becoming clear to me, sadly, is the utter contempt of the centrists for the liberals and progressives, and I feel we are being herded out of whatever the Democratic Party stands for, these days. Winning at all costs seems to be the only plank in the platform.

Grudging acceptance at voting time, maybe, but that's it. It almost seems, to me, that DU was expected to magically become a 100% for Hillary!!! wonderland, before there is even a primary, and there is some sort of incredulous hissyfit because that is not the case.

it doesn't help to be told to get back into the "real world." In fact, liberals and progressives are part of the real world and a portion of the hard core Hillary supporters don't want to acknowledge it.

the shit-stirring, crap flingers who spend the bulk of their time dividing Dems and hating on the Clintons or Obama.

Let's break down YOUR groups:

Those who merely like Hillary as a candidate
Those who do not like Hillary
Those who dislike the DU'ers who do not like Hillary as candidate

That you can miss the loud, obnoxious group who dislike DU'ers who don't fawn over Warren, Sanders, Greenwald, Robert Parry, Putin etc says more about your confirmation bias that anything else I can post as a response.

We all have confirmation bias. Some of us at least try to be self-aware.

I would be happy if threads about Warren did not get invaded with Hillary linkies and Hillary quotes and Hillary charts and Hillary polls.

That you have decided DUers who do not like Hillary can be collectively referred to as "the loud, obnoxious group who dislike DU'ers who don't fawn over Warren, Sanders, Greenwald, Robert Parry, Putin etc" says more about YOUR confirmation bias that anything else I can post as a response.

You also seem to confuse hating on specific policies with hating on actual people. That is some dishonest shit-stirring right there, and that is, actually, the very example of calling those who disagree with POLICY, haters. Talk about oblivious.

If there's nothing wrong with discussing the policy, then what's wrong with bringing in quotes from others about the policy?

I love Elizabeth Warren. I believe strongly that she will NOT run for president in 2016 (for what I think are very good reasons); and I am resigned to my observation that there just aren't other strong candidates popping up for us. Hillary is a strong general election candidate, even though she's less liberal than a lot of us would like. I will support an alternative through the primary, if I can find one I like and believe in. But I don't understand why everyone who supports someone else has to be so virulently opposed to Hillary. If she's the nominee and the republicans put up a clown, then she will win, and many things we've fought for, for decades, will not be immediately dismantled. That may be a low and sad bar but if that's where the bar is - we need to face reality and get on with it, and make sure we at least clear that bar before we raise it.

I also love Elizabeth. But I take her at her word when she says that she will not run in 2016. Unless and until she actually declares herself a candidate, discussion of her pros and cons (more pros, IMO) are really moot, serve to divide and cause dissension where none need be, IMO.

After all, we also need more great Senators like Warren (many, many more, in fact!!) and frankly, right now, she is in a much better position to push the Democratic party - and whoever is the eventual general election candidate - more towards its traditional roots.

I can't imagine that the GOP will not put up a clown/sociopath, as their eventual field - based on current likely and declared candidates - will be composed entirely of clowns or and/or sociopaths.

Any Democrat who refuses to vote for the eventual general election Dem candidate - for whatever reason - does not now and likely never really will "get" it as to what the ultimate stakes for this nation are.

Those who do not like the DU'ers who like Hillary as the next candidate for president.

Seemed a little incomplete....

Maybe they're progressives. I never have had the faintest idea what that word is supposed to mean.

Some of us Bernie worshipping, Warren adoring liberals don't want either one for president.

challenge the dominant political paradigm.

But even small bore politics can fundamentally change people's lives like the Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act. Lives literally have been saved and improved.

Imagine if some of the states with Republican governors that refused to participate had how many more people would have coverage.

who thought there was no difference between former Governors Pat Brown and Ronald Reagan were just like the people who thought there was no difference between Al Gore and George W Bush.

I used to be more sympathetic to people who were purists but then I look at the results of a Reagan and George W Bush presidencies and I get angry. I think of all the dead and maimed from the Iraq War, which would never have happened under Gore. I think that in a democracy the blame ultimately falls on the voters. Of course, I know that Gore won the popular vote, but if even more people had voted for Gore, it would have been harder for the Supreme Court (whose right wing members were appointed by Republican presidents) to steal the election.

I like Elizabeth Warren and I like Bernie Sanders. But if by a miracle, either becomes President, I fully expect DU to be full of complainers about them. Because neither will please the purists once he/she is elected.

We would still be involved because terrorism existed prior to Bush's election but not to this extent. We would not have invaded Iraq.

Because I am endlessly full of trust toward those who want to tell me THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PARTIES.

Plan to vote?

people think I'm a Hillary hater...

I'm not! No one here hates Hillary.

Some people just have a different view of the future and who we want to lead us there.

So being a Democrat, I have to support Hillary.

That poll a few weeks ago here where 1/3rd said they would not vote for Hillary in the General tells us more about those who can sign up for some random political forum, than the general voting population.

I'll be glad when Skinner and company trigger the election rules. This time, anyone who says they will vote for another candidate in the General other than the Democrat, should receive...

Hillary is not even running at this point.

I am adamantly opposed to a Clinton nomination, people think I hate her. I don't.

I don't hate her, but I also don't like her. I'll be working for someone else in the primaries.

Should she win the nomination, though, I'll let her know what issues we might have in common that she could move on to earn my GE vote. There are a couple that are possibilities.

The most promising issue she could address for me would be public education. Is she willing to take down the corporate/neo-liberal war on public education and teachers, and do away with their most powerful weapon: high stakes testing? It's questionable. She's a neo-liberal, and the current war on public education is about privatization...backed by neo-liberals. Still, she might do better than appointing a corporate basketball buddy to head an education policy putting the neo-liberal agenda on steroids, like the current president.

But it's a lot easier to convince yourself that people hate your candidate than it is to admit that people simply don't want them.

Nothing against them but I made my choice.

People can't wrap that fact around their finger because of all the hate they have inside them. I would hate to have to look at that every morning in the mirror.

Or did I misinterpret what you wrote?

Better than their supporters.

but I can't see her playing well with voters outside the northeast so I doubt she could win the nomination or the election.

And isn't Wisconsin the state that elected Scott Walker twice.

Warren has a genius for speaking truth to power and powerless. I do not want that compromised.

To quote Jimmy Breslin (more or less) "No one ever reached the presidency in a state of grace."

Obama smiled and lied his ass off about gay marriage. I'm forever grateful. He told jokes while we were killing bin Laden. I hate his TPP but I'm liking him so much more than I thought I would.

The last thing any president can afford to be is perfect.

She may be much more effective staying in the Senate.

...as long as they are Dems...and Hillary qualifies. A would prefer Grayson, but the country ain't ready for this guy yet.

In fact no one knows if she will run ,and her greatest service to this Party is the element of deception that her pseudo candidacy creates in the minds of the opposition. Because attacking her is just a waste of political bandwidth if she doesn't run, and will anger many Hillary supporters in the Republican ranks.

They've been taught to despise her since 1992. It's part of the reason she can't win the Presidency.

The rest of the reason is that she's done nothing to win the support of liberal Democrats or those who vote Democrat when they vote at all.

How do you feel about Sheldon Whitehouse?

Not a Clinton fan for a number of non-personality related issues, not so sure about Warren as I have grown tired of coaxing candidates to run. Starting to like Martin O'Malley tho.

I appreciate your posts and understand you are not a hater of other Dems. Thanks for the thread!

I will vote for THE Democratic Candidate in 2016 race!

I will love having a woman President of these United States!

I have become very Pragmatic in my old age

....candidates can be the most principled in the world, but if they're not in office they have relatively little effect on government policy.

The only one of the three that CAN win (not that it's given) is Hillary Clinton. Neither of the other two could or would even come close.

The most important thing is to elect someone who will help the country. Winning with a corpo-Dem is losing, just not as fast a loss.

…..the rumors in the news that Bill's womanizing is swirling around again, not to mention his presence on the Epstein jet.

The RW will make Bill the issue again, (and again and again) and "impeach" her by proxy. It's a terrible waste of time, energy, hope, values and money for the Dems to have another Clinton.

She swore under oath that, although she had seen Bill Clinton with Epstein on a social occasion, she never had relations with him or saw him engage in any inappropriate behavior with anyone else.

Are you responsible for your friends' actions? I know that I'm not.


Here's a link.

'Clinton was present on the island at a time when I was also present on the island, but I have never had sexual relations with Clinton, nor have I ever claimed to have had such relations. I have never seen him have sexual relations with anyone,' Roberts wrote.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2921218/I-never-slept-Bill-Clinton-Sex-slave-Virginia-Roberts-denies-rumors-relations-former-President-explosive-court-filings.html

Since when has nuance of fact stopped the RW or the MSM from making a conflagration over the smoke of a Bill sex rumor? At least enough to make that be the conversation instead of the really serious problems we face. We need to win the 2016 elections and can't have this liability.

Besides the Epstein connection is not the whole of it.

Look at this Post article:

http://nypost.com/2015/02/14/bill-clintons-libido-threatens-to-derail-hillary-again/

Yes, the Post is a rag but it gives the tabloid headline that gives the Republicans all they need.

Sick of the Clintons, sick of their non-progressivism, sick of Bill's smarmy need to be the center of attention. Fool me once, shame on you, but fool me twice…...

And try, ever so hard, not to be distracted by shiny objects.

As has been pointed out, Bill's schedule while president is both detailed and not a secret. If the Republicans had had this to pin on him we would have heard of it immediately.

The suit was filed in Florida. Jeb country. Lawyers ain't cheap. THINK.

It's never about what actually happened with Bill and his women. It's about the fire the RW makes out of the sex rumors about him. We just can't afford it.

Besides, your own shiny object (the Florida testimony) is blinding you to the rumors that he's had a long time mistress and a few other women since 2000. That's incendiary in terms of electoral headlines. It doesn't have to be provable. It only has to be a drum beat of innuendo and it can hurt the Dems chances of keeping the WH.

Americans are too economically exhausted to tolerate 4 to 8 years of the Clinton co-presidency, weakened the entire time on policy making by Big Dog "investigations", even if she's the President. Think of the politics of it, not the facts.

I'm done with the Clintons.

Yes—the woman's lawyers are expensive and someone is paying for them. A RW set of plotters no doubt. Rove even. That's the problem. The RW will work it and work it and work it and already is, to win points, based on Clinton's womanizing.

But his womanizing, provable or imagined, hurts the Democratic party and therefore the country.

He is a real liability, based on these rumors, especially about the post-2000 mistress, and we need a better candidate than Hillary.

They attack you like sharks during a feeding frenzy if you dare to support Hillary over their candidate of choice. Aside from the nerve of some people who use RW talking points and articles from RW sites to bash her. Therefore, the last couple of days is the most presence I've had here in a long time. Why bother? I sure as heck can go to other friendlier sites or find something else to do than continually having to read every outrageous thing against Hillary in post after post. Some of the stuff is fair and reasonable, but there's plenty that is just visceral and nasty.

because I refuse to join in the Hillary bashing.

I'm so stupid I like Clinton, Warren and Sanders and will have no problem supporting whichever is nominated (if O'Malley is not). Apparently on DU one can no longer respect moderate-liberals, liberals AND socialists. You must choose one and loathe the others.

but all they have time for is HRC bashing 24/7. They are even creating logos to help with the bashing.

That accuse others of hating a person. No one hates Hillary. I simply dont vote for republicans, thats all. Her policies are mostly firmly in the republican camp.

can't/won't acknowledge that their candidate's positions don't appeal to everyone. Calling people "haters" is an attempt to dismiss their objections as irrational personal reactions, thus making it unnecessary for their candidate to do anything differently.

That's some serious self loathing.

we don't examine our ideals much because we think they are ideals .

It looks like we have a difference of ideals here that we let get in our way of logic = how can the working class vote for the non working class ? Illogically we think we can be non working class .

Have I made myself perfectly dopey ?