“Democrats, Don’t Blow It”: Ask Yourselves, Whom Would You Prefer To Name Future Supreme Court Judges?
The death of Antonin Scalia has set off yet another epic partisan struggle as Senate Republicans seek to deny President Obama his constitutional right to nominate the next Supreme Court justice. They want to wait out Obama’s last year in office, hoping his successor will be one of their own.
If the Democrats choose Bernie Sanders as their presidential candidate, Republicans will almost certainly get their wish. Furthermore, the Republican president would probably have a Republican-majority Senate happy to approve his selection.
The makeup of senatorial races this November gives Democrats a decent chance of capturing a majority. Having the radical Sanders on the ballot would hurt them in swing states.
Some Sanders devotees will argue with conviction that these purplish Democrats are not real progressives anyway, not like our Bernie. Herein lies the Democrats’ problem.
No sophisticated pollster puts stock in current numbers showing Sanders doing well against possible Republican foes. The right has not subjected Sanders to the brutality it routinely rains on Hillary Clinton — precisely because he is the candidate they want to run a Republican against. Should Sanders become the nominee, the skies will open.
One may applaud Sanders’ denunciation of big money in politics, but a moderate Democrat in the White House could do something about it. A democratic socialist not in the White House cannot. Campaign finance reform would be a hard slog under any circumstances, but a seasoned politician who plays well with others could bring a reluctant few to her side.
Some younger liberals may not know the history of the disastrous 2000 election, where Republicans played the left for fools. Polls were showing Al Gore and George W. Bush neck-and-neck, particularly in the pivotal state of Florida.
Despite the stakes, prominent left-wing voices continued to back the third-party candidacy of Ralph Nader. You had Michael Moore bouncing on stages where he urged cheering liberals to vote for the radical Nader because there was no difference between Gore and Bush. Republicans, meanwhile, were running ads for Nader. That was no secret. It was in the papers.
When the Florida tally came in, Bush held a mere 537-vote edge. The close results prompted Florida to start a recount of the votes. Then, in a purely partisan play, the conservative majority on the Supreme Court stopped the recount, handing the election to Bush.
The bigger point is that Gore would have been the undisputed winner in 2000 had Nader not vacuumed up almost 100,000 Florida votes, most of which would have surely gone to him.
Same deal in New Hampshire, where Nader siphoned off more than 22,000 votes. Bush won there by only 7,211 ballots.
Now, Sanders is an honorable man running a straightforward campaign for the Democratic nomination. One can’t imagine his playing the third-party spoiler.
But what makes today similar to 2000 is how many on the left are so demanding of ideological purity that they’d blow the opportunity to keep the White House in Democratic hands. Of course, they don’t see it that way. This may reflect their closed circle of like-minded friends — or an illusion that others need only see the light, and their hero will sweep into the Oval Office.
The other similarity to 2000 is the scorn the believers heap on the experienced liberal alternative. They can’t accept the compromises, contradictions and occasional bad calls that attach to any politician who’s fought in the trenches.
The next president will almost certainly be either Clinton or a Republican. Democrats must ask themselves: Whom would you prefer to name future Supreme Court judges?
By: Froma Harrop, The National Memo, February 16, 2016
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What gets to me is the similar scorn Hillary gets from the Left. I cannot believe they call her Cunt. ‘
Free is seductive.
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Some on the left are behaving just as badly as the Tea Party, and that’s a real shame.
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Sorry, but this entire column of “Shut up, Berniestans and vote for Hillary” is plain BS.
It wasn’t Ralph Nader that cost Al Gore the election of 2000. It was Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris, aided and abetted by Antonin Scalia. And besides that, Nader didn’t cause Gore to lose his home state of Tennessee.
Hillary Clinton as a “moderate Democrat”?? Really?? Sure, if by “moderate” you mean an economic Reaganite who openly backs conservative economic polices like NAFTA, cuts in social spending, criminalization of Black and Brown youth, deportation of immigrants, and downing as much Wall Street money as she and Bill Clinton can use up. The only “campaign finance reform” that Hillary will really support is one that feeds her bank account.
The overwhelming majority of polls show that Bernie Sanders is actually more electable than Hillary Clinton because of his high positives and his sticking to his values. Of course, they’re not “respectable” enough. Plus, considering all of the kitchen sink that Hillary has thrown at Sanders these past 2 weeks, I think that he’d be more than prepared for what the GOP would bring. Just like Obama in 2008 when Hillary began the “Birther” attacks on him.
If you really truly think that Hillary Clinton won’t negotiate away the rest of the New Deal along with the GOTP majority, then you are truly naive. At least Sanders will build a wave of new voters that could very well flip the Senate (and maybe even the House), making his supposedly “impossible” programs more possible.
As far as the SCOTUS: you really think that Hillary will be any more able to get her nominees past the GOTP blockade? More than likely, she will simply break down and nominate a corporate conservative (with the patina of a “progressive”) that can pass the GOTP Senate. With Sanders, you get the possibility of a better Democratic-controlled Senate, which can nominate far better progressive SCOTUS and appelate court judges.
The days of “lesser evil” are over. The way to “blow it” is not to support a true progressive like Bernie Sanders; it is to continue to defer to a corporatist DLC “moderate: like Hillary Clinton. At least try to look for something better than what we have rather than settling for the crumbs we got.
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Although I disagree with your assessment, I appreciate your passion. Your points would be more accurate if Democrats, whether liberal, progressive or other persuasions voted in every election and not just Presidential elections. President Obama brought many more people into the electoral process. Those same people, encouraged by Michael Moore and Ed Schultz, did not turn out for the midterm elections. Without control of the House and Senate, we will remain up against the wall. And yes, Ralph Nader’s involvement in the 2000 election certainly helped GWB, even before the Supreme Court interceded.
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That’s right hasn’t subjected Sanders to the same scrutiny it did for Clinton – that’s true, but the Clinton campaign is trying to fix that. 🙂 And are we absolutely sure that the smear campaign the right has led against Clinton for decades has left no mark in the mind of a swing voter, and that Hillary’s victory is still assured?
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We will find out in November!
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I love the smell of defeatism in the morning…
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And I, the smell of victory in November…
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Raises hand…. me , too
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I’m in!
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