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In reply to the discussion: Who's More Likely to Beat Donald Trump — Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders? [View all]whatthehey
(3,660 posts)1) Pragmatic/Realistic - Clinton, because she is far more likely to be running against him as the nominee of the other major party.
Assuming the question were hypothetical, though, there's still multiple ways to answer, and current polls are pretty weak in any camp as predictive criteria. So, pretending the D primary is a coin flip:
2) Why Clinton's more likely to win - Greater political skill, more mature and capable "machine" of surrogates, organizers, fund-raisers, more polished and nuanced in debate to avoid a simple insult shout-fest head to head which favors Trump in that his supporters look for that kind of thing, historic opportunity for first woman to win, better down-ticket relationships and support, deep-pocket donors, most thoroughly vetted candidate in history who is essentially scandal-proof as short of an actual conviction, any accusation need, and should, be greeted only with "Christ another wacky made up scandal about me. Nope it's crap. And I didn't kill Vince Foster or have an affair with Janet Reno either. Next?". Major obstacle - a lot of people hate her. Minor obstacle - poor indy support but likely to coalesce among the sensible ones at least given the alternative.
3) Why Sanders is more likely to win - more enthusiastic support from traditional low turn-out non-core Dems, better ability to use the "bully pulpit", more engaging and accessible priority list for the beleaguered lower socioeconomic echelons, less damaged by scandalmongering machine however accurate, less threatening to high-turnout white male voter bloc, better attack dog when needed, can demonstrate support among indies and some Rs. Major obstacle - laughably easy for the RW attack machine to make a lot of people hate him, probably more than do HRC, as his "optics" are terrible especially among middle aged and above high-turnout voters. Minor obstacle - needs more detail and breadth of poliucy at his fingertips, which is not too hard to achieve with the right coaching.
Who then is more likely? Need more clairvoyance than the lovechild of Nostradamus and Allison Dubois to guess. Depends on the stomach of the electorate for visceral nonsense from Trump and how they would weigh visceral sensible generalities versus cerebral nuanced vagueries compared to him.