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Can Senator Sanders win the democratic nomination for president?

Can Senator Sanders win the democratic nomination for president?


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To be specific I suggest you ask Obama that exact same question about what he said about Bush being unpatriotic for raising the national debt by 4 trillion. Now I suggest Obama is the most unpatriotic president in US History by his own standards. Let me know what Obama says when you pop the question to him and if he does not give you the correct answer then you can give him your HINT.

However you don't have to ask him, here he tells you exactly what Bush did. If you don't remember, here is Obama himself. Now I think you have your answer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyLmru6no4U

So, you could not answer the question. When confronted and asked to explain what Obama did to increase the debt, you have no answer other than some video showing Obama blamed Bush for increasing the debt.

Sorry, this actually was a trick question. Its a trick question because it is nearly impossible to tell us what Obama did to increase the debt, because he really didn't. OK you could tell us that Obama did not fix the debt infrastructure as he continued the wars and continued the tax cuts that let to much of the debt.

Obama blaming Bush was actually quite on target, because Bush actually did champion legislation that lead to deficit spending, including Medicare Part D, starting two wars and paying for those wars with tax cuts... You will remember, of course, that Bush began is term with an ostensibly balanced budget and ended it with huge deficits AND he actually had policies that effected the government spending (and receipt) infrastructure. He pretty much is holding the bag when the music stops...

Deficit - causesofdeficits.jpg
 
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So, you could not answer the question. When confronted and asked to explain what Obama did to increase the debt, you have no answer other than some video showing Obama blamed Bush for increasing the debt.

Sorry, this actually was a trick question. Its a trick question because it is nearly impossible to tell us what Obama did to increase the debt, because he really didn't. OK you could tell us that Obama did not fix the debt infrastructure as he continued the wars and continued the tax cuts that let to much of the debt.

Obama blaming Bush was actually quite on target, because Bush actually did champion legislation that lead to deficit spending, including Medicare Part D, starting two wars and paying for those wars with tax cuts... You will remember, of course, that Bush began is term with an ostensibly balanced budget and ended it with huge deficits AND he actually had policies that effected the government spending (and receipt) infrastructure. He pretty much is holding the bag when the music stops...

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Christ I already answered that. I'm going to try this again.

The president of the United States answers your question as clear as he can. The thing is he did exactly what he accused Bush of doing, but far worse making him the most unpatriotic President ever. This is the president answering your question.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyLmru6no4U
 
Doubt he'll have a chance, probably a bit too left to get enough of the base interested. Not to mentioned the DNC will do everything it can to derail him as fast as possible, knowing if he somehow managed to win they'd be screwed in the general (GOP would just say the word socialist every 5 seconds and win in a landslide because...America).
 
While Hillary isn't my choice, neither is Sanders. I'm hoping more candidates enter the field.

The benefit to having Sanders run will be that he will expose rifts in the party that Hillary Clinton needs to address and champion,, such as the lack of funds to do basic things like fix our nations crumbling roads.
 
Only if there is a strong grass root movement. He won't be hand picked like Hill from corporate America.

His campaign reported they took in $1.5 million in one day, part of that was my $25.00 contribution.
 
what do you think? Does Sanders have a chance?

I think a lot of candidates run for president for reasons other than becoming president. Even Bill Clinton, according to Hillary, ran for president in 1992 never thinking he would win the nomination, let alone the White House. He was simply building a national following and name recognition for a run in 1996. I seriously doubt Al Sharpton thought he would get elected. Some people run to create a warm market for their book they plan to write, develop stature as a speaker, get their own tv talk show or simply get the issues they care about discussed and considered.
 
Could he? Sure, anything is possible. It is however unlikely in the extreme.

To me he's like Bachmann running in 2012. Someone with nearly no shot, but possibly has the chance to steer the field a bit more to their ideological direction
 
To me he's like Bachmann running in 2012. Someone with nearly no shot, but possibly has the chance to steer the field a bit more to their ideological direction

Not a bad comparison. Bachmann wasn't very successful in that however.
 
Christ I already answered that. I'm going to try this again.

The president of the United States answers your question as clear as he can. The thing is he did exactly what he accused Bush of doing, but far worse making him the most unpatriotic President ever. This is the president answering your question.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyLmru6no4U

LOL You didn't even look at that chart. Obama did not cause the deficits...he warned us that what Bush was doing would result in them. Obama has cut the Bush deficits in half.
 
Right now it looks like Democrats have two choices, Hillary and all her "issues" or the self confessed Democratic Socialist Bernie Sanders.

Now there is the former Governor of Maryland, Martin J. O'Malley who was governor January 17, 2007 to January 21, 2015. Eight years of his leadership and look what all those Democratic polices have produced for Maryland? Over 20% of folks who live in Baltimore are on the government payroll. Not to mention the up rises of Hell we have seen across our T.V. screens unfold where police were told to stand down while folks destroyed dozens upon dozens of businesses and left the place in shambles. Oh how I do hope he throws his hat into the ring as he helped build what Baltimore is today......

And then there is talk of Al Gore running again. Yes Al Gore who claimed all the polar bears would have perished by now and in just 266 days from his original prediction the coastlines of our country would disappear.

Oh please God, let them all throw their hat in because every one of them is the epitome of what is wrong with this country. One can only hope it is a dream come true.
 
Christ I already answered that. I'm going to try this again.

The president of the United States answers your question as clear as he can. The thing is he did exactly what he accused Bush of doing, but far worse making him the most unpatriotic President ever. This is the president answering your question.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyLmru6no4U

Admit it! You still can't answer the question. Even when you pray out to the Lord, you still come up short.

There is NOTHING in that video that explains what Obama did (or Bush did, for the matter) to specifically drive up the debt (Now my previous post actually shows the actions of Bush, in terms of championing legislation, that affected the debt). All the video did is show Obama accusing Bush of running up the credit card.... nice campaign rhetoric, but it explains nothing.

As to the matter of what Obama specifically did, when challenged multiple times, Born Free could not explain himself. His continued inability to show us what Obama specifically did is a de facto concession that he does not know. Without evidence to the contrary, we are left with the conclusion that Obama did nothing (or comparatively very little, see my previous post).

It's simple debate theory, pal. Lick your wounds and move on.
 
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Sanders is not a good looking man. He has a bad comb-over. The nation will never vote for him. It's a shame we're so shallow, but it is what it is. Sanders is too socialist. O'Malley has a better shot. He has a good look, and presence.

True enough.
 
You are talking about two different things. We are not talking about the Democratic "base" we were talking about "liberal voters". I might agree with you if we were talking about the base. The point is, the conversation was whether liberal voters will turn out to vote for Hillary despite the fact that she is essentially a moderate/centrist candidate. Hilary will have no problems appealing to the base of the party and liberals will come out and hold their nose and vote for her because they know what the altervative is.

Yeah, but that's not sexy. Why not be sure to it that through the primary process that somebody without Hillary's stench is nominated so that no one has to hold their noses in order to vote for a president!??
 
Go Bernie!

One thing though, if elected, he'll be facing an uphill battle trying to get corporate America to get onto his boat, I'm sure they despise him already.
What this country needs is more like him, to balance things out between wage disparity and equality.
 
Sanders is not a good looking man. He has a bad comb-over. The nation will never vote for him. It's a shame we're so shallow, but it is what it is. Sanders is too socialist. O'Malley has a better shot. He has a good look, and presence.

You may have been facetious when you posted this but there is actually truth in this. Americans do tend to take appearance into account when casting a vote. I don't think Sanders will do a good job of rallying people and generating excitement, not only because of his appearance, but he isn't a dynamic personality, either.

Also, the Republican nominee would repeat the word "socialist" over and over and over and over again in their debates, and that isn't a word that appeals to independents nor to the middle class, both of whom are very important voting blocs.
 
Admit it! You still can't answer the question. Even when you pray out to the Lord, you still come up short.

There is NOTHING in that video that explains what Obama did (or Bush did, for the matter) to specifically drive up the debt (Now my previous post actually shows the actions of Bush, in terms of championing legislation, that affected the debt). All the video did is show Obama accusing Bush of running up the credit card.... nice campaign rhetoric, but it explains nothing.

As to the matter of what Obama specifically did, when challenged multiple times, Born Free could not explain himself. His continued inability to show us what Obama specifically did is a de facto concession that he does not know. Without evidence to the contrary, we are left with the conclusion that Obama did nothing (or comparatively very little, see my previous post).

It's simple debate theory, pal. Lick your wounds and move on.

You say Obama did not explain how Bush raised the national debt in that video. Watch it again. Surly you don't need a laundry list of things that Obama spent 8 trillion of borrowed money on. Do you. I guess you do.

The Five Biggest Failures From President Obama's Stimulus Law - US News

President Obama: The Biggest Government Spender In World History - Forbes

Obama

National debt exceeds $18T, sparking renewed criticism of spending under Obama | Fox News

US War Debt Is Over $2 Trillion, Obama Wants to Spend More, but Is That the Answer?

Obama's Stimulus: A Documented Failure

If you need more I will gladly provide
 
You may have been facetious when you posted this but there is actually truth in this. Americans do tend to take appearance into account when casting a vote. I don't think Sanders will do a good job of rallying people and generating excitement, not only because of his appearance, but he isn't a dynamic personality, either.

I wasn't being facetious.
 
I disagree completely. The left is much more realistic about what it takes to get a candidate elected. If the left were as apathetic as you claim...they would have sat out the last several elections...but they didn't. They elected Clinton despite his moderate/centrist views...and Obama despite his moderate stance on the issues. The left is realistic. On the otherhand....you have a strong right-wing base to the Republican party that uses its threats to get the candidates to cowtow to their issues. It is probably why Romney lost. If he hadn't sold his soul to the right-wing and flip flopped on every major issue and stayed true to his convictions....but instead he felt the need to pander to the right-wing base and he couldn't shake his etch a sketch enough to reinvent himself for the GE

I think you're overestimating the number of genuine liberals in this country. We're the 2nd most religious developed country in the world, and perpetually 15+ years behind europe/canada on social issues. Being "realistic" means caving to that reality, not making the difference in elections.

People try to exert influence where they have it. Imagine that liberals have the same influence as the religious right. Obama would've come out as atheist long ago in order to win the dem nomination, and possibly losing the GE in the process. Alternatively, liberals would have their own party and it'd do a hell of a lot better than ralph nader did. But you don't see any of that, because liberals might constitute 5% of the population, not 30% like the creationist nuts

Most dem voters are just like bill/gore/kerry/hillary - bland centrists
 
If he was running as Independent, which he always has, i would strongly consider voting for him. Joining the dark side (either major party) makes me not give a damn and looks like a complete sell out.

Can he win? I highly doubt it. He's too old, for one thing. Repubs might elect a fossil like mccain, but not young dem voters, plus hillary has more name recognition than anyone else who's running, by far.

More likely he ends up her running mate
 
I think you're overestimating the number of genuine liberals in this country. We're the 2nd most religious developed country in the world, and perpetually 15+ years behind europe/canada on social issues. Being "realistic" means caving to that reality, not making the difference in elections.

People try to exert influence where they have it. Imagine that liberals have the same influence as the religious right. Obama would've come out as atheist long ago in order to win the dem nomination, and possibly losing the GE in the process. Alternatively, liberals would have their own party and it'd do a hell of a lot better than ralph nader did. But you don't see any of that, because liberals might constitute 5% of the population, not 30% like the creationist nuts

Most dem voters are just like bill/gore/kerry/hillary - bland centrists


That was pretty much my point.
 
You say Obama did not explain how Bush raised the national debt in that video. Watch it again. Surly you don't need a laundry list of things that Obama spent 8 trillion of borrowed money on. Do you. I guess you do.

No, it doesn't say one iota about the root of the debt, only that the debt exists....and yes, I asked you to give me specifics of Obama policies that caused the debt increase..... I am challenging you because you, as so many others, are able to regurgitate things they hear, but have no real command of the subject matter. Even now, rather than list the specific policies of Obama that increased the debt, you simply give us a bunch of disparate articles, most of which are unresponsive to the question. Rather than actually articulating Obama policies that increased the debt, you simply state the obvious facts that spending is at an all-time high, wars cost money and that the debt increased. Yes, these things happened, but you still can’t explain what Obama contributed to it (where is the why?)

I am merely challenging you to articulate (in your own words) why, but you are clearly flailing at that task, so let me help you:
The fact that the debt has been increasing and has increased more during the Obama administration than during any previous administration is fact. The issue, however, is about the cause of the debt increase. Debt goes up when we have deficits. Deficits occur when expenditures exceed revenue. Deficits can be increased by decreases in revenue, increases in expenditures or any combination thereof.

We have been running budget deficits since the beginning of the Bush administration. The Clinton administration ended with the budget ostensibly balanced. There were distinct policies in the Bush administration that led to deficits (tax cuts, unfunded Medicare D and two wars are most noteworthy) because he tweaked both revenues and expenditures. Then, there was a major recession which also reduced revenues and increased expenditures (both automatically by increases in unemployment, SNAP and welfare) and because the government chose to fight the recession with a mix of expenditures and tax cuts known as the stimulus. The stimulus is the ONE program that was an Obama creation that increased debt (in the short-run -- more on that later)



So, most of these articles try to tell us that Obama is spending record amounts of money. While it might sell to the low-information voter that “President Obama: The Biggest Government Spender In World History”, its completely disingenuous.

This might be a fair representation if we had Zero based budgeting, but, we don't. We have a budget infrastructure which each administration inherits from the previous administration. To think that Obama is responsible for the spend on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, military projects, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the FAA, FEC, the FTC, the NPS, the FBI, ICE…etc…. is to not understand the government and how it works. The fact is, $2.0T of the roughly $3.6T spend (56% - 2011) is mandatory spending. The Congress nor the president has almost zero control over it without reforming these programs. These are programs adopted by previous administrations, including FDR, LBJ, Reagan, Clinton and Bush. They have NOTHING to do with Obama. Not only that, much of the growth in spending during his administration (and going forward) is in Social Security and Medicare (our population is getting older, despite Obama’s best efforts with death panels )
 
That leaves the $1.6T of discretionary spend, of which ½ of is defense spending. Much of the burden on the defense spending is the size of the Army and the wars. Now, the two wars that we are dealing with are left over from the Bush administration. I suppose Obama could have simply stopped the wars and disbanded the military. He would have saved $800B and cut discretionary spending in half… but Congress would have a say in that… and the say would be “no”. Instead, he inherits the wars and their staggering costs…. Between $2 to $6T. Not his policy, but now his problem.

Economic Cost Summary | Costs of War
Study: Iraq, Afghan war costs to top $4 trillion - The Washington Post

Blaming Obama for spending is simply a game of hot potato. Had Romney been elected, he would now have the title of worst spender of all time. In fact, every ensuing president gets that title. It will continue to make for nice campaign rhetoric for low-information voters, but will not be the basis of serious economic discussion.
So, that leaves the ONLY item you have come up with that is attributable to Obama: the Stimulus. Yes, it is his. You however want to throw in the additional point that it did not work…. So says Reince Preibus and the Conservative News Network… In that regard, I see your biased witnesses and raise you 85 experts (the best and brightest economists in America) that will tell you it did..

Poll Results | IGM Forum
http://economics.mit.edu/files/7102

… a working stimulus may have adversely affected the debt in the short-run, in the long-run, it actually worked to ease the debt.
So, the net/net, other than telling us the Stimulus contributed to the debt, you still haven’t told us what Obama did other than inherit the hot potato from his predecessor. I keep telling you the answer to this, which is he is probably the LEAST guilty president when it comes to our debt….
 
That leaves the $1.6T of discretionary spend, of which ½ of is defense spending. Much of the burden on the defense spending is the size of the Army and the wars. Now, the two wars that we are dealing with are left over from the Bush administration. I suppose Obama could have simply stopped the wars and disbanded the military. He would have saved $800B and cut discretionary spending in half… but Congress would have a say in that… and the say would be “no”. Instead, he inherits the wars and their staggering costs…. Between $2 to $6T. Not his policy, but now his problem.

Economic Cost Summary | Costs of War
Study: Iraq, Afghan war costs to top $4 trillion - The Washington Post

Blaming Obama for spending is simply a game of hot potato. Had Romney been elected, he would now have the title of worst spender of all time. In fact, every ensuing president gets that title. It will continue to make for nice campaign rhetoric for low-information voters, but will not be the basis of serious economic discussion.
So, that leaves the ONLY item you have come up with that is attributable to Obama: the Stimulus. Yes, it is his. You however want to throw in the additional point that it did not work…. So says Reince Preibus and the Conservative News Network… In that regard, I see your biased witnesses and raise you 85 experts (the best and brightest economists in America) that will tell you it did..

Poll Results | IGM Forum
http://economics.mit.edu/files/7102

… a working stimulus may have adversely affected the debt in the short-run, in the long-run, it actually worked to ease the debt.
So, the net/net, other than telling us the Stimulus contributed to the debt, you still haven’t told us what Obama did other than inherit the hot potato from his predecessor. I keep telling you the answer to this, which is he is probably the LEAST guilty president when it comes to our debt….

Sorry but your typical liberal answer is to blame everyone else and you end with Obama is the LEAST guilty president when it comes to debt. Does naive mean anything to you. Obama and his liberal polices had done nothing but raise the national debt beyond anyone's exceptions and he criticized Bush for raising the national debt by 4 trillion as being unpatriotic, yet he raised the debt by 8 trillion in just 6 yrs.

Obama knew the state of affairs while he was campaigning yet he criticized Bush. Now you endorse Obama for criticizing Bush for raising the debt by 4 trillion and give Obama a pass for raising it by 8 trillion in just 6 yrs. I don't think so.

Let me tell you, Obama criticized Bush for raising the debt and being unpatriotic, now I am telling you Obama is the WORST president for raising the national debt and is the MOST unpatriotic president ever. Now go make up all your excuses for Obama's failures.
 
I do not see Clinton moving leftward, no matter who else runs for the democratic nomination. She is too well defined now for the most part and any such move would look phoney anyway. Most likely, she does not need to move leftward, and especially not because of Sanders who likely will get a small portion of the vote.

Hillary Rodham Clinton is running as the most liberal Democratic presidential front-runner in decades, with positions on issues from gay marriage to immigration that would, in past elections, have put her at her party’s precarious left edge.
 
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