Couldn't possibly be that millions of people just don't agree with Sanders, could it? Nah, it's got to be "the establishment!".
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Bernie Sanders Picks Up Major Union Endorsement Ahead Of Caucuses
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Couldn't possibly be that millions of people just don't agree with Sanders, could it? Nah, it's got to be "the establishment!".
HappyBivouac
Member
He's gone the way of Minecraft. Incredibly solid game, but people hate to be seen as part of the fan club.
Aaronology
Member
8 years ago Hillary Clinton was also the presumptive nominee but she still lost. A better politician ran a smarter campaign and none of the advantages you're citing now made any difference in the end. Stop making excuses for Bernie Sanders.
eBay Huckster
Member
i mean, a realistic Sanders presidency would likely spend its time maintaining the Obama status quo and incrementally reforming the system (alongside appointing pinko justices and extolling the virtues of full communism now /s), but i get the feeling you wouldn't call him a "centrist conservative" in that context
i'll cede that she's basically a centrist, maybe slightly center-left. but her stated policy positions (and voting record, and SOS record) are consistent with wanting to incrementally reform the system so that it's closer to progressive viewpoints of where it needs to be. i'm not sure how that then qualifies as "conservative" - mainly because i'm not convinced that maintaining Obama's policy "floor" alone qualifies.
Lord_Byron28
Member
I said it played a large part, not the whole part. If you wish to live in a fantasy world and pretend that Sanders not running a big campaign against those who have all the money, control the message to the people, can manipulate the entire political system as well as currently running the goverment, didn't massively effect his campaign then so be it.
Obama had a lot more support from within the Democratic party. It's also not like Obama was personally calling out the corruption and unfairness within the Democratic party elite. He also had plenty of donations from corporations. Also the media loved Obama. Sanders is running a public campaign against people such as the ones in charge of the major media outlets. So they instead shunned a big portion of his campaign and neglected major moments from him to instead focus on Trump/Clinton. This campaign is a completely different beast than Obama vs. Clinton. They are fighting much different battles.
Darkangel
Member
I too find it a little odd considering how left-leaning GAF generally is. I understand supporting Hillary when there's no other choice, but a lot of people here seem to actually prefer her over Bernie.
I'm not an American, but I figured that most liberals would want to support the "socialist" candidate until they absolutely had to switch.
I love this, and I'm pulling for Bernie.
Zoe
Member
The Medicare for All taxes thread should have dispelled any myths of that notion if it hadn't already been obvious.
hydrophilic attack
Member
Reality has a pro-Hillary bias
She has a great chance of winning.
A self-fulfilling reality.
New Yorker here, I'm voting for Bernie, my whole family is voting for Bernie, my friends are voting for Bernie, my classmates are voting for Bernie, my acquaintances are voting for Bernie.
Clinton may have a huge network of support in New York, but within New York City (which is half the state's population) things are looking up for Bernie.
On primary day I'm gonna remind everyone to go out there and vote because their opinion matters, their vote matters, and they need to be heard.
In the end, if Hillary wins the nomination I will vote for her, but until that, Bernie has my 100% support
Clinton may have a huge network of support in New York, but within New York City (which is half the state's population) things are looking up for Bernie.
On primary day I'm gonna remind everyone to go out there and vote because their opinion matters, their vote matters, and they need to be heard.
In the end, if Hillary wins the nomination I will vote for her, but until that, Bernie has my 100% support
And that's it.
I'm playing the odds here. We don't know how Bernie is going to do in the polls with the same constant attack machine that Hillary has been up against for the last two years. I imagine that the Republicans would love to go up against Sanders, as there is ample evidence that the American voting public will not vote for self-described socialist. Is there a way to know this for sure? Nope. But it's a chance that the Democrats can't be willing to take.
But what I can tell you, is that Hillary has withstood all of the attacks she's going to get- There's going to be nothing new at this point. Trump may double down, but we have a good idea of how the average American feels about bringing up Benghazi for the millionth time, or someone discussing her emails again.
Macho Madness
Member
A perfectly reasonable post. Your anecdotes are to be expected considering the generational gap thus far in the election. Assuming you're under 30, that is.
I don't think its Bernie hate. I think it is more about disgust towards some of his followers. Republicans and their supporters who talked about 'unskewing' the polls last presidential election got made fun of viciously for ignoring evidence and reality. Now we have a few Bernie supporters talk about momentum and narrative like he still has an okay chance of winning. Actual polls, evidence, and math says the complete opposite.
I personally liked and honestly took a bit of pride when the democratic party and the left were the ones more grounded in facts and reality.
Macho Madness
Member
That is definitely part of it. Accusing the DNC and the Hillary campaign of voter fraud in Arizona which they had nothing to do with yet ignoring how badly the Idaho and Utah caucuses were ran, taking Hillary quotes out of context to further a narrative, call her "basically a Republican," talk about how Bernie still has a very real chance to become the nominee etc.
It gets grating to hear. I thought we were better than that.
superdeluxe
Member
Why do you feel bad for the people? They choose to give it to him.
Big Baybee
Member
Hillary may not be as left leaning as Bernie, but she does lean left. The facts and her record have shown that time and time again. I am a liberal, I want the same things Bernie wants, but he is running a pretty terrible campaign and I have no faith in him actually winning a GE. You have to play the game. It's noble that he doesn't want to, but that's not a winning strategy.
nitekrawlwer
Member
Excuse #1: Sanders has had years to accrue such support. Longer than Obama. He simply chose not to.
Excuse #2: Nobody forced Sanders to throw the people he would need to work with under the bus.
Excuse #3: Those are available to Sanders. He chose not to use it.
Excuse #4: The media loves anything that will get it clicks. He's had years to learn to leverage the media.
Excuse #5: See excuse #2
Bernie is fighting a different fight. That's entirely on him. He could join the political race like everyone else. Either he is chosing not to or he's just really bad at being a politician. It's nobodies fault but his own.
I can understand how not being a good politician might be appealing to many. Functionally it's destroying him.
We're not talking about large states or small states. The premise is Bernie's wins in ID, UT, WA, HI, AK, WY and maybe WI will shift the narrative and momentum his way. My claim is narrative and momentum does not matter this late in the game. Maybe in the first two weeks of the primary. But that's it. We've seen it this election. Bernie wins NH > Clinton wins NV, SC and Super Tuesday. Bernie wins MI > Clinton sweeps Super Tuesday 2. The "narrative" in 2008 was that Obama won the primary in February and Clinton could not win. That was true. But we saw narrative and momentum did not matter. Clinton won more delegates in April and May than Obama did because those states were demographically more favorable to her. Likewsie, Bernie's wins through April 9 is because those states are more favorable to him (white, caucus, open elections). After that there are a slew of demographically diverse states with closed primaries. Clinton is favored in those states. He cannot win by the requisite 20 points in NY, PA, NJ or CA to win the nomination because the demographics are not favorable to him. He may be able to win them by 5 points, but 5 points won't make a difference. Sanders' supporters are going to be on a high for the next two weeks. Don't be surprised if they start shouting fraud when he loses NY.
SpideySenses
Member
Fuck, that's so succinct and so perfect.
Im not an American either but from looking from the outside, he has some great policies but he seems to running an awful campaign. I think thats the reason he hasn't got the support that he needs.
But clearly if Sanders doesn't win NY it's because of voter fraud!
Otherwise NY would never favor $Hillary!
If you're looking at a campaign only from the media and internet perspective, chances are you know next to nothing on why and how victories and losses happen.
It's true in every election I've looked into myself
metalslimer
Member
He had great sounding ideas with no way to get them passed besides his fake revolution
He has to blow all of them out unless he miraculously annihilates in the big states, most of which are favoring Hillary, either in polls or just on demographics.
You don't feel bad for poor people who give all their money to televangelist preachers? These televangelist preachers are taking advantage and exploiting people's faith and deeply held beliefs for money. Yes, they 'chose' to give it to the preacher, but you can still feel disgust for the preacher and sad and pity towards the people you think were taken advantage of. I don't think it is a difficult concept to grasp. Hell, John Oliver made an episode about it.
Now, before anyone jumps down my throat I am not directly comparing Bernie to a televangelist. I think it is perfectly reasonable to give money to Bernie's campaign if you think that giving money will further the liberal/progressive movement by extending his campaign and giving him money to further extend his reach and message during the campaign.
Macho Madness
Member
Yes but I'll describe what an awful campaign is. It's not media attention or narrative because you can't control that for the most part. There's a lot of talk that Bernie's message doesn't connect with large swaths of the Democratic party, and that's very likely true. But beyond that, his campaign doesn't even do the nuts and bolts of what Obama proved to work 8 and 4 years ago. Take early voting for example.
Early voting is a key that helps Democratic candidates win because it doesn't suppress votes and promotes people to vote early. The Hillary campaign has been promoting early voting as much as possible. It's what kept their margins down to reasonable losses in Nebraska and elsewhere. It's what helped drive her margins up in Arizona and the south. If a state offers early voting and you're a voter that's likely to go for her, they make sure to tell you that not only is the option available but you should use it. It's a smart strategy that will help her win in November too.
Bernie's campaign appears to ignore those kinds of things even though the book was written on that stuff when Obama ran 8 years ago. That's the mark of a bad campaign.
Yeah that's a good point, better than I could say it.
Sanders's campaign started out with basically him and a small group of operatives (likely in the single digits) who hadn't been hired by anyone else. Compare that with the Clinton campaign, which had the institutional advantage of both Clinton and Obama's political networks to start, and was about as large of medium sized company by the beginning of this year. Is it any wonder that the Clinton campaign has been better connected and better organized?
Sanders campaign relies mostly on amateurs (a lot of former Occupy people, actually) along with paid staffers who the campaign only was able to start hiring this past fall once the online fundraising operation got going. Because the entire Democratic party and most unions basically decided to support Clinton before the nomination began, the Sanders campaign needed to build a campaign infrastructure from scratch. That's something even the Obama campaign didn't need to do because Obama always had at least some institutional backing - he'd given a major speech at the 2004 Democratic convention for goodness sake - even at the beginning.
Despite those disadvantages, the Sanders campaign has managed to gain the support of at least 40 percent of Democrats if you go by national polling.
The Real Clear Politics poll aggregator has him with an average of 42.5 percent support (Clinton +9)
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/2016_democratic_presidential_nomination-3824.html#polls
and the pollster.com aggregator, which incorporates more polls so is better, also has with with the same level of support and down by a slightly smaller margin.
http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/2016-national-democratic-primary
Looking at the trend-lines on both aggregators, Sanders still appears to be gaining ground on Clinton as well.
In addition to that, Sanders does better in every poll against every Republican candidate than Clinton. Many people like to dismiss this point by saying that general election polls at this point aren't very predictive (true-although it gets harder to make this point once you get into April), that Sanders hasn't faced Republican attacks that will turn people against him (somewhat true, but its highly debatable how much this will matter), and that Clinton has faced every attack the Republicans have thrown at her (untrue). Nevertheless, its hard to ignore this pattern because it occurs across all polls, lines up with other measures (favor-ability ratings), and seems to reflect some of the crossover support Sanders got in places like Michigan.
Most importantly, Sanders is getting the support of the vast majority of millennials who are voting. Considering millennials are the largest age demographic and will play an increasing roll in politics going forward, the Democrats can't afford to ignore that. If this primary were held 4 years from now, Sanders would have won Iowa, Massachusetts, Illinois, Missouri, and maybe Nevada. In addition, the he would have won the states he did win by wider margins and lost the states he lost by smaller margins. If this primary were held 8 years from now, Sanders would have won handily. That is how generational changes in an electorate work. Not only does the candidate winning the larger share of younger voters gain as those voters become a bigger portion of the electorate, the candidate gaining most of his or her support from older generations loses that support as older cohorts age out of the electorate and stops voting.
Sanders won't win the primary, but he still has every reason to stay in the race to demonstrate that support. Sometimes, candidates run in elections with goals other than winning, especially primary elections. If Sanders were to drop out now, many would do what they are already doing: try to write off the platform he is running on as a flash in the pan that won't amount to anything. To prevent that, I hope Sanders does what he appears to be doing: consolidating his support in the hopes of fighting for the Democratic Party to represent at least some of what he wants at the convention. Considering Democrats will need Sanders supporters to vote for them during the 2016-2024 period, that is only fair. That is how primaries and political conventions work.
Sanders campaign relies mostly on amateurs (a lot of former Occupy people, actually) along with paid staffers who the campaign only was able to start hiring this past fall once the online fundraising operation got going. Because the entire Democratic party and most unions basically decided to support Clinton before the nomination began, the Sanders campaign needed to build a campaign infrastructure from scratch. That's something even the Obama campaign didn't need to do because Obama always had at least some institutional backing - he'd given a major speech at the 2004 Democratic convention for goodness sake - even at the beginning.
Despite those disadvantages, the Sanders campaign has managed to gain the support of at least 40 percent of Democrats if you go by national polling.
The Real Clear Politics poll aggregator has him with an average of 42.5 percent support (Clinton +9)
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/2016_democratic_presidential_nomination-3824.html#polls
and the pollster.com aggregator, which incorporates more polls so is better, also has with with the same level of support and down by a slightly smaller margin.
http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/2016-national-democratic-primary
Looking at the trend-lines on both aggregators, Sanders still appears to be gaining ground on Clinton as well.
In addition to that, Sanders does better in every poll against every Republican candidate than Clinton. Many people like to dismiss this point by saying that general election polls at this point aren't very predictive (true-although it gets harder to make this point once you get into April), that Sanders hasn't faced Republican attacks that will turn people against him (somewhat true, but its highly debatable how much this will matter), and that Clinton has faced every attack the Republicans have thrown at her (untrue). Nevertheless, its hard to ignore this pattern because it occurs across all polls, lines up with other measures (favor-ability ratings), and seems to reflect some of the crossover support Sanders got in places like Michigan.
Most importantly, Sanders is getting the support of the vast majority of millennials who are voting. Considering millennials are the largest age demographic and will play an increasing roll in politics going forward, the Democrats can't afford to ignore that. If this primary were held 4 years from now, Sanders would have won Iowa, Massachusetts, Illinois, Missouri, and maybe Nevada. In addition, the he would have won the states he did win by wider margins and lost the states he lost by smaller margins. If this primary were held 8 years from now, Sanders would have won handily. That is how generational changes in an electorate work. Not only does the candidate winning the larger share of younger voters gain as those voters become a bigger portion of the electorate, the candidate gaining most of his or her support from older generations loses that support as older cohorts age out of the electorate and stops voting.
Sanders won't win the primary, but he still has every reason to stay in the race to demonstrate that support. Sometimes, candidates run in elections with goals other than winning, especially primary elections. If Sanders were to drop out now, many would do what they are already doing: try to write off the platform he is running on as a flash in the pan that won't amount to anything. To prevent that, I hope Sanders does what he appears to be doing: consolidating his support in the hopes of fighting for the Democratic Party to represent at least some of what he wants at the convention. Considering Democrats will need Sanders supporters to vote for them during the 2016-2024 period, that is only fair. That is how primaries and political conventions work.
JordanN
Banned
Isn't it weird how the Republicans aren't doing more to help Bernie? Like, shouldn't they be fighting tooth and nail to get him to win the dem spot if they really think he's an easier target than Hillary?
Unless they really are feeling the bern and consider him a bigger threat.
I just don't understand how someone could truly like and support Hillarly. We deserve so much better.
Unknown Soldier
Member
Some union locals have broken off and endorsed Trump. This is a much better choice and I'm glad someone is breaking ranks and giving Bernie a chance.
Like I said, the unions are in play this year. It's too bad there are so few unions left after decades of the Democrats and Republicans working together to kill them.
Like I said, the unions are in play this year. It's too bad there are so few unions left after decades of the Democrats and Republicans working together to kill them.
This is such a great post. Sanders won't win this election, but he's laying the groundwork for the progressive movement. People who ridicule him like they are rooting for a sports team are so fucking short sighted.
Him not dropping doesnt change that he is losing just as much as people thought he would. He could stay in until he can't anymore and he would stiiiiiiilllll be losing mate.
Stumpokapow
listen to the mad man
There is no reason to believe that adding more polls makes things "better"; this entirely depends on the polls being added. When you add noise to signal, you don't get clearer signal.
This is wrong. Adding more polls increases the sample size, which is the only way to reduce incidental as opposed to systematic error. If there were any evidence that there were a method of polling that consistently produces better results in this primary, and therefore reduces systematic error arising from polling methods, you would be correct, but so far such a method does not appear to exist.
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
I have this alternate theory that lots of people don't agree with Bernie's police aims. I personally think that in most of the places he differs from Hillary its either things I don't agree with in the first place, or things that are completely unrealistic because they're mostly just aspirational concepts.
The narrative that Hillary Clinton supporters are people jaded people who otherwise would support Sanders doesn't hold water for me.
nitekrawlwer
Member
Can we please stop manufacturing this Bernie's disadvantaged narrative. He's had decades to prepare himself, find excellent team of campaigners, and build a political network. These disadvantages are nothing more than poor planning and poorer implementation.
As president, Bernie would threaten GOP issues that Clinton wouldn't seriously touch. His biggest cause is fighting neoliberalism, something that Clinton tolerates and the GOP fights for tooth and nail. The GOP fears fiscal leftism more than they fear social leftism, so some Republicans are more comfortable with the near-certainty of a Clinton presidency rather than the risk of a Sanders presidency.
Hillary Clinton has been planning for over a decade. If experience and time are what matter most, she should have crushed this far-left insurgent before the primaries even started.
More like being 4-8 years too early
More fundamentally, you are ignoring the realities of the structure of political parties in the U.S., as well as changes in the priorities of U.S. voters driven by economic, social, and technological changes that fall along generational lines.
In light of those, focusing on the shortcomings of Sanders as a candidate and his overall campaign as if this were a sporting contest misses the point.
Are there things Sanders could have done better? Of course. At the time time, you might ask why HRC has utterly failed to connect with millenial voters despite their votes being of increased importance going forward for Democrats.
..... and Bernie supporters are the ones being called delusional
j_k_redtail
Member
"Two" years? Try twenty.
I've seen very little if any Bernie hate. Saying someone has very little to no chance of winning the nomination isn't hate
nitekrawlwer
Member
More like being 4-8 years too early
More fundamentally, you are ignoring the realities of the structure of political parties in the U.S., as well as changes in the priorities of U.S. voters driven by economic, social, and technological changes that fall along generational lines.
In light of those, focusing on the shortcomings of Sanders as a candidate and his overall campaign as if this were a sporting contest misses the point.
Are there things Sanders could have done better? Of course. At the time time, you might ask why HRC has utterly failed to connect with millenial voters despite their votes being of increased importance going forward for Democrats.
No. Bernie has ignored the realities of the structure of the political parties for decades. Not me. I'm just not smitten enough with his revolution to call his lack of planning and foresight a disadvantage, but instead the self imposed failure it is.
nitekrawlwer
Member
She is crushing him. Unless you want to use some stupid metric like excitement.
But he isn't losing as much as people thought. Again, while I don't expect a Sanders win, he's giving Hillary Clinton a real run for her money. He's a septuagenarian socialist from a backwater state with personal convictions against the most effective means of fundraising. Nobody thought this could be possible.
Well, no. She isn't crushing him. Bernie Sanders, on paper, is a weaker candidate than Jim Webb or O'Malley. But despite coming from the political left field, he's racked up a huge amount of delegates. His success points to major flaws in Clinton's campaign, which (if not treated) could sink her in the general.
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