Hillary is his toughest competition IMHO. I still think he's a long-shot, but am very excited with how well his campaign is going, and doing plenty on my own to help him along. Go Bernie!

the Dem base. And already he is making inroads into that demographic, his poll numbers rising from 3% approx in Jan to as high as 18% this month.

However I don't think Bernie is aiming at the Dem base so much as he will be going after the much larger voting bloc, Independents AND non-voters.

Those two groups are Bernie's main target. Hillary otoh, will have a hard time getting either of those two demographics. To them she is the 'establishment' candidate they view as the problem.

The Dem base right now is down to only 32% of registered voters, and already Bernie is getting 18% and in some states as high as 24% of that base.

His numbers keep going up as people get to know him. And the more they get to know him, the more he probably will get from the Dem base. Eg, in Minnesota there were several Hillary supporters who attended Bernie's event there. They said, when interviewed, that they were there because they wanted to hear what he had to say. They were impressed, stating that they liked his agenda. But also said 'well, I'm with Hillary right now because I don't want Repubs to win, however I really like Sanders'.

Once they get over that fear, which is baseless imo, I agree with you, he will easily win the GE, as his popularity grows, and it will, they will go with Bernie.

But again, he is going to go after the two biggest potential voting blocs in the country right now, and won't need a huge number of people from the Dem base.

although for the primary, in most states don't you still have to be registered Dem to vote in the Dem primary? I know there are some open primaries, mostly not though, unless I am mistaken about that. Getting non-voters who are registered Dem should be a natural thing for Bernie. Getting independents to vote for him in the primary will be much harder, won't they mostly (depending on their state) have to register Democratic to vote for him? Some will do it, but many will probably not bother.

To your other points, success will bring more success. I think a lot of the Hillary support has shallow roots, many people support her because they are against Republicans and think she has the name rec, the financimg, and the organizational infrastructure to win the general election. As Bernie gains momentum, more of that demographic will peel off and vote for him rather than Hillary. If Bernie can clearly establish himself as a legitimate contender he will get a ton of support he doesn't currently have, there may be a tipping point where that happens very quickly.

Hillary will of course have a significant bloc of female support that will be hard for Bernie to get. I've been impressed with a number of our female posters here at DU (such as yourself) who don't use that as their main criteria. I would love to have a female POTUS if her name was Elizabeth Warren, she was actually and still is my first choice, because she kicks ass and takes no prisoners. But Bernie is easy to underestimate, he is wise and has time-proven skills at cultivating trust and talking back to power without alienating people, and I like him a little better than Warren on the issues. So far he's done everything right, very exciting.

bernie they can register as democrats. here in arizona it can be done easily on-line.

I was just pointing out that needing to register them is an obstacle, it's much harder than just winning someone's vote.

With this in mind, tabling to register Bernie supporters (obviously we'd register anyone who wanted to regardless of who they support) would be a good use of time for a few thousand of us.

states that have open and closed primaries. It is very important you are correct, that people realize in states that do not have open primaries (my state, NY, eg) that they must register as Democrats in order to vote for Bernie. I imagine once he gets his GOTV volunteers working and organized they will make sure to tell those they win over the Bernie, whether they have to register to vote in the Primaries or not.

Wrt to wanting woman president, first and foremost AS a woman, I want a President who will work to make sure all Americans have equal economic security and equal rights under the law.

Also, I am hoping he will choose a woman, Barbara Lee would be my first choice, as his VP.

They both have shown immense courage and good judgement regarding their voting history, when it actually mattered.

I think the idea of voting for someone simply because of their gender or ethnicity is ridiculous. History has many examples of women who were terrible leaders.

Far more important to women is that the president acts in their interests, man or woman.

Great post, thank you .....

Love Barbara Lee, good pick. Thanks for all you do here.

"However I don't think Bernie is aiming at the Dem base so much as he will be going after the much larger voting bloc, Independents AND non-voters."





I believe there were thousands (maybe a million)of voters that stayed away from the polls in 2008,2012 and obviously in 2014.

So with Bernie he will bring those voters back, especially the left wing liberals

These voters aren't even count in the polling. To the pollster these non-voters don't exist.
So I think Bernie's poll numbers could be much higher.

This will help Bernie because I think she is/will be fascinated by the Sanders' campaign and seeing if he will pull it off and so will give him/his campaign/the race more air time.

I don't get to watch her online anymore now that you have to sign in on their website... I'll have to set up my podcast app on my phone again and see if I can still watch her podcasts.

For us, it's a choice: the web or cable TV, and the web is much better. We don't have cable, and I gather that MSNBC only allows cable viewers to access their shows online. I think that is foolish because people are moving toward the internet and away from cable -- very slowly, but it is happening.

I would like to watch MSNBC shows -- but MSNBC doesn't want me as a viewer. Probably some deal with the cable companies requires them to provide access only through cable, but that is just my guess. Even when we paid for cable a few years ago (ridiculously expensive considering how bad the cable shows are), even at high prices, we could not get MSNBC. But back then I could get MSNBC on the internet.

It's really a shame for MSNBC because they have good programming during the week but they don't allow people to watch them.

Yes, it's a shame. I'm not going to spend $75/mo just to get MSNBC. They aren't on basic cable in my area, so you have to go up a tier.

I guess we can always check if the clips are still allowed to stay up on youtube.

People like myself and others contributing directly to Bernie's campaign ...

I'm in, baby ....

million people just donated about $43.00, he could do it. I think he's going to get that from ordinary people, and more.

months I plan on giving more. If people like me can donate that amount he is going to get what he needs.

For some reason an old essay Bernie wrote 40+ years ago has received about as much attention as his entire public service career. Seems to me that somebody is worried about something.

Any info on the source of that essay popping up?

I saw Chuck Todd do his disgusting part in bringing it up on Meet The Press. Impressive though, there was something about Bernie and his respose that seemed to acknowledge that Chuck was just doing what he was paid to do, and Bernie bounced it right back to what matters to the American people. I thought I saw a softening of approach from Chuck after that, seemed like he actually liked or at least respected Bernie, as most everyone does.

I think he would be wise to make sure the entire essay is available and not just the first few lines. It is actually a pro-feminism article, not something nasty about women.

You have to read the entire article. I am a woman, and having lived through the 50s, 60s and 70s and the women's liberation movement, I think the article is pretty good. Women who would have married the first man who asked back in the 1950s were jilting a lot of good guys in the early 1970s, not because the guys weren't good but because women had additional choices.

Back when I was in high school in the 1950s, girls got pregnant in high school and married before or right after graduation. That is not nearly as common today as then. Bernie's article deals with the difficulty for a pro-women's-liberation man to deal with the liberated women.

If you have a link to it I'd appreciate it, though I can find it on my own.

To be clear (I think you understood), I wasn't saying Bernie's essay was nasty, I was saying it was a nasty thing to do to dredge that out of his past and present it out of context, and was wondering if we knew anything about how that came about.

That's pretty much the kind of B.S. I expect TPTB to do to a genuine people's rep like Bernie, we'll probably see more such attempts as his popularity grows.

The link was on a post on DU, so that is another possibility.

The topic seemed to be a disappointing love affair. But I could be wrong on that. Based on that article I would say that Bernie is definitely heterosexual.

to help get a Republican elected. He wasn't softening his approach he was just stunned at Bernie's response

Or was that "whine"?

it's not like republicans have good choices unless you're really conservative.

Truth.

Truth.

"I hope this whole debate system they plan for this year blows up because it's not serving either party"

and is really showing up the whole stupid system for what it is, nothing but a controlled show where the outcome is already decided.

I could not be more grateful to Bernie for having the courage to publicly challenge it. Finally someone has done so.

Good comment from Rachel.

Oh sure things have certainly changed in 63 years. I have never ever seen people excited like this since John F. Kennedy.

I think, barring the party hijinks that are already in evidence, that people are really getting excited.

It's not like in 2008 when there were 12 candidates. The D field is very small. With only six debates a very small percentage of the nation will get to see them in person and only if they are in the "important" states. This whole pandering to early states bullshit is getting old. My state has been reliably D for the last 7 elections and while candidates have rallies and make appearances in the state it has never hosted a debate that I know of.