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[SalmonGod]

His phrasing was slightly vague, but I'm pretty sure he meant she hadn't held office when people first started hearing her name 20 years ago.

I'm pretty sure that it's an example of the haters just blotting anything positive about Hillary from their minds.

Penguinofhonor got it right.  I meant that when her name first got dragged into the media in association with politics, she had at that point never held an elected office.  She became a Senator after being first lady.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Guys, I think my psychic powers might have caused Donald Trump.

[SalmonGod]

Thanks for that list, and there is some good stuff on it like opposing the Iraq war and Patriot act.

That's good stuff, but not impressive.  To me, all it does is make him trustworthy.  Not that that isn't hugely significant for someone who is mistrusting of politics.  But I'm trying to specifically address the narrative that he's inexperienced or inneffective.

But I'm not really impressed by things like "First socialist representative in 40 years"

I find things like this impressive, and very important in our current political climate.  It shows that he's capable of motivating support for ideas that are politically unpopular, which is exactly what we need right now.  And the more I read up on his political history, the more I see this as the most major theme of his career.  Accounts of his mayorship of Burlington are all about this.  How he broke down oppositions from powerful interests to protect people, and forced wealthy interests to compromise on developing in ways that benefitted everyone.

The president has the most power of anyone in politics to set the tone of the political atmosphere.  He's the figurehead.  And someone with a history of collecting power bases and motivating people who otherwise weren't politically motivated to make unpopular politics popular is exactly who I want as president.

He was in congress for 25 years, and only sponsored 3 successful bills.  1 of which was good (raising veteran's benefits) and 2 trivial renaming bills.
That's pretty close to what HRC did in only 8 years:  2 renaming bills and one establishing a historic site.

This ignores amendments to bills, where he was most successful.  Like the one I highlighted that required corporations convicted of crimes to notify the victims of those crimes, who otherwise wouldn't know to collect restitutions available to them.  And even with your examples of original bills, the comparison is favorable to Bernie.

[Orange Wizard]

The Greens are crazy and have no way to pay for what they want, just like they are in most countries.

That's the most vaccuous argument I've ever heard. If someone are 13 years old and grew up listening to fox news, I might imagine them making a statement like that one. Is that the case?

This is an equally vacuous statement, though. It's just an ad hominem.

Honestly both statements are pretty fair. Doesn't stop me voting Green in elections though.

But I'm not really impressed by things like "First socialist representative in 40 years"

I saw a picture of Sanders wearing one of those hammer-and-sickle hats the other day. I make jokes about Americans conflating even slightly left-wing economics with socialism/communism and not knowing the difference between them, but I swear it's not even an exaggeration any more.

[mainiac]

His phrasing was slightly vague, but I'm pretty sure he meant she hadn't held office when people first started hearing her name 20 years ago.

I'm pretty sure that it's an example of the haters just blotting anything positive about Hillary from their minds.

Penguinofhonor got it right.  I meant that when her name first got dragged into the media in association with politics, she had at that point never held an elected office.  She became a Senator after being first lady.

Well then it's even BIGGER bullshit.  The same post where you say "oh but she wasn't elected yet" you were lauding the things that Bernie Sanders did as a college student.

[SalmonGod]

His phrasing was slightly vague, but I'm pretty sure he meant she hadn't held office when people first started hearing her name 20 years ago.

I'm pretty sure that it's an example of the haters just blotting anything positive about Hillary from their minds.

Penguinofhonor got it right.  I meant that when her name first got dragged into the media in association with politics, she had at that point never held an elected office.  She became a Senator after being first lady.

Well then it's even BIGGER bullshit.  The same post where you say "oh but she wasn't elected yet" you were lauding the things that Bernie Sanders did as a college student.

You're mixing contexts between completely different statements now.  You're better than that.

The point I was making is that one of the Clinton camp's most common claims is that she has more experience than Bernie.  This seems to me a perception problem, since it's easily verifiable fact that Bernie has held elected offices for longer than Clinton has.  I believe that people buy into the perception that Clinton is more experienced, because her name was put in the media spotlight in relation to politics during the Lewinski scandal.  This caused her name to be associated with politics for longer than she has even held any political office, while broader awareness of Bernie hasn't existed until recently. 

I edited in the stuff about Bernie afterwards, including one example of one thing from when he was a college student, in response to another post for completely different reasons.

[mainiac]

Clinton's name was put into the spotlight because she lead a major healthcare initiative.  Fun fact, one of the reasons why it failed was because an obscure Senator named Bernie Sanders thought it would take attention away from single payer so he pulled his support from it.

This amazing amendment that the amendment king made.  What did it actually accomplish?  Because I looked up the bill in question:

https://www.congress.gov/bill/104th-congress/house-bill/665

And I see that in 1995 a republican congressman from Florida did a straightforward bill about victims rights.  The law was making sure that courts had the jurisdiction to enforce payment of victims and make sure that people comply with court orders to pay their victim.

And then Sanders comes along and adds a little nugget of wisdom.  Make sure that white collar criminals notify their victims.  And congress voice voted it in like it was no big deal.  Because well... why would anyone think this is a big deal?  The main enforcement mechanism is that the courts have the authority to enforce damages.  Do we feel like the courts were failing at that job?

[Orange Wizard]

Clinton's name was put into the spotlight because she lead a major healthcare initiative.  Fun fact, one of the reasons why it failed was because an obscure Senator named Bernie Sanders thought it would take attention away from single payer so he pulled his support from it.

There's also the decent chance the healthcare initiative was actually bad, but we can't really tell unless we have more details.

[mainiac]

Gee, if only you had access to a massive source of information that could tell you all about the 1993 healthcare initiative.

[sluissa]

Clinton's name was put into the spotlight because she lead a major healthcare initiative.  Fun fact, one of the reasons why it failed was because an obscure Senator named Bernie Sanders thought it would take attention away from single payer so he pulled his support from it.

There's also the decent chance the healthcare initiative was actually bad, but we can't really tell unless we have more details.

Just read up on it, it was a pretty shit plan. Basically just "Hey, employers, you HAVE to provide health insurance for your employees". Obamacare ended up being very similar, but at the same time, Obama care ended up being very much shit... granted, better than nothing, but I don't blame Bernie at all for revoking support and instead going full single payer.

[Shadowlord]

It was lambasted by pretty much everyone at the time, iirc.

[mainiac]

Just read up on it, it was a pretty shit plan. Basically just "Hey, employers, you HAVE to provide health insurance for your employees". Obamacare ended up being very similar, but at the same time, Obama care ended up being very much shit... granted, better than nothing, but I don't blame Bernie at all for revoking support and instead going full single payer.

Yep, just keep calling for the impossible and call saving people's lives and helping the american economy a shitty plan.  Let the perfect be enemy of the good.  Enjoy your protest vote.  Thankfully unlike Bernie Sanders congressional career your vote is meaningless.  You aren't actually voting against liberal efforts to help things like Bernie Sanders was because your protest vote wont change the balance.

[Rolan7]

It was lambasted by pretty much everyone at the time, iirc.

The same reaction as Sanders's plans received.  Jump straight to single payer, free college tuition, and expand social security?  Even the Democratic congress under Obama didn't go for any of it.  Regardless of how mainstream his ideas are to Europeans, being President over an uncooperative Congress isn't going to accomplish these goals.  Hence HRC and Obama going for incremental improvements which actually get passed and work.

[PTTG??]

I can't comprehend how people dislike single payer. We know it works, we know that Americans pay the most for the worst, and everyone I know lives in fear that they'll get in an accident or something and get injured but not killed. It's barbaric.

Anything less (such as Obamacare) is nothing but a welfare plan for insurance companies and a waste of time and money.

[mainiac]

Anything less (such as Obamacare) is nothing but a welfare plan for insurance companies and a waste of time and money.

And yet they lobbied against every plan going back to the 40s.  Curious.