Is this not Bernie's campaign in a nutshell? I had this argument with a Bernie supporter yesterday.
https://twitter.com/evilsax/status/700069269174935552
He tries to sidestep his lack of executive experience and his inability to build coalitions by saying 'Yeah, but I don't have a super PAC and I didn't vote for the Iraq War.'
1. On the Iraq War he clearly made the right vote. I wasn't in government at the time but I was against it too. Barney Frank was in government and he voted against it. Yet he supports Hillary even though she voted for it.
So he doesn't see it as a litmus test that proves she's not a True Progressive. In many ways I see Frank as a kind of model attitude for liberals to take. Frank believes in government being used to help the little guy but he's also always been a pragmatist.
http://www.amazon.com/Frank-Politics-Society-Same-Sex-Marriage/dp/0374280304/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1455577701&sr=8-1&keywords=barney+frank
2. On the super PAC business, I see it as Bernie trying to make things more black and white than they really are. He has a super PAC.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/12/bernie-sanders-super-pac/420930/
When this is pointed out, you hear: 'It's not a super PAC, it's run by a nurses' union not Wall St. donors.'
This misses the point that a makes something a super PAC is not based on who's running it. Nice people can run a super PAC as well-which might even suggest Bernie's whole mantra against it is overstated.
Indeed, part of what we are learning in this campaign is that super PACs aren't necessarily very effective anyway. The joke about Jeb is that he wishes money in politics was as all powerful as Bernie and friends say it it.
RawStory claims that they are 'debunking the lie Sanders has a super PAC' but they don't. The main thing they argue is that they like the folks funding Bernie's super PAC and that his super PAC is actually running the way they should run.
"More importantly, Michael Lighty, the nurses’ union’s director of public policy, says the nurses’ super PAC functions just the way the Supreme Court’s conservative majority fantasized that they would: with genuine independence from the Sanders’ campaign. “In the case of real super PACs, the independence is a fallacy, and when they talk about us – comparing us to those other super PACs – it’s a false equivalency,” he said.
https://www.rawstory.com/2016/02/debunking-the-big-bernie-sanders-has-a-superpac-lie/
Except that he keeps saying he has no super PAC which is false. If anything if you buy this framing, you could say that Bernie has proven that super PACs are fine if done the right way.
He also has ruled against public funding arguing that there's no way you can function under those strictures. True, but then this shows that even he admits you have to have a certain amount of money to run effectively for President.
If he were to actually win the primary he'd no doubt have to start being more aggressive in raising larger sums of money and maybe more aggressive action from super PACs would become necessary for him.
For more on Bernie's money see here.
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2016/02/16/busted-sanders-has-benefitted-from-super-pacsand-hes-accepted-contributions-from-wall-street-n2118995
My problem is his posture of purity. I don't condemn him for his actions but don't like the way he tries to make the matter so black and white.
https://twitter.com/evilsax/status/700069269174935552
He tries to sidestep his lack of executive experience and his inability to build coalitions by saying 'Yeah, but I don't have a super PAC and I didn't vote for the Iraq War.'
1. On the Iraq War he clearly made the right vote. I wasn't in government at the time but I was against it too. Barney Frank was in government and he voted against it. Yet he supports Hillary even though she voted for it.
So he doesn't see it as a litmus test that proves she's not a True Progressive. In many ways I see Frank as a kind of model attitude for liberals to take. Frank believes in government being used to help the little guy but he's also always been a pragmatist.
http://www.amazon.com/Frank-Politics-Society-Same-Sex-Marriage/dp/0374280304/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1455577701&sr=8-1&keywords=barney+frank
2. On the super PAC business, I see it as Bernie trying to make things more black and white than they really are. He has a super PAC.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/12/bernie-sanders-super-pac/420930/
When this is pointed out, you hear: 'It's not a super PAC, it's run by a nurses' union not Wall St. donors.'
This misses the point that a makes something a super PAC is not based on who's running it. Nice people can run a super PAC as well-which might even suggest Bernie's whole mantra against it is overstated.
Indeed, part of what we are learning in this campaign is that super PACs aren't necessarily very effective anyway. The joke about Jeb is that he wishes money in politics was as all powerful as Bernie and friends say it it.
RawStory claims that they are 'debunking the lie Sanders has a super PAC' but they don't. The main thing they argue is that they like the folks funding Bernie's super PAC and that his super PAC is actually running the way they should run.
"More importantly, Michael Lighty, the nurses’ union’s director of public policy, says the nurses’ super PAC functions just the way the Supreme Court’s conservative majority fantasized that they would: with genuine independence from the Sanders’ campaign. “In the case of real super PACs, the independence is a fallacy, and when they talk about us – comparing us to those other super PACs – it’s a false equivalency,” he said.
https://www.rawstory.com/2016/02/debunking-the-big-bernie-sanders-has-a-superpac-lie/
Except that he keeps saying he has no super PAC which is false. If anything if you buy this framing, you could say that Bernie has proven that super PACs are fine if done the right way.
He also has ruled against public funding arguing that there's no way you can function under those strictures. True, but then this shows that even he admits you have to have a certain amount of money to run effectively for President.
If he were to actually win the primary he'd no doubt have to start being more aggressive in raising larger sums of money and maybe more aggressive action from super PACs would become necessary for him.
For more on Bernie's money see here.
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2016/02/16/busted-sanders-has-benefitted-from-super-pacsand-hes-accepted-contributions-from-wall-street-n2118995
My problem is his posture of purity. I don't condemn him for his actions but don't like the way he tries to make the matter so black and white.
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