seems legit .

Like Axelrod just laying in to Trump. Instead , CNN hires Lewandowski....

I think they should still maintain some balance by having people like Axelrdod on tv during the general election, too. I haven't seen him out there since the primaries.

the bar is really high for democrats, hillary is an ivy league-educated lawyer former first lady, senator and secretary of state. in general, democrats need to be intelligent, articulate, experienced, etc.

sanders has been in the senate for a long time and came to the table with a lot of well-thought out policy proposals.

the democratic primary reflected a high standard, because democrats need to be perfect in order to win.


meanwhile, the republican primary was 17 clowns in a circle trying to soak each other with their squirting flower lapels.

they ended up with the clown who can deliver the most effective insults because that's what they care about. intellect and experience and education is a good thing only if it helps you deliver good insults and bully people around.


unfortunately for republicans, the gap is now too wide. trump can't pretend to be a capable candidate who get deliver insults because the insults is all he's got.

They take the Republicans seriously despite ludicrous ideas and in many cases limited experience.

If Sanders makes a future run & becomes President, then of course Axelrod would be incorrect.

The media has been far kinder to every candidate than they ever were to Sec Clinton.
And she's still winning.


Edit:
Your point as to media bias is correct but not limited to Axelrod as you single out.

Because of voters, or policy, or even Axelrod's belief. Bernie loss because of execution and poor campaign strategy.

Thank you.

A slightly better strategy would have had him the nom.

All too often we do not select the best candidate with the best ideas. Bernie's ideas were better, hands down. He just didn't understand electoral math.

Despite the ridiculous odds of him finishing the race, he not only finished - he came within a handful of percentage points of winning a changed a decent chunk of Hillary's platform.

All of this came from a guy who had the DNC Chair working against him, no high-profile cabinet seats in a presidential administration, no super-PACs, and basically forfeited the south.

The only misstep Bernie actually took was forfeiting the south. I applaud him for running a campaign that didn't take money from Super PACs, the rest was out of his control and didn't make that big a difference in the end.

I understand that you do like the results, but please don't insult the millions who did vote for the candidate with the best ideas.

If everybody picked my candidate, we would never lose!

No. That's not how it works.

Sometimes people disagree with you, and it doesn't always mean they are wrong. Sometimes, it's you. It happens. Happens to all of us, the key is being able to recognize, acknowledge and learn from it.

You can't have it both ways.

Because I'm not the one here trying to have it both ways. You're the one who said "If we honestly elected people with the best ideas, then Republicans would never hold office."

So you are the one saying that Bush had better ideas than Gore, not me. You are saying Bush had better ideas than Kerry. You are saying that Poppy had better ideas than Dukakis.

If I said otherwise, then ease quote me.

The quote is saying that Republicans being elected is axiomatic proof that the candidate with the best ideas don't always win because Republicans don't have the best ideas.

It's saying that we don't always vote for the person who is "objectively best", because sometimes an idiot like George Bush gets into office.

Now the notion that any of us can in any meaningful sense define what the "objective best" is foolhardy in my opinion. Things like the economy and foreign policy are far too complex to really have anything more than an educated guess as to how a person's preferred policy positions today will meld with the reality of an opposing party domestically, the larger economy and foreign nations.

Look at the difference between George Bush's claim to be a compassionate conservative and the 2000 campaign was heavily focused on domestic affairs. In fact George Bush declared that he thought the U.S. shouldn't be involved in nation building. And yet even more than his appalling failure before, during and after Katrina (demonstrating a complete lack of compassion), George Bush's record will ultimately be about foreign wars. In November 2000, I doubt anybody thought George Bush's presidency would be defined by trying to build nations in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Bill Clinton proved you could raise taxes on the majority of income earners and move people from poverty to the middle-class income brackets. Bush never met a tax cut he didn't like, and all those tax cuts did severe damage to the economy.

It's not hard to figure out which was the better choice considering Gore agreed with Bill's philosophy.

9/11 was a wild card, and let's be honest, dubya didn't really believe in nation building. He had no serious plan as to what to do after Hussein was overthrown, thus putting the middle-east into the chaotic mess it is today. We have groups like ISIS because the Bush administration didn't provide basic necessities like water, electricity, an interim government, food and shelter for the refugees of whose homes we bombed. So in this one case I would argue that Bush was honest, he didn't believe in nation building. He really believed the Iraq people would do it on their own.

People believe that foreign policy is complex, but it's really not. It's about egos. Every leader believes they are on par, or better than the President of the United States. Good foreign policy Presidents know this.

Katrina was literally a disaster that was made worse by Bush. The worst part is that report after report stated that the levies were not up to the task due to not spending money on infrastructure, on the other hand, the only presidential nominee that ever put together an election platform for such emergencies is Obama. These are questions that should be raised in debates.

Science tells us global warming is real. Any president who says otherwise is not going to come up with the best ideas on how to combat it, which inclues every Republican candidate.

Now please tell me how any of this is not being objective.

My opinion is Hillary's ideas are far better hands down.

Even w/o the SD's.
DNC was a problem but he certainal had some unsavory dealings going on behind the scene as well.
She won because of her platform & her votes.
Period.
Primary is over. Enough of this.
Hillary will be a great leader for our country.
Her resume' & well laid out platform was always superior to any candidate in the race.

campaign. Congrats to her.

I'm not blaming what happened with DWS as the reason Bernie loss. He loss because he misjudged the electoral map, and that's on him.

But I will hold my ground on who has better policies. I'm happy Hillary adopted several of his policies, but I'm not going to stop fighting for her to adopt more of them .

does not immunize you when you are, in fact, rehashing the primary.

a frequent CNN pundit, podcast host and former Obama political strategist?

I don't think he has shied away from condemning Drumpf's antics:

Thanks for the links and quotes.

Oh well ... what can ya do?

It's the first I've had a chance to check on my thread.

I'm just saying that the media lens used for the democratic primary is vastly different than the general, or for the republican primary, for that matter.

This isn't about "Bernie". It's about the higher standard held up for the left -- for Hillary, too, for that matter. The republicans can run a fencepost with no experience and not bat an eye.

I wish they would.

you quickly how wrong you are.

I haven't heard any Peruvian Flute Music yet today, so Peruvian Flute Music doesn't exist, right?

I don't know why he isnt considered qualified to comment on the general, by MSNBC.

But that being said...I would like a link to where Axelrod said Sanders was not qualified. I could not find such an instance...perhaps you know of one.

Not that he wasn't qualified, exactly. More like he didn't stand a chance and wasn't ready for prime time.

It's alright; he was right. I just wonder why the selection of pundits changes so much.

because Bernie was a hell of a candidate anybody no matter who they supported knows this. I always thought the GOP was holding back in order to swiftboat him like Kerry...but it might not have worked either. Listen, I know it is hard. I was a Deaniac. I still think he could have beaten Bush...sigh. Thank God I lived in Georgia back then...and my lack of enthusiasm did not help Bush win. We are all in this election together. We need to support Hillary Clinton and try to drive up her numbers so as to take back Congress...unless we do that we won't get a strong progressive agenda...normally I would say or it doesn't matter but that is not true this year...we have to keep Trump away from the nuclear codes and the courts. I would crawl across broken glass naked in order to cast my vote in Ohio this year...and let me tell you they have screwed with the voting in Ohio...closed voted places etc. There will be long lines and trouble. Trump basically said yesterday that is he loses PA which no GOP has won in decades than it is rigged, and he said Black voters were the 'cheaters'...(Phillie voter code). It was an easily understood dog whistle and he wanted his supporters including cops to harass such voters. It is going to get ugly.

Trump is scary and so are the legions of right wing ideologies that will take over since boy trump has no interest in anything but himself.

We are all in this together.

And Trump is a national security threat. Rome is burning down and you are living in the past drowning in irrelevance.

Not blaming Axelrod, I assume it is a network programming decision.
I feel like he has disappeared. If he was worth bringing on to comment on the primaries, he should be worth bringing on now during the general.


It's like they are always grading the republicans on a curve.

He tore into Donald and the republicans pretty well, though he did give Trump credit for coming through with a 100k donation for medical research of something or other I don't remember.

He seems to be a man of gloomy and negative mien.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/03/hillary-clinton-david-axelrod-backseat-driver-220592

All he did was become the architect of the campaign that got a biracial man with the middle name of Hussein elected president. He's fairly unaccomplished IMO, so when he says Bernie couldn't win a general election we should chalk it up to his lack of knowledge about politics.



I watched CNN throughout the primaries and he was not dismissive of Bernie. Time to close the yearbook and get over the fact Bernie lost. It's over.

Rehashing the primaries in a blatantly dishonest manner, as you are here, is really not about Sanders, Axelrod, or the primaries; it's personal and a statement about self.

“But that is the problem: When you are the president of the United States you can’t do that. The things you say can send armies marching and markets tumbling. And he seems incapable of controlling himself. This is at the core of worries about him."

http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-08-10/trump-resurrects-worries-on-his-character-and-nation-s-violent-past

He was also at the Republican Convention taking them on in their own house.

Axelrod is and always has been a mixed bag. That is nothing new. I do believe him to be a brilliant strategist and a good man. Still, it took seconds to dismantle the core of your argument.

Used to feel like a place with, you know, friends, where you could mise with friends about observations or what you've noticed.

I'll go crawl back in my hole now. where I am plagued with intractable life problems that seem to have damaged something. Have a nice evening.

I didn't even come close to calling you a dumbass nor do I think you are a dumbass.

I also made no proclamation as to how I think you should or should not post.

We are friends here. As a friend, positing known indefensible queries might not be the best tactic when questioning Democrats.

👍

He made some insightful comments, as far as I'm concerned.