Character matters

[cali]

to me. Authenticity and having a sense of who someone is, matters to me. I suspect it matters to the vast majority of voters as much as positions on issues.

One of the main reasons I support Bernie is who he is as a human being. There's a great Yiddish word that fits him well: Mensch: A person of honor and integrity.

Bernie Sanders is a mensch.

I'm proud to support him.

[Autumn]

1. Bernie is my favorite mensch.

I'm proud to support him also. In fact I have never been prouder to support a candidate more than Bernie Sanders.

[sadoldgirl]

2. Honesty is another important fact for

me. I detest waffling. There may be a few points,
where I disagree with Bernie, but I respect his
positions as ones he honestly believes in.

Then again that is part of his character. He is
one of the rarest politicians that I have
encountered.

[hifiguy]

8. He reminds this Minnesotan of the late, great Paul Wellstone, another mensch.

Wellstone convinved a lot of people who disagreed with him on one issue or another to vote for him because he was absolutely straight with people about what he believed, stood for and fought for. No one ever had to wonder where he stood and that gained him a ton of respect across the board. More than a few votes, too.

[bvar22]

3. I want Track Records.....NOT "promises".

Bernie has a 45 year Track Record of doing exactly what he says he is going to do.
This is somebody that can be trusted.

[Bucky]

4. I'm not supporting her, but I consider Clinton a womensch of honor & integrity too

I do wish folks on DU would quit with the hysterics in attacking fellow Dem candidates

[cali]

5. I wish I did.

[Autumn]

6. I saw no attack on Hillary in this OP, just a nice positive OP about Bernie

But I agree, I wish folks on DU would quit with the hysterics in attacking fellow Dem candidates.

[Bucky]

9. True enough. I wasn't indirectly chastising the OP

I'm just cheesed at the petty slash-and-burn culture in DU

[Autumn]

10. It's bad, I was surprised to see the Hillary thread had just a few supporters commenting on her

speech but then I started reading GDP. They are are in threads about Bernie, trashing him.

[JDPriestly]

17. Mensch literally means a human being. So you don't have to add a prefix.

I'm not correcting what you are saying necessarily. I just thought you might like to know what the word means. It applies equally to men and women but is used mostly for men just because.

Mensch is one of the many German words incorporated into Yiddish.

[seabeyond]

20. hey bucky. i have not seen you in a long time.

glad to see you back and participating. hope all is well.

[840high]

27. Sadly I don't feel that. Wish I did.

[hifiguy]

7. "Mensch" is the perfect word for Bernie.

Perfect. They're hard to find these days, especially anywhere near public office.

[ericson00]

11. Bill and Hillary are the definition of character;

their policies do right by both Main Street and Business. You can't shove either aside. They implemented policies mainly of high character, and even the things they did of expediency in the '90s, it was to help the Dem party be viable, which exhibits good character. The things Bill "lied" about like Monica hurt less people than other political lies, and all politicians lie.

[AtomicKitten]

13. The bills Bill Clinton signed and causes he championed most definitely hurt many people.

A sampling:

* Welfare reform that was punitive, promising to "end welfare as we know it."

* "Tough on crime" policy/crimes bill with mandatory minimal sentencing, promoting mass incarceration & rise of private prison industry.

* Expanded death penalty.

* Pioneered extraordinary rendition.

* Defense of Marriage Act on which he ran in 1996.

* DADT

* NAFTA

* Sat on his hands during Rwanda genocide.

* Deregulation of Wall Street including repeal of Glass-Steagall and deregulation of risky derivatives.

* Doubled down on Iraq sanctions that killed 500,000 children due to contaminated water.

* Smearing "Sistah Souljah" for political benefit.

[jtuck004]

16. Yes. And steered the party down a lower road than it had been in a while. Still there too. n/t

[ericson00]

23. yes, a lower road. A lower road with 5 popular vote victories in 6 elections

whereas the higher road, before them (1968-1988) had the exact opposite popular vote results.

So I see you look losing; it makes you a martyr.

[jtuck004]

24. Actually I'm thinking about the 100 million Americans left in poverty and near poverty - not

the party leaders who have comfortable jobs while making choices that leave these, our neighbors, without assistance while benefiting the big bank$ter/donors. It is discussed in Timothy "Killer" Geithner's book "Stress Test" since it was his plan. Voters laugh at his face about it here

Such ideas are not worth wasting anyone's time with.

Hard to see that from down there on that road.

Bye.

[cali]

14. so post an op to that effect.

My op has nothing to do with them
And I am utterly uninterested in engaging with you on the character of either one of them.

[LiberalArkie]

15. And that goes tooth heart of the problem. Since Reagan the politicians have gone out of their way

for business, large and main street. We need people in office to start caring about the customers. If they do, the businesses will do ok.

[Ino]

18. Let me get this straight...

Their policies were mainly high character.
Except the ones of expediency, which were good character.
And their lies were less hurtful than other lies, and all politicians lie, so... that has nothing to do with character?

[840high]

28. I want a politician who

doesn't lie. Think I found that in Bernie.

[ericson00]

29. hmmmmm

not even he can achieve that.

[beam me up scottie]

34. What does DOMA say about their character?

And the fact that Hillary didn't evolve on same sex marriage until 2013?

[ericson00]

35. in case you were sleeping in the 1990s,

that bill gay marriage passed 85-14. Same-sex marriage was also highly unpopular back then and being seen as for it would've elected Dan Quayle or Bob Dole.

[beam me up scottie]

38. So they wanted to protect marriage from lgbt people because it was the popular thing to do?

A bill to define and protect the institution of marriage.

If character matters then you don't oppose civil rights because it's expedient.

Bernie Sanders has always supported lgbt rights, Hillary Clinton hasn't.

[seabeyond]

12. that was the excitement of this primary. sanders, clinton, omalley.... character matters

we have kick ass democrats.

[Fawke Em]

19. I know that word.

Use it for my Catholic FIL married to my Jewish MIL. He's the best.

Agree the Bernie deserves it, too.

[Uncle Joe]

21. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, cali.

[elleng]

22. Here's character, and leadership:

Hurricane Katrina Anniversary Hits Home for Martin O'Malley.

A week after Hurricane Katrina hit on August 29, 2005, there were still 11 feet of water sloshing around Armand Buuck’s house in Chalmette, Louisiana. Buuck, the fire department battalion chief in St. Bernard’s Parish, and his staff had retreated to one of the few pieces of dry land in the area, a fire house in an oil refinery, and were trying to organize a search-and-rescue operation off a legal pad and paper maps. Every single structure in the parish, a strip of land on the outskirts of New Orleans that juts into the Gulf of Mexico, had taken on water.

That’s when Buuck heard a voice, crackling over his two-way radio, alerting him that two tour buses were headed toward the compound. “I said other things,” that are not printable, Buuck laughs, the equivalent of “what the hell am I going to do with tour buses?”

He went downstairs in a huff, only to to be greeted by members of the Baltimore Fire Department filing off the buses. “They had computers and printers and maps and everything; all of the forms that I needed for FEMA and everything that I needed to do a quality search of the parish and I couldn’t believe it,” Buuck tells Newsweek, his voice cracking. Even now, as the region marks the 10-year anniversary of the storm and its aftermath, the emotions evoked by Katrina are still raw.

Heading up the convoy was Michael Enright, right-hand man for then-Baltimore mayor and current 2016 presidential candidate Martin O’Malley. O’Malley had dispatched Enright, his deputy mayor, and a team of 130 first responders—firemen, police, EMTs, doctors, nurses, road crews. “They sent down an entire kitchen so we could cook our own meals,” Buuck recalls.

It was, as The Baltimore Sun labeled it at the time, a “backdoor” effort. The mayor had notified federal authorities the day Katrina hit that they had an emergency response convoy ready to head down to the Gulf Coast. Almost a week later, they had gotten no response. In fact, federal officials were actively discouraging local authorities from conducting independent relief efforts, telling them they would not be reimbursed for their efforts.

Of course, the ineptness of the federal response has a cautionary tale of utter governmental collapse in the face of catastrophe. There were hints of that at the time, but ignoring the whims—and the funding threats—of national leaders was still no easy decision.

“We kept getting the ‘thanks, we’ll get back to you, the situation is under control,’ response,” Enright recalls. “We took that for a couple of days.” But when New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin erupted in a radio interview on Sept. 2 and “made it clear that they were in deep trouble and nobody was there,” he says, “the mayor turned to me and just kind of said, ‘enough of this.’”

O’Malley certainly wasn’t the only political leader clamoring to lend a hand. Other big city mayors—in Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Houston—all promptly jumped in and offered their help in the days after the storm, from sending water and supplies, to bussing people out of the region, to offering shelter, news coverage at the time documents. One of O’Malley’s rivals for the Democratic nomination, then New York Senator Hillary Clinton, traveled with her husband, former President Bill Clinton, to Houston to visit with survivors. She was one of the strongest voices in the press calling for an independent investigation into the failed federal response.

Demonstrating his can-do approach to governing could also be a boon to the mayor down the road—O’Malley was then eyeing a run for Maryland governor, a race he would go on to win in 2006. But the reality is the episode, and Baltimore’s contribution, got little press. “There were so many stories about Katrina” flooding the media at the time, Enright says. And it hasn’t been brought up much, since, either by the media or O’Malley.

Enright explains O’Malley’s motivation at the time as ultimately driven by the connection mayors feel toward one another: There was “a sense of, ‘there but for the grace of God go I,’ that this could happen to me, especially with calamities and national catastrophes.” Enright, himself, had lived in New Orleans as a college student at Tulane University and O’Malley had also spent time in the city.

When the mayor decided to act, it wasn’t with a concrete place in mind. Enright and other city hall staffers started cold calling local Gulf Coast officials, trying to see who might accept their offer of aid.

Finally, Ronnie Harris picked up the phone. Harris was the mayor of Gretna, the city right across the Mississippi River from New Orleans. The levees on that side of the river hadn’t burst so Gretna was dry, but didn’t have electricity or water. Harris offered the Baltimore convoy space at a local rec center where they could base themselves. “On paper,” Harris says, federal officials “were absolutely right” to discourage individuals jumping in with their own relief efforts. “But when you’re on the receiving end and nobody’s coming, paperwork be damned.”

The Baltimore police helped the city reestablish security, with Harris redirecting much of the other aid to harder hit neighborhoods, like St. Bernard. “I look at Gretna as the jumping-off point for relief agencies, but that was only possible because of what Baltimore did,” he says.

Six months later, both Harris and Buuck flew to Baltimore to participate in a ceremony thanking the first responders who had driven 30 hours down to Louisiana and helped prop up their struggling communities in the chaotic first weeks post-Katrina. Even then, the recovery was just barely underway. “To give you an idea of what we were living in,” Buuck says, “We were standing in the parking lot of Baltimore International Airport and.… I took a deep breath. At the airport! And I said, ‘Smell the fresh air.’” The stench of sewage, oil and damp, rotting destruction still hung heavy along the Louisiana coastline.

Buuck is now an avid O’Malley supporter, telling everyone he knows he’s voting for the long shot Democratic candidate in 2016. A foothold in Chalmette, population 49,000 (it was 63,000 before Katrina), may not be the recipe for an O’Malley victory. But with poll numbers in the low single digits nationally, the governor will take the support. More meaningful in the long run, he and his Baltimore colleagues have the undying gratitude of Buuck, Harris and their neighbors.

http://www.newsweek.com/hurricane-katrina-anniversary-hits-home-martin-omalley-366834

[seabeyond]

25. tell it woman. damn straight. character. didnt just talk about it. didnt play the guitar or eat

cake.

didnt get brushed off.

got things done.

yes

character

this is character.

[MuseRider]

26. I am proud and happy too.

He is so inclusive.

Nothing spells success more than letting everyone feel like they are a part of the big change.

[MannyGoldstein]

30. A mensch with a Yiddishe kop

C'est formidable!

[beam me up scottie]

31. Kick from another proud Vermonter.

He's our mensch but we're happy to share him.

[cherokeeprogressive]

32. Correction: "Character matters TO SOME PEOPLE."

To others, being "the FIRST" matters more.

[mylye2222]

37. +1

Ill ad: to others being THE POPULAR only matters.

[PatrickforO]

33. So am I.

He's the best thing that's happened since FDR.

[mylye2222]

36. Gladly kicked your thread.

And yes character matters.
Only a few like him can be counted.
Mensch. What an accurate and beautifull word.

[senz]

39. Thanks for this thread, cali. Cuts to the core of what matters.