Discussion for article #244992
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Anyone else notice how OLD Bernieâs crowds are getting? Sure, the kids are still there, but take a close look, not just the people behind Bernie, they stack that pack with young folks. But throughout the crowd, there are a LOT of people who donât fit the mediaâs âneophyte voterâ meme, at times it looks almost tea-ish. Or maybe more like âWoodstockishâ
Bernieâs appealing to a much broader swath of the electorate than the oldstream media is showing. What that means for Hillary only the future knows.
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Iâll believe Bernie will win when I see it happen. And Iâll start paying attention to the polls when they stop contradicting each other every few hours.
Iowa will be interesting. The Iowa caucus is terrible at predicting the future Republican nominee (they got Dole right in 1996 and Dubya in 2000, but have been wrong every other time since 1976 â not counting the times the GOP candidate ran unopposed) but their record with the Democrats have been better (five correct in the same time period â six if you donât count Clinton as running unopposed in 1996, thanks to Ralph Nader).
So historically, the democrat who wins Iowa will have some momentum. The Republican is most likely screwed. Isnât that right, Gov Huckabee and Senator Santorum?
Gonna be fun 
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Actually, it is only in the past couple of weeks that the mainstream media has even acknowledged Sanders was running a campaign, much less show pictures of the crowds he has been pulling in for months. Here are results of a couple of media studies in mid December.
On an average day, the ratio of Trump-to-Sanders mentions was 29-to-3.
ABC News spent 81 minutes on Donald Trump and only 20 seconds on our campaign.
And from decisiondata.org http://decisiondata.org/news/political-media-blackouts-president-2016/
When I first had this idea I thought I might kill some conspiracy theories about the media. What we found is strong evidence of media bias. Our analysis shows Bernie Sanders is being ignored by the mainstream media to a shocking degree. If covered at the average rate weâd have seen about 61,500 more stories including Sanders in the last 6 months: 91,094 mentions instead of 29,525.Clinton receives a high amount of coverage, despite no dramatic changes in polls and lower search interest.Candidates like Rand Paul also appear to be locked out of the mainstream press. Paul isnât the most popular candidate, but if the average held heâd have been in twice as many stories. Rubio, despite being 36% more popular than Paul was 403% more likely to be covered by the news. Again, the poll numbers donât explain the difference in coverage: Clintonâs poll-to-media-mention correlation, for example, is actually negative 48%. That means that news coverage goes up a little when her poll numbers drop. Sanders, on the other hand, sees no large benefit when his poll numbers rise (correlation = 11%). For both Clinton and Sanders thereâs a strong correlation between online search interest and news coverage: 90% and 77% respectively. All that means is that the lines in the graphs above follow the same trend. Search interest goes up, and so do the number of TV mentions. If Sanders received the same volume of mainstream press coverage that Clinton did based on search popularity the correlation could remain unchanged. The line for ânational news mentionsâ would have the same ups and downs, but it would be 10 times higher across the board. Remember that correlation and causality are two different things. Itâs unclear whether news coverage causes interest or whether interest creates incentive to cover; the truth is that both causes are partly true. What we can say is some candidates receive far more coverage than is justified by either poll figures or search interest.
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Considering folks like the 538 guys still have her as the overwhelming favorite to win, Iâd say she should panic when the # reflect that she should panic. And when Bernie starts winning states that Hillary needed to win.
Right now, one or two odd polls swinging in one direction vs two or three still in the other direction arenât going to prove anything. Itâs the poll aggregate that matters.
I will say that for folks like me (Democratic voters who are ok with either Hillary or Bernie) itâs really not necessarily about Hillary panicking, but about Bernie proving he can win. He cannot lose NH. Itâs basically a home state for him. As for Iowa, if he won it, that would prove he could indeed be a contender. After that, weâll need to see if he can maintain any kind of momentum, or fizzle out like so much New England snow falling on Southern prairie fields.
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Panic? Very helpful to all involved. Weâve got some astute political thinkers thinking away here.
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Never. Not that he is not a threatâhe is, and thatâs probably good for our democracy and the actual electoral intentions of the systemâbut because panic leads to stupid strategic decisions. Whatever she does, and especially if sheâs going to win the nomination anyway, she better not âpanicâ or otherwise lash out at Bernie, his supporters, and the implications of the insurgency. She does that, they stay home, and she loses.
What this really means is that Claire McCaskill, D Wasserman-Schultz, and the Big Dog himself need to be told to STFU about Bernie.
[edit: change âFramersâ to âthe systemâ, for various parties]
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Hmm, when to panic? Thanks for the invitation, MSM horserace handicappers, but Iâm going to decline until after some delegates have actually been selected. March 1st, maybe, when 847 delegates are at stake in 11 states, compared with 152 delegates in 4 states prior to that.
Btw, Sanders is clearly ahead in NH, evidenced by that one poll showing a 27-point lead. How about the Iowa poll, conducted the same days, showing Clinton with a 29-point lead? Both equally informative, imo.
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The first two (and maybe the thirdâI pay little attention to him in this) need to be told to STFU peer-eye-odd. Iâm glad McC caucuses with the Ds, but I donât see her contributing much to even mildly progressive causes. On economic issues, sheâs a nightmare. W-S is a shanda fur die etc. All mouth and no brain.
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There is nothing to panic about. Hillary will win Iowa.
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Dont panic. Business as usual, keep your campaigners guide to the galaxy app running on your ipad, and cover your ears if Prostetnic Donald Trump starts reciting poetry.
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âŚkinda fits with my âHillary needs to rein in her mean girls and edit her wonksâ theory.
The Wise Woman should face off against Bernie, save the angry bitch for the general.
JMHO
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considering that absolutely none of the political media saw the ascendance of trump or sanders, i consider their yammering at this stage irrelevant. i just watched 4 middleaged white men on cnn clearly in panic mode that clintonâs presumptive nominee status is uncertain; and the establishment press continues to downplay/dismiss sandersâ appeal. their dismissal of sanders as only appealing to youngsters who donât turn out is their current favorite talking point. weâll soon find out just what his voter appeal is; and i suspect that once again they will be proven wrong.
also, interesting is a guardian article about how the democratic party in iowa is completely unprepared for caucus night; lacking chairmen and volunteers, wrong address information and general disorganization. thatâs worth keeping an eye on. and just another sign of the awesome âleadershipâ provided by the dnc/dwsâŚ
clinton is a well-known factor; having been in national politics for decades. sanders, although known in vermont and northeastern states, is still largely unknown but continues to gather support as people become more aware of him.
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After reading the piece, it seems the headline is just a little sensationalistic.
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According to Nate Silver,her chances of winning Iowa went up by 16% last week:
Cillizza is a horserace reporter and all in for Bernie.
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People who are the kind of Democratic voters who vote in IA,NH,NV and SC caucuses/primaries know about Bernie. He is not âunknownâ among them as so many supposedly informed people keep harping.
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She certainly has the benefit of the Iowa establishment, which is no small thing. I seem to recall that Howard Dean was a shoe in in Iowa, wasnât he?
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This crew of youngsters has a greater motivating factor than kids of the past: Mountains of educational debt and outsourced professional jobs?
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Panic is never productive.
The Kennedy style is to run full-out, not to pay attention to what people say about the race, and not to stop until the last vote has been counted. Always good advice.
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When should Clinton start panicking? Where do you come up with this nonsense?
As if she isnât panicking already, with attack poodle David Brock begging for Sandersâ health records like a dog salivating for a scrap of pig fat, with the seemingly monolithic obsession with Sandersâ gun record as if it were something anywhere near as heinous as her own cozy relationship with Wall Street insiders, and proudly standing on the wrong side of history with respect to single payer in an attempt to contrast herself as the sole pragmatist in the race â as if supporting single payer from the bully pulpit to keep public sentiment in that direction means that it must be made the highest priority effort of the incoming administration. The rabid right is already crowing that sheâs âunder FBI investigation,â and she canât make the argument that Sanders canât beat the Republicans, at least based on the polling Iâve seen. Her stooge Wasserman-Schultz has alienated many with her transparent favoritism, but the calculus is taking the electorate for granted â and people really donât like that.
The woman done panicked a long time ago. Sheâs having deja vu all over again.
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