2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumNate Silver on 538: "Stop Comparing Donald Trump And Bernie Sanders"
Excerpts from some great analysis:
A lot of people are linking the candidacies of Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump under headings like populist and anti-establishment. Most of these comparisons are too cute for their own good not only because its too early to come to many conclusions about the campaign, but also because Trump and Sanders are fundamentally different breeds of candidates who are situated very differently in their respective nomination races.
You can call both outsiders. But if youre a Democrat, Sanders is your eccentric uncle: He has his own quirks, but hes part of the family. If youre a Republican, Trump is as familial as the vacuum salesman knocking on your door.
...
Sanders is campaigning on substantive policy positions, and Trump is largely campaigning on the force of his personality. Im not sure this assertion requires a lot of proof, but if you need some, check out the candidates websites. Sanderss lists dozens of specific policy proposals across a wide range of issues; Trumps details his position on just one, immigration.
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Sanders has a much better ground game. Trump, in addition to his ubiquity on television, has some semblance of a campaign operation. But Sanderss organization is much larger and more experienced.
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Sanders holds policy positions of a typical liberal Democrat; Trumps are all over the place. While Sanders doesnt officially call himself a Democrat a fact that might annoy Democratic elites he takes policy positions that are consistent with those of Democrats in Congress. In the previous Congress (113th), Sanders voted the same as liberal Democratic senators Barbara Boxer, Cory Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand and Sherrod Brown 95 percent of the time or more.1 He voted with party leader Harry Reid 91 percent of the time and the expressed position of President Obama2 93 percent of the time. He also voted with Clinton 93 percent of the time when the two were in the Senate together.
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Sanderss candidacy has clear historical precedents; theyre less obvious for Trump. Even the most formidable-seeming front-runners havent won their nominations without some semblance of a fight. Clintons position relative to Sanders is analogous to the one Al Gore held against Bill Bradley in the 2000 Democratic primary. Sanderss campaign also has parallels to liberal stalwarts from Howard Dean to Eugene McCarthy; these candidates can have an impact on the race, but they usually dont win the nomination.
Trump has some commonalities also: to bandwagon candidates like Newt Gingrich and Herman Cain; to media-savvy, factional candidates like Pat Buchanan; and to self-funded candidates like Steve Forbes. None of those candidates, however, was as openly hostile to their party as Trump is with Republicans.
yeoman6987
(14,449 posts)Exciting election. Both very different but both appeal to fed up voters of the establishment. At the end of the day, it will be interesting to see if either get the nomination.
Bernie is genuine
Trump is pompous
DanTex
(20,709 posts)Response to DanTex (Reply #2)
Name removed Message auto-removed
SidDithers
(44,228 posts)Sid
SunSeeker
(51,550 posts)I love you.
Attorney in Texas
(3,373 posts)DanTex
(20,709 posts)Attorney in Texas
(3,373 posts)polling suggests that he has a natural ceiling on his candidacy that tops out below the level to win the Republican nomination.
No one disputes that establishment candidates from both parties are the favorites to win their parties' nominations.
DanTex
(20,709 posts)Attorney in Texas
(3,373 posts)directed to the betting sites where they could get long shot odds for putting their money where their mouth is and a big payoff when they turn out to be correct.
I support a Sanders because he has the better platform, not because is the most likely to win the nomination.
DanTex
(20,709 posts)cashing in:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1251578193
corkhead
(6,119 posts)making sure the "can't win" trope is catapulted.
just an observation.
DanTex
(20,709 posts)hueymahl
(2,496 posts)Especially posting substance-free anti-Bernie talking points
Attorney in Texas
(3,373 posts)positive and issue-oriented campaign.
If someone prefers Clinton, they should focus their efforts on responding the the attacks against her campaign by the 17 clowns, by FauxNews, by Mourning Joe, the NYT, the WSJ, etc. Sanders does Clinton an immeasurable benefit by re-focusing on a debate about policy issues (which Clinton has a thorough command of -- I prefer Sanders' positions, but no one could fault Clinton for a lack of understanding the key issues which is a test than few if any of the Republican candidates can pass).
jtuck004
(15,882 posts)INdemo
(6,994 posts)The latest polls? Bernie is not losing and Hillary is nervous because for her campaign its beginning to look like 2008 all over again. One reason the Corporate Mafia Media is turning up the heat on Bernie is because Bernie Sanders is connecting with the voters.
PosterChild
(1,307 posts).... he's not going to be the Democratic nominee , let alone the president.
(And please don't tell me that he's a democratic socialist. First, he has called himself a socialist, pure and simple. Second, nobody cares about the multitudinous variety of socialistic sects. )
totodeinhere
(13,058 posts)just that, leading. It's not winning.
Gothmog
(145,218 posts)I have never considered Sanders to be in the same universe as Trump. I may not be supporting Sanders but I think that any comparison of Sanders to Trump is not warranted and would be wrong
DCBob
(24,689 posts)Attorney in Texas
(3,373 posts)cali
(114,904 posts)same territory as trump.
And if you aren't at the very least concerned with the corrupt status quo of our politics and economic inequities, you aren't paying attention.
1monster
(11,012 posts)I just don't agree with many of her positions. She isn't our best choice for president.
I would love to have a woman president before I pass on. But in this election cycle, I'm voting for Bernie. He's the best choice of my voting life.
frylock
(34,825 posts)That about covers it perfectly. We are more concerned with policy.
But Bernie's campaign does appeal to a lot of the people concerned about the disparity of wealth and the problems of money in politics.
Whereas Don-don and his rogue hairpiece appeals to... well he is the wealthy.
Jester Messiah
(4,711 posts)Don't you EVER tell me what to do Silver, damn your eyes!
SoapBox
(18,791 posts)Includes Biden...as that was the label he got in a couple articles last weekend.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)center.
Attorney in Texas
(3,373 posts)protections for working people is the opposite of "populist." Don't take my word for it, see what Sen. Elizabeth Warren had to say:
As a Harvard law professor in 2002, Warren published a journal article excoriating Biden for playing a leading role in delivering legislation that made it more difficult for Americans to reduce debts through bankruptcy filings. His repeated push for the bill -- signed into law by President George W. Bush in 2005 -- amounted to vigorous support of legislation that hurts women, Warren declared. She said "the group that will be most affected by the changes in the bankruptcy legislation Senator Biden so forcefully supports will be women, particularly women heads of household who are supporting children." She called Biden a zealous advocate on behalf of one of his biggest contributors, singling out the credit card industry, which has a strong presence in Bidens home state of Delaware.
In a separate 2003 book she co-authored with her daughter, Warren said, Senators like Joe Biden should not be allowed to sell out women in the morning and be heralded as their friend in the evening.
I love Biden, but I didn't support him in 1988 or 2008 because he has never been part of the progressive wing of the party. I'm not criticizing him for that because a bird can't fly without a right-wing and a left-wing and no party in the US could survive if it was so narrow that it excluded goodhearted centrists like Biden (and Clinton, for that matter), but that's not the segment of the party I support.
genxlib
(5,526 posts)Sanders is a professional public servant that has served at ever increasing levels of responsibility and has a solid understanding of how government works.
Trump had done none of those things and knows nothing about public service or how government works
Demeter
(85,373 posts)JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)Bernie understands how our government works and is offering to make it work better.
Trump is a loudmouth hater.
BlueCaliDem
(15,438 posts)"Brother Bernie and Brother Trump are authentic human beings"
Uh...whut?? Trump is an "authentic human being"?? Really??
He's also called President Obama a "Rockefeller Republican in a blackface".
If Bernie Sanders is accepting Cornell West's endorsement (and all accounts say he is) in an attempt to gain favor with Black voters, then he's made one of his biggest mistakes for his campaign to date.
frylock
(34,825 posts)a fact that might annoy Democratic elites
ChiciB1
(15,435 posts)Attorney in Texas
(3,373 posts)PoliticAverse
(26,366 posts)raouldukelives
(5,178 posts)The only way Trump could appear more villainous to me is if he tied someone to train tracks and twirled his handlebar mustache.
But he is a conservative. A Republican. An honest one. He says out loud what they all think and try to word in roundabout ways on corporate owned media.