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[eBay Huckster]

While we're vaguely on the subject of basic math as a hit piece, and speaking of actual prognosticators...

Just gonna put this out in writing in case people didn't feel like clicking that Cook article I posted in the process of being Petty as Heck™.

In order to begin the process of reaching an outright tie of 1,976 pledged delegates, Sanders needed to win 62 delegates in the first 3 states compared to Clinton's 41.

He won 51. She won 52.

He needs to win 25 in South Carolina to remain on pace for anything close to 1,976. Judging from Clinton's polling margin still holding up there, he'll be lucky to hit 16.

He needs to win 425 on Super Tuesday. If actual polling is any indication (particularly in the SEC states and maybe even Colorado), he'll be lucky to hit 300.

He'll need to win another 500 by March 15th. Again, he'll be lucky to hit 300.

 

[Valhelm]

When most young people like me do not understand how important the Supreme Court appointments are (as evidenced by that recent Pew poll), especially in this election, then they deserve all the mocking thrown our way.

But we can't yet assume that Sanders is substantially less electable than Clinton, especially if she's paired against Trump. Perceptions of honesty and outsider status are paramount to many voters.

 

[titiklabingapat]

And because of that, there WILL be a large amount of people who either not vote on principle, vote for Trump out of spite, or become disillusioned with the political process again and just drop out of politic circles. Those new voters Bernie brought into the political process because of his honesty aren't staying around and voting for her, unfortunately they were the first time younger voters who were really enthused about him, consistently giving him over 70% of the younger vote, and aren't enthused about anything regarding Hillary.

If they don't stick around for Clinton then all this revolution talks would just be a lot of hot air though, wouldn't it? Because you are literally giving your vote to the Republicans just to spite your face.

And if they were serious about changing Washington DC, they would be spending all these energy in winning local elections anyway. Top down 'revolutions' don't work.

But we can't yet assume that Sanders is substantially less electable than Clinton, especially if she's paired against Trump. Perceptions of honesty and outsider status are paramount to many voters.

Yes we can. Socialists are more hated in this country than atheists. Couple that with Bernie's inflexibility in deviating from his core message and the merciless GOP political machinery and you got a recipe for disaster. I still remember the Kerry Swiftboating quite vividly.

The silence from the GOP about Bernie's candidacy should tell you all you need to know who they would rather run against in November. Poor Bernie will get chewed, spat out and chewed again twenty times over. If you think Hillary is bad, wait until the conservative movement has solidified itself against a self described socialist.

 

[metalslimer]

And black people don't seem excited by Sanders at all so he the hell was he going to win the general without a high enthusiasm from them. And don't say Bernie would have had months to convince them because that same argument would apply to Clinton. Let's face it there is a segment of young liberals who don't care for Clinton but the there is no big anti establishment revolution going on in the party

Also the people who don't vote at all this November are fucking over their entire community because to be honest their local and state elections affect them a lot more. To be honest I'm pretty ashamed of a lot of my young peers who seem to be going down this route.

 

[eyeball_kid]

When did math become a hit piece? I swear to god, many of Bernie's supporters are dangerously close to echoing the same anti-science, anti-math and conspiracy theory loving sentiments that many on the right do.

Me saying it's a hit piece is not about the math, it's about the tone of the article. Even the article's title is obnoxious in its bias, as if they have come back in a time machine and told us hard facts. That's how you create a narrative that people start believing, a belief that Bernie has no chance so you might as well vote for Hillary.

Polls are not facts. A month ago Bernie was behind 25 points in Nevada polls; he ended up 5 points behind. By creating articles like this that mascarade as something definitive, journalists sow doubt into the public's mind about Sanders.

 

[metalslimer]

Me saying it's a hit piece is not about the math, it's about the tone of the article. Even the article's title is obnoxious in its bias, as if they have come back in a time machine and told us hard facts. That's how you create a narrative that people start believing, a belief that Bernie has no chance so you might as well vote for Hillary.

Polls are not facts. A month ago Bernie was behind 25 points in Nevada polls; he ended up 5 points behind. By creating articles like this that mascarade as something definitive, journalists sow doubt into the public's mind about Sanders.

We're a week away from a bunch of states that Bernie has no chance in and his polling with African Americans have not gotten much better. What exactly is Bernie going to do in a week to swing 20-40 point margins?

 

[jmood88]

The Daily Beast is owned by media mega-company IAC.

Chelsea Clinton is on the Board of Directors at IAC.

Make of that what you will, but there has been a consistent bias against Bernie in the media, mostly [b{ignoring him during the first part of the campaign[/b], and then painting him as someone who has little to no chance.

I don't know why people always act like long shot candidates not getting much coverage is a conspiracy against them. Yes, it's a problem that news networks help bury lesser-known candidates by not giving them exposure but it's not new and it doesn't mean that they're actively working against whoever you think isn't getting enough coverage.

 

[eBay Huckster]

We're a week away from a bunch of states that Bernie has no chance in and his polling with African Americans have not gotten much better.

We're four days away from South Carolina and Clinton's margin is actually wider than it was a month ago.

Eh, he's been expecting to lose South Carolina for months. If he can't take Massachusetts or Colorado, it's curtains.

I get the feeling Colorado's results are gonna surprise people, just because of how its registration is set up.

 

[minor effort]

The thing you have to take into account is, this is not a simple ideological disagreement within a party about policy for many in the Sanders camp. That is where Hillary Clinton would be blindsided in a general, and what i think a lot of people who are not Sanders supporters tend to miss that when they take voting blocs into account.

Obama fanboys and Hillary fanboys, and Obama and Hillary themselves were far closer than anything on the table today, and they were in the same party regardless of how ugly their rhetoric got

For most Bernie Sanders supporters specifically, this election is not about 'free stuff' or 'sky high promises' or specific nuances between the candidates in policy at all. Most of his support comes from people who are serious about wanting a clean break from choosing corrupt candidates who are not genuine about their intentions for the country, we can see that also in another way with Trump, although they are completely on the opposite side.


In Hillary, they don't 'see' a candidate who is a moderate center right candidate that pushes for legislation that was GOP legislation just a few years back, and is hawkish on foreign policy as we've grown used to from the new Democrats.

If that was the only problem, i think this would turn out to be a repeat of Obama 2012, where he still won handily.

For many people supporting Sanders, choosing Hillary is tantamount to supporting a broken system with revolving door influences with many special interests and severe conflicts of interest in almost every area of government between the political establishment and the corporate establishment, rigged against the ordinary lower class citizen.

And because of that, there WILL be a large amount of people who either not vote on principle, vote for Trump out of spite, or become disillusioned with the political process again and just drop out of politic circles. Those new voters Bernie brought into the political process because of his honesty aren't staying around and voting for her, unfortunately they were the first time younger voters who were really enthused about him, consistently giving him over 70% of the younger vote, and aren't enthused about anything regarding Hillary.

Points taken, but what would your opinion be if Bernie Sanders endorses Clinton. Would you see it as a betrayal and an undermining of his political revolution?

 

[jmood88]

Anecdotal, but a good majority of the people I know right now in Colorado walking and calling for Bernie, long time democrats who walked/called for Obama in '08 and '12 have pretty much voiced their lack of interest in working for a Clinton win.

I feel like that's going to be a lot of people, the Clinton campaign has been built on piles of money, while the Sander's campaign has been the kind of excitement you saw with Obama. Maybe she can win November with money, and good for her if she does, but it's not going to be because of any great grass roots effort by democrats who feel like she brings change to the table.

The people who support Sanders see a desire for change. It seems like the people who support Clinton do it in the hopes that not much changes for another 8 years.

I volunteered for the Obama 2008 and 2012 campaigns and I have no interest in donating or volunteering for Hillary's campaign but I'm also not all that excited about Bernie. I'll go out and vote for the democratic nominee but I won't be knocking on doors or phone banking like I did for Obama.

 

[titiklabingapat]

Me saying it's a hit piece is not about the math, it's about the tone of the article. Even the article's title is obnoxious in its bias, as if they have come back in a time machine and told us hard facts. That's how you create a narrative that people start believing, a belief that Bernie has no chance so you might as well vote for Hillary.

Polls are not facts. A month ago Bernie was behind 25 points in Nevada polls; he ended up 5 points behind. By creating articles like this that mascarade as something definitive, journalists sow doubt into the public's mind about Sanders.

Polls done scientifically is as close to fact as you can get except the actual results themselves.

Nevada Democratic caucus polling is notorious for being hard to do. Indeed, most big pollsters didn't even bother.

 

[Prologue]

The thing you have to take into account is, this is not a simple ideological disagreement within a party about policy for many in the Sanders camp. That is where Hillary Clinton would be blindsided in a general, and what i think a lot of people who are not Sanders supporters tend to miss that when they take voting blocs into account.

Obama fanboys and Hillary fanboys, and Obama and Hillary themselves were far closer than anything on the table today, and they were in the same party regardless of how ugly their rhetoric got

For most Bernie Sanders supporters specifically, this election is not about 'free stuff' or 'sky high promises' or specific nuances between the candidates in policy at all. Most of his support comes from people who are serious about wanting a clean break from choosing corrupt candidates who are not genuine about their intentions for the country, we can see that also in another way with Trump, although they are completely on the opposite side.


In Hillary, they don't 'see' a candidate who is a moderate center right candidate that pushes for legislation that was GOP legislation just a few years back, and is hawkish on foreign policy as we've grown used to from the new Democrats.

If that was the only problem, i think this would turn out to be a repeat of Obama 2012, where he still won handily.

For many people supporting Sanders, choosing Hillary is tantamount to supporting a broken system with revolving door influences with many special interests and severe conflicts of interest in almost every area of government between the political establishment and the corporate establishment, rigged against the ordinary lower class citizen.

And because of that, there WILL be a large amount of people who either not vote on principle, vote for Trump out of spite, or become disillusioned with the political process again and just drop out of politic circles. Those new voters Bernie brought into the political process because of his honesty aren't staying around and voting for her, unfortunately they were the first time younger voters who were really enthused about him, consistently giving him over 70% of the younger vote, and aren't enthused about anything regarding Hillary.

.

Society's state of mine is different than back in 2008. If Hillary wins the nomination, it'll be interesting to see who wins the general. People keep saying the republican turn out is growing and the democratic turnout is decreasing. Not to mention a bitter/angry younger crowd? Who knows how it can go. I genuinely don't think its in the bag as so many here keep preaching.

If Bernie wins(a big if) I can see him converting the minority vote in time for the general election and having the young vote pull the swing states. But Hillary v Trump? People are angry enough as it is and the last thing they want to do is vote for two established millionaires who have flopped on subjects when it was convenient for them.

 

[dehydratedbabies]

I volunteered for the Obama 2008 and 2012 campaigns and I have no interest in donating or volunteering for Hillary's campaign but I'm also not all that excited about Bernie. I'll go out and vote for the democratic nominee but I won't be knocking on doors or phone banking like I did for Obama.

I'm genuinely curious, why not?

I'm headed to phone bank for Bernie right now and heading back up to MA this weekend for GOTV.

 

[ezrarh]

And black people don't seem excited by Sanders at all so he the hell was he going to win the general without a high enthusiasm from them. And don't say Bernie would have had months to convince them because that same argument would apply to Clinton. Let's face it there is a segment of young liberals who don't care for Clinton but the there is no big anti establishment revolution going on in the party

Also the people who don't vote at all this November are fucking over their entire community because to be honest their local and state elections affect them a lot more. To be honest I'm pretty ashamed of a lot of my young peers who seem to be going down this route.

As much as I am a Bernie supporter, it'd be disappointing if his voters didn't turn out to vote in local elections. Local politics do matter. Sure zoning laws, sales tax, school boards, and etc aren't as sexy but do play a huge factor into what your city and region will look like in a decade's time. You want affordable housing? You want social equity? Local laws can and do play a big role in that.

 

[Inuhanyou]

If they don't stick around for Clinton then all this revolution talks would just be a lot of hot air though, wouldn't it? Because you are literally giving your vote to the Republicans just to spite your face.

And if they were serious about changing Washington DC, they would be spending all these energy in winning local elections anyway. Top down 'revolutions' don't work.

Its ridiculous to say that if people don't vote for Clinton, "revolution is just hot air". For Bernie Sanders supporters, she's not apart of the revolution, as i said in the post you quoted, but instead apart of the system we have to overthrow, she is, largely endemic of the problems highlighted that must be changed entirely.

We all know that the political awareness of people usually only extends to the national conversation. Bernie Sanders as a winner would shift the debate to keeping that foothold, and putting his viewpoints into the limelight which is where the revolution would essentially start, his nomination was designed to be the very beginning to send ripples across the entire country.

There are already people running for congress and governess of specific states on a self proclaimed "Bernie" platform just from him being on the national stage for this long against Clinton.

There is literally nobody in local politics of a single town in a single state who is going to go against a strategy forced from the Top down if such a strategy fails however. Only on a national level would the American people have a voice to make their concerns heard in a large enough way.

Otherwise, like right now, the DNC can force a majority of their members to fall in line, and opposition will be on the opposing side automatically.

I think that by now we should probably dispel with the notion that all/most Sanders supporters are just regurgitating 'right wing talking points.' That just dismisses valid criticisms that many progressives have with the Clintons and furthermore paints everything with a partisan brush.

But who knows, maybe Michelle Alexander was right wing all along when going over some of those criticisms recently.

But that makes it easier to dismiss those criticisms though. Clinton or Obama can't be wrong on anything, after all, nor can they actually be corruptible politicians like every other politician. But the GOP can be of course, never the Democratic party, even when large amounts of evidence is thrust in your face.

Really tired of the party games.

Don't vote, that always teaches them! Abstain! Don't compromise your integrity, don't dirty yourself by voting, just ignore it! Life's a bitch and then you die, yolo, #imgoodwitit

Who should they, or i vote for, if there are no good candidates? Heh, maybe i'll vote for Jill Stein in November?

Huh? I'm an independent myself, and there will be someone I vote for this fall. Abstaining from voting is always a decision that makes me scratch my head to be honest.

Independents who are largely supporting Bernie will not vote for Hillary. This is just something i have a feeling about.

 

[NeoXChaos]

 

[afternoon delight]

Skipping elections: a Democratic tradition.

And you people wonder why you're laughed at in public and private.

Who should you vote for Inny? The person that's not a fucking Republican. Its so simple. It's literally binary. You can even vote third party and jerk off about it later that night.

 

[excelsiorlef]

The thing you have to take into account is, this is not a simple ideological disagreement within a party about policy for many in the Sanders camp. That is where Hillary Clinton would be blindsided in a general, and what i think a lot of people who are not Sanders supporters tend to miss that when they take voting blocs into account.

Obama fanboys and Hillary fanboys, and Obama and Hillary themselves were far closer than anything on the table today, and they were in the same party regardless of how ugly their rhetoric got

For most Bernie Sanders supporters specifically, this election is not about 'free stuff' or 'sky high promises' or specific nuances between the candidates in policy at all. Most of his support comes from people who are serious about wanting a clean break from choosing corrupt candidates who are not genuine about their intentions for the country, we can see that also in another way with Trump, although they are completely on the opposite side.


In Hillary, they don't 'see' a candidate who is a moderate center right candidate that pushes for legislation that was GOP legislation just a few years back, and is hawkish on foreign policy as we've grown used to from the new Democrats.

If that was the only problem, i think this would turn out to be a repeat of Obama 2012, where he still won handily.

For many people supporting Sanders, choosing Hillary is tantamount to supporting a broken system with revolving door influences with many special interests and severe conflicts of interest in almost every area of government between the political establishment and the corporate establishment, rigged against the ordinary lower class citizen.

And because of that, there WILL be a large amount of people who either not vote on principle, vote for Trump out of spite, or become disillusioned with the political process again and just drop out of politic circles. Those new voters Bernie brought into the political process because of his honesty aren't staying around and voting for her, unfortunately they were the first time younger voters who were really enthused about him, consistently giving him over 70% of the younger vote, and aren't enthused about anything regarding Hillary.

All this is relative nonsense. Voter turn out is down. Sanders hasn't brought in new voters. There is no revolution.

 

[NeoXChaos]

The thing you have to take into account is, this is not a simple ideological disagreement within a party about policy for many in the Sanders camp. That is where Hillary Clinton would be blindsided in a general, and what i think a lot of people who are not Sanders supporters tend to miss that when they take voting blocs into account.

Obama fanboys and Hillary fanboys, and Obama and Hillary themselves were far closer than anything on the table today, and they were in the same party regardless of how ugly their rhetoric got

For most Bernie Sanders supporters specifically, this election is not about 'free stuff' or 'sky high promises' or specific nuances between the candidates in policy at all. Most of his support comes from people who are serious about wanting a clean break from choosing corrupt candidates who are not genuine about their intentions for the country, we can see that also in another way with Trump, although they are completely on the opposite side.


In Hillary, they don't 'see' a candidate who is a moderate center right candidate that pushes for legislation that was GOP legislation just a few years back, and is hawkish on foreign policy as we've grown used to from the new Democrats.

If that was the only problem, i think this would turn out to be a repeat of Obama 2012, where he still won handily.

For many people supporting Sanders, choosing Hillary is tantamount to supporting a broken system with revolving door influences with many special interests and severe conflicts of interest in almost every area of government between the political establishment and the corporate establishment, rigged against the ordinary lower class citizen.

And because of that, there WILL be a large amount of people who either not vote on principle, vote for Trump out of spite, or become disillusioned with the political process again and just drop out of politic circles. Those new voters Bernie brought into the political process because of his honesty aren't staying around and voting for her, unfortunately they were the first time younger voters who were really enthused about him, consistently giving him over 70% of the younger vote, and aren't enthused about anything regarding Hillary.

total nonsense not based in reality. Turnout is down.

 

[Count Dookkake]

If Bernie does not get the dem nod, then fuck it. I'm riding the crazy train with Trump. Let's see how bad things can get then.

 

[JVIDICAN]

Isn't this old and missing at least Colorado to boot?

 

[Paskil]

If Bernie loses and tells his supporters to vote Hillary, will his most fervent supporters write him off as an establishment hack?

 

[eBay Huckster]

Isn't this old and missing at least Colorado to boot?

it's only about a week old, though I'm also not sure anyone has even polled Colorado (the only pollster I can find is on the GOP side, and that's all as of November)

 

[titiklabingapat]

Its ridiculous to say that if people don't vote for Clinton, "revolution is just hot air". For Bernie Sanders supporters, she's not apart of the revolution, as i said in the post you quoted, but instead apart of the system we have to overthrow, she is, largely endemic of the problems highlighted that must be changed entirely.

We all know that the political awareness of people usually only extends to the national conversation. Bernie Sanders as a winner would shift the debate to keeping that foothold, and putting his viewpoints into the limelight which is where the revolution would essentially start, his nomination was designed to be the very beginning to send ripples across the entire country.

There are already people running for congress and governess of specific states on a self proclaimed "Bernie" platform just from him being on the national stage for this long against Clinton.

There is literally nobody in local politics of a single town in a single state who is going to go against a strategy forced from the Top down if such a strategy fails however. Only on a national level would the American people have a voice to make their concerns heard in a large enough way.

Otherwise, like right now, the DNC can force a majority of their members to fall in line, and opposition will be on the opposing side automatically.

And herein lies your fatal mistake, Inu. Presidents don't make laws.

You want long lasting-change, you literally have to do it from the bottoms up.

 

[jmood88]

I'm genuinely curious, why not?

I'm headed to phone bank for Bernie right now and heading back up to MA this weekend for GOTV.

I think he's a single-issue candidate who is fine for the senate but I'm not convinced would be a very good president.

 

[eyeball_kid]

Polls done scientifically is as close to fact as you can get except the actual results themselves.

I'm not saying you can't do a scientific poll, of course you can. But for the media to dictate the tone of the election by reporting so heavily on polls is destructive to the political process. Have you heard of the observer effect? It's the idea that the act of measuring and recording data can change the outcome of that data. That's what happens in elections. Journalists report on a poll and use that to create a narrative about the election, which then changes the election as people will take the votes of their peers into account. It's one reason why we have a closed ballot box instead of announcing your vote in public.

 

[dehydratedbabies]

I think he's a single-issue candidate who is fine for the senate but I'm not convinced would be a very good president.

What's his single issue?

 

[Adaren]

This is fun.

 

[ezrarh]

Top down strategies don't work unless it already has support from the bottom. Bernie's done a great job at spreading his message and that's why I support him. His 'revolution' depends on everybody coming out to vote every election. He admits that no one single person can do the things he proposes. Abstaining from voting at all is silly.

 

[captainnapalm]

The young, normally disaffected voters who created a groundswell of support for Sanders are not going to turn around and vote Clinton. The ideological divide is too big for people. They don't like or trust her.

I don't know how big this group is, but I imagine a lot of these voters will end up abstaining. And some of them might well vote Trump.

 

[Walpurgis]

What's his single issue?

Fixing the mess of a system that is called America.

 

[excelsiorlef]

Its ridiculous to say that if people don't vote for Clinton, "revolution is just hot air". For Bernie Sanders supporters, she's not apart of the revolution, as i said in the post you quoted, but instead apart of the system we have to overthrow, she is, largely endemic of the problems highlighted that must be changed entirely.

We all know that the political awareness of people usually only extends to the national conversation. Bernie Sanders as a winner would shift the debate to keeping that foothold, and putting his viewpoints into the limelight which is where the revolution would essentially start, his nomination was designed to be the very beginning to send ripples across the entire country.

There are already people running for congress and governess of specific states on a self proclaimed "Bernie" platform just from him being on the national stage for this long against Clinton.

There is literally nobody in local politics of a single town in a single state who is going to go against a strategy forced from the Top down if such a strategy fails however. Only on a national level would the American people have a voice to make their concerns heard in a large enough way.

Otherwise, like right now, the DNC can force a majority of their members to fall in line, and opposition will be on the opposing side automatically.



But that makes it easier to dismiss those criticisms though. Clinton or Obama can't be wrong on anything, after all, nor can they actually be corruptible politicians like every other politician. But the GOP can be of course, never the Democratic party, even when large amounts of evidence is thrust in your face.

Really tired of the party games.



Who should they, or i vote for, if there are no good candidates? Heh, maybe i'll vote for Jill Stein in November?



Independents who are largely supporting Bernie will not vote for Hillary. This is just something i have a feeling about.

Not voting because Sanders didn't win is exactly saying the revolution is hot air because you're letting a radical extreme right wing party come in with all 3 parts of the federal government in their control and now potentially a vacant SC spot plus other vacancies there that may come up. Which would allow the GOP to set policy for the next several decades, so hey congrats if you do get a Sanders in later, enjoy watching his or her groundbreaking legislations get declared unconstitutional in 5-4 or 6-3 votes time and time again. Hate Citizens United? Enjoy it getting strengthened. Pro Choice, Pro PP? Enjoy watching PP get defunded and legislated out of existence and Roe v Wade overturned or legislated (with SC support) into non existence.

Not to mention god knows what will happen to black folk and muslims.

But hey at least you didn't vote for 93% same voting record Hillary Clinton. You stood by your bullshit principles while ensuring your precious revolution will be toothless for decades. Enjoy.

There are already people running for congress and governess of specific states on a self proclaimed "Bernie" platform just from him being on the national stage for this long against Clinton.

Also what people? Who? Where? And how popular? What's their polling numbers?

Again voter turn out is down.

 

[Clefargle]

I'm not saying you can't do a scientific poll, of course you can. But for the media to dictate the tone of the election by reporting so heavily on polls is destructive to the political process. Have you heard of the observer effect? It's the idea that the act of measuring and recording data can change the outcome of that data. That's what happens in elections. Journalists report on a poll and use that to create a narrative about the election, which then changes the election as people will take the votes of their peers into account. It's one reason why we have a closed ballot box instead of announcing your vote in public.

Yeah but you won't change the fact that people are interested in polling.

 

[Inuhanyou]

Points taken, but what would your opinion be if Bernie Sanders endorses Clinton. Would you see it as a betrayal and an undermining of his political revolution?

I've supported Bernie for many years, so his mental process is very easy to guess.

Its not a new thing. Bernie said from day 1(literally the first day he announced) of his campaign that if he lost he would most likely throw in the towel for her, because he didn't want the GOP to win.

So we already have known how it would end up in that scenario. It would not be a betrayal of his core values. I think many people see Clinton as atleast being less problematic than the GOP and in general, Bernie has been forced to see his personal values that are much more progressive than the rest attacked and destroyed more times than he could count, dismissed as socialist fantasies.

He knows how to compromise in order to get something that isn't a total failure, even if it wasn't a win for him, he supported ACA after all under the assumption that the Dems were using it as a springboard for universal healthcare.

I certainly would not hold that against him personally.

However, what he has done in this race has essentially lifted a veil for many people who were not aware. They've thought about something they otherwise would have just assumed was a Clinton win before he jumped in.

They have researched her positions, and more importantly they have thought about the system in general as it is, and what they want it to be, and whether they think a system they now understand is fundamentally flawed can be supported knowing what they now know about it.

That's the basic gist of it.

 

[Septimus Prime]

Not voting because Sanders didn't win is exactly saying the revolution is hot air because you're letting a radical extreme right wing party come in with all 3 parts of the federal government in their control and now potentially a vacant SC spot plus other vacancies there that may come up. Which wpuld allow the GOP to set policy for the next several decades, so hey congrats if you do get a Sanders in later, enjoy watching his or her groundbreaking legislations get declared unconstitutional in 5-4 or 6-3 votes time and time again. Hate Citizens United? Enjoy it getting strengthened. Pro Choice, Pro PP? Enjoy watching PP get defunded and legislated out of existence and Roe v Wade overturned or legislated (with SC support) into none existence.

Not to mention god knows what will happen to black folk and muslims.

But hey at least you didn't vote for 93% sane voting record Hillary Clinton. You stood by your bullshit principles while ensuring your precious revolution will be toothless for decades. Enjoy.



Also what people? Who? Where? And how popular? What's their polling numbers?

Again voter turn out is down.

If it's just a 'revolution' we're looking for, then Trump can give us a 'revolution' as much as Bernie can. Maybe even more so, actually.

I'm sure most of us will just pivot to support Hillary, should she secure the nomination. But while Bernie is still viable, I'm going to support him because his policies better align with my own (99% vs Hillary's 90-something percent, according to isidewith.com for me). So please excuse me while I stand by my "bullshit" principles instead of kowtowing to the status quo for the time being.

 

[Clefargle]

Fixing the mess of a system that is called America.

Cmon, that sounds like a Trump line.

Bernies plan originally involved overthrowing one corrupt system, the American financial institutions. Now he keeps adding new "establishments" to overthrow, the Democratic Party, the Heath insurance industry, ect. The list is getting so long that it's becoming unrealistic. Like, if he wanted to change the Democratic Party from within, why start in 2015??

 

[excelsiorlef]

If it's just a 'revolution' we're looking for, then Trump can give us a 'revolution' as much as Bernie can. Maybe even more so, actually.

I'm sure most of us will just pivot to support Hillary, should she secure the nomination. But while Bernie is still viable, I'm going to support him because his policies better align with my own (99% vs Hillary's 90-something percent, according to isidewith.com for me). So please excuse me while I stand by my "bullshit" principles instead of kowtowing to the status quo for the time being.

????

I was clearly talking about post primary aka voting in the GE.

If you will vote the Democratic candidate in the GE you're walking the walk and I have no issues with you.

Principles only become bullshit when you stand by and let the GOP take power.

 

[titiklabingapat]

Fixing the mess of a system that is called America.

It's a big fat mess!

 

[EatinOlives]

Top down strategies don't work unless it already has support from the bottom. Bernie's done a great job at spreading his message and that's why I support him. His 'revolution' depends on everybody coming out to vote every election. He admits that no one single person can do the things he proposes. Abstaining from voting at all is silly.

Exactly. Abstaining from voting is exactly what Bernie is campaigning against. Frankly, I don't know how those Bernie supporters who proudly proclaim they'll abstain call themselves Bernie supporters if they don't even agree with him on this very basic point.

 

[SolicitorPirate]

I'm genuinely curious, why not?

I'm headed to phone bank for Bernie right now and heading back up to MA this weekend for GOTV.

Obviously I can't speak for the person you quoted, but as someone who has followed US federal politics for a long time and was big on Obama and really negative on Sanders, my reasoning can be summed up as follows:

I already bought the snake oil once

 

[Mael]

If Bernie does not get the dem nod, then fuck it. I'm riding the crazy train with Trump. Let's see how bad things can get then.

Great I know who to blame come next year!

Exactly. Abstaining from voting is exactly what Bernie is campaigning against. Frankly, I don't know how those Bernie supporters who proudly proclaim they'll abstain call themselves Bernie supporters if they don't even agree with him on this very basic point.

I know that if this was this point and this point alone we were discussing in Dem related thread I would be vastly less skeptic about his campaign than I am now.
And I don't mean, "here comes the revolution" or other pie in the sky BS.
I mean he needs to convince people that it's vitally important to vote at every state of the government when given the chance.
Seriously at this point I don't give a crap who you vote for as long as you vote (and really I never have any grievance over people who vote, even tea party types).

 

[q_q]

People gotta feel self righteous somehow! It's not like Bernie's been in congress for years or anything, right?

Yeah its been really disheartening to see so many on the left villify sanders and his supporters. Goes to show dissent is only ok if its against conservatives with some people.

 

[q_q]

Obviously I can't speak for the person you quoted, but as someone who has followed US federal politics for a long time and was big on Obama and really negative on Sanders, my reasoning can be summed up as follows:

I already bought the snake oil once

Why ever vote again at all based upon that logic.

 

[dramatis]

Anecdotal, but a good majority of the people I know right now in Colorado walking and calling for Bernie, long time democrats who walked/called for Obama in '08 and '12 have pretty much voiced their lack of interest in working for a Clinton win.

I feel like that's going to be a lot of people, the Clinton campaign has been built on piles of money, while the Sander's campaign has been the kind of excitement you saw with Obama. Maybe she can win November with money, and good for her if she does, but it's not going to be because of any great grass roots effort by democrats who feel like she brings change to the table.

The people who support Sanders see a desire for change. It seems like the people who support Clinton do it in the hopes that not much changes for another 8 years.

I think you're a bit mistaken.

Super PAC money can't be used in official campaigns. Regarding the so-called "piles of money" the Hillary campaign is built on, the Bernie campaign is built on the same kind of "piles of money". You probably caught the fundraising numbers that in January Bernie's campaign outraised the Hillary campaign (albeit Hillary's campaign raised an additional chunk for downticket races). So he has his piles of money too.

The difference here is not that Hillary has more money. It's that her campaign is more organized, disciplined, and simply better than Bernie's. You can laugh at the social media gaffes or lash out about Hillary Clinton the candidate, but her campaign was strategizing for Super Tuesday very early on. The Bernie campaign poured lots of money into Nevada and South Carolina with very little to show for it, whereas Hillary's campaign planned for the possibility of a long primary fight. They didn't spend as much as Bernie in Nevada for ad buys, and by the end of South Carolina he probably would have spent more money than Hillary for these two months, but she would have won 3 out of 4 states.

If you want an idea of how the Bernie campaign is sort of flaky, you can see for yourself how ad spending looks in the Super Tuesday states.

It appears the person wanting to win Colorado through money isn't Hillary, it's Bernie.

Note that Priorities USA is the Hillary superPAC, and it's spent only about 175k compared to the millions spent by the official campaigns of Hillary and Bernie (it seems Priorities is conserving its money for the general).

Mark Murray ‏@mmurraypolitics 12m12 minutes ago
Clinton is outspending Sanders in Super Tuesday ad race
Clinton: $4.1M in 11 states
Sanders: $3.3M in 5 states

Also note that his campaign is targeting those states because they're largely white.
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/how-bernie-sanders-hopes-get-his-goove-back?cid=sm_tw_msnbc

His campaign is currently advertising in five states, all of which are more than two-thirds white according to the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics: Colorado (80 percent white), Massachusetts (85 percent white), Minnesota (89 percent white), Michigan (72 percent white), and Oklahoma (82 percent white).

His campaign has conceded the minority vote. They're not even bothering to fight for the minority vote, even though you need that vote to win the Dem primary. Hell, you need the minority vote to win the general election as a Dem.

The so-called grassroots effort is probably stronger on Hillary's side, given that she has a lot of 2008 veterans from both her campaign and Obama's. You can pull a Nirolak and check the campaign job pages to get an idea of what the campaigns are doing: the Hillary camp was hiring data analysts and field organizers already back when the Bernie camp was still looking into directors for Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada. Before the Bernie camp got a rude wake up call, Hillary already hired a diverse staff, particularly a Latina outreach director who started building relationships with locals way before the Nevada caucuses.

The funny thing about superPAC money, it can't build you a ground game. So if here is merit to strong organization and grassroots for Hillary, it would be to her campaign staff and not to her superPAC.

If Bernie's excitement was actually like that of Obama's, he would be winning. But he isn't. Your feelings about how things are...are just that, feelings. It doesn't match up with the results or reality. If people weren't excited to be voting for Hillary Clinton, she wouldn't be winning against the supposedly fantastically exuberant Bernie supporters.

Speaking personally, I think you're wrong to assume that the people who want change support Bernie, and the people who hope not much changes support Hillary. The people who supported Obama in 2008 and followed Obama's presidency for 7 years now know and understand the gears of the process and how to get change more effectively than those who are still simply searching for a singular hero to upend the system. Becoming president isn't a magic wand; having Obama in the seat did not banish racism and all the ills of the world. The people who are willing to grind and endure are no less wishful for change than those who want to break the shackles immediately. They're simply smarter about it.

 

[Inuhanyou]

And herein lies your fatal mistake, Inu. Presidents don't make laws.

You want long lasting-change, you literally have to do it from the bottoms up.

I didnt say they did. His momentum getting to the Presidency nationally would allow progressive candidates who follow his message to feel more viable and more comfortable participating in lower level political races, and, and that would hypothetically in theory jump start our political revolution of more liberal representation in congress and in the broader political spectrum, advocating for what needs to be advocated for.

But if he falls here...i think that all goes byebye. Nobody is going to challenge Hillary or the conservative neoliberal Democratic party after they have largely locked up like a vice after this. And that essentially shuts out and alienates for good the more liberal wing of the party, and the Independents who identified more with the Democrats from a lefty perspective.

Bernie specifically ran for President because he didn't feel his message mattered if he was just a senator from a nobody state saying these things in congress year after year like he has been. Being a presidential candidate could force people on a much larger scale to think about these viewpoints.

If he loses the nom, the best thing he could do is not stop advocating for what he does, and continue around the country in the same manner he is now, letting people know about what they should be demanding from their public officials, to grow the next batch of Bernies and Elizabeth Warrens

 

[q_q]

Cmon, that sounds like a Trump line.

Bernies plan originally involved overthrowing one corrupt system, the American financial institutions. Now he keeps adding new "establishments" to overthrow, the Democratic Party, the Heath insurance industry, ect. The list is getting so long that it's becoming unrealistic. Like, if he wanted to change the Democratic Party from within, why start in 2015??

Establishment is not a buzz word. It refers to those who are in power only because theyve been "established" that way by moneyed interests. This includes any group that is complicit in this system, both parties, most large corporations and lobbying groups etc. This has always been his platform and it hasnt changed so im not sure where youre coming from here.

 

[Chariot]

The Bernie campaign poured lots of money into Nevada and South Carolina with very little to show for it

Very little to show? He did pretty well for a old socialist grandpa who appeared for most people from the void against establishment backed Hillary Clinton, former first lady, secretary of state and what not. The Clintons are multimillionaires with contacts and connections, Bernie Sanders personal wealth is a bit above half a million. And yet he is awfully close. Look at the numbers from a few months ago. You can't dismiss how much he clawed up from the bottom of the ocean to seeing the light.

 

[Mecha]

Establishment is not a buzz word. It refers to those who are in power only because theyve been "established" that way by moneyed interests. This includes any group that is complicit in this system, both parties, most large corporations and lobbying groups etc. This has always been his platform and it hasnt changed so im not sure where youre coming from here.

That's what it seems to have become, but traditionally someone who has been a politician for over 30 years and is running in the democrat party would have been labeled as establishment.

 

[SolicitorPirate]

Why ever vote again at all based upon that logic.

You're going to have to explain how being wary of fantasies equates to not voting.

 

[Inuhanyou]

Cmon, that sounds like a Trump line.

Bernies plan originally involved overthrowing one corrupt system, the American financial institutions. Now he keeps adding new "establishments" to overthrow, the Democratic Party, the Heath insurance industry, ect. The list is getting so long that it's becoming unrealistic. Like, if he wanted to change the Democratic Party from within, why start in 2015??

Have you not actually paid attention to Bernie Sanders before a few months ago? He has been railing against money in politics and the decline of the two parties since the 80s and before that. Money in politics and neoliberal sentiment is the most important issue because it concerns basically every other issue in the country that politicians choose to advocate for or not advocate for.

Deregulation, tax breaks, powerful corporate interests in the form of private health insurance, big pharma, credit card, wall street, oil and gas, and the widening gap between the lower classes and the highest ARE the issue, for both the GOP and the Democratic parties. He just thought the Dems would be easier to stick to because they agreed more with getting rid of those issues, or had more to say about it in that direction.

For this cycle in the beginning, he wasn't trying to change the Dems from within, he was trying to highlight his issues that he identified in the Democratic party's more liberal wing that are common sense. He was probably blindsided by the pushback of the democratic establishment to what he thought was their primary party platform.

After all, they claimed to be against Citizens united back in 2010 but it seems like now the argument has shifted to Clinton basically saying that money doesn't influence her just because she's Clinton and not only that, but money doesn't influence anyone, ever. Which i think its just a preposterous claim to make.