Krugman: Time for Sanders to start acting responsibly

[Lief 🗽]

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/04/01/feel-the-math/?module=BlogPost-Title&version=Blog%20Main&contentCollection=Opinion&action=Click&pgtype=Blogs&region=Body

First, the Sanders campaign needs to stop feeding the right-wing disinformation machine. Engaging in innuendo suggesting, without evidence, that Clinton is corrupt is, at this point, basically campaigning on behalf of the RNC. If Sanders really believes, as he says, that it’s all-important to keep the White House out of Republican hands, he should stop all that – and tell his staff to stop it too.

Second, it’s time for Sanders to engage in some citizenship. The presidency isn’t the only office on the line; down-ballot races for the Senate and even the House are going to be crucial. Clinton has been raising money for other races; Sanders hasn’t, and is still being evasive on whether he will ever do so. Not acceptable.

Oh, and the Sanders campaign is saying that it will try to flip superdelegates even if it loses the unpledged delegates and the popular vote. Remember when evil Hillary was going to use superdelegates to steal the nomination? Double standards aside, what makes the campaign think that he will get any backing from a party he refuses to lift a finger to help?

I remember because 2/3 of them are still backing her. The whole system doesn't make sense, but if it's fair for Clinton, why isn't it fair for Sanders to be doing the same thing? It is really a red herring, unless the candidate who loses the pledged delegates wins the nomination, and until that happens it is useless to speculate. All Sanders is doing is trying to level the playing field to make it fair, but it is a bogus concern. Who here thinks that Sanders can actually win the nomination without a majority of pledged delegates? Few people think that it is likely that he will win the nomination anyway so your concern is not justified.

What are you talking about? I know it's hard for the Bernie fanatics to believe, but Clinton is OVERWHELMINGLY crushing him, in the popular vote and in pledged delegates. Nothing wrong with the superdelegates supporting her as well.

[Lief 🗽]

So the idea that Sanders should only stay in the contest if he respects some omertà-like code of silence is ludicrous. His critique of corruption and political influence is as much at the heart of his campaign as his concerns about poverty and inequality. Thank God someone in the Democratic Party takes it seriously enough not to give Clinton a pass.

It's one thing talking about corruption in politics in general and another pushing specious arguments about Clinton taking money from Big Oil, implying that she is beholden to them.
Sanders himself has accepted money from fossil fuel employees.
Sanders also conveniently forgets that 97% of fossil fuel industries contributions have gone to Republicans, showing how ridiculous is his attempt to convince the voters that Hillary is somehow a darling of them.

In the case of energy policy, I'm less concerned by Greenpeaces shouts of "follow the money!" than I am by concrete policy differences, such as Clinton's equivocating with regard to a federal ban on hydraulic fracturing.* I think that this this piece from Vox mostly gets it right, although it is overly dismissive of the importance of direct contributions to the Clinton campaign from lobbyists and the $3M that her SuperPAC has raised from people who are "connected with" the fossil fuel industry.


*Cue "b-b-b-but what about the jobs!" concern trolling from people who could live the remainder of their adult lives without going within one hundred miles of a fracking well if they wanted to.

It's one thing for Sanders to attack Clinton on fracking or because her Wall Street plan doesn't go far enough. It's a totally different thing for him to attack her for being a corrupt shill who has been bribed by oil/gas companies and the financial industry into doing their bidding without any evidence and then feign that he's running a positive, issues-based campaign.