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On election day 2016, it will be her or Fat Bastard/JEB/Walker/Perry/... So there we'll be, voting for TPP and XL and charter schools. 
Is there a mouse in your pocket? 
If you are new here, welcome to DU.
I hadn't really considered the angle you brought up where the socialist threat helped win concessions in the U.S. from the wealthy. Makes sense.
Organization has always been a talent the right has over the left. They're better at linear thinking, top-down structures that successfully target narrow objectives and then they have the funding to build the infrastructure to deliver the desired change.
The left has always been more about herding cats from one interest group to another, trying to keep people focused on the issue at hand rather than splintering into a thousand loose affinity groups. And most of it is done by underpaid, overworked volunteers who have precious little spare time for activism, struggling just to keep their day jobs and make a living. Paid staff is either non-existent or just enough to coordinate events and fundraising efforts.
I had always hoped the internet would be the great equalizer, that the tech-savvy left would find ways to use it to coordinate actions and screen out corporate candidates who will only sell us out. So far I have seen sites like DU and Kos that are good for discussion and promotion of party ideology but not good at mobilizing action nor at promoting candidates that will serve the non-elites. In fact they may serve the opposite, they take a lot of time from members who read, comment and argue but don't organize for substantive change.
NGOs use the internet to good effect, using online petitions and action alerts, though for the most part they use the web for their own fundraising. Also most of them have too little funding to effectively mobilize against powerful monied interests, though what little good that does happens often happens from their efforts.
I think there is room for a new web site, or several, that work specifically to crowd-source actions and to promote (and fund) candidates who will support the issues of aggregated small donors in the same way our current reps support the issues of the large donors.
Obama in 2008 received roughly half of his campaign money from small donors, yet when he took office it was the large corporate donors and their interests who got their policies pushed by his administration. That's not particular to Obama, it's actually typical, a large corporate donor gets legislation while the small donors get attention in proportion to their individual donation rather than in proportion to the aggregate of the small donors who chipped in. Perhaps this could be improved on by using an aggregator that would manage the donations and use their influence en masse to leverage policy from our representatives in government.
I know there are many groups working along these lines, but I also know that we're losing this battle in a big way, so we need to keep re-inventing how small fish can pool their resources to get what they want from government.
in, say, Denver?
but wont fix anything. In a violent revolution the people would need the help of thugs to win and then the thugs would take over.
But I go along with your other choice. Elite Theory says that you will always have rule by the elite. There is no way around it. So we just need an elite group to understand that it is in their best interest not to let the masses get to the violent revolution stage because the ruling elite will most likely be worse off after such.
to the detriment of society: the proof is in their works. 
wanted a national HC system and DEMS blocked the debate.
They did not even try to advance the issue 
"It’s not just your imagination: The influence of money in politics has indeed drowned out the voices of American voters, a new analysis shows, with runaway corporate lobbying and a lack of campaign finance reform to blame for giving much more political weight to the wealthy..."
- It's a flaw in the design which incorporates Capitalism into the mix with democratic principles and republican ideals. A situation ripe for conflict that turns one party against the other. The inclusion of Capitalism into this nation's design (or any nation's design for that matter) was like feeding this new babe of democracy the cancer-causing GMO corn that we eat today. It's gonna kill it's host sooner or later, it's just a matter of time.
Because it's in the nature of cancers (in this instance GREED) to always kill it's host......
K&R
In other words, declarations of laws and rights are actually an acknowledgment of the failures of the social design. There is no such thing as 'rights' - as the reference can be altered at will. The fourth amendment is an attempt to protect against state power abuse, that is clear. But it avoids the real issue, and that is: Why would the state have an interest to search and seize to begin with? How do you remove the mechanisms that generate such behavior? We need to focus on the real cause.
We have to understand that government as we know it today, is not in place for the well being of the public, but rather for the perpetuation of their establishment and their power. Just like every other institution within a monetary system. Government is a monetary invention for the sake of economic and social control and its methods are based upon self-preservation, first and foremost. All a government can really do is to create laws to compensate for an inherent lack of integrity within the social order.
In society today the public is essentially kept distracted and uninformed. This is the way that governments maintain control. If you review history, power is maintained through ignorance.
~Peter Joseph
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