That said, I still want the corporate corruption in our government ended.

I want to replace my shitty, rationed healthcare that has financially crippling copays with a single payer system.

I want the 'defense' budget cut by 20% and that money to go towards free community college tuition for our children and grandchildren.

I want the Social Security payroll tax cap removed, and the Congress to quit dipping into the Social Security Trust Fund till to fund war spending.

I want the Democratic party to re-embrace unions and renegotiate the 'free trade' agreements, including GATS, which is why we don't presently have single payer when the ENTIRE REST OF THE ADVANCED WORLD DOES. That's bullshit.

So, nothing against Clinton, but if the party wants to keep its New Dealers, it needs to shift policy a bit and quit calling us 'unicorns,' or as Rahm Emmanuel used to call us, 'Libtards.'

Sorry, but I simply must insist this party begin working toward organizing our society and our economy around human need rather than human greed.

It's the invective I'm talking about.

and Medicare is not free -- people have to pay about 6% of their income to support it (half by employees and half by employers) along with compounding investment returns from those contributions.

People want a lot of things but in a democracy, there are also people who don't want to spend their money on other people's wants.

Only a center-left candidate who trims those wants to what is actually an electable position can win the election. People who run on a list of wants don't get elected. Ask McGovern, Mondale and Dukakis.

Everyone would prefer to keep every dime they make, but in a society, only the most selfish (or the most ghouish or the most Libertarian) refuse to pay their fair share or to help those who have no other options or to pay for things that benefit the society as a whole, like public schools and fire departments. Health care is not a "want," but a basic human need.

Right now, only those eligible for OASDI Old Age benefits or OASDI disability benefits are eligible for Medicare. How the payment is calculated is explained here: https://www.medicare.gov/your-medicare-costs/part-b-costs/part-b-costs.html

Right now, I'm retired and 63, and my also-retired wife is not-quite 60. Between the two of us, we are paying 25% of our income just for the insurance. More if we want to see a doctor or get our meds.

probably not their strongest suit.

co-pays. Very major difference you are pretending not to see.

Dukakis failed to build a coalition, he dismissed LGBT voters and his AIDS policy was virtually the same as that of Bush. He did not run on a list of 'wants'. The candidate supported by the progressives was Jesse Jackson, not Mike. Jesse was 'the most left' candidate.

Also, you leave out Gary Hart's contribution to that cycle, Joe Biden dropping out over some small scandal and all the other facts which don't fit your revisionist narrative.

It needs to be accepted that there was legitimacy in both efforts and that people from both campaigns need to be made welcome in the party after the nomination is in...and really, made welcome now anyway.

I think the media wants this to be a close race .. because they make huge bucks by doing so. No attack here.

What you're actually commenting on there is the media making HRC's lead look much narrower than it actually is.

All Democratic voters need to be aware.

However, the issues for me are dangers to Americans, not danger to a political party.

Perhaps if that candidate were to focus on compromise, coalition, respect and unity, then all Democrats would.

Sid

Even most Americans have not, and even most semi active Democrats of the sort that pot on DU have not. Few even have any idea how that process has been used to advance various issues over the years, the 1992 platform and convention being a hotbed of activism that brought the very first inclusion of LGBT voters into the nominee's acceptance speech and kept our issues up front. Bill Clinton's politics was preferable in that regard to that of our previous nominee who kept his distance from LGBT and whose AIDS policies were not much different from those of Bush.

This period of time, this process is when the foundations are laid for unity and respect. It's always a process, and the more fully engaged that process is, the better for the Party, the voters and the candidate facing a General Election. Dukakis lost his General Election. Clinton, having engaged in the process and created a coalition, went on to win twice.

This does not make the Dukakis method seem like a wise choice. Sweep it under the rug and hope for the best did not work for Mike....

When we had nothing whatsoever to do with his worst decisions(such as not to be prepared for the things they knew the GOP would attack him on and never, ever to fight back against the smears).

He was honorable. I have great respect for him, but he just wasn't any kind of 'attack dog'.

There is nothing wrong with that candidate trying to get progressive policies into the platform...and succeeding a fair amount of the time.

Hard work, that.

Other than that it is obvious that our greatest danger is letting moderates keep the party moderate. We need radical changes. Wars, the environment, clean energy, all demand we cast aside the moderate 'wisdom' and forge ahead making extreme progress toward fixing these and other issues that moderates and right-wingers have allowed to fester in our country.

We all know what the Third Way types actually mean by "moderate".

I can certainly think that "moderates" can mean those who are more than willing to bow down to the royals and kiss their rings, and nether regions, too.

Or one can surmise "moderates" as those who can barely understand what's going on in the real world.

Maybe both?

"moderation" means

1)Unquestioning support for everything Bill Clinton did to the Democratic Party.
2)Unquestioning support for perpetual military intervention and a massive war budget.
3)Unquestioning support for trade globalization on corporate terms.
4)Unquestioning support for the death penalty and the most repressive and racially-based methods possible to deal with crime.
5)A total rejection of the idea that the party should ever take the side of ordinary people against corporations.
6)A total rejection of the idea that the party should defend the poor from racialization(most poor people are white, yet moderates accept the idea that most poor people are POC), moral condemnation, and blame for their own condition.
7)The necessity of making sure that the party should always nominated the most conservative or nearly-most-conservative candidate possible for president, with no concessions made to those to that candidate's left in exchange for their support(note: it appears, at this point, that the HRC disagrees with the "moderates" on this at this writing).
8)A party structure that gives huge power to big donors and little or none to activists and grassroots party supporters.

that has been the "moderation" I have seen, starting in 1992.

As if they are happy with things just as they are -- allowing the corporate big shots to call the shots.

As if democracy scares them silly. Never have moderates made progress. It was always the Left who pushed the country forward. Moderates allowed the Reagans and Bushes of the world to takes us backwards.

giving them 95% of what they want, while we get 5%.

Telling others what to believe and when or how they should say they endorse a candidate and then teling them they ate not Democrats.