There is an extensive article in the latest Rolling Stone on Bernie Sanders. For those interested, read more here: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/bernie-sanders-political-revolution-20151118 What jumped out at me was this: "An October NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey shows Sanders besting Donald Trump by nine points, Marco Rubio by five. "
Good chance Sanders or any Leftist candidate will win. After all, the election will be more about "government freebies" than anything else.
I swore I would never vote for a republican or democrat ever again (and I've voted for both) but if by some miracle or prison sentence Bernie won the nomination, I would get off my butt and vote a straight democrat ticket. But I doubt there are many more right wing conservatives like me. If it's Hillary against Trump and it's close I will get off my butt and vote a straight republican ticket. And there may be many more right wing conservatives like me.
Can I politely ask why? What is your reasoning for voting for Bernie and a straight democratic ticket if he was the candidate?
Yeah, because that's the go-to sample for a WSJ survey. So now you even doubt a Murdoch-controlled company when its suits you?
I question anything that conflicts with basic common sense. And I know that the WSJ is desperate to block Trump and Cruz or any other candidate who objects to their insane open borders philosophy.
I have to admit that I was a little surprised by those poll results reported in Rolling Stone. Apparently Sanders is more than just a mosquito on Hillary's forehead waiting to be swatted away. I am intrigued by your comments. What they suggest to me is that there is some complexity to your thinking. I like that. If everyone thought beyond straight left/right wing politics, we'd generally get better candidates elected. What I don't like about Bernie is that he has been taken in hook line and sinker by the Global warming jihadists. (I'm a scientist, so I am not easily influenced by USA Today Headlines. I want to see and evaluate the science behind them.) Therefore I don't like the idea of Sanders pressing ahead full steam on something like Cap and Trade with so much strong evidence against a CO2 connection. It could be a horrible waste of time and money; money better spent elsewhere. On the other hand, I applaud his positions re taking marijuana off the controlled substance list and the minimum wage. Fifteen per hour sounds too high to me -- we must go to $9 or $10 first -- but If the idea is that a full time worker should be able to live off their income without taxpayer subsidy, than his figure of $15/hr is correct, but it would have to be phased in over several years -- that's actually his position, I think. A tax on Wall Street speculation, i.e., trading, is going to get us all riled up. That's how he'd subsidize public university education. Bernie must be talking about making up that 30% of undergraduate cost now paid by the student via tuition and fees. That might be money well spent, but the devil would be in the details. I'd have to be convinced controls are in place to keep admission standards from slipping. If such a tax had the effect of reducing trading volume it would be counterproductive. There are a couple of his positions that, after reading the Stone article, I am wildly enthusiastic about! One is getting rid of private, for profit prisons. What a horrible idea that was in the first place; What a horrible conflict of interests!!! The other is his push to return to additional tax brackets and raise the upper- most bracket. This is something I have been preaching around here for some time now as a way to slow the damaging income redistribution that began in the 1980s. The loss of progressivity in our tax rates, along with the compounding effect of repeatedly taxing unearned income at a lower rate than earned, has decimated the lower middle class. When I recently read Piketty's "Capital..." I discovered very good support for my position, and was pleased to learn that the future Nobel Memorial Prize winner agrees with me. I also learned that the collapse of progressivity in the tax rates may have been a prime contributor to irrational executive compensation in the U.S. Corporate world. I am more convinced now than ever that we must attend to these things if we want to restore health to our economy. I haven't heard anything like this coming from any other candidate, Republican or Democrat! Those who are pushing for single payer healthcare are going to love Bernie's position. He wants to bring everyone under Medicare and allow medicare to negotiate drug prices...
Who cares? Polls don't mean anything at this point, second, he does not have a prayer for the dem nomination. The dude is a complete joke.
Oh piezoe, where do I even start with you? 1. spending/blowing/investing/wasting on the green revolution is the best use of tax money stolen from the taxpayer regardless of global warming 2. legalize all drugs including crack and heroin 3. You think 15/hr will be enough in 3 years? How would you like trying to live on $15/hr in NYC? 4. Get rid of all prisons. 5. Get out of the healthcare business. We'll pay for one doctor visit a year and any medical costs which exceed 10% of your income. Anything more than that is between you and your insurance company or out of your pocket. (and phase out medicare for anyone younger than me.) education? The way it's going now a kid will need a Phd just to learn how to read. Before we eliminate the Department of Education (that one always cracks me up) we need to inform them that somebody invented a computer. But getting back to Sanders, at least he is talking about it. Taxes? The republican party exists for one reason and one reason only, and that is to keep our taxes low. Once they fail at that (and they fail by spending so much of our money that taxes must be raised) we are all just bitching about who gets the crumbs. What again was Bernie's idea for increasing GDP?