Hillary 2016: How she transformed Democrats into “new” Republicans

[andym]

167. I think the idea that Hillary converted Democrats into New Republicans is silly

The Democratic Party has moved rightwards economically since Reagan, and indeed many Democrats hold economic ideologies that reflect something similar to what liberal GOPers held in the 70's. Presumably many of these supported Hillary. That's not to say that many progressives supported her as well. OTOH, many more progressives supported Bernie, including myself.

Hillary won because the Democratic party has a lot of moderates. She also won because the Primary system was setup to help the establishment candidate-- that is no secret. The current superdelegate system was instituted in 1984 after the Party nominated George McGovern in 1972, and Jimmy Carter in 1976, and 1980 with no superdelegates. In fact it was George McGovern himself in 1970-1 who helped institute the most Democratic primary system, which helped the most liberal nominee ever get the nomination. Superdelegates was the establishment's answer.

That Barack Obama, who many of us saw as the great progressive hope, could win the nomination in 2008 against the establishment candidate, shows the system does have sufficient integrity for potential upsets.