Rachel Maddow to moderate Democratic candidate forum

Dear Friends,

Rachel Maddow has been selected to moderate a Democratic Candidate Forum in South Carolina on November 6th.  While the forum is not a debate since the candidates will not appear on stage together but will be appear one at a time, forums like this one are at least better than nothing.  The Democratic establishment is tilting the playing field in favor of Hillary Clinton by limiting the number of actual debates to six.  But that is a topic for another day.

Here is a link to the segment from Rachel's show where she announced that she would moderate the forum.  I would have embedded it but for some reason I am incapable of doing that.

I am a huge supporter of Rachel, but she made a couple of troubling comments and I think she is missing the point about why Bernie Sanders should be the Democratic candidate for President.  First, she said that there are no substantive policy differences between Hillary and Bernie.  There are important differences particularly with respect to Wall Street regulation, too big to fail, use of the military, a truly level playing field for all, etc.  Rachel said there were no differences in their college plans or health care policies.  There are big differences.  Hillary's plans utilize the status quo as a base.  Bernie's plans focus on what the right thing to do is.  Both healthcare and education should be rights in this country.  He treats them as such providing by free public college education and single payer universal healthcare.

But perhaps more important than the policy differences, and in large part because of them, Bernie will generate the enthusiasm needed to get people to vote that would otherwise, and except for a few times have, stayed home.  She thought that the campaigns would turn to who had the position first and personal issues.  Those are the wrong topics.  I hope that she will focus the forum on how Democrats can regain the House and the Senate.  Hillary gives us little or no chance to achieve that result, but Bernie gives us a real chance.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal