And then there was Sanders
Commenter “physicsguy” has an observation and a question:
Given what I’m seeing this morning about his west coast trip, I’m beginning to think we all need to worry a lot more about Sanders than HRC. A declared socialist and drawing huge crowds”¦I don’t like to think about what this means for the US. We all keep talking about the “drive over the cliff”; maybe we already did that and are now in free fall.
Neo: what’s your take on Sanders??
I agree that Sanders is a force to be reckoned with, and we discount him at our peril. Unlike the paucity of Bush-supporters in my life, I’m acquainted with a lot of Sanders-supporters.
A lot. After all, I’m in New England, and here he matches the viewpoint of a great many people, especially among those liberals who have become disaffected with Hillary and still think Obama’s a great guy who has done wonderful things for the country.
Sigh.
I consider the election of de Blasio in New York as a portent of possible things to come with Sanders, who is somewhat of the same ilk, although older (and Jewish). I would never discount him, and although I don’t think he could win the election, it would not shock me if he was nominated and if he did win. The left is very strong right now in this country. The electorate is somewhat like the slowly-boiled frog in terms of socialism: many people have gotten used to the idea and it no longer frightens them, even if they don’t understand it very well. Sanders has that 60s-ish appeal; let’s all do good in the world! Make peace not war!
So yes, Sanders is one of those “be careful what you wish for” candidates.
As journalist Evan Thomas (grandson of Socialist prez candidate) said in 2004 — the news media is worth 15 points to any Democrat. Not enough to pull stiffs like Gore and Kerry across the finish line, but the news media is a lot more corrupt now.
If the media thought they could drag Hillary across the finish line, they surely think they can drag Sanders.
I will see the top four Dems in person this Friday. Powerline will probably publish it. Very excited.
Cornhead:
That should be interesting.
I don t think Bernie can make it nationally
he comes across as a Michael Dukakis type
Good appeal in the Northeast & DC but in other areas a NY city born, socialist ??? Commie really, & anti Bernie types will not hesitate to call him a Commie….
Bernie is another person that I believe could never win the nomination much less general election.
But I also thought that of Obama.
Bernie is huge with my lefty-left friends on Facebook – and we are nowhere near the East Coast. He has that same punish-evil-rich-people, free-stuff-for-all-the-nice-people message that goes over with that group. Almost every last one of them makes life choices that result in their lives more difficult – and they then blame other people for their ongoing hardship. The Bernie message rubs them in all the right places.
KG
You are so correct.
My take on Bernie in Iowa.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2015/07/live-from-council-bluffs-the-mania-of-bernie.php
Last week, in his NR piece on Robert Conquest, George Will pointed out that in 1988, Bernie Sanders chose to SPEND HIS HONEYMOON by cuddling with the Soviet mothership in Moscow. “The honeymooner did not mind that in 1988 political prisoners were – as may still be the case – being tortured in psychiatric ‘hospitals.’”
Sanders scares the hell out of me, but more so because of all the people who are supporting him. Though it’s a very small incremental step from Obama to Sanders, so why not take it. We could just replace all the stars on the flag with red ones…it would be appropriate. Khrushchev was right; it just took about 60 years.
Seattle and Portland are crazy leftie.
… I’m acquainted with a lot of Sanders-supporters.
A lot. After all, I’m in New England, and here he matches the viewpoint of a great many people…
Not just New England. How about the majority of the Democratic party–which, if it were honest, would start calling itself the “Democratic Socialist Party” or just the “Socialist Party.”
Did you happen to see or hear that clip of Debbie Wasserman Schultz being interviewed by Chris Matthews (a complete dolt who somehow stumbled upon an interesting question)? He asked her to explain the difference between the Democratic party and a socialist party. She stopped and paused for a few long seconds, obviously unable to come up with an answer. Finally, she tried to change the subject, blathering about how the real issue is the Democrats vs the Republicans, blah, blah, blah.
The Democratic party is already the US Socialist Party. At least Sanders is honest about it.
I would much rather see Bernie as the candidate than Hillary, Biden, or Webb. Bernie will not try to hide his leftist leanings. It would be good to get the issues out in the open – big government socialism versus small government capitalism. It would sort of clear the air as to where the country stands. If Bernie won, we would know that the decline of the U.S. is most likely irrevocable without armed revolution. Not a pleasant thought, but we could start making our plans based on that fact.
Oh yes, how many declared democrat candidates are there? Four, five, six, or eighteen?
Check this site for the answer:
http://2016.democratic-candidates.org/#Declared-Democratic-Candidates
Sanders has been weak and cowardly in dealing with the disruption of his event in Seattle by the Afro-fascists of the BLM movement, the extreme radicalism of which (funded, in part, by Soros) is not widely reported in the MSM.
Talking about the candidates, Correia’s take is worth a read. It’s not only analytical, it is fun.
Sanders is not going to draw votes from anybody but the left.
Trump is drawing votes from every faction.
Ahh but the Left is now almost the entire Democratic party.
Maybe the Democrats will have a repeat of the 1968 Democratic Convention, when leftists were in full flower. The Black Lives Matter crowd/Ferguson might be the catalyst.
My wife is a conservative, but as a retired teacher she has lots of liberal friends. We’ve been astonished at how many of them are totally in love with Bernie Sanders (we live in the Midwest, nowhere near the east coast). I don’t think we have anything to fear in the general election if Sanders gets the Democrat nomination, unless Trump is the Republican nominee or runs as an independent, then all bets are off.
Weirder things have happened, or almost. I mean, Bernie would be “weirder” than Obama, but I thought Obama did not stand a chance in hell around the same time in the election cycle last time around. I dismissed him outright. Hillary certainly looked like the shoo-in then for the Dems so this time… it could just be that Hillary is too cursed from being a Clinton and that she lacks the right factors altogether and — she’s crooked. But who knows. It * is * possible and I am started to get a tiny bit worried because of the passion Bernie inspires, much like the passion that Obama inspired early on. I see no passion whatsoever now for Hillary and only the passport of “inevitability”. There was more passion for her last time around.
I doubt Bernie could win in the general election but it depends on who the Republicans pick and how much damage is done by Trump. I guess this just shows how the country is completely polarized politically now between big government socialist types and small government classic liberalism.
Time will tell…
I mean, Bernie would be “weirder” than Obama, but I thought Obama did not stand a chance in hell around the same time in the election cycle last time around.
You should look at Rome and England, when the authority of the state melded with the authority of divine religion.
If secular or religious authorities were still sane or separated, Hussein might not have mobilized the Left. But the evidence explains the connections in the dots.
With respect, this blog post and most of the comments are fairly absurd. I am compelled to respond. Some might remember my responses to the repeated pondering about an Elizabeth Warren upstaging of HRC for the nomination. Now that such a possibility has (largely) passed, I repeat most of my same thoughts on Bernie. Only more emphatically. Warren could at least undermine Hillary’s appeal to gender. As an elderly white male from one of the least diverse and least urban states in America. He has yet to demonstrate his ability to appeal to minority or working class white voters; and no pundit has yet to convince me as to how he will. Without such an appeal, he is a niche candidate who will continue to draw a small, dedicated, adoring group of followers and little more.
Full disclosure: I am a white male with a graduate degree and a household income well in excess of 100K annually. Most of my professional and personal colleagues are similar. And, I live in a blue upon blue setting (Greater Seattle). I get the sense that many on this blog are of similar background (although please correct me if I’m mistaken). There’s certainly nothing wrong with the same; but it does tend to color our perspectives a little.
Neo, as to your comment about De Blaiso: America is certainly not, writ large, akin to NYC, in any significant form. De Blaiso’s success there could not be extrapolated on a national level any more than (impromptu example) Mia Love’s success in rural Utah could be extrapolated. A very lefty message and candidate could be successful nationwide but only with marked PR modifications and massaging. Exhibit A: Obama. Could the Democrats pull it off again? Perhaps. But not with Sanders. He is what he is and I see no way of marketing him to a broad cross section of America.
Chris, I don’t doubt your wife’s experiences. Mine are similar; my boss has gone so far to volunteer for Sanders campaign, emblazon a “Bernie” sticker on his SUV and gently remind us of Bernie organizing events. But let me ask you this: how many of your wife’s friends/colleagues do not have college degrees, are working class, and are not white? I’m not making presumptions, but if my cultural milieu is similar to yours, the answer is likely: very few.
Let’s not let our own cultural backgrounds skew our views of the reality of the Democratic nomination fight. Or, to paraphrase Pauline Kael, let’s avoid the following: “I don’t see how Sanders could lose. Everyone I know loves him.”
Sanders’ appeal among African-Americans and Hispanics is still quite limited:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/07/16/bernie-sanderss-limited-appeal-even-to-democrats/
This poll is a few weeks old, but quite illustrative, particularly on the views of minorities. The #BlackLivesMatter disruption here in Seattle this weekend is only indicative of this wider opinion. Sanders has done little to address it; he is trying at present (at least confusedly and half-heartedly) but I don’t seem him making any significant inroads with African-Americans or Hispanics anytime soon.
And without a sizable chunk of these voters (as well as working class whites), Sanders has no chance whatsoever. Not even if every affluent white liberal in the country turns out for him.
Sanders going into liberal enclaves and drawing huge crowds of middle class (and wealthier) professional white people is not indicative of much of anything other than this relatively narrow demographic’s passion for him. I concede fully as long as he is in the race, he will win this demographic by double digit margins anywhere and every where. And, in and of itself, this means very little.
As to the misleading nature of campaign rally size…
Let’s talk to President Brown (or at least Democratic nominee Brown) about crowd size.
http://articles.latimes.com/1992-05-19/news/mn-246_1_eastern-oregon
Much more recently, who could forget another Vermonter who drew huge crowds of passionate acolytes in his failed bid for the Democrat nomination.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2004/01/12/running-on-instinct
It was inevitable that Dean would be the nominee. Right…
That fall, John Kerry draw 80,000 in Madison when campaigning with Springsteen in Madison, WI. My future wife attended this rally with a friend (she and I met shortly after and both moved right…I more than her…in the subsequent ten years).
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7421-2004Oct28.html
Granted, many people just showed up to see Bruce. But still, 80,000
Lest we forget the Nader super rallies:
http://www.monitor.net/monitor/0011a/copyright/naderend.html
Nader was running as a third party maverick, but still, those crowds dwarfed most Bush or Gore rallies.
Here’s a good article debunking the significance of crowd size in presidential campaigns, citing to Romney, Kerry and Dukakis.
http://www.salon.com/2015/07/26/donald_trumps_size_doesnt_matter_also_hes_probably_exaggerating_it/
Barring some major scandal, some smoking-gun revelation in re: email server or Benghazi, Hillary Clinton is going to be the Democratic nominee.* The laser sharp focus of all Republican candidates (as well as pundits, politicians and bloggers) should be on her. Relentlessly. Do not get distracted by the Trump and Sanders sideshow. Zero in on her and don’t let go. Up until her seguing into the Trump drama, Carly was doing just that. I admire her for it and I hope she continues.
If HRC wins the White House next year, it will at least in part be due to conservative/Republican distraction by Trump (and the strife/drama he engenders) as well as the distracting red-herrings of Warren and Sanders. Eyes. On. The. Prize. Hillary, Hillary, Hillary.
*And if she is mortally wounded by scandal, Bernie is still unlikely to prevail. The Democrat establishment will hurriedly rush in an acceptable alternative (maybe Biden; more likely Cuomo, Warner, McCaskill or even a Gore, Dean or Kerry redux
Hope you’re right, Ackler.
Wow, he makes Dukakis et al. look like Midwestern Methodists. The only openly Socialist member of Congress!!!
A leftwing birdbrain I know (one of way too many) asked me what I thought of Sanders and was amused by my hot reply. He thinks Sanders is great. He shrugs off our loss of freedom with a careless, “Well, we live in a bubble-wrap world.” As if it were inevitable! and with zero feeling for the pearl of great price that we’ve lost! (He’s 46 and gay, and that trumps everything in his mind.)
They Just Don’t Care, the Urbanites. This is the water they swim in. Curse the lot.
Ackler:
I am in agreement that Clinton is most likely going to be the opponent, and that Sanders’ appeal is somewhat limited.
However, I thought he’d be limited to single digits against her. He’s done far better than I ever expected, and that concerns me for many reasons, including what I think it may say about the continuing leftward drift of the Democratic Party and this country generally. If Obama could win re-election in 2012, then it is not beyond the realm of possibility that Sanders could pull off a victory, although it’s HIGHLY unlikely.
As for de Blasio, of course I realize that NYC is not representative of the country. Nevertheless it surprised me that someone as far to the left as de Blasio won the mayorship there. So my take from all of this is that the liberal electorate is unpredictable lately and quite far to the left.
Bernie’s popularity is directly related to Hillary’s unpopularity. She is unlikeable, cold, and calculating, and even a stiff like Sanders will seem like the energetic one in comparison. The Democratic base is not enthusiastic about Hillary. They were not enthusiastic about her in 2008, and the “cool kids” therefore flocked to the alternative in Obama.
The Left is desperate for anyone other than Hillary, and Bernie is simply the the soup du jour. But when it comes down to it, Sanders is still a crotchety old white man, the very definition of “uncool”, and someone the Democrats would abandon in a heartbeat for any viable non-Hillary alternative.
This all sets up perfectly for Liz Warren or Michelle Obama. They can lay low, avoid all the early scrutiny that ruins many a candidate, announce their “surprise” candidacy, and run away with the nomination (and then the presidency).
it surprised me that someone as far to the left as de Blasio won the mayorship there.
Well, he ran as a Democrat, not a Communist. IIRC, it was only a couple of days before the election when the NYT finally published some information about his radical left alignment.
Why would a Democrat have to run as a communist. That’s like a Nazi running as a socialist or a PProfiteer running as a capitalist.
I imagine that Sanders will get enormous mileage out of “free everything” because the average voter simply doesn’t understand the economics of it. College is so expensive, so his offering free college for everyone is brilliant, right?
Economics is too difficult for slaves to understand. It is sufficient for them to understand what then everything is provided for them, they have rights equal to a slave under Slavery 2.0 Democrat style.
Yes, be careful what you ask for!
I was convinced that Obama wouldn’t win the first time. After he won, “okay”, I said to myself. I get it, a lot of folks wanted to be a part of “making history” by voting for the first black president of the US.
But, then his second election came around; and, again, I was convinced, this time absolutely convinced, that there was no way he would win a second time – given how bad his first term went.
OMG, I must be so out of touch with the voters – he won! a second time! How on earth could anyone with half a brain vote for that loser – this time a proven loser!?
Given that, and given that so many on the left seemed to have convinced themselves that Obama is “one of the greatest” presidents I won’t ever think someone like Sanders couldn’t win.
As much as I would like to think that things couldn’t get worse than Obama; they could, and very well might. ouch!
I’m not worried about Sanders, for mechanical reasons. His appeal is not universal enough. I think Hillary is still the most viable nominee, even if that’s not viable enough to win the general.
The chumps don’t learn because every time things fall into the septic tank, there is a ready-made object of blame.
I recall discussing with a relation that some doctors are choosing to retire a couple of years early because the difference between their retirement income and their work income didn’t justify putting up with the ACA.
Her response was….”greedy”. That was as far as she’d thought and as far as she’d thought it was necessary to think. Not the fault of ACA.