Bernie Curious?

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From a Vermonter TPM Reader …

I’ve never had much good to say about Bernie as presidential candidate, despite ——- resolute support of him against Hillary. Part of that, though not all of it, arose from the observation (I think of it as a fact) that Bernie was a lazy, selfish candidate. His soi-disant “policy proposals” were little more than bumper-sticker slogans (“Break Up the Banks!”), and the ones he did flesh out a bit (e.g., “College for Everyone”) were, shall we say, lacking in actual understanding of how things actually work.

My research colleague [had high level university management experience] for several years. His assessment of “College for Everyone” that it was an absolute disaster, full of wrong-headed micromanagement of institutional matters (e.g., the square-footage of professors’ offices would be strictly segregated by academic rank, and institutions could not transfer funds between accounts to get things done, a universal practice that can be abused, but is essential when you actually run an institution, as —- has done).

There were other issues as well, but I won’t detail them here.

But with the Yemen resolution Bernie has hit a solid line drive, reaching across the aisle to lay down a foreign-policy marker that I support wholeheartedly.

If he keeps this up, my support of Joe (unannounced though he is), could come to be at risk (yeah, I know he has baggage).

That’s a big ‘If’, but it’s a big step forward for a guy I’ve seen outside my front door and at a nearby table in local restaurants more times than I can remember, voted for consistently as a congressman and a senator (because he “brought home the bacon”, so to speak, for Vermont), but never really liked one bit.

And if it sways me, likely it may sway other Dems of my progressive/liberal-but-not-socialist stripe.

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