Going into 2015, news media mavens had all but declared the race as settled: Jeb Bush vs. Hillary Clinton. But voters didn’t cooperate with their “betters.” Republicans flocked to Donald Trump, a weirdly charismatic figure, and Democrats fell enthusiastically for Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, a self-designated socialist.
Why hordes of regular folks prefer Trump over most of his rivals hardly needs extensive analysis: Trump is funny, appears “his own man,” and serves as a sort of wild card.
But why Bernie?
Over at The Hill, H.A. Goodman offers three reasons … sort of. The first reason is a confused mishmash of polling blather. But check out Goodman’s second and third reasons.
“Clinton can’t win the Democratic nomination or presidency with the FBI as a running mate,” Goodman notes in bold face type. And “Classified information has already been found within Clinton’s emails and there’s a great likelihood of more revelations pertaining to breaches in protocol.…”
So, the reason for Bernie’s popularity is that Hillary is so bad a candidate?
Well, duh. She’s always been a bad candidate.
Indeed, Hillary’s a corrupt insider, while Sanders, like Trump, can be plausibly construed as an outsider. But, like Trump, that plausibility is superficial.
Sanders is a lifelong politician, and when challenged about this, his retort was that he has always stood against the monied interests. He thinks that doesn’t make him a “career politician.”
Maybe being a career politician means never having to look up the meaning of “career” or “politician.”
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
4 replies on “Weekend with Bernie: A Fresh Dark Horse”
You didn’t mention that, like the majority of Democrats, Mr. Sanders is a socialist.
slight correction. I would argue logically that the Republican candidates all hold various degrees of collectivist thinking and therefore would logically well fall under the socialist category. .
.…. Maybe being a career politician means never having to look up the meaning of “career” or “politician” .…
Or maybe being not a career politician means never having looked up the meaning of “career” or “politician.”
Or maybe call Debbie Wasserman Schwartz?
Bernie may be a socialist, but he is refreshing and I always watch when he is on C‑SPAN’s Washington Journal. He responds frankly to callers and doesn’t pull punches. Although I agree with few of his policy positions (except for outsourcing / free trade, which is a pet peeve of mine), I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. If the choice was between Bernie and Jeb, Bernie would get my vote.