Somewhat related to this Kasich v Sanders thread but not your personal vote, but your assessment.
I’m not ambitious enough to list out all the GOP choices, so let’s just discuss.
I think Sanders gets blown away by Bush, Rubio, Kasich, or Walker. A loss but a close one against Chrsitie, Perry, or Paul. Maybe a loss to Fiorino, maybe not. Same with Huckabee. Close but a win against Cruz. And win against Trump, Carson, Jindal, and the rest.
I think Sanders could possibly beat any of them, but would probably lose to Kasich. Bush has been such an awful campaigners so far that I’m not sure if he could beat anyone, considering his embrace of the Iraq war and other boneheaded statements.
I don’t think there would be a landslide either way.
Walker, Perry, Paul, Fiorino, Huckabee, Cruz, Carson, and Jindal all lose to Sanders because they are nutbags and feeble minded. Rubio is an empty suit with a pretty face and feeble minded, if he continues he’ll be revealed as a nutbag also. Trump is a nutbag, but not feeble minded, probably can’t succeed but still dangerous. Christie is intelligent, not a nutbag, but too dislikable for most voters even if they agree with his politics. Bush and Kasich are traditional GOP candidates and could win. Sanders himself has a little bit of nutbag in him also.
I agree that it can be close with Kasich, but looking at “On the issues” Kasich is still very conservative and then one gets the feeling that he is decades late or still in denial of the changes that are happening.
For Example:
Another reason I do not trust him at all is that he was the odd Republican that was in favor of protecting the environment, but just like Newt Gingrich he saw the money from fossil fuel interests and he flopped too, he thinks now that the quality of the environment we leave to our descendants is not important.
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2015/08/09/3689649/john-kasich-climate-denial/
I think Sanders could beat any of them, in theory. But it’s hard for me to see how some of the contestants, like Fiorina, could win the nomination let alone the general.
Sanders’s liability is supposed to be what, exactly? The lack of loyalty from the Democratic Party machine? The appearance of immoderation?
If he gets the nomination (and that may be the harder fight), what are Democratic Party bigshots going to do, wait four, maybe eight years for any patronage? Piffle.
As for his immoderate socialist identity. These days, political “moderation” seems kind of a joke, anyway. Some people (like Bernie Sanders himself) are good at compromising with those who disagree with them, while other “moderates” are really just persons whose opinions (however immoderate each opinion is) don’t match a stereotypical checklist.
But a Republican, probably any Republican contestant bar the non-pols (Carson, Trump, Fiorina) can be assumed to have embraced the Goldwater line that, “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice,” and to have a million other consciously and intentionally immoderate and extremist comrades to fill the government.
Bernie doesn’t have that, and that’s his advantage in a weird way. Sanders can’t build an administration entirely from the handful of independent socialdems in the country; he’ll have to appoint Democrats, some far more “moderate” than his own reputation.
So the nature of the Republican party moves any of its candidates toward pious immoderation, while the nature of the Democratic nomination moves Sanders toward a kind of moderation.
Is that too subtle?
OK, put it like this. Sanders may be an independent, but his politics are a lot closer than most pols to the policies of social liberal Democrats when those Democrats were winners: Truman, FDR, Hubert Humphrey, LBJ.
I think he can plausibly beat anyone the Republicans nominate. Not that he will, but he can.
I will take a contrarian view here…he might conceivably beat Trump, and he could perhaps have a shot at a couple of the weakest/least popular members of the field, but I think he would lose badly to any of the rest. I would vote for him in a general election, I would campaign for him. But among other issues, I think the self-description of “socialist” is going to be a much bigger stumbling block for his candidacy in a general election than many of you so far seem to think.
A Sanders campaign/nomination/campaign means the press and pundits spending the next year dissecting just what Sanders means by “socialist” and what “socialist” means in this day and age – something they ordinarily try to avoid, but, if that’s the story this cycle then that’s the story this cycle. Fox will spend all those months focusing on the horrors of actually existing “socialism” in Cuba and NK, but all other outlets will find discussion of Scandinavian models unavoidable. That process might not be enough to overcome the “socialist” labels’ stigma in November – but it will mean the public does, by that time, have a different and somewhat more informed take on the word and concept.
I’d have said the socialist tag was a deal breaker in presidential politics in the days before a lawyer-y black man with a Muslim-sounding name and very little national experience beat a popular, relatively-moderate Vietnam POW war hero. Not so much anymore. I think Bernie could beat any one of the current GOPers in a general.
a socialist is WAY less electable than even a real Muslim.
Sanders could maybe beat Satan tho.
I think Sanders is as unelectable as many of the most extreme rightwing Republicans are. Sanders is very appealing to the left and much of the base of the Democratic party, but I just can’t see him being all that appealing to centrist voters. He’s a self-described socialist and, like it or not, that’s a dirty word in politics. I also don’t see a lot of his policies going over well in a general election, especially with the Republican machine doing what it can to paint his positions as extreme left.
Personally, while I don’t agree with many of his views, I do respect him for the fact that I believe he sincerely believes them and has the best interest of the people at heart, but that’s not what’s going to win the general election. In the same way that Romney had to run right to get the Republican nomination then run to the middle to attempt to get elected, Sanders would face that same issue. He NEEDS centrist support, and he needs the Republican base to not be mobilized. However, even if the Republicans aren’t super enthusiastic about their candidate, as they probably wouldn’t be for someone like Jeb, they would be terrified of a socialist president, and that would be enough to get the base voting and campaigning.
As such, I think he loses badly to someone like Jeb, Walker, Kasich, Rubio, or possibly even Paul. It would be much more interesting with someone like Cruz, Huckabee, or Perry because, while they might energize the base, they’d be polarizing to the centrist voters too, and it would be a lot closer, but I think he’d likely still lose there. Trump is just too polarizing and he’d basically get just the people that love him voting for him, but a lot of people voting against him, regardless of who the Democrats put up, so he’d likely beat him. And most of the rest, at least now, I just don’t think have a snowball’s chance in hell of getting the nomination, but even they would probably at least put up a good fight.
Nah. He couldn’t overcome the money advantage.
I think the real point of Sanders’ campaign is to change that.
And he might succeed. Not enough to win, but it will make a real difference down the road.
Realistically, I think the “looks and sounds like an eccentric old uncle” problem is more damaging that the “commie pinko red radical socialist” thing.
Current polls have him within the margin of error of Bush, and ahead of others. Which means that he can beat any of them. His odds might not be great, but he certainly has a chance.
And the other thing to consider is that right now, he’s doing as well as he is without the Democratic party machinery backing him. In any scenario where he gets the nomination, he’s already gotten the machine support, which should help him even further.
He also has the potential to win a fair number of crossover votes. Yeah, his political views are pretty close to the left edge, as America goes, but there’s a decent-sized chunk of voters who don’t actually vote based on politics, but on things like sincerity. And everyone, on both sides of the aisle, agrees that he’s sincere.
Meh. I’ve been told I’m a “Leninist” because I support a progressive income tax. :shrug: How does “Socialist” have a sting? President Hollande in France is a “Socialist.” The NDP in Canada are more or less democratic socialists. Heck, Tsipras in Greece is “Radical Left” and used to be a “Communist”!
If the electorate would prefer poverty to being called Commie Finks, then poverty they will get, good and hard. And sooner or later the Tumblr generation will be the soccer moms, and someone will run and win as a Communist. 
Whoa whoa whoa! Atheists are at 58%? That’s new.
Talk to me in five months, after more of the country has had a chance to hear him speak and watch him debate against Clinton. As this poll shows, the respondents were nearly split down the middle on that question: 47% Yes, 50% No. What’s the margin of error? Looks to me like it’s a pretty dead heat in early June, long before most of the respondents probably even knew who Sanders was, let alone what his Social Democratic policies are. I bet a more current poll would see those numbers flipped.
Additionally, current national polls have Sanders doing as well as or better than Clinton against the top three Republican candidates.
*Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is behind or on the wrong side of a too-close-to-call result in matchups with three leading Republican contenders, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker in Colorado, Iowa and Virginia, according to a Quinnipiac University Swing State Poll released today. …
In several matchups in Iowa and Colorado, another Democratic contender, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, runs as well as, or better than Clinton against Rubio, Bush and Walker. Vice President Joseph Biden does not do as well.*
It really doesn’t make any difference what a politician in France or Canada chooses to call him- or herself; we are talking here about the United States. Question: Who was the last American presidential candidate to be a self-described socialist and win any electoral votes? For many, many, many Americans, “socialism” remains a dirty word.
And while it may be true, as someone argues up thread, that a Sanders candidacy will lead to a greater understanding of what socialism is and what it is not, I suspect that the upshot will be a widespread belief among Americans that what Sanders means by socialism is “more redistribution of income than I am personally comfortable with, and more limits on corporate America than I am ready to support.”
And maybe you’re right that such a conclusion would be counterproductive for an awful lot of the people who draw it. You probably are. But there is what we would like the world to be-what the world would be if it were a sensible place where people behaved rationally–and then there is the world as it is.
Sanders keeps promising free stuff and lots ofinvestment. Sooner or later, he’ll have to admit that the only way to pay for all this is higher taxes. He’ll have to release specifics on how much of other people’s money he needs.
How much of other people’s money do the Clintons need?
Bernie Sanders is talking about helping regular folks with those regular folks’ own government. The Clintons are scamming billions from rich types to line their own pockets.
Why do you describe his behavior as if it were theirs?