Hillary Clinton Is Botching Her Best Chance To Win

[applegrove]

Hillary Clinton Is Botching Her Best Chance To Win

by Jason Linkins and Zach Carter at the Huffington Post

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/hillary-clinton-is-botching-this_569808a9e4b0778f46f8b31b?section=politics

"SNIP...........


The Democratic primary is two things. One, an authenticity contest, in which Clinton and Sanders try to show die-hard Democrats that they are really, really like them -- even though both are career politicians. Two, a statement of the party's purpose. Here is the dream, even if it can't be enacted anytime soon.

Clinton's recent domestic policy offensive fails on both fronts. Nobody really believes that a woman who served on the board of Walmart when her husband was governor of Arkansas and who made millions of dollars giving speeches to big banks and private equity firms is a populist Democrat. And nobody really believes that a woman who previously advocated a Medicare-for-all plan thinks single-payer will destroy Medicare. Party activists also don't believe that her incrementalism is more legislatively plausible, because no actual Democratic efforts are going to be possible for years to come.

Democrats like Clinton because she has been fighting outrageous Republican attacks for more than 20 years. She's still got it (see: Benghazi hearings), and it's Democratic primary gold (see: post-Benghazi-hearing polls). That's Clinton's best argument for the nomination. Smearing policy proposals that Democrats have spent years fighting for? Not so much.




.............SNIP"

[Warren DeMontague]

1. If it's an authenticity contest, she's in big trouble.

But it's pretty stunning. About as stunning as Debbie Wasserman Schultz trying to justify her support of putting medical marijuana users in prison because "heroin is bad, kids"

[swilton]

2. Although I didn't read the entire article

I didn't want to because the article's argument from the snip seemed to be - vote for Hillary because she's the best foil to the GOP. Employing this logic is analogous to the lesser evil argument and says much about what the candidate is against but little about what they are for.

A more proactive argument - vote for Hillary because of these policy proposals would seem to be a more successful strategy.

The policy proposals in Hillary's case can't be utilized because they have less appeal than those of Sanders or OMalley.

[politicaljunkie41910]

3. Further reason I'm thankful I stopped reading Huff Post years ago.

I hate it when people here resort to GOP tactics by trying to simplify a complex issue. Hillary did not say that she had given up on single payer system. She's being a realist. As she stated in her interview with Rachel, we tried single payer and the public rejected it, including the Blue Dog Dems as the time. We were able to get the ACA passed. Dems lost control of both houses as a result. The voters are not ready for a single payer system, yet. So as Hillary says, lets fix whats wrong with the ACA for the time being. Bernie's advocating for a single payer system while knocking the ACA, just gives credence to members of the GOP that even the Dems hate the ACA, and want to get rid of it. That doesn't mean that the GOP want to replace it with something better, they just want to repeal it, and no member of the Democratic Party should be entertaining the thought out loud of repealing the ACA without the votes to get something like single payer through both houses of Congress. Dems don't control either House of Congress. We won't control Congress even if we should win the White House because it's impossible for Dems to win the House in 2016. The earliest possible chance we would have would be after the 2020 Census and redistricting (hopefully) occurs in 2022 at the earliest.

Hillary is just being a realist.

[applegrove]

5. I think their point that going negative is not going to work on Democrats is a good one. Bernie is

too authentic and real. He's too well liked. I wanted that out there.

[John Poet]

4. Hillary's best chance to win was in 2004.

Even I would have been backing her that year....

... but she was too careful, too calculating to take the risk that year...