…by getting more votes than her opponent. There was a lot of this annointed nonsense in 2008, too, and she lost the primary.
Eh, Clinton had millions more voters support her than Sanders in the primary.
Sure, but that’s only because she was given debate answers ahead of time and Bernie wasn’t supported with the gusto a major party should show its oldest, whitest, and malest candidate.
Wasn’t he an independent who crashed the dem primary and then got upset cause he was treated like an independent? Isn’t he still an independent? Asking for a friend.
Yea, he’s a wacky DINO.
I don’t think he’s wacky or a DINO, but he hasn’t been a member of the party either. To complain that the dems treated him like he wasn’t a member of their party, when he wasn’t a member of their party, requires some special logic, no?
I’m just glad we’re finally talking about the 2016 primary. These feelings have been repressed and held back for way too long.
He’s technically not a democrat, even in name.
He did get an enormous number of votes from democrats in the primaries, and 2 years later his proposed policies are now de-riguer among the next crop of democratic candidates. Like if you’re not 6’2 and for Medicare for All don’t even fund-raising message me.
ANYWAY.
I hope we can all admit that there’s good people on both sides of this debate. I appreciate Bernie drawing the party to the left, and I appreciate Hillary’s comedic stylings:
You all can live in your bubble of denial. People like competition because they feel like they have a say in the matter and it gets them engaged. When you deprive people of having their say, they either will stay home or have their say voting for someone else.
Look at 2008 and 2020 candidate list. That is what competition looks like if you still want to live in your bubble of denial.
There was competition, Sanders lost. I don’t know why we have to keep going over this again and again. Sharing information just to have it used against them is not a reasonable ask. If someone wants to come in and shake things up, they might just have to do that on their own, and if they have enough support, they can. If they don’t, they are unlikely to win. You don’t boot an incumbent without work.
But changing rules to give more structural advantage to incumbents, especially in the current political landscape, is extremely tone deaf and foolhardy. The party should not be making it easier for incumbents to win. Incumbency is already a huge advantage.
Bwahaha well done.
I think whether the breadth of the 2020 candidate list is a good thing is very much still an open question.
If they’re not ready for an uphill battle, maybe they should reconsider the battle and not complain about the field. There is a reason incumbents have such an advantage. It can still be done, but expecting the establishment to help take down the establishment… they’re spending their energy in the wrong place.
‘So what the district lines were drawn in exceedingly partisan and gerrymandered ways to provide the incumbents a near insurmountable challenge. Don’t complain about the difficulty, just move on with it’
Look I understand why an individual pol would not want to support information sharing like this. But the party should be neutral about whom is, and is not, the candidate. Their interest should be providing the best person for the position. Sometimes that means the person with experience. Sometimes that means you support a challenger to oust Dan Lipinski.
But the party should be more interested in providing the best possible candidate for the position, period. Protecting the incumbent is a bad look, and can be counterproductive.
You think that’s what’s been happening, that’s why we have the same person in there for decades until they just stop running. That somehow there is this party neutrality going on?
It sounds like you want to create a new party. I say go for it.
I’m not saying what is, and I’m not saying what is even nessecarially achievable.
I am saying that making it harder for challengers and creating structural advantage is a poor look in the current climate.
Not really.
Look, let’s look at a reality for a minute here. We have one wholly dysfunctional party full of racists, sexists assholes who believe rules were put on the planet for everyone else to follow.
The Democratic party is not some benevolent party put in the world for everyone who are not those things above. They’re not perfect. It’s still a political machine and the idealists are going to be disappointed in that. Once they get over that, they can try and do some actual work, but just because the GOP fell into a human soup mixture of disgusting proportions does not mean the Democratic party stopped being a political machine. What it has been doing, and can do though is still adjust, still change but you had better bet some of the change will be forced. If they’re not ready for that, well pick another battle.
This sounds like a good general principle but it can’t survive contact with reality. I think the party should care about e.g. whether Howard Schultz is the Dem candidate, or Elizabeth Warren is. The party is supposed to stand for something.
Note that when there is a Democratic incumbent in the WH, the party is pretty much all in behind that candidate against primary challengers. Why should it be different for members of Congress? I’m not saying it shouldn’t be, I’m just saying it isn’t obvious to me why it should be.