Politico Magazine: Barney Frank: Why Progressives Shouldn’t Support Bernie

Source:The New Democrat

Just to be clear, I’m not writing this because I believe Bernie Sanders will ever be President of the United States, or believe he can even beat Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination. The second part, I’m not sure about, but Bernie’s chances of ever being President of the United States are somewhere between George McGovern and none. And if you don’t know who George McGovern is, you might be to dumb and young to read this. And I’m not writing this because I support Bernie Sanders for president either. Because I don’t and have already declared my support for Martin O’Malley. Who I believe is the only true Liberal Democrat in the race at least as far as what he’s actually accomplished.

I’m writing this, because I don’t want Hillary Clinton to get a cakewalk to the Democratic nomination. Without having to explain to Democrats why she should be President of the United States. Other than who her husband is and do you remember the 1990s and oh by the way she’s a women and would be the first female President of the United States. Every single U.S. President that we’ve had at least since 1976 has had to go through a real primary process and has had to introduce them self and explain to voters why they want to be president and what they would do as president. Barack Obama 2008, George W. Bush 2000, Bill Clinton 1992, Ronald Reagan 2000 and Jimmy Carter 1976. Why should Hillary Clinton be any different? What makes her more special than those future president’s?

This idea that Representative Barney Frank was making that if Hillary gets a real primary challenge in 2016, that will make her weaker in the general election against whoever the Republicans decide to nominate for president, assuming they actually make that decision, is at least borderline ridiculous and I could use stronger language than that. First of all, Hillary was the frontrunner not just for the Democratic nomination in 2008, but also expected to be the next President of the United States. But she ends up losing the Democratic nomination to a junior Senator named Barack Obama. So lets say she wins the nomination in 2008, she probably loses to John McCain in the fall. Because the issues that she would’ve had in the primaries like not knowing why she wanted to be president and not having a vision, would’ve come out.

Being the frontrunner, just means you’re the favorite going in. That you have the most support and best finances than any other candidate in the race. Similar to an NFL team expected to be the favorite to win the Super Bowl in the summer. But Super Bowls aren’t won in the summer. And presidential elections and primaries aren’t decided more than a year from the presidential election. At the end of the day the person with the best campaign, organization, finances and message and vision for where they want to take the country not just wins their party’s nomination for president, but is elected the next president. And then Senator Obama, simply beat then Senator Clinton in all of these areas in 2008.

A year from now assuming that Hillary Clinton is the Democratic nominee for president, I don’t want her to still be in her centrist independent experience matters shell that she was in just a couple of months ago before Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley started to give her some real competition and forced her to give some real speeches and take real policy positions. And not know why she wants to be President of the United States. If Hillary hasn’t figured that out by now and figure out how to communicate that to Democratic voters, well one she might have a problem, but two she’s running out of time to figure that out. The first Democratic presidential debate will be in August, or September.

Political primaries, aren’t about destroying the frontrunner and doing whatever you can to beat that person at all costs and dividing the party. They are a real competition to decide who will not only be the next leader of the party, but the next leader of the country. And in this case the most important job in the world which is President of the United States. This is not something that should be handed out to the person with best name ID, or who happens to be the most popular in the party in the beginning. Democratic primaries at least, make Democratic presidential candidates better. Because it forces candidates to deal with issues and even their own concerns early on. While they still have time to deal with them and fix them. The competition that Hillary is getting right now, will only make her better if she handles it correctly and successfully address’ it. And if not, then maybe she shouldn’t be the next Democratic nominee for president, because she didn’t earn it.