WP: Sanders isn’t just targeting Hillary Clinton. He’s targeting the whole Democratic establishment

[BigBearJohn]

Sanders’ spot describes the two Democratic visions for regulating Wall Street this way:
“One says it’s okay to take millions from big banks and then tell them what to do. My plan: break up the big banks, close the tax loopholes, and make them pay their fair share. Then we can expand health care to all and provide universal college education. Will they like me? No. Will they begin to play by the rules when I’m president? You better believe it.”

Interestingly, the ad doesn’t name Hillary Clinton, with whom Sanders is locked in a very tight battle for both early states. Sanders campaign spokesman Michael Briggs tells Alex Seitz-Wald that the ad is not “directed at Secretary Clinton exclusively.” Briggs adds:
“It’s about people in the Democratic establishment who believe you can take Wall Street’s money and then somehow turn around and rein in the greed, recklessness and illegal behavior. Obviously she is part of the establishment that Wall Street has showered with financial support. Bernie is not. She wants Wall Street and corporate special interests to like her. Bernie does not.”

If this Democratic establishment is being defined by virtue of having taken money from Wall Street, it would of course include Barack Obama and probably a fair number of Democratic Senators who passed the Dodd Frank Wall Street reform bill. And the Sanders campaign probably is talking about all of those people. The Sanders argument is that nothing we’ve seen during the Obama years — and nothing we’ve heard proposed from the Hillary Clinton campaign — comes close to the sort of far-reaching, deep structural changes to the economy that will be required to seriously combat the soaring inequality and wage stagnation of the moment. The Sanders argument is also that such profound change cannot happen as long as the political establishment is beholden to Wall Street by its contributions.

It’s hard to evaluate this claim. Both Paul Krugman and Matthew Yglesias have argued that the differences between Sanders and Clinton are legitimate policy disputes about how best to regulate Wall Street in the broader public interest, with Sanders more focused on breaking up the big banks because they have too much power, and Clinton more focused on regulating the sort of shadow banking that led to the financial crisis. All of which is to say their differences don’t necessarily flow directly from the fact that one takes Wall Street money and the other doesn’t. As Krugman notes, it’s likely that Wall Street would far prefer a GOP president to either President Bernie Sanders or President Hillary Clinton.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2016/01/14/bernie-sanders-isnt-just-targeting-hillary-clinton-hes-targeting-the-whole-democratic-establishment/

[Spitfire of ATJ]

1. "Interestingly, the ad doesn’t name Hillary Clinton"

That's because we are adults.

You want to see insults tossed around go over to the Republicans.

We're dealing with actual issues the American People actually CARE about.

One being the corruption of the corporate media and their ratings driven "news".

[daybranch]

2. Bernie is wise to leave out Hillary. He is running to restore democracy.

Hillary is going to collateral damage of his larger campaign. She is not the target and by concentrating on the bigger picture and the real target the wealthy oligarchy who control establishment politics he offers a vision we the people embrace while running a clean campaign and focused on the issues rather than personal aspects of Hillary Clinton. He has consistently run on a vision of the America we sing about, the America the Constitution promises, and ties that vision of democracies to the blessings we can secure for ourselves in a democracy by ridding ourselves of the oligarchy and its tools establishment politicians feeding greedily on the excessive profits taken from us and redistributed to buy political influence with establishment.Revolutions are built on visions and Bernie's vision of an America most of us want, young and old alike will win out and get him elected.
But we can even now start working for the true progressive candidates like David Sparks here in Ohio
and for taking away the tools of the oligarchy. Getting rid of Citizens United and just as importantly making sure every vote counts more or less equally for the House of Representatives. We all want to get rid of voter suppression and must work to get rid of it but even more important and damaging is the political Gerrymandering that has gone on especially here in Ohio for the House of Representatives which ensures 3/4 of our delegates are republican as has happened in the last 2 biannual elections for the House while we have approximately the same number of voters from both major parties. Even Kasich has declared this should be done to provide more democracy bur the republicans in charge of our legislature do not want any change to extend redistricting to Congressional districts until 2031, another 15 more years of unrepresentative government.So we here in Ohio need to form our issues that will help Bernie get a more supportive progressive government by ensuring our votes really count and eliminating paid off politicians who do not serve our interests. But we can do it if we make sure true progressive candidates who embrace our vision are elected when and wherever we can, remove obstacles to voting, work to end Congressional district Gerrymandering, and end Citizen's United. We all heard over and over we need to elect more democrats to give Obama a Congress he can work with. That just did not happen due to Gerrymandering, and Citizens United and resultant low turnout due to lack of excitement about establishment candidates who really do little for the people. Well Bernie has got us fired up, lets be targeted and proactive grassroots independent and strong in our actions to get a Congress he can work with, a Congress that serves to install our vision of a democratic country now. Lets keep moving in any way we can by tying Bernie to these issues, issues we know a true democratic socialist, or more simply a believer in democracy supports.

[mmonk]

3. Correct. He is trying to start a movement to

put our house back in order and serve the people.

[Mnpaul]

5. You dance with the people who brought you

not with the highest bidder

[riversedge]

4. Hillary is the main target