Jesse Jackson won the Vermont caucuses in 1988 with the help of Sanders. Note that Vermont doesn't have party registration, so I'd be surprised if Sanders wasn't there himself.

how many other states did he carry.

See, there is the difference. Do you really want to compare the win/loss records of the Clintons vs Sanders in races where the outcomes weren't already nearly forgone conclusions?

Please provide us with a list of his "victories" in that election cycle. Thanks in advance.

campaign. I suspect it had to do with two things: being black and his participation in the marches in the 60s.

I remember him being quite popular in Iowa with the Democrats in my area.

His brilliant campaign in Iowa was a model of efficiency and appeal.

That he had a different message didn't hurt, either.

well in Iowa.

It's me old war wound!!!!

Bubba mentioned Jesse in 2008, too!!!!!!!
My steak knives are all really, really sharp now!!!!!!!!!

town hall situations. If you've been serving such a small constituency for nearly a third of a century, it's likely that you've encountered many of the members of that constituency.


There are fewer people in the entire state of VT than there are in the city of Boston. VT is so small they don't have congressional districts--they have a single "at large" congressman, who used to be Sanders before he went to the Senate. He didn't have to woo a new group of people when he changed jobs, it was the same bunch, state-wide.

they think they can get the entire Democratic Party to support them.

That Zell Miller?

Yes. They do control much of the process which is why I and my fellow Bernistas are right there in the middle of it all.

and then expecting those big name contributors to fund Sanders campaign the one that many think can be won for only 36 million. Just wait until the televised ads appear day in and day out. If anyone think the KOCH brothers are prepared to lose then they think Ft Knox is full of gold.

Good F---king luck.

However, being around the scuttlebutt though does allow us to know what is going on.

he's digging a hole he won't come out from. President Obama had to raise hundred of millions for both campaign and its estimated this one will be around 1 billion.

See both of them are the same page and cater to the same constituents, so they had to out spend each other to get the undecided voters on their side which was I estimate about 40% of the Democrats. There really nothing there but a scratch your ass vote. There is no undecided here in this election unless they kill Bernie.

It seems her supporters are relying on everything BUT the issues.

Rig the election by limiting debate
Call his supporters 'White Supremicists"
Claim 'Hive Mind' control over Women and POC
Polls! Extrapolation!
Attacking with strawmen
Use the media to 'hide' his message
Throw stink bombs at his rallies
etc

ANYTHING but substantive issues.

and he's a Soshalist (McCaskill). Booga, booga.

What's up with your hidden replies and the Sanders/Tea Party crap???

This seems to be a real struggle for some people to catch on to.

"My candidate is rich, so they should be in charge" is not a viable argument.

just another "Bernie can't win" meme?

Many of us are seasoned campaigners. I for one have been working in campaigns as long as the OP has.

The advice the OP was giving was get involved in local politics. Go to the caucus. That is exactly what Bernie is very good at - finding voters who have dropped out and bringing them back into the system. Voters who are sick and tired of business as usual.

In Iowa he has ground support and seems to know what he is doing. Iowa also has good media coverage from papers such as the Des Moines Tribune that usually does not play favorites. The people of Iowa expect the paper to tell them what is actually going on.

It's part of why I wrote the OP. Last I checked, less than half of the counties in Iowa had an on ground Sanders Campaign presence. What is there , especially in Des Moines, is rock solid, but there needs to be a couple of meetings to figure out how to expand where there is no presence. There's more to the caucus than Des Moines.

by volunteers. Places like Sioux City and Council Bluffs as well as much of eastern Iowa are strong union holds and that may be how they are run.

I know that a lot of organizing is being done by volunteers. I don't think we should underestimate their work. Where I am living now in NE MN it is volunteers who are handing out fliers in the parade on Monday.

I do plan on calling our Democratic Party leader in this country and asking him what is going on in our small community - again very union. My daughter told me that many in this area do not get involved until the union endorses. IMO that is not quite fair since it means that all the rest of us need to wait until that happens. I know that the Bernie supporters are not waiting but with the majority of people (union) setting back we are not coordinating.

I also think that we have one thing that those of us who have worked in campaigns before did not have - the internet. I cannot believe how it is being used to enhance the Bernie campaign.

Way back when I helped set up the walking decks for a campaign in Iowa City and then helped work on software for that program so it could be used over and over. I remember setting on the headquarters floor organizing the decks in street succession. Today I would be using a computer to do that. By the way Gary Hart was my boss then.

I think Bernie is going to do okay in the caucuses because he is reaching out to so many in his rallies. And a lot of them are very dedicated. They are angry and young (you know like we were in 72) and they are going to do what they have to do.

One of the things I like about a caucus is that you discuss in the meeting why you support your candidate and have a chance to change minds. Bernie supporters know their stuff. And their excitement is not contagious.

As to the General - to a lot of people in this country money is the problem. Just the fact that a candidate is bought and paid for or rich is a strike against him today. No matter who the nominee is there will be union money, personal donations, volunteers doing work free, and DNC money. And don't underestimate those of us who are donating to Bernie - I have donated $15 a month for one year and I am poor. I also plan to buy thing from the store. We are determined.

I worked for Gary Hart too! Had a long conversation with him once at a fundraiser ten years later about how things have changed.

DO start with the Dem Party, like I said, it's key.

You know what happens in a LOT of caucuses, you have to deal with all kinds of petty rivalries and overcome them.

That requires meeting the people who are running the show in advance.

because they can win? God this is the kind of advice that got us beat in all those elections in the past. Business as usual. Crooks and liars.

...at least that's what I've been told here.

and insult every Democrat who crosses their path.

Fact.

Or keep the media from talking about him. Of convince women and POC that he is a racist. Or have her former campaign co-chair rig the debate schedule for her. Or divide the party along racial and gender lines. If you can only keep these things up for five more months!

Or you can talk substance and issues, but I don't see that happening anytime soon.

1) Which Hillary supporters threw stink bombs at Sanders rallies? What are you referring to?

2) How are Hillary supporters preventing the media from talking about Sanders?

Please provide some actual evidence of this.

I won't hold my breath....

caucuses is in for a Big surprize.

all that needs to happen is for the public to see Bernie just once....and magically...abracadabra...they are smitten....fall in love....and then totally show up on Election Day!


That's pretty much the outline or blueprint of their steps to the Whitehouse plan! They think they can win the General Election on a shoe string budget too!

Bernie and when Bernie wins, we will need the resources anf experience and personal contacts of those clubs to defeat the Republican candidate.

We are ready to do it again. Washington state is a caucus state. Already gathering .

You do realize she has Barack Obama's ground game on her team right? Do you think they are twiddling their thumbs?

But you Clintonistas just keep whistling past the graveyard. Clinton will choke just like in '08. People are looking for a real democrat to vote for, not a republican lite...that's why her poll #'s are steadily dropping...people are finding out there's an alternative to the Wall St backed status quo.

please tell us who!!!


http://www.politico.com/story/2015/04/hillary-clintons-power-players-116874


There's her whole staff......pretty formidable bunch! As I said before....Good Luck...you're going to need it!

That a lot of us kept working together on different causes together and separately for the last 8 years. We would go out and support each other's causes. You know. .The ground teams..The no names the ones who had other jobs at the same time. The ones that learned how to do it.

It's so obvious to me, one candidate is out there with the people every day.

The other is with mega billionaires in the Hamptons.

Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with us?

Is a big signal to the electorate about how you'd run your administration.

Centrists could look at Bush III and Sanders and say "I like what I hear from Sanders, but I don't think he'll be able to be CEO of a presidential administration -- and Bush, while I disagree with much of what he says, seems as if he could run a White House."

We don't want people saying that.

Myself, I'm not even in the US at present, so all I can do is send money (and I'm hedging my bets by donating to both Sanders and Clinton).

Capn Sunshine sure seems to know what he's talking about. I hope the right people in the Sanders campaign are listening.

I've talked to the PDA people organizing Florida. The Sanders campaign has some very knowledgeable people running it. At this point, the campaign is operating on a tight budget...sanders doesn't have the backing of Wall St billionaires like Clinton does. So the campaign focus is on the early states. PDA is laying the groundwork in the other states, getting volunteers signed up and scheduling rallies. When the campaign moves into those states, the groundwork the PDA has laid is going to be turned over to the campaign to manage. It's a well organized grass roots effort that is gaining momentum and has a good chance of succeeding. It's thousands of volunteers being ACTIVE, not a bunch of hired PR people, pollsters, focus groups, and consultants. Democracy in action, baby.

The Sanders has many staffers that are brilliant and innovative...don't think for one single second that they aren't taking every aspect of this campaign into consideration.

And while Ms. Inevitable continues her $2700 per plate private money grubbing, invitation only "conversations", being roped off from the public at large, giving only select media interviews and has the entrenched establishment puppets out doing the dirty work of trying to bring down Bernie and a BFF at the DNC doing her damnedest to limit exposure and debate...

Bernie keeps talking to the American people...who vote...and who are mad as hell and aren't going to take it anymore.

This is just the beginning and ya'all ain't seen nothing yet.

Let me introduce you to the seasoned Hillary Clinton team....

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/04/hillary-clintons-power-players-116874

Good luck with all that!

but far be it from me to stand in your way of ignoring ACTUAL campaign advice from an apparently ACTUAL campaign advisor...or one very close to one.....Please proceed.......!!!!

Yeah all those Trump voters....

They are angry too....at least I am pretty sure ....what they are angry "and not going to take anymore".about.......

You have to get involved at the local level. You. Posting here online. PDA isn't exactly rolling in dough, and their people are good, but there just aren't enough of them.

If you want to pitch in with some action, write PDA. :

mikefox@pdamerica.org

at least in Minnesota.

Oh true, I think those running the state DFL wish he would go away, but you get down to the local level and there are a lot of people on the DFL central committee in my state senate district are working for Bernie. And these are people who have been active since Eugene McCarthy and George McGovern. Yes, there are a lot of young ones who are new to the process signing up but there are enough of us oldsters around to help get them through the process. One of the things I signed up to do is "caucus education" so they'll know what to expect from our long, sometimes tedious, and time consuming process here.

That is just a cold hard fact.


Sorry but reality is a MOFO..

if Clinton wins it really won't matter any more it will still be Game, Set and Match for the 1%.

It's a brutal cold, hard fact...Hillary was bought-and-paid-for years ago by the enemies of the public's economic interests.

The end is nigh!

God forbid Hillary Rodham Clinton become President!.....We are dooooooooomed!!!!!!!

Oh and thank you for your 'concern'

Those "things are most assuredly NOT happening. And you're welcome. IF I didn't care about a legit outcome I would have remained silent.

I've been at it for 40 years so yes, I know plenty about organizing. I even have a degree in it. But what WOULD we do without some Democratic party hack male coming to swoop in to tell us all how to organize? Well, my poor little woman brain is just all aflutter with confusion.

And fuck the Democratic Party. They're part of the problem.

In some people's world, that's a skeery thing.

he'd stand on a soapbox and praise Paul LePage if the Maine Democratic Party sold-out and endorsed that RW shitbag for higher office.

RB's fully a supporter of the Democratic party laundry and not the person in it or the policies they want to run on. A real party cheerleader.

And the thread author.

Something I get reminded of every time I get involved with a campaign or a cause, how scared people are of passion and if one has passion about one's beliefs it's automatically assigned as a mental illness ("take your meds&quot . Ever notice that?

Funny how people see a totally different thing in the same place at the same time.

On Sun Sep 6, 2015, 08:36 AM an alert was sent on the following post:

"Hack male"? "Fuck the Democratic Party"? Please, take your meds.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1251&pid=573635

REASON FOR ALERT

This post is disruptive, hurtful, rude, insensitive, over-the-top, or otherwise inappropriate.

ALERTER'S COMMENTS

"Take your meds"??? Remove this personal attack.

You served on a randomly-selected Jury of DU members which reviewed this post. The review was completed at Sun Sep 6, 2015, 09:14 AM, and the Jury voted 3-4 to LEAVE IT.

Juror #1 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: No explanation given
Juror #2 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: No explanation given
Juror #3 voted to HIDE IT
Explanation: No explanation given
Juror #4 voted to HIDE IT
Explanation: Making fun of mental illness id wrong, Not that LTH is mentally ill but this remark seems to infer it.
Juror #5 voted to HIDE IT
Explanation: As one who takes meds (think you for reminding me to take my buproprion), I say HIDE IT.
Juror #6 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: Anyone who says "Fuck the Democratic Party" should be banned from a forum built for Democrats. Leave it for visibility.
Juror #7 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE
Explanation: It's just not worth upsetting RB this early in the morning.

Thank you very much for participating in our Jury system, and we hope you will be able to participate again in the future.

Don't tell them this. We've grown to enjoy the stunned silence on election night and the conspiracy theories that follow.

I am never sure of the motivation for this stuff - is it just seventh-grade jeering, or do you really expect Bernie's supporters to switch their support? My money is on the jeering.

In any event, I will be sticking with Bernie. So will my family and friends. I do understand that Hillary is trying to get signed pledges ahead of time - afraid of actually campaigning? That is what it looks like. What is she going to do in the GE - demand we all send her our mail-in ballots?

is. I believe that is more the attitude of many of Bernie's supporters.

like it or not sugar, we are the Party. The Franklin and Eleanor Democrats, the Barbara Jordan Democrats, the Harvey Milk Democrats.

voters, but it won't .

Us Sanders supporters are soooooo stupid we don't know how the system works. Ya mean we really have to show up at caucuses and vote in primaries to win?

Whooda thunk it?

Thanks for educating us dumbass prols, we are lost without brilliant thinkers like you.

I can look at, like people whose ideas actual resulted in electoral victory instead of those who lost our Party into near oblivion? Dean and McGovern on how to win elections.....like acting lessons from Carrot Top.

We were able to articulate some pretty strong victories after that. The election of 2006. Obama X 2
California.

Hi Capn! Haven't seen you in a dog's age.

Meetings and signs and bake sales and internet posts and demonstrations on street corners are great for team spirit. But YOU need to be engaging passersby at those demonstrations, getting contact info, and registering them to vote Democratic.

I posted because the rallies I've attended , no one is doing this stuff.

PDA, longtime activists, they know it too. So they are trying to pick up the slack. But we need MORE

election. The July 29 meetings did that all across the country. I could not go so I signed up on the internet that night. I know it sounds like it is disorganized but I knew about handing out fliers. All of us are kept informed about what is going on and sign up for the work.

I helped phone in 2014 and we won but I honestly think that our candidate would have won without it.

I've been pretty busy. Nice to see some old holdouts are still here. and the usual suspects as well lol

It really is such a delight to see you again. I hope to hell that Bernie's team is staffing some real, ground level caucus pros to train the volunteers or, as you say, it's game over. There were literally hundreds of us freezing our butts off for Dean in Iowa in '04, but Trippi and company were slipshod on the arcane mysteries of the caucus. There was all the enthusiasm in the world, but without solid preparation for getting supporters educated on the mechanics, from voter registration to transportation to caucus process, it's wasted energy. I'm hoping that doesn't happen again.

Last edited Sun Sep 6, 2015, 12:14 PM - Edit history (1)

a Sanders supporter accuses others of doing the very thing they've been doing for months on end.

That's "cute."

edit - typo

I realize it's difficult to understand the complex nuance between those two positions.

The term "moron" has been used, among other condescending language.

Then again, I suppose I just don't understand nuance.


lol, oh look...you just did it again.

Talking down to the rest of us has been the Numero Uno political point made to us this year.

During tomorrow's annual Labor Day union barbecue I will be delivering a small speech entitled, "We can't afford to go back now", telling people why Bernie Sanders is so important.

President Obama was able to stop the national political pendulum from swinging to the right for 8 years, he was able to stop the momentum that Bush and the GOP machine had built up in this country, and Obama started to swing that pendulum back to the left.

Bernie Sanders is the one that we need now to swing that political pendulum clear to the left!

I'm just trying to make sure the candidate ultimately is a product of what we want.

I'm still undeclared. Or at least, neutral. I'd like Hillary to pick up on Sander's message. I'd like Sanders to take a deep breath and focus on how this is done. He's already admitted the campaign needs LOTS of on-ground support which is currently lacking.


So stop arguing with me and go out and do it.

Elsewhere I mention what I want to see out of both candidates, but if I could go and whip that barn dance into shape I sure as hell would. I'm phone banking for Russ Feingold, if that helps. And strategerie with the SEIU. The big unions sit out the primaries though, as much as their memberships love the Bern man.

BTW I have NEVER, EVER seen a Presidential candidate walk a picket line, ever.

That was fucking awesome.

No arrogance here.

I don't think Sanders and his supporters are total neophytes at the game. Some of his supporters are new to the whole politics thing as many are younger so your post does good to illustrate how the game works. I appreciated it, and I have no doubt Sanders and his team will kick some royal ass.

I use royal on purpose.

Cheers!

where did you find a caucus where hillary met the 15% threshold?

personally i think the caucuses will be the easy part, much harder to cheat than the primaries

When a loosely organized bunch of supporters for one candidate are trying to figure out what to do, they're too easily overwhelmed by the much better organized, trained and supported group that's turned out and led by the local party establishment ( who have been doing this forever). While the challengers group are trying to decide what they're supposed to be doing, the regulars are chatting up the uncommitted voters and people who support second and third tier candidates, getting commitments to go with them on the second ballot.