Would someone please wake me up when the Iowa caucuses actually start mattering? Bernie winning New Hampshire would normally mean more but has to be discounted in this case given he’s from Western NH (aka Vermont). I doubt Hillary would win a national primary by 25 points if one were held now, but there’s utterly no doubt she would win it and win big. So Sanders has to hope he can navigate the primary process so skillfully that he builds sufficient additional support as he goes to overcome her large leads almost everywhere else, a difficult task given he’s not some unknown anymore–everyone has heard of him by now. He needs big help from Hillary in the form of a major slip, and she’s awfully cautious as a campaigner, so that’s unlikely.
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All well and good that she may do more on women’s issues than Bernie or anyone else, but she will never, ever make a decision that benefits the 99% at the expense of the 1%. She and Bill are a couple of snakes. Dr. King came to believe it’s more about class than race, and no Clinton will ever advance that thinking. A couple of greedy, power starved frauds.
I have seen some of this on the gun manufacturer liability issue, where Bernie himself has so far refused to acknowledge his original vote as a mistake, and his staff and supporters have followed his lead on that, while also pointing out that Clinton has been “all over the map” on the issue in the past (an exaggeration, IMHO, since while she has certainly used some very different rhetoric and positioning in her Senate and previous presidential campaign than she is using now, her actual voting record doesn’t show an “all over the map” approach).
On the health care issue, I don’t think it’s at all accurate to say that Bernie or his supporters have ignored the actual criticism. They just don’t agree with it…nor, it seems, does pretty much anyone except Hillary supporters. Her hyperbole (and Chelsea’s) has been pretty widely panned in the press as deliberately misleading, and (in my view) for good reason. If she had stuck to criticizing the lack of updated details for his plan, or pointing out the difficulties of getting it passed, that would be one thing. But she didn’t. She employed classic right-wing framing against the very notion of the middle class taxing itself to pay for our collective health care, claiming that it would be a big “burden” on the middle class – by pointing to the taxes that would be required, while ignoring the savings on premiums, co-pays and deductibles that it is widely acknowledged (even by many who don’t support single payer) would more than offset that “burden.”
That may be good general-election politics, but it does open her up to the charge that she is more than willing to abandon progressive principles and embrace right-wing framing whenever she finds it convenient. She didn’t have to take such an approach, it was her choice, and complaining about the criticism she’s getting for it seems a bit like the same kind of defensiveness you’re criticizing Bernie’s supporters for.
I sometimes wonder how many public Bernie supporters are actually GOP trolls planted to toxify the Democratic primary. You just convinced me this is the case. No true Democrat would type those words.
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I think that’s a fair argument, if it were up to me he would have released new details before now. Of course the same thing (in reverse) applies to Family and Medical Leave, where Bernie is supporting a specific proposal that is now before Congress, whereas Hillary says she supports Family and Medical Leave, but hasn’t (at least last I heard) released a detailed proposal or identified how she would fund it (and please do correct me if I’m wrong, maybe she has come out with those details and it just wasn’t very well covered in the media). Doesn’t change Bernie’s responsibility to detail his plans, but it does put kind of put things in perspective.
I agree completely. And it’s not just Romney’s failure, it’s also that of McCain, Dole, and HW Bush.
Basically, much of the Republican base believes the reason conservatism has failed on a national level is largely because of the “moderates” whether or not they actually got elected. W Bush is seen as a mixed bag. He gets points from the base for getting “elected” twice and enraging liberals while doing so, but they also blame his so called compassionate conservatism for having led to eight years of Obama. They believe that if only they could run a true rock-ribbed, uncompromising conservative who’ll stick to his guns and run in the general election on the same principals touted during the primary then they’ll see across the board victory that will last for decades to come. (To be fair, a lot of liberals subscribe to the same belief.) That’s why neither Cruz or Trump can afford to attempt to dial it back.
If either man were to suddenly make a seemingly moderate pivot, it would rankle an already hypersensitive base who feel they’ve been sold up and down the river too many times before. It would be akin to the reflexive fear and defensiveness a dog, who was abused by a past owner, might display when a new, very loving owner raises their voice cheering during a game. Even though the new owner may never have been anything but loving and kind, the pup will fear that the abuse is about to begin again. The new owner has to take special care to avoid spooking the dog, care that they otherwise wouldn’t around a dog who’d never experienced abuse, or they risk undoing all the progress they’ve made with their pet. That’s pretty much where both Cruz and Trump will be with the Republican base. Any sign of moderation will be met with intense fear and anger that they’re once again being betrayed.
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The polling does show a difference between the number of Bernie supporters who say they are willing to vote for Hillary (about 85%, as I recall) and the number of Hillary supporters who say they are willing to vote for Bernie if he’s the nominee (just over 90%, as I recall). So, a difference, but not a huge one. I wrote a little more about this upthread, in a response to PluckyInKY:
I would caution against drawing any conclusions at all from comment sections, other than there are some hot-heads on both sides.
I hope and pray that Bernie Sanders does not win the Democratic nomination. Here is why. He is Extreme! He is a socialist.
There is no way in hell that he would win the general election if he runs as a socialist. He will NEVER get any cooperation from the Senate or the House.If Democrats think that Obama got no help, just wait until they see what happens with Sanders.
LOL. And you (CPL593H) get to define what a “true Democrat” is? Bill Clinton’s policies did more to bring on the recession than anything George Bush did, but , hey, he’s a true Democrat. It’s notable that the true Democrat currently in the WH has as his signature accomplishment a rehash of a Republican health care proposal. So, that is what a true Democrat is in 2016: a minor makeover of a 1988 Republican.
In a nutshell. Though I don’t agree your choice of descriptor-- ‘abandon’.
HRC must draw from a much larger pool of voters to prepare for the General Election-- and she has to do so-- in assuming she’ll be the (D) nominee.
Sen Sanders OTOH can continue his success of appealing to progressives and left-of-center types as he focuses solely on primary results-- where HRC is looking to peel off the right-of-center voters required to compete/win the GE.
I don’t fault either campaign for making strategic decisions mid-stream.
I do fault both campaigns for inferring it’s only the other doing so-- when both clearly are.
It’s the political reality of the moment.
jw1
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True. The Republicans are now forced to walk a narrow path that forbids any concession to moderation – let alone liberalism.
And yes, I agree on the others and forgot to mention McCain and the others you cited.
My wingnut brother, who lives in Ohio with its Republican-led legislature and executive branch, recently bitched that he felt he had no voice, no representation – even though Republicans control both branches of Congress and most state governments including his.
They rode the anti-Obama bandwagon these several years to tremendous electoral victories, and now they feel powerless, disenfranchised, and unrepresented.
To which I say, with all sincerity: Thanks, Obama!
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All good points. As I wrote somewhere above, at this point most of the polls are measuring “likely voters” and likely voter models can and do vary greatly. Measuring how many people say they’ll vote for one candidate or the other is fairly easy compared to predicting who will actually turn out.
And given Iowa’s rather bizarre caucus system, there are several other very hard-to-predict aspects. For example, at the caucuses, people stand in different corners according to what candidate they support (and undecideds in the middle of the room) and they get some time to try to woo undecideds to come their way. Then they have an initial vote, at which point any candidate with less than 15% is eliminated, and then the participants get another chance to try to woo those newly freed-up supporters and any remaining undecideds to join the supporters of one of the remaining candidates, and only then is the final vote taken. And even still it’s far from over – there are some delegates chosen that night, but then others are chosen at district and state conventions, though rather byzantine processes the details of which I can’t remember off the top of my head.
So it’s all about as clear as mud, and in a close race (as this now appears to be) there’s really no telling how it will all come out. Who turns out will obviously be a key factor, and if it’s really close, then who the majority of Martin O’Malley’s supporters end up going to (assuming he doesn’t get 15%, which I think is a pretty safe assumption) could wind up making a real difference.
I agree that many of these comments against Hillary Clinton are either R trolls, or people that are non informed, far left
extreme voters who most likely never vote!! These criticisms of Hillary are from Far Left losers. they have never voted
in an election unless it is a Sociolist candidate. they are not loyal Democrats and do not vote. They are in a way Childish.
saying that they do not care if a Republican wins as long as Hillary loses is really stupid, dumb, retarded, nonsensical
Exactly what I’m thinking. The internet will be intolerable following IA and NH.
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Sanders will never sign into law single payer health. Never, while he is president. Just remember the difficulty Obama
had getting ACA. Why would you think that suddenly the conservatives would join in and pass single payer. This is a dream world thought. give me a break.and that goes for many of the stuff he would attempt. all republican would not go along!
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That wasn’t me but CPL593H who made that comment about Republicans pretending to be Bernie supporters.
WHAT makes you Bernibots think that he could pass any of his extreme plans. He is extreme and does not get along with
people. he never smiles. he is an angry a hole. I would not have a beer with him i tell you that. BORING
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Hillary Clinton would make an excellent president. she could at least work with both sides . Bernie could not , period!
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I think that’s generally pretty accurate, aside from the one recent New Hampshire poll (Monmouth?) that showed Bernie ahead in basically all categories. But even there the trend you mention still held to the extent that Hillary’s numbers among Democrats were substantially better than her numbers among independents planning to vote in the Democratic primary.
As of today, Nate Silver gives Hillary an 81% chance of winning Iowa and a 57% chance of winning NH.
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