This will primarily be an argument from the Left, inasmuch as I still self-identify as a filthy hippie liberal; to my friends on the Right, my sincerest condolences, cause that current crop of frontrunners...yikes.
As for the Democracts--make no mistake, no matter who else has their hat in the ring right now, this is essentially a two-person horse race, between "Ready for Hillary" and "Feel the Bern." As you can imagine, being in a graduate English program, I am surrounded by Berninators. And that's fine; I actually like Bernie Sanders, his stances on health care and college tuition are near and dear to my heart; unlike many of my younger "Feel the Bern" peers I have actually followed his Senate career for awhile and was frankly surprised it took him this long to make a bona fide Presidential run; and my partial-Danish ancestry endears me to his enthusiasm for the Scandinavian model of Democratic Socialism.
Now, whether or not the Scandinavian model is reproducible in or even desirable for the United States--a much larger and more diverse nation that features not just one but multiple states with bigger populations than all Scandinavia combined (New York City alone is more populous than either Denmark or Sweden)--is a different conversation that I am more than willing to have. But the logistics of reproducing a small-country model here in the U.S. is not why I am hesitant to vote for Senator Sanders.
Because let's say that you are a full-throated supporter of Democratic Socialism and that's why you're voting for Sanders. Great. Fine. Who are you voting for Senate, as well? Or for House Representative? Because remember that that's where laws actually get passed.
Remember that when Obama came to office in 2008, not only he but the entire Democratic party was riding a wave of intense anti-war and Bush fatigue--for the first time in nearly 2 decades, they had control of both the House and the Senate. They got right to work and passed the Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act of 2009, a rather milquetoast reform bill that basically just amounted to Romneycare on a national scale. Yet even making that tiny little step forward cost Obama all of his political capital, favors, and goodwill; by 2010, the Republicans had retaken the House, in a vindictive, self-righteous fury against helping poor people afford health insurance, which they have been trying to repeal ever since.
Not only that, but pretty much the rest of his legislative agenda stalled out as well, because he no longer had the full cooperation of the Legislative branch. Yes, in these his last days he has attempted to Executive Order his way towards some basic, humane immigration and gun-control reform, but even those are already getting stalled out in the courts--because, again, no matter how well-intentioned, the President simply cannot actually make laws in this country without the Legislature! And frankly, Bernie Sanders has been awfully lonely up there in the Senate as a Democratic Socialist--there ain't exactly a large contingent of fellow Socialists making up Congress to help him pass his proposed agenda if he was elected.
Also recall that the most withering insult the Republicans consistently lobbed against Obama was that he was a "Socialist." That he wasn't is largely irrelevant, it was the insult that stuck. But here Bernie Sanders openly refers to himself as a Socialist. I mean, good on him for just owning it I suppose, that's usually the first step towards removing a stigma--but does Bernie honestly think he'll get any better cooperation from Congressional Republicans as a self-declared Socialist?
Because the fact of the matter is, even if the Democrats did somehow regain a majority in Congress, there are still significant numbers of Americans who self-identify as Conservative and will still vote Republicans into office. And as much as there may be alarming numbers of people on both sides of the aisle who might wish it otherwise, in this country we do acknowledge dissenting voices--they are constitutionally protected, and good thing too--and the only way to make changes to laws is by dealing with the dissenters.
And I mean "dealing" in the Old West Gambling sense--wherein you deal out the cards and play your respective hands accordingly; your relationship with your opponents may be playful (Kennedy and Hatch had a delightful example of that) or still be fundamentally antagonistic, but you both still know how to play the game--and you both know that it's a game, one where the greatest cheat you can perpetrate on your opponent is to not play as ruthlessly as possible.
Enter Hillary: Republicans on average have no great love for her either, considering her some liberal bogeywoman (with reason: her Senate voting record is just as liberal as Elizabeth Warren's). Increasing numbers of the Far Left are also deeply suspicious of her, considering her to just be "Republican-lite" (with reason: she did self-identify as one in her youth, and still accepts significant campaign donations from Wall Street).
She also has not shown nearly the same level of enthusiasm for Universal Healthcare as Bernie--but you know what she has for? Closing the Medicare gap. Now, I try to maintain my idealism the best I can, too--but Healthcare isn't just about ideology, it's about people's actual lives. You can elect Bernie and have him bang his head fruitlessly against the wall of Conservative recalcitrance for 4 to 8 years trying to pass Swedish-style healthcare and not make one iota of change...or, you can actually close the Medicare gap (a far more doable proposition that many more Republicans are willing to have a conversation about), and actually save peoples' lives in the meantime. Ask yourself this: is your ideology more important that human lives? Do you want it all or nothing? If so, you are in danger of being no better than any of your opponents.
Now, a President Hillary Clinton would surely face a stiff, general resistance from Congressional Republicans if elected as well, no matter how moderate of a legislative agenda she put forward. But unlike Bernie Sanders, I actually have much greater faith in her ability to effectively deal with Republicans! How come?
The recent Benghazi Hearings. Before Hillary was called into that grueling 11-hour questioning, the conventional wisdom was that she just had to survive--and that even if she wasn't indicted, the Republicans would make this a millstone to hang around her neck from now till Election Day.
But Hillary didn't just survive, no--she made the entire House Committee look ridiculous. With a professional composure that is frankly staggering, she kept her cool for all 11 hours (I would have flipped a table by hour 2!), quietly biding her time, allowing her inquisitors to make absolute fools of themselves and implode. Yes, there are still plenty of folks who think she did...something...bad during Benghazi that merits prison--just like there are still plenty of folks who believe 9/11 was an inside job and Bush should be tried for war-crimes by the Hague (I don't like Bush, but I'm not a "Truther," for the record); but since she revealed the Hearings to be the baseless witch-hunt they always were, Benghazi has essentially been a non-issue for her. And guys? She's been doing things like this for 30 years. She is a stone-cold pro.
Because even as this election cycle has featured an unprecedented rage against "establishment" candidates and career politicians, the fact of the matter remains: politicians are like lawyers, everyone hates them until they need one. And what I need, what I crave more than anything right now is a competent politician, a grown-up, one who knows how to handle and deal with the intrinsic viciousness of law-makers.
I don't want the ACA repealed, I don't want Mexican immigrants to be treated any worse than they are already, I don't want the economy to collapse again, I don't want environmental and financial regulations gutted, and I want gun background checks to be better enforced. That may sound terribly unambitious to some liberals, but even those basic gains are constantly threatened. Now, I admire the audacity of Bernie's convictions, but I'm not sold on his ability to dial-back his grander ideals and rhetoric to make the thousand petty, unsexy compromises necessary to push forward incremental but nonetheless real progress; I am, however, persuaded of Hillary's ability to do so. Whether she's a good person or not is kinda beside the point for me (as though any politician is a good person--as shown by the sheer fact that they are a politician); when I hire a lawyer, I don't generally ask how nice they are.
Because when I was the same age as many of my younger classmates, I watched Obama's high idealism flounder against the reality of Washington politics; now, I think he did eventually learn how to deal with his Republican opponents, but only after a steep learning curve. But nowadays I like the idea of electing a Democrat who knows how to do that from Day 1.
Also, I'm old enough to remember Election 2000, when a few staunch, unyielding liberal purists in Florida decided to cast their protest votes for Nader instead of left-of-center Gore, throwing the election into enough confusion that, though Gore won the popular vote, Bush wrangled away the electoral victory with an assist from the Supreme Court (which is still 5-4 Republican, btw). We all know what happened next--and the naive protests that there was no functional difference between those twin "corporate stooges" Bush and Gore rang bitterly hollow ever after. Guys, don't ever do that again.
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