Bernie's In

@bobsal u1553115,

bobsal u1553115 wrote:

Bernie Sanders' Eye-Popping West Coast Swing: 3 Days, 70,000 Cheering Supporters
Source: Bloomberg

Some 27,000 people descended Monday night on the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena, which has hosted acts such as Madonna and Pink Floyd, to hear from a raspy-voiced 73-year-old who has become the 2016 political season's breakout star.

For Senator Bernie Sanders, the Vermont Democrat and self-proclaimed socialist, it was the third staggeringly large crowd in three nights that capped a west coast swing that put his political rivals on notice. From fellow white-haired activists to youth wielding signs depicting him as "Bernie Man," his head grafted onto a stick figure representing the counterculture Burning Man festival in Nevada, his fans turned out in numbers that other candidates might only dream of at this early stage in the race.

Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-08-11/bernie-sanders-eye-popping-west-coast-swing-3-days-70-000-cheering-supporters

He is a terrific guy...a wonderful champion of an agenda I love. I love the guy...and love the fact that there are enough people who want what I want for this country so that Bernie Sanders gets huge turnouts.

But if the guy is on the Dem ticket...the Republican nominee is going to win...and win huge. This "mandate" (which would really only be America's reaction to the perceived extreme left wing policies of Sanders) will be used to set the progressive agenda back decades.

Sanders on the Dem ticket will set the progressive agenda back decades!

It ain't gonna happen. Hillary may not get the nod...but Sanders will not be the one knocking her off the ticket. Grassroots Dems are just too smart to allow that to happen. It is just the loony left who actually want him to be the nominee.

1 Reply

@Frank Apisa,

Jee you're such a defeatist...

In any case, the main value of Bernie's candidacy is precisely that he is forcing a debate on the left on what the country needs, etc. His chances for nomination remain quite slim at the moment, so I don;t think you should be that worried just yet. IF and when he starts reaching out to beyond his natural electorate (white leftists) and starts scoring high among non-whites and among moderate democrats, you may have reasons to worry. We're not there yet.

1 Reply

@Olivier5,

I am not a "defeatist"...I am a realist, Olivier...or a pragmatist, if you prefer.

There is no real need to force a debate on the left about what the country needs...damn near everyone "on the left" KNOWS exactly what the country needs...which for the most part is: Less movement and control by the right.

Some on the left naively and erroneously (in my opinion) think the way to deal with this is to nominate someone like Bernie Sanders...which I see as one of the worst moves the left could possibly make. So I am advising against it.

I realize I am doing it in a small Internet forum...and mostly whacking at people on the fringe.

There is very, very little worry on my part (it is more amusement)...because I see this movement much the way I viewed that "occupy" fiasco of a few years back...as a fireball that extinguishes on its own in short order.

As you noted...we are "not there yet"...and we never will be. These Sanders advocates are good, well-intentioned people tilting with windmills.

1 Reply

The main reason Bernie is low in the polls compared to Hillary is because for the majority he has not been compared to Hillary. The media is keeping mum on his candidacy in hope it will go away. Once he makes the breakthrough it will be like opening a floodgate.

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@Frank Apisa,

Quote:

damn near everyone "on the left" KNOWS exactly what the country needs...which for the most part is: Less movement and control by the right.

That's only a mean to an end. Do you think the US needs to enter into new free trade agreements, for instance? Or needs to reform campaign financing? These are important issues which Sanders helps explore.

2 Replies

@edgarblythe,

Not sure where you get that. Sanders has been all over the press in pretty positive terms while the press on Clinton is generally negative (mail servers, etc.) although her college tuition initiative is getting more headlines about her policies than her challenges.

Fivethirtyeight.com is calling the Sanders surge complete, saying it will be a lot of work to move forward from here.

Quote:

Support for Sanders rocketed up in Iowa but has leveled off since June. The story is nearly the same in New Hampshire. Sanders rose from June to July in the Granite State, but his ascent slowed.

So what’s going on? Sanders is maxing out on gains simply because of increased name recognition. Different pollsters ask about favorability and name recognition in different ways — making comparisons tricky — but the University of New Hampshire (UNH) polled Democrats in the state in April, June and July. Sanders’s favorable rating went from 45 percent in April to 66 percent in June and then to 69 percent in July. The share of respondents with a neutral opinion or no opinion of Sanders fell from 44 percent to 24 percent and then to 20 percent during that period. In other words, between April and June, Sanders was picking up low hanging fruit: The liberal wing of the Democratic Party learned about Sanders and liked him. But now, most voters who are predisposed to like Sanders already know about him.

This phenomenon can be seen when we compare Sanders’s current position to where Sanders and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren were polling in April. As I wrote when he got into the race, Sanders had the potential to pick up a lot of Warren supporters; the two have nearly identical voting records in the Senate. Their supporters can be defined as the anti-Clinton left. The combined vote percentage for Sanders and Warren in the April UNH survey was 33 percent — just about the level of support that Sanders alone had in the July UNH poll. In other words, Sanders has won over the liberal flank of the Democratic Party and hasn’t grown much beyond it.

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@Olivier5,

Are you SURE you're Olivier5??????

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@edgarblythe,

edgarblythe wrote:

The media is keeping mum on his candidacy

what?

every major media group in the US has been covering him for months

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@Olivier5,

Don't be silly, I actually read Hebdo online when I remember to, and I think Sarah Silverman's a comedy genius. And they are not alike. Hebdo puts offense right up front and sometimes its funny. Sarah puts the comedy right up front and sometimes its offensive.

1 Reply

@bobsal u1553115,

That makes little objective difference. Both are outrageously funny. Silverman supported Charlie Hebdo on Twitter and Facebook...

But I guess we should not derail another thread.

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@bobsal u1553115,

Very sure. Are you SURE you're bobsal?

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@ehBeth,

I watch air TV network news every day and there is scarcely a mention of him. Certainly no touching on his campaign promises. If I didn't have a computer I likely wouldn't know a thing about him.

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Robert Reich
2 hrs ·
Here are the 4 recurring criticisms of Bernie Sanders by the mainstream media, and why they're wrong:
1. He doesn't appeal to Latinos and blacks. Wrong. As his name recognition and message grow, Latinos and blacks are joining up because they recognize he's talking about the toxic interaction between racism and economic inequality. Last night's Sanders event in Los Angeles included large numbers of Latinos and blacks.
2. He's too far to the left to appeal to mainstream voters. Wrong again. Many who consider themselves conservatives are just as outraged by crony capitalism and abuses of power. Sanders is helping give life to an encompassing progressive movement to take economic and political power away from an elite that's rigged the system against the vast majority.
3. He's too old. Nonsense. He's only five years older than Hillary Clinton and two years older than Joe Biden, and anyone who's watched him zip around the country these past few months (usually by commercial aircraft) and give thunderous speeches know he's strong and vital.
4. He can't be elected. That's what they said about John F. Kennedy, referring to his Catholicism, and Barack Obama, referring to his race and his name. The "can't be elected" mantra is meaningless this early in the race anyway.

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@edgarblythe,

edgarblythe wrote:

The main reason Bernie is low in the polls compared to Hillary is because for the majority he has not been compared to Hillary. The media is keeping mum on his candidacy in hope it will go away. Once he makes the breakthrough it will be like opening a floodgate.

Back many years ago...a conservative letter writer to a local newspaper tried making a point about bias in the main-stream media by saying something along the lines of..."so why didn't they cover the story of Ted Kennedy driving off that bridge in Chappaquiddick?"

That is what came to mind when I read your comment here.

Gotta wonder if you are doing what you are doing to entertain us.

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@Olivier5,

Olivier5 wrote:

Quote:
damn near everyone "on the left" KNOWS exactly what the country needs...which for the most part is: Less movement and control by the right.

That's only a mean to an end. Do you think the US needs to enter into new free trade agreements, for instance? Or needs to reform campaign financing? These are important issues which Sanders helps explore.

Only a few of the things that I am delighted he is causing to be explored.

I love the guy.

I wish someone like Sanders could be elected to the presidency of the United States...and I wish others like him could be elected in large numbers for the Senate and House.

But the tone of this country right now, Olivier, is so far away from that moment...it staggers the mind.

If the Republicans win the presidency in 2016...I suggest the WORLD will be so much the worse for it, that EVERY thinking human on this planet should be agitating for the Dems to forgo any extreme nonsense...and concentrate on nominating a candidate with a good chance of being elected, rather than someone who almost certainly will lose in a landslide.

If you disagree with me...I respect your right to do so.

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@Lash,

I have been trying to educate the citizens for 60 years. No one seems to realize that from the end of w w 2 to 1980 were when a large middle class was established which pushed our economy to its best showing in history. Than we elected Ronny Raygun and the end of the economy came crashing down due to his policies and has continued to go down since. You say I should have done a better job of education? If the Supreme Court and congress had given me the 200 million dollars it would take to buy up all the media I could have performed the liberal brainwashing that the conservative billionares have done since Ronny. Some day the average citizen is going to realize just how much they have been screwed over the last 35 years and I believe that a bunch of politicians and billionares are going to regret not passing gun laws.

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@Olivier5,

I replied to you,mon ami.

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@ehBeth,

They leave him out of the primary narrative and occasionally bring him up in preface to why he can't win.

1 Reply

@Lash,

Lash wrote:

They leave him out of the primary narrative and occasionally bring him up in preface to why he can't win.

How could any legitimate news source not question Sanders ability to win in the United States...considering a large percentage of the country think HILLARY CLINTON is too far left for them????

A large percentage of the country thought BILL CLINTON was too far left.

Why can't the left fringe regain consciousness...and actually take a look at the political climate of our country...and the determination of the right.

Bernie Sanders, wonderful, thoughtful man that he may be...

...does not stand a chance of any kind to be elected president of the United States.

And if the Republicans decided to run Howdy Doody in an attempt to throw the election to him...the right would rise up and start a civil war over it.

What Lash and Edgar are doing is peddling insanity at the moment. I hope they soon come to their senses.

But Sanders is NOT going to be the Dem candidate, because most of the Dem base is smart enough to realize it would be a disaster for the party to nominate him...and they will overwhelm the few loonies on the fringe left to stop it from happening.

3 Replies

@Frank Apisa,

I dont believe that my purpose in casting a vote for somebody is that they win, my purpose is that I win. Shaking up the elite, showing everyone what I believe, that I will not tolerate the desires of the masses being ignored, is me winning.

1 Reply

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