Tonight, Bernie Sanders became the first candidate in history of either party to win the popular vote in all three of the first states.
This is what a well coordinated and highly energized movement looks like.
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Say anything no matter how hollow just to feel good. But know you are headed to
Democrats made a disaster that is totally avoidable.
Make no mistake about this. Voting for Bernie is re-electing Trump.
We Democrats will lose all moderate, independent and core Democrat votes and easily facilitate rallying of conservatives to unite around Trump.
St-Sinner
Level 9
Feb 23, 2020
0
Have you seen the numbers? Moderates are supporting Sanders nearly as much as they are supporting Biden. With the option of Trump or Sanders, the vast majority of moderates will do what we progressives have been doing for decades, suck it up, get in line, and vote for your party's nominee.
Bernie has been an independent for most of his career. This is seen as a positive to independent voters. They are independent because they don't like the democratic party so someone like Sanders, an outsider, will do better with independents.
Finally, core democratic voters, well that's the democratic base, yes? At the core of the party is the progressive base, That is Sanders' wing of the party. Of course they will vote for him. They will vote, make calls, knock on doors, argue with idiots on the internet, whatever it takes.
@RoboGraham It is too early. We will talk in November 2020. Dont go nowhere.
Yes we will. But we will also talk now, tomorrow and the next day. Perhaps, in the mean time, you should have a look at the numbers coming in from Nevada. Then our talks will make a bit more sense to you.
@RoboGraham I really wish you didn't waste efforts. Trump is going to be re-elected in 2020.
And you call yourself a democrat?
You'd rather lay down and let him win instead of fighting for your party. Perhaps you should join up with the MAGA people.
@RoboGraham
I am a core and pragmatic democrat. But by no means I am a Far Right Extremist who would hurt the Democratic Part'ys cause like the Bernie and his extremist supporters are doing. It is reported and is now public knowledge that many of them sat out the 2016 election. How much worse can the dutifulness get?
Do you plan to vote blue no matter who?
You're no democrat.. You're a Russian troll
I'd say he's more of a confused radical moderate fundamentalist.
@RoboGraham
Stay ready to talk in Nov 2020.
Interesting factoid.
In CNN entrance polls in Nevada, Sanders predictably ran away with the vote of people who self-identified as "very liberal". But look at this performance with self-proclaimed centrists:
Biden 23%
Buttigieg 21%
Sanders 21%
Klobuchar 14%
Steyer 10%
Just 2 points behind Biden.
What a lot of folks don't realize is that significant numbers of moderates ... hell, most of them ... will vote for Sanders if he's the nominee and even in the primaries when they see his momentum and dutifully unite behind the front runner. Particularly in an environment where they so revile Trump and Trumpism.
Bernie is the anti-Trump. People resonate with that.
mordant
Level 8
Feb 23, 2020
3
Right.
It's like how they said that Bernie cannot appeal to minorities but now he has the most diverse coalition.
They don't realize that he is appealing based on his consistency, integrity, and personality. It's not just about ideology and the socialism scare tactic is not working.
@RoboGraham It is also not about market positioning, which is how most candidates seem to approach it.
The latino campaign strategist in charge of the Sanders outreach to the Latino community says, "campaigns don't get anything from latinos because they don't ASK the motherfuckers for anything." They don't spend time in the communities, don't know Spanish, don't know how to use it colloquially, and generally come off as forced and tone deaf.
When you see how relatively little energy the other campaigns have compared to Bernie's, it really blows out of the water the whole "electability" argument that the establishment throws out against Bernie. Why else would the party want to nominate someone who has only a fraction of the energy, passion, and ground game of his campaign? The answer, of course, has to be that they don't like his policies and independence and thus, would rather lose than see him win the general.
TomMcGiverin
Level 8
Feb 23, 2020
2
The only reason that Bernie wasn't running away with it earlier is because the propaganda machines have spent years beating it into peoples heads that a socialist can never get elected.
Wrong, so fuck off with that garbage.
I'm reading that his campaign's organization is one that books are going to be written about when this is over. He's breaking a lot of new ground.
His playbook is no great secret; he's growing the democratic base by bringing in young first-time voters, minorities, and people who traditionally don't vote. Even some conservatives! But the details of how he's reaching them is extremely creative, focused, and extensive.
One latino youth in Nevada that I read about said he "isn't really political" but kept seeing Sander's "little booths" on his college campus, and it was a wow moment for him ... a candidate actually SEEING them. They organized soccer tournaments, did Spanish-language events, all sorts of things. This is what you do if you want to grow the base.
Volunteers were busing into New Hampshire earlier this month and reaching goals of knocking on EVERY DOOR in particular cities. Countless people are phone banking and texting in their spare time. In Iowa I recall they set an ambitious goal of knocking on 5 million doors before the caucuses and reached it in a little over a week -- so they doubled the goal.
People are starting to back off on attacking Sanders because all it does is raise more money from his base. I read today that big $ democratic donors are declining to fund anti-Sanders campaigns because it would raise more $ for Sanders than they'd spend on the campaign ... plus they have the sense not to alienate his growing base in the party. I see that CNN entrance polls in Nevada had Sanders only 2 points behind Biden in support from Democratic moderates (aside of course, from running away with the votes of people who self-identify as "very liberal" ). He's the 2nd choice of most supporters of other candidates, so as each of them runs out of money / support and drops out, a good bit of that support goes to him.
It's no time to relax because many attacks are coming up. The DNC is imploring moderate candidates to go on the attack against Sanders in the upcoming SC debate lest he run away with the nomination; they feel no one has been really willing to get out the knives. And SC will be a close contest compared to Nevada or New Hampshire. Biden started in SC with an initial 35 point lead; Bernie last I looked was 1 point ahead. That's a huge gap to close, but a win is not as certain there.
Still ... fingers crossed, it's looking good.
mordant
Level 8
Feb 22, 2020
2
Its finally paying off.
Tonight while on twitter, I noticed that a lot of moderates are realizing that it's really happening and they can't stop it. Their only hope is to steal it from him in the contested convention. If they try it, there will be a million angry bros marching through the streets ready to tear that city apart.
Yes, and we need to be sure to call out those lies and correct the record.
@RoboGraham I've been gently working a moderate Democrat on another forum and he has gradually gone from styling me as insane and stating that he now, post-Nevada, reluctantly supports Bernie because it's time for the party to unify around the front-runner.
So there are at least some moderate Dems who understand that unity cuts both ways; it isn't only progressives who are supposed to meekly unify behind the center's losing candidates. And it isn't only progressives who are being "divisive" if they don't. At least this guy doesn't have that double standard.
@RoboGraham, @OwlInASack Social media isn't representative of the entire electorate. It is representative of a good portion of the highly engaged electorate. It is also full of bots and trolls (most of us have concluded for example that virtually 100% of Bloomberg posters on Twitter are not organic accounts, but bought accounts, if not outright bots at times). You have Russian and other outside interference pretty clearly in the mix now too. It's even worse on FB with their acceptance of political ads without vetting and their generally inadequate response to bots and trolls.
So it is possible to get very discouraged listening to social media and MSM ... and possible even for me to underestimate the extensive influence of the Sanders coalition. Also, the power of that was not on full display until Nevada. Iowa and New Hampshire are older and whiter than most states.
kudos to you.
Yes it will be a tough pill for them to swallow. We did it and have been doing it all along. It's their turn to unify behind the candidate they didn't support. We tried a moderate last time, colossal failure. In fact, Gore, Kerry, then Clinton, all moderates, all lost. The only moderate democrat to win in this century was Obama but he ran as a hope and change progressive.
It is absurd they they give us terrible candidates then blame us for their loss. This time, we will win because we have a candidate who will inspire the high turnout needed to defeat the inequality of representation inherent in the electoral college.
@RoboGraham Yes. See my post above about Bernie's Nevada performance with centrists. There ARE thoughtful centrists as well as mindless ones. Even the chattering class will come around to the point they at least won't be overtly hostile. Chris "Bernie is going to shoot me in Central Park" Matthews totally lost his shit last night on-camera again and his going through denial and anger phases of his grief process. So are others. Perez sent an email to the centrist Dem candidates yesterday imploring them to attack Bernie vigorously in the SC debate, lest he "run away with the nomination".
Reality is starting to set in. Forgive me if I revel in it a bit.
@bingst Matthews compared Bernie's win to the fall of France in WWII.
Pretty ridiculous but hey, I'll take it. The attack through the Ardennes was a brilliant strategic maneuver.
@bingst I saw the email a couple of days ago. Came through my Twitter feed. Might be wrong about Perez, could have been one of the other muck-a-mucks. It was from the DNC. Can't seem to find it ATM though. Basically it was imploring them to stop giving Sanders a pass, it was now or never.
Matthews lost his shit for the first time a few days ago, with some red-baiting fulmination about how people like him could be shot in Central Park and Bernie's supporters would be there applauding. During Nevada caucus coverage he was more crying in his soup, struggling to come to terms with reality. I don't know what's up with Chris but it may be as simple as that his ratings at MSNBC have not been the greatest last I heard, and he sees the bottom dropping out of the demand for a centrist provocateur like himself.
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