LAS14
LAS14's JournalBernie's and Hillary's demeanors
Yes, folks, I'm on a roll. I'm hoping this subsides as I'm not getting other stuff done. 
Anyway, I want to be sure my friends in this group get a chance to see this one.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511265411
Bernie’s and Hillary’s demeanors
I’ve been struck by the very different demeanors these two candidates present. Here’s what I’ve come up with:
Bernie Sanders no doubt comes across as genuine. And I personally think that he really is genuine, that what you see is what you get. It’s one of his most attractive qualities. Note, for instance, how he didn’t pause for a mili-second when presented with Bill Clinton’s observations about the online behavior of “Bernie’s Bros.” He responded in his typical vehement way, words to the effect “That’s unacceptable. We don’t want them. They can just leave the campaign.” My blood runs faster when he calls for a more equal distribution of wealth. But for me this quality ceases to be attractive when I imagine him talking to other world leaders. You can’t just “tell them they have to…”
In Hillary’s case, what you see is not always “what you get.” But this is not necessarily a negative for Hillary in my mind. There are many reasons why her answers don’t necessarily tell the whole story. The most important is complexity. I’ve never heard anyone argue that she isn’t smart, and when presented with a question that allows a 90 second response she has to think hard to boil it down to that time frame. Another reason is that she can’t let herself be dragged into endless discussions of things like e-mails and changing her mind (a good thing for a person who has matured over decades). She has a responsibility to get her message out, not let adversaries set the terms. Yet another reason is that she doesn’t dare be as emotionally “honest” as Bernie is. Can’t you just here the hue and cry about how “shrill” she is? This is a lesson women in public life learn very early. Lucky Bernie. He yells and is applauded. Another reason is politics. Yes, she’s a politician. And they all have to learn that words are taken out of context all the time. Only politicians like Bernie and Trump, who are fortunate enough to have caught a wave, have the luxury of speaking off the top of their heads. Don’t get me wrong. Bernie has good stuff at the top of his head and I’m proud of the Democratic party that we’ve field two ‘good’ candidates. But I don’t fault Hillary for exercising discretion in what she says.
Bill was right!
And so are a lot of you in the Hillary group. I got active yesterday and this morning in the GDP forum. I responded here and there in Hillary's behalf, but I think I was always civil. Now already I have earned a post about LAS14 and her desperate posts. (The writer has blocked me from his vision.) What have we come to that we're as bad as the Republicans down under the covers in social media. Thank goodness the debates have remained about issues (almost entirely... did you notice that Bernie didn't mention Hillary's speaking engagements after she called him on them in the previous debate?)
I've always wondered if the campaign didn't send Bill out to make "a mistake" and point out the vitriol that's going on in social media.
Well, no problem for me. I've always been a "sticks and stones will break my bones" girl, and am sort of proud that I got noticed.
x posting re Hillary's smile
This is in response to a post about someone "determining" that Bernie's smile is genuine and Hillary's is not. I was hoping to model some civilized discussion while still taking a Hillary position. One can dream.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1251&pid=1264371
Here's a post in GDP that we should keep at the top,...
... either through replies or recommendations. Of course I don't think that Sanders should be pilloried because he mingled with the rich and powerful. But neither should Hillary.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511263913#post17
Let's help Hillary with social media....
... at least on this website.
1. Someone respond to this post at least once a day, so we can enlist as many members as possible in our effort.
2. Let's make sure "A personal memory of Hillary" shows up regularly in "Best Threads" by making 5 recommendations a day.
3. Post in Hillary Clinton the link to threads in other forums (like GDP) that are positive about Hillary so that members here who don't like to visit it can post replies and make recommendations.
4. Post your own positive thoughts in GDP even if you don't like the forum. You don't have to read the replies. Think of Hillary, one of whose strongest characteristics is to soldier on in spite of slings and arrows.
5. I don't know how Facebook works as far as kicking goes, but if you'd like to spread "A Personal Memory of Hillary" around in Facebook, here's the link: https://www.facebook.com/laurel.santmire/posts/1088433571179700
How does kick work?
Having finally learned the meaning of K&R, I tried to kick a discussion to the top by replying to it. That didn't seem to do anything. What am I misunderstanding?
TIA
LAS
I don't need this, but...
Apparently a lot of people do. (I and a friend once bonded on being "passionate about the golden mean." ) Can anyone think of a slogan that's more passionate than "A progressive that gets things done?" I'm personally energized by that.... but, like I said...
The Roosevelt Approach
By DAVID BROOKS
Dear Hillary, Jeb, Marco and John,
You all find yourselves running against a whirlwind. Hillary, for you the whirlwind is Bernie Sanders. For the rest of you it’s Donald Trump.
Either way, you’re running against a candidate who generates passionate intensity. At some level those candidates’ followers must know that there’s something wildly impractical about the candidacy they are fervently supporting. Trump has no actual policies and Sanders has little chance of getting his passed.
And yet the supporters don’t care. Sanders and Trump make them feel known. Finally, somebody is saying what they feel. Finally, somebody is outraged by the things that outrage them. There’s a deep passion embedded in the Trump and Sanders phenomena, arousing energy, magical thinking and some suspension of disbelief.
And the rest of you are basically asking voters to snap out of it. All of you, but especially you, Hillary, are asking voters to calm down and be pragmatic: Consider electability! Vote for the one who can get laws passed!
And it’s not working. In debates Sanders is uninhibited by the constraints of reality, so his answers are always bolder. Trump speaks from the id, not from any policy paper, so his answers are always more vivid.
The brute fact is you can’t beat passion with pragmatism. The human heart is not built that way. You can’t beat angry passion with bloodless calculation. If you’re going to have any chance against these hotheads, you have to set a rival and stronger emotional tone. I’d ask you to think of the ancient ideal of comradeship.
Many Americans feel like they are the victims of a slow-moving natural disaster. Sanders and Trump try to put the blame for this disaster on discrete groups of people — Wall Street or immigrants. But in reality it’s a natural disaster caused by structural forces — globalization, technological change, the dissolution of the family, racism.
A great nation doesn’t divide in times of natural disaster. It doesn’t choose leaders who angrily tear it apart. Instead, it chooses leaders like Franklin Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower, leaders who radiate sunny confidence, joy and neighborliness.
You may think of neighborliness as a sentimental, soft virtue. And I suppose in times of peace, prosperity and ease it is a sweet and tender thing.
But look at what happens to neighbors when one friend is threatened or when times are hard. Then neighborliness takes on a different hue. Friends become comrades in arms.
That is what F.D.R. and Ike were able to do with their leadership styles. With fireside chats and golf jokes, they were neighborly even in times of great difficulty and stress. But they were also able to set an emotional tone that brought people together and changed the nature of Americans’ relationships with one another.
During their presidencies, the bonds of solidarity grew stronger and the country more formidable. They were able to cultivate a deep sense of unity, responsibility and sacrifice. They didn’t call for sacrifice as something painful, but as what one did for one’s friends.
I’d love to see one of you counter the Trump and Sanders emotional tones with a bold shift in psychology. This would be a shift toward the cheerful resolve of an F.D.R. or an Eisenhower.
Let Trump and Sanders shout, harangue and lecture. You respond to difficulty with warmth, confidence and optimism.
Let them deliver long, repetitive and uninterrupted lectures. You converse, interact, chat and listen.
Let them stand angry and solitary. You run as part of a team, a band of brothers, with diverse advisers and buddies joining you onstage at event after event.
Let them assert that all our problems can be solved if other people sacrifice — the immigrants or the top 1 percent. You call for shared sacrifice. The rich can give more in taxes, but the rich, the middle class and the poor can all give more in civic engagement.
Let them emphasize the cold relations of business (Trump) or of the state (Sanders). You emphasize the warm bonds of neighbor helping neighbor. While they dwell in the land of impersonal bureaucracies, you point out that the primary task before us to repair the social fabric — the basic respect diverse Americans have for one another.
Let them preach pessimism. You emphasize a warm nationalism — a basic confidence that America is not going down in decline, that it is still the nation best positioned to dominate the 21st century, that confidence is a better guide than anger or fear.
Sanders and Trump have adopted emotional tones that are going to offend and exhaust people over time. Watching the G.O.P. South Carolina debate I got the impression that Trump’s exhaustion moment is at hand.
The candidate who has the audacity to change the emotional tone of this whole election will win the White House and have a shot at rebinding the civic fabric of this nation.
A personal memory of Hillary
I was advised to cross post this. In most forums I've been in, cross posting was frowned on. It this is illegal, I hope this is the one that is hidden instead of the one in General Discussion: Primaries
***************
Hello All!
I’m writing to friends and family and other contacts to share one side of the story about one of our presidential candidates, which may not be familiar to many, at least in the terms that I know them. A hundred years ago, I worked closely with a bright young Methodist student at Wellesley College, where I was serving as a teacher and Chaplain, one Hillary Rodham. She was then, and, I believe, still is a person of deep moral passion, notwithstanding press caricatures of her that have appeared in recent years with predictable regularity.
Hillary came to Wellesley as an enthusiastic “Goldwater Girl.” Hers was a dedicated voice of the Midwestern Right. Then she took the (at that time) required sophomore Bible course, and it changed her life. She was especially fond of Amos, texts such as 5:24, “Let justice roll down like waters.” And she did not just talk the talk.
One example. As president of the student government, she and a group of young women like her (I was a kind of back-row advisor to all this), wanted to address the mostly lily-white complexion of the student body. At that time there were, as I recall, 12 African-Americans in a student body of some 2000. The College’s administration wanted nothing to do with all this. Hillary took the lead with her group to raise money independently to pay for those African-American students to make recruiting trips to predominantly black high schools across the country. Not only had those schools never been visited by Wellesley College recruiters before, they were unknown to the Admissions Office. That project turned out to be a minor success. But my point here is not minor successes, but Hillary’s impressive moral passion and her eagerness to act on that passion.
I have kept close tabs on her personal and political trajectories ever since. Notwithstanding her being the object of sometimes vicious attacks (tell me that sexism is not alive and well in this country) and notwithstanding mistakes of her own along the way, I believe that the faith that she discovered in Amos and the moral passion she exemplified at Wellesley College have not left her. If anything, given the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, that faith and that moral passion have deepened and become the driving force of all she does. I believe that she has added the wisdom of spiritual depth, too, which sometimes comes with maturity. Did you notice that when asked, during one of the New Hampshire debates, about spiritual influences on her life she spoke at length and with some conviction about how much she has learned from that great Catholic spiritual teacher of our time, Henri Nouwen?
I, of course, am not an unbiased witness. I affirm what I once saw, and I affirm what I now see. I have walked the streets of New Hampshire in her behalf and I support her current campaign financially.
I write only with this hope, that, as you continue to reflect about the current campaign, you will take into account her moral passion and her spiritual depth. She is much more than her popular detractors, even on the liberal side, make her out to be. I also believe that she has even more to offer. Her much vaunted “experience” is not something to shake a stick at, for example, not to speak of a certain wisdom she brings with her as a knowledgeable student of history. But those are themes for another day.
Thank you for reading!
This was written by the husband of LAS14, who was the Wellesley chaplain that Hillary mentioned in her graduation speech. She was the first student to give such a speech. It was the 60's and times they were a changin'.
Bernie on Facebook (yes, this is a Hillary group post)
Why do I keep getting Bernie Sanders sponsored ads? Am I profiled somewhere erroneously? Or is Hillary's campaign just falling down on the job?
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