2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumRemember Lucy Flores, whom Bernie endorsed (for a Primary race)?
Who made a big fundraising haul thanks to Bernie supporters?
She lost (NV-4).
So did Allen Rheinhart (NV-Sen)
So did Jose Solaria (NV-1)
So did Rick Shepherd (NV-2)
So did Jess Sbaih and Alex Singer (NV-3)
So did all the Berniecrats who ran in last week's Primaries.
Sanders seems to have a good model for fundraising. Not so much for getting votes.
flor-de-jasmim
(2,126 posts)MADem
(135,425 posts)He gave it a good try, but he lost, fair and square--and decisively, too.
I was listening to him on TV yesterday, and it was the same griping litany. If he wants to build a movement he would do well to do a little less complaining and a little more active describing of how to get to where he wants to go.
He's simply not inspiring to me. I am not surprised at the blowout in DC, either.
Especially in the wake of the Orlando tragedy--he just wasn't resonating, IMO.
OnDoutside
(19,982 posts)Sheepshank
(12,504 posts)CorkySt.Clair
(1,507 posts)His endorsement is the kiss of death politically.
tallahasseedem
(6,716 posts)He felt entitled and I'm not sure why. His rantings were fine in short 3 minute bursts on cable tv, but not a party platform and General Election strategy.
Renew Deal
(81,894 posts)eastwestdem
(1,220 posts)him. He really does not have the power that he claims to possess.
Number23
(24,544 posts)and with each snarling whine from him about how terribly unfair and "rigged" everything is despite being a member of the United States Congress for damn near 30 years, I find him even less so.
AtomicKitten
(46,585 posts)BobbyDrake
(2,542 posts)AtomicKitten
(46,585 posts)Tarc
(10,478 posts)Applegate may be able to squeak by Issa, but the rest are money sinks.
MADem
(135,425 posts)And speaking of bacon, he's got lots of his own--he's not going to lose a campaign over lack of money for things like TV or print ads and oppo research. This is the guy that put up a million bucks to recall Grey Davis because he wanted his job (and then sobbed like a baby when AHHHHNULLLLLD bigfooted him and everyone else out of the gig).
In Californias 49th district, Doug Applegate who, similar to Sheridan, was also endorsed by the Vote Progressive California organization will face Republican Darrell Issa in the general election. Issa narrowly defeated Applegate last night winning 51% of the vote to Applegates 45%. Meanwhile, Ryan Wingo of no party affiliation garnered 3%.
Applegates race presents progressive Democrats with a realistic opportunity to elect a candidate who accurately represents their views in Congress. With his performance last night, Applegate did better than Issa than any of the Republican representatives previous 7 challengers did. If Applegate successfully raises awareness about the fact that he, more so than many other progressive Democratic Congressional candidates, has a real chance of winning, he is certainly in with a shot at unseating the 7 term Republican.....
Applegate is going to have to be like Caesar's wife if it gets too close. I always thought Issa was in a fairly safe district--if he's feeling any heat at all, that's wonderful news. Better still if he has to spend his OWN money to try and hang on!
Freddie Stubbs
(29,853 posts)auntpurl
(4,311 posts)I wonder if they used the same (lack of) techniques for these candidates.
DrDan
(20,411 posts)Florida, for heavens sake
no wonder he came out second
Larkspur
(12,804 posts)Some of those Bernie supported were long shots to begin with so it should not be surprised that they lost.
CBHagman
(16,992 posts)A little background: There's been some talk about whether Zephyr Teachout, who ran for the New York governorship a while back, would be one of the Sanders-backed candidates to win the primary and, in November, the general election. But New York isn't done with its primaries, even at this late date, and we'll be waiting till the end of the month for that one.
Anyway, a little digging around found the following, some of which surprised me. I should add as well that New York's 19th District has been won by Republicans in eight of the last 10 congressional elections, and not by close margins. So predictions may be a fool's errand at this point.
[url]http://www.thenation.com/article/can-zephyr-teachout-win-a-seat-in-congress/[/url]
One sign that Teachout is already looking ahead to November is her occasional description of herself as a Rockefeller Republican or a Teddy Roosevelt Republicanthough to me she referenced a different Roosevelt, describing herself as a second-term FDR person. That would be the term that began with a landslide victory for FDR, saw the Democratic Party transformed into the party of immigrants, city dwellers, and African Americansand also saw the presidents plan to reorganize the Supreme Court thwarted by, among others, Louis Brandeis.
More on Teachout and her rival for the Democratic nomination, Will Yandik:
[url]http://www.dailyfreeman.com/general-news/20160607/zephyr-teachout-will-yandik-find-a-lot-to-agree-on-at-democratic-congressional-debate[/url]
Following the event Teachout declined to talk with the Freeman reporter and her aides, who attempted to block a reporter from asking questions, said the candidate needed to get to another event.
Yandik stayed following the debate to talk with the audience and took questions from the Freeman about whether Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders should stay in the race.
Bernie Sanders should go to the convention and advocate for the progressive values that he has fought so hard for and interjected into the Democratic debate, he said. He has earned that right, whether he has the math to get the nomination or not, and I think he should take it to the convention. But I also think that if Hillary (Clinton) is the nominee, then all Democrats have to get behind her if she is the eventual numerical nominee.
Yandik added that Clinton should give Sanders credit for energizing young people. He has talked more about climate change and income inequality than she has, and I think that the sheer energy that youre seeing, the populist uprising among the democratic base, would be good for her to acknowledge in a significant way."
brooklynite
(94,911 posts)...this is a highly competetive race, but there is a Primary, and I haven't got a clue how it'll go.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)She primaried Andrew Cuomo and won a lot of counties upstate.
floppyboo
(2,461 posts)And shame on you brooklynite. But I guess you also have 1 day left.
swhisper1
(851 posts)some Democrat
Maru Kitteh
(28,344 posts)Gothmog
(145,794 posts)rjsquirrel
(4,762 posts)Even as he was touting his supposed polling margins against Trump this spring, I felt Bernie might cost us seats in congress if he were at the top of the ticket. Other than Russ Feingold (the Great), all of our senate challengers need to charge toward the center to win and give us back a senate majority. It was going to be damn hard for most of our dem senate challengers to win attached to "public option" and "free college" and "ban fracking."
Anyone who says otherwise doesn't know politics in middle America. And we must win the senate -- in some ways it's more important than the damn presidency but we won't get the former unless the candidate for the latter appeals to the center and even center-right independents and disaffected republicans (especially educated suburban women in Virginia, Colorado, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida).
Just how I saw and still see it. My basic view is that majority opinion in this country is simply not nearly as far left as Sanders and his campaign argued it might be. The general is not the primary. We need 4-5x the number of voters on one day. And we need key constituencies in key states not a 50 state ideological campaign.
Clinton needs not to get pulled too far left if we are going to save the Supreme Court. That's my hard headed analysis even as a lifelong liberal. A single revolutionary structural shift to the left was never going to happen around Bernie. Never. And gambling on that when the opponent is Trunp and the GOP congress just seemed dreamy and foolish and naive about American politics and the American electorate to me. Just my opinion after 40+ years of being an engaged and sometimes activist liberal (albeit not one to reject market capitalism or economic globalization outright. -- I think a world that trades is more likely not to go to war).
We must forge a centrist consensus in this country to beat the far right. It's an existential struggle for the country I love and in which my daughters will live when I'm gone - and that makes women's rights of equal importance to me with anything else, racial justice also at the top of my list, and a rational foreign policy, plus some serious commitment to defending our biosphere in pragmatic and urgent terms). Hillary is well situated to do this for all the reasons the Sanders holdouts dislike her. They're right, she's got some neoliberal tendencies.
So does the real world in which governance happens.
beachbum bob
(10,437 posts)as the results indicate
GeorgeGist
(25,326 posts)HumanityExperiment
(1,442 posts)n/t
Orsino
(37,428 posts)There's nothing Citizens United can't accomplish.
rjsquirrel
(4,762 posts)depend on having 2-3 Supreme Court picks which in turn depends on having control of the senate which means winning senate races in relatively conservative states.
So no, boo CU. But Bernie was not going to overturn it had he won. And as I argue above we stood far less chance of regaining the senate with Bernie as our nominee.
My opinions only of course. But they are sincerely held. I know that makes me a neoliberal Wall Street apologist warmonger-lover to some around here.
Luckily however 3.5 million more democratic voters agreed with me than with Susan Sarandon and Cornell West.
wildeyed
(11,243 posts)and less on rallies and fundraising. Statistically, his support comes from a demographic that does not vote regularly. If he wants to prove he is a force to be reckoned with and that his ideas really have widespread appeal, he needs to prove he can turn them out consistently.
This is also why I roll my eyes at the ones who plan to sit out the GE or vote Trump. People who don't vote or turncoat get no respect for a reason.
RandySF
(59,614 posts)Which proves that it's all a Cult of Personality.
swhisper1
(851 posts)valerief
(53,235 posts)swhisper1
(851 posts)Beowulf
(761 posts)Yay, establishment! Yay, Citizens United! Yay, Corporate Dems! You've beaten back another challenge from the left.
CorkySt.Clair
(1,507 posts)Beowulf
(761 posts)AtomicKitten
(46,585 posts)MADem
(135,425 posts)will be defeated by entrenched Republicans (Wilson and Sanford). You should have read the whole article before you relied on the headline. The few state candidates mentioned in the article are incumbents in safe seats who have said they support Sanders, not challengers to national seats. If they supported no candidate, or Clinton, the result would have been the same.
With Bernie Sanders Presidential ambitions unlikely to materialize, it seems as though it will be up to state, senatorial and congressional candidates to continue the political revolution. While a total of 8 Sanders Democrats endorsers of the Bernie Sanders Presidential campaign and progressive policies ran for Congress on June 14th, sadly, only two managed to reign triumphant. Both were in South Carolina.
Arik Bjorn and Dimitri Cherny won their respective Democratic primaries and will face GOP incumbents in Novembers general elections, as did multiple Sanders endorsers running for the South Carolina state house of representatives.Those Sanders Democrats who werent fortunate enough to clinch the partys nomination were Jesse Sbiah, Alex Singer, Rick Shepherd, Lucy Flores and Dan Rolle. Flores loss, in particular, was disappointing for Sanders supporters, who had high hopes for her in Nevadas 4th Congressional district. Sanders had fundraised for and endorsed Flores, calling her exactly the type of politician we need in Congress. However, the eventual winner was Rubin a candidate endorsed by both Bill Clinton and Senate Minority leader Harry Reid.
In South Carolinas 2nd Congressional district, Sanders Democrat Arik Bjorn defeated Phil Black the partys 2014 nominee in the district in a thrilling, down to the wire race. The vote tally concluded with Bjorn gathering 50.1% of the popular vote (9,604 votes) to Blacks 49.9% (9,555 votes.) The 59 vote margin is well below the automatic recount threshold in South Carolina. Nonetheless, a recount is unlikely to result in a different outcome.
Following his presumptive primary victory, Bjorn will now face the GOP incumbent Rep. Joe Wilson. South Carolinas 2nd Congressional district is described by analysis as deeply Republican, and so Bjorn faces an immense task to overcome the inherent deficit he faces as a Democrat in South Carolina. The Democrats best showing in the district in recent years came in 2010 when their nominee Rob Miller garnered 43.8% of the vote. However, that election was before the most recent Congressional district redrawing in South Carolina.
Additionally, in South Carolinas 1st Congressional district, Dimitri Cherny became the Democratic nominee through an uncontested primary. Cherny will face the GOP incumbent, current US representative and former South Carolina governor Mark Sanford, in the general election, where he is also unlikely to win due to the Republican lean of he district. However, Sanford is showing signs of weakness, only narrowly holding off his primary challenger.
At the state level, Bernie-endorsed Justin Bamberg the attorney who represented Walter Scotts family was easily renominated to his seat in District 90 of the South Carolina House of Representatives with 77.76% of the vote. Elsewhere at the South Carolina state level, Bernie supporting incumbents won re-nominations in the 59th, 62nd, 70th, 101st, and 111th State House Districts. Terry Alexander, Robert Williams, Joseph Neal, Cezar E. McKnight, Wendell G. Gilliard and Justin Bamberg all promise to represent the political revolution and progressive policies in South Carolinas House.
Eric J in MN
(35,619 posts)NT
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)Trump is truly an existential threat, but for us is Clinton not also an existential threat? We'll hear again and again, "you must vote Clinton and Clinton-backed candidates or else Trump!" But from my perspective Trump and Clinton both want us vanquished. I can't vote for either of them. And I'm not voting for the down ticket hacks the party propped up to beat the progressive candidates either. So, sorry, Katie McGinty, you aren't getting my vote either.
MrMickeysMom
(20,453 posts)That figures...