If Sanders is the Democratic nominee, then there is a vast center demographic that Bloomberg could win. Against Clinton, not so much.
Yes, which is why I assume this scenario would be a cakewalk for Trump. I don’t think Bloomberg would get many votes, maybe 5 percent or so, in places like Idaho, Wyoming, or the Dakotas. Even in larger red states like Texas, Georgia, and Arizona, Trump would probably still get a plurality. In Arizona, for example, Sheriff Joe keeps winning elections, and people who vote for Sheriff Joe will probably vote for Trump, not Sanders or Bloomberg.
In contrast, the vote in blue states like New York, New Jersey, and California is more likely to be split. Maybe Sanders would take California with Bloomberg getting New York. Trump might even be able to get a plurality in places like Ohio and Florida. Even if he doesn’t, however, I think the blue states would split between Sanders and Bloomberg, while the red states would easily stay red.
And if the states that were red in 2012 or 2008 stay that way, that’s less than 270… unless Trump can flip some blue states… and I think in those states, he may finish 3rd.
There is simply no way Sanders can win the nomination. There are two possible outcomes on the Democratic side:
- Clinton is not prosecuted: she wins nomination
2)Clinton is prosecuted: party hacks give nomination to Biden.
If Bloomberg is such a white knight, why the fuck can’t he clean house in either the Democratic or Republican primaries?
Seriously, this is what annoys me the most in all this talk about independent candidates. In real life independent candidates go nowhere, because anyone with a lick of sense runs as a major party candidate. Look at Trump, for crying out lout. The poster child for “independent candidate”. So what does he do? He runs as a Republican, despite having little or no ideological or organization ties to the Republican party, because if he can’t win the Republican primary how the heck does he think he can win the general election?
Again. If you can’t win the Republican primary or the Democratic primary, you have no chance in the general. In our system the office holders control the parties, so you can hold whatever views you like and still run as a Democrat or Republican. There’s no litmus test or party platform you have to endorse. So why didn’t Bloomberg run in the Republican primaries? Because he’d get his ass kicked. So why does he think he can parachute in after the primaries are over and bypass all that, when the point of the primaries is to get actual votes to select someone that more people vote for?
Again. If you can’t win the primaries, you have no business thinking you can win the general election. Only a delusional egomaniac thinks otherwise. But there seems to be no shortage of delusional egomaniacs in this campaign season so who knows who might run. But the next President will be someone who got more votes than anyone else in a major party primary.
What would be the procedure for party hacks giving the nomination to someone who isn’t running?
But that’s exactly what Bloomberg didn’t do in NYC. A lifelong Democrat, he ran as a republican (with token opposition) to avoid the democratic primaries. It was the smartest path of least resistance and he took it.
In a possible match-up between Trump and Sanders, is jumping in as an independent really that crazy? There is a huge middle there for the taking. I’m not saying Bloomberg can pull it off, but when you have a billion dollars in your change purse, you definitely have a shot.
Emphasis added. Your point being that these guys are not delusional egomaniacs? 
Sanders would have to not quite have a majority of delegates. So, Clinton would have to stay in the race even as she’s getting prosecuted, then release her delegates at the convention so they could nominate someone else.
Biden would inherit the Clinton delegates, and possibly get on the ballot in a few of the later primaries, though he wouldn’t have to because they could simply vote for Clinton. He would inherit her donors as well and Obama would be there to calm those upset at the party for shitting on Sanders. Do you underestimate the hacks?
But Biden hasn’t registered as a candidate and the State filing deadlines are almost all already passed, within a week they all will be. Can delegates vote for Biden anyways?
I’m making a bold prediction here. The Democratic nominee will be the person who collects the most delegates. The days of party hacks selecting the nominee in the back room are over.
See, if Bernie really does mop the floor with Hillary and come out ahead, it will be because more people voted for him. It will be because he had a lot more support than we think he does, way back here in January before the primaries actually start.
If Bernie really does turn out to have that much support, then he’ll be the nominee. I don’t think he will, but if he does the party hacks can’t just wish it away, anymore than the Republican party hacks can wish away Trump.
The Democratic party hacks want to win elections, yes? The way you win elections is by getting people to vote for you, yes? So on what planet is it logical to dump the person who got the most votes in favor of a person who got fewer votes, or no votes?
I am aware that occasionally candidates really do jump into a race and win as an independent. It happened in Alaska when Wally Hickel became governor on the Alaska Independence ticket over both the Republican and Democratic candidates back in 1990. So it does happen. Really really rarely.
My point is, any politician who can attract enough support to win in the general election can win in the primary election. And if they’ve already been beaten in the primary then how the heck are they supposed to get even more votes than the guy who actually won?
The premise here is that Clinton is winning and suddenly under federal prosecution, Lemur866, so I am not sure your argument is completely valid.
To be clearer my two possibilities are:
- Clinton is not prosecuted and wins majority of delegates. 80% chance.
- in the midst of winning majority of delegates, Clinton is prosecuted and Biden steps in. 20% chance.
I do not see a plausible scenario in which Bernie Sanders wins majority of delegates so I did not list it.
Biden would not have to register. He could simply tell voters to vote for Hillary, who will still be on the ballot in any case, and absorb her delegates at the convention, plus the vast majority of super delegates(party hacks). Obama will give the stern nod to all of this.
Because the folks who vote in a primary are a small subset of the general electorate, and tend to be less centrist than their general election brethren. But I’m sure you know that, so I’m scratching my head as to why you would ask.
Do you think Hillary would have lost to McCain/Palin in '08? I don’t.
I completely agree with the first part. A party apparatus would be completely idiotic to disenfranchise the largest cohort of its support.
The second though? Not so sure. Primaries (and especially on the GOP side) are often won by those who pass ideological litmus tests of the base, not candidates who appeal to the larger number of voters needed in a general. It is not impossible to imagine each side selecting someone who excites their respective bases but who is anathema to a mainstream centrist plurality or even majority. And having a centrist’s only path to the general, to letting the majority vote for them, be by way of a third party path.
That said Sanders would not be such a repulsive to most candidate and Bloomberg loses too many centrist GOPers with his alleged “nanny statism” and some social issues, while losing to many mainstream Dems with his antipathy to tax reform. He’d certainly be a contrast to both Trump and Sanders. For Free Trade, against protectionism, big on heavy sentences, defends big bonuses to wall Street executives …
No, I’m not saying Hilllary would have lost to McCain. I’m saying that Obama had a better chance of beating McCain than Hillary would have, and my evidence for that is that Obama convinced more people to support him in the Democratic primary than Hillary did.
My contention is that the primaries are a way for candidates to demonstrate that they can convince people to vote for them, and that candidates who can do that do a lot better than candidates who can’t. Politicians get their positions by winning elections. Your skill as a politician is demonstrated by your ability to win elections. Getting fewer votes than your opponents means you’re not as good at winning elections as they are.
Yes, there are times when low turnout or mass hypnosis or what have you leads to situations where a horrible horrible candidate wins the primary, and the party bosses are horrified because this person is destined to lose the general election. What I’m saying is that if the party bosses think they’d be better off with the guy who lost the primary they’re usually fooling themselves, because the primary loser is going to be even less appealing.
Of course this is not an absolute rule. But if you want to run for president, maybe try winning the Republican or Democratic primary first? Because if you can’t do that, you suck as a candidate.
This has actually happened a few times recently in Senate or House races, where the Tea Party came out in force to hand the primary to someone who polled FAR WORSE than the ‘establishment choice’ (if you will) - the one that most people remember is Christine O’Donnell (mostly because she claimed she wasn’t a witch). In that election, O’Donnell lost in the special election for US Senate by 17%. The person she beat in the primary (former Governor and current Representative Mike Castle) was actually overwhelmingly favored in polls against the Democratic candidate (Chris Coons) prior to the upset in the primary.
In those cases, most people agreed that if there was a procedure to have the runner-up take the winner’s place, the GOP may have indeed taken those elections.
Are you sure delegates don’t have to vote for a registered candidate? I am having trouble finding the rule on that but it seems common sense that they would have to choose someone already on the slate.
Generally speaking, delegates to a presidential nominating convention must vote for their pledged candidates on the first ballot. If there is no nominee after the first ballot, they are free agents. Historically there was no limit on whom they could vote for. That’s why men in smoke-filled rooms could come up with unexpected compromises.