- Sanders' insurgent campaign raised $26 million in the third quarter — $2 million of it in the last day, according to campaign spokesman Michael Briggs. Almost all of that was in small-dollar donations. Sanders' campaign said the Vermont independent has gotten more than 1.3 million donations (from 650,000 donors — some have multiple times) since Sanders started running.
I was 12 when this happened, and thought it was pretty ridiculous that the guy was so affected by getting too fire up instead of policy decisions or something Pretty much taught me how petty modern politics can be. That said, I can only think of Dave Chappelle when I see this. Byah!
I like Bernie, and if I had to choose among the candidates running, I'd probably choose him. But I do wonder if he has the appeal to win the general election. The Republican candidates throw out the word "socialist" like it's equivalent to "Nazi" during their speeches and debates, and I think their constituents have similar feelings about it. I wouldn't be surprised if many Democrats have similar feelings. The Cold War mentality is still alive in this country. It doesn't matter if he's more a social democrat. He calls himself a socialist, and I feel that people would latch onto that and use it to fear monger.
Early polling has him doing as good or better than hillary in quite a few red states. In other red states where that wasn't true he has been slowly climbing in popularity. As you say though in a general election he would have to deal with the onslaught of money that is going to be thrown at ads commenting on his "democratic socialist" position.
In the general as well, the red states won't really matter tha is to the electoral college. Indicators like you mentioned will matter much less for that than how Sanders compares to the Republican candidate in Blue (and purple) states. If they pick a more center candidate, the I think large numbers of the conservative Dems will vote Republican, and Sanders could lose vital states Democrats planned on winning. Especially if we account for the negative connotation of "socialist" you mention. If he is running against someone like Trump though (which I don't see happening), I doubt anyone has a clue what would happen in the purple states.
You are forgetting one thing: turnout. Look at the crowds Sanders is generating. People into Sanders are excited about him. That excitement, and the narrative that they are fighting against 'the system' is going to push people to the voting booth. Obama won because people were excited about him. Kerry lost because he was boring as sin and nobody was thrilled to have him on the top of the ticket. People waited 12 hours in voting lines to vote for Obama, they did not do that for Kerry. I'm waiting for Trump to flame out, and if he does, and Sanders wins the nomination, Sanders will win just on the excitement and motivation of his core fan base. I don't see anyone on the Republican side right now who can generate the same "wow" that Sanders has. 15 more months of this nonsense. sigh.
Sanders though has the "wow" factor for Republicans. They might turn out just so he doesn't get elected. Democrats upset with where Obama has taken the party (which is a rather large group) may be similarly motivated. The Republicans are stuck in a spot though where for Hillary, they need a strong conservative, but for Sanders they need a moderate. I think the VP choice later will prove interesting with that in mind. Also, one Sander's main support demographics, young people, has the lowest turnout rates. For presidential elections, a third of them would be pretty good. For midterms, 20% is rare. Even if twice as many turn out as usually, say even 70%, it still needs to be the right spread of that 70% to win the right states because of this nonsense system we have. The real kicker is many, even most, voters won't decide untill three weeks before the election anyways, so these next 14.25 months are utterly useless to boot.
If, and this is a major IF Hillary wins the nomination, the Republicans will win the White House. There are too many people who loathe the Clintons and are willing to spend money to revel in their hatred of them to let her win. And we have almost a full year before the conventions still to go. I am still sticking to my guns that there is going to be someone come out of the ether in December and storm through the Democratic Primaries and take the nomination. But having one million people give $26 Million, and faster than Obama did, may bring me to rethink this line of thought. Silly Season, indeed!
Oh totally. I feel sorry for the Dem party leaders. They are stuck with either socialist Sanders or Clinton, who seems as scandal prone than her husband. Unless Sanders can take the nomination and strongly reform the party itself, we may be seeing the beginning of the end of the democratic party. It's had major changes in the past year, a strongly polarizing president, these candidates, and a public growing tired of partisan politics. I'm sure this isn't the first time it's looked this way, but maybe this will be it. lIt may be best for the Dems if they lose this election so they can focus on fixing their party. I've got the same hope you do about another candidate. This will be the first election I can vote in, and right now, I don't want to vote for anyone running. Well, I'm sort of partial to Chafee, but I seem to be alone in that. Very alone. And I wouldn't vote for him because such a weak candidate likely won't make a good executive. We keep using Obama as a benchmark though, and that was four years ago, in a climate better suited for a Democrat to win. I'm going to stick to my guns too and say it doesn't matter who the Dem nominee is, next president will be Republican. If you really want to get depressed about Silly Season, look into public opinion some. Not what it is a saying, but the issues with collecting it and understanding it. That stuff is utterly terrifying.
I live in a very red state (60% Romney). I've gone all the way around from depressed to frustrated to hopeful to "aw, fuck it."If you really want to get depressed about Silly Season, look into public opinion some. Not what it is a saying, but the issues with collecting it and understanding it. That stuff is utterly terrifying.
Right there with you, buddy. I start thinking of leaving the South every election, but that would be too much like conceding that the whole region belongs to those guys. Also people from the west coast look at me like they're wondering how many cycles there are in my family tree when they hear my accent.
I'd say spread a little history, but that might not be the safest thing in the world.
It's $2m shy of Clinton. I've yet to form an opinion but it's safe to say that he's no longer a fringe candidate.
Oh I agree he isn't a fringe candidate anymore. I'm just saying the state of the media market during on-year election cycles is still really broken. The price inflation during general elections in 2016 is going to be even worse than it was in 2016. Many are expecting the presidential election to eclipse the 2 billion spent in 2012 by more than double. That's mostly what I'm talking about.
Well, I agree we work from a baseline of a broken election, but we are quickly moving towards unfixable elections. I mean let's say we see the 4 to 5 billion dollar presidential election in 2016. What comes next in 2020? 8 to 10 billion dollar elections? Then who could ever hope to compete fairly in an election like that without being in the pocket of major industry. A candidate like Bernie Sanders in a general election like that would never stand a chance. To me that is a really severe breach of democracy that honestly scares me a bit.
I wouldn't worry as much. There's a real populist uprising right now; Britain has a socialist running Labor and Europe is contracting to extreme populist positions. Even in the US the populist uprising can be seen on both sides; yeah, Trump is rich but he ain't Koch Bros rich. Besides which, Bernie Sanders isn't exactly a renegade. Dude's been in the Senate for how many thousands of years?
That's honestly what I love about Bernie's campaign. He proposes allof these changes, but he doesn't outright say he is going to do them. His platform is a call to action for the American people. TOGETHER we can bring change that betters the entire country. If you watch the Republican debate, you hear a lot of "If I'm elected I will do this..." which is an inherently false statement as the presidency doesn't work in that capacity. Hopefully Sanders is driving force of the populist movement in the US. In regards to Sanders being in senate. Look at the state he comes from Vermont is pretty liberal...
.svg/2000px-Red_and_Blue_States_Map_(Average_Margins_of_Presidential_Victory).svg.png)
It's actually interesting because Vermont has become much more liberal in the last two decades or so. I think prior to that they were severely republican. I think that would probably be the reason for them being a swing state. I honestly thought they had a larger liberal leaning than that though.
He might not have a choice. Even if he disavowed the super pac system, the party will just set one up to campaign for him anyway. The candidate doesn't have any control over that. Even now, anyone who is rich and had the inclination could do it, and he would have no way to stop them.
His campaign could disavow the Super PAC's. I really don't think that would be a good use of resources, but he has the option to just say that their message is one that shouldn't be trusted. This would be a pretty tough decision on his part. Accept the Super PAC's , and come off as false. Don't accept them and he may be fighting to remain on message.