Should I Support Bernie Sanders?

Dear Friends,

I am not at all excited about Hillary Clinton as our next President, except for the fact that she would be the first woman President which would be a great glass ceiling to break and except for the fact that she is way better than any of the Republican candidates, already running or considering running.

I am not excited about supporting Hillary because I do not know where she really stands on almost all issues.  On many key issues, she is refusing to take a clear position and on others she is bowing to pressure from Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, in order to try to thwart Bernie's campaign.  I have no confidence whatsoever that she will maintain those positions once she is elected.

Her campaign is already claiming that supporting Bernie Sanders or Martin O'Malley will damage Hillary's chances against a Republican in the election.  There are two problems with the approach her campaign is taking.  First, it is not true, and second, I really do not like to be bullied.

There is an article on the Daily Kos entitled "The difference between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton in one paragraph" (here).  Below is the lead in and the paragraph:

Politico is out with a great article exploring the historic relationship between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton.
As you can imagine, Bernie was skeptical of a centrist Bill Clinton running for president in 1992, and immediately after Clinton won the election and appointed Hillary to lead health care reform, Bernie set to work attempting to convince her of the virtue of a single-payer, Medicare-for-all system. As you can probably also imagine, he wasn't successful. Still, please do read what follows. The dialogue between Hillary and a Harvard Medical School physician supporting single-payer -- accompanying Bernie to his meeting at the White House -- is important for the record.

They got their meeting at the White House that month, and the two doctors laid out the case for single-payer to the first lady. “She said, ‘You make a convincing case, but is there any force on the face of the earth that could counter the hundreds of millions of the dollars the insurance industry would spend fighting that?’” recalled Himmelstein. “And I said, “How about the president of the United States actually leading the American people?’ and she said, ‘Tell me something real.’ ”

Wow. This paragraph -- the interaction it describes -- brilliantly highlights the core difference between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton as candidates (and people!): Bernie believes that American politics can overcome the power of corporate wealth, Hillary is resigned to that power dictating the direction of our politics -- and public policy.

I want a President who will lead and create the change that we need in our great country, not the President who says, "Tell me something real".

I am going to undertake a project to try to compare the stated positions of Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton.  It will be much easier to figure out the stated positions of Bernie Sanders than it will be for Hillary Clinton for two reasons.  First, Bernie has held and advanced his positions for years.  Second, Hillary's positions change from time to time, and she refuses to be transparent about where she stands unless she absolutely is forced to take a clear position.  There are, of course, some issues on which both Hillary and Bernie agree and are very clear, like women's reproductive health.

Here is a list of the issues that I have identified to look into.  They are in no particular order, and the list is certainly not exhaustive so feel free to let me know other issues that you are interested in.

Environmental regulation
Reliance on fossil fuels, including the XL Pipeline, fracking and alternative energy
Universal single payer healthcare
Trade, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership
Minimum wage
Education including free education, pre-k to 12 and undergraduate
Citizens United and PACs
Social Security
Regulation of Wall Street, big banks and big business
Taxes on the rich, Wall Street and big business
Job growth
Budget deficits
War, ISIS, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the draft, etc.
Israel and Palestine
Whistleblowers, including Edward Snowden
Immigration, including dream act, path to citizenship, deportation and asylum

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal