Just to off set your propaganda
Hillary is the most experienced person running to be President.
Hillary has presented her positions clearly.
Hers is a pragmatic set of policies.
Bernie on the other hand promises a litany of socialist type programs but fails to explain how to get there with the divided government we have and he refuses to tell you how much it will cost you.
Everyone pays in Bernie's world no matter if you get the benefit or not.
Bernie is like someone running for class president. Beer in all the drinking fountains just vote for me!
The right's method is to offer ideals and an ideology.
So does Bernie.
Vote for someone who thinks through her policies or for someone who is good with words but short on getting things done.

"Bernie can't win."

That you have to claim my post is propaganda when the truth of it is in the light of day here in the GD-P forum. And as any Clinton supporter knows, Bernie has his policies posted in detail more so than any other candidate, including Clinton. The fear her supporters exhibit of Bernie is indicative to the fear Clinton has for Bernie's campaign. But she has nothing to fear from his campaign, only her own sad mistakes to live up to. Her current campaign is making all the same miserable mistakes the 2008 campaign made. And she knows it.

saying your opponent can't win based on polls, trends and past history is fear? Ok.

"Everyone pays in Bernie's world no matter if you get the benefit or not. "

That sounds a great deal like what we around these parts call Taxes! Golly! We shore don't want those!

[hr][font color="blue"][center]TECT in the name of the Representative approves of this post.[/center][/font][hr]

Now we are calling out other DU members.

Sorry Undecided you've had to put up with a lot lately.

You won't threaten to stay home on election day if your preferred candidate doesn't win and allow SCOTUS to go wingnut for a generation, ensuring an all out assault on our rights.

you'll vote for one of the two candidates with a racial justice platform. Especially one BLM says good things about.

Then there's this third candidate who had BLM escorted out by security and hasn't quite put out her racial justice platform...

and I do think black people think black lives matter.

Things change.

I have never said I would stay home on the GE. My post is about the primary election btw, but I can understand how you would miss that given how you decided to jump on a thread that wasn't intended for you. Speaking of which, I find it interesting how fast Clinton supporters had to try to denigrate the OP with everything from juvenile attacks to blatant falsehoods. Ironically, that behavior supports the argument of the OP.

And me. And all of us. Get a candidate people will vote for.

I am trying to get the candidate I would vote for in the general election to be our candidate.

The future will tell if our party picked a good candidate or not. It is not any voter's obligation to rescue our candidate. If a right winger is elected, it is the failure of the party to offer someone the people want.

Machines to bend to you will, not the will of the moneyed elite.

That. Are you proud that your candidate has been complicit in the corruption?

Bernie is a political opportunist - it is funny however that you see that as a positive.

He just a good guy with a long track record of fighting for what I believe in. He's a politician. Ok. We know. He will exploit an opportunity to get his message out. Ok. Good. I want want him to win. I really think you just misunderstand us and the nature of our support for our candidate.

because you are right. Bernie is a good guy - not a historical figure who can transform America.

So, if the primaries are close, California will be the deciding state to nominate Bernie as our party's candidate.
Hillary is even having a tough time in New York.
She might take the state of Hawaii, and also win in Guam, but there is very little evidence that any of the other states are ready for Hillary.

^G^O^O^D

^N^O^T
^R^E^A^D^Y
^T^O
^G^I^V^E
^U^P

We've had a couple of debates, he hasn't really broken much ground apart from picking up a couple of percent post-Biden. He's not flatlined, but pretty darned close to it.

Not sure he can get his agenda enacted. Am quite comfortable with Hillary running things, she's been in the show for a long time and was a competent SOS.

So for me, probably very little would change. Hillary as the center right candidate or Bernie as the progressive the right wing fights. I just have a feeling it's going to be, "business as usual." Not stressing this election much.

Very disappointed some of my friends failed to show up and vote for the midterms, especially after all the work I did. So, overall, not too enthused.

I haven't the foggiest notion why anyone would be committed to any of the three candidates. I decide when I enter the polling booth on Primary day, then support that candidate in the general election.

Use your intuition? Consult a Ouija Board? Ask the Magic 8 Ball?

How do you decide on the day of?

Probably has something to do with the lack of credible information found here.

Not much sense in deliberating about a candidate whose name doesn't appear.

Then, should there be a choice, i consider each candidacy contemporaneously. I won't waste my time throwing my support behind someone months ahead of time - situations change and candidates refine their positions, including more platform specifics.

At that point I make the most well-informed decision I can.

Thanks for asking.

In fact I have posted the exact opposite--often, in fact within the last 24 hours AGAIN.

On the other hand what I don't want/need, is post after post after post after post telling why I HAVE to choose one over the other because this or because that, and it's ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS the same argument. I even had the honor of being banned (first time ever!) from a Bernie group I didn't even know existed. Good thing I have a lot more respect for Sanders himself than I do for those who claim to support him on DU. I recently posted inadvertently on a thread from the Hillary group, too, by the way. If these things show up on the home page, how the hell are we to know where they come from? I never used to have to look before. For the record, no, I wasn't booted from the Hillary group, but all the same, I wasn't deliberately posting on there.

I guess I'm just gonna piss EVERYONE off and make my own decision in the primary as well. Back home in Texas, there's never any shortage of people telling me how I have to vote (i.e. Republican), and I never end up doing what I'm told, or letting someone else tell me what I want.

Weird, every OTHER election, I seem to have managed to make the decision for myself.

Wonder why this one is supposed to be so different?

Especially ones who don't buy the electability arguments being thrown around. Are you roughly in between the two of them on policies? I would think even if you don't think either WILL be able to achieve much, you'd still already be leaning toward whichever one approximates your policy ideas better.

I live overseas, don't forget. I have a European wife and two dual national daughters.

There are considerations beyond the borders of the USA that weigh in for me. Not all candidates have addressed all those considerations to my satisfaction yet--therefore "not enough information," an option those old tests used to offer as a choice. If not all of them do so by the time the primary rolls around in Texas, I'll weigh "what I've got," and decide from that.

None of the vitriolic crap being thrown around on DU will have any weight whatsoever. The real world, as it pertains to me and my family, will. Posts telling me what I want and what I need will affect my decision about as much as ads for Lear jets--that is to say, you're at the wrong address for that kind of sales pitch.

I suggested why I thought Bernie could have handled BLM better in Seattle. Actually, at the time I was not aware I was in the group when I posted.

They were extraordinarily intolerant. The Hillary group is more welcoming.

Good luck with your decision.

Like you I will be ignoring the hyperbole from both sides.

Too bad we can't filter bullshit posts.

I haven't been banned by the Hillary group, but I have never posted in it. I gave up reading it for Lent...heh.

But reading enough of the posts from both supporters about the opposite group, they all ban and most people wear it as a badge of honor.

I think groups should be protected, if you aren't the demographic, don't post negative stuff, don't alert either.

I think any alerts that come from outside the group should be ignored.

Unfortunately, I didn't know I was in the group.

Lol, they brutalized me for what I thought was a logical critique, e.g., something the campaign should acknowledge and work on.

I didn't realize back then those groups only wanted positive stuff.

Now I know--you have to look up top, EVEN IF you are responding to a post on the home page. I have now the dubious distinction of having inadvertently posted on both groups. The Hillary people were understanding, and explained what was going on. The guy from the Bernie group was nasty, defensive, and very off-putting. As I am pretty sure Bernie, himself, is not at all like that, I ignored it just like they ignore me (boo hoo).

My first nominating convention was when I was 8 (JFK) tagging along with my dad. My first visit to the White House with a sitting President was with LBJ when I was 13, and I have roamed the halls of Congress and the White House with my Dad (and then alone or with my brother, now that our father gone) for over 50 years now, even though I now live in Europe. This by no means my first rodeo. I have been around the block a few times in U.S politics. I've met a lot of people I agreed with politically and disliked personally. Much to my consternation, I have also met people I considered mortal enemies politically and found them delightful company. So, I don't take my reception in either group here as a guiding light as to where to place my ultimate allegiance.

We get it. We are no angels.

Mean mean people.

I happen to know a couple of wonderful people who are part of it. But the people who run it? I wouldn't leave my kids alone with at least one of them, so I'd say not devoid of mean people.

Only interesting dialog in this thread was a result of your post.

Signed, the other undecided poster on DU.

"Life forms, but not of a kind we have ever encountered before"

How is saying Clinton supporters have Stockholm Syndrome not a negative approach? Or saying that supporting Clinton is equivalent to supporting a Republican?

Because Pat Paulson passed away.

keep doing this ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^day in and day out!

I mean, this should be crushing the opposition right??????

just like Hillary.

But that's not what he is about. It takes time to convey policies as extensive and detailed as Sanders to the people who need to consider it. But don't worry, it's happening. Slow-and-steady wins the race. Hillary will have changed her position so many times by the end of this, no one will really know what she stands for (and anyone who's been paying attention already knows she doesn't stand for anything but getting elected).

a President who made the hard decisions about war, immigrants, refugees and the security of this country. Issues that Bernie mostly takes a pass on while he repeats his sugar coated Socialism routine.

Great leaders are writing history not teaching it.

And I have to say, Clinton has made history, but I wouldn't say it's all good...

Like her negotiation of the TPP (she deserves a lot of credit for that).
Like her historic vote to go to war in Iraq and her subsequent policies as Secretary of State that have led to the creation of ISIS.
Like her serving on the board of Wall Mart, that was definitely historic.
Or like how she used race as a campaign tactic in 2008 against the first black President.

Yup, she's made history alright.

And blaming Hillary Clinton for the rise of ISIS is pathetic wingnut garbage, but par for the course around here.

If this is all you know about Hillary Clinton and what she has done for, women, children, African Americans and the poor. If you don't know that she did more than Bernie Sanders could ever do to get Elizabeth Warren and hundreds of other Democrats elected to office all over the country. If you are so blinded by rightwing sound bites then.....it's no wonder you are confused as to who is actually winning this "race" and why.

Once again, I'm not surprised.

He reminded his audience that FDR's policies were also considered socialistic and pointed out how FDR's "socialistic"changes made it possible for the middle class to grow and prosper for four decades.

So don't be making things up.

Bernie doesn't "take a pass" on anything. For 25 years he has cast his vote on every issue that came up and, unlike Hillary, his judgment was good.

Hillary has less than half the years in government that Bernie has and did not distinguish herself as senator nor as SOS. She was mediocre at best.

Bernie has tremendous leadership qualities; he has stirred huge audiences and went from no campaign in the spring to many thousands of volunteers and record citizen contributions in a few months. He doesn't woo the big banks and corporations. His candidacy is of, by, and for the people, and it has been astonishing in its growth and enthusiasm.

Bernie is a nice guy with some good ideas. I'm pretty sure most of his supporters are nice people, too, despite the impressions you might get from reading DU.

All the "How could you POSSIBLY...???" posts all say the same thing with the condescending tone of a PhD trying to teach a first grade class. "We know and understand everything. You know and understand nothing, and are incapable of forming opinions on your own, so listen, and we'll explain the world to you."

Bernie supporters are not the only ones to use this approach, but as they are a majority on DU, there are more of these posts from them. Like ISIS and Muslims, they are a noisy minority it the great scheme of things, and do not represent the good will of the majority of Sanders's supporters. My sister and B-I-L (a union man originally from Wisconsin) are enthusiastic supporters of Sanders, and fully respect my exercising of my right not to have chosen sides yet.

They do not post on DU, of course........

Cool white Sanders supporters too.

(Rhetorical comment)

You are missing a couple of the biggest positives about Bernie:

His record as mayor in Burlington; turned a miserable city into one voted as "most livable" in 8 years. His staff and colleagues went on to continue running the city for 31 of the 32 years after he left. In the process he utilized some policies that were knew then that since have become standard tools for mayors in big cities.

His record in pushing amendments thru Senate that help people.

You can see it all in my journal.

While I think he's a thoroughly decent guy, I struggle mightily with the fact that his support is largely white. There are tons of articles out there of speeches to minority groups later reported as tin-eared or insensitive. I struggle (a little) with the fact he has few political allies....makes it hard to get anything done. I think he's got a lot to learn on foreign policy, though that is not a disqualifier. I am absolutely repulsed by his criticisms of President Obama...it shows a lack of recognition of the realities of the job of President.

Hillary is flawed as well. Her enormous connections are a cause for concern, particularly when you are trying to decide how aggressive she will be pushing for change. She's way too hawkish with regard to Israel/Palestine. There are others.

I'm looking for another Obama-like candidate and we don't have one this time. There are many things the President has done that I can quarrel with, but overall he's been an unbelievable President, really moved the needle. His temperament, in particular, is so right for these times.

Don't worry so much about the hyperbole each candidates supporters fling on here. I admit I get annoyed, but my feeling is it doesn't sway anyone, at least not me.

The bottom line for Bernie is he has to make some headway, build coalitions with minorities if he is to win. Not so much with the politicians, they will follow the people.

In the mean time, I intend to keep listening.

All the points above are excellent ones but a president is not a dictator and whoever wins He/she still needs Congress to cooperate. I don't see that happening.

The candidate most likely will be decided before I even vote. I will support whoever that is. Whoever is chosen will be far better than whatever lunatic the GOP serves up.

I am starting to think that both Clinton and Sanders are unelectable, and the best hope we had was O'Malley.

I am looking at Trump stirring up the masses, and I don't see either of them in a position to counter what he's bringing to the table. Clinton is a woman, and she's "Hillary Clinton" and some people hate her on principle. Bernie is "a socialist" and some people hate socialists on principle.

I am COMPLETELY undecided. At this point, with Trump in play, I don't really care about their "political leanings" as I care about beating the Republlicans. When my primary comes in April, I'll vote according to the polls. Whichever one can definitely beat the Republican candidate is the one I'll vote for.

Does that go both ways, or is that just when Hilary's supporters say it?

Well and thoughtfully written. I especially appreciated the reminder of Hillary's 2008 campaign. How anyone who watched that could support her today is beyond me.

I am sorry that your thread got swarmed by jokers, but it was probably because you made such good and valid points.