This is the first of what I hope is a series on Sanders vs. Clinton and I'm not going to bury the lead (except for just a second here to sneer at "lede"). There's tons to talk about with these two, but here I'm going to stick to one thing. If anything's going to turn me into a single issue voter, at this point it'll be campaign finance reform. So when Bernie Sanders is straight-up pledging not to nominate a justice who won't overturn Citizens United, he has my attention. When he's willing to eat his own dog food in an uphill primary battle -- concentrate fundraising efforts on small donations, skip having his own super PAC, and eschew dark money -- well, that cuts a sharp contrast with Hillary Clinton.
I'm gonna cop out and not link references here, but the Clintons have openly peddled a LOT of influence over the last 25 years. In the White House, in the Senate, at State, and on the campaign trail as the presumptive Democratic nominee in two of the last three presidential elections -- with the most personal possible access to a former President who remains a powerful political operative worldwide -- HRC has maintained a unique position to implicitly offer the kinds of favors that powerful people would like to be owed, and has demonstrated no qualms about accepting the gifts those people bring to get to the front of the line.
While she seems to understand that the resulting money flowing in her direction is not something to be celebrated in mixed company, Clinton does not in any way seem to find it personally shameful. In fact it seems just the opposite: my impression is that she believes that this is simply the way real grown-ups do real business, and she's awesome at it, and furthermore anybody who lives or works in that world without understanding this must be an enemy agent or a total idiot. When questioned about it on TV she's shown a combination of impatience and distaste for the entire idea that somehow it's supposed to be a bad thing that she's not a nobody like Bernie Sanders. “That’s what they offered.”
I should stop at this point and confess: I mostly agree with a lot of that. But that is not the same thing as feeling that's the way things ought to be done. While I increasingly believe the window for doing anything about it has long ago closed forever, for fuck's sake let us all rage, RAGE against the dying of that light. Sanders offers a chance to push the Overton window just a little bit back toward decency, and I'm grateful. Even if he is not all that he claims on that front, this is an issue on which I would personally prefer a hypocrite who at least SAYS the right things and makes a point of keeping up appearances over a cynic who is relying on everyone else either not noticing or not giving a damn anymore about the right things.
