A Bit of Crazy Wouldn't Hurt": How Bernie Sanders Could Go Full Trump in 2020

[eridani]

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/04/how-bernie-sanders-could-go-full-trump-in-2020

To be sure, any given candidate faces long odds. But one good thing about running for president once is that it makes you better prepared to run once more. Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bob Dole, Al Gore, McCain, Mitt Romney, Hillary Clinton—all of these presidential nominees had already run before and lost. What you lose in sparkle you gain in seasoning, and, just as important, name recognition. While Democrats generally seem more receptive than Republicans to new faces, if nominations are any sign, they still like people they know. Sanders and Joe Biden are the best known of the Democratic candidates, and both lead the polls, Biden with about a third of Democrats and Sanders with about a quarter. Sanders also had a massive $18.2 million fundraising haul in the first six weeks of his campaign.

Perhaps just as important, Biden and Sanders share a pool of likely voters. According to polling by Morning Consult, about a third of Biden’s supporters have Sanders as their second choice (and vice versa). This is odd, if you think in terms of policy, since Biden is Establishment-minded and Sanders is radical. But, again, name recognition matters a lot. While a recent uproar over Biden’s alleged handsiness toward women suggests that a faction within the Democratic Party is trying to squelch his candidacy, the effect may just be to make the Sanders camp stronger, especially if Biden drops out. Democratic primary rules, by tradition, also award delegates to those candidates who garner above 15 percent of the vote. The vast field means that anyone who can avoid falling victim to the effect of scattered votes stands especially tall.

There are warning signs, to be sure, that Sanders’s focus on economic issues is out of step with the progressive activists who dominate on Twitter and on cable news. “To be very serious about it, I clocked it. He did not mention race or gender until 23 minutes into the speech,” said MSNBC analyst Zerlina Maxwell after listening to Sanders’s campaign announcement. “I went back and looked at Elizabeth Warren’s opening speech, for example. She mentions race and discrimination in the first paragraph.” That Maxwell’s comment seems to have been incorrect is of secondary importance. It portends the spirit of things to come. But if 2016 should have taught us anything, it is that America isn’t blue-check Twitter.