Early dismissed as a modern-day Don
Quixote, Bernie Sanders has mounted his Rocinante (1) and, speaking in the best
New Deal tradition is making his charge demonstrating as he does that the much
vaunted Clinton Machine is nothing more than an aging mill twisting, like a
helpless weathervane, vainly in the wind. For this is no Knight-Errant off in
search of adventure, but a true populist in search of social justice.
Accordingly, he has sparked a prairie fire that now threatens the ramparts of
the Democratic ‘Mossbacks ‘seeking to extend the legacy of Bill Clinton into
its fifth term. Attracting tens of
thousands to campaign rallies, 29,000 at a recent rally in Portland Oregon, and
finding himself in a statistical dead heat with Clinton in the State of New
Hampshire, the Sanders campaign now has many long-time political activists
pondering the recently unthinkable. As
Professor Robert Reich posted today on Facebook:
So could it be
a President Sanders after all? A new survey by Ann Selzer, Iowa’s most
respected pollster, shows Hillary Clinton’s lead over Bernie in Iowa has shrunk
to just 7 percentage points, while Donald Trump’s favorability with Republicans
has sharply increased. Meanwhile a Quinnipiac poll released Thursday shows that
in a hypothetical general election match-up, Sanders tops Trump 44% to 39%.
By the way,
here’s what Bernie said this morning on CNN’s “State of the Union," in
response to Jake Tapper's question about whether Hillary would take on the
billionaire class:
"I think that the business model of Wall
Street is fraud. And I think these guys drove us into the worst economic down
turn in the modern history of America. And I think they’re at it again. I
believe when you have so few banks with so much power you have to not only
re-establish Glass–Steagall Act but you’ve got to break them up. That is not
Hillary Clinton’s position. I believe that our trade policies with NAFTA,
CAFTA, PNTR with China have been a disaster. I am helping to lead the effort
against the Trans-Pacific Partnership. That is not Hillary Clinton’s position.
I believe, along with Pope Francis, and almost all scientists, that climate
change is threatening this planet in horrendous ways and that we have to be
aggressive in transforming our energy system away from fossil fuel, and defeat,
and defeat the Keystone pipeline, that is not Hillary Clinton’s position. I
believe that as opposed to my Republican colleagues who want to cut Social
Security, I believe we should expand Social Security by lifting the cap on
taxable income. That’s not Hillary Clinton’s position. I believe that we’ve got
to raise the minimum wage over a period of several years to $15 an hour. Not
Hillary Clinton’s position. I voted against the war in Iraq. Hillary Clinton
voted for it."
Your reaction?" (2)
This, is a great summation of the case
for Bernie. Unless and until Hillary repudiates everything the Democratic
Leadership Council (DLC) did to the Democratic Party and this country, unless
she repudiates the economic legacy of her husband's presidency by adopting a
sensible and long overdue return to the economics of the New Deal, she will get
little support from the progressives in this country. As the polls show, Bernie
Sanders has appeal that transcends the left, as well as the Democratic Party,
tapping an alienation and an anger, long bubbling under the surface, that
thought it had found its champion in Obama 8 years ago and has been disappointed.
Since then the groundswell has only grown and the Democratic Party must prepare
itself for the inevitable realization that Hillary Clinton will not likely be
its standard bearer. The bottom line is
that this windmill, even if it were to unseat the intrepid knight from his
faithful horse, is a hollow, aging edifice not likely to take us anywhere.
__________
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocinante. Rocinante, the name Quixote gave to his
horse, means ‘work horse’ here referring, by analogy, to the ‘commoner’ or ‘common
man’.
2. Robert Reich, Facebook post 8/30/15
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