Sanders hasn’t gone on the offensive much in the debates so far, but remember that there’s a big difference between a primary debate and a general election debate. He’s not attacking Clinton because, first, he agrees with her on a lot of issues (what differences there are are mostly a matter of priority), and second, in the likely event that she ends up as the candidate, he doesn’t want to hurt her chances of winning the general. Neither of those applies versus Trump (or whomever else the Republicans might nominate), and he is in fact getting in some zingers against him in speeches.
A few points:
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Head-to-head polls today are nearly useless. They are essentially a name recognition contest and aren’t reflective of how people will vote in 11 months. Sanders still has a name recognition problem, so he is polling as mostly “some dude other than Trump I’ve vaguely heard of, but I don’t like Trump.”
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Disliking one candidate isn’t sufficient to call an election. It is a choice between two candidates. And while Trump’s downsides are self-evident, Sanders is an undefined candidate. Trump will eat his lunch in defining him, and before its all over, Sanders will be a commie terrorist sympathizer who wants to take away your internal combustion engines and replace them with organic hemp composting communes.
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We know that Americans are broadly dissatisfied with the direction of the country. Given the polarized views of Obama’s presidency, what are the odds that voters would say that Obama’s problem was that he wasn’t liberal enough? I say low. Compare that to Trump, who stands… Everywhere on the issues. One week he wants to ban Muslims, the next week he could say he wants to hand out abortions like candy. He could end up looking like the psychotic moderate compared to Sanders, but voters may key in on the word “moderate” as opposed to “psychotic.”
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I think the odds of this race happening are zero.
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If Sanders isn’t willing to attack a front runner at this point in the race, where he’s double digit points behind and the clock is ticking, he’s an incompetent politician.
If anything Trump is probably being underpolled because respondents are afraid of being seen supporting him since he might not be “respectable”.
They are both populists, and one has a very high disapproval rating. And Sanders has already attacked Trump, so I see no reason he wouldn’t do so in the general election. Trump’s appeal is limited to some segment of white people, mostly men. Sanders gets everyone else.
It’s not anything new. Just the paranoid style in American politics. Just the latest manifestation of Know Nothingism. In the recent Fox News poll most Americans would support a temporary ban on allowing Muslims to enter the country.
And if that’s the case, why is Donald Trump the only person honestly addressing it? If Americans have a real concern, is the right approach to scold and turn up your nose, as many of the elite candidates are doing?
Or even worse, cater to the fear and hate, but only a little bit, as Clinton did with her “prioritize widows and orphans” schtick?
No, the right approach is to explain that this particular xenophobic reflex is silly.
Leaders are supposed to lead. Too many politicians follow.
Exactly. The President is sorta doing that, but he’s doing it too generically. “Not consistent with our values” is something he trots out too often to be effective. and not particularly effective at reassuring Americans. When a majority is for a ban on Muslim travel to the US, that’s not racism talking. Either Americans are right, or they are scared. And if you want to counter fear, you have to do it with more than just platitudes about American values. CNN is actually doing more than our leaders are doing, treating Muslims protecting Christians with their lives when their bus was attacked as front page news.
Trump is not paying for it because he speaking to the Republican base which is full of morons, on the national stage he is not doing well at all. Most polls show he is pretty much the worst perfoming of the Republican candidates, so he IS paying for it.
This head to head seems less far fetched as time passes.
One thing for sure: if this was the contest you’d have pretty damn big turn out. And that turn out would have plenty of down ticket impacts. Traditional modeling would be out the window. Dang but it would be interesting.
But we’re heading into the real part of the campaigns. People are going to start actually casting votes. Primaries separate the real candidates from the ones who have a enthusiastic but small base.
Americans don’t have a real concern. Certainly not at the level that’s being thrown around. The average American is more likely to be killed by a cow than by a terrorist.
Trump isn’t honestly addressing the issue. If he was being honest, he’d be saying terrorism is a relatively minor problem that people shouldn’t be worried about. Instead, he’s pumping up people’s fears in order to increase his own popularity as the one who will save people from an artificial threat.
I agree. Every four years we’d hear how Ron Paul had such enthusiastic crowds and every time he’d crash and burn early. Sanders may get traction in the first two contests but I’m not seeing how he gets much in the larger states where it’s not just white liberals voting.
Isn’t that the point of terrorism itself: to pump up people’s fears?
So, cattle mutilators are patriots making a statement?
'Tis the humble cheeseburger which will be our demise.
Never happen.
Of course. Trump is, thus, a big booster of Daesh’s and Al-Qaeda’s efforts even ignoring use of his videos at Daesh recruitment pages. For similar reasons, radical jihadists were delighted at the responses of the Bush-Cheney regime.
A+
A++
I can’t decide which joke is funnier. Make it a poll question?
I suspect that Bernie’s leftist and centrist support would be significantly augmented by an heterogenous “Anybody But Trump” vote. Furthermore, the Democrats would almost certainly benefit if there attempt to retake the Senate. 
I’ve seen Ron Paul, I know who Ron Paul is, and Bernie is no Ron Paul.
I can’t see how you expect Trump to pick up traction where Bernie doesn’t.
Bernie’s support is “white”? So Trump is going to get all the “colored” vote?