While this speaks volume to the number of actual people who will openly support Bernie, money-wise this is still far from what would be needed for a general. I wonder if Bernie made it to the general he would stick to this plan of fundraising.
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...
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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.