and impressive numbers.

Really?

His audience at Liberty U was required to be there.

You just restored partial faith of humanity.

😱

Much larger crows than the others in the field and a much larger presence of supporters online.

You obsess about him apparently daily.

If it was Clinton getting these kinds of numbers, the story would be oh so very different.

Hell, the only reason y'all trot out this dead horse to beat is because two months in this shows a really strong candidacy.

I also liked how he didn't play the game and just give the usual Republican talking points but actually spoke his mind and stuck to his convictions (for the most part) even though the Republican establishment rejected him and the MSM tried to ignore him.

A lot of similarities with what is happening with Bernie right now (even though their actual political views are not similar).

Do you not think this is a valid observation?

Perhaps he will see similar electoral success.

obvious bias, then yes, I do believe he can.

Thankfully the campaign season is young.

I spoke with many young people who supported Paul for one or two particular reasons, but he was so far outside the norm in other areas he did not have general appeal. Even though they supported him, they didn't have the overall enthusiasm that translated into votes. That's where Bernie has the advantage.

In terms of enthusiasm translating to votes.

Presumably enthusiasm makes it more likely someone will actually vote and makes it more
likely they will spread the word about their candidate, but it also can tend to make people
think their candidate has more support than they actually do (case in point Ron Paul).

Both Ron Paul and Bernie appeal to the same kind of discontent on economic and personal freedom issues. Bernie also appeals to people with social consciences. Ron Paul did not have broad appeal on social conscience issues like homelessness, poverty, race, LGBT marriage and equality, abortion, etc.

Bernie will probably have a broader appeal among voters once they get his message. He is speaking up for working people. Ron Paul spoke up for the rich and wannabe business types.


There are a lot more working people than there are wannabe business types.

A man sowed his seeds in a field of rocks with little fertile soil. His harvest was sparse. That's Ron Paul. His seeds were sown in a field with few voters.

A man sowed his seeds in a field of rich, fertile soil. His harvest was plentiful. That's Bernie. His seeds are being sown in a field with many voters -- middle class and working people for whom economic issues are very important.

In 2008, the banks were on the brink of if not over the brink of bankruptcy. The US government bailed them out.

And then, what did the banks do? Bail out homeowners who were forced under water on their homes thanks to the banks' insolvency and greed? Agree to pay extra high taxes to help create lots of jobs so that Americans could work and pay their mortgage debts? Give a break to homeowners with a mortgage payment vacation for overburdened American families? Offer high interest rates to depositors in order to encourage the personal and social virtue of saving so that we wouldn't have another financial collapse? How about forgiving the remainder due on the loans on foreclosed houses?

No. None of that.

The bankers congratulated themselves on having negotiated their way out of the hole their own gambling and erroneous math had gotten them into, balked at regulation and resisted all but the most basic changes in the laws that needed to be made to prevent another such breakdown, took their huge bonuses, felt smug, offered very little interest to depositors so as to avoid encouraging prudent saving by ordinary Americans and just laughed and laughed as they gleefully spent and invested the huge bonuses they have taken home since the 2008 crash.

Bankers are still enjoying the wages of their sins, having cleverly outmaneuvered homebuyers, many of whom were young or immigrants or seniors and unsophisticated about the housing market.

Now if the banks had been dealing with sophisticated buyers and skyscrapers worth millions, they would have done a work-out.

But we have a nation in which a lot of middle class and working people feel they were cheated. Many of them went into bankruptcy, ruined their credit and are having a tough time getting back on their feet. Businesses failed. Homes were lost. Jobs were lost. Families fell apart.

There is more anger now than there even was in 2012 because so much time has passed and the banks and Wall Street have done far too little to pay back to the American people on their debt, their moral and social debt to Americans for having bailed them out.

What if the US government had not bailed out the banks, the insurance companies and Wall Street?

The banks, the insurance companies and Wall Street need to think about that because Bernie is going to build his poll numbers thanks to their insensitive, self-centered greed.

Ron Paul did not have the message of the moment to the largest pool of voters. Bernie does.

I definitely feel like Sanders has a much more appealing message and better chance for electoral success.

that raked in hundreds of billions of dollars even after their fines (no jail, hell, no prosecution). Then they spread money all over D.C. again and everything was back to normal for them.

mess and eat the left overs from their feast. And they are still raking in money hand over fist while Americans try to put their lives back together.

Families fell apart or were placed under great stress over this stupid, greedy grab by the banks.

If I could see the mortgage crisis coming, surely the bank economists could have seen it a mile away. You just cannot have housing prices rise as they did while wages are stagnant.

Right now, we have fixed mortgage rates that are low, so rising housing prices may not create a crisis as long as wages do not decline and people stay in their homes with their low-interest loans. But even now in LA housing prices are rising. (They are even worse I guess in Silicon Valley.) I hope buyers are getting fixed rate mortgages. And I hope they keep their jobs.

One reason I support Bernie is that he supports a Glass-Steagall type of restriction on the banks and investment houses.

The economy is precarious. As long as the Fed is afraid to raise interest rates, we have to admit to ourselves that our economy has not recovered to a reasonable extent.

So when are you going to change the "Warren 2016" banner at the bottom of your posts to a "Bernie" one?

Against marijuana legalization, anti choice, opposed to marriage equality, his 'personal freedoms' views are strictly Republican, as are those of his offspring Rand.

This crafted public image you repeat is just that, a public image. Ron Paul is nothing at all like Bernie Sanders, there is no comparison at all. Among other things, Paul Jr and Sr are both plain old Republicans, Party Regulars. The whole 'they are libertarians' routine is bogus. Republicans. Dyed in the wool conservatives, Ron very religious, openly racist, horribly homophobic. Also against every sort of personal 'freedom' or liberty I can think of that does not apply to business being 'free' to abuse their customers.

eom