>>Nobody who even slightly followed politics thought he was
>>unrealistic.
>
>This initial sentence disqualifies everything else you said in
>this stanza.
>Prior to him proving he was a viable threat by winning Iowa,
>the establishment
>politic - en masse - regarded Obama as too inexperienced and
>regarded his
>chances of beating Clinton as negligible.

No they didn't. Hillary was widely considered the frontrunner, but from the moment Obama announced, he was seen as her only realistic opponent. The "political establishment" was buzzing about the coming Obama campaign from the moment Tim Russert got him to admit it was even a possibility.


>Post Bush, the
>tide had shifted and the country
>had the appetite for a Democrat - but Clinton began the race
>as the presumptive
>nominee, just as she is now.
>
>>Considering that BOTH of the leading 2008 candidates made it
>>central to their platforms, that both of them put together
>>detailed proposals to make it happen (in contrast to
>Bernie's
>>Medicare For All proposal, which is filled with magic
>>asterisks),
>
>To be clear - Bernie helped author the ACA.

So he should know better.

Note, also, that the structure of the ACA we ended up with was almost identical to Hillary Clinton's health care plan, apart from the fact that we couldn't get a public option (even with the enormous legislative skills of #DatBern on the committee).


>>Note one thing that we thought might be possible in 2008 but
>>turned out not to be possible: the public option. With a
>large
>>majority in the House, and a supermajority in the Senate, we
>>were unable to include even the option of a non-profit
>>alternative to private insurance.
>
>>And now, the Sanders supporters seem to think that without a
>>majority in either house, and without the momentum and
>public
>>interest in the issue that existed in 2008, somehow, on the
>>force of his own charisma I guess, he'd be able not only to
>>finally create that public option, but to make it the ONLY
>>option. It's fucking ludicrous.
>
>I know it's a wild & crazy idea -- but taking genuine stances
>
>on policy is integral to having integrity/credibility on an
>issue.

That's the kinda shit the McGovern voters said. It all seems well and good until we lose 48 states and see President Trump, with the help of BOTH houses of congress, decimating everything those "genuine stances" represent.

And by the way, just because a stance is realistic, that does not make it any less genuine. Real politicians, like Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, understand that integrity and credibility are only the first steps to getting anything done. For one thing, eventually you need some amount of strategy, of which Sanders appears to have none.


>Bernie has been fighting for the public option for decades -
>he's supposed to change tune now and pander for the vote?

No, he's supposed to understand that that particular stance is self-defeating in the current landscape, and not make it central to a campaign against grownups who want to actually get shit done.

>Sorry bruh - he's not a Clinton. Primary politics is
>littered
>with ideas that will never actually come to fruition - from
>all candidates.

The problem is that Bernie Sanders doesn't appear to have anything else! The #1 most important thing right now for any Democratic candidate is electability in a general election. You should not be so naive as to think that Bernie Sanders is electable in a general election.


>>(Iran Deal) Why? Who said that? That was diplomacy, the one
>thing that the
>>President has broad leverage to undertake, without any major
>>interference from the Congress.
>
>Without congressional approval, the Iran Nuclear Deal would
>not have
>been enacted. Yes - Obama had veto power - but if he did veto
>-
>two-thirds of the House and Senate must vote to override the
>veto,
>or the veto becomes sustained.

Have you ever even read a newspaper? The Congress did not vote to approve the nuclear deal. If they had needed to, it would have been dead on arrival. The President THREATENED to veto any Congressional attempts to interfere with its enactment, and as a result no such attempts have arisen (yet). Indeed, 2/3 majorities would be needed to override such a veto, and 2/3 majorities are impossible for EITHER party in the current landscape. But that does not mean the nuclear deal had "congressional approval."


>>The nuclear agreement is a huge, important, impressive
>>accomplishment, but it was never an unrealistic idea. All it
>>took was guts.
>
>It was a paradigm-shift foreign policy move that the GOP,
>Saudi
>Arabia, and Israel exerted as much effort and energy as they
>could
>to oppose; a monumental accomplishment, and one that
>was extremely difficult to pull off unless you operate with
>diplomatic
>brilliance and judgment. it just so happened that Obama &
>Kerry are
>the exceptions to the rule: Extraordinary government leaders
>with gifted diplomatic
>competencies. I don't think any other administration
>(including a Clinton
>administration) could have pulled that off with such patience
>and efficacy.

Why not? EVERY President "tilts to foreign policy" when his influence in domestic matters wanes. That is absolutely nothing new.

And don't forget: the President, state department insiders, and even John Kerry himself, have claimed that the early groundwork for that deal was laid during Hillary Clinton's tenure.


>>That said, it's not set in stone. If a Republican gets
>elected
>>in November, then he'll have just as much leeway to gut this
>>deal, and most of the rest of Obama's recent
>accomplishments,
>>which he's been forced to push through by executive order.
>All
>>the more reason that real progressives need to be supporting
>>the candidate who would actually be strong in a general
>>election.
>
>Clinton supporters keep saying this - but the data says
>otherwise. In the bulk of recent reputable polls (as of one
>week ago) - Sanders has out-performed Clinton versus both
>Trump and Cruz in a general election (with a wide lead over
>Trump).

This is a childish logical error. Nobody is running against Bernie Sanders yet. At least no Republicans. Among the class of eventual general election voters, Sanders is known ONLY as the guy who's running against Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary. Nobody has run a single attack ad on him yet. He has no negative ratings. Don't be so naive as to think they won't come if he finally gets into a serious campaign where he NEEDS to win over people who are deathly afraid of the word "socialism." There's a reason the Republicans started out their scorched-earth opposition of Barack Obama by calling him a socialist, and there's a reason that Obama and all of his supporters had to go out of their way to say the slanderous accusation was unfounded.

Trump's negative ratings, and Hillary's, are baked in with the broader electorate at this point. They'll stay relatively stable through the general election. Sanders's negative ratings will skyrocket. He will crash and burn and we will lose nearly every state, even against Trump or Cruz.


>Bernie Sanders has received more small donations from
>supporters than any
>other presidential campaign in history. He's not a fringe
>candidate.

If every one of those small donors votes for him in the general election (which is about all we could seriously hope for at this point), we'll still lose nearly every state.


>>>Marriage Equality in all 50 states? LOL
>>
>>Was a decision by the Supreme Court, which the President had
>>no power over one way or the other.
>
>No? Let's see:
>
>Obama nominated Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. The
>Court
>struck down the ban on gay marriage with a 5-4 vote.
>Sotomayor voted
>with the majority. Had somebody else been appointed to the
>Court -
>the dissent could've very well been standing law. So when you
>say a President has
>"no power" over the Court one way or the other - that's a
>fairly egregious
>mischaracterization of the well-chronicled presidential power
>over the Court.

This is precisely why this campaign matters! Yes, without Elana Kagan or Sonia Sotomayor we would have lost that case. Do you actually think that ANY Democratic President would have appointed a justice who wasn't just as likely to take that side on the case? Do you actually think that ANY Republican candidate would have appointed a justice who might have taken that side?

The makeup of the court is CRUCIALLY important, especially for our side right now, since the liberal side of the court is older and will need to be replaced sooner. One of those five votes is a repeated cancer patient.

What we need right now is a Democrat to sit in that office and make those appointments. It makes basically no difference who that Democrat is, as long as they can make it to that office. Hillary Clinton can win a general election. Bernie Sanders will put Donald Trump or Ted Cruz in office with both houses of congress, which apart from an enormous amount of legislative hell, will shift the court drastically to the right for the rest of our lifetimes. It is fucking ludicrous that any rational person would support that.


>Here's one thing that Bernie Sanders could influence as
>President:
>Instituting massive campaign finance reform and breaking up
>the oligarchical
>control over our political system. That alone might be worth a
>one-term Sanders presidency.

How would he do that?! Nobody has any idea how he would do that! Do you really think that Barack Obama wouldn't have done that if it were possible? Do you really think that Bernie Sanders could engender MORE public goodwill than Barack Obama got immediately after the disastrous presidency of George W Bush?

It's a fucking mass delusion. At this point that seems to be all the Sanders campaign has going for it. And the longer it goes on, the more he will eventually regret it.