as Bernie says, they keep voting against their own interests

Sanders 2016!!! No "crowd buying" needed!!!

& recommend!!

just wait til he gets to the southwest

Go ARIZONA! Summer of Sanders! Do NOT Underestimate Bernie Sanders!

In the Southwest? Yeah, SANDERSTORM has arrived!

Bernie in Pheonix.

may make a statement about Bernie Sanders on his behalf?

can you say it another way? Help me out here.

If i may can i make a statement on behalf of Bernie sanders, i am the husband of donnasgirl and that is why i ask permission.

I am a black man 66 years of age and have been thru many elections, there is a point i wish to make that i feel many people are over looking about Mr Sanders. We met Bernie in a deli many years ago, the one thing that impressed me about him and why i and my family will back him is his ability to talk to people without seeing color. When he looks into the audience he sees people, he doesnt see Latinos, he doesn't see Blacks, he doesn't see if you are Asian. What he sees are people plain and simple and it is one thing for me that stands out, he sees everyone as an equal which many people here seem to overlook.

contribution to our discussion, donnasgirl husband. I have heard others say the very same about Sanders. Bernie is my choice and we can help get his message across to others, as it appears he is getting very little air time in our MSM.

Is for all people to stop categorizing everyone this is where we as a nation are failing.

first and foremost and judge each by their character not by the color of their skin..

Thanks for sharing that personal encounter with Bernie.

And i would like to Thank everyone for letting me comment.

printed and circulated everywhere! This should go to Sen. Sanders campaign and Him! You express my thoughts exactly.

Bravo!!

~ Sen. Bernie Sanders, Independence Day Parade, Waukee, Iowa, July 4, 2015 ~

I'm about your age, white, and was also involved in the 60s civil rights struggles, as was Bernie.

I'm actually seeing the BLM dustup as a positive development. It show quite a contrast between Hillary (who was a no-show at the Netroots/BLM gathering, and "all lives matter" O'Malley.

It only took Bernie a matter of a few hours, stood before 11,000+ people, including many AAs and Latinos and said this, for which he got a standing ovation:

"And like everybody in this room, I want to see an America where when young black men walk down the street they will not be harassed by police officers, they will not be killed; they will not be shot!" (Standing Ovation)

"To his credit, President Obama did something extraordinary the other day, he had the courage to go to a federal jail and talk about the absurdity of a criminal justice system in which if we don't change it 1 out of 4 male African Americans born today will end up behind bars. That is NOT the America we believe in."

"And that's why we believe it makes more sense to invest in jobs and education, not jails and incarceration!"

"And to our 11 million brothers and sisters who are living in the shadows today, we say loudly and we say clearly we are going to bring you out of the shadows and on a path toward citizenship. And we're not going to divide families up, brothers and sisters... we are the wealthiest nation in the world, there is nothing we cannot accomplish."

Call you a Friend.

We love the handle you chose by the way, i wish there were more peacebirds in the world.

And that is from someone who has been there, 3 tours of duty in Vietnam.

thanks for your contribution to this discussion. It sure goes in these weird circles sometimes here. I get why it does, but I'm of an age.... well... you said it quite well. thanks again.

Listen to Bernie's opening remarks to the 11,000 crowd at the Phoenix Convention Center-

Yes I watched it live-streaming last night. An amazing gathering and
Bernie stepped up to the plate, and knocked it out of the park with his
brilliant speech.

And all this in a dark RED STATE! Go Bernie Go!!

in progressive cities like Madison, WI and Portland, ME. Next in Texas- Houston and Dallas at least 6,000 are expected!

Looks like Bernie has some BERNIEMENTUM going!, among people of all areas and backgrounds! No surprise though with his powerful message and the strengths of populism and progressivism in this country now and elsewhere.

Wish I'd remembered to watch the Phoenix Speech last night, esp. after events at Netroots.

Here's to THE SUMMER OF SANDERS!

He's a socialist, leftist, "out of the mainstream", liberal, FRINGE candidate, populist, "disruptive" competition...oops, forgot, racist and Super-PAC supporter!

Oh!!!

Looks like all those labels and attacks are just straw man attacks because the American people (who VOTE), understand his honesty, sincerity, and authenticity...his message is clear and concise...not to mention he's not bought and paid for by Banksters, billionaires, DINO's and Third Way bullshitters.

The Sanderstorm is rolling!

wanting ponies. When will they learn?

do it .

will have multiplied by many, many times. At the rate he is going, Bernie will have been heard
even by many Republicans. And some of these latter might be hearing the truth for the first time.
I think quite a few Republicans will be voting Democratic -- maybe for the first time in their lives.

Time will tell. And we have lots of time.

you must not have many great examples of whatever point you're trying to make. But thanks for the inspiration. And, yes, let's vote for the person with the SMALLEST crowds, because obviously that's who wins elections.

Mondale, Dukakis, Kerry -- all drew HUGE crowds ...

In 1988, Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis lost badly to George H.W. Bush, but still attracted large crowds in the campaign’s final days. Consider this New York Times article from Nov. 5, headlined, “Hailed by Big Crowds, Dukakis Foresees an Upset.”

Gov. Michael S. Dukakis embarked on his final weekend of campaigning with combative defiance of the polls and pundits, urging a series of warm and cheering crowds to remember Harry S. Truman’s 1948 upset.

”I smell victory in the air, don’t you?” he asked his audience in Lexington, Ky., where he campaigned before heading on to Chicago and a traditional torchlight parade, where he walked up Michigan Avenue with his wife, Kitty, at his side. The avenue was lined with throngs of cheering people waving red, white and blue Dukakis signs.

His first stop today was at an enthusiastic rally of a few thousand supporters in Forest Hills, Queens, where the Democratic Presidential nominee, in a hoarse voice edged with indignation, scoffed at Vice President Bush’s contention that the Republican ticket was ”on your side,” and pressed his appeal to traditional Democrats.

Today’s crowds came amid showings of enthusiasm for most of the week – a crowd of 15,000 in Philadelphia on Thursday, 9,000 in Chicago on Wednesday and 7,500 in Milwaukee on Tuesday.

John Kerry lost a close race to George W. Bush in 2004, but still drew large crowds at the end. In fact, it seems the only candidate in recent memory not to draw large crowds to rallies at the end of his campaign was John McCain in 2008. As the New York Times reported on Oct. 25, 2008:

This is HERE - this is NOW. Historically, shit has happened - and a lot of it was unpredictable in IT'S time and place. Remember President Dewey?

any further in Presidential Politics...I just hate this ripping at one another. I am so done with it! I will stay out of the Primaries groups and do my own thing, on my own on DU.

but referring to you. Hope you are proud of yourself. I am gone.

my point was to not be elated by large crowds at rallies and read too much into them -- they mean nothing.

Peace.

I can really think of no other reason you keep popping in to post this.

That said, my belief is Hillary will lose the nomination to Bernie, and Bernie will win the White House!

Have a nice day.

and gone on to win the nomination, and later get elected?

For the same reasons you state.

Will see you again when sanity returns

I suspect the crowds will be bigger when that occurred. It's unfair to equate these two event considering the time factor.

I realize they all still went for Reagan, but it's not that hard to pack a rally in a traditionally blue state.

Arizona is a deep red state, as is Texas. Big rallies in those places matter.

They are out working (you see they are not college kids with trust funds), or tend to be older in age and rallies are less likely to be their thing.

This is going to be exciting.

eom

Turning red to purple! I am thrilled.

Vote who you want. Is this the right thread? Are you confused?
It's not like there are threads where your comment would be welcome

The halls in Dallas and Houston hold 8 to 9K. Considering the turnout in Phoenix, they might be turning people away in Texas!

He has many passionate and sincere supporters.

Is there any empirical evidence that large crowds translates into actual votes on election day (as that is what actually counts)? And remember you have to control for other variables.

I'll wait.

and are grasping at straws.

Whilst I personally like Bernie and his policies and would support him if he is the nominee, I continue to believe that he is unelectable in the GE.

Now, let's put the rally in perspective...

Arizona has 3,235,690 registered voters of which 923,283 are democrats and 4,757 are "green party"

So, 11,000 people at the rally is 1.2% of the total democrats not counting the greens who are more likely to support Bernie. Add to it the novelty factor to see someone new and ecstatic jubilation at the 11K number is a bit premature.

why are you spending so much energy on being negative?

Of all registered Democrats in the STATE of Arizona...

People had to work...people live hundreds of mile away from Phoenix...people are disabled and can't travel...people are caregiviving for family and/or friends...people had no transportation (because they have no money to buy a damned car, license it and insure it when they have no job or a part-time, temporary, minimum wage one)...and it goes on and on.

Your insinuation that the 11,000+ that were there is some how insignificant, is absurd.

Did you answer my question?

Must be bigger if she's so electable and popular...

Better let Howard Dean know.

If you don't like his metric, don't complain to me about it.

Let me answer - NONE.

Even her glorified announcement had EMPTY overflow areas. If she can only get 5k in NYC, after being their Senator...?

Yeah, her support is a mile wide and less than an inch deep. There are only so many billionaires, but theree are a lot of the rest of us!

If HRC can't draw in crowds like Sanders then there's something broken within her campaign's inevitability mantra. Though here at DU I guess it's already no longer an operative term.

So HRC has gobs and gobs of money in her war chest, and gobs and gobs of name recognition. She has the support of lots of the Democratic Party establishment.

Some people will look at that and see the reason she will be nominated. Others will look at that and see an opportunity to nominate a game changer, a real progressive candidate.

Most of the time people don't show up for rallies of a candidate because they have already decided to vote for him/her. Generally, they show up to evaluate someone knew that they may have heard good things about and want to see/hear for themselves. If the candidate doesn't close the sale in such an encounter, those votes are forever lost. That is the danger facing Bernie -- he is an unknown quantity -- like the newly born panda in a zoo, curiosity seekers will flock to see. If he doesn't close the sale with those people, he has lost them forever.

Also, the presidential election is not a retail election but a wholesale election. No matter how many individuals want your product in Texas or Arizona, if the distributor doesn't carry the whole state, it has no impact.

The last democrat to carry Texas was a "conservative" southern democrat -- Jimmy Carter in 1976.

Bernie is going to be the Ron Paul of the democratic party -- if he wins the nomination, I doubt he will carry anything more than MA, VT, NY, IL, CA and OR. Wait to hear the mantra repeated over and over and over ...

So-sha-list
So-sha-list
So-sha-list

he wins the nomination? Because only carrying MA, VT, NY, IL, CA and OR is a ridiculous assertion and means Democrats either sat home or voted for the Republican.

therefore, candidates who aren't drawing huge crowds are more likely to win?

Sanders is drawing supporters, and crowds. The HRC campaign looks moribund by comparison. A campaign has to look vibrant, and not like just some massive monolith that has inertia.

This is what a primary is usually mostly about. We compare the people who will be carrying our platform. The problem with the inertia of the HRC monolith is that while it can obliterate what's in its path, it seems to have little ability to adapt to the changed circumstances it now faces.

Saying that Sanders had no chance hasn't helped, Sanders now places higher in the polls. Doubling down and saying that Sanders would grow stale hasn't helped; his popularity grows as his campaign looks even more energized.

Anyone looking for signs that the large crowd around HRC is getting a handle on this is in for slim pickings. And that isn't going unnoticed, by anybody. There are implications to a campaign looking so out of step and boring, and people are keeping score.

What's most glaring about Sanders vs. Clinton is what isn't being seen. What's not being seen is any obvious path for the HRC campaign to seal the deal and lock up the nomination early on. Six months ago, that at this point in time the HRC campaign wouldn't be totally dominating the field and enjoying a slow procession towards locking things up early, this scenario would not have been taken seriously.

The serious people were wondering who could be persuaded to act as a pace car or/and audition for Vice President.

It's been a cruel summer so far for anyone who was banking on that.

Hot summer streets
And the pavements are berning ...

Bush wasn't drawing crowds like Sanders is. Though the similarity between the support for the inevitability of Reagan and that given the Clinton campaign is eerie.

Bush spent a lot of time shaking hands in Iowa and grew to be popular among Republican primary voters. Reagan's popularity was wide and deep, he just didn't hold rallies. After Iowa, Reagan changed.

Bush's victory in Iowa touched off a power struggle within the Reagan campaign and motivated the candidate. Members of Reagan's old California political team, encouraged by Nancy Reagan, knew that their candidate was at his best when voters saw him in person, where they could hear his often inspiring oratory and sense his personal warmth. Reagan campaigned nearly uninterrupted for twenty-one days in New Hampshire, a display of stamina that quieted concerns about his age. And when he faced off against his rivals in two February debates, Reagan proved a superior candidate.

It was his soundbites played in the media that made him popular in the spring and summer of 1980. Bush was the favorite to win and did amass a lot of delegates but in the end, he threw in the towel when he was offered the VP slot.

that Bush did much better at campaigning and getting the base excited than Reagan.

I disagree that was the case. People always flocked to see Reagan speak. I can remember my father driving to hear Reagan speak at our local airport in the '70s.

Bush didn't get the crowds Sanders does, and Clinton has yet to get people excited like Reagan did.

Bush was decent at campaigning in Iowa, but that's not much to draw a comparison to Sanders on.

So I don't buy into "Reagan" as a good example. This is the question I posed.

"What candidate has consistently drawn smaller crowds than their primary opponent and gone on to win the nomination, and later get elected?"

There's no evidence that "Reagan" is an example of that. Bush's popularity with more sensible Republicans isn't relevant to that, or is how Reagan campaigned.

Hillary was here not long ago. Not open to the public however. Her fund raising event was held in one of the most tony sections of Atlanta, of course at some millionaires home.

Great line. What is Hillary's plan to bring back prosperity to the masses? Is it more tinkle down economics of giving every conceivable tax break to the billionaires in the hopes they might throw a few crumbs our way...a la reaganomics. Or is it what Bernie is talking about. Reforming our tax structure to reward creating jobs here and levy higher taxes those that choose financial speculation and engage in endless profiteering. Hillary's true position can be found on who funds her campaign. It is the same list that that funds the republican campaigns.

I'm very surprised Americans are finally waking up.........