The CNN story (4/6/16) that laid out the Clinton campaign’s anti-Sanders strategy: “Disqualify him, defeat him and unify the party later.”
On Tuesday, April 5, Bernie Sanders won the Wisconsin Democratic primary by double digits, and his victory speech ran for half an hour on CNN, a rare media moment when he was able to repeat the issues that have resonated with many Democratic primary voters.
After the Wisconsin loss, the Hillary Clinton campaign went into high gear, sending emails out announcing a new strategy of going negative. The next day, CNN (4/6/16) ran a piece by senior Washington correspondent Jeff Zeleny that began, “Hillary Clinton’s campaign is taking new steps to try and disqualify Bernie Sanders in the eyes of Democratic voters.” The story laid out Clinton’s new “three-part strategy” with regard to Sanders: “Disqualify him, defeat him and unify the party later.”
Political strategists know well that attacks can backfire, especially for candidates with high negatives such as Hillary Clinton. Accordingly, the Clinton campaign attacked Sanders through a common political maneuver: They used surrogates.
CNN’s Zeleny reported:
A Clinton campaign fundraising appeal after the Wisconsin primary offered a glimpse into the new approach. The campaign’s deputy communications director, Christina Reynolds, argued that Sanders is unqualified, sending a full transcript of a New York Daily News editorial board interview of Sanders. [Emphasis added.]
“We’ve said for a long time that this primary is about who’s really going to be able to get things done. And from reading this interview, you get the impression Senator Sanders hasn’t thought very much about that,” Reynolds wrote. “In fact, even on his signature issue of breaking up the banks, he’s unable to answer basic questions about how he’d go about doing it, and even seems uncertain whether a president does or doesn’t already have that authority under existing law.”
Though as FAIR (4/7/16) pointed out, the banking issue was a red herring. (“When asked how he would break up the big banks, Sanders said he would leave that up to the banks,” economist Dean Baker wrote. “That’s exactly the right answer.”) But by Wednesday, MSNBC’s Morning Joe (4/6/16) had already picked up the Clinton campaign’s talking points. Host Joe Scarborough repeatedly tried to get Clinton herself to weigh in on whether Sanders was “unqualified” to be president. Instead of answering yes or no, she reiterated the campaign’s carefully massaged strategy: “I think he hadn’t done his homework, and he’d been talking for more than a year about doing things that he obviously hadn’t really studied or understood, and that does raise a lot of questions.”
(As Salon—4/8/16—pointed out, “question” is what Donald Trump did in 2012 regarding Barack Obama’s birth certificate: “I don’t consider myself birther or not birther, but there are some major questions here.”)
The Washington Post (4/6/16) jumped in with a story headlined “Clinton Questions Whether Sanders Is Qualified to Be President.” Though it parrots the Clinton campaign’s talking points against Sanders, it attributed them to anonymous “critics” rather than to the campaign:
Clinton’s comments follow a New York Daily News interview with Sanders that critics say revealed his inability to explain specifically how he would accomplish goals such as breaking up the biggest banks. [Emphasis added]
On Wednesday night, Sanders responded to the charges at a rally at Temple University, where he suggested Clinton was getting a little nervous. “And she has been saying lately that she thinks that I am, quote unquote, not qualified to be president.” He went on to use the phrase as a rhetorical devise to criticize her policy record:
I don’t believe that she is qualified if she is, through her Super PAC, taking tens of millions of dollars in special interest funds. I don’t think that you are qualified if you get $15 million from Wall Street through your Super PAC. I don’t think you are qualified if you have voted for the disastrous war in Iraq. I don’t think you are qualified if you’ve supported virtually every disastrous trade agreement, which has cost us millions of decent-paying jobs.
The next move revealed the sophisticated media-handling of Clinton campaign strategists. Clinton operatives Christina Reynolds and Brian Fallon went on the offensive with, as Salon (4/8/16) put it, “sanctimonious incredulity,” saying, “This is a ridiculous and irresponsible attack for someone to make.” They complained that Clinton herself had never said such a thing, yet Sanders opened his comments with “quote, unquote.”
And that’s when the media storm hit. In the face of Clinton denials, media opened with Bernie Sanders going negative:
- NBC (4/7/16): “Bernie Sanders: Hillary Clinton Not ‘Qualified’ to Be President. The gloves are truly off between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton. Less than 24 hours after Sanders’ big win in Wisconsin, the senator from Vermont hammered Clinton for not being “qualified” to be president.”
- NPR (All Things Considered, 4/7/16): “The Democratic presidential race has turned negative. Bernie Sanders now says Hillary Clinton isn’t qualified to be president.”
- Huffington Post (4/7/16): “Sanders’ criticisms of Clinton focused on her policy positions, but to many of her supporters they came off as a personal insult…. Especially for many older supporters, they have heard throughout their lives that they’re not as qualified as their male counterparts, and they relate personally to the struggles Clinton has faced.”
- Paul Krugman (New York Times, 4/8/16): “The way Mr. Sanders is now campaigning raises serious character and values issues…. There was Wednesday’s rant about how Mrs. Clinton is not ‘qualified’ to be president…. Is Mr. Sanders positioning himself to join the ‘Bernie or bust’ crowd, walking away if he can’t pull off an extraordinary upset, and possibly helping put Donald Trump or Ted Cruz in the White House?”
The ‘Factcheckers’ Step In
By late Thursday afternoon, the website PolitiFact (4/7/16) evaluated Sanders’ claim, asking and answering, “Did Hillary Clinton Say Bernie Sanders ‘Not Qualified’ to Be President? Not Directly.” Sanders’ claim was “mostly false,” it found, citing Morning Joe, where Clinton only “questioned” his qualifications. When the Sanders campaign pointed to the CNN report saying that the Clinton campaign would “disqualify him, defeat him and unify the party later,” PolitiFact retorted that the CNN article says “Clinton spokeswoman Christina Reynolds argued that Sanders is unqualified,” not Clinton.
What a difference a day makes: Washington Post headlines before and after Bernie Sanders calling Hillary Clinton “unqualified” became a campaign issue.
Even more curious was the Washington Post’s (4/7/16) review of Sanders’ claim in a piece titled “Sanders’ Incorrect Claim That Clinton Called Him ‘Not Qualified’ for the Presidency.” The Post gave Sanders three-out-of-four pinocchios for dishonesty, saying: “Sanders is putting words in Clinton’s mouth. She never said ‘quote unquote’ that he was not qualified to be president…. He can’t slam her for words she did not say.”
The Post gave itself no pinocchios for headlining its own article the day before, “Clinton Questions Whether Sanders Is Qualified to Be President.” It offered instead, “The art of headline writing is an imperfect art.” Not only doesn’t the Post hold Clinton responsible for her campaign’s negative attacks, it treats her use of surrogates to make negative attacks as a positive, saying “she diplomatically went out of her way to avoid saying” that Sanders was unqualified.
In the face of Sanders’ responding in kind, Clinton retreated by way of a similarly disingenuous comment she made to reporters outside Yankee stadium on Thursday. CBS (4/7/16) and other media reported that Clinton laughed off the attack when reporters asked her to react to Sanders: “Well, it’s kind of a silly thing to say.” She added, “I don’t know why he’s saying that. But I will take Bernie Sanders over Donald Trump or Ted Cruz any time, so let’s keep our eye on what’s really at stake in this election.”
As Clinton backed off from the “disqualify” strategy, Sanders backed off as well, telling the Today show (4/8/16), “I respect Hillary Clinton, we were colleagues in the Senate, and on her worst day she would be an infinitely better president than either of the Republican candidates.” He acknowledged to Charlie Rose (CBS Evening News, 4/7/16) that he was responding to the Clinton camp’s declarations that “they’re going to go much more negative on us.”
But in the aftermath of the Wisconsin win, the media frame was not about Sanders’ momentum, Clinton’s connection to the Panamanian tax haven or, as US Uncut (4/8/16) reported, three major policy wins for Bernie Sanders, but how Sanders had gone negative and was untruthful. It occupied the news cycle for days, knocking out a barrage of bad press that was hobbling her in the run-up to the New York primary. With a lot of help from media friends, the Clinton people rewrote the news.
Robin Andersen, author of A Century of Media, a Century of War, teaches media studies at Fordham University. Follow her @MediaPhiled.
Madame Mayhem and minions are loathsome, but it’s queasy time for me as well when I hear “Mr. Integrity” praise her (and Dear Misleader) out of political expediency.
Call a shady spade just that, if your principles mean more than merely “branding”.
hobbling *him*?
I voted for Sanders in the Massachusetts primary. I regret it after the way his campaign has been going lately. This attempt to recast all of his recent blunders as a media conspiracy falls flat. He said what he said. Attacking Clinton personally for failings that are common to every Democratic (and Republican) politician would make more sense if he weren’t running as a Democrat.
Clinton said what she said, and unfortunately, she was pretty much right. The NYDN interview was embarrassing, and I don’t see why releasing the transcript was somehow “dirty”. Are we supposed to just suppress everything unflattering Sanders does?
Clinton is about 2.4 million popular votes ahead of Sanders (who has 42% of the popular vote, but 46% of pledged delegates). Progressive views are not mainstream in this conservative country. Can we just admit that? It’s got nothing to do with some imaginary love for Clinton by “media friends”.
The last straw for me was when Sanders demurred on helping down-ballot candidates. Sanders voters helped elect conservative Justice Rebecca Bradley in Wisconsin. (11.5% of Sanders voters didn’t vote for down-ballot candidates at all, vs. 4% of Clinton voters. 10% of Sanders voters voted for Bradley, vs. 4% of Clinton voters.) Would it have killed him to put in a word for JoAnne Kloppenburg? If he’s just going to ignore the races that need to be won down-ballot, how is he going to get anything done as President? Yes, I’ve read Sanders’ defense that he won’t support people who don’t support him. His party choice was opportunistic; it would behoove him to make the first gesture. The “coattails” that are all he offers people to ride didn’t carry Kloppenburg.
And no, I don’t expect to change anyone’s mind with this rant. I’ve always had respect for Sanders, but never had the glazed eyes I’m seeing on his supporters now. Jill Stein is running in the party she belongs to, and thus avoids all the contradictions Sanders has ended up with.
Sounds like good critisism of Sanders – I understand your frustration.
I’m responding though to: “Progressive views are not mainstream in this conservative country. Can we just admit that?”
Yes, but why is US conservative – insert corrupt, violent, ignorant, criminal, unequal, racist/prejudice/narrow-minded, imperial, wasteful and eco-savage ?
Surely mass media has something to do with designing that?
You are absolutely right. I have been an EXTRA! subscriber since 1994, and still read the pitiful remains of the print edition, so I’m well schooled. My comment on the country’s conservatism was simplified for space (trying to keep my rant under 1,000 words). I just don’t think the media coverage of the Democratic primary is the most glaring example (but then I read the Boston Globe, print edition, which even in its state of decline does better than most). The mass media isn’t the only creator of Ugly America; they didn’t invent racism, xenophobia, Christian Conservatism or the Tea Party out of whole cloth. It’s complicated, and I was trying to avoid an endless “on the other hand”. I just meant that with the electorate we’ve got now (minus ex-felons and all the other disenfranchised) the current media coverage is not the sole villain here.
Cecelia Schmieder:
You don’t appear to have read the Fair reporting.
And in fact, it’s not likely you voted for Sanders in the Mass primary. You read like a somewhat sophisticated concern troll.
And the fact that you bring up vote totals tells me that you don’t care about the votes of caucus goers, whose votes are not recorded.
It’s embarrassing to you and Clinton that you think there some problem with Sanders’ answers in the NY Daily News interview. You come off here as someone cutting and pasting from a pro-Hillary forum. I suggest you read the interview.
Cecelia Schmieder:
I want to second the suggestion that you should study the transcripts:
http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/transcript-bernie-sanders-meets-news-editorial-board-article-1.2588306
This notion that Bernie botched the interview is too simplified, tossing out important context. Its absurd to emphasize that “Hillary is right,” and to say that the NYDN article was embarrassing for Bernie. There’s little of a problem to see here if you just ACTUALLY the digest the transcript instead of the headlines or opinions!
Upon close inspection, you will see errors in the editor’s line of questioning. While addressing the break up of big banks, they flip between discussing use of the Treasury and use of the Federal Reserve… these two things aren’t interchangeable! Nevertheless, the editor presses as if these departments play the same role. Additionally, the Dodd-Frank legislation gives POTUS the authority to decide that a bank poses a threat to the economy through its instability as a bank-too-big-to-fail.
This is pretty simple, as far as the POTUS is concerned, and yet, the editor kept pressing on the details of HOW the banks could be broken up. This was not only Bernie’s intial response, but it was also the SAME IDEA that Hillary Clinton had when she used to believe in splitting the big banks. Proof:
Then, you see that Sanders makes a comment that POTUS isn’t a dictator (referencing how it is not and should not be the responsibility of the POTUS to design the details of how the bank divides), and that the banks’ restructuring would be up to the banks themselves
(which, they have their rights of freedom to do, as they should. Could you imagine an America where the POTUS can have complete hierarchical authority over the banks? It doesn’t work like that)
I am not a professional journalist, so check out the Huffington Post article, where they also cover MORE errors with the DailyNews editor:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/bernie-sanders-daily-news_us_5704779ce4b0a506064d8df5
Or if videos are how you fancy your knowledge, the Young Turks break it down pretty well too:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OB6gq-NO0_0
So what happened? It seemed like Sanders had a couple moments of confusion when the editor made their mistakes, although to Bernie’s fairness, he said he didn’t know if the federal reserve had any authority, BUT HE DOESN’T NEED TO know that. Bernie is a Senator, he gets that the law changes frequently, and so its really politically wise to state the certainties he knows, and he got it correct. Furthermore, Jane Sanders later commented that the interview was fast paced, so they sort of moved forward. It’s not like Bernie would want to give the NY a lecture on their errors.
The media blowing up simplified, context-stripped reports on this is problematic, and frankly, its not the only time that the media is…
critical on Sanders with logical fallacy,
Or is evasive, refusing to cover him when relevant
(think about the time CNN, FoxNews, and MSNBC LITERALLY recorded Donald Trump’s empty podium instead of a Sander speech on March 15th http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/03/16/cable-news-covers-everyones-speech-sanders-who-made-mistake-discussing-policy)
Or echoes identical, yet weak commentary that the Clinton campaign officially attacks him on
(For example, how she promotes herself as “getting stuff done,” which attempts to slap Bernie as unrealistic. But what I interpret from that is vagueness. What are you going to get done Hillary? Are you going to compromise with Republicians on conservative half-loaves to get stuff done? (her record reveals that not only has she done that before, but also that on a fair amount of issues, such as going to war, tax breaks and even the recent Fair Trade deals, she is conservative at heart) HOW are you going to do the things you are talking about? Bernie has laid out his plans on his own website)
Or repeatedly frames his policies on the negative trade-offs on his policy
(Like here,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olH_0JnJiA0
where CNN puts emphasis on ‘punishment’ to the idea of taxing the rich)
And let’s not forget a couple things about the media.
Firstly, the media maximizes its profits with sensationalist media. Bernie, ACTUALLY TALKING POLICY as often as he does, is not appealing for the media to cover, but is, with no question, the most elaborate and clear candidate on his plans. It’s on his website for crying out loud.
Secondly, CNN is owned by Time Warner. MSNBC is owned by Comcast. Both Time Warner and Comcast are among Hillary Clinton’s top 10 donors. This is not a tin-foil hat concern, its a clear conflict of interest!
If you are going to argue that the “Hillary takes money from big donors” concerns fall flat, then you are wrong for a couple reasons.
[1] Big corporate donations happen at freqeunt fundraisers that Clinton holds, this is in the news! Donors draw association to Clinton through the obligatory influence and gratitude of recieving money. Donors have access to directly socializing Clinton. Donors are literally everyone around Clinton, sharing common self-interests. Clinton too, that taking 6 digits of money from Goldman Sachs for speeches, and then, stabbing WallStreet in the back, risks her chances at donations in the future. Finally, Clinton also has a conflict of interest through the Clinton Foundation which receives donations.
[2] Flip the tables. If you were a big corporation that wanted to make investments that would help the company, why would you give donations to a candidate? Surely, you must be confident in them to make high donations. THAT is telling, that this big companies see something in Clinton to the point where they are investing hundreds of thousands of dollars to her.
Anyway, I digressed on a tangent. As I was saying before, Hillary is endorsed by many of the companies that own the mainstream media, host the debates and town-halls, ect. If you were working as an anchor on any of these outlets, it would be in your best interest to cater to the executives to increase your shot at personal-promotions, ect. This is climbing the ladder, the American Dream. It would also be the same case for most of your co-workers. Therefore, you are also in a community that promotes the same group-think catering upward.
Ok, thirdly, its not like Sander’s proposals are helpful to the media industry’s interests. They aren’t. Bernie’s tough anti-establishment rhetoric is clearly against how CNN and MSNBC operate. They are PRO-establishment, because that is what allows them to get access to establishment politicians who are not interested in participating with heavily negative and critical coverage. Donald Trump made this phenomenon worse when he refused to go on a Fox News debate after being challenged by Megyn Kelly. So the anchors are nice to the politicians, and the executives have cherry-picked them, the pro-establishment reporters. They aren’t with Bernie, because Bernie will go onto the media regardless as the underdog, though Bernie doesn’t increase ratings for LIVE TV where they are trying to yield the ad revenue.
These are all, each basic, easy to explain psychological factors that build up against Bernie. They are just many. None of us are buying you when you say some media “conspiracy” fails flat.
It’s patronizing to brush off these phenomenons and instead describe this all as “imaginary love for Clinton by her media friends.”
Now, not many of us are saying that any of these systems are intentional, but with how they operate, all incentives point toward Clinton, and she also knows how to abuse it for coverage.
Also, I’m not sure what bubble you live in. Maybe you are from down south? Progressive politics are popular! They address workers, families, the middle class, minorities, the demographics when all added up, are a majority of Americans. But sure, you can indeed eliminate many people who think conservatively to kiss power and climb up the ladder.
The truth is, this crony Ronald Reagan capitalism cannot survive with the low and middle classes in recession.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9xSVzdUNqo
The stock market will crash again, or WORSE (you can see on the news that violence is already happening (at Trump rallies, but still)). Its okay to sway a little bit toward this (not so SCARY) thing called socialism, to correct the flaws with capitalism that we are currently spun into. To restore the American dream, society needs to acknowledge fairly that yes, a college education HAS INDEED become a requirement to get into the middle class, but it makes 5-6 digits of debt mandatory.
It also alienates low class students that might not afford education.
And other vulnerable Americans HAVE TO be able to get by on a livable wage! The increase of goods has gone up steady while the minimum wage has made less changes to meet up for that. $15 is MUCH more empathetic! And given studies that happiness with wealth tappers off after $75,000 in income, we need to question some of the OUTSTANDING salaries of corporate executives. Slicing up some of their income FORCES the trickle down to the workers and not the trickle down to their pockets. Wealth Inequality is OUTSTANDING, and Sanders is STRONG for discussing this issue.
And let’s not forget too, that we also have to be super aggressive about climate change! Not “incremental” about change. No, many scientists are saying that its already too late to reverse global warming and are shifting studies to how we can reduce it.
As for the down-ballot, I think you have a very valid concern. We do need democrats locally and in senate and congress. Frankly this is about the only thing great that Clinton is doing, fundraising for them. However, so much evidence points to Democrats as the same push-overs to corporate interests, just more coy than the Republicans. We need more progressives, Sanders knows this, and I think that’s the context behind his hesitation. I would be concerned if I were him too. Although, I would settle with a congress of Dem push-overs than super corrupt aggressive tea-party Republican loyalists
All in all, I hope the Clinton campaign crashes soon. Through its traditional dirty political schemes which normal American people are sick of, it is truly contributing a lot of negativity to the democratic party. Many independents might be flipping over to Trump right now. I can only hope that democrats wake up, and wash these conditioned, defeatist lies of falsely branded “pragmatism” and “realistic.”
Bernie has an outstanding record, has been a politician much longer than Clinton, and has gotten progressive things done by being aggressive. When you push for a whole loaf, its more easier to settle on the half loaf. But when you are Obama or Clinton, decide to be friends with people and voluntarily jump to the half loaf, the Tea Party will drag you to a conservative center. In a nation that has a lot of concerns that need actions yesterday, Bernie is the check and balance we need in the oval office.
I have my suspicions as well. This is one of several posts I’ve read like this lately, that just rings false. And then there’s the stomach churning essay in The Nation by Tom Hayden. The Bernie Bro smears erupted all at once in similar fashion.
Just, wow. I wondered what would happen if I posted my true feelings, and here it is. What on earth do I gain from this? I’m using my real name–not a very troll-y thing to do. I still have my EXTRA!s from 1994 (yes, I’m a pack rat)–the cover headline for January/February was ” 20/20: Out of Focus on Nuclear Issues”; inside was “When ‘Both Sides’ Aren’t Enough: The Restricted Debate Over Health Care Reform”. April’s EXTRA!Update was headed “Walsh Report’s Scandalous Coverage” (remember Iran-Contra?). But then, I can’t prove my creds to you (unless you can find the FAIR donor list), any more than you can prove to me that you’re not a Trump supporter. And there is no way I can show you my ballot marked for Sanders(I”m not part of the selfie generation; I don’t even own a cellphone). Believe me or not.
It’s amusing that the article above criticizes the Clinton camp for releasing the interview transcript, and you criticize me for supposedly not reading it. Yes, I read it. I always try to find the full transcripts to read, because quotes out of context can be so deceptive, and the summaries usually leave out the most interesting bits. You may not find anything wrong with it; in that case, you should be happy it was released. Don’t try to have it both ways.
Yes, the vote totals of caucus-goers are recorded and included in the totals. Your are misinformed. Try looking at thegreenpapers.com and brush up on party rules.
Okay, that’s it for your ad hominem attacks and factual errors. Anything else?
Cecelia Schmieder:
No, caucus goers’ vote totals are NOT recorded (Hawaii would be an exception). That you’d make a blanket assertion to the contrary shows you’ve not been paying attention.
WTF does Iran Contra coverage have to do with the fact that you didn’t bother to read the NY Daily News interview, the one where Sanders specifically says passing legislation is a way to break up bigger banks?
Your over long defense doesn’t win you points. Read the interview.
Bernie Sanders is the only candidate for president who promises to act in a way that will cause wealth to flow downward toward the impoverished lower-half of society, all the other candidates want the wealth to stay exactly where it has always been, namely all wealth owned by the upper-half of society.
Comes now you to talk, not about actions, but words, only worthless noisy and pure confusion words.
I’m not sure what you mean by “pure confusion words”. I would love the Sanders agenda to become reality. That’s why I’m so angry he hasn’t been supporting the down-ballot. Please don’t treat every criticism as heresy; it just makes the Sanders camp look like a religious cult.
Sanders takes criticism better than you; since my first post he’s announced he’s splitting his take with three candidates: Lucy Flores (Nevada), Pramila Jayapal (Seattle), and the great Zephyr Teachout of New York.
“Sanders voters helped elect conservative Justice Rebecca Bradley in Wisconsin.”
That’s somehow Sanders’ fault? One would think it was Bradley’s supporters, among them Scott Walker, who helped elect her.
“I’ve read Sanders’ defense that he won’t support people who don’t support him.”
Sanders is on record as saying that he’ll throw his support behind Clinton if she wins the Democratic nomination. Would Clinton do the same if Sanders wins the nomination?
However, I’d like to see Sanders prove your point correct by reneging on his promise to back Clinton if she’s the Democratic candidate. If he wants his revolution to continue, he shouldn’t put the brakes on it by supporting a candidate who represents more of the same. Rather, he should run as an independent or, if he chooses not to run, endorse a third party candidate.
Yes, electing Bradley is partly Sanders’ fault, in my opinion. I’m not the only one who felt burned by Kloppenburg’s loss. Giving his supporters a heads-up about her candidacy would have cost him nothing.
Yes, Clinton has promised all along to support Sanders if he’s the nominee. That, and supporting the down-ballot, is party discipline 101.
Sanders responds better to criticism than his supporters–since my first post he’s announced he’s splitting his take with three candidates: Lucy Flores (Nevada), Pramila Jayapal (Seattle), and the great Zephyr Teachout of New York. Please stop acting like the Spanish Inquisition, people: you’re making Sanders look bad.
Or it could be partly Clinton’s fault too.
In what way is it Clinton’s fault? Clinton voters voted for Kloppenburg at much higher rates than Sanders voters.
In reply to your earlier post, which doesn’t have a reply button: I apologize, you’re right, not all caucuses are in those numbers. However, besides Hawaii, several other caucus states and territories are counted: Alaska. Colorado, American Samoa, Northern Mariana Islands, Idaho, and Utah. The numbers I used came from:
http://www.thegreenpapers.com/P16/D
I read the goddamn transcript–stop assuming I must be ignorant if I disagree with you. Firmly believing that anyone who disagrees with you must be ill-informed will not help you “win” arguments. I’m not interested in “winning”; I don’t know all the answers, and prefer ambivalence and self-doubt to self-righteous certainty. I don’t like being called a liar, though. I mentioned those old EXTRA!s because you made an ad hominem attack on the reality of my EXTRA! subscription.
Finally, if you don’t like over-long defenses, don’t make such vicious attacks. The Sanders cultists calling me a troll and plant have really turned me off his campaign. Sanders responds to criticism better than his supporters: please tone down the insults and nastiness for his sake. I still want his platform to get a fair hearing.
You need to look at the word “could”.
And you’ll need really broad exit polls to confirm the claim that Clinton voters voted for the better judge in by greater margins.
Sorry, even though you claim you read the NY Daily News interview, you missed a great deal of very clear English.
I did the math on the vote totals including the caucus states of Iowa, Maine, Nevada, and Washington. I couldn’t find voter turnout numbers for Wyoming, but since the state’s total population is less than 600,000, that wouldn’t significantly alter the result. The revised totals:
Clinton 9,626,032
Sanders 7,358,512
Including the caucuses cuts her lead by 113,606 votes–not sure why anyone thinks this makes a significant difference.
The raw numbers I used (voter totals are from turnout estimates):
Iowa: CL 49.9%/ SA 49.6%/ 171,109V= CL 85,383V / SA 84,870V
Maine: CL 35.5%/ SA 64.3%/ 46,800V= CL 16,614V / SA 30,093V
Nevada: CL 52.6%/ SA 47.3%/ 80,000V= CL 42,080V / SA 37,840V
Washington: CL 27.1%/ SA 230,000V= CL 62,330V / SA 167,210V
(CL=Clinton, SA=Sanders, V=votes)
This gives Clinton another 206,407 votes vs. Sanders 320,013 votes. These are rough numbers (there is no official popular vote tally), but it is mathematically impossible for this to be a hidden Sanders lead. Even if Sanders won every caucus vote, along with every single resident of Wyoming, he’d still be trailing Clinton badly.
Okay, that’s it. I’m done with you jokers, done with Sanders, and done with FAIR. I’m off to cancel my EXTRA! subscription and complain about all the money I’ve thrown away supporting them since 1999.
Cecelia Schmieder:
If you did the “math” you have to provide links to your sources for caucus votes, you can’t simply announce that these are the totals you’ve come up with.
You don’t seem familiar with basic rules of research, like not reading the NY Daily News interview.
Im calling bullshit on you–you sound like a plant, and its not too tough to see that you wouldnt vote for Sanders if your life depended on it.
Good lord, what on earth for I gain by lying? I’m using my real name. Do you think I like being called a plant and a troll? Would you say that to my face? The internet is a nasty place, which is why I don’t spend too much time here. As I said above, I am not part of the selfie generation. I can’t show you my ballot marked for Sanders. I’ve been following Sanders’ career since he was our friendly socialist mayor to the north. Don’t believe me if you don’t want to, but you might try engaging with my arguments instead of trying to shut me up.
exactly, there are many of these plants on the internet right now. i see them in every comment section regarding stories about bernie sanders. hillary clinton is pure evil. she knows she’s on a thin wire and is seeing that she could easily lose this (btw, if she does lose it, she’s going to prison! so, it’s not just a i-want-to-be-president thing anymore lol!) but this hillary clinton is truly the definition of evil. she has no ethics whatsoever and every move she makes is a calculated move, anticipating the way her opponents will react. she plants ideas in her opponents minds and then has the “perfect” response to brush it all off and make her look good. but she doesn’t look good without her media cronies. without any of that, she would look on the outside how we all know she is on the inside, pure selfishness, pure evil, a candidate with no real political position on anything, no real opinions, just whatever she needs to do and say to get what she wants.
and on another note, if we want the news media to change, we have to stop paying attention to it. way too many people can’t seem to grasp this concept. the news media is a business, first and foremost, and you are not their customers, the advertisers are the customers. you are the product. your attention is the product that is sold to advertisers. so, how do you create change in the news media? how do you create a truthful honest news media? (something that quite possibly has never existed in america btw)—how do you do that? you stop paying attention to it. turn off the tv, throw away the newspapers, delete the apps, stop going to the websites, stop sharing the articles, shut it down. when these companies don’t have product (remember, that’s you) to sell to advertisers, they will have no choice but to change.
**fake post, works for clinton**
No one seems to understand that when Sanders used the terms “quote-unquote”, he was obviously referring to the unofficial nature of being qualified to be President (i.e. not just the legal requirements).
Everyone understands that. The trouble is that by those standards, every US President has been unqualified since they stopped getting their wealth from slaves (and FDR’s inherited wealth was partly built on slave sugar). Don’t get me started on the Presidents who have not just voted for, but instigated, unjust wars (and yeah, maybe some of them should have been impeached). The problem with these attacks is that he has singled Clinton out for the sins of the Democratic Party and the whole American electoral system. It’s not a strategy likely to help him win over those super delegates, even if he weren’t trailing so badly in the popular vote. I voted for Sanders, but I don’t like where his campaign has been going lately.
Let’s just stick with Hillary’s service on the Walmart board, bad for women. And then there’s the racism of overthrowing dictators in Iraq and Libya, brown Arabs don’t really matter in that world view. Hillary is real implicated in that second crime.
I am 47 years old and have been following politics since I was eleven, so, teach your grandmother. All I said was that Clinton is no better or worse than the general run of Democratic party candidates. Sanders attacking her highlights the contradictions of his running as a Democrat. You do know Jill Stein is running on the Green Party ticket, right? I did mention her.
But yeah, I am guilty of thinking that there’s a meaningful difference between Clinton and Trump. The Honduran coup is less bad than WWIII. Clinton has some nasty racial justice issues in her past (and Sanders also voted for the 1994 crime bill), but she is not a white supremacist like Trump. ( The overthrow of Muammar Gaddaafi was a lot of things, but , racist? You lost me there.) Clinton has apologized for her Iraqi war vote, and Obama is still standing behind the Libya intervention (it’s only the aftermath he doesn’t like), so again, these are sins of party and system. I am worried that anti-Clinton hyperbole (combined with a weird underestimation of what Trump is promising to do) is going to end up electing the Anti-Christ (meaning Trump or Cruz). Again, if you want to maintain your revolutionary purity , vote for Stein.
” teach your grandmother” WTF is that?
Hilary backed the Iraq war long after her vote.
Yes, destroying a functioning Libya state was racist. And I explained exactly why, that you didn’t bother to read my very short post says more about your fails than anything else.
“Teach your grandmother to suck eggs” is the full slang phrase; it means you are trying to explain something to a person who is at least as familiar with the subject as you.
So Obama is racist? Are the Libyans who wanted us to intervene racist? I’m not a fan of regime change, but, sorry, you did not explain yourself in a way that would convince anyone who doesn’t already agree with you. I read every word of all your posts. If you aren’t convincing someone, try to explain it better–insults aren’t arguments.
You don’t seem real familiar with the subject: Example not understanding the Fair reporting or the NY Daily News interview transcript puts you in a bad place.
Yes, Obama is racist in this case.
“Are the Libyans who wanted us to intervene racist? ” The fact that you bring up these Libyans tells me you’ve not paid attention to the results of that 2011 war.
Drew, somehow your post is missing a reply button, but this post is an attempt to address some of your points.
First: as I’ve said before: I read the transcript when it first surfaced. I kind of resent all the people that assume I must not have read it (get used to people reading the same thing as you and seeing it differently, it happens to me every day) . I always try to find the full transcript and read that; I hate reading what Nader has called “sound-barks”. I already read the Huff-Po defense you link to. It makes all the points I noticed reading the transcript, but doesn’t erase the fact he was flustered at being questioned by idiots–something Presidential candidates have to be able to deal with. I’ve lived through enough presidential campaigns to know that only Republicans are allowed to flub the pop quiz. The author, Ryan Grim, lists his own qualms about Sanders in parentheses near the end.
As I already said, the transcript release is painted as a devious Clinton move in the above article. If it’s not embarrassing, then it’s not devious to release it. You can’t have it both ways. He has to be able to handle somewhat hostile and garbled questioning if he’s going to make it as a general election candidate.
Second: yes, I believe in media bias and manipulation. I wouldn’t support FAIR if I didn’t. I just didn’t see an egregious example of it here. Disagree or not in this case, but don’t call me a media bias denier. I do tend more to Chomsky’s views, that these views are so internalized that conspiracy isn’t necessary.
Third: I don’t need lessons in the wisdom of Sanders’ platform. I support his platform, that’s why I voted for him! My recent qualms have nothing to do with that.
Fourth: I’ve spent my whole life going back and forth on how much of Ugly America is due to misinformation vs.racism, xenophobia, and christian religious fanaticism. If I only voted for candidates I agree with on every issue, I wouldn’t even be able to vote for myself. That old reactionary H.L. Mencken said, “you can’t reason a person out of a position they haven’t reasoned themselves into” (gender-neutral paraphrase, and from memory, sorry). With the rise of Trump (and Cruz etc.) I’m tending towards that pessimistic view.
Here’s my counterargument against my current pessimism that we have the country we deserve (I printed them out when they were first published, in 2011 and 2014); you should use them in your arguments, they’re rigorous and compelling. The first is about perceived vs. actual vs. desired inequality levels:
http://www.people.hbs.edu/mnorton/norton%20ariely.pdf
The second is about the will of the people being ignored in favor of the will of the elites:
https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/files/gilens_and_page_2014_-testing_theories_of_american_politics.doc.pdf
I’ve probably missed something, but here’s one more thing: contrary to your assumption I live in the south, I’ve lived in bluest-of-blue Massachusetts all my life. I said in the first sentence of my first post that I voted in the Mass primary. That has lots of advantages (I can usually vote my conscience without repercussion, thanks to the stupid Electoral college system). However, even here, it’s not a progressive paradise: Boston went through a bloody school integration battle in the 1970’s that is still such a sensitive topic it has to be referred to by the euphemism “school busing”. Also, the south IS part of this country. I was among those joking about joining the United States of Canada and leaving Jesusland to its own devices after the Five Supremes handed George W. Bush the presidency, but it ain’t gonna happen.
Lastly, I’m glad you share my concerns about the down-ballot. A lot of people called me a troll while I was living my real-world life, but fortunately, Sanders takes criticism better than his supporters (I’m not the only one who blew my top when Kloppenburg went down), and has just announced that he will start splitting his take with three down-ballot candidates: Lucy Flores (Nevada), Pramila Jayapal (Seattle), and the great Zephyr Teachout of New York.
P.S. I can’t watch your video links because my wonky internet connection can’t handle that sort of thing. I’m not a video person, anyway; it’s been a couple of decades since I had a TV.
Whoops, too much time online makes mush of my brain–United States of Canada vs.Jesusland was in 2004; the George W. Bush elections got mashed together in my mind. He (sort of) won 2004, which is what made it even more depressing. I had the map up on the fridge for years, next to the county-by-county results. That showed the blue route down the Missisippi we could use to re-liberate the South. Before I get southerners attacking me, please, it was just a joke to help us survive W.
Hmm, the comment where I made the error is still in Moderation Hell awaiting links check. Hope this isn’t too confusing if it jumps the line.