. . . I think part of the answer is the fact that many of the attendees aren't, yet, old enough to vote. One of the youngsters interviewed (before Bernie arrived) was only fifteen years old. Those youngsters, however, are more than willing to volunteer to phonebank, knock on doors, etc. It's their future they're looking toward.

It's all good!

Sanders appeals to independents who don't know much about the political process.

rules were the same for his campaigns by and large as they are this year. Obama got those young people into the voting booth, even in the primaries. Sanders, not so much.

I generally don't follow the primary battles as close as I have this time around. So I guess I'm as baffled by this as you are,

a great ground game. He also did not hold rallies exclusively near colleges and court mostly the young voters. Even though the primary was ugly, it wasn't this ugly. Some supporters for Bernie are acting just like did the republicans during the general election with the name calling and blame game.

Isn't it possible that most people who attended rallies and were eligible to vote DID do so? In most states the # of voters was several to many times more than the 10000 or so who might have attended rallies in that state.

It may instead be that many of HRC's supporters are just not the rally-goer type. (I know I'm not--the only rally I attended in semi-recent years was Jon Stewart's and my hero's rally - and it was so jam packed I am not sure I would ever do it again!)

I'd never attend a rally. I do send$ to Hillary.

i try to avoid crowds. i lived in NYC for the first 48 years of my life and hated the crowds.

The Sanders campaign bumbled along like a gang of amateurs.

How much time and energy did Sanders people waste on stupid crap like freeping online polls, campaigning to get Time Magazine to name Bernie Person of the Year, campaigning to get him on Saturday Night Live, etc?

Obama would have shut that shit down in a heartbeat and told them to get their asses to the phonebooks.

I've posted here pictures of Ronmey's huge rallies, including one of 30,000 people in Ohio the night before the election.
I also remember huge rallies for Kerry, and of course, Howard Dean.

Let's also remember that while crowds can impress due to they size, they add up only to thousands of people, really small, very small portion of the population. The great majority of voters, millions of them, have never attended a rally in their life.

to see what he was all about and then decided not to vote for him.

The rallies were almost always held near large colleges (I believe). Need I go on? OK, I will. Of course this attracted the students, who went because everyone was going, it was what was happening! This does not mean they were the least bit interested in what Bernie was selling. My 1 cents worth.

Eventually I got off the fence.

Glad you ended up on this side!

Obama used big rallies for the media spectacle but they also used it as a volunteer recruiting tool. They did everything in their power to make sure a good portion of the volunteers at the rally signed up for either phone banking or canvassing at the rally.

They also used them as a motivational tool. When I campaigned in 2008 I got special seating for all the volunteer work I had done.

I wouldn't be caught dead at a Bernie rally so I don't know how they used them to organize but I suspect they emphasized more on the spectacle and less on the organizing.

I was very close to the podium They used color coded tickets. I also scored free t-shirts, buttons, and signs.
one of the most organized campaigns I ever worked on.

This, along with the locations of the rallies. I look forward, someday to reading more about the behind-the-scenes operations of the PBO campaigns. The depth of organization seems astounding.

Neither Bernie nor his staff knows how to manage funding, time or effort. That's a big part of why he's spent twice as much money as Hillary and gotten half as many votes.

It's also why the FEC is after him and why he committed the stupidity of paying for his Roman jaunt with campaign funds. He's going to have to pay that money back out of his own pocket. If he doesn't have more resources than he's admitted to, that's going to be rough.

He translated the attendees at his rallies into voters and then supporters. Obama was all about the ground game. He had an organization in place and used it effectively. He also received an early endorsement from John Kerry and had access to the organization Kerry had built in 2004.

Bernie has been in over his head from day one. He likes having big venues to rant and rave about his ideas, but has NO clue how to organize and effect change. This is one of the many, many reasons I have never felt the Bern.

like New Hampshire. And in some places, like Ohio and Pennsylvania, he lost by a wide margin while drawing huge crowds.

Now Hillary has a lot of his old staff. Those commitment sheets that the Bernie people thought were fascist mind-control that she had them fill out at her rallies are turned into lists. Then you put them all into your data and follow up with phone calls and reminders about where and when to vote.

I am assuming, though I don't know, that this sort of mechanism was not used at the Sanders rallies.

and make sure they knew their state's rules? Did he set up registration booths at his rallies?

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Apparently his campaign didn't know it was their responsibility.

I attended a large rally for Walter Mondale late during the 1984 elections. People were loud and enthusiastic.

Mondale went on to lose my state.

1984 was the last time Washington state was carried by the Republican presidential candidate.

the grassroots with the campaign leadership.

It's great if you have lots of enthusiastic supporters at the grassroots, but they need effective leadership.

Sanders apparently thought all he had to do was show up at huge rallies and spout empty rhetoric.

His campaign team doesn't seem to grasp the concept of organization. I think they're more interested in siphoning off money into their own pockets.

And the local level Sanders supporters were just not trained properly and too willing to do seedy stuff like steal data, impersonate union people and misappropriate logos to fake endorsements.

Example of poor planning and organization, his campaign couldn't be bothered helping handicapped supporters voter in Wyoming.

His campaigned failed to facilitate voting.

Thanks for posting it. I think I had seen it before, but your post is what made me actually read it.

Bernie didn't. Obama, also had an impressive GOTV, Bernie didn't. There in lies the difference.

for months, but the Corporate Media refuses to take the BSers to task.

And the BSers don't answer. All they do is: But, Hillary is this...but but but...Hillary is that!

So sick of this shit, already!

Get Out the Vote!

The Obama campaign had organizers who worked to make sure that people who supported him voted for him. There was massive registrations efforts, door to door, register you right there.

Then on election day, they called, or knocked on your door to make sure you voted.


GOTV!

I hope the Clinton campaign uses some of that going forward and gets the community organizers, grass roots effort to get people to the polls.

There is nothing about these two men that is remotely similar.

I will give Bernie some credit though. He has managed to convince a yuuuge amount of young, white and privileged college students with money to spare, that they are persecuted and should revolt to take even more than they already have!

And you can't get more different than Barack Obama. He gave rousing, inspiring speeches, he looked different and his name was different and he had his own massive machine backing him--something HRC obviously paid attention to since BS supporters like to go on about the Clinton Machine.

Politically things are decent so we don't need huge change--for many they want to stay the course. Now, I think, BS represents too much change all at once for the average voter.

There's also the herd mentality--all these people are into BS so I better see what he's all about doesn't translate into support in the end, just mere curiosity.

in the 2008 primaries was white liberals and African Americans. Sanders is missing the latter demographic.

Just throwing that out there. If your friends are going to a political rally you might also go.

When I lived abroad it was fun to be part of political events even though they did not concern me b/c you learn a lot and it's a happening.