Sanders folks, Explain this to me

[Capn Sunshine]

Currently I'm seeing you make all these pronouncements about victory but give me a straight line to delegate victory in Philly next July.

So far, it sounds a lot like the Underwear Gnome's business plan.

Here are the cold facts:

On Ground Take:
1st or 2nd in New Hampshah
1st or 2nd in Iowa

Then what?

Nevada? you're polling @ 26%

S Carolina: average as of 8/3
Clinton 67.0
Biden 10.5
Sanders 9.0
O'Malley 2.0
Webb 1.5

Spread Clinton +56.5

You'll need a major miracle there

Then Comes

Alabama - last poll
Hillary Clinton Bernie Sanders
78% 34%<------this is an oultlier, most at 10% but I'm staying positive
Better hit the ground running, tomorrow

Arkansas- Hillary is at 70% in her home state

Colorado -we have bigger problems there structurally; Rubio is leading any Dem. The latest is
Hillary 38 Bernie 37 - so a toss up

Georgia
Hillary 51%
Bernie 24%

Massachusetts
Hillary 43%
Bernie 34% ---- Sanders gaining at last flash poll taken Friday

Minnesota
Hillary 50%
Bernie 34% -- some forward momentum in the last Flash Poll, 9/1

N. Carolina
Hillary 55%
Bernie 20%

Oklahoma
Damned if there's enough Democrats to poll..no data available


That only takes you through March 1. Seeing a trend? If you hope to prevail beyond IA and NH, you have your work cut out for you. A HUGE GIGANTIC ground effort is needed. NOW. ASAP. This isn't happening by magic. And conservatively, you'll need to raise another 12 million to keep the machine going.

I'm not trying to harsh your buzz, just wake you up. If I were you, I'd stop posting about Hillary being a such bad person and start working on a real world real time plan to match the grand pronouncements being made by DU Sanders partisans. You need a proactive, flexible, boom movement that gets the buzz really going with active voters at street level. Block by block, precinct by precinct. Right now it's just not up to snuff.

[jfern]

1. Sanders doesn't need to win all the states to get the nomination

and some of those polls are pretty out of date.

[Capn Sunshine]

3. No, but he needs to get more delegates than Hillary

I don't see that path unfolding before me right now.

[jfern]

5. Obviously Hillary is leading in the polls just like she did for all of 2007

[Agschmid]

4. Sanders needs to win as many early states as possible to win the nomination.

[jfern]

6. If the race ends up being at all like 2008

Then after a certain point momentum doesn't matter so much and it's just a fight over every delegate.

[Capn Sunshine]

7. That would be awesome

2008 was an object lesson in Democracy. And Party politics.

[Capn Sunshine]

8. Yes, but beyond IA and NH

He has a shot at CO, and MA. out of eight states.

[Agschmid]

9. I think he will do well in Mass, it's anecdotal...

But I see tons of Bernie bumper stickers.

[LondonReign2]

29. Well, considering we were told here, repeatedly, just two months ago

that he wouldn't win a single state, 4 out of 8 is pretty good progress.

[AgingAmerican]

2. Money, stink bombs, and strawmen

Make it fairly straight forward.

Once Sanders starts campaigning in the states you mention, and the voters in same start looking at issues, Bernie win's those states too.

There is still a half year until the FIRST primary. Life is good.

[aidbo]

21. I'm excited for the debates. 33 days!

http://days.to/until/13-october#

[arcane1]

10. We continue trying to get the word out and gain support. That's the answer.

Otherwise, we should just take a poll 18 months before every election, and the poll winner automatically becomes the nominee?

I thought this was what primaries were about

[aikoaiko]

11. You sure do like to post critical posts of Bernie and supporters under the guise of helping

Most of the states you covered are moving in the right direction, aren't they?

Or let me ask this another way, did your prognostications predict Bernie as close as he is? Or did you show up back at DU to tell Bernie supporters that all this effort isn't enough?

[demwing]

12. Yeah, your using current polling

to judge what could happen 6 months from now.

Poll have changed a lot in the last 6 months, but for dome reason you think the next 6 months will be stagnant.

Likely? Doubtful -especially when there's not even been a single debate yet.

[ibegurpard]

13. Well in my state

Bernie people are signing up volunteers to work at events, they are collecting signatures to get him on our primary ballot and they are getting more people to their meetings than any other political organizations I'm involved with.

What have I seen from Hillary? Nada.

[Ron Green]

14. It's different this year. Maybe not in the outcome, but in the dynamic.

It's a test for American voters. They may flunk it.

To pass it, they have to respond not as consumers, but as citizens to the electoral choices coming their way in 2016. They have to turn around all (or most) of the polling numbers you cite. They have to figure out that Hillary Clinton is a marketed product, and decide they don't want that, but rather want a more authentic participation in representative government AT ALL LEVELS.

This is a tall order, and we may not be up to it. How about you? Will you boldly seek to turn this thing around?

[thesquanderer]

15. I don't think many Sanders folk think it's likely that he will get the nomination.

Last edited Thu Sep 10, 2015, 11:37 AM - Edit history (1)

He's still clearly the underdog, by a lot.

But a Sanders nomination at least looks more feasible now than it did when he announced about 4 months ago. Few people then thought he could do even as well as he's doing now. So a lot can happen in the next 6 months. You have to start somewhere.

There's also the variable of what happens with Hillary's campaign in the next six months. It may be dumb, but this email thing has been sticking around a lot longer than I thought it would, it's become something of an albatross. And who knows, it's not impossible that something else will snare her in the coming months. So part of Sanders' fate may rest upon Hillary-related things that have nothing to do with him. There's also the variable of whether Biden gets in. Regardless, there's certainly no cakewalk scenario. I think everyone recognizes odds are against him no matter how you look at it.

If I were you, I'd stop posting about Hillary being a such bad person and start working on a real world real time plan...You need a proactive, flexible, boom movement that gets the buzz really going with active voters at street level. Block by block, precinct by precinct. Right now it's just not up to snuff.

I don't know... have you seen the reports of the attendance at his rallies? And all over the place, not just Iowa. I think you're off the mark by suggesting that he's got minimal ground support. There's a lot more people attending rallies than there are people posting about Hillary being such a bad person. (And I imagine there are some people doing both. )

[Garrett78]

25. I've always figured his chances were somewhere between zero and zilch.

But I don't think it's about winning. His campaign is, in his own words, "about creating a grassroots political movement in this country." So that one day we might have a POTUS who truly does represent the will of the people. And not a lesser evil with strong ties to seedy corporations and firms. Because, as we know, when you forget that election results are driven by perception and money and that most don't really follow politics very closely, most people - when asked directly how they feel about various issues - share the same political philosophy as Sanders.

Sanders said, "...no matter who is elected to be president, that person will not be able to address the enormous problems facing the working families of our country. They will not be able to suceed becuase the power of corporate America, the power of Wall Street, the power of campaign donors is so great that no president alone can stand up to them. That is the truth. People may be uncomfortable about hearing it, but that is the reality. And that is why what this campaign is about is saying loudly and clearly: It is not just about electing Bernie Sanders for president, it is about creating a grassroots political movement in this country."

Lawrence Lessig, being interviewed by Bill Moyers, said, "I mean, we have the data to show this now. There was a Princeton study by Martin Gilens and Ben Page. The largest empirical study of actual policy decisions by our government in the history of our government. And what they did is they related our actual decisions to what the economic elite care about, what the organized interest groups care about, and what the average voter cares about. And when they look at the economic elite, you know, as the percentage of economic elite who support an idea goes up, the probability of it passing goes up. As the organized interests care about something more and more, the probability of it passing goes up. But as the average voter cares about something, it has no effect at all, statistically no effect at all on the probability of it passing. If we can go from zero percent of the average voters caring about something to 100 percent and it doesn't change the probability of it actually being enacted. And when you look at those numbers, that graph, this flat line, that flat line is a metaphor for our democracy. Our democracy is flat lined. Because when you can show clearly there's no relationship between what the average voter cares about, only if it happens to coincide with what the economic elite care about, you've shown that we don't have a democracy anymore."

Robert Jensen wrote, "No matter who votes in elections, powerful unelected forces—the captains of industry and finance—set the parameters of political action. Voting matters, but it matters far less than most people believe, or want to believe. This raises the impolite question of whether democracy and capitalism are compatible. Is political equality possible amid widening economic inequality? Can power be distributed when wealth is concentrated? These questions remain unspeakable in mainstream political circles, even though the economic inequality continues to widen and the distorting effects of concentrated wealth are more evident than ever. The limited successes of the Occupy movement nudged this into view, but this impolite question must be central in our conversations, raised without sectarian rhetoric and with a clearer analysis of the foundational nature of the problem."

We've legalized bribery. Obama's 2nd biggest 'donor' in 2008 was Goldman Sachs, and a Goldman Sachs employee became Treasury Secretary. And there's a revolving door between regulators and the regulated. The foxes are watching the hen house.

Even the campaigns themselves take to marketing consumer products, and several presidential campaigns have won Ad Age's Marketer of the Year Award (competing against Apple, Coca Cola, etc.).

That's the reality we're up against and have to fight to change.

[kenfrequed]

16. It is called campaigning.

Using your logic the moment you appear to be behind in the polls, even if it is over three months before the first primary, you should immediately drop out and give up. Seriously man, Sanders has already made incredible jumps since last May. I'm unsure of what your point here is now.

[magical thyme]

17. thank you for your concern.

I'm sure it is quite sincere.

[Vinca]

18. As I've noted before, delegates aren't written in stone.

In 2008 there came a point where they were jumping off the Clinton bandwagon and climbing onto Obama's. I'm not saying it will happen again, but it may. Quite honestly, I'm now worrying about her if she is the candidate. I'm wondering if she'll be able to go the distance. No one knows what will happen, but I've got a sinking feeling we're headed for a major disaster in November, 2016.

[thesquanderer]

19. Another perspective: The Dem establishment is worried that Sanders COULD win

From:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/10/us/politics/big-name-plan-bs-for-democrats-concerned-about-hillary-clinton.html?_r=0

If Hillary Rodham Clinton’s new apology for her private email server fails to reassure jittery supporters, it could amplify the chatter among some Democrats who have been casting about for a potential white knight to rescue the party from a beleaguered Clinton candidacy.
...
It is not just Mrs. Clinton’s weakness in the polls that has generated talk of other alternatives, but also the strength of Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who is routinely drawing huge crowds at campaign events. That has been disconcerting to Democratic officials who believe that Mr. Sanders, a socialist, is so liberal that his presence at the top of the party’s ticket in 2016 would be disastrous.

“If party leaders see a scenario next winter where Bernie Sanders has a real chance at the Democratic nomination, I think there’s no question that leaders will reach out to Vice President Biden or Secretary of State Kerry or even Gore about entering the primaries,” said Garnet F. Coleman, a Texas state lawmaker and Democratic national committeeman.

Fortunately for Sanders supporters, the article also went on to include this:

Tad Devine, a senior adviser to Mr. Sanders, said he believed Democratic restiveness would subside as people learned more about Mr. Sanders through campaign events and the televised Democratic debates this fall and winter.

“As Democratic Party officials see Bernie Sanders’s mounting strength with voters, I think they will begin to better understand that he will not only be a strong nominee who can help Democrats all across the country win elections, but he actually will be the white knight if they need one,” said Mr. Devine, who was a past adviser to Mr. Kerry and Mr. Gore.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

20. I don't vote based on polls, gender, wealth, or brand of underwear.

[99Forever]

22. Your heart felt concern is noted.

[peacebird]

26. I know, right. Tried mentioning to the Capn that there is a huge grassroots effort going on across

the country already a few days ago. Now I'm just gonna join you....

[Goblinmonger]

23. Hillary supporters: explain this to me.

How do you know that 2016 isn't going to go EXACTLY like 2008 when the great one got smoked by an unknown when she was off to a gangbusters lead at this point in 2007?

[oasis]

31. I DO know this: Obama is not running. <nt>

[Goblinmonger]

32. I remember that primary here on DU

Hillary supports were quite clear that Obama would not get the nomination.

[oasis]

34. What are the chances of getting hit by lightning two times? <nt>

[frylock]

36. This isn't a game of chance.

[oasis]

37. Correct: No chance. <nt>

[frylock]

38. There's only one candidate in this race who has a record of 0-1.

[oasis]

40. Wow. Permit me to compliment you on your opposition research.

[frylock]

42. Thanks.

[frylock]

35. Quite clear, and mocking those that believed otherwise..

same shit, different primary.

[wyldwolf]

44. I can explain this to you

Obama (barely) beat Hillary because...

1. Immensely popular with African-Americans and Latinos.
2. A disastrous Republican presidency behind him.
3. A primary rival who didn't prepare herself for early caucus races.
4. Incredible charisma

To match that, Sanders will have to find a groundswell of socialist voters in swing states, convince voters the Obama presidency was a disaster (not an easy task and the fact many already assume a Clinton presidency will be Obama III), hope Hillary doesn't take caucuses seriously again, and try to control his anger issues.

[Warren DeMontague]

24. we'll need a what?

[HassleCat]

27. Gaining, but how fast?

In almost every state, Sanders is chipping away at the Clinton lead. Right now, the rate of gain is too slow to catch Clinton before the big primaries, but we're hoping the rate increases. I didn't think it could until Clinton made her speech to the Brookings Institution and sounded more like George W. Bush than a Secretary of State for Barack Obama.

[HooptieWagon]

28. Have to start at the beginning.

Those #s are what Obama started with. Most candidates aren't starting with 35 years of name recognition, a 15 year presidential campaign, and $2billion in Wall St funding, like Hillary. Sanders campaign is running ahead of where they projected when they started, and he wouldn't have entered the race if he didn't think there was a reasonable chance of winning.

[Garrett78]

30. A lot of people run...

when there isn't a reasonable chance of winning. Some do it to boost their public profile and the amount they can charge for speeches. Or to possibly get a cabinet post. Others do it to inspire a grassroots movement or to make sure a particular message is heard (be it progressive or evangelical or what have you).

[HooptieWagon]

33. That's very true...

...and it appears to be the case for most of the GOP candidates. However, that is not the case for Sanders. He is not campaigning in order to boost book sales or get a talking head spot in media. He is sincerely attempting to fix a broken system, by yes, a true grass-roots campaign.

[Bluenorthwest]

39. Some stuff from Gallup, October 2007. The best part is the assumption of Rudy Giuliani as GOP nom.

The Democratic Race: Conditions Auspicious for Sen. Clinton to Win

Gallup’s 2007 national presidential polling strongly points to Clinton winning the 2008 Democratic nomination. Barring something unusual or otherwise unexpected, she is well positioned for the 2008 Democratic primaries. Obama has not been an insignificant rival: he came within single digits of tying Clinton for the lead at two points this spring. But he has recently lost ground and is now in the weakest position relative to Clinton that he has been in all year.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/102277/gallup-election-review-october-2007.aspx

So the Clinton vs Giuliani contest did not play out like they thought it would. Funny how politics is.

[jwirr]

41. Early polls mean nothing when a grassroots campaign is

the means of attracting the voters. Hillary is using name recognition and back room tactics. That can change things in a hurry when it is issues and problems that people want to talk about.

We have a huge ground effort. But we are not running in all 50 states at one time. We are working the states that are voting first etc. That does not mean we are ignoring the other states as you can see how many states have already had Bernie rallies. But the concentration is on the states that are about to vote.

You also talk about signing people up so we can contact them again. We are doing that not necessarily just on the ground (door knocking etc) but through the internet, phone calls and word of mouth. This action will intensify as each state gets closer to the election date.

One thing - most of us working for Bernie ARE street level. We do not have to get there we are there. Yes, we need to keep working as another DUer said today but that is going to be true to the very last day.

As to what we are posting on DU. I have heard that about 1000 people actually post here on a regular basis. We are not going to move heaven and earth regardless what we post. And most of the world does not even know we are here.

And we can campaign and post at the same time. When I was running the headquarters for McGovern I was a mother of three, in college full time and running the office. I did not have to stop everything to run the headquarters. Likewise when I worked with Gary Hart I was doing the same thing. Yet when he wanted something done he knew I could be trusted to get it done. Our workers are dedicated to Bernie and they will get the work done.

[wyldwolf]

43. the hicks and the black folk on Super Tuesday will follow the smart white liberals' IA and NH lead

[Roy Ellefson]

45. Concern for the General Election

I'm concerned that Hillary gains the nomination based on her primary/caucus performance in states where she has no chance of winning in the General Election...I'm not sure I like the idea of South Carolina or Utah choosing our nominee...