Who to Vote For

My take on who to vote for in the primaries: there are four things a president can do, in order of likelihood and lasting importance:

Nominate Supreme Court justices
Sell a vision of America to itself
Not start world war three (or otherwise deploy nukes)
Set up the next presidential election

(Anything else a president manages to accomplish that doesn’t suck is just gravy.)

All of the republican candidates fail on nearly all measures. They’re all lunatics or assholes or lunatic assholes.

That leaves Hillary or Bernie.

On the first point, they are basically even.

On the second point, who knows? I would venture to guess that more than half of the country hates her. She can’t sell shit. Bernie, on the other hand, has a giant faithful posse. It’s not a majority by any means, but nobody hates him–yet. But he is really, really weird, as far as American politics go.

On the third point, I trust Bernie more than Hillary, but I don’t not trust Hillary.

On the fourth point, it’s a mixed bag. Bernie the candidate has a certain appeal. But, it remains to be seen if he can make it through four years of brutal politics (where people are actually paying attention to him) without getting destroyed like Carter. Hillary, on the other hand, will play the insider game expertly. But, she will also annoy the FUCK out of everyone in America for so long that the next election may go to a republican out of sheer exhaustion.

While it may be a mixed scorecard, I won’t be upset if either gets the election (although, if Hillary does, I’ll have to ignore politics for a while to stop being annoyed to death).

Both of them will do better by far than any Republican candidate.

The final issue is electability–which isn’t about being president. Bernie stands a much better chance of winning against republicans if he can manage to win against the democratic establishment. Polls agree and his momentum gives them credence. Hillary–I don’t know. She’s essentially a political loser, at least on the national stage. Bernie as candidate will win by a landslide. Hillary as candidate–it will be a nail biter.