If the Republican nominee promises change, and our nominee promises status quo, we lose.

Obama ran on the promise of change, and he won. Obama delivered on that promise early in his presidency, but since that early progress, there has not been as much change in the quality of life and equality of opportunity for most Americans as we all want. Now -- even more than in 2012 -- people desperately want change.

Look at the right-track/wrong-track polling:



Clinton is THE "establishment" candidate. Of all the candidates in both parties, she is the ONLY one who represents the continue-down-this-same-track status quo.

If we nominate Clinton, we lose.

Clinton is beloved among Democrats (except for younger Democrats, but her popularity with other demographics within the Democratic party may possibly be all she needs to win the primary), but we cannot pretend to believe that we win the general election with the "establishment" candidate who -- more than any other candidate -- promises to stay the course.

If we want change (and change for the better as Sanders offers and not change for the worse as Rubio, Cruz, and Trump threaten), and if we want to win the general election, Clinton supporters need to start thinking of a "Plan B" -- Clinton supporters need to start thinking of a "Plan Bernie."

Ban me from DU if you must, but I won't be voting for Clinton. I'm voting for Sanders or I'm voting

for the straight-party Democratic ticket because this election is too important to abstain from voting against every Republican on the ballot.

In Iowa Sanders' support rose +34% and Clinton's dropped -8%, and in NH Sanders rose +40% while

Clinton's support dropped -1% in 2015.

Des Moines Register poll of January 2015: Clinton 56%; Sanders 5%
Des Moines Register poll of December 2015: Clinton 48%; Sanders 39%
Franklin Pierce/Boston Herald poll of March 2015: Clinton 47%; Sanders 8%
Franklin Pierce/Boston Herald poll of December 2015: Clinton 46%; Sanders 48%

Sanders wins because he advocates the better platform, not because Clinton is weak.

Trying to shift the debate onto Clinton's policy weaknesses and de-emphasizing Sanders' own platform is a mistake Sanders is correctly avoiding: That is no way to win and head into the general election on the crest of movement.

It is true that Clinton's hawkishness creates the mis-impression of safety while provoking instability which undermines safety, but Sanders message should not be "look at Clinton - her policies make to world less secure" -- it should be "don't let ISIL win by allowing their terrorism to distract us from our own goals of promoting equality and justice and public well being in our own country."

Likewise, just because Clinton is a triangulating candidate for whom politics means more than policy, that is no reason to vote for Sanders; instead, Sanders should focus on why his policies are good and not why Clinton's are so ill defined and ever shifting.

In short, Sanders is doing exactly what he should be doing, and he is rising in Iowa where the race is close and he is ahead in New Hampshire.

We have less than two months to pull off this upset in Iowa and build on that momentum in New Hampshire.

New Quinnipiac Poll: Sanders most favorably viewed (+9%: 40% - 31%); Clinton (-8%: 43% - 51%); Cruz

(+ 2%: 35% - 33%); Rubio (+9%: 37% - 28%); Trump (-26%: 33% – 59%).

So Sanders is beloved and Clinton is better liked than Trump, but otherwise, not so much.

National horse race polls are meaningless, and robo-call polls are the worst, but if you must talk

about the new national robo-call horse race poll by Emerson College, you should at least talk about this:

Sanders is up 6% and Clinton is down 3% since the last meaningless national robo-call horse race poll by Emerson College

Why do Clinton and Trump do better in crappy-method polls and worse in established-method polls?

The fact that Sanders has an 8.6% aggregate lead in New Hampshire at Real Clear Politics, but only a 4.3% aggregate lead in New Hampshire according to Pollster is due, in part, to the stricter methodology requirements imposed over at Real Clear Politics.

Nate Silver over at 538 discussed this phenomenon in connection with Trump's poll numbers (how he does better in poor methodology polls and does worse in polls that employ more accepted methods), and the same is true for Clinton's polling.

If you look at a graph of all the polls (the best, the good-but-flawed, and the crap), Sanders has an aggregate 4.3% lead in New Hampshire:



If you focus on likely voters (drop the polls of all adults and polls of all registered voters), Sanders' aggregate lead grows to 4.9%:



If you drop the robo-call polls, which employ the most doubtful of methodologies, Sanders' aggregate lead grows again to 7.2%:



If you drop the pollsters who have not conducted at least 4 polls in New Hampshire (drop the one-off and infrequent pollsters), Sanders' aggregate lead grows to 8%:



If you narrow down to the live phone (landline and cell) polling of the most frequent pollster, Sanders' lead peaks at 10.6%:



And this 10.6% live phone polling lead for Sanders is bigger than the internet-polling 10.1% lead in the CBS News polls:



Contrast this with a graph that includes only robo-call polls, which give Clinton the lead in New Hampshire (and make the aggregation of polls look like a closer race than the more reliable polls suggest):



The same trend holds true in Iowa.

If you look at an aggregation of all the polls (good, bad, and ugly), Clinton appears to have a 15% aggregate lead:



Again, if you drop the robo-polls and the registered voter polls and focus on the most frequent pollsters who have done the most polling in Iowa this cycle, Clinton's aggregate lead is cut in half to 7.9%:



Conversely, if you focus only on the robo-call polls in Iowa (which are affecting the aggregate pollster graphs), you would think Clinton has a 21.2% lead:



You have to ask -- why do Clinton and Trump do so much better in bad-methodology polls and so much worse in polls employing a reliable methodology?

New CBS News Iowa poll -- Sanders pulls within 5% of Clinton: Clinton 50%, Sanders 45%, O'Malley 4%

Link to CBS News December 2015 Battleground Tracker, Iowa.

New CBS News New Hampshire poll -- Sanders CRUSHING at 56% to Clinton 42% for a 14% lead!

Link to CBS News December 2015 Battleground Tracker, New Hampshire.

Dear President Carter: Your monitoring of suspicious elections has been invaluable. We need you

to look into yet another suspicious third-world-style election rigging practice that has recently come to our attention.

Please reply confidentially if you are available to monitor an on-going election where the first votes are still well over a month away but we already have grave cause for concern because a supposedly neutral official facilitator has "put its finger on the scale" to tip the election in favor of an entrenched political dynasty.

Thank you, President Carter, you are our only hope.