2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Bernie's current proposed strategy could win him the nomination. [View all]thesquanderer
(11,972 posts)It was largely a reaction to things the Hillary campaign put forth about whether he was qualified, but he fell into a bit of a trap there, as the words never literally came out of Hillary's mouth.
Where I disagree with the OP is that, if he had run a more positive campaign all along, he could have won the nomination. Most of the campaign was very positive. He never even ran the kinds of attack ads that Hilary ran against him. The only period he strayed much was, as I said, from Wisconsin to New York, so to the extent that "staying positive" might have won him the nomination, I'd say, at best, it might have won him New York. But New York, with its close primary that required declaring your party affiliation 6 months ahead of time was always going to be a real tough one for him. I doubt he would have won it anyway. But let's say he might have gotten ten points closer, which still would have been a great result for him, all things considered. When it comes down to the delegate math, things would not be terribly different than they are now.