In a primary situation, it’s not a bad idea to consider which candidate’s supporters have demonstrated that they have the time and enthusiasm to actively campaign.
I’m not a Democrat and I’ve made it clear while I’ll vote for almost anyone to get Trump out of office–I will never vote for Sanders, and will in fact vote for Trump specifically to try to keep Sanders out of the White House.
With that caveat and because I believe a lot of moderate conservatives like myself, many of which helped you guys take the House in 2018 will never vote for a terrible candidate like Bernie Sanders, I really think Bernie needs to face the same scrutiny as any other Democrat. Any other Democrat that has polled above 10% has had to face the scrutiny of being negatively attacked by others in this primary (and even some who never cleared that polling threshold.) For the same reason that British Labour had been afraid to vociferously challenge Corbyn (fear of upsetting his mindless thralls), I think many Democrats are afraid to challenge Sanders the same way he challenges them (with dishonest claims, misrepresentations, baseless claims of corruption etc), and I also think we all know there’s a 5 foot thick opposition research folder on Sanders held by the GOP that will be deployed day one of his candidacy if he wins the nomination. Democrats likely have all the same op research and need to use at least some of it.
If after this Sanders still wins, I still will never, never vote for him–but at least he’s had to walk through the fire like other candidates and is more likely to be able to survive the attacks that will come in the fall.
And more of Sanders’ supporters just happen to be more unemployed than Hillary’s. 
Yes, I think that TECHNICALLY there were I believe 3 other democratic candidates.
BUT, they got zero money and zero support from the DNC. Notice they were almost never mentioned on the campaign trail and she never had to debate them or even talked about them.
It was Hillary or nobody with the DNC.
The all powerful DNC has spoken!
The DNC didn’t funnel money to anyone in the primaries, candidates had to raise their own money.
Hillary actually raised money for the DNC during her primary campaign, the DNC doesn’t pick nominees and funnel money to them during the primary season unless it’s an incumbent President.
Wow, what a relief. :rolleyes:
Two thoughts: first, it doesn’t change the fact that Hillary initially refused to say she’d support the Dem nominee, whoever it was. That should have been automatic. That doesn’t speak well of her.
Second, it’s a worrisome bellwether about the potential lukewarmness of the Dem establishment support for Sanders or Warren if either of them should win the nomination.
We’ll see what actually happens, but if, after all the perfectly justified crap aimed at BernieBros from Dem establishment types after 2016, the Dem establishment pulls the same shit this year, there will have to be a reckoning.
It’s wrong, but it’s part of the anti-DNC narrative propagated by the Sanders crowd. Don’t blame the DNC for Sanders sitting on a fence for 40 years.
The media has become very negative about Sanders recently; but here’s the thing: I don’t recall one that talked about any of Sanders’ policies or anything he’s said publicly.
It’s all allegations about his character and framing his supporters as extremists (without pointing to anything specific).
As for Hillary, I was disgusted by her comments. This was an attempt to savage Sanders, going far beyond normal politi-speak, and again it’s about his private character. Maybe he is abrasive 1-on-1, I don’t know, but I still don’t see how it would justify her trying to bomb his campaign. Remember, Bernie went to 41 rallies in support of Clinton’s campaign.
I’ve lost any sympathy that I might have had for her.
It’s a better idea to consider which candidate actually gets people to the polls and not just to the free Vampire Weekend concert.
Hillary Clinton should shut the fuck up and go away.
It’s not correct to say that the DNC, per se, refused to allow other candidates in the race, or that they would have any power to do so (certainly they wouldn’t have let Bernie in if they had had a choice!).
However, it is quite true that the Democratic establishment in general chose Clinton as their candidate long before the election, to a historically unprecedented degree. 538 tracks how many endorsements candidates received over the course of the race. At this point (a couple weeks before Iowa) 2016, Clinton had almost as many endorsements as all the candidates put together do right now. Joe Biden is leading this year’sendorsement race by a wide margin, but he has less than half as many as HRC had four years ago. Clinton had gotten to where Biden is today a full nine months before the primaries started!
By closing ranks so quickly around Clinton, the Democratic establishment effectively sent the message to other highly qualified and well-known candidates (like Joe Biden, for instance) that they shouldn’t bother. Thus, only obscure candidates dared to oppose her. In the end, it was down to two choices, and as we’re seeing this year, Bernie got a great many votes from people who didn’t like Clinton, but probably would have chosen someone else had the field been wider.
Why did they do this? Everyone has their own reason for endorsing, of course, but many people thought that it was better for the party to avoid a potentially divisive primary campaign. That didn’t really go as planned. :DIn addition, many people were quite indignant that the Party elites appeared to have settled on a candidate long before actual voters had a chance to be heard, feeding the narrative that the party elites were arrogant and out of touch with the people.
This year, thankfully, the establishment seems to have learned its lesson, and endorsements have been coming at about the historically usual pace, with most influential Democrats waiting until the voting starts to commence.
Corbyn wasn’t challenged by Labour out of fear? Corbyn survived multiple political challenges to his leadership on a quarterly basis including a leadership election, a full blown party coup leading to a second leadership election, an MP revolt and flight to set up a new party, daily personal attacks -remember Cameron’s “put on a proper suit, do up your tie” jibe, or the accusations of antisemitism?!
It’s like conservatives really are living in another world here. Corbyn failed, but not because he was handled with kid gloves by his party or anybody else.
The Republican Party should have had superdelegates last time around. You might have ended up with a President who wasn’t such a disaster.
Can you cite how much money Clinton got from the DNC during the primary? Thanks in advance!!
I mean David Cameron did not represent a Labour challenge to Jeremy Corbyn, no.
Um, no. I want to hear a lot more from her. She’s in the perfect position to take down and humble (if possible) Sanders.
The more criticism, vetting, and investigations into Sanders the better. The Democratic Party will be much better off with a muzzled impotent Sanders: we can actually get back to winning elections.
Like 2018, when so many young people I knew came out to vote for the first time in their lives because of folks like Bernie and AOC? If you want to abandon the next generation of Democrats, sure, insult Bernie and his supporters. I feel differently – I want to make sure all these folks become and stay Democrats, so I want to make sure they feel welcome. Just like I want moderate Democrats in moderate/conservative districts to feel welcome.
Dale’s obsession with Sanders goes far beyond anything worth discussing. It’s not rooted in facts. All he’s bringing to the discussion is namecalling.
You’re wrong on the first couple of sentences and even more wrong with the last two.
Hillary Clinton’s time, and the time for her way of thinking and for the relationships she built and the goals she had, is past.
She should shut the fuck up and get out of the way; “thank you for your service.”
Man, I disagree with Clinton shutting up. She’s brilliant on policy, and she’s pretty good at political maneuvering when she’s got the power to do so. She just sucks at running for office, and also she’s way too conservative for my tastes.
What I’d like for her to do is not to shut the fuck up; what I’d like for her to do is to work on policy and not to engage in this dalej42-style vendetta against her political opponent, who’s not nearly as good at politicking as she is but whose policies are much more in line with mine–and with a huge number of voters.
I think she’d be great working within the administration and would welcome her experience and perspective. I would also make sure she never had a press conference, an interview, or any kind of active social media account.
I want her to shut the fuck up and go away (from any microphones, media, etc.).
She is not helping the cause of Democratic politics when she steps forward and speaks publicly.