SocraticGadfly: Jill Stein or Bernie Sanders?

April 30, 2015

Jill Stein or Bernie Sanders?

Whether Dr. Stein runs again for the Green Party nomination in 2016 or not, I'm using her as a "cutout" for now, vs. Vermont socialist independent left-of-most Dems Democrat Senator, who reportedly could make a presidential announcement within days.  (Your blogger is on a brief vacation and posted this in advance.)

I know who I'll vote for, if Bernie by some miracle wins the general election.

Jill Stein.

My strikethroughs, snark aside, should tell you something.

Bernie's reputation and reality don't quite match up, especially his F-35 bromance with the military-industrial complex. On other foreign policy, contra some people, he doesn't strike me as a hardcore Zionist; and he did join other Dems in boycotting Bibi Netanyahu's speech to Congress, at a minimum.

And, he was a war lover ever since the original Gulf War. Read that piece. Substitute the n-word into Bernie's take, and he sounds like George Wallace or other White South politicos saying in the 1960s that nobody was going to out-n them. Plus, part of why he probably doesn't like to talk about foreign policy issues a lot is that he's illiberal in general on them.

That said, I think he's got about as much chance to get the Democratic nomination as Stein does to be elected president. He's from a very small state; he's seen as progressive enough on fiscal regulatory issues that he'll scare off some big donors; Democratic insiders (outside of those he's sucked up to in Vermont) may not care for him; and I doubt he has much of a national "apparatus" or can assemble one.

Other possible candidates? I think Martin O'Malley's "tough policing" past as mayor of Baltimore, with the riots now happening, will kill him with African Americans in the party. The declared Lincoln Chafee is to the left of Clinton on warhawk foreign policy, if nothing else, even if he used to be a Republican. That said, he did favor partial privatization of Social Security in the past; that said, the Slickteress' hubby did too.

Jim Webb? Late convert to gay rights; very anti-environmental at least on the magic word "coal." Former Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer has dropped back off the radar screen for now.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Living in Texas, voting Green is easy and guilt-free.

The Democrats have not won an election for statewide office in Texas since the mid-90s, when Dan Morales was elected State Attorney General. I think it was in 1996.

So under NO circumstances is a vote for the Green candidate here going to "steal" (to use Gore's phrase from 2000) a vote from the Democrats.

(This ignores the fact that I simply don't like Democrats on the federal level, of coruse...)