I'm tired of settling for the lesser evil.
If Sanders can't win, it's going to be business as usual in DC. So it doesn't matter if Hilary wins, she won't be any different from the establishment.
Poll: Clinton's lead over Sanders grows (CNN)
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If Sanders can't win, it's going to be business as usual in DC. So it doesn't matter if Hilary wins, she won't be any different from the establishment.
Angelus Errare
Banned
If Bernie wins it'll still be business as usual in DC. Welcome to the two party system.
I think we'll get the chance for real change.
Also, if Bernie wins it will be on the Power of the people. Tons of people are going to actually want him to be president for this work without superpac money. The very fact of him winning changes the political landscape. It changes the equation.
Maybe people just need a good leader, and they will naturally want to be more involved. That's what I think anyway.
What is Sanders going to do differently?
All he is going to do if he won is hurt the socialist label even more then it is right now, because none of his promises are going to happen.
Angelus Errare
Banned
The same people who won't turn up to vote at midterms thus nothing changing. Democrats in Congress will vote against his policies.
The democratic "establishment" is so far to the right because the populace that votes for Democrats generally won't except for every for years. Bernie has virtually no chance of winning the general election. I hate to break it to you, but that's the truth. The question is do you want a Democrat or Republican making those supreme court appointments?
And yes, you have to settle for not getting everything you want out of a canidate. Barring extrme situations, that is how progress is made in this country; in increments.
He's will expose those blocking the path. And then he will work during future elections to regain control of the House and Senate. After that he will be more free to radical changes.
Just takes time and the right candidate to do it. He's our best shot.
Edit.
It's all just negative thinking you guys have. Jaded cynicism and anger at the system. When there is a ray of light you must reach for it and think positive. We start to believe the things we tell ourselves everyday, both positive and negative.
Edit2.
Im out of this thread.
I respect your guys opinions. But I think it is time for a change, and prefer to stay positive and hope for the best.
I've seen first hand how excited younger people are about Bernie Sanders. I think there is something here worth looking at.
Earthstrike
Member
In terms of the supreme court nomination? You are abso-fucking-lutely nuts if you think Jeb! and Hilary are electing the same supreme court justice.
What expose?
You have members of Congress proudly talking about how they shut down the government, and plan to do it again. If President Sanders pointed to them and said "they're gumming up the works of the Federal government" their constituents would say "good". Their constituents like that.
And a Democratic agenda for reform that relies on Democrats voting in mid term elections is dead in the water.
It's being pragmatic, we can either have a pretty much guaranteed Clinton victory and her appointees to SCOTUS or we can pretty much give the republicans the election and all 3 branches of government. All of this is over some ideological purity belief since the actual governing between them two won't be that different due to the Republican controlled congress.
Why didn't the Republicans get destroyed in 2012/2014 congressional elections after all of their obstructionism if exposing it is all it takes?
(Because a lot of voters agree with it and they would agree even more if someone like Sanders was trying to push through his policies)
shinra-bansho
Member
If you want to change anything, you should probably start by voting more than every four years.
Since you have nationally relevant elections every two years.
As well as State-level elections that affect those federal elections, such as governorships and State legislatures that decide congressional boundaries and voting rules e.g. need for IDs.
If Obama couldn't rally his coalition of the fairweather and fickle, I don't really know why someone else much less charismatic bringing in people who are temporarily interested in voting is going to change anything.
Since you have nationally relevant elections every two years.
As well as State-level elections that affect those federal elections, such as governorships and State legislatures that decide congressional boundaries and voting rules e.g. need for IDs.
If Obama couldn't rally his coalition of the fairweather and fickle, I don't really know why someone else much less charismatic bringing in people who are temporarily interested in voting is going to change anything.
HUELEN10
Member
About Sanders as my number 2 pick? Damn straight. I think he is a fairly solid choice.
Again, polls aren't everything and we are still technically early. We will probably see quite a bit of fluctuations in the weeks ahead.
People believed the same thing when Obama won, no? I don't particularly think much has changed in Washington since his first presidency?
You mean the white liberal Internet? The echo chamber is making it seem like the whole internet is behind sandy. But take a closer look, and he's polling badly with minorities. The only posts I see about him on FB are from my white friends. On reddit it's predominantly in the liberal leaning subreddits. I am a liberal, but we have to be careful to not delude ourselves and let trump into the whitehouse.
Bam Bam Baklava
Member
Doesn't matter. People will keep saying this time is different. It's also why no one ever abandons an ideology, they just abandon the candidate and say they didn't live up to the standards of the ideology.
An easy way of believing your beliefs are never wrong in real world application.
Yeah! Nobody knows anything at all! Those damn academics are worse off for studying numbers. They literally have no idea what they are talking about. It's all a wash in the end and Nate silver didn't predict the last two presidential elections down to the state level with 99% accuracy or anything. It's all a huge fraud circle-jerk with no relation to the real world at all.
/s
You must be popular at parties
Bam Bam Baklava
Member
He was just lucky.
Veritigo_X
Member
Sorry, I might've had you confused with someone else. I was talking about the "if it gets down to Trump and Hillary then I'm voting Trump" line of thinking I've seen around here. I sometimes can't tell when people are joking when they say it.
QuiteWhittle
Member
Why do we need Bernie Sanders to choose the SC nominees exactly? Clinton and Obama are moderate, centrist, establishment, whatever, and they still chose liberal SC judges when the time came.
BertramCooper
Banned
Because Sanders supporters are convinced that Hillary will nominate corrupt corporatists or something.
And I just love - LOVE - how we still have Sanders supporters claiming that he's going to fix dysfunction in Congress. Based on fucking nothing.
News flash: If Bernie somehow wins the nomination (he won't), he is absolutely going to rely on super PAC money. He can publicly protest against it all he wants, but ultimately he can't do much to stop it.
I always like to point out: Bill Clinton - Mr Moderate, Mr DLC, Mr Triangulation - managed to pick the general counsel of the ACLU as his first SCOTUS pick.. in 1993.
If he can get that kind of quality pick back in a more conservative era, any one of the big 3 Dems is going to get the job done handily on SCOTUS picks. Many liberals vote for politicians well knowing that while actors in the political branches of government won't always get the job done, justices can do some mighty fine work from the bench, especially on touchy issues.
And_Gignac
Member
Sanders and Clinton propositions are pretty similar. If anything, Clinton's are more pragmatic, but with a similar outcome. So please, people saying "Congress will never pass a single bill by Pres Sanders!!!1!1!" how will Clinton do it, when her proposed bills are similar and when the right has hated her nonstop during the last 25 years? How will she magically become GOP's favorite ideological bridge creator?
TheLostBigBoss
Banned
Yea and then all the liberals will forget and get so angry that the world hasn't changed in two years due to Bernie not having control of the house and senate and won't vote again on an off-presidential election year.
The apathetic liberal is worst than a rightwing nut, cause at least the tea party people fucking go out and vote.
Angelus Errare
Banned
Is this a Naruto quote?
Amentallica
Unconfirmed Member
I hope those of you who are voting don't just vote for the presidential election. Vote during the midterm elections, too.
eBay Huckster
Member
Ostensibly, by positively affecting downticket races such that more Democrats are actually elected to the House and Senate, with a nonzero shot of delivering majorities in both chambers (depending on how the GOP clown car plays out).
Realistically, she'll pass some of her propositions (via executive order and, with a Democratic Senate, SCOTUS appointments) by actually winning.
BertramCooper
Banned
I don't think anyone is arguing that Clinton is going to be wildly successful at working with Congress to pass legislation, assuming Congress remains in GOP control or becomes split between the parties again.
Very little will be accomplished legislatively in the coming years. That's why it's so critically important to keep a Democrat in charge of judicial appointments and regulatory departments and agencies.
Butts-a-plenty
Banned
She'll be willing to compromise for important, but incremental improvements. Which is essential.
And_Gignac
Member
Without her being able to even excite her liberal bases, I don't see how she will do it. 08 happened because Obama energized the bases. With Clinton being "moderate", perceived as emotionally detached and the all around lukewarm reaction to her campaign (as of now and compared to Sanders) I find it very unlikely that she will repeat Obama in 08. Specially if Trump runs.
Butts-a-plenty
Banned
*On the internet.
And_Gignac
Member
On campaign rallies.*
Butts-a-plenty
Banned
*Sounds a lot like Ron Paul.
eBay Huckster
Member
I don't know how we can conclude that she can't "excite her liberal bases", given that she's only just begun to actually campaign within the last two weeks.
White college-aged "very liberal" people are not the entire base.
I'm not even sure they're a quarter of the base.
Grover Cleveland
Member
Yep.
Bernie Sanders is not half the coalition builder that Barack Obama is. Obama won the nomination because he brought a diverse swath of Democrats and left-leaning Independents together under his banner. Young, white, racial and religious minority, poor, affluent and famous, college students, all came out in droves to vote for him.
Bernie's basically got the white college age super liberals and...that's it. And while that particular demographic may dominate discussion on the Internet, they won't dominate the polls.
vainglorious
Member
There's a lot of hard truths in this post. I interned for over a year with Obama for America (known as Organizing for America when the president wasn't running for election or re-election) and worked my ass off during the 2010 mid-term election. For those unfamiliar with Organizing for America - basically the president kept his campaign organization and infrastructure in place so that 1) his re-election bid would be a smooth transition for the coalition he already built and 2) the coalition built during the 2008 campaign would have an organization providing a delivery system and logistics for advocacy and agenda setting around the president's mandate.
We tried to keep momentum from 2008 going. But after the Affordable Care Act passed in March of 2010 a lot of people just fucking gave up. I was primarily tasked with volunteer coordination and training for my state and volunteer numbers significantly dropped in the spring. I spent the entire summer organizing seminars and training for potential volunteers whom had been active in 2008 but those numbers never recovered.
2010 was a complete disaster for the Democratic party. And we're still dealing with the fall out from that election to this day. We lost so many governorships and state legislatures to the Republican party right before the start of the next census. And now we have voting districts across the country unrecognizably gerrymandered to fuck.
We needed people to turn out in 2010 more than we did in 2012. The election between Obama and Romney wasn't even close, Romney got creamed. The mid-term apathy among Democratic voters has left me completely jaded.
EDIT - And support for Bernie Sanders continues to show that Democratic voters are their own worst fucking enemies. Who cares if the country goes to shit as long as my vote makes me feel good about myself, right? I voted for Hillary during the primaries in 2008, sucked it up when she lost, and then went to work to make sure Obama got elected. I hope others here do the same when the time comes.
And_Gignac
Member
Sanders is getting there with minorities. He has gained a lot in those demographics recently. Even Obama in 07 took a time to gain traction with minorities against Clinton. For example, July 2007 (after a couple of debates had already happen):
Back on topic: whoever the democratic candidate is, unless the party is able to make monumental gains in Congress, GOP willl continue to be obstructive. And Hillary, being specially disliked by conservatives since forever, will be no different.
It's the Sanders supporters saying he will magically force through his socialist agenda, so I don't see why it always gets turned around on those that question the viability of that to say how Hillary will do any better, since most of the time they're not saying that. At the least they're saying things will stay the same, and at the most they point to compromise centrist solutions or coattail voting patterns.
Only the Sanders supporters point to some magical transcendence that will happen in Washington with Sanders elected that will allow all this change to happen.
D
Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
This applies both ways, though. If Sanders and Clinton will have exactly the same achievements, then you don't have a reason to vote *for* Clinton, you just have a reason not to care either way. In the real world, there probably will be (admittedly small) differences between what they do manage to get done, so why not hedge your bets and vote Sanders anyway? Worst case scenario you get what Clinton would have done, best case scenario you get something better.
No, worst case scenario you lose the general election with Sanders and have Republican control of all three branches of government and have a bear unanimous conservative majority on the Supreme Court for the rest of our lifetimes.
Besides, my point is that those behind Hillary rightfully expect about the same intransigence as we have now, so asking them how Hillary would do better in passing legislation is not even addressing what Hillary supporters actually accept as the reality of the situation.
Besides, my point is that those behind Hillary rightfully expect about the same intransigence as we have now, so asking them how Hillary would do better in passing legislation is not even addressing what Hillary supporters actually accept as the reality of the situation.
D
Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
But there's no evidence to support this. Both the latest CNN and Reuters polls show Sanders performing equally as well as Clinton, and somewhat better in some match-ups [http://www.quinnipiac.edu/images/polling/us/us09242015_ui47mfb.pdf]. Additionally, Biden actually performs better than both Clinton and Sanders against most Republican opponents, so at best Clinton is a stop-gap for people waiting for Biden.
Well, of course Biden performs better than both Clinton and Sanders. He's not actually in the race yet and hasn't been scrutinized with the microscope that comes with being in a presidential race. That number will inevitably drop if he decides to make his candidacy official.
D
Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
Sure, that was just an aside. The key point is that most of the data we have available to us suggests that Sanders would do equally as well as Clinton in the presidential election. Hell, he does *better* in some match-ups, like against Trump.
Well, hold on. You also have a candidate (Sanders) who isn't as well known as Clinton is (who's a known commodity). You could have the same exact phenomena going on where people who are Independents or moderate-leaning Republicans who are unhappy with the Republican choices but don't really know who Sanders is, especially since all 7000 Republican candidates have gotten more press at this point than anything on the Democratic side.
That's why early polls for the general can be sort of bonkers.
D
Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
Okay, sure, but if we look at the favourables/unfavourables amongst likely Republican presidential voters, the ratio of Sanders' favourables to unfavourables is better than Clinton's. That's a metric that is at least relatively independent of lack of knowledge, because we're looking at the subset of people who do actually have knowledge. Sanders does much better than Clinton among independents, too.
You're right this is not foolproof - low information voters are often meaningfully different from high information voters in other manners than just information; they're typically poorer and more likely to be minorities, as just an example. Nevertheless, what we do have, again, suggests than Sanders actually has a larger cross-party appeal than Clinton.
And_Gignac
Member
The difference being Sanders is already running, getting hit pieces from corporate-leaning papers, attacks from Clinton´s campaigners and being under scrutiny by the right. And yet he polls a little worse, equally or better than Clinton in some match ups. Of course that could change after Sanders reach Clinton´s level of awareness, but I am not convinced we will see such a drastic change.
Bam Bam Baklava
Member
He'll be outspent by large multiples in the general election, possibly the largest we've ever seen. That alone is more important than any early poll.
And does worse against Carson. Your point kind of loses steam when you remember Clinton has been covered almost exclusively negatively for the past month in the news, there's a pic of the calendar somewhere on this forum. He should be doing better if you ask me.
Ignatz Mouse
Banned
Who in Clinton's campaign is bashing Sanders? That's not something I have heard.
Compared with all the negative media Clinton have received and the eternal Benghazi investigation in the congress, Sanders have received very few hits.
Bam Bam Baklava
Member
Most of the coverage he gets is positive or neutral right now. He's the underdog whose surging against Clinton in every story.
Even the GOP contenders rarely mention him because I guess they don't see him as a thread right now. It's all about how Clinton sucks.
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