2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumNo, Sanders won’t do better than Clinton against Trump.
No, Sanders wont do better than Clinton against Trump.
Current polling has Clintons negatives baked in. They are her floor. Current polling doesnt have Sanders negatives baked in. They are his ceiling. And dear god, there is plenty in Sanders background to feed the Republican Noise Machine for the general election. And by the end of the cycle, his negatives would match those of Clintons.
If theres one thing weve learned this primary cycle, it's that demographics are destiny. And it's the same case for the general election. The biggest predictor of how people will vote this year is to look at how they voted last presidential election, and those choices are heavily correlated to race, sex, and marital status.
In alternate universesone in which Sanders wins the nomination, the other in which Clinton doesthey both would end up roughly the same in November. Democrats wont cross over to vote for Trump, and Republicans wont cross over to vote for Sanders (and certainly not for Clinton). In the end, the final outcome will be determined by turnout, and given our opponent, turnout will hopefully be high. Wed have to fight for that equally hard, regardless of who was our nominee.
http://m.dailykos.com/story/2016/05/23/1529938/-11-reasons-why-Bernie-Sanders-lost-this-thing-fair-and-square?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+dailykos%2Findex+%28Daily+Kos%29
reformist2
(9,841 posts)If Dems want to throw away that kind of a head start, obviously that's their choice. Unless it's all rigged, but that's a whole different matter.
Demsrule86
(68,355 posts)will never in a million years win Ohio or Virginia or Florida...and that is a fact. I am no sure he could win Pennsylvania. He will painted as the second coming of Stalin...and there is other dirt too...he would lose probably worse than McGovern...
RichVRichV
(885 posts)What you're pushing is called an opinion. There is a difference between an opinion and a fact. No matter how much you want to believe it's true, without proof it's just an opinion.
Here's a poll right here which refutes your "fact".
floriduck
(2,262 posts)cali
(114,904 posts)arcane1
(38,613 posts)SheilaT
(23,156 posts)for a year or so, I don't think they are her floor. Not yet.
She started this thing how many points ahead of Bernie? 60? 80? I know he was barely registering in the single digits. Meanwhile, she loses ground.
So yes, he would do vastly better than she would against Trump.
The real problem with a Clinton - Trump match-up is that virtually no time will be spend on anything resembling substance. Trump will spew his usual vile, talking about how ugly she is and wondering why she stays with Bill, breaking away from those topics only to remind us in very short sentences how wonderful he is. She'll be forced to respond to his crap, and won't return to any sensible discussion of what she would do going forth. She probably will brag about all the killing she oversaw in the Middle East, but won't give us any clue as to how she'd work to bring about real peace.
And any debates will be a total farce. First off, I've been thinking this entire season that they should hold the debates inside a closed venue, no audience whatsoever. Have the candidates respond to questions without any feedback from an audience, friendly or hostile. In a Clinton-Trump debate with any sort of usual audience at least half of the air time will be consumed by audience noise. There will be nothing useful or informative to learn from watching them.
Arkansas Granny
(31,484 posts)He will spew his tabloid type accusations and she will discuss policy and what needs to happen to get things done. He'll be outclassed.
SheilaT
(23,156 posts)but I sincerely doubt it will happen that way.
quaker bill
(8,223 posts)First, there is no evidence that this is as low as Ms. Clinton can go. Trump has not really started swinging yet.
Once again we have "violated federal records law". Followed by the response "but everyone else did too" (apparently except John Kerry)... While probably true, that excuse still reads lame, and the "everyone else" in this case are not running for POTUS.
In an age where campaigns are decided over who was "for it before I was against it" or who "invented the internet", a phrase like "violated federal records law" will get lots of airplay. Secretary Clinton does not have the margin for this sort of error.
Finally look at her favorability polls. She has been on a steady, albeit slightly noisy, linear down slope for approval since 2012. There is no point of inflection in this graph to suggest that a bottom has been reached or even approached. There is nothing in a purely technical analysis of this graph to suggest a bottom. I am sure there is one, but I do not know where. I predict new lows as this new news gets factored in over the next week or two.
Segami
(14,923 posts)While I see that bobswern published a diary today criticizing koss Hill piece, if anything it pulled its punches. Bob did not address an impassioned jeremiad by kos about Sanders supposedly using an argument about white voters [who] prefer a white male candidate. (See screenshot at top of diary.) Sanders never has said or even implied such a thing.
It is an insult to all of Sanders supporters who are people of color to imply that Sanders argues for white privilege, or that Sanders push for superdelegate support is meant in any way to conduct a supposedly socialist-inspired coup against the will of Latinos, African-Americans and women and the base of the Democratic Party.
All this is hogwash, but beyond that, its demagogic hogwash, as it stirs up racial and political animosities that otherwise would not exist except in the propaganda of the demagogue. It is, in fact, the kind of thing Trump does, setting one group against another, and its reprehensible when Trump does it, and it is reprehensible when kos does it.
In his article for The Hill, kos violence-baits Sanders. Hes been doing it for some time now. In a diary of his on May 20, kos wrote that Sanders didnt forcefully condemn the violence in Nevada because revolutions are violent. He doesnt care about the will of the Democratic electorate because revolutions arent democratic elections.
But NPRs ombudsman laid to rest the lie that there was violence at the Nevada convention. Furthermore, Sanders statement on Nevada, issued May 17, said clearly, Our campaign of course believes in non-violent change and it goes without saying that I condemn any and all forms of violence, including the personal harassment of individuals.
But in his article for The Hill, Kos claims Sanders shrugged off the violence and misogynistic threats hurled at the state party chairwoman...
If there is anyone lying here, it is kos.
Then theres the redbaiting. Heres kos in all his glory: Bernie Sanders, a self-avowed democratic socialist, would toss aside the democratic part of his self-identification, becoming an old-school autocratic socialist. Its breathtaking how nonchalantly the presidential contender and his campaign can talk about subverting the democratic will of the voters, as if his purer ideology excused all excesses.
Actually, all Sanders has been asking for is proportionate support from superdelegates from states in which he won handily. But kos isnt interested in what Sanders really says. His purpose is to stir the waters of fear among Democratic Party voters, the better to push the candidate he really supports, Hillary Clinton.
In order to do this, he misrepresents Sanders as undemocratic and autocratic, pushing violent revolution, and at the same time taking up the cudgels of white privilege.
In order to keep ones dignity, it is simple for me to conclude that one cannot contribute to a site whose owner engages in duplicitous and arguably slanderous activity. Politics is dirty, and maybe thats how its played, but I, for one, dont have to by my participation give any legitimacy to that kind of behavior.
The handwriting on the wall came when there was a failure to see that Clintons endorsement of a war criminal like Henry Kissinger made any difference in this election. Kos has never mentioned that aspect of Hillarys agenda.
Kissinger was responsible for the deaths of many brown-skinned and Asian people, 100s of thousands, and more likely millions of men, women, and children, killed by massive air bombing with incendiary and cluster bombs, killed by death squads, killed by rounding up and shooting. I havent seen kos express his upset over that. Instead he wants to slime a man who is actually trying to do good and dedicate himself to ending poverty, and reduce the economic inequality in this country that hits Latinos, African-Americans, women and children the hardest.
I am grateful to kos for providing a platform for someone like me, who has published at this site on and off for around ten years. I wrote extensively here about torture, and very likely wrote about things at times kos disagreed with. He never censored me or tried to discourage me. I respect him for that.
But he has crossed the line with this election. He has chosen to act the demagogue. I cannot abide that, nor associate myself at all with that kind of dishonesty. I will not be posting here again.
Update: Well, I expected a negative response, as there are those who dont mind when falsehoods are retailed in the name of their candidate. But in the 408 diaries I have written at this site, this is the first time a Tip Jar was flagged and then hidden. By leaving here, I certainly will not miss the inappropriate and immature response of so many to the attempts by diarists and commenters of all persuasions to discuss the issues.
http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/5/25/1530822/-I-won-t-stay-at-a-site-whose-owner-redbaits-Bernie-Sanders-accuses-him-of-condoning-violence-racism
larkrake
(1,674 posts)filed, other than arrests for protesting in civil rights, which pleases me.
Exilednight
(9,359 posts)Have hit the floor? She's barely been hit by the Republican machine this cycle.
If people on DU are upset by all the threads today about Hillary's emails, just wait until she:s the nominee. People on here will blowing valves and arteries. A few will have full on strokes.
Gothmog
(144,005 posts)No one including people who like Sanders think that he has been fully vetted or that he is really electable http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/05/24/bernie-sanders-is-crushing-donald-trump-head-to-head-and-it-doesn-t-mean-a-thing.html
While hes all but called Clinton a harlot, shes barely said a word about him, at least since the very early days of the contest. And while Republicans have occasionally jibed at him, like Lindsey Grahams actually quite funny remark that Sanders went to the Soviet Union on his honeymoon and I dont think he ever came back, in far more serious ways, Republican groups have worked to help Sanders weaken Clinton.
That would change on a dime if he became the nominee. I dont think theyd even have to go into his radical past, although they surely would. Michelle Goldberg of Slate has written good pieces on this. He took some very hard-left and plainly anti-American positions. True, they might not matter to anyone under 45, but more than half of all voters are over 45. And then, big-P politics aside, theres all that farkakte nonsense he wrote in The Vermont Freeman in the early 70s about how we should let children touch each others genitals and such. Fine, it was 40-plus years ago but its out there, and its out there.
But if I were a conservative making anti-Sanders ads, Id stick to taxes. An analysis earlier this year from the Tax Policy Center found that his proposals would raise taxes in the so-called middle quintile (40-60 percent) by $4,700 a year. A median household is around $53,000. Most such households pay an effective tax rate of around 11 percent, or $5,800. From $5,800 to $10,500 constitutes a 45 percent increase.
Sanders will respond that your average family will save that much in deductibles and co-payments, since there would be no more private health insurance. And in a way, hed have a pointthe average out-of-pocket expenses for a family health insurance plan in 2015 were around $4,900. But that is an average that combines families with one really sick person needing lots of care with families where they all just go see the doctor once a year, who spend far less. Theyd lose out under socialized health, which Republicans would be sure to make clear.
But all the above suggests a rational discourse, and we know therell be no such thing during a campaign. Itll just be: largest tax increase in American history (which will be true), and take away your doctor (which also might be true in a lot of cases). Theres a first time for everything I guess, but I dont think anyone has ever won a presidential election proposing a 45 percent tax increase on people of modest incomes. And the increases would be a lot higher on the upper-middle-class households that tend to decide U.S. elections.
Bah, you say. Bernie can handle all these things. Plus, hes going to get all those white working-class votes that Clinton will never get. Its true, he will get some of those. But every yin has a yang. How is Sanders going to do with black and Latino voters? They wont vote for Trump, obviously, but surely some percentage will just stay home. This will matter in Florida, Virginia, North Carolina, maybe Michiganall states were a depressed turnout from unenthused voters of color might make the difference. The media find discussing this a lot less interesting than they do nattering on about the white working class, but its real, and Trump is smart enough to get out there and say, Remember, black people, Bernie said your votes werent legitimate.
General election polls dont reflect anything meaningful until nominees are chosen and running mates selectedthat is, July. They especially dont reflect anything meaningful when respondents know very little about one of the candidates theyre being asked about. Superdelegates know this, and its one reason why theyre not going to change. I dont blame Sanders for touting these polls; any politician would. But everyone subjected to hearing him do so is entitled to be in on the joke.
Sanders has not been vetted and would be a horrible general election candidate
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)because there's nothing there that Campaign Clinton hasn't already put out there
and I find this rather disturbing in that you chose to bold it
are you suggesting that if Sanders were nominee Black people would either choose not to vote or vote for Trump?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/12512052829#post14