Can a Socialist Sway Texas Democrats?

[TexasTowelie]

[font color=green]Article from the Texas Observer.[/font]

There’s one question Democrats face as they head into the 2016 presidential election. How should they feel about Hillary Clinton? The coalition Barack Obama built happily came out to vote in his two presidential elections, but turnout was pathetic in 2010 and 2014 when he wasn’t on the ticket. Clinton’s ability to inherit that coalition is debatable.

Some of the party’s faithful just want to maximize their chances of taking a third consecutive term, and they think the Clintons’ careful and calculated brand of center-left politics is the thing to do it. Others are antsy. They’ve seen the GOP’s far right drag their party to them with great success, and they want someone to subject Clinton to the same type of pressures. But they need a candidate. Elizabeth Warren has declined to run, and Martin O’Malley is a ball of ambition.

Enter U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), Congress’ sole self-avowed socialist, who came through Texas at the beginning of April in the middle of a cross-country trip whose purpose, he said, was to judge the energies of the left and to raise money in anticipation of a possible primary run against Clinton. Sanders would be as unusual a candidate as we’ve seen in America for quite some time. He’s not quite a Dennis Kucinich or a Mike Gravel, but it’s not that he’s setting out to win either. His self-proclaimed models are people such as Jesse Jackson and Howard Dean, who ran and lost, but inspired future political activists.

Obama’s 2008 campaign, Sanders told the Observer at an Austin Tex-Mex restaurant, “will go down in history as one of the great campaigns ever run.” But, he continued, “the day after the election, he said, ‘Thank you for electing me, but I think I can go on from here without you. I do not need the millions of people who were actively involved in my campaign.’” The kind of change the left wants, he said, is not possible without “mass organized activity” of the kind that has not existed in the country in some five decades—the kind Sanders experienced as a young man in the civil rights, anti-war and kibbutz movements.

http://www.texasobserver.org/bernie-sanders-presidential-run/

Cross-posted in the Bernie Sanders Group.

[daleanime]

1. Thanks....

[smokey nj]

2. I don't think the Socialist thing is going to be the

detriment people think it's going to be. In fact it's likely to be embraced by young people. Let's face it, the word's been tossed around so much, it's lost it's umph.

[merrily]

6. He is not a socialist. He's a democratic socialist who has run as an indie for many years.

Socialists believe in government ownership. Democratic socialism works within capitalism.

[smokey nj]

7. I know that.

[merrily]

8. Ok.

[TBF]

16. Not necessarily government ownership -

but collective ownership (important distinction imo). But I agree that democratic socialism means working within capitalism (which I am not crazy about but that is what Bernie advocates). He is so much more promising than any other candidate I've seen so far. I think he would be an FDR-style president who would embrace creating jobs to shore up our infrastructure (similar to PWA or TVA type programs). And I think our country desperately needs that along with more progressive taxation.

[merrily]

19. Thank you. It is a very important distinction.

I am very confident that he would look at the entire picture, instead of looking at what helps job creators and *wink wink* assuming they will take care of the rest of America.

That never worked. Not in the days of the East India Company, not in the Victorian Era and certainly not in the Era of uber greed. And, I expect he will help unions, the only ones who ever worried about workers (as opposed to voters).

[TBF]

24. All good points -

It is amazing how distorted the thinking is currently. If nothing else he is forcing folks to talk in a serious way about class and income inequality. A NYTimes article yesterday wrote about two recent studies in which "Americans across the economic spectrum did indeed severely misjudge the amount of upward mobility in society" (my OP here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10248158).

I blame FOX news, amongst other parties.

[merrily]

25. And I thank Occupy

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=6607007

[L0oniX]

3. A positive immigration documentation stance may be a plus for Bernie in Texas.

[Dustlawyer]

4. If we could get many of them registered we could help a lot of Democrats, but not

enough to turn us blue yet.

[merrily]

14. He seems to be garnering a youth following. Registering at universities and educating them in their

right to vote may help.

Thing is, fuck getting rid of ACORN and not replacing it. We got rid of ACORN and the Koch brothers have been setting up organizations to register people in Republican strongholds. So, lose lose.

[smokey nj]

18. I'm still pissed about the party going along with that

Breitbart/O'Keefe nonsense. It was obvious to anyone with a brain that it was all bullshit

[merrily]

20. The party did not go along. The party had a strong majority then. The party did what it wanted.

And they couldn't even do it fast enough to take all the references to ACORN out of the bill. Hence the law wound up in court as an unconstitutional bill of attainder. How it eventually got upheld is beyond me.

It was obvious to anyone with a brain that it was all bullshit

Exactly.

[smokey nj]

21. By went a long, I meant believed the story.

I wonder what impact the destruction of ACORN had on the 2010 mid-terms.

[merrily]

22. I'm not sure what they believed, either It was one hell of a rush to kill off ACORN.

Last edited Sat May 2, 2015, 08:12 AM - Edit history (1)

Why would Democrats have done that? Without waiting for the video to be examined?

The poor people ACORN registered were far more likely to vote Democratic than Republican. Why has there been no effort to replace ACORN, even though Democrats KNOW, from the IRS hearings, if nothing else, that one Teabagger not for profit after another has been springing up to register and educate voters?

Food for thought.

[smokey nj]

23. Indeed.

[merrily]

5. Fuck media. HE IS A DEMOCRATIC SOCIALIST, WHICH IS VERY DIFFERENT FROM SOCIALIST.

They do this deliberately. So do some at DU.

[TexasTowelie]

9. The Texas Observer

is considered to be on the left as far as media goes in Texas. It's mostly freelance journalists that write articles for them.

[merrily]

12. Left in this country usually means establishment, even on MSNBC. TO got a very important

point wrong. If you just so much as glance at his damn wiki, you can get the correct info, so I don't know how to explain the error.

In any case, motive is irrelevant in this instance.

Do they have an ombudsman you can contact so they don't keep doing this?

[BrotherIvan]

10. It is part of a plan to marginalize him

The "socialist" label is the Dean Scream. We have to educate to counter it.

[merrily]

13. Most of that is up to Bernie and media. We can support Bernie.

We can also call media on it when we see it. Write letters to the editor, or email a radio station, for example. Be vigilant.

[BrotherIvan]

15. Absolutely

[Enthusiast]

11. PLUS ONE, a whole bunch!

[malokvale77]

17. Well TT...

this Texas Democrat and all my family and close friends are gung ho for Bernie Sanders.

[Smarmie Doofus]

26. Maybe. It hasn't been tried.

They'll at least know what it IS as a consequence of Senator Sanders' instruction.

And what it ISN'T.