Sounds like you don’t understand probabilistic predictions. Nate Silver has stated quite clearly that if he went back and looked at all the elections where he predicted someone had a 71 percent chance to win, and the favorite won every time, he’d feel he did a really bad job of predicting. He’d consider it a bad job if they won 90 percent of the time. If they won between 60 and 80 percent of the time, he’d say he was doing pretty well.
Let’s also note that just a few days before the election, Silver went on a Twitter rant against another forecaster who was more bullish on Hillary than he was. In one of the tweets, he said “There’s a reasonable range of disagreement. But a model showing Clinton at 98% or 99% is not defensible based on the empirical evidence.”
That after all this, what most people have taken away from all of it is “Nate Silver got it wrong” (while no one remembers these other forecasters)…that’s just an absolute :smack::dubious::mad:
That’s a commercial all by itself. Have a person who grew up in Castro’s Cuba whose father was a sugar cane farmer in Cuba and killed by Castro’s goon squads. Have her tell the story about what a wonderful man her father was and how his dying wish was for his family to be able to flee to freedom.
Then tell about how as a young child she almost died riding in a raft to get to the United States while two of her family members did die. Finish with “No, Senator Sanders, we do not want Castro’s policies here. My family has already given too much to be free.”
Punctuate every tear jerking point she makes with Bernie’s statement in the background. It will be a bloodbath. And that is just from one single communist-supporting thing he said…just one!
Trump has said many more positive things about authoritarians and communists much, much more recently that Bernie. If voters really cared about this stuff, it would have hurt Trump, but it hasn’t. I’m skeptical that 30+ year old ambiguous quotes from Bernie will be more influential than 1 year old quotes from Trump that are much more direct in their praise of authoritarians.
I don’t buy this conventional wisdom. We’ll see, but I’m amused that so many people seem unwilling or unable to learn any lessons from 2016.
Something did hurt Trump. After eight Democratic years, in a country with a national declining life expectancy, the out of office party should have gained a majority. Instead all Donald could do is get was 46 percent.
He won because he convinced a big enough minority that Hillary Clinton was scary.
Maybe the best argument for Bernie is that Trump can paint anyone as a radical, so why worry about it.
We’ll see. I really don’t think it’s possible to predict this kind of thing (which is what Nate Silver says, and so far I see no reason to doubt his expertise regarding data-based political predictions) this early. So I’m supporting the candidate based on a combination of issues and my feelings about enthusiasm and excitement of their supporters.
It doesn’t hurt Trump, because none of his supporters listen to anything he says.
It will hurt Sanders,because he needs to attract new voters, who do listen to what he says.
Regarding scandals and bad behavior,
Trump is like a TV evangelist.
Sanders is like a catholic priest.
The evangelist can get caught in sexual or financial scandals, but it doesn’t affect the masses of believers, who continue to follow blindly.
Catholic priests who get caught in scandals do lose their followers. Many people stop following their personal leader in the parish, but will support a different leader from a different branch of the church.
The swing voters who Sanders needs to attract are like those Catholics…they still want to stay in the organization (i.e. the Dem. party), but they want a different leader. Many of them will stay home and not vote until the leader gets removed. Just like many Catholics stay home and don’t go to church till the priest gets removed…
Thank you! You’ve pointed out that Silver is about as good as all the other pollsters out there. Nothing special, so why do people mention him so much?
Also, I pointed out I was exaggerating. But it would be best if there weren’t any polls, IMO.
Back to Bernie, I love the guy and will vote if he’s the nom. But overall, I have a feeling he’ll drop out. I don’t see a good and progressive administration because I just don’t think Dems will give the support he needs against a GOP senate.
Bernie’s press secretary now compares calls to release his medical records - as the candidate had said he would - to birtherism, and (falsely) says that Bloomberg had a heart attack, too. Yeesh:
She has corrected herself on twitter:
“I mispoke when I said Bloomberg had a heart attack. Rather, he underwent the same stent procedure as Bernie. Bernie released 3 detailed medical reports in December — just like the other candidates.”
Bernie is my last choice.
I don’t like the fanaticism of his supporters, and I await an unequivocal statement from Bernie saying that he will give the nominee his full-throated support and will urge his followers to do likewise.
HIs platform is a bit too far left for me, a liberal democrat; and waaay too far left for the electorate as a whole.
He’s (IMHO) the least electable of the remaining Democrats. Trump will run pictures of him on his honeymoon in the USSR from now until November. That will stick and it will hurt.
He’s too old.
His personality = crotchety old man. Not somebody you want to have a beer with, or anything else.
Nevertheless, if he’s the nominee I will enthusiastically vote for him.
Granted, it was three decades ago. But the kindest thing to be said about Bernie’s comments at the time is that they were naive. The less-kind thing is that the comments spring from a worldview that values ideology over facts.
I believe this latter still characterizes him, and that it’s going to be a problem in the general.
Excellent points. And quite relevant to the topic at hand: can the right convince large numbers of Americans (particularly those who don’t pay a lot of attention to politics) that Bernie Sanders is scary?
I think the right will have an easier time doing that with Sanders than with any of the Democrats still in the race.
Both of these are bad. Bernie hired this person to be his press secretary. Bad judgment all around. (Birtherism, really??)
Bad, too: Bernie declining to release his medical records. He’s had a heart attack. He’s 78. It’s reasonable for voters to want to know about his condition.
Bernie is building a reputation for being secretive–he had trouble releasing tax returns, too. There’s a certain arrogance in his approach that won’t sit well with voters. Sure, Trump is even less transparent, but his voters tend to be pro-authoritarian. Democrats don’t see things the way Trump voters do. How do you sell ‘transparency doesn’t matter’ to Democrats?
I assume you wouldn’t make statements like this unless you had personally reviewed the records Sanders has made public. Just in case, you can refresh your memory here. What specific information is lacking from that record that you feel is needed to form a reasonable assessment of Sanders’ health status?
Oh no, your Lord and Savior Pete got asked a meanie question? Does he need his blankie?
Seriously, it might help if you provided a link that, like, mentioned what the question actually was and on what basis you can be so certain that the questioner had never actually experienced any discrimination. Or you could just move on to whatever new drama is outraging people on Twitter this half hour, either way.
Looking at your link further, Sherrerd, it looks as though Bloomberg and Warren have released basically the same information as Sanders has; detailed letters from their physicians outlining their health history and most recent physical exam findings. Why is that good enough for them, but not for Sanders?
:mad: