Yes, she can.
and
Yes, she will.

eom

There IS a difference between what IS possible in today's political environment, and given the current make-up of Congress (who, as you might remember, are the ones who will have to approve the passage and funding of the things you've outlined).

And HRC has never said those things are "impossible" full-stop.

Yet again I am struck by how many OPs/posts from BS supporters rely on being anti-Hillary rather than pro-Bernie.

Things that make you go hmmmm ...

President. That one is crystal clear.

Bernie has made a career of bringing Rs and Ds together to make coalitions. He could do what neither could because of their party affiliations...at times. It's also been said that he has no enemies in Congress.

She was a two-term carpetbagger, the Republicans hate her with a white hot passion, almost half or more Democrats don't think she is trustworthy, which leaves her supporters who still think she's inevitable.

What could possibly go wrong here?

Three decades of GOP smears, talking points and character assassinations have been directed into the left-wing echo chamber. You guys are doing their work for them -- I'm absolutely amazed that you don't see it.

we internalize these things and make our decision. The Republicans...pfffft...who are they? But hey, spoken like a good Corporatist. The Left...OMG...The Liberals...dive for the tunnels...they're coming to get us.

One thing is true, we don't line up like sheep and never will. And if you think the Republicans have one smidge to do with it...well, you're just plain wrong.

I'll take a Democratic Socialist to a DINO or Third Wayer any day. Of that I am guilty.

Vision, not victimhood.

... other than being president", I have to assume you haven't been paying attention.

"It's also been said that he has no enemies in Congress." Well, he doesn't seem to have any friends there, does he? How many congressmen/women have endorsed Bernie?

I think it extremely laughable to refer to HRC as a "carpetbagger", when BS is the one who is running on the Democratic ticket - a party he still refuses to join. In fact, his tirades against the Party are legendary - until he saw that Party as a means to further his own political career.

HRC supporters think her "inevitable"? Do you have any facts or stats to back that up? Of course you don't. It's just another pointless meme that has no basis in reality. If HRC, the Party, or HRC supporters thought her "inevitable", she wouldn't be out campaigning, and she'd have no volunteers out working for her - they'd all just be sitting a home, confident that the "inevitable" was going to happen.

I'm just going to go ahead and assume that you are VERY new to politics. Otherwise, I wouldn't have had to point out the obvious.

and that you can't grasp that is telling. But please, proceed.

1) very young and have plenty of time to WAIT for incremental change moving at glacial pace to ever fix this country. News flash, that isn't a viable alternative now.
or
2)Very wealthy and can afford expensive insurance co based healthcare. Don't have kids who want to join the military who will get shipped off to more never-ending war. Don't have kids who will face crippling college tuition debt.
or
3)Very misled as to what Hillary & Co. will actually do when she gets into office.

I only ask that you consider why you are supporting her.
Really, in your heart, why. Is it campaign slogans? Is it the "ground breaking first female president" theme?

I respect your support, just make sure its for real reasons.

I am supporting Bernie because he talks about the issues I struggle with EVERY SINGLE DAY of my life. He has the policies and has paid for them, regardless of what his opponents keep telling themselves.

She will means test Social Security. She doesn't want us ALL to have single Payer. In fact, she wants to strengthen a profit-based insurance based health care system. She doesn't want all students to have tuition free public college. She is not going to crack down on Wall Street after she got paid multiple speaking fees.

But hey, whats not to like?
Right?

Peace and respect,

... because she has proven - over decades - her commitment to public service, to upholding the rights of women, children and minorities, has extensive experience in politics including (bit not limited to) being a senator and the Secretary of State. She has a vast knowledge of foreign policy and international affairs and has, in her various roles, garnered not only respect at home, but around the world. Her ability to regain global respect for the US that was all but destroyed by Dubya's administration is, in and of itself, a profound accomplishment.

"I am supporting Bernie because he talks about the issues I struggle with EVERY SINGLE DAY."

I am supporting the candidate who has demonstrated, time and again, that she does more than talk. I base my support on proven past ACTION, not talking points.

I am supporting the candidate who wants to build on the foundation already laid by Obama, and those Democrats who have worked tirelessly to put that foundation in place, one brick at a time, rather than the candidate who thinks he can change everything for the better overnight and makes promises he KNOWS he can't keep.

Lastly, I am supporting the DEMOCRAT who has stood with the party all along, rather than the one who has maligned the Party for decades and only decided to "run" as a Democrat (although he still hasn't joined the party he wants to lead) in order to further his own political ambitions.

Incremental change is the way our nation operates. Our form of gov't was set up that way for a reason: so that no one party or individual can implement sweeping changes that are not acceptable to the citizenry as a whole. While you and I might think a Democrat should be able to do so, I'd wager we'd both be rather unhappy with a Republican being able to do so when they occupy the WH and/or control congress.

If HRC had been president in 1964, she wouldn't even have tried passing a civil rights bill.

It's only leadership when you push to EXPAND the range of the possible.

Besides which, nobody in history has ever benefited from minor change.

... with your ability to "know" what HRC would have done had she been president in 1964.

That's quite a talent.

to judge how they would have behaved in another situation.

And HRC has been dismissive towards grassroots activists for her entire life...even DURING the Sixties.

She never respected the civil rights movement OR the antiwar movement.

You can't be an incrementalists and still be moved by the courage of the Freedom Riders and the martyrs of Mississippi.

Her objective in helping found the DLC(as you would have to concede), was to make the Democratic Party an organization with no dreams and no dreamers.

As First Lady, she dismissed and dissed every activist who ever crossed her path.

She did the same as Senator.

If you disdain activists now, you never could have had any ideals.

If you are a policy wonk, you can't HAVE dreams of a better world.

If you are a centrist, you can't care about the working people, POC, LGBTQ people, or the poor.
Why even pretend otherwise.

I'll support her if she's nominated(the other side is insane), but we both know all she can be is less-bad as president. If you are elected as an anti-idealism candidate, you can't do anything transformative in office. You can only cut deals, and deals are always failure and defeat.

It is sad, Nance, that you, and the candidate you support, are devoting your time to doing nothing at all but telling people who still care about life to go to hell.

What drove you both to such a sad, hateful place?

... I am duly impressed with your ability to "know" what would have happened decades ago.

It's an amazing skill - and just so credible.

when all you EVER do here is dismiss and berate actual progressives?

Why is it so important to you to tell people who(unlike you)actually care about fighting racism, sexism and homophobia(none of which can be successfully fought WITHOUT challenging corporate control of the economy and of politics) to shut up and give up?

When, Nance, has it ever served any progressive greater good for progressives to settle permanently for quarter-loaves rather than fight on for the real changes that are necessary?

Anyone who hates activists now would have to have given up on getting a civil rights bill passed in 1964. It's not possible to have supporter big change then and not believe it possible now.

Settling for increments is the same thing as becoming a conservative.

And restrained centrist presidential campaigns based on nothing but the most limited agendas possible never lead to progressive administrations. History proves this.

In addition to questioning your ability to know what would have happened in 1964, I also foolishly forgot that you are the sole arbiter of who is a progressive and who's not - based, of course, your opinion and criteria, because anyone's own self-evaluation of who they are and what they stand for is irrelevant in the face of your superior knowledge and wisdom.

Honestly, I don't know where I got the foolhardy idea that anyone who disagrees with you has a right to speak up.

Would you mind providing links to where I told anyone "who cares about fighting racism, sexism and homophobia, and/or challenging corporate control of the economy and of politics, to shut up and give up"? I don't remember saying anything remotely like that - but then again, I may have forgotten those posts at the same time I forgot that we should all defer to your better judgement about everything.

Well, here's the thing, Ken, whether you like it or not: There are progressives who support HRC rather than BS. There are people who fight every day against racism, sexism, and homophobia who support HRC rather than BS. There are millions of people who see Hillary as the better candidate, and they are not all centrists, DINOs, conservaDems, corporatists, status quo adherents, or water carriers for the 1%.

Quite frankly, it is as ludicrous as it is tiresome to hear BS supporters constantly trying to claim that "everyone" who is for change for the better in this country is in Bernie's camp, and those who aren't in his camp are "for" the exact opposite.

I don't think there is anyone on this site who "hates activists". That's just another our-way-or-the-highway meme, based on the ridiculous pretense that NOT agreeing that Bernie's self-styled "revolution" will lead to a successful overturning of everything that is wrong in the country today somehow equates to not wanting changes to be made at all.

The civil rights movement, the fight for equality for women, the fight for GLBT rights - they have been ongoing for decades, and are still ongoing. If you believe that a BS presidency will change everything overnight, that's your prerogative.

Dismissing anyone and everyone who isn't buying Bernie's ability to accomplish even a fraction of what he's promising is not a matter of not wanting positive change - its a matter of facing the realities of the political environment as it exists, and not as Bernie envisions it could be if things were different than they actually are.

HRC is now, and always has been, for many progressive ideas and ideals. I wouldn't think of advancing the notion that anyone who doesn't support her candidacy means they are against those ideas and ideals. I don't know why you, and many other BSers here, think it appropriate to insist that anyone who doesn't jump on Bernie's bandwagon is evidence that they are against his.

It is a matter of HOW we achieve mutual goals; it has never been a matter of goals being at complete opposite ends of the political spectrum, depending on who we support. You might keep that in mind the next time you, in your infinite wisdom, declare who stands where on issues that affect us all, and who is - with your permission - allowed to call themselves a progressive.

You, on the other hand, continually treat Bernie's supporters, as you treated people who questioned the Obama administration tactics from the left and pushed for a more progressive, more committed approach to change as if they were delusional little children and you those like you were the only grown-ups.

Bernie's campaign has never been a about the promise of INSTANT change...it has always been clear that a long struggle for change would need to be fought. It's just that we're committed, no matter how long the fight goes on, to never abandoning the big dreams.

And some of us don't want to see the next generation of activists and dreamers driven away again, as so many were after 2008 when Rahm basically ordered the Obama movement to disband and leave everything to the dealmakers in the back rooms.

Is it such a terrible thing to want to avoid that mistake being repeated? To want this party to stop repeating the same toxic and self-destructive treatment towards new generations of people who want to come in and fight for something better?

... though admittedly in a sarcastic fashion, that your personal opinion of who I am or what I stand for is of no consequence whatsoever.

You are still railing about "people who want to fight for something better", as though HRC supporters don't belong in that category.

You fight for change your way - I'll fight mine. But when you say I am "pretending to be a progressive" and that "all I EVER do here is dismiss and berate actual progressives", YOU are deigning to tell me - and others like me - who we are and what we stand for, based on YOUR criteria. I find that to be extremely arrogant, and dismissive of anyone who doesn't see things YOUR way.

Again, Ken - YOU are not the "decider guy" as to who is or isn't a progressive, who stands up for civil rights, GLBT rights, women's rights, children's rights and/or who seeks positive change.

as to what this party stands for.

Tell me this...how are fighting for change when, over and over again, you lash out at progressives and tell them to shut up and take what they are given? That they are essentially spoiled brats who need to grow up?

Why, exactly, do you feel entitled to talk to people like that?

How, in any way, does treating people that dismissively further ANY struggles for progressive change?

This is a real issue, because that is mostly what you've been doing here since 2009.

Why don't you fight the RIGHT with even a tenth of the vitriol you direct act people who are guilty of nothing more but being a bit to the left of your comfort zone? THEY are the enemies, not Bernie's supporters.

... to where I "lashed out at progressives and told them to shut up and take what they are given? That they are essentially spoiled brats who need to grow up?"

Could you also include links to where I "decided who deserves respect and who should have a real say as to what this party stands for"?

TIA!

It's been your MO for years and years and years.

It wasn't ever about specific phrases, it's about a relentless pattern of dismissiveness, especially towards young people and about those who aren't young but still aren't who are less willing to settle for tiny, imperceptible gains.

We NEED those young people, and the not so young who chafe at the limits they are told to accept...we need the dreamers, we need the impatient, we need the not-willing-to-settle.

And I've seen too many of them driven away by those who tell them they are silly to keep fighting or that they "ask the impossible".

Treating them that way is what causes collapses in voter turnout...collapses we can't afford.

It's not in our interest as a party to be dismissive of those who aren't satisfied.

That's what 2010 and 2014 prove.

I want us to learn to keep faith with the dreamers and nurture their involvement...doing that is the ONLY way we can ever beat the right and make the changes we need.

Your reply immediately reminded me of Sarah Palin being asked what newspapers she reads, and her response: "Oh, pretty much all of them."

So IOW, you have no links to where I said what you've accused me of saying.

I knew that. You should have just said so.

Also, most of the posts you make in GD these days.

It's an endless pattern.

Dismiss, disparage, talk down to.

I don't have to post a single link because it's relentless with you.

And you hurt the party every time you do it.

... of NanceRants articles that were posted on DU were anti-GOP.

"I don't have to post a single link because it's relentless with you."

No, you don't have a single post to link to because no such posts exist.

in my thread about how it's a responsibility of the party to get people to vote, rather than it being strictly on the individuals.

That was about three weeks ago.

You totally dismissed the idea that the party has any obligation to do the work of keeping young activists feeling engaged and feeling that the work of political activity has value. You treated my argument of how there is a need to show respect to these young people and their ideals as if I were asking for them to get the "you are a special snowflake" treatment.

You do WANT these young people to stay with us, right Nance? You do WANT them to go out and canvass and turn out to vote, don't you?

If you do, than why diss them? Why dismiss their frustrations and their dreams?

...so I don't think she would have accomplished anything good, do you?

Being as she wasn't old enough to be prez, it seems rather ridiculous to speculate on her presidency.

Elizabeth Warren was a Republican into her forties - so maybe you don't want to "go there" on a site full of people who desperately wanted her to run in this election - despite her rather lengthy history as a staunch GOPer.

Hillary would have made had had she been president in 1964. The fact that she did not meet the age requirement is neither here nor there. It's a similar question to asking what kind of president JFK would have made had he been elected in 1948.

over the last hundred years. People of color, the same. There was no one day that suddenly made us completely equal in the eyes of the law, or in terms of opportunity. It was one step after another. There was no magic bullet or revolution that did it for us. It is actually still a work in progress.

My mind is blown by your post. Not sure who you are talking about, but you are off base.

Hey, want to go hear Hillary speak? No, we can't.

Bernie & Elizabeth 2016!!!

Obama referred to the ACA as a "baby step" towards SP way back when.

At least that type of response suggests cautious optimism, not sabotage.

Personally, I have plenty of reasons to not support Hillary.

When she decided to means test Social Security and to "strengthen" the ACA, I drew the line at ever supporting her vocally.

If she gets the nomination, I will not in any way speak of her prior to election day.
I will walk into the voting booth and vote for her silently.

Then go home and pray she is elected.

The GOP is fully the worst so I have to support, but in vote only.

She has millions of dollars to support her campaign.

by not acknowledging the possibility of true progressive reform she helps the Right sabotage it.

just like in 2008.

Sanders has her in a box. She can't say stuff that will alienate her Wall St donors OR her grassroots supporters so she winds up walking a thin line, choosing words carefully and trying to deflect with her own attacks on Sanders but Hillary is mostly off message.

Her message and positions are now so convoluted and beat up that her supporters can not articulate them. Only she, with polls and scripting can do it.

Yuuuge dissadvantage.

In more detail:

Pretty much says it all

What, you're not excited about the prospect of new, more profitable wars?

To give us more war, more plutocracy/oligarchy and not one damned thing else.

Clinton's proposals would run into exactly the same opposition. So they also could never be enacted.

So Clinton's proposals are also fairy tales...just not very inspiring ones.

.... I automatically assume it is not based upon any kind of truth. It takes quite an imagination to twist logic and common sense into a meme of dishonest fabrication easily digested by people of like nature who eagerly embrace it as fact. The use of quotation marks in the statements you attribute to Hillary Clinton only magnify the dishonesty a hundred fold. One would think that with all the factual ammunition Bernie's fans claim to have, it is rather pitiful that they have to resort to this level of... well, only one way to put it, bullshit.💩💩💩😒

I flash back to this theme music

eom

I think she's pretty much on target, since our party surrendered to the other party, started stealing issues from them, tried to appease them most of the time, etc. It is unrealistic to expect much with both major political parties populated by people who work much harder for their own reelections than for the public interest. This bothers me in two ways. First, it blinds us to opportunities that arise, since we have conditioned ourselves to believe there will be no opportunities, so we often fail to act, or just kind of dribble along, working for a slice when we could get a whole loaf. Second, it continues to reduce our numbers in Congress, state legislatures, governors' offices, county commissions, etc. It is the kind of philosophy that makes us the Avis of the political world. We try harder because we're Number Two, and always will be. That's kind of admirable, in a way, but it leads nowhere.

...but look like NO WE CAN'T mostly because of her opponent's more ambitious agenda.

"Yes We Can!"?


http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/meast/06/03/iraq.business.clinton/