Why Is Bernie So Nice to HRC? Why Won't He Deliver the Knockout Blow?

[amborin]

It is confounding, in watching Vermont Socialist Bernie Sanders’ unevenly successful primary campaign against Democrat insider Hillary Clinton, why he has not gone in for the kill. He enjoys the same populist tailwinds fueling the more successful, and equally unprecedented, Republican campaign of Donald J. Trump. His voters are just as angry at Establishment politics, donors, and economics.

Though Sanders’ voters don’t seem as bothered as Trump’s by the broken borders that contribute to depressed wages, higher unemployment, and rampant inflows of drugs and human trafficking, they are, nevertheless, equally tired of the global trade deals that benefit multinational corporations at the expense of American workers.

Rust Belt union members, in particular, have been economically decimated by the globalization bonanza launched by Mrs. Clinton’s husband - and backed by Mrs. Clinton, who called the TPP (the Trans-Pacific Partnership) the “gold standard in trade agreements” - while Mr. Sanders has long stormed the barricades against NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement), TPP, and other free trade deals.

As a result, Sanders ......could also expand his populist economic appeal to liberal working class voters in states like ......Montana, Wyoming, New Mexico, Arizona, South and North Dakota, and the crown jewel of liberal politics, California. All of these states are there for Sanders’ snatching, even with Mrs. Clinton’s solid support among older blacks and Hispanics.

However, for reasons that seem perversely self-defeating in an election year that is known for unfiltered candor, Mr. Sanders has held his fire. And for what reason?

snip
....Bernie has a real chance to make Mrs. Clinton yearn to be his VP. To get there, however, he has to stop pulling punches and go for the knockout blow. ......

snip


There are thousands of bureaucrats working in the State and Defense Departments right now (I’ve heard from a few off the record) who contend that they would be fired and prosecuted had they engaged in the same malfeasance and incompetence as Mrs. Clinton and her staff displayed in the handling of her sensitive digital communiqués. In particular, there is growing belief that Clinton violated the Intelligence Identities Protection Act (which doomed Scooter Libby).

This 1982 law makes it a crime to deliberately or inadvertently reveal the true identity of any covert operative serving U.S. intelligence if that person has not previously been publicly acknowledged to be working for our spy agencies.

Why is Bernie not making this point?

snip

First, Sanders needs to break with DNC groupthink, and make a stink about Mrs. Clinton’s lies after the September 11, 2012 terrorist attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya.

As revealed in the last House Select Committee on Benghazi hearing, Mrs. Clinton emailed the truth about what happened at the Benghazi Consulate to the Libyan president and to her daughter Chelsea on the night of the attacks and to the Egyptian president the next day (it was, in fact, “a planned attack” by “an Al-Qaida-like group” that “had nothing to do with the film”), and then subsequently lied to the families of the Benghazi victims (saying it was a protest about an anti-Muslim You Tube video clip).

Sanders has made no noise about this. Why? Bernie needs to link Mrs. Clinton’s fully documented lies on Benghazi to her recent lies about him (e.g., accusing Senator Sanders of opposing the auto bailout, which is patently false, and then linking him to border militia “known as Minutemen,” which is patently absurd). There is with Mrs. Clinton a grotesque and recurring habit of bold-faced chicanery and deception. Sanders could effectively end her campaign by exposing it. Why won’t he do it? Has someone gotten through to him? Does he think playing nice is a way to defeat her? Has he gone batty in his dotage?

Secondly, Sanders needs to get personal, by linking Mrs. Clinton’s wealthy donor contributions to the lavish lifestyle that she and Mr. Clinton enjoy in bucolic Chappaqua, in New York’s upper crust Westchester County. He needs to paint Mrs. Clinton as the radical chic poster pol that she clearly is. A candidate who will tilt far left during an election to capture populist thunder, but who has no real intention of deeply upsetting her status quo corporate backers. There is no better evidence of this than Federal Election Commission data, which reveals that tens of millions of dollars have been donated to Mrs. Clinton’s campaign by some of the world’s wealthiest hedge fund titans.

snip

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-marshall-crotty/the-knockout-blow-bernie-_b_9435952.html

[djean111]

1. As far as I am concerned, she is taking care of that herself. With Brock's help.

Disgusting. Revolting.

[RufusTFirefly]

2. Because Bernie is a classy guy. Hence the Rovian attack on his "tone."

Besides, Hillary already seems to be doing a pretty good job of beating herself.
She doesn't need Bernie's help.

[Attorney in Texas]

3. The revolution is to reinstall the values of FDR in the Democratic Party, it's not to "beat Hillary"

[pdsimdars]

4. Precisely. . . . . .

[Scuba]

5. Ding, ding, ding! We have a winner!!