Category Archives: Bernie

Clinton vs Sanders vs O’Malley On Fixing Banking

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How do we fix Wall Street, a.k.a. “the banks”? How do the candidates compare? This question came up in the first Democratic debate and there has been lots of online commentary on this since.

The first place to look, of course, is CAF’s Candidate Scorecard. “The Candidate Scorecard measures the positions of Democratic candidates for president against the Populism 2015 platform endorsed by organizations representing 2 million Americans.” On Wall Street – specifically, making “Wall Street serve the real economy” – the Candidate Scorecard rates the candidates as follows:
● Bernie Sanders: 100%
● Martin O’Malley: 100%
● Hillary Clinton: 63%

Note that Clinton’s 63 percent rating is primarily based on not having a position on a financial transaction tax – “Has yet to take a position, though has used rhetoric against high frequency traders who game the system” – as well as opposing reinstating some form of a Glass-Steagall Act and a lack of specific proposals related to the categories “Break Up Big Banks” and “Affordable Banking.”

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Sanders Pushes Postal Banking

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Senator and presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has once again added his voice to a growing movement to bring banking to the United States Postal Service (USPS).

“I want to see our post office be reinvigorated,” Sanders said in a Fusion interview this week with Felix Salmon, and postal banking is “one of the ways that I think we can help not only the U.S. Postal Service, but help a lot of low-income people.”

Situation: Exploitation

Millions of Americans are “unbanked,” meaning they do not have (and cannot get) bank accounts for one reason or another. This means they cannot easily cash checks, pay bills, save a bit of money, get a small loan in an emergency and other simple and basic banking services. This leaves them vulnerable in the predatory path of payday lenders and check cashing services, where exploitative fees and incredibly high interests rates eat them alive and leave them poorer than ever.

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The Dem Debate Was Good For The Country. Let’s Have More Of Them

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In contrast to the Republican clown shows they call debates, last Tuesday’s Democratic presidential debate was serious and focused on policy. It let the public know that there are still adults at work trying to help deal with the country’s real problems. It helped the country move forward.

Tuesday’s debate gave the public a positive, optimistic presentation of the Democratic Party and its progressive message and how this gives hope for a positive direction for the country. For those worried about the debates helping one candidate or another one, polls tell us the debate lowered the “unfavorable ratings” of both Clinton and Sanders.

But the Democratic Party leadership still seems to want to try to limit the Democratic candidates from public exposure. Last Tuesday’s debate was on a pay TV channel (my cable/internet/phone monopoly rent-seeking bill is closing in on $200+ a month) – not a very aware move for a party that supposedly wants to represent and get votes from low-income Americans – and still 15 million Americans tuned in. Even with that audience, this viewer-suppression strategy worked; that’s almost 10 million fewer than the first Republican debate.

While Republicans chose a Republican-right TV channel with Republican-friendly moderators, the Democratic debate was on a Republican-lite channel with semi-hostile moderators. (“Will you say anything to get elected?” “You honeymooned in the Soviet Union.” “The current top prosecutor in Baltimore, also a Democrat, blames your zero tolerance policies for sowing the seeds of unrest.”)

The next debate will take place November 14 – a weekend evening that many suspect was chosen so younger members of the potential audience will be out on dates, out at the clubs, at movies, and so on. (At least it will be on a broadcast network so people can tune in without paying.) The one after that, December 19, is also on a weekend evening, but on top of that it is also on the last Christmas shopping weekend. The one after that is on a Sunday night.

Not everyone pays attention to these things so far before an election. But those who do can see this for what it is. One candidate has a big lead early on, the other has low name recognition. It looks like people at the top are helping the leading candidate “sit on” that lead and “run out the clock.” Some also think that the same people do not want the other candidate’s “message” to be heard widely because it threatens entrenched interests.

What’s in it for those helping rig this primary process? Washington politics now runs on exchanges of promises – jobs, favors, and the like. We don’t know if or what the chair of the Democratic National Committee was promised to protect Clinton’s lead and keep the public from hearing Sanders’ message. If this is what happened, it might show Clinton to be just the kind of savvy D.C. power-politics player who really can get things done. Maybe the country needs someone like that right now. Maybe, maybe not. Or maybe it is an unfortunate sign that a Clinton administration will be another pay-to-play corruption operation, people inside doing favors for the powerful. Maybe the public is sick of this kind of corruption.

The first debate was great for the country, the party – and Clinton. So how about we stop the nonsense and schedule plenty of debates, in prime time on weekdays, and let the country know that there is something available besides Trump and obstruction.

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This post originally appeared at Campaign for America’s Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF. Sign up here for the CAF daily summary and/or for the Progress Breakfast.

The First Democratic Presidential Candidate Debate Had Adults On The Stage

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The first Democratic debate showed the country what it is like to have adults on a stage. It doesn’t matter who “won.” The candidates showed they all are concerned about governing the country and proposing actual policies that will help actual people have better lives. And they showed that we have a serious and lively Democratic primary race in front of us. The country will be the winner.

In contrast to the entertaining Republican cage fight clown show racist, anti-government insult fest “debates”, the first Democratic debate was almost entirely a serious debate on issues and policies, by serious people with serious policy proposals, who all did very well. It was a debate for people who actually care about governing the country and making regular people’s lives better. It was a debate that would make Americans feel better about the future of their country.

Finally, A Democratic Debate

The Democrats finally held their first presidential candidate debate Tuesday. It seems the party has tried to avoid having any debates. (At this point in the 2008 cycle there had already been a dozen or so.) Tuesday being the day after a three-day weekend for many people, they decided to risk it. This debate showed just how big a strategic mistake this thinking was for Hillary Clinton and for the party’s ability to take their case to the public in November of 2016.

Hopefully this will convince the party’s leadership to expand the debate schedule. The Democrats all did well, and this debate showed that the party has a good and convincing message to deliver to voters. The party needs to have more public debates – on weeknights in prime time – both for the Presidential race and for Democratic “down ticket” candidates.

The Candidates

The candidates in the debate (click the name for the campaign website) were:
● Hillary Clinton
● Bernie Sanders
● Martin O’Malley
● Lincoln Chaffee
● Jim Webb

For a comparison of the policy positions of these candidates please visit CAF’s Candidate Scorecard The Candidate Scorecard measures the positions of Democratic candidates for president against the Populism 2015 platform endorsed by organizations representing 2 million Americans.

The Debate

The debate will be analyzed over time; things will become more clear. The public will weigh in. But here are some quick impressions:

● There were lots of “establishment” cheap shots by moderators at Sanders (and a few at Clinton) on guns, “socialism” (oh, scary) and immigration. But these gave Sanders and Clinton a chance to respond and give good answers. It backfired.

● Clinton gave a lot of rehearsed, obviously focus-group-tested answers done very, very skillfully. Again and again she talked about “comprehensive plans” to imply that Sanders does not have the ability to get things done. She talked about being the “first woman president” to appeal to the female demographic, saying she can “find common ground” because polls show that voters want politicians who will “compromise.” It was a perfection of “politics” as we have come to know it, for better or worse. These are not bad things; it might still be what it takes to win elections in the U.S. and this is important. This “kind of person you want to have a beer with” approach might still be how you get votes, but Clinton also did well when she was forced to move away from this style.
● There were still too many “zingers,” like “I know how to find common ground and I know how to stand my ground.” Some of the prepared zingers were really great, such as “They [Republicans] don’t mind having big government to interfere with a woman’s right to choose and to try to take down Planned Parenthood, they’re fine with big government when it comes to that, and I’m sick of it.”
● Clinton’s attack on Sanders over guns failed, and gave him an opportunity to give a good response. Clinton won’t attack Sanders again.
● Bernie Sanders came across very, very well. He showed he is experienced, showed the public he is “presidential” and introduced himself to a lot of new people, depending on how many people watched. He is now introduced to many people who have not heard of him or heard his message. Sanders also had a few prepared phrases, like, “Every other major country on earth has … ” (health care for all, family leave, maternity leave, etc.) and “we are an international embarrassment.” He also said variations on “the Secretary is right” a number of times.
● Sanders repeatedly called for a political revolution, asking millions of people to take on “the billionaire class” to change America. Will he get enough millions?
● O’Malley was very good on most policies, but was rather rehearsed and did not appear quite ready to be on this national stage. As Van Jones said later on CNN, “He did not come across as commander-in-chief.” Clinton and Sanders did.
● Chaffee and Webb possibly wrote themselves out of the race. They both showed themselves to be serious people with very good resumes, but not candidates who are ready to be in a Democratic party race at this time. And Webb was channeling Rand Paul.
● Clinton, Sanders and O’Malley gave great answers on “Black Lives Matter.”
● Biggest applause line: Sanders, in support of Clinton, “The American people are sick and tired of hearing about the damn emails.” “Enough of the emails.”

One last thing. Joe Biden doesn’t have an opening to enter the primaries now.

Democrats Are A Progressive Party Now

These candidates understand that winning in Democratic primaries means they have to spell out solid progressive policy proposals that actually help solve the country’s problems. Progressives are entirely driving the debate on a range of issues now.

This is because time has shown that a progressive approach to solving the problems of the country will work – and conservative or “centrist” (almost conservative) policies have hurt regular people and the country while driving inequality. The public has also realized that the old-style “Marlboro Man” politics of image has not worked for regular people. It is now apparent that “economic democracy” is the way an economy and a country can work.

Note (again): The website Populist Majority collects polling results showing that the public backs progressive solutions to the country’s problems, often by large majorities. The website Candidate Scorecard rates candidate according to the Populism 2015 platform.

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This post originally appeared at Campaign for America’s Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF. Sign up here for the CAF daily summary and/or for the Progress Breakfast.

Wait. Back Up. Sanders Only Has 650,000 Donors?

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The other day it was announced with great fanfare that Bernie Sanders has received more than 1 million contributions from around 650,000 people. (Some have contributed more than once.)

But wait a minute, that really is not a large number in a country of almost 320 million people.

Let’s Do Some Math

Sanders is polling at somewhere around 26% among Democrats nationally. Barack Obama received 65.9 million votes in 2012. 26% of this is around 17 million. So there should be around 17 million current Bernie supporters. 650,000 is only 3.8% of that 17 million. This means that only about 3.8% of (according to current polls) possible current Bernie supporters have donated to his campaign.

Repeat: only 3.8% of what the polls tell us are current Bernie Sanders supporters have donated to his campaign.

Since Hillary Clinton has fewer donors but polls show support from 43.5% of Democrats, obviously the percentage of supporters donating to her campaign is going to be astronomically lower than Bernie’s 3.8%. I don’t want to do the math.

Get With It, People

Get with it, people. How do you think Democrats are going to win against the corporate-billionaire conservative machine, if only a few of us are donating to candidates? Seriously, if our advantage in numbers is going to override the Republican corporate-billionaire-financed financial advantage, we all have to pitch in.

If you support Bernie, send $20 today. Or more.

If you support Hillary Clinton, send $20 today. Or more.

if you support Martin O’Malley, send $20 today. Or more.

You really do have a responsibility to do this.

Not Just Candidates

And it isn’t just candidates you should be donating to. Republicans have a huge infrastructure of conservative support organizations, largely funded by corporations and billionaires. These are the outfits that spew out right-wing propaganda 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 400 days a year. How MANY times have you had to listen to things like, “Taxes take money out of the economy,” “Corporations always do things better than government,” and the rest of their anti-government, anti-democracy crap? How often do you hear a response? Hardly ever — and the reason is that YOU are not donating money to progressive organizations.

(I’m a Sr. Fellow at Campaign for America’s Future. But really, there are a number of great progressive organizations you should be supporting and I am sure that people can name several in the commerts.)

Democracy doesn’t have an advertising budget — it’s up to you. Donate, donate, donate.

Bernie Sanders Describes Socialism

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Here is Bernie describing “socialism”

Free college, free nursing homes, free child care, free health care, 5-6 weeks vacation, fewer working hours, good pensions, great transportation, cleaner environment, other things. They also have low govt debt compared to countries that are run to channel $$ to the corporations and billionaires.

This is what happens when a government is run for its people — “socialism” — instead of a few wealthy people — “capitalism”.

See Why Dem Party Leaders Are Limiting Debates

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The Democratic Party is restricting the number of debates. I think I know why. See for yourself:

PS Here is Dr. Cornell West’s introduction of Bernie:

Oh, one more thing:

John Coltrane playing A Love Supreme Live

“John Coltrane’s masterwork, A Love Supreme, was only played once in live concert. This portion is the only surviving film of that 1965 performance.”

What Bernie Sanders Has Already Won

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When Sen. Bernie Sanders initially began running for president, his hope was to “trigger the conversation” about the way the economic and political system is rigged by the billionaires and their corporations. He wanted to begin a movement around a vision of how the country could be run for We the People instead of a few billionaires and their giant corporations, and give that movement momentum.

That was the idea; start a movement out of a campaign that could get a “for-the-people” message out. All the people he brought in would take it from there.

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