My personal belief is that his policy positions are not the reason he has no chance, but rather, his personal manner. He doesn't really come across as "Presidential." If Sanders looked and acted like Mitt Romney, I think he'd have a chance.It's sad that ideas like investing heavily in education, making giant mega-corporations pay their taxes, giving everyone equality, and reducing war are considered "too radical" for him to have a chance, but that's pretty much where we are and he has no chance.
O'Malley is certainly trying to position himself to the left of Clinton, but not sure whether he actually is. Webb seems a little more difficult to categorize, further left on some issues (e.g., income inequality, military spending) but further right on other issues (e.g., gun rights)So...from left to right:
Sanders, Warren, O'Malley, Clinton, Webb
Is that about right?
The Baltimore riots will be a kick in the nuts to O'MalleyO'Malley is certainly trying to position himself to the left of Clinton, but not sure whether he actually is. Webb seems a little more difficult to categorize, further left on some issues (e.g., income inequality, military spending) but further right on other issues (e.g., gun rights)So...from left to right:
Sanders, Warren, O'Malley, Clinton, Webb
Is that about right?
He wants free college, guns to be illegal, mega cuts to military spending, and major crackdowns on corporate tax policy. Just based on the last one alone if he were the democratic candidate every mega corporation would be funneling so much money into the Republican campaign that they'd have every other commercial break on television all to themselves.My personal belief is that his policy positions are not the reason he has no chance, but rather, his personal manner. He doesn't really come across as "Presidential." If Sanders looked and acted like Mitt Romney, I think he'd have a chance.It's sad that ideas like investing heavily in education, making giant mega-corporations pay their taxes, giving everyone equality, and reducing war are considered "too radical" for him to have a chance, but that's pretty much where we are and he has no chance.
Where are you getting that he wants guns to be illegal? I just googled and didn't see anything like that. The other stuff probably polls pretty well.He wants free college, guns to be illegal, mega cuts to military spending, and major crackdowns on corporate tax policy.
Seriously?thanks to CU, a couple of billionaires (Sheldon Adelson and Foster Friez) kept Gingrich and Santorum afloat in 2012 long after they should have been forced to leave the race. Why couldn't the same thing happen here? There are a few progressive billionaires out there.There is no way in the current SuperPac / Dark Money era that he is going to get anything he needs. No corporate or special interests dollars. It sucks, but he has no chance.
Obviously, he doesn't have the charisma to create any momentum like Obama did with individual donors back in 08.
I think Hillary has a couple legitimate weaknesses in the Demo primary as of right now:Bernie Sanders To Announce Presidential Run (as a Dem)In the latest polls of Iowa and New Hampshire, Sanders runs in second (amongst candidates who have said they will or are interested in running) behind Hillary Clinton, albeit the gap is considerable.
Bernie's first salvo:
I think that Hillary Clinton and every candidate out there should in fact address whether or not they support this T.P.P
Oh I agree. But there are still a few progressive billionaires that might be willing to fund him anyhow.Seriously?thanks to CU, a couple of billionaires (Sheldon Adelson and Foster Friez) kept Gingrich and Santorum afloat in 2012 long after they should have been forced to leave the race. Why couldn't the same thing happen here? There are a few progressive billionaires out there.There is no way in the current SuperPac / Dark Money era that he is going to get anything he needs. No corporate or special interests dollars. It sucks, but he has no chance.
Obviously, he doesn't have the charisma to create any momentum like Obama did with individual donors back in 08.
No one is going to own Bernie and he's not going to owe anything to anyone. We should all be applauding this man.
He is so damn spot on regarding TPP. Big, big, big fan of this dude
- She has not taken a position on TPP. She is stuck between a rock and a hard place, because Bill is supporting it, or his clients are, and so is her President, but the Sanders/Warren wing wants a voice to be loud and clear against it, which Sanders is.
Bad link. You meant Integrity Disqualifies Sanders for White Houseproninja said:http://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/integrity-disqualifies-sanders-white-houseurbanhack said:Seriously?thanks to CU, a couple of billionaires (Sheldon Adelson and Foster Friez) kept Gingrich and Santorum afloat in 2012 long after they should have been forced to leave the race. Why couldn't the same thing happen here? There are a few progressive billionaires out there.There is no way in the current SuperPac / Dark Money era that he is going to get anything he needs. No corporate or special interests dollars. It sucks, but he has no chance.
Obviously, he doesn't have the charisma to create any momentum like Obama did with individual donors back in 08.
No one is going to own Bernie and he's not going to owe anything to anyone. We should all be applauding this man.
Disagree. I'm a Sanders fan, but having him in the race to pull her to the left doesn't help her general election chances, IMO.Very good news for Hillary.
I think the idea, correct or not, was that having someone to her left during the primary season would show America how moderate she really is, which would then help her chances in the general.Disagree. I'm a Sanders fan, but having him in the race to pull her to the left doesn't help her general election chances, IMO.Very good news for Hillary.
Yeah this was my point. I don't think it moves her to the left.I think the idea, correct or not, was that having someone to her left during the primary season would show America how moderate she really is, which would then help her chances in the general.You really think Sanders can actually drag Clinton leftward? I'm not so sure.Disagree. I'm a Sanders fan, but having him in the race to pull her to the left doesn't help her general election chances, IMO.Very good news for Hillary.
ETA: Sanders fan here, too.
She's already been going left because of Warren and she's not even in the race.Yeah this was my point. I don't think it moves her to the left.I think the idea, correct or not, was that having someone to her left during the primary season would show America how moderate she really is, which would then help her chances in the general.You really think Sanders can actually drag Clinton leftward? I'm not so sure.Disagree. I'm a Sanders fan, but having him in the race to pull her to the left doesn't help her general election chances, IMO.Very good news for Hillary.
ETA: Sanders fan here, too.
I must have missed that, or forgotten about it. On what issue did Warren drag Clinton left?She's already been going left because of Warren and she's not even in the race.Yeah this was my point. I don't think it moves her to the left.I think the idea, correct or not, was that having someone to her left during the primary season would show America how moderate she really is, which would then help her chances in the general.You really think Sanders can actually drag Clinton leftward? I'm not so sure.Disagree. I'm a Sanders fan, but having him in the race to pull her to the left doesn't help her general election chances, IMO.Very good news for Hillary.
ETA: Sanders fan here, too.
Primarily "Wall Street" and campaign financing. - No specifics of course but lord she hates those hedge fund managers and CEO's [shakes fist]. And, you know, she's the People's Champion.I must have missed that, or forgotten about it. On what issue did Warren drag Clinton left?She's already been going left because of Warren and she's not even in the race.Yeah this was my point. I don't think it moves her to the left.I think the idea, correct or not, was that having someone to her left during the primary season would show America how moderate she really is, which would then help her chances in the general.You really think Sanders can actually drag Clinton leftward? I'm not so sure.Disagree. I'm a Sanders fan, but having him in the race to pull her to the left doesn't help her general election chances, IMO.Very good news for Hillary.
ETA: Sanders fan here, too.
BREAKING: CNN reporting Sanders has taken an early lead.BigSteelThrill said:✔Same.I'm voting for him.
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/04/bill-clintons-africa-entourage-117445.html#ixzz3YiPXp3WMLynn Forester de Rothschild is also on the trip; the billionaire CEO has donated between $100,000 and $250,000 to the foundation and her extended family has invested in the Clinton’s son-in-law’s hedgefund. De Rothschild has been a fierce Clinton supporter for years, and was one of the leading “PUMA” (“Party Unity My ###”) activists after Clinton lost the Democratic primary to Barack Obama in 2008, going so far as to back Republican John McCain in the general election.
On the Democratic side Hillary Clinton leads with 62% to 14% for Bernie Sanders, 6% for Martin O'Malley, 3% for Jim Webb, and 2% for Lincoln Chafee. We have now found Sanders polling at double digits in both Iowa and New Hampshire. He leads the non- Clinton candidates in name recognition at 56%, followed by 34% for O'Malley, 31% for Webb, and 25% for Chafee. Sanders is also the most frequently named second choice at 18% to 14% for O'Malley, and 12% for Clinton.
Yeah people say this because they ignore polls. For instance Americans support a higher minimum wage and higher taxes for millionaires. Just two positions where Hillary is too far to the right.Disagree. I'm a Sanders fan, but having him in the race to pull her to the left doesn't help her general election chances, IMO.Very good news for Hillary.
Candidates numbers always take a jump after they first announce (see Rubio). Elizabeth Warren was running about 11% so it looked like he picked up a good percentage of her supporters plus he is pretty much the only opposition at this point. And 62% is still a commanding lead.Interesting, the reports on Sanders' announcement had him at 2%.
Well first poll is already out and he's at 14%.
Hillary sitting at 62.
http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/2015/PPP_Release_IA_42815.pdf
On the Democratic side Hillary Clinton leads with 62% to 14% for Bernie Sanders, 6% for Martin O'Malley, 3% for Jim Webb, and 2% for Lincoln Chafee. We have now found Sanders polling at double digits in both Iowa and New Hampshire. He leads the non- Clinton candidates in name recognition at 56%, followed by 34% for O'Malley, 31% for Webb, and 25% for Chafee. Sanders is also the most frequently named second choice at 18% to 14% for O'Malley, and 12% for Clinton.
Giving this almost four-year-old post a verbal Like.That would be great. Then Stat and the other disillusioned conservatives would see how a real progressive would run this country. Instead of the fake one that currently holds the office.
- Rolling StoneGive 'Em Hell, Bernie Bernie Sanders is more serious than you think
By Matt TaibbiMany years ago I pitched a magazine editor on a story about Bernie Sanders, then a congressman from Vermont, who'd agreed to something extraordinary – he agreed to let me, a reporter, stick next to him without restrictions over the course of a month in congress.
"People need to know how this place works. It's absurd," he'd said. (Bernie often uses the word absurd, his Brooklyn roots coming through in his pronunciation – ob-zert.)
Bernie wasn't quite so famous at the time and the editor scratched his head. "Bernie Sanders," he said. "That's the one who cares, right?"
"Right, that's the guy," I said.
I got the go-ahead and the resulting story was a wild journey through the tortuous bureaucratic maze of our national legislature. I didn't write this at the time, but I was struck every day by what a strange and interesting figure Sanders was.
Many of the battles he brought me along to witness, he lost. And no normal politician would be comfortable with the optics of bringing a Rolling Stone reporter to a Rules Committee hearing.
But Sanders genuinely, sincerely, does not care about optics. He is the rarest of Washington animals, a completely honest person. If he's motivated by anything other than a desire to use his influence to protect people who can't protect themselves, I've never seen it. Bernie Sanders is the kind of person who goes to bed at night thinking about how to increase the heating-oil aid program for the poor.
This is why his entrance into the 2016 presidential race is a great thing and not a mere footnote to the inevitable coronation of Hillary Clinton as the Democratic nominee. If the press is smart enough to grasp it, his entrance into the race makes for a profound storyline that could force all of us to ask some very uncomfortable questions.
Here's the thing: Sanders is a politician whose power base is derived almost entirely from the people of the state of Vermont, where he is personally known to a surprisingly enormous percentage of voters.
His chief opponents in the race to the White House, meanwhile, derive their power primarily from corporate and financial interests. That doesn't make them bad people or even bad candidates necessarily, but it's a fact that the Beltway-media cognoscenti who decide these things make access to money the primary factor in determining whether or not a presidential aspirant is "viable" or "credible." Here's how the Wall Street Journal put it in their story about Sanders (emphasis mine):
It is unclear how much money Mr. Sanders expects to raise, or what he thinks he needs to run a credible race. Mr. Sanders raised about $7 million for his last re-election in Vermont, a small state. Sums needed to run nationally are far larger.
The Washington/national press has trained all of us to worry about these questions of financing on behalf of candidates even at such an early stage of a race as this.
In this manner we're conditioned to believe that the candidate who has the early assent of a handful of executives on Wall Street and in Hollywood and Silicon Valley is the "serious" politician, while the one who is merely the favorite of large numbers of human beings is an irritating novelty act whose only possible goal could be to cut into the numbers of the real players.
Sanders offers an implicit challenge to the current system of national electoral politics. With rare exceptions, campaign season is a time when the backroom favorites of financial interests are marketed to the population. Weighed down by highly regressive policy intentions, these candidates need huge laboratories of focus groups and image consultants to guide them as they grope around for a few lines they can use to sell themselves to regular working people.
Sanders on the other hand has no constituency among the monied crowd. "Billionaires do not flock to my campaign," he quipped. So what his race is about is the reverse of the usual process: he'll be marketing the interests of regular people to the gatekeeping Washington press, in the hope that they will give his ideas a fair shot.
It's a little-known fact, but we reporters could successfully sell Sanders or Elizabeth Warren or any other populist candidate as a serious contender for the White House if we wanted to. Hell, we told Americans it was okay to vote for George Bush, a man who moves his lips when he reads.
But the lapdog mentality is deeply ingrained and most Beltway scribes prefer to wait for a signal from above before they agree to take anyone not sitting atop a mountain of cash seriously.
Thus this whole question of "seriousness" – which will dominate coverage of the Sanders campaign – should really be read as a profound indictment of our political system, which is now so openly an oligarchy that any politician who doesn't have the blessing of the bosses is marginalized before he or she steps into the ring.
I remember the first time I was sold on Bernie Sanders as a politician. He was in his congressional office and he was ranting about the fact that many of the manufacturing and financial companies who asked him and other members of congress for tax breaks and aid were also in the business of moving American jobs overseas to places like China.
Sanders spent years trying to drum up support for a simple measure that would force any company that came to Washington asking for handouts to promise they wouldn't turn around and ship jobs to China or India.
That didn't seem like a lot to ask, but his fellow members treated him like he was asking for a repeal of the free enterprise system. This issue drove Sanders crazy. Again showing his Brooklyn roots, Bernie gets genuinely mad about these things. While some pols are kept up at night worrying about the future profitability of gazillionaire banks, Sanders seethes over the many obvious wrongs that get smoothed over and covered up at his place of work.
That saltiness, I'm almost sure of it, is what drove him into this race. He just can't sit by and watch the things that go on, go on. That's not who he is.
When I first met Bernie Sanders, I'd just spent over a decade living in formerly communist Russia. The word "socialist" therefore had highly negative connotations for me, to the point where I didn't even like to say it out loud.
But Bernie Sanders is not Bukharin or Trotsky. His concept of "Democratic Socialism" as I've come to understand it over the years is that an elected government should occasionally step in and offer an objection or two toward our progress to undisguised oligarchy. Or, as in the case of not giving tax breaks to companies who move factories overseas, our government should at least not finance the disappearance of the middle class.
Maybe that does qualify as radical and unserious politics in our day and age. If that's the case, we should at least admit how much trouble we're in.
Congratulations, Bernie. Good luck and give 'em hell.
Don't know about this guy, first I heard of him. Though I am a little leary of the "be careful what you wish for" thing, but if Taibbi thinks the guy is good for shaking up the process, I am all for it.Giving this almost four-year-old post a verbal Like.That would be great. Then Stat and the other disillusioned conservatives would see how a real progressive would run this country. Instead of the fake one that currently holds the office.
This is a pretty cool development for us third party voters. Eff Hillary, time to kill the dynasty.
Oh, edit to add, eff Tim, too.
bananafish said:As a big Obama supporter in '08, I still haven't washed that bad Hillary taste out of my mouth.
Everything I know about Bernie I learned from Facebook quotes, but my interest is piqued.
We will burn sh** down!
It would be hard to beat Hillary. If he's able to do that, it would have to be on more than her bumbling. He'd have to actually prove to people that he's the better candidate. I doubt he can but, if he did, then it's conceivable that he'd be competitive in the general. Might not win, depending on the opponent, but it's premature to say he'd get slaughtered in a general against <insert name here>.His best chance is now. If he plays it right and Hillary keeps bumbling along- he has a small chance to grab the nomination.
He would get absolutely slaughtered in a general election though. And that is with not knowing who comes out of the royal rumble death match the GOP primary will be.
proninja said:Might be premature to say he'd get slaughtered in the general if (and it's a big if) he beats Hillary. I vote 3rd party as an independent and I'd without question vote for Bernie in a general. Too bad he's a long shot for the nomination.
There is no way in hell that the Democrats would ever nominate a 74 year old declared socialist. Even if Hillary dropped out for health reasons right before the convention and he was the only opposition, he still wouldn't get the nomination.His best chance is now. If he plays it right and Hillary keeps bumbling along- he has a small chance to grab the nomination.
He would get absolutely slaughtered in a general election though. And that is with not knowing who comes out of the royal rumble death match the GOP primary will be.
And you hit the part which means he would get slaughtered in a general..... socialist.There is no way in hell that the Democrats would ever nominate a 74 year old declared socialist. Even if Hillary dropped out for health reasons right before the convention and he was the only opposition, he still wouldn't get the nomination.His best chance is now. If he plays it right and Hillary keeps bumbling along- he has a small chance to grab the nomination.
He would get absolutely slaughtered in a general election though. And that is with not knowing who comes out of the royal rumble death match the GOP primary will be.
Sanders will be the 2016 version of Al Sharpton or Ron Paul, a fringe candidate no one takes really seriously who uses his candidacy to get a wider audience for his positions.
Sadly, this is probably true. The electorate gets what it deserves.There is no way in hell that the Democrats would ever nominate a 74 year old declared socialist. Even if Hillary dropped out for health reasons right before the convention and he was the only opposition, he still wouldn't get the nomination.His best chance is now. If he plays it right and Hillary keeps bumbling along- he has a small chance to grab the nomination.
He would get absolutely slaughtered in a general election though. And that is with not knowing who comes out of the royal rumble death match the GOP primary will be.
Sanders will be the 2016 version of Al Sharpton or Ron Paul, a fringe candidate no one takes really seriously who uses his candidacy to get a wider audience for his positions.
I'd believe this when I see it. People are bailing from the parties to become "independent" leaving the people who actually identify with "democrat" or "republican" to be the special kind. Those people will vote their party.And you hit the part which means he would get slaughtered in a general..... socialist.There is no way in hell that the Democrats would ever nominate a 74 year old declared socialist. Even if Hillary dropped out for health reasons right before the convention and he was the only opposition, he still wouldn't get the nomination.His best chance is now. If he plays it right and Hillary keeps bumbling along- he has a small chance to grab the nomination.
He would get absolutely slaughtered in a general election though. And that is with not knowing who comes out of the royal rumble death match the GOP primary will be.
Sanders will be the 2016 version of Al Sharpton or Ron Paul, a fringe candidate no one takes really seriously who uses his candidacy to get a wider audience for his positions.
It would not be an attack but the clear self proclaimed truth. Those considered 'moderate' in the Democratic party would leave in droves for pretty much any GOP nominee.
General would be interesting.His best chance is now. If he plays it right and Hillary keeps bumbling along- he has a small chance to grab the nomination.
He would get absolutely slaughtered in a general election though. And that is with not knowing who comes out of the royal rumble death match the GOP primary will be.