...every President has either failed in their attempt to make Higher Education accessible to Pacifists who are not independently wealthy, or they have simply not made the attempt.

Trying is the first step towards failure, I suppose.

take a long look at the '60s and see what people when motivated can do to the political landscape...

So to answer your question, people lots of very motivated people that are exposed to the truth and reality of what's occurring within US will make politicians very, very nervous and guess what happens to politicians that are very nervous about the voting public?

The days of the wealthy and special interests dictating to the masses is nearly over

...and that generation is solidly Republican now. Congrats the revolution of the 1960s elected Nixon, Reagan, Bush and Bush. The Children of the 1960s should be known as the Sellout Generation

Care to go over all the legislation passed during the 60's?

Be careful for your cherry picking will come back to bite ya in your backside

We could even go over the economy and taxation during the '60s too...

Not radical left-wing Democratic Socialists like Bernie Sanders. The radical left wing of the Democratic Party that arose in the 1960s turned off Americans for several generations to come-they literally handed an election to Richard Nixon then as that generation grew into their 30s that they substantially voted for the Reagan Revolution. I'm a history major so I'm not worried about getting into it. Most of that radical change was because of the political savvy and maneuverings of the most Establishment politician in the Country-LBJ- who was financially supported by the Texas oil industry and construction. No left wing radical could have passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 1965 or the Voting Rights Act or the War on Poverty. LBJ did because he knew how politics worked and did so across party lines to actually get things done

Civil Rights movement

Anti-War movement

Feminist movement

to name a few off the top of my head... these movements were pushed by people not "Mainstream Well-Funded Democrats" those "Mainstream Well-Funded Democrats" fought against these movements since it forced them into making policy decisions they weren't willing to support

"about getting into it" is the point, I'll stick to the facts and let those facts point the way

In 1968 age 15, I attended rallies for Eugene McCarthy, Humphrey, and George Wallace in San Francisco and also attended a number of anti-war rallies in Berkeley and San Francisco.

I was able to do this because I was at boarding schools 400 miles from my conservative parents. In 1968 my roommate's mother was Maya Miller from Nevada who many Nevada Democratic activists and feminists may recognize by name. The first time I met her she took Eric and I to a demonstration over the Presidio at the Marina Green and Arlo Guthrie sang Alice's Restaurant. I was greatly influenced and have stayed the course and was "hippy" in my private life and social and political beliefs.

My first POTUS vote was for McGovern in 1972.

I was a federal employee from 1969 (high school summer job, Youth Opportunity Corp, a type of direct federal employment no longer allowed by regulation dated to Reagan) and a career employee age 19 in 1973 and a professional age 26 when graduated from university. I resigned in 1985 because of the poor moral and purposeful destruction of the agency by Reagan et al. I was a Fed under Nixon, Ford, Carter, and Reagan.

I was a student at Cal as an undergrad in mid and late 1970s (Reagan and Dukemajian(sp) CA Governors) and a CA grad student under Reagan.

My Dad (rural, 8th grade education, blue collar) loved FDR but also loved Reagan but went totally to the dark side of Fox and Limbaugh prior to his death age 86 in 1996. We argued for years unproductively over politics. My being a Fed was (along with smoking pot and being anti-Vietnam and not hunting any more) was my adolescent rebellion. He also was all for education by not the hippy school Cal, poisoned by Reagan. But I paid for my own education with help from scholarships and the Feds. I never even needed a student loan for undergrad and had one for grad school to purchase my first PC in 1985.

I do not like the GOP especially Nixon, Reagan, and the Bushes. I also do not like neo-liberalism and neo-conservatism. These policies look good on paper but hurt people. As long as our body politic is Machiavellian, the outputs will be violence and concentrated wealth and power.

The Boomers did elect Nixon, Reagan, Bush and Bush (and Bill Clinton too). However, the anti-war counterculture / counter politic did not. We were a minority than and now. We never had the numbers nor monies to make a serious challenge. What we became was a scapegoat (as you say a Sellout Generation). Arguably, much of the social and cultural change is derivative from 60s counter culture.

but he tried to negotiate with people that do not understand the meaning of the word.
I kept waiting for him to tell it like it was and rile up his followers...it never happened.

Obama's approach was to assume he could find reasonable Republicans to work with him. Unfortunately, it didn't turn out to be a terribly successful strategy.

Sanders' approach is to try to keep his base motivated, to put pressure on their local officials, to vote them out in 2018 if they are not responsive to their constituents. (With further opportunities in 2020 and 2022.)

Tim Geithner into financial advisory roles in his administration.

It's always a bad sign when you have someone like Hatch strongly supporting the cabinet picks of a presumably progressive president.

all of the time, then settling for less than that.

Example: Obama should have started with single payer, and MAYBE we would have a 'public option'? He always starts....l o w....

Sanders' plans for adopting his proposals depend on these new voters. Here is how Sanders thinks that he will be able to force the GOP to be reasonable http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/2/21/1483791/-Imagine-Bernie-Sanders-wins-the-White-House-Then-what

...put there by the same sort of voters who would choose him over all opponents, and alongside a Supreme Court that is already down one Scalia.

That much is obvious.

The Establishment, however, will be more heavily arrayed against him than they were against his predecessor. That, again, is where that more progressive electorate wold have to come in. Our lobbying matters.

despite the fact that Sanders is doing nothing to help them get elected? How will that work exactly?

The hunger for Sanders isn't just a cult of personality. If voters go for him, they probably won't forget to vote more progressively down the ballot.

I know that money can sway elections, and that Clinton can buy Congressional seats that way. That's part of the problem, however.

1. I expect that he would work to help them get elected, once he got the nomination. Between now and then, there is little motivation, as the congressional dems are also super delegates, most of whom are supporting hillary.

2. Coattails. If he can win in November outside of the usual blue territories, he will likely bring some new dem congresspeople along with him.

Look at what Wisconsin and NC are going through. Pennsylvania and Ohio, too. The GOP has dug in like ticks on steroids.

...that we'll be a long time fixing it. But the change starts this year, alongside our nominee.

The harder we vote, in addition, the less able the Republican office-holders will be to ignore our voices.

in the NCGA. It's the purple states they focused on and rigged the tightest.

his failure. The idea expressed by some posters that Bernie would "never compromise" is ridiculous. Our system is set up to work by both sides compromising. I can hear Bernie telling Congress "take it or leave it"

But at least he'd be compromising from a better starting position on most issues than Hillary would.

As for helping Dems downticket, please see post #25.

is unlikely to be as effective.

He is also likely to be only a one term POTUS if elected.

Sanders has only to raise the issues and change the direction and momentum away from neo-liberalism and neo-conservatism.

Hillary Clinton is the poster child for neo-liberal and neo-conservative policy.

The neo-liberals and neo-conservatives successfully gamed control of the USA over a 30 plus year period, much by Machiavellian tactics.

Most people do not recognize the depths of the lies.

Sanders would be a beginning, we are looking at a generation in time of other leaders to finish what Sanders has a chance to start.

that is also based in reality.

Nice to see here at DU these days.

Just got my 2nd post ever hidden at DU since I made this post (for not being respectful of Hillary Clinton).

I certainly do not want the GOP nor Trump to win POTUS, but Hillary Clinton will be 4 more years at least of waiting, losing ground or treading water.. No way Hillary Clinton will match POTUS Obama who has been a good if disappointing POTUS.

I have been a Democratic voter since 1972, always waiting.

I also recognize that transformation will take replacement of more forward and liberal politicians from bottom to top of the system.

The OP told me two days ago that I was put on ignore, a first for me (at least the telling).

and everyone on the ticket because, here in NC, we have learned how quickly complete GOP rule can overturn decades of progress.

Our state is suffering at every level it can suffer.

and have lived my entire life in north coast California or the Corvallis / Portland areas of Oregon which is much different than NC.

But California spawned the demons Nixon and Reagan too.

I have waited all my life to have someone I actually wanted to vote for run for POTUS. I liked Jerry Brown at one time. Ron Dellums was also a favorite pol.

I am not completely sold on Sanders, I would settle for a change in direction for now.

If needed, Hillary Clinton will have my vote but I do not expect that to be the case.

I really do not like neo-liberalism nor neo-conservatism.

I made another post upstream in this OP.

I understand the GOTV and that everywhere is not north coast California nor north west Oregon.

; )

And asking everyone to stop misusing the term "beg the question." OK. Got that off my chest. In answer to your question, whether begged or not, neither Sanders nor Clinton will experience much success in advancing any kind of meaningful agenda in Congress. Most progress will have to be by executive action.

That's not the point. The point is how do you REACT to the stonewalling. Obama threw up compromise after compromise, *which the GOP then proceed to attack as leftist commie pinko socialism*. That has been the repuke's SOP: no matter how "centrist", no matter how TRIANGULATED, no matter how compromised a position the 3rd-way democrats present, **the GOP will treat is as far a left crypto-communist agenda**. THAT is how the overton window has been ratcheting to the RIGHT over the years, so that Obama himself admits that he's basically a Reagan-era republican.

BERNIE will at least stand for true liberal values (like FDR liberal, not DLC liberal) while he's being stonewalled. He will not offer up compromises that eat away at core Democratic values so that he can say "look at what a great compromiser I AM!!"
This will have the effect of keeping the discussion framed on HIS terms instead of slip-sliding to the right, so that by the midterms, or whenever the congressional districts are redrawn, enough people will be FED UP by the repuke's intransigence that the electorate will throw them out on their ass.

That is my point elsewhere.

Sanders may not succeed but Sanders may change the direction and plow the field for future leaders.

I would rather see an honest effort for true liberal values than to compromise away even a beachhead.

A generation has passed and it will take a generation and multiple leaders at all levels to create a vibrant and fair social democracy ala FDR in the USA.

DISCLAIMER: I VOTED SANDERS, BUT WOULD BE PERFECTLY HAPPY WITH EITHER CANDIDATE IN THE GE, AND GIVE PRES. OBAMA AN OVERALL GOOD TO VERY GOOD RATING. NO PARTISAN HACKERY HERE.


That said, there are two ways to look at this. In political infighting Sanders would be at a disadvantage toeither Clinton or Obama. As an unconventional outsider he does not have as much command of Dem party loyalty or equal relationships with its powerbrokers. However he is unlikely to fair substantially worse faced as he inevitably will be with an extremely hostile house just as they are/would be. Wrangling Dem support is not really the obstacle to getting his agenda passed, and neither Clinton nor Obama would/have much better luck.

On the opposite side of that coin I think he would have the advantage in both negotiating stance and public support for the bully pulpit approach. If, a long stretch I confess, he becomes POTUS it will be because people want an outsider, a biy of an ideologue, and someone to shake things up. They will expect, and likely get, a much more visceral and hard edged opposition to the GOP regressives.

Sanders' strength is, to me, the great, and in Obama's case probably only, weakness or failing in the other two. Do we really think he'd start negotiations for the ACA without a public option, for tax changes without much higher marginal rates at the very top, for budget agreements without defense cuts and safety net increases? For varying reasons, the other two always begin in the compromise position, then compromise with RW extremists still further. I'm not some wild eyed fringe type claiming they are right of center themselves, or want to take us there by intent, but both start off with moderate center-left stances and negotiate with far-rightists to meet further right from where they may want to be. Why they don't start out with a strategically chosen very progressive stance then guide negotiations to a center-left compromise has always frustrated me. He would be a far better spokesman here. My only fear in Sanders' case is whether he would accept that final positive compromise. That's why the POTUS has the staff he does however.

by Matt Taibbi
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/inside-the-horror-show-that-is-congress-20050825

Hill, on the other hand is not respected or liked in Congress because she is a woman and she is a Clinton