I think it’s the same reason Hillary had an advantage over Obama with black voters in '08 until he won Iowa – they weren’t convinced an unconventional candidate could win until he had some success with white voters. Bernie’s support among black voters is growing, and maybe growing fast. South Carolina will be a great test.
I’m still probably voting for Sanders, but I really don’t think it’s really reasonable to take 2 seriously, or it should at least essentially be the last explanation after eliminating the others. You can really just take an Occam’s Razor approach and say that Russia is helping Sanders because they want to help Sanders - this being the more straightforward explanation for why they are helping him than because they want to hurt him. Additionally, it’s not really consistent with their usual MO to be helping him as a form of sabotage in this way. They (in a much more brazen way) have been helping Trump since he announced his candidacy for 2016 and possibly earlier, so it’s hard to believe they think their help is good in some cases and bad on others- they would either think that all candidates they help get a benefit or that they’re all negatively impacted.
They scariest reason they could possibly be pumping him up is that they have an October Surprise waiting and are confident they can sink him in the general, but we don’t really have a way of knowing whether that is the case.
I think Russia probably generally looks at Sanders’ candidacy as a win-win. Sanders’s pacifism/noninterventionism is definitely a positive for Russia compared with the other Dem candidates, so they probably think that if Trump loses he’s not a bad option. I happen to agree with his pacifist outlook for the most part and definitely prefer it to the “normal” view of US foreign policy and think that he’s doing it for the right reasons whereas Trump’s foreign policy agenda is simply driven by his own corruption, but there’s no doubt that it benefits Russia. I also think that Sanders ability to pull independent voters who are “fed up with politics” and may otherwise stay home or vote for Trump, but the “socialism” label is a huge risk in the general and it’s very possible it hurts more than the outsider cred helps. And I definitely think that win or lose, a Sanders candidacy will have long-term disruptive effects to the Democratic party. This is another area I happen to be happy about as I think he’ll continue to do what he’s already done as far as encouraging the party to accept more radical positions on healthcare, the environment etc., but the turmoil while we figure that out will definitely help Russia who can continue to profit while we struggle with our internal problems.
The very poll that you linked here talks about name recognition. Did you look at that part? I think that plays a significant role here. He’s the second choice for some folks because voters don’t know the other candidates. I saw a YouGov poll the other day that showed only 35% of people saying that they would vote for a Democratic Socialist, only 23% saying that they favor eliminating private health insurance, but Bernie gets 44%-54% of the votes in the head-to-head matchups (in the same poll). People honestly have no idea what they’re supporting right now. It’s why we may very well end up with a contested convention for the first time since what… the 1950’s? It’s a fool’s errand trying to conclude anything from the polls that you’re looking at and referencing. Post a poll on this forum. See what you come up with.
“Second choice” isn’t the kind of support that I was talking about. I’m talking about independent voters (who the party is going to need to beat Trump). I’m talking about suburban women who voted for Trump, and aren’t thrilled with what they’ve seen. You think ANY of them are going to vote to have their private insurance taken from them? I don’t. It sounds like Nevada didn’t. Democrats are going to need some fringe voters to win. Bernie, God bless him, isn’t exactly a “fringe” guy.
I see. Which part am I rationalizing? That Biden remains in second place, despite relentless attacks on him throughout the Democratic nomination process? Or that that there was a phony investigation done into him and his son, intended solely to damage his reputation?
I’ll just leave this here. (The Guardian) It’s an opinion piece, but I think it is fair. You really should know what’s coming in the months ahead for your candidate, once he’s in a general election, and not a primary nomination process.
ETA: You might want to keep in mind that I am not your problem. I will vote Blue no matter who is the nominee. It’s going to be a whole different kettle of fish in the general. Those voters won’t be so easy to persuade – especially when the Republicans/Russians get done with Bernie.
No doubt Bernie will face all kinds of attacks during the general election. Many of them will likely be fabricated, or partially fabricated, based on old videos or audio.
I see no reason to believe that these are somehow guaranteed, or even more likely than not, to be more effective or more significant than the attacks other candidates would face. This won’t be an easy election, and I think the best chance we have to win is with excitement and enthusiasm. That’s the biggest reason I support Bernie right now, and the biggest reason I think he has the best chance to win against Trump.
I have provided numerous citations throughout this thread to support my points.
Provide some citations of your own, beyond an opinion article, and we can have a proper debate.
I’m not sure what your overall point is. Nobody outside his base likes him, but his base is huge because he’s so well-known, and he has significantly lower “unfavorable” ratings than Biden, Bloomberg, and Warren? I guess I’ll take that (although I’m pretty pissed at those negatives for Warren; I think a lot of them are because she’s a woman who gets angry, and that’s some bullshit right there).
You say that, but in 2016, we see that he pulled in a fair number of folks who otherwise voted Republican.
Again, I can tell you have strong feelings about Sanders. But these feeling don’t seem well-grounded in facts.
What do you mean he pulled in a fair amount of Republicans in 2016? He wasn’t even the nominee in 2016.
My point is pretty simple. The farther left you go, the farther away you are from everybody that’s not “left”.
Granted, much of my concern is grounded in speculation. Much of yours is grounded in polls. No polls in recent history have been remotely indicative of reality.
That’s the conventional wisdom. I don’t think we can rely on the conventional wisdom any more, but we’ll see. Right now, Bernie is more likely than not to be the nominee.
I really liked Warren. I liked her a lot. But then her campaign went in on that weird attack on Sanders that he told her a woman cannot win…never-mind that he asked her to run in 2016, campaigned diligently for Clinton and has spent his whole career advocating for women. And, Warren never simply told us that is what he said…just left a big question mark out there. Then, after she told us she would not take SuperPac money, she has started to take SuperPac money.
Tl;Dr Criticizing Warren is not necessarily misogyny. She has legit issues any candidate should be called to account for. I like Warren. I would vote for her, but she is starting to worry me.
As I cited before, a significant number of the folks who voted for him in the primary in 2016 ended up voting for the Republican in the general. AFAICT, this is because they were less interested in party labels than they were in hearing someone who spoke passionately about economic fairness issues. In the general, the only person who centered economic fairness (and populism) in their campaign was a massive fraud, unfortunately; but he got a lot of these votes that could’ve gone to Sanders.
In your defense, some speculation is indicative of reality, in much the same way that if a thousand people guess what’s in your pockets, one of them is likely to be right. I’m not sure that recommends speculation.
The first thing is one of my biggest criticisms of Warren. That came across as a low blow. But while I don’t like that kind of campaigning from anyone, I don’t find it disqualifying.
The second one? That one doesn’t bother me at all. She was crippling herself compared to other candidates with her refusal to take support that everyone else was taking. She can think that nobody should take it, but still take it as long as it’s the rules.
Sanders doesn’t take it.
And as for her low blow…I could get past it…maybe…but she keeps compromising (see SuperPac) which has me worried. She is letting herself be bought and I don’t want a candidate beholden to these moneyed interests. I am shocked she did it.
And that weird attack on Sanders that she never resolved…just sorta floated an accusation out…low low low. I expected better from her.
I thought I was fine with Sanders, but when the Iowa results came in, I found myself whispering, “Please not Bernie. Please not Bernie.” Today I saw the results and thought, “Crap, it’s Bernie.” It’s not that I don’t like all his ideas; it’s that I still think he’s unelectable. If voters in Iowa and Nevada both think he’s the best guy, what does that say about the rest of the field? It’s a tepid slate, at best.
If moderates and those strange, inscrutable Undecided voters have either Trump or Bernie to choose from, which will they choose? It seems to me people who can’t make up their frickin’ minds are more likely to (foolishly) vote for the devil they know. 
Because Sanders as president would be pretty good for them.
Any of the more centrist Dem candidates remaining can reasonably be expected to generally support the dominant foreign policy aims of the US post WWII. Russia explicitly calls for the end of that rules based international order. Both Sanders and Trump are trade protectionists. Both are generally opposed to some of the requirements of maintaining that order put on the US as the largest economy and as a global superpower. Both use divisive rhetoric internally that drives international events out of the public consciousness. Setting up a Trump vs Sanders general election would be a no lose situation for Russia.
A lot of people read too much into who benefited domestically from Russia to assume that means something bigger. Putin supported Putin in 2016. When helping Sanders in the primary or Trump throughout it was all aimed to benefit Russia. When they then helped organize a protest against Trump days after the election it was not a big shift in policy. They were still supporting the only interests they truly care about, Russia’s.
Putin supports Putin. He is not taking any other side but his own. Trump and Sanders are just tools.
The “dirt” has been known for years but it hasn’t been weaponized, so to speak. Once a general campaign starts with Bernie as the nominee, his alleged “honeymoon” in the Soviet Union, support of Ortega, support of Castro, “taking away your private health insurance”, and probably a dozen other things I haven’t thought of will become such huge deals that they will make Kerry’s swiftboating seem like small potatoes. Republicans will weaponize Bernie’s background to scare the living beejesus out of mainstream America.
Hey, Socsback! Long time no see, huh?
It’s quite possible that many of those “Republicans” voted for Bernie in the primaries because they thought he’d be easy pickings for the Republican candidate in the General Election, maybe? Or maybe you have evidence to the contrary?
As far as I can tell (without reading it in detail), that link seems to imply that polls are reliable withing 15% or so? If that’s the case, should we re-examine some of the data that you’ve posted in this thread?
Wow…you just figured that out. No one in 40 years has thought to go there but now that you have Sanders is surely done. :rolleyes:
Bernie and Trump are essentially campaigning against the same thing, the entrenched Washington establishment, and the message resonates with the voters.
If you tend right then Trump is your guy, left it is Bernie. And the established government, some times called the Deep State, is just shitting their pants.
Because it is going to be one or the other who is the next president, and neither will follow the expectations of the bureaucrats .
This is very amusing to watch.