Face it, "Populists": a Socialist cannot be elected President
Be real.
It's not as impossible as a black person being elected President in our lifetimes... but close.
It's time to pull together and focus on the possible, not the 
.
Atten hosts: this is just an observation that "Progressives" are absurd, not a criticism.
= new reply since forum marked as read
A threshold issue is the reliability of the entire piece. I had never heard of Religion News Service. Before posting based on a story from RNS, I did some minimal research by reading its Wikipedia article. According that article, RNS was founded in 1934 and "is owned by Religion News LLC, a non-profit, limited liability corporation based at the University of Missouri School of Journalism." I don't think "based at" means that the university school of journalism supervises the service, but my overall impression was that RNS is legitimate -- not infallible but also not some crank operation. The only controversy mentioned in the Wikipedia article is the allegation by the Catholic News Agency that RNS is pro-LGBT. As a further indication of reliability, I found the RNS story because it also appeared in The Washington Post.
You write that Sanders
* I agree that doesn't mean he's an atheist. That's why I wrote, "I don't know how he'll answer if (when) he's asked point-blank, 'Do you believe in God?'"
* That he's Jewish "culturally" were the words of the article, not my words. I didn't quote the entire thing. The author wrote: "Sanders, 73, was born to Jewish parents and identifies as Jewish — though culturally, not religiously."
* I agree with your concluding statement that many Jews have a very low level of religiosity but are still Jewish in the religious sense. In addition, however, there are many other people who are Jewish under Jewish law (as Sanders is), who identify as Jewish, but whose level of religiosity is zero -- they declare themselves to be atheists or agnostics.
You ask what votes are on Ralph Reed's scorecard. The RNS article includes a link, so you can see for yourself. I hadn't bothered to check the link; RNS was obviously using Sanders's zero score to show that he won't appeal to the fundies and Christofascists. That's a legitimate point.
Prompted by your query, however, I went and checked the link. It's, uh, interesting. Although Reed pitches his "Faith & Freedom Coalition" to religious people, his voting scorecard seems to be a collection of standard right-wing causes (UN funding, repeal Obamacare, etc.). I particularly noted this vote:
Who knew that God took such a keen interest in the procedural rules of the U.S. Senate?
You seem to think that I was critical of Sanders for getting a bad score from Ralph Reed. To the contrary, I've often seen good politicians praised by a writer who points to their low score on a right-winger's rating. I'm glad that Sanders, like his colleague Pat Leahy, got a zero for 2013-14. In fact, Leahy also got a zero for 2012, while Sanders got 9%. Now that's a bit troubling -- he voted with Ralph Reed on something? That's it, I'm done, I'm not supporting a right-wing Bible thumper like Sanders. (Note to hosts: The preceding sentence was sarcasm, and if you needed this parenthetical to tell you that, please consider resigning as a host.)
You write that "Sanders has more control over what wiki says about his religion than he has over a reporter's choice of words...." Actually, under Wikipedia rules, he's not allowed to edit his own article. The main point, though, is that the RNS article could be completely correct even if it's not included in Wikipedia.
Your last two paragraphs, like your earlier comments about Kerry, seem to be devoted to answering the argument that Sanders is unfit to be President because he's insufficiently religious. I did not make that argument. I'm an agnostic myself. I'd be quite happy if I had more opportunities to vote for openly non-religious candidates.
There is, however, a serious issue about religion and a candidate's political prospects. IIRC survey results show that millions of Americans report themselves unwilling to vote for an openly atheistic or agnostic candidate -- far more, even, than admit bias against an openly LGBT candidate. If, during the campaign, Sanders is asked if he believes in God, and he says anything other than "Yes" (including "that's none of your business"
, then that will be a political problem for him. As such, it's a proper subject for discussion in this Group.
Get a host to block me?
Good luck with that!
For all practical purposes. 
Third Way Mannie is up to no damned good for his own reasons, having nothing to do with media.
For TWM, assuming he won't enjoy it. 
You crack me up
Conventional political wisdom has said, at various times, that the American people would never elect a socialist, a black, a Catholic, or a divorced person, because each of these facts about a candidate would trigger animosity from a large segment of the electorate.
The OP made fun of those dismissing Bernie's chances by pretending to agree with them and yet depicting them as ignorant. If they actually said that the election of a socialist was "not as impossible as a black person being elected President in our lifetimes... but close," then they would run up against the fact that a black person was elected President in 2008.
Jackpine Radical continued the joke by writing, "We'll never elect a Catholic either" -- presuming (possibly without justification) that everyone would know we did elect a Catholic in 1960.
I continued the joke further by writing that we would never elect a divorced person. I had less faith than Jackpine Radical did in the historical knowledge of all DUers -- and, hey, Jackpine, I think merrily's post shows that I was right and you were wrong -- so I included a link that, if followed, would tell the reader that we did elect a divorced person in 1980.
Manny, Jackpine, and I were all engaging in 
to make a point: The political wisdom makes it clear that certain people can never be elected President, and that wisdom is sound and irrefutable, right up until the moment it's conclusively proven wrong, as it was by Obama, Kennedy, and Reagan. The further point, which follows from the first, is that those who dismiss Bernie's chances because of the impact of that "socialist" word are displaying more confidence in their conclusion than is justified by American political history.
As for my attitude toward Hillary, you are not required to take me at my word. You can look at my actual posts, for example this one, in which I blasted her record with regard to the TPP.
I gather from Merrily's response that Bernie is divorced(?) thereby eliciting her reaction.
I wanna add, though, that we can all be a little jumpy, and I just made an ass of myself (many would say "revealed myself as the ass I am" the other day on this board by jumping to a misinterpretation of someone's response to something I posted.
