Tagged with Hillary Clinton

Look and learn from across the Atlantic – the Third Way is over

trump-clintonLook and learn, not from across the Irish Sea as George Osborne once famously enjoined, but from over the Atlantic. Let even atheists among us pray that Hillary Clinton will secure a narrow victory over Donald Trump in the US presidential race this week. But that proposition looks far from certain; she may yet, God forbid, lose.

Either way, ideological factors underlying her dire performance need to be registered and processed by the left this side of the pond. The recoil against the dominant politics of the centre-left over last twenty years stands revealed for all to see. In short, the Third Way is over. Continue reading →

Sanders must keep up his Momentum until the Democratic Party is won for Socialism

Bernie's MomentumFollowing the New York primary, Hillary Clinton is “cautious but confident” says yesterday’s New York Times, and is busy picking running mates. Bernie Sanders, who lost by 16%, picking up 106 delegates to Clinton’s 139 is ploughing on. And so he should. Even the New York Times in an editorial agrees:

Mr. Sanders has voiced the concerns and energized millions of young people, many of them voting for the first time. His candidacy has forced the party to go deeper on addressing issues like wealth inequality, college tuition costs and the toll of globalization — important points of distinction with Republicans. What’s more, Mr. Sanders’s commitment to small individual contributions has put the lie to Democrats’ excuses that they, too, must play the big money game to win. This is a message too seldom heard in the party that first championed campaign finance reform.”

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Hillary Clinton: It’s the politics, stupid

Hillary_Clinton_speaking_at_the_Brown_&_Black_Presidential_Forum Gage Skidmore - Flickr CC-BY-SA 2.0 http://bit.ly/1Qaijj0Time bullshit was called on Hillary Clinton’s cheerleaders. You know what I’m talking about, the avalanche of comment saying that she must win the Democrat nomination for presidency, regardless of her record and views. And to a piece those defences are, at best, willfully clueless, and, at worst, bad faith.

Before we go there, let’s get the caveats in. Were I a registered Democrat with a vote at an upcoming caucus, my support would go to Bernie Sanders. This is because his politics are closer to mine than Hillary Clinton’s, and the chance of him burying the Republican contender – whoever that dysfunctional oaf turns out to be – are roughly the same as Hillary’s. For the record, despite having politics closer to Jeremy Corbyn on most issues, during the mass primary that was the Labour leadership campaign, I ended up voting voting for Yvette Cooper on the grounds that she was the candidate most likely to best the Tories. Obviously, I appreciate the majority of readers would disagree. Nevertheless, I’m sure everyone would accept that Jeremy saw off Yvette and Liz not because they were women or the party is irredeemably sexist, but because of his platform. It’s not rocket science. Continue reading →