Bernie Sanders is the Realist We Should Elect

As the Iowa caucuses near, Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) have released TV ads that together echo a popular theme in the mainstream media. Clinton's ad depicts the job of the presidency as tough and change as hard. You need someone experienced who can face down foreign adversaries and stand up to reactionary Republicans. Sanders's ad -- with Simon and Garfunkel's "America" stirring memories -- offers the romance of the United States coming together. Many of the pundits agree -- this is a choice between head and heart. If Democrats think with their heads, they will go with Hillary; with their hearts, with Bernie.

But this conventional wisdom clashes with the reality that this country has suffered serial devastations from choices supported by the establishment's "responsible" candidates. On fundamental issue after issue, it is the candidate "of the heart" who is in fact grounded in common sense. It wasn't Sanders's emotional appeal, but his clearsightedness that led the Nation magazine, which I edit, to make only its third presidential endorsement in a primary in its 150-year history.

"On fundamental issue after issue, it is the candidate 'of the heart' who is in fact grounded in common sense."

For example, foreign policy is considered Clinton's strength. When terrorism hits the headlines, she gains in the polls. Yet the worst calamity in U.S. foreign policy since Vietnam surely was George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq. Clinton voted for that war; Sanders got it right and voted against. Clinton has since admitted her vote was a "mistake" but seems to have learned little from that grievous misjudgment. As secretary of state, she championed regime change in Libya that left behind another failed state rapidly becoming a backup base for the Islamic State. She pushed for toppling Bashar al-Assad in the Syrian civil war and lobbied for arming the Syrian opposition, a program that ended up supplying more weapons to the Islamic State than to anyone else. Now she touts a "no fly zone" in Syria, an idea that has been dismissed by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as requiring some 70,000 troops to enforce, and by President Obama as well. People thinking with their heads rather than their hearts might well prefer Sanders's skepticism about regime change to Clinton's hawkishness.

The worst economic calamity since the Great Depression came when the excesses of Wall Street created the housing bubble and financial crisis that blew up the economy. Clinton touts her husband economic record, but he championed the deregulation that helped unleash the Wall Street wilding. The banks, bailed out by taxpayers, are bigger and more concentrated than they were before the crash. Someone using their head -- not their heart -- would want to make certain that the next president is independent of Wall Street and committed to breaking up the big banks and shutting down the casino. But Clinton opposes key elements of Sen. Elizabeth Warren's (D-Mass.) rational reform agenda for the banks, and her money ties to Wall Street lead any rational observer to conclude she's an uncertain trumpet for reform.

Americans continue to suffer from a broken heath-care system that costs nearly twice per capita as those in the rest of the industrialized world -- with worse results. Obama's health reforms have helped millions get health care -- particularly through the expansion of Medicaid and by forcing coverage of pre-existing conditions. But millions continue to go without care, millions more are underinsured and unable to afford decent coverage, and even more are gouged by drug companies and insurance companies that game the system's complexities. Eventually the United States will join every other industrial nation with some form of simplified universal care. Sanders champions moving to "Medicare for all." Clinton has mischaracterized his proposal, erroneously claiming it would "basically end all kinds of health care we know, Medicare, Medicaid, the Chip Program. It would take all that and hand it over to the states." She says she would build on Obamacare but has yet to detail significant reforms that would take us closer to a rational health-care system. Sanders supported Obamacare but understands we can't get to a rational health-care plan without leaders willing to take on the entrenched interests that stand in the way. It isn't romantic to think that it is long past time for the United States to join every other industrial country and guarantee affordable health care for all.

Similarly, Clinton, like every Democratic politician, decries the big money that is corrupting our politics. But though she offers a reform agenda, she vacuums up big contributions and dark money in a complex of super PACs, saying she can't "unilaterally disarm." Sanders knows that the billionaires get what they pay for. He not only makes getting big money out of politics a centerpiece of his agenda, he has proved his commitment by refusing to set up a super PAC and raising his funds from millions of small donors, proving that he can raise enough to be competitive in the process. It isn't romantic to think that this gives him the independence and credibility to actually reform the system if he is elected.

In the face of the Sanders surge, Clinton supporters have resorted to the "electability argument": that Sanders can't be elected because he's too far left. Put aside the irony of Clinton dismissing the electoral viability of someone she might lose to. Clinton has inevitable baggage of her own that raises doubts about her electoral prospects. And Clinton's decision to present herself as the candidate of continuity in a time of change is problematic. In contrast, the positions Sanders champions -- Medicare for All, cleaning up politics, curbing Wall Street, a less-interventionist foreign policy, rebuilding the United States, tuition-free college, fair taxes for the rich and corporations -- are all extremely popular. Furthermore, Democrats have a natural electoral majority if they turn out. Even the Clinton campaign worries about her ability to rouse the young and people of color as Obama did. In contrast, Sanders has clearly electrified millennials with his message and integrity. A voter using his head rather than his heart might well be conflicted on the question of electability.

Clinton's closing ad before Iowa makes her central argument clear: Trust her. She's experienced and committed. She'll keep Republicans from taking away the progress we've made. Sanders's ad makes his argument clear: Trust yourself. Come together, take back the country and make this nation better. The first appeals to the head; the latter to the heart. But even the most hard-headed pragmatist might think the latter has as good a chance at getting elected and a better chance of forcing change than the former.