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Berning down the house!

Skeptic Ginger said:
Oh won't this make you a happy camper. :)

I think both Sanders and Warren are in their own echo chambers hearing how they can save the country. It didn't happen in 2016 and I don't see much evidence it's going to happen in 2020.
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You know what didn't happen in 2016? Centrist Democrat who isolated herself with high priced consultants winning the presidency against the most despised candidate of all time.

The GOP, regardless of Trump running or not, have already started their fear mongering campaign: Socialism equates to Maduro and Venezuela.

The American public already thinks socialism is the liberal goal, no capitalism allowed. And once again the Democrats are failing to counter the lie.
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The Dems could put Bill flippin' Gates on the ticket and Stupid will still scream socialism at every opportunity. And the press will treat it as a serious discussion.

Because, hold on to your hat, the Republicans are not interested in factual, policy driven discussions. I know, shocking.

So acting like any sort of good faith discussion is going to happen with Stupid (or whoever the GOP runs) is a hindrance. Instead of bending over backwards to try and find someone who can't be attacked, go with someone who is assertive, has real policies to drive, and can actually excite someone other than a CNN/MSNBC talking head. Go with someone who won't flinch when some goofy nickname or conspiracy theory gets thrown at them.
 
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kellyb said:
Among declared candidates, he's the front runner:
http://emersonpolling.com/2019/02/1...lurality-agreeing-with-border-wall-extension/
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Doesn't necessarily refute my point though. Hes polling at 17%, that may be the very enthusiast minority I mentioned. Its worth noting he does marginally worse in the Trump Vs "?" question where Harris has the lead.


Biden seems to the best choice by that pole even if he isn't running yet. I wonder how much of that is because he hasn't declared.
 
You got a poll from Lincoln's time that shows his approval rating? Because the South started the War for Slavery prior to Lincoln's swearing in.
 
Belz... said:
That's genuinely funny,
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There's no accounting for taste. I didn't think it was funny at all. I thought it was a disingenuous and mean spirited attempt to salvage a bad bit of rhetoric.

And notice also Donal's double standard of evidence. How can he say "the most despised candidate of all time", without opinion polls from all time? This doesn't seem to be an impediment when Donal is making his proclamation. But as soon as anyone dissents, it suddenly becomes the standard everyone else has to meet.

And notice also Donal's *other* double standard and moving goalpost. Trump just has to be a "candidate", to make Donal's point. But when Lincoln is put forth as a counter example, suddenly the criteria is being sworn in as president.
 
No, the South was taking up arms to defend slavery well before that. Lincoln even said he wouldn't abolish...

NO! This what I was talking about. Instead of having an actual discussion about Sanders as the Democratic candidate, we are about to go down a rabbit hole about the Civil War and whether or not Lincoln was more popular than Stupid.

Lets stop chasing unrelated points thrown out by people not acting in good faith who simply want to bog the conversation down.

So, my actual point is the idea that a more left wing candidate is more susceptible to smear campaigns and fear mongering is not true.

Be it Sanders, Harris, Booker, or Jesus H Christ, the GOP will scream socialism and push racist/sexist/anti-Semitic memes and conspiracy theories.
 
kellyb said:
Re: Bernie Sanders...

Not only is he the most popular politician in America:

...but he would have won against Trump last time, too:
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That is... questionable.

First of all, keep in mind that while Sanders may look good in the polls (both now and in 2016), he has never been subject to any sort of major attacks from the republican side. Its easy to look good when nobody says mean things about you. I suspect that had he won the nomination and the republican dirty tricks started, his popularity would have started to drop.

Secondly, he had a problem with minority support. One of the reasons Clinton lost is because some of the minorities who voted for Obama decided to sit out of the election. And Sanders had even less support among black and latino voters than Clinton did. If Sanders was the candidate, you'd probably see even more potential democratic voters deciding not to bother heading to the polls.

Lastly, money. For better or worse, elections are expensive. Yes, it would be wonderful if the U.S. could fix its elections so you don't need hundreds of millions to run a campaign. But, until that happens, you have to fight the election with the rules that are in place. Sanders does a good job at earning money from small donors, but he wouldn't be getting the big donations like Clinton did. You could say that he's taking a stand on principles, but if the end result is that you can't buy air time to run campaign ads because your cash has run out, you're going to be hampering yourself in the election.

The argument the centrists give is that "opposition research" will hurt him, and the Republicans will paint him as a communist, but the data indicates that instead of making Sanders look bad, screaming about socialism while pointing at him just makes socialism more popular.
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First of all, what "data" are you referring to, that attacking Sanders would make "socialism more popular"? Just the fact that "gee wiz, polls show support for single payer health care" doesn't mean that, once the republican spin is in place, people (especially moderates/independents who need to be won over) won't stop thinking "socialism is a dirty word".

Secondly, keep in mind that not all of the attacks against Sanders would have been due to his political positions. If he had won the primary, you would have seen all sorts of reminders from the Republicans that he was a rally where people were chanting "Yankee die" (and I can't really seeing that being something a lot of people would say "Yeah, I agree with that"), while Fox news would eagerly start to air news stories about how Sanders was a thief (because he stole electricity from a neighbor when he was younger.)
Really, I think some of the centrists would rather just lose than shift left, and other are caught in an ideological echo chamber where "left-wingers can't win, only centrists can win" is considered "just common sense".
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Many people think you need to be 'centrist' (in the Democrat's case, center-left) because you need to win over independent voters in addition to maintaining your core voters.

If you were an independent voter, and your choice was against a far-right and a far-left candidate (neither of which had policies that you really liked), then why vote for either of them?
 
Lambchops said:
Funny how so many of the so called "progressive" USAians on this site are so oppsosed to an actual progressive candidate.
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I'm not a "progressive USAian" (I'm Canadian, and in the last election I voted for our conservative party. But, were I in the states I probably would have voted for Obama and Clinton.) So, I can't speak for them, but I do have a few reasons why a 'progressive' might not want Sanders.

First of all, last time I checked, there was no master checklist that says "all Progressives must believe these points". Each progressive politician and voter will have their own set of ideas, and there is no guarantee that that the 'progressive' politician's ideas will perfectly align with that of the voter. So you're progressive and like Sander's health care plan... but you may disagree with his trade policies.

Secondly, win-ability. Yes, there were polls showing Sanders would win in a general election, but as I have pointed out before, those polls were done before Sanders was really subject to any sort of attacks. A 'rational' voter should look at the alternatives and ask what they should prefer: select a moderate left-of-center voter that has the best chance at winning (in which case you get some of what you want, but not all) or select a far left candidate that you might think better matches your preferences, and see your candidate go down to certain defeat.

And just out of curiosity, what exactly was "non-progressive" about Clinton? Yes, she (for example) accepted money for giving speeches at various corporations. But she also 1) wanted to increase banking regulations, 2) would have protected gay rights, 3) wanted to improve health care, 4) as a senator, tried to pass bills to strengthen unions, 5) supported minimum wage increases and increased paid family leave. Does that make her a "progressive"? Where is the dividing line between progressive and simply left-of-center?
 
theprestige said:
You know what didn't happen in 2016? Centrist Democrat winning the presidency against the most despised candidate of all time.
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Abraham Lincoln. So despised that his election prompted half the country to secede, and started a war that killed over half a million people.
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Minor nitpick:

At the time of the civil war, the Union had a population of ~22 million, the Confederate states ~9 million (non-slaves). So while a bunch of states did secede, it was far less than half (both in number of citizens and in actual number of states.)

Also, it should be noted that not all of the people in the confederate states would have supported seceding. Many might have preferred to stay in the union.
 
Segnosaur said:
Minor nitpick:

At the time of the civil war, the Union had a population of ~22 million, the Confederate states ~9 million (non-slaves). So while a bunch of states did secede, it was far less than half (both in number of citizens and in actual number of states.)

Also, it should be noted that not all of the people in the confederate states would have supported seceding. Many might have preferred to stay in the union.
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Are we counting the 3/5ths of persons in there? ;)
 
Venom said:
Sanders is the Democrats' best candidate.

The Democratic Party does not quite realize that yet either.
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Axiom_Blade said:
If Sanders stays in the race, he can beat Trump. He's the Democrats' best candidate.
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Technically he's not even a Democrat.

And I've listed various reasons in another post why he may not be as good as you might think. He is popular, but he's never really been subject to any real attacks. (Easy to look good when nobody says bad things about you... that would not occur in a general election.) He doesn't have a lot of popularity among Minorities, and his desire to avoid "big money" donors might leave him in trouble in an expensive election campaign.
Axiom_Blade said:
If you think there's a better one, I'd like to hear a case for it. I don't see any of the other candidates having the popularity that Sanders has.
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He's got name recognition based on his 2016 run. That doesn't mean that there aren't candidates out there who might be better suited.

I rather like Booker.... Not as old as Sanders (which would help with getting younger voters), more appealing to minority voters, he's got a fairly decent profile from his work on various senate committees, he is pro-business, but also supports things like an increase in the minimum wage (and as mayor, he also raised taxes to tackle a budget deficit.) I think that shows a good pragmatic approach to politics.
 
Segnosaur said:
Many people think you need to be 'centrist' (in the Democrat's case, center-left) because you need to win over independent voters in addition to maintaining your core voters.
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As I never tire of pointing out, for every vote you lost in the center, you have to pick up two on the wings, because votes you lose in the center go to the other major party candidate, whereas votes you lose on the wings either go to a third party candidate or don't get cast at all.
 
The Great Zaganza said:
Technically he's not even a Democrat.
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that might be one of his biggest advantages.
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Yes, it may sound appealing to be the "outsider" who can get in there and mess up the status quo. But there are problems with that.

It means Sanders will be limiting allies that he can call on during the primaries. (If you're a life-long democrat who has spent years trying to build up the party, you will be less eager to support the guy who swoops in at the last minute to say "I'm taking over now".) Fewer endorsements, fewer voters willing to give you a chance.

It also means that during the election itself, some voters and campaign workers will be less enthused at the "outsider" who has come in at the last minute. "Support me as a candidate... even though I think you democrats were bad people".
 
Segnosaur said:
Yes, it may sound appealing to be the "outsider" who can get in there and mess up the status quo. But there are problems with that.

It means Sanders will be limiting allies that he can call on during the primaries. (If you're a life-long democrat who has spent years trying to build up the party, you will be less eager to support the guy who swoops in at the last minute to say "I'm taking over now".) Fewer endorsements, fewer voters willing to give you a chance.

It also means that during the election itself, some voters and campaign workers will be less enthused at the "outsider" who has come in at the last minute. "Support me as a candidate... even though I think you democrats were bad people".
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Worked fine for Trump. He was much more openly contemptuous of the party line than Bernie ever was.
 
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SuburbanTurkey said:
Yes, it may sound appealing to be the "outsider" who can get in there and mess up the status quo. But there are problems with that.
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Worked fine for Trump. He was much more openly contemptuous of the party line than Bernie ever was.
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Not sure if the situations are really compatible...

1) The republican primaries were much more of a 'clown car' than the Democratic 2016 primaries, making it easier to take over without an insider base. (The Democratic 2020 primaries are getting crowded, but at least all the candidates look like they deserve to be there.)

2) During the general election, Trump 1) had assistance from Russia, and 2) had the benefit of years of character assassination by the GOP aimed at Clinton
 
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