will automatically win all the Dem states.
First a candidate will need to win the primary.
What will the repubs throw at Bernie?
Socialist!
That alone could lose some of those Dem states. People equate socialist with communism right or wrong. We spent 40 years in a Cold War with communism and fought two wars. Older people have memories of those. Reagan defeated communism per right wing mythology. They will bring up that a Reagan like repub will defeat 2016 communism.
Again I think you are blinded by delusional thinking.

Thinking like a pickle?

a number of times since Bernie entered the race.
You are going to help give us another President Bush!

And did not talk about how it was addressed. Nor did you actually figure out a way for the Republican to actually get 270 votes.

So what states does the Republican win to get 270, and how specifically does the Republican do so?

Socialist and socialist. The difference doesn't matter one bit and Bernie calls himself socialist a big difference from repubs calling all Dems socialist.
Ever since Bernie announced I have been amazed at the way his negatives are so easily explained away.

So which states does the Republican win to get to 270? And how, specifically, does he win it?

Here, let me help: Clinton can't win NC in the general election. It's a rural/urban divide state, so to win it she needs urban turnout to overwhelm rural turnout. Problem is her name on the ballot is going to drive Republican turnout far higher than any other candidate, coupled with her incrementalist history is not going to drive enough urban turnout. "Moral Mondays" was not incrementalism.

Now, try to do the same thing with ANY blue state for Sanders or O'Malley. Because the Republican needs at least one of them.

End of story.

And feel free to show any evidence she actually could take Texas. The governor and senate races really have not been good for us recently.

You're missing that people of color in Texas know Hillary and regard her with something very close to veneration. Female people of color especially. You haven't seen her surrounded by several thousand Hispanic women (and some men), all cheering madly, some of the older ones bringing small gifts. The younger ones know she's championed women's healthcare all over the world and in the Senate. She's a role model. And yes, I have seen all that.

Texas LGBTs will go for her overwhelmingly. They've seen her in Pride parades, they've followed her work as SOS.

Republican women will go over the wall for her in significant numbers.

Put Julian Castro on the ticket as VP, and all those favorables go up even further.

Forgive me for being blunt, but Sanders is an old white guy from up north. He has no history and no base in this state. If he's on the ticket Texas Dems will either sigh and do their duty or just stay home because they know we've already lost. Republican women vote for Jeb.

O'Malley? Who?

or senator? For more than a decade?

One year the party nominatead Tony Sanchez, a bankster and oilman. They chose him because he could pay for his campaign himself.

The punch line is that Sanchez is a Republican. In fact, he was a Bush Pioneer , meaning that he had raised more than $200,000.00 for Bush.

Now , the good news is that Hillary will be backed by the national Democratic Party, not the state organization. Texas Dems are recovering but not robust yet. Hillary could give it some of the energy it needs, in fact.

"Hey, there's some random woman on the ballot who talked for a long time about something-or-other. Oh well, I'll just vote for Abbott."

People keep talking about Texas trending blue, but that has not been the case over the last 30 years. Although the percentage of non-whites is growing rapidly in Texas, Republican efforts at suppressing the vote are growing even faster.

Hillary is far more popular in Texas than Obama. You can't judge her performance by his.

Obama lost Texas by ~1.25M votes in 2012.

I am willing to wager whatever amount you would like that the Democratic nominee, whoever it ends up being, does not carry Texas in the 2016 Presidential election.

Some day Texas will turn blue again, but I am betting it is not in the next two Presidential cycles.

If you look at demographics TX should be blue but TX Hispanics aren't as reliably Democrats as Hispanics elsewhere.

They vote for a candidate. The party has to give them the right candidate.

and have talked to enough people between 2008 and now to be quite confident that Texas is possible for Hillary. Other Texans will tell you the same thing.

can't overcome the math. But I am willing to entertain the bet I proposed.

Sorry, wouldn't feel right taking your money.

they add all parts of the state up -- together! Amazing, but true.

And last time they did this, the Democratic candidate lost by 15% and 1.25M votes. So I can see why you don't have the confidence to make the bet.

We are making progress in Texas. I remember that Hillary Clinton had a ton of support in Texas during the 2008 primary and caucus contests. This polling is a little dated but is still somewhat interesting
http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2013/01/clinton-could-win-texas.html I can see Hillary doing very well in Texas against a couple of the GOP nominees (Christie, Walker, Trump or Kaisch) if Julian Castro is her running mate.

Time will tell.

Go ahead and send it to Hillary's campaign as a donation from me.

If Texas is at all close, then the GOP candidate will be in trouble and will be devoting resources to this state that they may not be able to afford

The Republicans cannot win without Texas. Take Texas away, and it's all over.

You said:

"You are going to help give us another President Bush!"

That kind of thing has been said every election lately...and now guess who holds congress.

if Bernie were the nominee. I'd throw NJ, CT and the northwest in there, too.

Even if it's Hillary, some of those states will need care and feeding (PA, WI and NH, e.g.)

However you feel about the candidates, the argument that Hillary can spend less time defending those 257 EV's and devote more resources to the battleground states is pretty strong right now.

What in the last few elections tells you those states would be in play in 2016?

PA, NH, and NM Republicans just lost badly. What makes you think they'll turn it around?
In the recent WI and MI governor races, the Republicans faced a Democrat that turned off the base.
NV is trending more and more blue as it gains more immigrants.
For NJ, just invoke Christie.

Your response is hardly scientific, and neither is your OP.

party on, Jeff.

He's so dreamy I sleep with a Sanders plushie!!

Hrm...we better make post after post after post demanding loyalty oaths.

Feel free to supply polls showing Sanders loses in head-to-head matchups.

Be specific and account for the fact that the polling firm was very accurate in the 2012 presidential race.

As a result, when the poll was taken causes a massive difference in results.

It's early enough that we don't have a baseline yet.

will be seriously in play in 2016, with another 4 states probably in play as well.

Those seven states are the ones where Obama received less than 52 percent of the vote. Two of those states (FL and OH) gave Obama less than 51 percent and if Jeb is the candidate,their 47 EVs have a good chance of going his way. That means to get to 270 the repub candidate only has to find 15 EVs out of the 52 EVs (CO, IA, NH, VA) that gave Obama less than 52 percent. Four other states (NV, MN, NM and WI) represent another 31 EVs and gave Obama less than 53 percent.

It won't take that much of a swing, or a down turnout, to push at least some of these states into the R column.

So don't assume it's a cakewalk. It's anything but, whether the candidate is Sanders or Clinton.

149 + 47 from FL and OH is 196. That leaves 74 EVs to get to 270.

Very few non-incumbent presidential elections are a cakewalk. But 2016 requires the Democrat to lose it as much as the Republican to win it. We are quite capable of doing that (ex. Gore). But to claim O'Malley or Sanders can't win, we should show how the Republican wins.

I think O'Malley brings something the others don't. Youth for one, and the fact that he's actually a Democrat, and not a recent convert.

Johnson severely underperformed the other 2010 winners.

If the right interests behind the scenes are aligned, and it is determined that the eventual Republican Party candidate is the one to win in a "close state" then I would not be surprised if the voting is manipulated to engineer that outcome. Got to have ID to vote, but touch screen no paper trail machines apparently are OK? Pass me that paper ballot please!

That's not automatic. While it won't be 1984 all over again, I fear it will be 1988.

Again, your gut feeling doesn't matter. 270 matters. Show how the Republican gets 270, and back it up with recent elections in those states.

And so is his high support on DU. And admitted socialist will have a very hard time winning more than 10 states, especially if the Republican candidate is within the mainstream of his or her party (such as a Romney type).

Don't hit the messenger, I wanna be wrong and I will kiss your ass if I am.

It is just a matter of demographics. In statewide contests, not gerrymandered districts, urban dwellers who vote liberal overwhelm the numbers of rural conservative voters. That is why these states are basically a lock for ANY democrat. Pollsters know this. The media knows this. Jeff's argument is based on plain facts.

1984 may never happen again, but under the right circumstances, a Democrat can have under 200 EV's.

The population has changed. Look at the polling on issues instead of politicians and you will see that the country is actually to the LEFT of Democrats. There will not be a Republican landslide unless they get up an October surprise. I don't doubt that is possible.

With demographics being what they are it would take massive malfeasance by a Democratic president for the Republicans to duplicate their 72, 80, 84 or even 88 numbers.


That being said nothing is impossible. Arnold turned blue CA red twice.

So all Democrats are socialists, because Fox and the Republican party say so.

The downside of blasting that rhetoric over the last 30 years is nuance is no longer available.

Is calling Clinton a socialist going to doom her campaign? Because Republicans do that too.

but "most Americans". When we hear "socialist", it conjures up images like this:



I don't know about you, but I don't want to be fighting over the last roll of quilted Northern.

Republicans have been screaming "socialist!!!!" at all Democrats for decades. Which means when someone calls a Democratic candidate "socialist!!!!" it does not have much effect. So much so that if you bothered to dig into the generational breakdown of your poll, you'd discover "the kids today" don't have the same reaction to the word as older generations.

Also, remember the part about learning the difference between "democratic socialist" and "socialist"? You might want to bother to do that.

Finally, what specific states does the Republican win to get 270, and what of recent election results indicates they will win?

You still haven't grasped that calling someone a socialist, is miles apart from that person self-describing as a socialist. This has gotten pretty circular. I hope you get the answers you're looking for.

It's not exactly a giant problem for you to solve.

Also, you may want to update your calendar. It isn't 1972 anymore. The Dixiecrats are gone.

The republicans could be responsible for Bernie's win what with all the years of 'socialist' thrown around, that's just normal talk against Democrats during elections.

I LOVE IT! ty!

and good-- because I always like it.

Socialism is NOT communism.

which is the ONE PERCENTER Soviet leader from that time that went after and killed bottom up democratic socialists of his time then.



Republicans really don't want to open up the door of which party is the party funded by Stalinists!

The guy on the right WAS FDR, before some clown thought it was a good idea to replace him--or his head. Unless Daddy Koch had leg braces, too.



There's a whole series of those pics taken, at the Tehran Confererence, with Churchill to the immediate right of FDR.

Total fail.

... I won't use this again. Not sure there are pictures of him and Fred Koch together, but that doesn't take away from the FACT that Fred Koch was in business with Joseph Stalin, even if this isn't a real picture of them together, and the same underlying issues of Koch brothers having their family fortune made from family business relationships with Stalin. I'll look for some more stuff that isn't relying on photoshop in this fashion to get its message across.

The second image seems legit, even if they had images photoshopped together, they weren't composites of layered images of FDR and Fred Koch to make it appear that they were in a photo physically together. That pic was probably derived from this one, which seems to be more straight forward with the facts.

of Stalin at his desk in 1945.

?w=594


Getty apparently owns the rights to this picture, they list it as:

General Secretary of the Communist Party of USSR Stalin at his desk smoking a pipe. Moscow, 1945
CREDIT: MONDADORI

I have no idea what the depth of Fred Koch's relationship with Stalin is, but at the end of the day, we got into bed with Stalin to win WW2, and his nation did a LOT of the heavy lifting in terms of blood, sweat and tears to defeat Germany. Eight million dead uniformed servicemembers, and 13 million plus civilians. Stalin? Not a nice guy. Russians fighting WW2? They made some serious sacrifices in their "Great Patriotic War." We'd be speaking German if they didn't do what they did, even if they didn't do it for our sakes. Stalin was running that country, and while we quickly devolved into a cold war with them, there was a brief period where we were "civil" with one another.

Joseph McCarthy, before he went crazy pointing at/accusing everyone, was a respected moderate, even progressive in some regards, Republican. He wasn't afraid to throw elbows at work, but he had a decent reputation before he went nutzo with the Red Under the Bed bull. He had a lock on the Catholic vote, he was a war hero owing to his WW2 service in the USMC. He had to work at becoming a loony tune. Fun fact: Greta Van Susteren's DADDY was his campaign manager.

I don't find the associations made in that poster terribly useful, and those nasty Koch kids had nothing to do with that, anyway--it's easy to nail them for their OWN shitty associations, without having to dig up and drag out their daddy.

Lots of people sit on a pile of wealth made from shitty dealings. It's what people do with that dough that defines them. It wouldn't matter if old Fred made his money by selling organic vegetables grown in a sustainable fashion while employing disabled orphans at higher than minimum wage who were rescued from a war-torn nation, if his kids were assholes, that would undo any good he did. Conversely, if his kids were decent, no one would care about his dead ass or how he made his blood money.

The one here basically just puts two pictures of the men side by side that weren't separately altered to make it appear that they were photographed together. This sort of juxtapositioing of people together in pictures happens all of the time when there aren't any direct photos of them together historically but when it is well known that they in fact worked together.

But if the Republicans are going to make Bernie Sanders in to a "socialist" / "communist" which in the Limbaugh / Glen Beck / etc. world is made to be equivalent when talking about all Soviets, then it seems only fair that we point out that there is MORE direct history to tie the Koch Brothers family to the more hard lined and dictatorial communist leaders in Joseph Stalin when his father arguably made most of his fortune working with Stalin then. I refuse to step back and let the propaganda machine mow down someone like Sanders who has a more philosophical leaning towards DEMOCRATIC socialism that Joseph Stalin and his dictatorial compatriots in the Soviet Union were at war with and killed when he was in power (the Trotskyists, etc.). They need to be told the full story of what happened back in the Soviet Union then, and the different forces at work, and where real socialist philosophy was being practiced and where it wasn't, so that the term "socialism" doesn't become a term that is being used like "liberal" as painting someone as evil the way the propaganda machine does today.

If it takes something like pointing out how the Koch brothers' family were tied to the worse parts of what has been called "socialism" back in the Soviet Union, or for that matter how the Bush family's heritage is tied back to their ancestors help fund Adolf Hitler during WWII, then so be it, if the threat is that they are going to play this game of association with someone like Bernie.

As I said, I wasn't aware that they were compositing pictures of FDR with Stalin to create the first photo that does seem manipulative to me, but the second photo is not manipulative in that it doesn't try to manipulate photos of Stalin on to someone else's body at all. It just shows two photos of the real people composited together, in a photo that looks pretty obvious that it could be one composited on top of a different background in each case anyway too. The second was just trying to draw pictures of both individuals together to show how they were working together then, not that they were at the same event together as the first photo shows.

And as I note, just having the photos put together doesn't take away anything from the facts of their history of working together. Those who would defend the Koch brothers history here and not take exception to someone like Bernie being called a "socialist" as a pejorative I wonder where their loyalties lie.

They will skew their results as they see fit.
Any poll they come out with will be worded to get the results that they want to see.

that "socialism" is becoming more acceptable.
I do not provide links. If you want me to do your homework for you, you have to pay me!
Google is a good thing here.
Look at who funds Pew, and you will find out that they are conservative.
And Gallup is no impartial source either. It is also funded by capitalists and corporations, so they word their surveys in a way to get the results that they want to see. ALL these corporate polling outfits do this.
Wouldn't you?
Live and learn.

If you want me to do your homework for you, you have to pay me!
Plain and simple. You have all the tools to search for yourself. I do not have to provide you with them.
If we all did our due diligence, we would find that ALL of these polls are biased in one way or another.

That's pretty simple. In future, when you make baseless claims, perhaps you should add....(IMHO)?

Oh come on. The people who run Pew are lobbyists. Don't you know that?

of the Pew Charitable Trusts, who owns Pew research was CONSERVATIVE!
Don't you think that this matters in how they form their opinions?
Sheesh!

and I already have a snow shovel, so I don't need one.
Go ahead, keep your head in the sand, like the rest of the ostriches.

But anytime you want to provide the sourcing for your wild assertions, I'll be glad to take a look. Until then......

I mentioned Wikipedia. I can't help it if you don't have the ability to google things for yourself.
You take care with your head in the sand. Don't suffocate yourself now!

He will be our David versus the nations Goliath. Yes socialist will be the big play. do not know if we have enough time and the skill to educate the masses that socialism is not a bad thing. Denmark and other countries have shown this to be true. Bernie has my vote and I have already been working on convincing others as to his values.
A massive undertaking for sure. Even left wing folks are talking against him. Chris Hedges had a column suggesting Sanders is a sellout because he is running as a Democrat. Does not have the fortitude of Ralph Nader. What a shame.

Again, gut feelings don't matter. 270 wins. What states do the Republicans win and how do they do it?

Because there is no logical way they will win.

For example, the post about Feingold.

But, it looks mostly like a pile on from hand wringers.

The MSM has done its job.

The time is ripe for someone close to the people's needs.

I love this thread. Makes me feel hopeful.

It is very telling the ignorance on DU of how the electoral map looks like now. People keep arguing about Socialism! or Republican Money! but they have no idea or refuse to admit that ANY Democrat who can win the primary has a lock on the general. It is simple arithmetic. It is the way the population in those states votes, plain and simple, vs the gerrymandered districts that give us R controlled House. Urban areas in blue states overwhelm rural, conservative voters. The only way a Democrat can lose is if Democrats stay home and all Republicans show up. That is possible, but for any Democrat who can win the primary, highly unlikely unless there is some sort of October surprise.

I wish people would actually read what you wrote and think about it before spewing ignorant, media-manufactured memes. Sadly, that is not the case.

Each of the races on which the analysis for the Democratic Blue Wall involved races where the Demcratic Party ran a mainstream, well financed and viable candidate. You want to take races that had a mainstream, well financed and viable candidate and apply the results of these races to a candidate who will be easy to characterize as not being in the mainstream and a candidate who will not be well financed.

You can not take historical examples based on running one type of candidate and then claim that the same results would be obtained if a different type of candidate was the nominee. I am a fan of the analysis behind the Democratic Blue Wall and have used that analysis on another board. I do not believe that you can safely assume that the past results for other rather mainstream democratic candidates will apply to a race with a non-mainstream candidate

I am a numbers person and I like the concept of the Democratic Blue Wall and have used it against conservatives on other boards. However, there are assumptions and facts on which that analysis is based. The analysis is based on history and each of the Democratic candidates who ran in the races that gave rise to the Democratic Blue Wall were somewhat mainstream and well financed candidates

EVERY SINGLE TIME!

But I am realist and understand how national campaigns work

point of whether or not I think he can win. And again, I don't.

That is why I am supporting Hillary Clinton.

Because Teabaggers don't beat mainstream candidates in their own party? Yeah, the "extreme" base has much more power than they realize.

I am a believe in the Democratic Blue Wall but I also understand the facts and history on which this concept is based. Yes, GOP mainstream candidates lose to teaparty types from time to time but less lately than in the past and these examples do not apply to national general election contests.

The Democratic Blue Wall is based on the results of the results achieved by Democratic candidates in the last six general election contests which show that there are a bloc of states with sufficient electoral votes to make it hard for a GOP candidate to get to 270. In each of these races, the Democrats ran strong, well financed mainstream candidates. Each of the candidates where not drastically outspent by their GOP opponent and even then some states were close.

I simply do not believe that the dynamics and logic of the Democratic Blue Wall apply when you are not running a mainstream candidate and if the Democratic candidate is outspent drastically by the republican. President Obama outspent McCain and kept the spending differential close against Romney and arguebly was more efficient in the use of the money compared to Romney (the GOP is consultant heavy and I saw that there are claims that Romney was not efficient with his campaign dollars).

While Hillary and Bill Clinton are world class fundraisers, I am still afraid that they might not be able to keep up with the Kochs, Adelson and the GOP money machine. I think that Hillary Clinton and perhaps Biden are the only two democratic candidate who might be able to compete with the Kochs, Adelson and the GOP money machine. I am firmly convinced that Senator Sanders will not be able to keep up but I am open to facts and reason.

O'Malley hasn't started any wars, and everyone named Bush has--the military - industrial complex is big business in that state.

A few more people know who Sanders is because he's gone on TV a lot, but most Americans could not pick O'Malley out of a line up. They don't know his first name, don't know what state he's from, don't know what his last big job was, and don't know a thing about him. He's just not on the radar. He's got a lot of backstory to cover to get people invested in him. I get the sense he's running for a cabinet position.

I can't see Sanders taking CO (9 electoral votes). Bush will nab that if he's the candidate (and it will probably be Bush, unless he makes more mistakes and I think he's learned his lesson), unless, of course, Bush wants to shut down the pot game. And Iowa? No one lives in Iowa--they only have six lousy electoral votes. That's not going to make up for FL, which Bush would take in a walk. He'd also take NV, because I think the casino owners would regard Bush as a more reliable ally.

Also, a lot of those supposedly blue states are tricky. I wouldn't count on California if it came down to Sanders v. Bush. That state elected AHHHH-NULLLLLD. Jeb is not as clunky and stiff as his brother, and he knows how to be CHARMING. He also speaks flawless Spanish. He was on Fallon the other night, and he killed it--he was relaxed, able to take a joke, looked "tanned, rested and ready." He also drank a strong rum beverage on the air (demonstrating that one COULD have a beer--or a coquito, mojito, or whatever with him, if one was so inclined). Bush is dangerous-he will be a strong candidate, even with his missteps thus far. Sanders can't do that shit, he won't do jokey slow jams, he won't pal around and play the "regular guy" --he's all business and he comes off like a crabby old man, and many voters are stupid. They feel if a candidate can't be relaxed and have fun that they won't be effective on the world stage. And of course some don't care about issues, they care about who they want to have a BEEEER with....

As for spending, I can't see how Sanders can close the money gap. He can't run on an "anti corporatist" agenda, refuse corporate cash (not that they'd give him any), eschew super-PACS, and expect to win. He will be BURIED. A lot of people who would open their wallets for Hillary won't do that for him, not because they don't see him as a nice guy with some of the same ideas, but because they know it would be a waste of money--there's just no way that personal donations can overcome the Citizens United cash.

I don't buy "quite easily" at all, not unless both candidates raise their profiles enormously, and Sanders decided to take that filthy lucre that is corporate campaign cash. With Sanders as the nominee, you're going to see a lot fewer blue states. Lo siento mucho, but that's just the way it is.

However, OpenSecrets says that even including outside groups (i.e., groups other than the candidate's committee and the party committee), out of a combined total of over $2.3 BILLION spent on the 2014 election, Romney's team outspent Obama's team by around 5.5 percent -- hardly a "vast" advantage.

Plus, consider the fact that Obama's nearly $250 million advantage in money that his campaign spent v. money spent by Romney's campaign was nearly offset by the over $285 million advantage in outside spending that Romney had over Obama. Sanders would be fortunate indeed to have as large an advantage in campaign spending over his repub opponent and a virtual certainty that outside spending will be tilted even more dramatically in favor of the repub candidate.

Money does matter. It would be foolish to think otherwise.