Would Bernie supporters still be as terrible if it was Warren vs Sanders?

[Virginiá]

What if it was Warren, or someone else respectable instead of Clinton? Think about it - Clinton makes the perfect villain for bernbots. Endless vectors to attack her from and lots of cover for them to spew hate 24/7. It makes me wonder if they are only so disgusting right now because Clinton is, well, Clinton. Also please be aware I'm not calling all bernie supporters crazed delusional lunatics, obviously, but we all know there are many of them.

If you haven't noticed, I didn't pay much attention to the 2008 election at all, so I'm unaware of how competitive Democratic primaries usually play out. Clinton has so many weaknesses that I have to wonder if the hate of her is unique, or if it would generally be applied in similar fashion to the opposition candidate(s) no matter what.

Discussion is mandatory!

[Virginiá]

Probably. There wouldn't be as many of them, though, and Sanders likely wouldn't have run against Warren.

It does not have to be Warren - Someone else respectable would also fit my question, but for argument's sake, let us just assume that scenario did happen.

[Virginiá]

If Bernie's opponent wasn't so terrible, there wouldn't be as much criticism of his opponent. Also, Hillary tends to run negative campaigns. If was Bernie vs. O'Malley, it would be a much more positive election.

Maybe, but I don't mean the campaigns/elections themselves. I mean the supporters.

[Virginiá]

I was mostly talking about the supporters. Anyone who thinks that Bernie is running a particularly negative campaign is seriously deluded.

I don't think his campaign itself is all that negative at all, that is, compared to others and certainly compared to what it could be. One of my major disagreements is his constant talk about the speeches. It's a dog whistle for her being super corrupt, and fine, if he wants to call her corrupt, then he should do it and provide more accurate proof. Those speeches are not proof of anything and frankly, I seriously doubt she was trading favors for speeches. Those companies/banks throw around money like it's nothing, so for a high profile speaker like her to stand there praising them for an hour or two is probably worth it to them. In that regard, I think she doesn't want to release the transcripts because she was probably singing them lots of praise. It doesn't mean anything, but it would look bad.

He's going after her character, and not anything meaningful, and insinuating a candidate is corrupt like this hurts a lot more than most attacks. If he had actual evidence here, that's one thing, but beating her over mostly harmless speeches is bs.

Bernie hacks =/= All Bernie supporters

Hillary hacks =/= All Hillary supporters

Well, I did go out of my way to state that not all of them are like this. I don't tend to generalize like that.

I do understand my poll questions suggested otherwise but I edited my main post immediately after making the thread to clarify this.

Like tmc, I haven't met any really obnoxious Sanders supporter, but maybe pointing out Clinton's many faults makes us all obnoxious.  

Obviously this is anecdotal, but I bumped into a ridiculously ignorant Sanders supporter while waiting for my friend at his school. Apparently the only reason Hillary won anywhere was massive voter fraud. First time I've ever heard that level of ignorance from someone in-person, even when compared to the rather dumb stuff I've heard the past couple months from people I actually know / am friends with. On top of that, reddit, a place I used to love is now a cesspool of anti-Hillary / pro-Bernie ignorance and delusion. Obviously that place was never a bastion of substantive discussion, but it's gotten extremely toxic since Sanders came into vogue. There is no better example imo than reddit, but there are more.

The problem with what Sanders is doing is that he's painting her as a corrupt plutocrat who will immediately screw over everyone when she gets elected. I really don't think she's any worse than most other politicians in that regard. There are good reasons to think that she will try to do what she has promised if elected, but it is impossible to talk to people about her when they have been conditioned to believe she will screw them over after getting elected, because it gives them a way to deny any argument against their views as they resort to these accusations and future predictions that really cannot be disproved (and not because there is damning evidence, either). Bernie's campaign and the media have been exceptionally efficient in her character assassination.

[Virginiá]

If Bernie wanted to paint the Clintons as corrupt, he could go after specific things, like the $10 million the Saudis gave to the Clinton Foundation before they got $29 billion in arm sales approved by Hillary that are currently being used to kill Shia civilians in Yemen. Or the Russian uranium deal with Bill Clinton. Or Marc Rich's pardon. Or Sidney Blumenthal's business interests in Libya, or so on. But no, Bernie is running a campaign based on the issues.

Are you seriously trying to tell me that Bernie isn't trying to paint her as corrupt? His campaign is in a large part based around special interests corrupting our government, and by constantly beating Hillary up over high-priced speeches to Wall St organizations, and saying things such as "that must have been one HELL of a speech!" (paraphrased), he is insinuating that she is corrupt because it wasn't about speeches, or there were favors involved. This is undeniable, and his supporters seem to get it just fine. Bernie's campaign overall is majority-positive, but the speeches crap is an extraordinarily accurate depiction of something you would find in a negative campaign.

Which brings me to this: The speeches are completely irrelevant. So what if some companies/banks paid her lots of money to say things that please them? She has a right to accept money for talking about whatever the banks wanted her to talk about. That doesn't make her corrupt at all, but when she doesn't want to release the transcripts (for good reason), it gives Bernie the perfect situation where he can paint her as corrupt by implying very shady things were going on and not just speeches. This is the kind of pathetic, annoying garbage that I hate about people who actually do run negative campaigns. They try to tear down a person's credibility and character with things unrelated or even consequential towards the matter at hand. So while I respect and admire a lot of things about Bernie's campaign, this trash is certainly not one of them.

[Virginiá]

If the speeches were fine, she should release the transcripts to show that there were no Romney 47% type comments or worse. Anti-corruption laws prohibited Bernie having any paid speech like that during his time in Congress. Why shouldn't that apply to someone everyone knew was the frontrunner for President? Anyways, Bernie isn't hammering the issue as hard as he can. He mostly just talks about the issues. We all know that it's Hillary who is running the more negative and less issue centered campaign. And Hillary already had 67% of Americans said she isn't honest and trustworthy before she didn't release the transcripts. I doubt Bernie has that much interest in trying to have that break 70%.

The most probable reason she isn't releasing them is that releasing a bunch of speech transcripts where she spends hours telling banks how great they are would be an epic PR blunder in an election/era defined by special interests corrupting government. I stated this in various ways in my posts.

Once again, it doesn't make her corrupt. Personally, I don't even care if she actually cares about Americans, as long as she does (or tries to do) the things she campaigned on. I think she will, if for no other reason than to leave this Earth with a better legacy.

[Virginiá]

Virginia,

Please watch, in the order listed, all three of these videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AMEWlXK-Yw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FSLDkLCYL8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGbDJddVIcc

I'm not sure what you're getting at, though. I was talking about supporters. But I'll adress this one-by-one anyway:

1. Millennials have already been voting rather heavily Democratic since 2008, but they actually started in 2004 (54%). If you follow generational imprinting theory, most Millennials are already locked into the Democratic party. This tiff between them and Clinton is nothing compared to the revolt going on in the GOP for years now, yet those voters never left the party. That's because party loyalty is exceptionally strong after it is set in place. You could argue that many of them are young enough to switch, but the fact remains that the Republican party offers currently Democratic/moderate/liberal-leaning Millennials virtually nothing. Millennial views on the issues differ significantly in most areas from the modern Republican party, so even if they sit out this election, chances are they will be back, and in greater numbers. So I am not really worried. People always make a big deal out of things like this (sometimes, myself included)

2. But did she ever actually go nuclear? No. Did you see the Slate article today talking about opposition research on Bernie? Hillary pretty much used none of that, yet she could have and that would have been nuclear. What she has done, compared to that, is more like comparing a grenade to a high-yield thermonuclear weapon.

3. How is defeating Sanders bad? That's the whole point of the primary! Candidates face off to defeat the others so they may get the nomination. I don't like the 'disqualify' bit much, but that is so tame and frankly, to expect candidates to not try that in a primary is absolute wishful thinking. Primaries/elections are not pure, and never will never be pure. Finally, Sanders called Clinton unqualified as well, as a response. People can't argue that him doing it is ok, and her isn't. It doesn't matter if if it is retaliatory in my book. She is clearly unqualified, and while I have some doubts about Bernie, I still think he is qualified, albeit with caveats. I'm not a fan of calling people things they are blatantly not, so when either candidate does that, I will not condone it from them or their supporters.

[Virginiá]

Virginia,

Please view one more video.

And then I will respond.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsMF_7XVPSU

I watched half of it, and I think I get the point here. There is a massive age gap in candidate support. But I say: So what? Pundits and other people are hyping the significance of this way beyond what it actually is. This isn't exactly a new thing. These Millennials are not going to stop supporting Democrats because of it. Sure, some will, but every single election results in some people making similar decisions. I go by historical trends and data, and that says that despite all the fear-mongering pundits are doing in relation to this, it won't result in anything significant.

I could have just said "See #1 from my last post", which is equally relevant, but... yeah.