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MNdible
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Re: Bernie Sanders

Postby MNdible » July 7th, 2015, 10:02 am

I think your comment about Ron Paul was meant to dismiss Bernie Sanders.
Maybe a little. I think most of the things you say are true.

But it's possible that I was mostly referring to the ability of the candidates to generate excited posts from internet fanboyz.

Viktor Vaughn
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Re: Bernie Sanders

Postby Viktor Vaughn » July 7th, 2015, 10:49 am

...that's a pretty glib way to chacterize grass roots support.

But anyway, I was pretty surprised to just find out Jamelle Bouie at Slate had the same Paul / Sanders thesis as me.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_ ... arity.html

twincitizen
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Re: Bernie Sanders

Postby twincitizen » July 7th, 2015, 11:15 am

But there's no doubt that Ron Paul has had a huge effect on the Republican Party. He brought in a lot of young activists that are seeking to remake the party in many beneficial (and some not so beneficial) ways. Ron Paul on the debate stage was freakin priceless as he made the other candidates look like complete tools by simply speaking truthfully and candidly.

I think Bernie's candidacy could bring many of these same benefits to the Democratic Party
I agree with that. And I'll add that both are pretty old guys who are/were likely serving their last term of elected office - able to speak their minds free from electoral consequence, even greater than to the degree which they were already doing so for most of their respective careers.

Ron Paul's followers really raised the profile of a lot of fringe positions within the Republican Party. Like you said, some good (personal liberties, drugs, war, etc.) and some bad (some pretty dangerous economic thought).

Bernie and his followers have real a chance to elevate some fringe progressive positions to the mainstream Democratic party platform: minimum wage, various other labor laws(?), universal healthcare, etc. It remains to be seen where else Bernie focuses his campaign speeches besides elevating the poor & working class & universal healthcare. Not sure where he could possibly go on any social policies that would be a benefit to his campaign at this point. Marijuana legalization? Unclear if he even personally supports that - also unclear whether it would make him appear even more loony to the mainstream.

Also, sort of in the same way - Bernie's supporters could gravitate towards Elizabeth Warren following this election cycle. Many are already big fans of hers anyways. She could be a big fundraiser for the Democratic Party in 2018, 2020, etc.

clf
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Re: Bernie Sanders

Postby clf » July 7th, 2015, 2:31 pm

This is an interesting site with a quiz that shows how ones beliefs align with the candidates. http://www.isidewith.com/

mulad
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Re: Bernie Sanders

Postby mulad » July 8th, 2015, 6:18 am

I took that and it said my positions matched Sanders' at 98%, Clinton's at 82%. The best Republican match for me was Chris Christie at 44%, and it gets comically low beyond that.

The campaign events for Sanders remind me of the ones for Ralph Nader in 2000, though Sanders may be drawing even bigger crowds. Nader came to Target Center and filled the place up pretty well even though people had to pay $7 to get in. My memory was that it was probably 60-80% full, which would be 12,000 to 16,000 people since the rally used the "concert" seating arrangement, though reports after the fact tended to round down the numbers. I recall an initial news article reporting an attendance of 12,000 got regurgitated through another outlet saying "more than 11,000", and then to another outlet that said "about 10,000", so it was hard to come away from that without believing the news media just didn't want him around.

The Sanders campaign is going to have a lot of the same trouble with reporters not taking him seriously, but he potentially has a gigantic advantage over Nader's campaign because he's running for the Democratic nomination rather than representing a third party (which was the Green Party in Nader's case). Everything is set up for a two-party system -- in places like Minnesota, it isn't hard to get a third-party candidate on the ballot, but there are other states where it's virtually impossible. The debate system is geared toward only allowing two parties. The Electoral College system makes it ridiculously difficult to have votes for third parties count at all (it probably does a disservice to the second party too).

The machine within the Democratic Party is just as difficult to defeat, though I think the nomination of the yawn candidate Al Gore in 2000 followed by mega-yawn candidate John Kerry in 2004 really proved to many on the political left that the Democratic machine is (or at least was) inherently broken. Even the nomination of Obama in 2008 was a compromise, in my view, but they both had compelling backstories, and the optics of the horse race between someone who was potentially the first female president vs. the first black president were too enticing for the news media to bother covering anyone else in depth.

But of course the party machine became what it was because of landslide defeats with McGovern in 1972 (who beat Hubert Humphrey for the nomination) and Mondale in '84. Nobody wanted that to happen again.

My positions seem to put me out on the far left, but I don't really think of myself as a left-wing loon -- To the best of my ability, my positions are based on the facts as I see them. I try to be accurate in my viewpoints, though I don't always succeed. I'd rather see an election that elects the person who has the most true ideas rather than the most liberal or conservative ones. As Stephen Colbert used to say, "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."

min-chi-cbus
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Re: Bernie Sanders

Postby min-chi-cbus » July 8th, 2015, 7:27 am

^I tend to agree with your approach of choosing the candidate that most closely aligns with my personal ideals, but after the crap some of the Repubs have pulled over the past 4-8 years since Obama was elected I am inclined to just vote blindly Democratic.

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Re: Bernie Sanders

Postby Silophant » July 8th, 2015, 7:35 am

Every so often, I take a quiz like that, and it generally confirms that, at least as long as the two-party mess we have persists, voting blindly Democratic is the way to go for me.
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Re: Bernie Sanders

Postby mplsjaromir » July 8th, 2015, 7:52 am

People forget John Kerry actually did quite well in 2004, it was a tight election. Al Gore won the popular vote in 2000. I wouldn't say that the establishment of the Democratic party makes bad picks.

Party leaders have to make picks that have a broad appeal. The candidate must appeal a theoretical low interest suburban Orlando/Columbus voter. So they look for three qualities, appearance, success and grace. I realize that those are subjective qualities, but going by that metric you can rule out Christie, Walker and Cruz for the GOP. That means its going to be Bush vs Rubio.

For the Democratic Party it really only leaves Hillary. 100% of voters know who she is. She is the most veteran and seasoned candidate by far. I took the quiz above and I was a 99% match with Bernie Sanders. I appreciate what Sanders will do, but I do not believe he will capture the nomination.

Another thing about the 2016 election, it is going to be far worse for the GOP than what most imagine. Most English speakers are not aware of the prominence of Spanish language media in the U.S. Univision is regularly #1 or #2 most watched network in many of the largest media markets. Univision has nightly political commentary that exceeds the quality of anything on English broadcast media, even high falutin NPR. The GOP is referred to as 'The Self-Deportation Party' by Univision on a daily basis. With the recent comments made by Trump the GOP has become a anathema to a demographic that is growing by 10,000 new voters every month.

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Re: Bernie Sanders

Postby Tiller » July 22nd, 2015, 9:18 am

http://www.quinnipiac.edu/news-and-even ... aseID=2261
"Bernie is now polling as good or better than Clinton in the key states of Iowa, Colorado, and Virginia. And unlike Clinton, a third of the country doesn't yet know who he is, meaning he still has plenty of room to move up.

Sanders also beats Clinton soundly in terms of honesty and empathy. In Colorado, for example, Clinton is polling at -14 (39 positive/55 negative) for honesty, while Sanders is at +26 (43 positive/17 negative). A full 40% don't know enough to answer about Sanders; only 5% don't know enough about Clinton.

TL;DR, The data shows Sanders, the kooky socialist, would do better in the general election than Clinton."

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Re: Bernie Sanders

Postby RailBaronYarr » July 22nd, 2015, 9:38 am

Honest question: how much of the perception of Clinton's honesty/empathy is due to her being a woman? Same politics, experience, etc if she were a male, would folks view her the same way?

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Re: Bernie Sanders

Postby LakeCharles » July 22nd, 2015, 10:19 am

I thought this piece was interesting and potentially troubling: http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/bern ... here-else/

Sanders support comes almost exclusively from white liberals. Iowa and New Hampshire Democrat primary/caucus voters happen to be almost exclusively white and mostly quite liberal. As the campaign moves to more moderate and more diverse states, his support could dry up.

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Re: Bernie Sanders

Postby mattaudio » July 22nd, 2015, 10:50 am

I wonder if there's correlation between the demographics he's winning, and the demographics that are aware of him. There are still, supposedly, plenty of people who only know about Hillary. As that changes, I suspect many folks will be happy to support Sanders instead.

MNdible
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Re: Bernie Sanders

Postby MNdible » July 22nd, 2015, 10:56 am

The media loves a horse race, so expect good media coverage for Sanders for a while.

Viktor Vaughn
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Re: Bernie Sanders

Postby Viktor Vaughn » July 22nd, 2015, 11:05 am

From the 538 post linked above.
One theory to explain these numbers is that Iowa and New Hampshire Democrats are early adopters of Sanders’s populist-left message. It isn’t a bad theory. These states have received the most intense campaign activity so far, and Sanders’s name recognition is higher among Democrats in Iowa and New Hampshire — perhaps about 70 percent or 80 percent, based on recent polls — than it is nationally. If the theory is true, Sanders’s numbers will improve nationally as Democrats in other states become as familiar with him as those in Iowa and New Hampshire are.
This makes sense to me. Sander's name recognition is 70 or 80% higher in Iowa and New Hampshire and his support is a lot higher. This looks like a statistical correlation. Also, it'd make sense that Bernie is most well known among white liberals, again correlating to support among that group.

Clearly, Bernie needs to reach out to minority communities. But it's not hard to see his message of economic populism resonating in communities of color.

But first they'd have to hear his and message. Most of his coverage seems to be horse race sniping at his electoral chances rather than relaying his policy prescriptions and vision for the country.

The NY TImes has been exceptionally bad. "My Conversation with Bernie," my ass...
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/12/upsho ... .html?_r=0

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Re: Bernie Sanders

Postby David Greene » July 22nd, 2015, 11:12 am

Clearly, Bernie needs to reach out to minority communities. But it's not hard to see his message of economic populism resonating in communities of color.
He set himself back at Netroots Nation.

http://www.thenation.com/article/why-th ... g-overdue/

Until Bernie is able to fully embrace Black liberation, he's going to have a tough going with many Black folk. His economic populism is seen as catering to the white liberal establishment by leaders of #BlackLivesMatter. They understand the economics helps everyone but they do not see him addressing the specific concerns of the Black community. Until he does, they aren't going to carry water for him.

Not that Clinton is any better (and BLM understand that) but right now she is seen by many Black people as their candidate. Bernie has to step it up big time. His economic populism won't matter if he doesn't talk about racism and oppression.

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Tiller
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Re: Bernie Sanders

Postby Tiller » July 22nd, 2015, 11:37 am

Honest question: how much of the perception of Clinton's honesty/empathy is due to her being a woman? Same politics, experience, etc if she were a male, would folks view her the same way?
I doubt it's because she's a woman, like at all. I think we've just reached a point where many, especially many Democrats, are sick and disgusted with what's been happening to our democracy. It's much clearer to dislike Hillary as a representative of oligarchy than it is Jeb Bush, since she's been the "front runner" for so long, seemingly having been preordained for a coronation. The smears certainly haven't helped, though they have mostly affected conservative opinions. The contrast established by Bernie has also made her seem corrupt and unlikable, even if that's nothing special among politicians.

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Re: Bernie Sanders

Postby mattaudio » July 22nd, 2015, 12:15 pm

OK this is what I don't understand about the "divide" between Bernie and liberals of color. Or the reaction to the Netroots Nation/BLM thing over the weekend.

Sure, Bernie might not be where these folks want him to be on certain issues. That's fine, and it's fine for them to bring attention to it. But does BLM, or liberals of color, think that Clinton would be better on those issues? It seems as if Bernie is bad, Hillary is 100x worse. David says "Not that Clinton is any better" but it seems like she is obviously and substantially worse. So how the heck is Hillary "seen by many Black people as their candidate" unless those communities simply are less aware of less-bad Bernie?

It makes no sense to me.

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Re: Bernie Sanders

Postby Viktor Vaughn » July 22nd, 2015, 12:36 pm

Yep, that makes sense to me Matt.

And as a supporter of BLM from the beginning, I've been put off by recent actions (like this one) that seemed destined/intended to alienate allies.

We need to acknowledge structural racism and root it out. We need to reform police departments and improve toxic police/community relationships. Absolutely. I hope Bernie speaks out on these issues.

But at the end of the day, the working class needs to be united to improve conditions and opportunities for poor people who are black, brown, native, white, or blue with green breath. Rudely attacking a former member of SNCC in this way seems really counter productive to the objectives of this movement. It seems like the goal was maybe to call out O'Mally on his record and Sanders was just caught in the crossfire. Then he reacted like a grumpy old man. He probably needs to work on being less grumpy when folks are rude to him.

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Re: Bernie Sanders

Postby EOst » July 22nd, 2015, 12:38 pm

Those Quinnipiac polls, frankly, don't make sense with the rest of the polling in the race. There's no way mathematically that Hillary leads nationwide by 10+ points, and loses in Iowa, Colorado, and Virginia by the same margin.

That said, I wouldn't be surprised if Bernie ran pretty well against named Republican candidates. Even now, his name ID is so low that he basically counts as "generic Democrat."

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Re: Bernie Sanders

Postby PigsEye » July 22nd, 2015, 1:33 pm

The media loves a horse race, so expect good media coverage for Sanders for a while.
Yes, keep in mind there will be several Sanders vs. Clinton debates that I think will be turning point. The fact that Sanders is becoming this popular and drawing crowds this large even before those debates suggest that he will be able to easily take the nomination provided the debates go well, and they are broadcasted and viewed and talked about by pretty much everyone which unless there is other news going on should most likely happen. I think it was in Aug that the debates start right?


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