We Will Soon Find Out if Bernie Sanders Is a Serious Candidate

 
Hillary-Clinton-Armani

Hillary Clinton gives a speech on income inequality wearing a $12,495 Armani jacket.

Is Bernie Sanders a serious candidate in the contest to win the Democratic nomination for President? I do not mean to ask whether his policies are serious or whether he has the proper demeanor or necessary qualifications to hold the office. We know that his policies, which can be boiled down to a two-part platform of “Free Stuff for Everyone” and “Throw the Fatcats in Prison,” are fundamentally unserious. We know his demeanor is a little crazy but that he does meet the basic Constitutional requirements to hold the office of President.

But does Bernie Sanders want to win the Democratic nomination for President? That is the question we should be asking and which will be answered soon.

Earlier in the primaries, Sanders famously passed on the chance to go after Hillary Clinton on the illegal homebrew email server she used during her time as Secretary of State. Had Sanders, as Clinton’s only competitive opponent, made EmailGate a major campaign issue and hammered her on her lack of transparency, untrustworthiness with classified information, and an above-the-law attitude, he could have made a real play for the nomination. The fact that he demurred when he had the chance during a debate made some observers think perhaps he wasn’t really serious about beating her. Then again, maybe he was just uninformed and thus unable to mount a serious offensive on that issue at that time. There is really no way to tell for sure.

This week Sanders was gifted with another chance to take the fight to Hillary on what for him is a bread and butter issue: income inequality. On Monday the social media universe blew up with a story about Hillary Clinton giving a speech on income inequality while wearing a $12,495 Armani jacket. Will there ever be a better opportunity for him to hone his campaign message into a full-scale attack on Hillary Clinton’s unfitness for office? Doubtful.

I chuckled at the first meme I saw about this latest Clinton gaffe but didn’t give it any real thought at the time because the meme came from a rather clickbaity site. (If “clickbaity” isn’t an actual word, I hereby take credit for coining the term.) It just didn’t seem like it could be a real story. There were too many obvious questions right away to take it seriously. Would anyone other than a Hollywood celebrity wear a $12,495 jacket? Does such a thing even exist? Would Hillary Clinton’s army of campaign staff actually let her wear such a jacket to a speech on income inequality? The answers fired off in my head a resounding “no,” “no,” and “most definitely no.”

I moved on without giving it another thought until this morning when the memes and articles started popping up from a growing number of more reputable sources. Upon further investigation it appears that Clinton did in fact wear a $12,495 jacket while giving a campaign speech on income inequality. It is mind-blowing what this reveals about how bad she and her team are at campaign optics. Even Jimmy Carter, not an optics master by any means, had the good sense to wear a $175 off-the-rack suit to his inauguration and carry his own bags to create an “I’m just like you” image. This jacket gaffe tells us quite definitively that Hillary Clinton is absolutely not one of us and that she doesn’t even know how to pretend to be.

As a sidenote, I can’t let it go without saying that a press corps made up of more than just, as Instapundit would say, Democrats with bylines, would have a field day with this just as they did when they circulated the (false) story that President George H. W. Bush was so out of touch he didn’t know what a grocery store scanner was. A legitimately neutral press corps would make Hillary answer endless questions about this for at least the rest of the summer. But then, we don’t have a neutral press corps.

To put in perspective just how out of touch this incident demonstrates Clinton to be, consider a few basic things that cost about the same or less than her jacket. You can buy a brand-new basic model car for about the same price. Hey, at least you can finance the car for 60 months at historically low interest rates!

For infant childcare at a daycare facility, the average cost nationwide is $11,666 per year. That’s right, Clinton’s jacket cost more than what the average parents pay for a year’s worth of daycare for a baby.

According to the Department of Agriculture, the average low-cost monthly food budget for a family of four runs between $8,631.60 and $10,232.40 which is less than it would cost to eat Clinton’s jacket.

Now, back to the question. Does Bernie Sanders want to win the Democratic nomination? We will know the answer by how he handles JacketGate. If he chooses once again to demur, especially on a slam-dunk issue that’s smack in the middle of his wheelhouse, we will know he is not serious and that whatever his goal as a candidate may be, it is not to win the nomination. If he refuses to make this gaffe into Clinton’s version of Mitt Romney’s infamous 47 percent remark, he is fundamentally unserious. If he fails to seize the opportunity to use JacketGate to go for the jugular, we will know that Sanders’ candidacy is a sham and that he is a fraud and a traitor to his followers.

So, is he a fraud? We’ll know for certain very soon.

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There are 13 comments.

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  1. Guruforhire Inactive
    Guruforhire
    @Guruforhire

    Ralph Lauren is apparently having a few off years.  If she were going to toss around 12 grand on a jacket it could at least have been from an american fashion house.

    Just sayin’.

    • #1
  2. JohnnyF Inactive
    JohnnyF
    @JohnnyF

    “According to the Department of Agriculture, the average low-cost monthly food budget for a family of four runs between $8,631.60 and $10,232.40 which is less than it would cost to eat Clinton’s jacket “.

    Monthly?

    • #2
  3. Nathanael Ferguson Contributor
    Nathanael Ferguson
    @NathanaelFerguson

    JohnnyF:“According to the Department of Agriculture, the average low-cost monthly food budget for a family of four runs between $8,631.60 and $10,232.40 which is less than it would cost to eat Clinton’s jacket “.

    Monthly?

    You’re right. That should read “annual food budget”.

    • #3
  4. I Walton Member
    I Walton
    @IWalton

    Of course he’s not serious.  He’s just having fun, trying to pull Hillary to the left and keeping things interesting.

    • #4
  5. Chris Campion Coolidge
    Chris Campion
    @ChrisCampion

    He’s ever only been serious about hearing himself talk, and to demogogue issues to stay in office, starting way back in the 1980’s in Burlington, VT.

    He can’t run on issues, because he clearly doesn’t know what he’s talking about.  So he’s only been serious in that it’s easy, once you gain enough fame/publicity, to say the things he knows chowderheads want to hear, and to make a buck doing it.

    That’s it.  That’s all he’s ever done.  He’s never been a worker, other than at self-promotion.  Which is not a job, it’s an embarrassment – but he’s really, really good at it.

    • #5
  6. Steve C. Member
    Steve C.
    @user_531302

    The rich are different.

    Did she pay for the jacket? Did she pay retail? Does she even have any idea what the jacket costs?

    Does she choose what she wears? Or does she have a stylist pick her outfits?

    Heres a question I’d like to see posed. “Senator, plus or minus a dollar, how much does a gallon of milk cost at the Shop Rite in Chautauqua?”

    • #6
  7. Kate Braestrup Member
    Kate Braestrup
    @GrannyDude

    That jacket cost 12, 495?

    • #7
  8. Viruscop Member
    Viruscop
    @Viruscop

    Kate Braestrup:That jacket cost 12, 495?

    I know, and I support her. It looks like a sack.

    • #8
  9. Israel P. Inactive
    Israel P.
    @IsraelP

    Nathanael Ferguson: Now, back to the question. Does Bernie Sanders want to win the Democratic nomination? We will know the answer by how he handles JacketGate.

    I said to myself “How long before someone says ‘Jacketgate’?”

    Obviously not long.

    • #9
  10. Tim H. Inactive
    Tim H.
    @TimH

    That price tag just blows my mind.  The price is so high for a piece of clothing that the numbers lose their meaning.  I feel like Dustin Hoffman in “Rain Man,” when the psychiatrust asks him how much a candy bar cost.  “‘Bout a hundred dollars.”  And that car outside?  “‘Bout a hundred dollars.”  When we are pricing jackets in the thousands, I feel equally innumerate.

    And no, the press won’t bring this up.

    • #10
  11. Nathanael Ferguson Contributor
    Nathanael Ferguson
    @NathanaelFerguson

    Kate Braestrup:That jacket cost 12, 495?

    I’m no fashion expert but it looks suspiciously like a burlap bag.

    • #11
  12. Nathanael Ferguson Contributor
    Nathanael Ferguson
    @NathanaelFerguson

    Israel P.:I said to myself “How long before someone says ‘Jacketgate’?”

    Obviously not long.

    I actually don’t like how every scandal or campaign gaffe becomes a “gate” but it does make for easy shorthand, especially when talking about Clinton who has so many gates. In this case I figured it was just a matter of time so I preemptively joined the bandwagon. It’s a shame she wasn’t involved in a scandal with former Secretary of Defense Bob Gates. Then she could have added Gatesgate to her resume. Pity, that.

    • #12
  13. TheRoyalFamily Member
    TheRoyalFamily
    @TheRoyalFamily

    Bernie is an issues guy, not an attack dog. Heck, he doesn’t seem to handle conflict itself very well.

    635752803163817133-1470404491_13-bernie-sanders-black-lives-matter-protest.w529.h352.2x

    • #13
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