Accomplishing things does not mean things I think are worthwhile or good ideas. He advanced his agenda effectively. There is little in evidence of Sanders effectively advancing his agenda (or of impeding the opposite of his agenda) in 25 years of being in Congress excepting some decent work for veterans. The fact that Sanders’ agenda is closer to mine than is Cruz’s is immaterial to that analysis.
No matter that there is no content to that agenda other than advancing his own public notoriety. Still, it did take some skillz, or at least ballz, for a freshman Senator to become the acting Speaker of the House, as he did.
Are you saying that your cite shows that Sanders was just as effective as Obama in getting legislation thru Congress over the obstructions of the GOP? Because I don’t see it - whether or not you like Obamacare, I think most people would class it as more significant than renaming a post office and a COLA for veterans.
Well you provided a citation, that much is accurate.
But no, your cite does not show what you think it shows. It shows that he spent 25 years in Congress (longer than more productive critters like Boxer, Feinstein, Durbin, Collins … and in the ranks of the productive likes of Pelosi, Reid, Shelby, Waxman, Mikulski, Rockefeller, McCain, Mikulski, Harkin …) and (other than veteran affairs issues, which must be noted as a good thing) advanced issues related to his agenda and causes pretty much not at all.
Yes it is acknowledged that most of the rest of Congress is also do-nothing, but a while Cruz (despicable jerk that he may be) can claim to have become the major power in the House in his first term, Sanders has little to show for a quarter century.
And fun factoid … what did he spend most of energy sponsoring bills about? Social Welfare? Finance? Environmental Protection? Health? Those accounted for 2, 27, 11, and 16 of the bills he sponsored respectively. Agriculture and Food bills was he failed on the most on, at 4174 bills. Yeah he not only failed to advance his agenda, it looks like he didn’t even seriously try.
He’s got some data – endorsements, money raised, and polling. And even if it was just his opinion, he’s got an awfully good track record – it would seem extremely unwise to bet against him, IMO.
He’s a better prognosticator than anyone else around, but even good prognosticators are wrong more often than not without data. And endorsement data, unlike polling trends, is not a mathematical model.
Silver is choosing to predict that endorsements+big leads among minority voters> winning IA and NH. No one in the Democratic party since the modern primary system began has had virtually no endorsements and appeal only to white voters, yet won IA and NH. Why does Silver think minority voters won’t bolt Clinton the way they did in 2008? Because Sanders is white? I disagree. African-American voters have no hostility to Sanders, only indifference. When South Carolinian African-Americans read “Sanders trounces Clinton!” they are going to want to check this guy out. And nothing they see is going to make them not want to support him. I predict that in SC, Clinton will still win a majority of African-American voters, but she will lose enough that it will be a close race. And close won’t cut it if it’s a delegate race. She needs big margins in states with minority voters. Assuming she can even keep minority voter support once Sanders becomes more well known.
That’s fine, but I’m going to treat your predictions like any other random internet predictions, and I’ll treat Silver’s predictions as though they come from someone with Nate Silver’s track record.
The danger in that kind of campaigning is that as in 2008, it’s fair game for Republicans to use her attacks against the eventual winner and the attacks have a bipartisan sheen to them.
It didn’t work on Obama, but Sanders is no Obama. If he’s pegged as an extreme leftist he’ll lose 40 states.