On Wednesday night’s edition of The Rachel Maddow Show, Boston Globe national political reporter Annie Linskey sounded just like a writer from The People’s Republic of Massaschusetts, employing the words “wonderful and refreshing” to describe Bernie Sanders preaching the old-time religion of socialist reform.
Fill-in MSNBC host Ari Melber was asking about how Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton was handling this hard-left opponent. Linskey felt she was unexciting and failing to grab on to the Sanders socialist magic [HT Jack Coleman]:
LINSKEY: That is the best number for Hillary Clinton, her electability number. The people who are support her because she is electable, and people generally believe that she’s electable.
But to me, that’s like, that -- you know, if you vote from a place of emotion which many people do, you know, that’s a place of logic. It`s sort of like marrying the person who your parents really want to you marry. I mean, it`s like, are people really going to make that choice in this day and age?
And you know, I see what Sanders’ success, getting success with him, where people are like, he is rising in the polls. So, wait, maybe he is -- maybe he could be the nominee. So --
MELBER: So, finally, Annie, before we go, I want to ask you. Is there something that Hillary Clinton or others in the Democratic Party need to do to engage with his ideas? Not necessarily attack him. But have that conversation that the party chair didn’t want to, that there is a way to advance equality without government control of the economy, without the type of socialism that he’s associated with, or is that something that she has to bleed into her policy platform?
LINSKEY: I think she needs to start talking about the issues that he is talking about, absolutely. You know, I wrote about that today on the front page of the Boston Globe. This sort of file, this lengthy list of issues that liberals care about, that Hillary Clinton hasn`t even addressed in any meaningful way.
And I don’t know that she has to, like, come down on their side on each one to generate some excitement, but I think the fact that she’s just not even talking about them. And is punting again and again and saying, "I want to talk about the issues. I will be talking about the issues."
Meanwhile, they have Bernie Sanders out there, you know, stating a case. And many of them probably don`t agree with everything he has to say, but it's just so wonderful and refreshing to have somebody saying some of these things. I think that that`s the lesson the Clinton team really needs to learn from this.
"Wonderful and refreshing" makes it sound like Sanders is selling a peppy beverage, not a gluey old socialist syrup. Linskey's story was headlined "Clinton criticized for being too vague on policy."
