Enthusiasm runs both ways. There will be people willing to crawl over broken glass to vote against Bernie.
You, and many of Bernie’s supporters may like the promise of big structural change. There are also plenty of office workers in office parks in Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania that spend 40 hours a week crunching numbers on spreadsheets and don’t have the pitchforks and torches ready and want to ‘burn the mother fucker down!!!’
On the other hand, with over 600,000 medical bankruptcies per year, over 30,000 deaths from lack of access to health care and an untold number of people who have health insurance but who can’t afford to actually use it due to high deductibles, surprise coverage gaps and unaffordable drug prices I think we might be surprised at how many Midwestern conservative working stiffs might be open to the concept of single payer healthcare, especially since anyone with a computer has access to billions of people who live in single payer systems to ask “hey, is that actually cool or nah?”
I think, with their advanced ages, people might check and see who their running mates are, in case they may have to take over.
“…warn party donors and insiders” the headline ends. That is not a surprising take from those groups.
We’ll see. I think Bernie does a good job framing these issues in ways that shouldn’t frighten any but the very wealthy and the Fox News true believers, but we’ll find out soon enough.
I’m always astonished that Bernie Sander’s modest new deal reforms–which would put us in line with virtually every other developed country–are regarded as “Burning the motherfucker down.” Bernie Sanders isn’t burning anything down, whether it fornicates with its female parent or not.
Partially this is Sanders fault of course. He self-identifies as a Socialist and says he’s leading a revolution. He isn’t either of those things. Bernie Sanders is a capitalist. He’s not going to seize the means of production. He just wants wealthy individuals and corporations to pay more taxes and refrain from befouling the planet so much.
He does not identify as a socialist, he identifies as a Democratic Socialist and has for decades. These are completely different critters in spite of the shared nomenclature.
True, but I don’t think a lot of voters are aware of that distinction. And the media, who hate Sanders, aren’t going to educate them.
There was earlier link to particular betting site, another is obviously to look at RCP betting site average.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/elections/betting_odds/democratic_2020_nomination/
Similar, Sanders 39%, Biden 34%, Bloomberg 16% all others less than 10% chance. It’s been really fluid though up to now, Warren peaked above 50% betting odds of being nominee, now~9%.
It makes sense IMO for Sanders to now lead Biden in % probability. He leads in RCP avg of polls in both IA and NH. Winning both he becomes clear front runner, and seems unlikely now he won’t win one and be at least confirmed co-front runner. People have been saying all along Biden could suddenly collapse if he doesn’t win because his candidacy is based on ‘electable’ (though in general). I don’t really buy that because you have to believe Buttigieg or Warren wouldn’t collapse from coming in behind Biden which they probably will, polls are not that close in IA/NH, they’re definitely behind now.
So I think Biden does become the non-Sanders alternative if Sanders does nearly as well next couple of weeks as he looks in polls now. The problem for Biden longer run is that most Warren support surely, though Buttigieg less surely, will go to Sanders when they drop out.
As far as Sanders not being a socialist or revolutionary (though as was fairly noted he says he is), that’s a view of many Democratic primary voter type people, ‘what’s so radical about him?’. Which is what matters for now. Later on if he’s nominee it will matter what general election voters think and his self-described socialism and radicalism could sink him.* There is simply no ‘fact’ that Sanders is too radical or not in a general election, only opinion now and a result if he’s nominee.
*or not. He scores well on ‘understands people like me’ and genuineness, which can be more important than ideology to non-ideological people. Warren would have been (I think it’s getting close to time to use that tense) much weaker on those non-ideological measures with broadly similar position on the left/right spectrum.
This isn’t Europe. We’ve got a very different history in the USA than Europe plus a very government system. In a parliamentary system, once the government gets into power, they can enact whatever they’ve promised.
The USA has weak party discipline, almost no one in Congress will know that they have their seat because of the President.
Plus, we have a federal system with very strong state governments. The second a Democrat gets into office. Texas and other red states will start throwing sand into the gears, just like California has for Trump.
Umm, ok. Maybe I’ll watch Evita or Reds after the Super Bowl.
IIRC, every Democratic candidate that captured both Iowa and New Hampshire, in 2000-2016, went on to become the Democratic nominee? (I’m at work now, maybe someone can fact-check me)
Bernie is leading in polls in both.
Edit: Iowa only.
Yes, every Dem candidate that won Iowa from 2000 on has become the nominee.
If we disregard 2012 when nobody challenged Obama for the nomination, that’s a sample of size 4.
Iowa, NH winners of both parties from 1976-present here.
The dynamic you describe was exactly what I expected to happen with the trump campaign in 2016. I figured that as conventional pols dropped out that their support would flow to other conventional pols, leaving trump to fall behind despite retaining roughly the same percentage of voters. Needless to say, that’s not what happened. Democrats like to say that they’re smarter than Republicans. This is our chance to prove it.
Democratic and Republican parties are pretty different in many ways but dissatisfaction with status quo or ‘establishment’ I think runs across the whole electorate. Also I don’t see something fundamentally different about Democratic and GOP politicians in terms of why they run (personal ambition, mainly): that runs across pretty much all political parties in all countries at all times. Meaning the ones other than Sanders will probably not be able to immediately agree which of them should face Sanders and all others drop out. Like in GOP case in 2016, if all candidates but Trump and one major ABT (Anybody but Trump) had dropped out as soon as Trump did well in opening contests things might have been different…but that’s unlikely in any party. The other contenders tend to stay in the race and battle the others to become the ABX candidate, meanwhile X keeps building momentum.
Which is not to say Sanders is a shoo-in. Betting odds approximately 40% he’ll be nominee. I tend to think that’s not a massive mis-pricing. But that’s partly conditional on him doing as well as appears likely in IA/NH. If he does I think that prob goes well over 50%, but all the other major candidates but one will not spontaneously agree who should be the ABS, drop out and back that person.
Three questions:
*Who among the Democratic candidates still in the race – or even those who were in the race two months ago – isn’t proposing going beyond Obamacare to a health insurance system with a robust public option and nobody left behind?
*Who other than Sanders and Warren is proposing absolutely abolishing private health insurance?
*How many of those developed countries have completely abolished private health insurers? I know off the top of my head that the UK and Germany have private health insurers.
To expand on my previous post and explain why Sanders in particular gets this reputation, the difference between Sanders and Warren is willingness to compromise to get things done. Warren has a record of it in the Senate, Sanders emphatically does not and speaks of compromise in the same disdainful tone as he talks about billionaires.
IMHO, President Sanders and President Warren would both send their health care proposals to Congress. The difference is that, if Congress returns an amended bill with a robust public option but with private insurers still having some role, Warren would sign it and Sanders wouldn’t. Ironically, the only Democratic nominee who if elected with both chambers of Congress also being Democratic* would end up with Obamacare still continuing would be Sanders. :smack:
*The Dems may or may not take the Senate, but if they do, the margin of victory, the seats that would flip, wouldn’t be deep blue states sending a Warren or Sanders type to the Senate but purple states electing moderates. Those moderates might vote with the general spirit of the party that Obamacare doesn’t go far enough, or they might be blue dogs in the Manchin mold, but I’d be exceedingly surprised if they voted for a full-blown Sanders/Warren no-private-insurers plan.