Bullish on Bernie: The Bernie Sanders 2016 Thread

[Trakar]

I'm pretty far from socialist-leaning, I tend to describe myself as classical liberal or minarchist libertarian; but given the state of the nation right now, I'm definitely in the Sanders camp. I don't think he's likely to beat out Clinton, she simply has too big an entrenched corporate base funding her; but Sanders is the first candidate in recent memory that I can vote for without having to get seriously drunk and scrub myself raw for hours afterwards.

Refreshing isn't it!

 

[Trakar]

Man With a Cause

Bernie Sanders: A Man With a Cause
http://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/bernie-sanders-a-man-with-a-cause?intcid=mod-latest

Six days after formally entering the 2016 Presidential race, Senator Bernie Sanders is having some time of it. After attracting overflow crowds at a number of stops in Iowa late last week, Sanders moved on to Minnesota on Sunday, where he appeared at the Minneapolis American Indian Center and declared, “Our country belongs to all of our people and not just a handful of billionaires.” According to a report in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, about three thousand people turned out. A local television station estimated the number of attendees at four thousand.

Whatever the exact number was, the seventy-three-year-old from Vermont appears to be attracting bigger crowds than any other candidate, Democrat or Republican. With one recent national survey finding that fifteen per cent of likely Democratic voters support him, and a new Des Moines Register poll showing him picking up sixteen per cent of the Democratic vote in Iowa, the media is starting to accord him some serious attention. The Times, having initially failed to report Sanders’s formal announcement of his candidacy in its print edition, ran a front-page story on Friday about his appeal to senior citizens, and another piece over the weekend about the enthusiastic reception he was receiving in Iowa. Before speaking in Minneapolis on Sunday, Sanders appeared on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” where he highlighted the “grotesque level of income and wealth inequality” in the U.S. and said, “I think we need a political revolution in this country.”

Key the Beatles:

"You say you want a revolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world
You tell me that it's evolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world
But when you talk about destruction
Don't you know that you can count me out
Don't you know it's gonna be all right
All right, all right..."

 

[DennyT]

I find HRC's "listening and learning" tour off-putting and thrown into relief by Bernie...it suggests she is trying to figure out why she's running. If she doesn't know by this time, she will never know. Seems like she just wants to be president.

 

[Spindrift]

I find HRC's "listening and learning" tour off-putting and thrown into relief by Bernie...it suggests she is trying to figure out why she's running. If she doesn't know by this time, she will never know. Seems like she just wants to be president.

I'm not a Hilary fan, but going out and talking people is a long held strategy for candidates of all kinds. It doesn't suggest she's tying to figure out why she's running, it suggest she wants to figure out how to run.

 

[BenBurch]

I find HRC's "listening and learning" tour off-putting and thrown into relief by Bernie...it suggests she is trying to figure out why she's running. If she doesn't know by this time, she will never know. Seems like she just wants to be president.

I think that is the simple truth. She wants to do this. I think her motives are essentially good.

But she isn't Bernie Sanders.

 

[Axiom_Blade]

This ain't my first rodeo. Sanders is running to "get the issues on the table", but once he loses to Clinton, he'll disappear, leaving his supporters high and dry. He's already said this, in fact. Kucinich did the same thing in 2004. After he lost the nomination, there was a lot of big talk about taking our platform to Kerry, but when the time came, Kucinich knuckled under and made no demands, because it was "more important" to have a show of unity in order to beat Bush.

It's bait-and-switch. Lure 'em in with Sanders and then try to get them to vote for Clinton.

 

[dudalb]

Let's get real:Sanders is too left wing to have a chance in hell of being elected in a general election.
He is the Ted Cruz of the left: The True beleivers love him but his chances of actually getting elected to the white house are zero.

 

[Childlike Empress]

This ain't my first rodeo. Sanders is running to "get the issues on the table", but once he loses to Clinton, he'll disappear, leaving his supporters high and dry. He's already said this, in fact. Kucinich did the same thing in 2004. After he lost the nomination, there was a lot of big talk about taking our platform to Kerry, but when the time came, Kucinich knuckled under and made no demands, because it was "more important" to have a show of unity in order to beat Bush.

It's bait-and-switch. Lure 'em in with Sanders and then try to get them to vote for Clinton.

What else should they do once they lost inside the party selection? Start a revolution? "Get the issues on the table" seems to be the thing, and there's a(n apparently new) petition campaign on Bernie's site: Debate Early and Often: Ask the Democratic Party to start the presidential debates.

Why not? When everybody is babbling about it already anyway, why don't give them a track record over current events (it's still 17 months or so, which is a ridiculous amount of time to spent on nonbinding babbling)

 

[Random]

Let's get real:Sanders is too left wing to have a chance in hell of being elected in a general election.
He is the Ted Cruz of the left: The True beleivers love him but his chances of actually getting elected to the white house are zero.

If the GOP were running an Eisenhower or a Ford (or even a Nixon for that matter) you might have a point. But the GOP clown car this time around is full of right wing extremists. Left wing extremist vs right wing extremist is a fair fight. Especially if Bernie is the only one going after the incredibly unpopular Wall Street crowd. There is a lot of anger towards the vampire squids, and if Bernie could tap into that...

I mean, think about it is this way. Is there anyone you know of who would vote Clinton in the general if she was the nominee who would not vote for Bernie rather than the GOP candidate? Some centrists might stay home, but Bernie could bring a lot of neglected leftists to the polls.

 

[dudalb]

If the GOP were running an Eisenhower or a Ford (or even a Nixon for that matter) you might have a point. But the GOP clown car this time around is full of right wing extremists. Left wing extremist vs right wing extremist is a fair fight. Especially if Bernie is the only one going after the incredibly unpopular Wall Street crowd. There is a lot of anger towards the vampire squids, and if Bernie could tap into that...

I mean, think about it is this way. Is there anyone you know of who would vote Clinton in the general if she was the nominee who would not vote for Bernie rather than the GOP candidate? Some centrists might stay home, but Bernie could bring a lot of neglected leftists to the polls.

Centrist decide elections.

Something which the hard line ideologues both Left and Right just don't get. They both thing there is some huge hidden left or right wing vote out there,and inevitably they are dissapointed.

And, given the way the electorial college votes are distributed,in a matchup of Sanders vs Any of the Major GOP candidtates, I would put my money on the GOP candidate.

 

[Trakar]

Centrist decide elections.

Something which the hard line ideologues both Left and Right just don't get. They both thing there is some huge hidden left or right wing vote out there,and inevitably they are dissapointed.

And, given the way the electorial college votes are distributed,in a matchup of Sanders vs Any of the Major GOP candidtates, I would put my money on the GOP candidate.

Depends on whether the centrists (given that there are actually very few true centrists in our modern hyperpartisan nation) went one way or the other, or just sat this one out and decided to let the extremists duke it out, if nothing else there are still two bodies, both majorly controlled by the conservative politicians that hold a check of power on the executive branch. the only time you'd have to worry about is if in addition to winning the presidency, the people also elected a lot of more solidly Left Democrats and centrist Republicans back into both houses of congress and managed to get a couple of more solidly left SC Justices in the Court subsequent to Bernie staging a revolution! Personally, its about time for a renaissance in the solid Left hemisphere of the US.

 

[Trakar]

What else should they do once they lost inside the party selection? Start a revolution? "Get the issues on the table" seems to be the thing, and there's a(n apparently new) petition campaign on Bernie's site: Debate Early and Often: Ask the Democratic Party to start the presidential debates.

Why not? When everybody is babbling about it already anyway, why don't give them a track record over current events (it's still 17 months or so, which is a ridiculous amount of time to spent on nonbinding babbling)

I like that! Good for the overall competition of ideas, helps the candidates find the weak points in their own policy planks and shore them up ahead of the playoffs (so to speak). Knocks the corners off and starts infusing ideas into the public consciousness better than simply the last second clash of opposites in the national election.
If only we could get the media to play agent for the general electorate perspective instead of "party cheerleader" for one party or the other (which seems to be who they cater to most often the last 50 years or so). The sponsors will go to where the most people are watching, become the people's advocate first and foremost and both the sponsors and the political parties will be begging for airtime.

 

[Axiom_Blade]

What else should they do once they lost inside the party selection? Start a revolution?

Run as an Independent.

"Get the issues on the table" seems to be the thing, and there's a(n apparently new) petition campaign on Bernie's site: Debate Early and Often: Ask the Democratic Party to start the presidential debates.

Where does Sanders stand on having the Green Party and/or the Libertarian Party in the presidential debates?

 

[Trakar]

If the GOP were running an Eisenhower or a Ford (or even a Nixon for that matter) you might have a point. But the GOP clown car this time around is full of right wing extremists. Left wing extremist vs right wing extremist is a fair fight. Especially if Bernie is the only one going after the incredibly unpopular Wall Street crowd. There is a lot of anger towards the vampire squids, and if Bernie could tap into that...

I mean, think about it is this way. Is there anyone you know of who would vote Clinton in the general if she was the nominee who would not vote for Bernie rather than the GOP candidate? Some centrists might stay home, but Bernie could bring a lot of neglected leftists to the polls.

Ironically, it may be the oldest candidate in the race who can truly speak to the desire of youth to change the world and make their early mark upon it, I think this is what Obama actually tapped into, but his own failure to continue his public connections with something perhaps like Carter's fireside chats. Imagine if Obama had been putting on a monthly (or even bi-monthly) 30*-45minute presidential address broadcast/stream where he opens with a 10 minute update segment where he briefly describes the current state of the economy, current regional/national issues, and global events. 20 minutes using questions vetted from the previous week's tweeter submissions to address his policy resolutions/considerations in response to the issues in the public tweets. 5 minutes to address opposition policies or attacks. and the final 10 minutes to summarize and describe progress, improvements, and/or additions, being made towards his ongoing administration policy agenda.

* in 30 minute version you might cut the Question section to a single question -5 minute time frame.

Such might well have kept a lot of people paying attention and kept many of the blatantly false, occasionally slanderous and frequently evidentially incorrect stains that this administration wears in the general public eye from ever gaining solid traction or adhesion. When the power you can effectively wield is intimately tied to your popular appeal and influence how can any president let their public connection become one-sided and largely unresponsive. A president's greatest power should be his ability to inspire and lead the masses. All president's (except those who lose popular vote and win on systemic technicalities) should start their terms with that popular mandate, it is up to them to maintain and build upon that mandate which requires constantly talking to and with those who bestow that mandate.

 

[Brainster]

Centrist decide elections.

Something which the hard line ideologues both Left and Right just don't get. They both thing there is some huge hidden left or right wing vote out there,and inevitably they are dissapointed.

Yes, this is what I refer to as the "Lost Tribe" theory of politics; that there's some vast block of voters who would turn out if only the Democrats (Republicans) would nominate a real liberal (conservative). One would think that the pitiable performance of the third party candidates has amply revealed the bankruptcy of this belief.

And, given the way the electorial college votes are distributed,in a matchup of Sanders vs Any of the Major GOP candidtates, I would put my money on the GOP candidate.

I would feel guilty taking their money if the spread wasn't in the range of 200-220 EC votes.

 

[Trakar]

Run as an Independent.

There are almost insurmountable systemic disadvantages built into the American electoral system with regard to third parties. In general all they can do is subtract votes from the general election and usually those votes tend to come from one or the other of the main parties.

Where does Sanders stand on having the Green Party and/or the Libertarian Party in the presidential debates?

The green party in the US is not Left equivilant to the Libertarian/Tea-Party on the Right. To find a most equitable Left group you would have to go to something like the Socialist Workers Party

 

[applecorped]

The question is, what's his ceiling.

Every state other than Vermont and haters of Phish & Ben & Jerry's.

 

[Random]

Centrist decide elections.

Something which the hard line ideologues both Left and Right just don't get. They both thing there is some huge hidden left or right wing vote out there,and inevitably they are dissapointed.

And, given the way the electorial college votes are distributed,in a matchup of Sanders vs Any of the Major GOP candidtates, I would put my money on the GOP candidate.

One thing that pundits don't get is that there is no big centrist vote. You have a bunch of people with right-wing opinions, a bunch of people with left-wing opinions, and a bunch of people with a variety of mixes of right and left-wing opinions.

If one candidate is far to the right, a candidate with a mix of views might be able to attract some of the other mixed-view types with compatible opinions, while still getting left-wing voters holding their noses and voting for them because they are better than the alternative. You can win a national election this way, but it does not really mean that centrism is the only path to victory, and it certainly doesn't mean America is a Center-Right country.

 

[grunion]

I also gave, and will give more soon. First time I ever gave money to a Presidential candidate but I have a serious man-crush on this fellow, and I know I'm not the only one. I so love his media interviews.

I posted this on my Facebook feed the other day and the number of likes it got from people who I would never in a million years suspect they had any socialist leanings - Southern Baptists, Richard Nixonites, apolitical sports fans, etc. was unbelievable to me.

 

[Suddenly]

I posted this on my Facebook feed the other day and the number of likes it got from people who I would never in a million years suspect they had any socialist leanings - Southern Baptists, Richard Nixonites, apolitical sports fans, etc. was unbelievable to me.

Well... that cartoon can be taken in a sort of ironic/sarcastic light, that it is mocking the mindset that Bernie Sanders would be all that great. Or even at all significant if the GOP maintains its hold on at least one house of Congress and jams everything up like they have during the majority of Obama's tenure...