2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forum"The biggest mistake Clinton has made during this election season is attacking Sanders."
link to Taylor Gipple's excellent analysis on Huffington Post; excerpt:
The mainstream media almost convinced me Bernie Sanders had lost the Democratic nomination after his disappointing Super Tuesday. ... I wasnt going to vote, politics was finally at its peak of corruption and the American public just didnt care enough about its future. ... But a month later, after many blowout wins by Sanders, and multiple self-inflicting wounds by Clinton, Bernie Sanders proved me wrong. Now more than ever, the light at the end of the tunnel is finally shining through. I thought his momentum was at a halt, but Sanders out-raised Clinton in both February and March (and thats without Super Pacs).
After Sanders wins both Wisconsin and Wyoming later this week, his train is going full steam ahead into New York.... A win in Clintons adopted back yard would push the Sanders campaign over the edge in momentum and cripple any inevitable belief that assumes Clinton will be the nominee.
The biggest mistake Clinton has made during this election season is attacking Sanders. Attacking the most moral candidate weve seen in quite some time is just an awful, embarrassing blundering misstep. Its as if the Clinton camp assumes people dont have access to the internet, wont fact check her, and will believe whatever she says. Thats why she losing the under 40-age vote by a massive margin.... Look at Twitter, Facebook or Reddit, and Clinton overwhelmingly comes off like leprosy among people online. Ill say it again, I just dont see the same enthusiasm coming out of the Clinton camp.
And dont forget Clinton is under federal investigation. No one knows whats going to come of the current investigation, but the fact is she is under federal investigation! If any other candidate was placed under federal investigation, thats an automatic disqualification of being able to run for president of the United States.... Dont think for a second that there isnt still a warm, glowing light at the end of a dark tunnel that is the election process. And that light is shining brighter than ever for Bernie Sanders.
GeorgiaPeanuts
(2,353 posts)Though apparently there are still some people who will believe whatever dungheap she is peddling. Just look at the Hillary Clinton group here...
Hydra
(14,459 posts)They HAVE to keep shoveling, or they feel like she'll lose.
That's the real sign of weakness there- months ago they insisted there was no real challenger to her. Now they are struggling just to stay afloat.
Keep bailing guys!
no wonder they cant relate to working Americans
Hydra
(14,459 posts)So ya, a little hard to relate to the lives of people who make less every year than they pay in taxes.
BernieforPres2016
(3,017 posts)The article says Hillary seems to assume that young people won't fact check her. Today she compounded that by saying she "feels sorry" for young people because they just believe lies they are being told without fact checking.
You can't be much more tone deaf than Hillary and her campaign.
Hydra
(14,459 posts)And she runs off and does it. "Do your own research!"
Oh, we are Madame Secretary...
nc4bo
(17,651 posts)roguevalley
(40,656 posts)media to follow him around. A stupid self inflicted wound
Tanuki
(14,920 posts)Gothmog
(145,435 posts)The concept that the Clinton campaign has been very negative on Sanders is simply false when you look at what Sanders would be subject to if he was the Democratic nominee. VOX had a good article on the potential lines of attack that Sanders would be exposed to if Sanders was the nominee. http://www.vox.com/2016/2/3/10903404/gop-campaign-against-sanders One of the more interesting observations in the VOX analysis is the fact that Sanders have been treated with kids gloves compared to what Sanders would face if he was the Democratic nominee. I strongly agree with the VOX's position that the so-called negative attacks against Sander have been mild. Form the article:
When Sanders supporters discuss these attacks, though, they do so in tones of barely contained outrage, as though it is simply disgusting what they have to put up with. Questioning the practical achievability of single-payer health care. Impugning the broad electoral appeal of socialism. Is nothing sacred?
But c'mon. This stuff is patty-cakes compared with the brutalization he would face at the hands of the right in a general election.
His supporters would need to recalibrate their umbrage-o-meters in a serious way.
The attacks that would be levied against Sanders by the Kochs, the RNC candidate and others in a general election contest would make the so-called attacks against Sanders look like patty-cakes. The GOP and Kochs are not known for being nice or honest and as the article notes there are a ton of good topics available for attack. Raising taxes is never a good campaign platform (Just ask President Mondale). The GOP would also raise the socialism and age issues if Sanders was the nominee.
Again, I agree with the VOX position that so far, Sanders has not been subject to negative attacks close to what the GOP would use against Sanders and the attacks against Sanders if he was the nominee would be brutal. I urge Sanders supporters to read the VOX article to start to get a feel for what real negative attacks would look like.
rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)issues. She has nothing but attacks. Where does she stand on fracking? or the TPP? or putting minorities in prison?
We want progressive leadership. We wanted it in 2008 and were set back and so we will try again. The middle and working classes and the poor can not survive more of the same shit the Clinton Class has been feeding us for 30 years.
Gothmog
(145,435 posts)There is a ton of material available for use. Sansers wpuld be destroyed by Rove, the Kochs znd thr GOP in a general election contest
rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)for Clinton?
First of all, the republicons will say to her, "We appreciate your acquiescing to our Pary in 2002. I guess you recognized that Republicons were better at war."
Gothmog
(145,435 posts)One reason why match up polls are worthless at this stage of the contest is that Sanders has not been vetted or subject to the expected attacks from the GOP. Dana Milbank has some good comments on general election match up polls https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/democrats-would-be-insane-to-nominate-bernie-sanders/2016/01/26/0590e624-c472-11e5-a4aa-f25866ba0dc6_story.html?hpid=hp_opinions-for-wide-side_opinion-card-a%3Ahomepage%2Fstory
Watching Sanders at Monday nights Democratic presidential forum in Des Moines, I imagined how Trump or another Republican nominee would disembowel the relatively unknown Vermonter.
The first questioner from the audience asked Sanders to explain why he embraces the socialist label and requested that Sanders define it so that it doesnt concern the rest of us citizens.
Sanders, explaining that much of what he proposes is happening in Scandinavia and Germany (a concept that itself alarms Americans who dont want to be like socialized Europe), answered vaguely: Creating a government that works for all of us, not just a handful of people on the top thats my definition of democratic socialism.
But thats not how Republicans will define socialism and theyll have the dictionary on their side. Theyll portray Sanders as one who wants the government to own and control major industries and the means of production and distribution of goods. Theyll say he wants to take away private property. That wouldnt be fair, but it would be easy. Socialists dont win national elections in the United States .
Sanders on Monday night also admitted he would seek massive tax increases one of the biggest tax hikes in history, as moderator Chris Cuomo put it to expand Medicare to all. Sanders, this time making a comparison with Britain and France, allowed that hypothetically, youre going to pay $5,000 more in taxes, and declared, W e will raise taxes, yes we will. He said this would be offset by lower health-insurance premiums and protested that its demagogic to say, oh, youre paying more in taxes.
Well, yes and Trump is a demagogue.
Sanders also made clear he would be happy to identify Democrats as the party of big government and of wealth redistribution. When Cuomo said Sanders seemed to be saying he would grow government bigger than ever, Sanders didnt quarrel, saying, P eople want to criticize me, okay, and F ine, if thats the criticism, I accept it.
Sanders accepts it, but are Democrats ready to accept ownership of socialism, massive tax increases and a dramatic expansion of government? If so, they will lose.
Match up polls are worthless because these polls do not measure what would happen to Sanders in a general election where Sanders is very vulnerable to negative ads.
The so-called attacks on Sanders so far pale in comparison to that the GOP will do to Sanders if he is the nominee
Hiraeth
(4,805 posts)so bored watching HRC try to.
Gothmog
(145,435 posts)According to this article, Sanders has been treated with kid gloves by the Clinton campaign to date. However the GOP will not be as kind to Sanders. This article from VOX has some good predictions as to how nasty the GOP and the Kochs will be http://www.vox.com/2016/2/3/10903404/gop-campaign-against-sanders
Sanders would be the oldest president ever to take office older than John McCain, who faced serious questions about this in 2008.
Sanders is a socialist. "No, no," you explain, "it's democratic socialist, like in Denmark." I'm sure GOP attack ads will take that distinction into careful consideration.
Sanders explicitly wants to raise taxes, and not only on the rich.
That's just the obvious stuff. And he has barely been hit on any of it so far.
I have no real way of knowing whether Sanders and his advisers appreciate what's coming if he wins the nomination, or whether they have a serious plan to deal with it, something beyond hoping a political revolution will drown it out.
But at least based on my experience, the Bernie legions are not prepared. They seem convinced that the white working class would rally to the flag of democratic socialism. And they are in a state of perpetual umbrage that Sanders isn't receiving the respect he's due, that he's facing even mild attacks from Clinton's camp.
If they are aware that it's been patty-cakes so far, that much, much worse and more vicious attacks are inevitable, and that no one knows how Sanders might perform with a giant political machine working to define him as an unhinged leftist, they hide it well.
In the name of diverting some small percentage of the social media bile surely headed my way, let's be clear about a few things: This is not an argument against supporting Sanders. There's nothing dumber than making political decisions based on how the other side might react. (For one thing, that would have foreclosed supporting Obama, a black urbanite with a funny name, in 2008.)
But it is an argument that Sanders has gaping vulnerabilities that have not yet been exploited at all, so his followers should not yet feel sanguine about his ability to endure conservative attacks. Also they should get a thicker skin, quick.
The GOP will have a great deal of material to work with and the Kochs will be spending $887 million, the RNC candidate may spend another billion dollars and Bloomberg (who will only run if Sanders is the nominee) will spend another billion dollars. These groups will have a great deal to work with
The concept that the Sanders supporters think that the attacks by the Clinton campaign are scorched earth tactics is really amusing
Hiraeth
(4,805 posts)hobbit709
(41,694 posts)jillan
(39,451 posts)It's totally backfiring.
GreatGazoo
(3,937 posts)Their obsession with the gender and race of voters and saying that women will go to a special place in Hell if they don't vote for Hillary seeks to reduce us all to our skin color or our genitals for their convenience.
She needed to attack Sanders' policies while avoiding any attack on his character (this is a primary after all) but that effort has been muddled by the lack of clarity about her own shifting policies and concerns about her character.
It is 2008 all over again.