Bernie Sanders for President

Well, I did it.

Turned in my Washington primary ballot today, marked for Bernie Sanders. It probably won't do any good -- Hillary will probably sweep into the convention, and I'll have to hold my nose and vote for her in November -- but I have to at least give Bernie my vote of confidence now.

I wish I felt his chances were better.

Millions of people feel exactly as you do.

At least, Hillary is a shoe-in now that the Republicans have chosen their candidate.

I'm not as confident as you that Clinton is a shoo-in. Remember Nixon, Reagan, Bush.

Except, the Dark Money would be better served with Clinton than Trump.

Shoo-in? I guess that makes more sense than "shoe."

In fact...

If I had a LITTLE LESS faith in the stupidity of Republicans, I'd wonder if the Trump victory wasn't engineered to make sure Clinton ran unopposed.

The Republicans would like you to think that Trump's nomination ensures a runaway victory for Clinton, hoping that Democrats will stay home. Hell, Trump has been suggesting that Sanders run a third-party campaign in the general.

_Howard wrote:

The Republicans would like you to think that Trump's nomination ensures a runaway victory for Clinton, hoping that Democrats will stay home.  Hell, Trump has been suggesting that Sanders run a third-party campaign in the general.

Indeed. Trump's only real chance is that enough of the Bernie die-hards write in Bernie to dilute the Hillary vote. And it could easily happen.

Interestingly, the converse probably isn't true. If the Democrats accidentally nominate Bernie, almost nobody will be writing in Hillary, and it should be the most lop-sided election in our lifetime.

How do we tell that to the convention operatives?

With large quantities of dollars.

Bernie won Oregon last night, and Kentucky is still too close to call.  His speech last night said he's staying in the race until the convention.

But Steve Kornacki on MSNBC ran down the numbers last night, and it is just about mathematically impossible for him to pull out an upset.  Clinton has clinched the nomination.

I figure once she gets to the convention, the party operatives, the political heavies will take over.  The party platform will be standard Democratic boilerplate, with no input from Bernie.  He will be effectively shut out of the process.

Meaning the November election will be a lot closer than it needs to be.  

I don't even want to make a prediction anymore.

If the Democrats want to win in November, they are going to have to give Sander significant input into drafting the platform. Otherwise, I think President Trump is a real possibility.

Bernie speaks at 10:00 tonight.

His speech could be a major one. Let's hope he concedes gracefully.

He did not concede.. He is proving himself to be a moron.

He cannot win a third party independent run.

He is finished.

Too bad. He had a chance to make a real difference, about six months ago, and he blew it.

It's traditional for a candidate to concede after the polls have closed. As there has not yet been a vote - that happens at the convention - there is no reason to concede.

NoCoPilot wrote:

He is proving himself to be a moron.

You really believe that?

NoCoPilot wrote:

He had a chance to make a real difference, about six months ago, and he blew it.

How did he "blow it"?

By sticking with his narrow message when it began polling poorly. By not diverging himself earlier and more distinctly from Clinton. By not addressing the concerns of the disaffected voters, and working to increase Democratic voter turnout -- which, unlike Republicans, was down since 2008/2012.

All these factors will make November's election much closer than it needed to be.

The economy is fucked up and we have to fix it. Not really such a narrow message. And I applaud Sanders for not letting the polls move him off message.

What is Trumps message? "I'm great."

What is Clinton's message? "It's my turn."

I'll stick with Bernie's message, thank you very much.

"I'm history. And you're fucked."

That's all you got from Sanders?

I think his message was poorly framed, I think it was too narrow, I think he scared off a lot of people with his income redistribution scheme.

I had high hopes. They were not met.

What would have satisfied you?

What were you expecting?

I don't think his message was poorly framed, given that it attracted a genuine grass-roots movement. He is attracting small donors and supporters wherever he goes. The message is unattractive to the big money machine investors, who seek a right-of-center candidate like Hillary. But any message left of center (and Bernie really isn't that far left) is going to be rejected by them.

I still hold out hope that a few of the super delegates can be persuaded to see sense and switch to Bernie. Getting a genuinely democratically-elected president is the only hope this country has.

Bernie's message was just what I wanted to hear. He posited corrections to the economy which would not only help the mass of the populace, but also protect the economy itself. If I can be forgiven for referencing the right's Great Satan, Karl Marx's predictions for the demise of capitalism because it would destroy itself are coming to fruition. The Republican Party's policies are hastening the end of the American capitalist system. And the Clintons have not done much to protect it (see Lawrence Summers and Robert Rubin).

You don't have to be a (shudder) socialist to realize that an economy based on consumption cannot survive when the consumers are beggared by that system.

I know it's very difficult to overthrow a corrupt system from inside. I knew Bernie's chance was slim. As this thread shows I went back and forth on whether he had a fighting chance.

But he blew it, he had (and has) massive support and failed to capitalize on it. He was running negative ads when he should have been addressing disaffected voters who are sick of negative campaigning. He was repeating his same stump speech at every stop -- even after losing the nomination -- instead of adjusting his addresses to the news and circumstances. He could've pivoted to Trump earlier: I never once heard him equate Trump with the super rich power brokers who control politics.

He did well, better frankly than anyone expected. But he did not win, and it's his own damn fault -- because people wanted him to be viable.