Morning Reads: Democrats Take a Hard Look at Sanders vs. Clinton
One last look before caucus night –> With a week left before the Iowa caucuses, CNN hosted a televised town hall with the Democratic presidential candidates last night. Instead of the media, the questions came from Iowa Democrats, some of whom still claimed to be undecided. Sophia Tesfaye has highlights at Salon.
Soul-searching continues –> The town hall was well-timed, as the press and party elite finally are taking Bernie Sanders’ campaign seriously and debate has surged as to whether he could be a successful party candidate in the general election or an effective president.
Jonathan Chait denounces Sanders in New York magazine for what he sees as a lack of pragmatism: “In place of any practical road map to enacting his ideas, Sanders substitutes the ‘political revolution,’ an event he invokes constantly that will sweep aside all impediments… Sanders draws upon the left’s frustration with the limits of shared power in much the same way as Cruz has done.”
BUT: At Jacobin, Seth Ackerman takes issue with those who criticize Sanders. Taking aim at a recent attack against the senator by Matt Yglesias in Vox, Ackerman writes that many of the candidate’s proposals, including single-payer health care, are well within the Democratic wheelhouse, and have been promised in the past to mobilize support for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton: “The predicament the party finds itself in now, judging by the new poll numbers out of Iowa, is that it faces a base that took it at its word” — and is thus looking to Sanders.
http://billmoyers.com/story/morning-reads-democrats-take-a-hard-look-at-sanders-vs-clinton/
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