Re: Bernie 2020
 

I think he gets people who tell themselves they aren't sexist but secretly would never vote for the type of woman who could be a Presidential candidate.

I also think he gets a lot of the union vote in white districts that Hillary lost in some very key states.

The question is, can he raise the money he needs from Dem deep pockets and the center-left?

TM

Re: Bernie 2020
 

I agree with your first sentence. But I disagree with the rest. He absolutely defined her as a Wall Street, corrupt candidate. He hammered away at her for that bullshit. And it stuck. Fucking Trump picked up that ball and ran with it.

TM

Re: But for the incident at the end, Mary Todd Lincoln loved "My American Cousin"
 

His entire argument is based on a recockulous presumption:

"So unless the lives of Americans on American soil are inherently more significant than the lives of those serving in that part of the world, or than Korean and Japanese lives, the game is the same."

WTF. Of course Americans think American lives on American soil are inherently more significant, and of course politicians value their domestic constituents over foreign non-constituents. What kind of silliness is he peddling?

Re: Bernie 2020
 

Bernie was more important than Trump. He turned the left wing of the Democratic party against Hillary. To the extent his message was not unlike Trump's in many regards, he handed a bunch of her votes to Trump.

I can't recall why the Trump/Bernie debate never happened, but that would have been a disaster for Trump. Where he could slap Hillary around as a cipher, he'd have faced a much more direct and aggressive Sanders who'd have talked over him as much as he'd talk over Bernie.

People on both sides wanted a fighter. There were two of those in the game: Bernie and Trump. Trump did everything he could to lose. But his lucky break was having Bernie kneecap Hillary so badly he still squeaked into the winner's circle.

No Bernie, no Trump Presidency.

Re: Bernie 2020
 

Bernie will be 78. Warren is his torchbearer.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

You're reading FB. You expected Vidal v. Buckley?

It's an extreme position, but one could persuasively argue political commentary on FB is exclusively authored by totally useless twats.

Re: Bernie 2020
 

To be clear, I voted for her, not him. But I thought he went easy on her. For example, he never touched the email. She was the consummate insider -- that's who she was. He didn't need to define her that way.

Re: But for the incident at the end, Mary Todd Lincoln loved "My American Cousin"
 

You're quibbling.

Re: Bernie 2020
 

Nonsense. He didn't turn anyone against Hillary. She was the establishment Democratic candidate, just like she was in 2008. He was the candidate of the party's left, 2016's version of Jesse Jackson (the '88 version), or Bill Bradley, or Howard Dean. For Christ's sake, she spent eight years living in the White House, she was a Senator from New York, and she was the Secretary of State. I'm not sure it's possible to be any more establishment.

TM has an excellent point about the sexism, but I doubt he changed anyone's mind who was going to be in her camp.

Right -- because Trump's unexposed weakness was people debating him.

How do you think that Sanders crippled Clinton, but that Clinton did not cripple Obama in 2008?

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Sad but true.

Re: Bernie 2020
 

Not sure why this is relevant.

Yes. She was an insider. But what hurt her most was the implication that she was corrupt because she took speaking fees from Wall Street and because she met with bankers (whether it mattered that they were her constituents at one point and a huge driver of the economy made no difference, of course). He absolutely hammered her on this.

I remember vividly because I had many fights with Bernie idiots who kept saying that it would make her stronger in the general and not to worry, etc.

He didn't need to go after her on the emails. She was taking shit on that front from all sides already.

TM

Re: Bernie 2020
 

How many Clinton voters do think defected away from voting for Obama? I'd say not nearly as many as the Bernie supporters that defected away from Hil.

Re: Bernie 2020
 

This is flat out wrong. Once she was defined as a corrupt banker-lover, that was enough for a lot of dumbasses to throw their votes away because they "just couldn't vote for her." Once he was out they threw their votes away on fucking Stein and Johnson (of all people). Sure, many thought she would win anyway, but he absolutely turned many on the far left against her.

TM

Re: Bernie 2020
 

When you are an insider, you will be attacked as corrupt, and she had the Clinton name to boot. Bernie didn't make her take money from Wall Street or carry its water as the Senator from NY. That's who she was. Any Republican would have used this stuff against her in the general, and having to deal with it from him should have helped her figure out how to deal with it then.

Re: Bernie 2020
 

I imagine the numbers were comparable, but Obama was a winner so no one cared. If the Bernie number was bigger, I would attribute it more to sexism than anything Bernie said or did.

We can agree to disagree. He absolutely ran against her, but I don't think he did much to change anyone's mind. He took the existing pool of leftie Democrats who would have been inclined against Clinton, and they voted for him. I don't think there were that many who defected in the general relative to any other year, but those people are usually ignored until they matter (2000, 2016).

Re: Bernie 2020
 

I forgot your stance on Wall Street. I'm not banging my head against that wall again.

But on the "any Republican would run with it," again, I think you're wrong. Cruz and Rubio surely would. But Trump was handed a gift when Bernie defined her as a corrupt Wall Street shill (and I notice that you keep using "Washington insider" and "corrupt bank shill" as interchangeable and I'm not sure you should). Trump (and other Republicans) up until that point kept pointing at Hillary as a Benghazi witch and a Washington insider. That may be because they were trying to win a primary for the right wing dumbass vote. But there is no way Trump, the ultimate rich guy jackass, gets to point at Hillary and call her a corrupt banker shill without Bernie pinning that label on her first.

Whatever. If you believe Bernie didn't hurt Hillary with the far left, I'm not going to convince you and I no longer want to try.

TM

Re: Bernie 2020
 

Sure. The far left would have voted exactly the same as they did had Bernie not run at all and if there were no Sarandons out there saying the dumbest shit she could think of. That's not ridiculous at all. You win.

TM

Re: Bernie 2020
 

I guess the question is, hurt her relative to what? Trump was far worse on her, and he didn't need Sanders to do oppo research. He has an uncanny sense of his opponents' weaknesses. I don't think Sanders was any rougher on her than any other generic Democratic primary opponent would have been. He may have been rougher than Martin O'Malley was, but that's because it wasn't a two-person race yet.

And the advantage of getting attacked in the primaries should have been that it helps you deal with it better in the general. She, uh, didn't.

Re: Bernie 2020
 

That's a silly counterfactual. Of course she would have looked wonderful if no one run against her.

Re: Bernie 2020
 

Jesus Christ.

TM

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

You were not missed in that particular conversation.

Re: Bernie 2020
 

Again, math. A 500% increase in third party voters in at least Mi and Pa. I think the Jill Stein votes alone would have given her Mi.

Re: Bernie 2020
 

If Bernie had not run the anti-Hillary vote in the primaries would have gotten behind someone else, probably O'Malley, who would have, like Bernie, been totally dead and hopeless post-Super Tuesday. That person probably would have admitted the futility of the effort sooner than Bernie and the party would have unified sooner. But, who knows? Maybe Webb would have survived instead.

Bernie's move, once he broke out of the pack, to go rabidly anti-Clinton said it all. He didn't have the base on the left to beat her, there just wasn't enough room there, so he had to go negative and hard (because he hadn't gone negative in the beginning - remember when he was sick of talking about her emails?).

Re: Bernie 2020
 

I'm debating whether you or TM get my proxy from here on out.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Thank you.

(Could you tee that one a little higher for me, John Edwards?)

Re: WFT?!
 

Wow. Whiffing From a Tee?!

Re: Bernie 2020
 

Sanders gave credibility to Trump's "corrupt insider" theme. Bernie routinely polled as the most trustworthy candidate. When he called out Hillary as a Wall street shill, people listened.

Hillary was wiped out by a populist wave which would not have been strong enough to knock her out but for the inclusion of both Trump and Bernie within it.

Re: WFT?!
 

I assumed wry earnestness. Otherwise, that seemed way too low hanging fruit, even for you.

Re: Bernie 2020
 

I wouldn't characterize him as going rabidly anti-Clinton or negative and hard. Relative to Clinton and Obama in '08, maybe the issue is that people thought she still had a chance to catch him, whereas everyone assumed Sanders was toast so figured that the only reason he was in was to do damage to her. I think that was myopic on both counts -- she was never going to catch Obama in '08, and he was running for other reasons, although he did start to believe in himself a little too much there.

Re: Bernie 2020
 

I don't think you need either of us.

TM

Re: WFT?!
 

Please retire this.

TM

Re: Bernie 2020
 

On Super Tuesday 2008 Obama won a grand total of 13 delegates more than Clinton, bringing his lead in elected delegates to 20-something, even though he was notably behind on Superdelegates and a bit behind in total popular votes. Clinton had led initially, but he overtook her just before Super Tuesday, and it wasn't entirely clear who upcoming states would favor.

On Super Tuesday 2016, Clinton came in with a 25 delegate lead and added 165 delegates to it, despite fewer delegates being up in the race. She was about a million and a half votes ahead in the popular vote and going into a series of states that were favorable to her.

And, yes, Bernie went hard negative against her and it escalated throughout the primary season, even as his hopes dwindled from minimal to zilch.

Re: Bernie 2020
 

I'm supposed to be turning docs.

Re: Bernie 2020
 

By the way, keep hitting me. I'm about 2 years away from "waking up."

Re: Bernie 2020
 

I think the Bernie-Clinton tensions are overstated by a media that loves to play up conflict. Bernie's attacks on her were often self-indulgent and were more negative than they might have been, and I didn't agree with them, but I also don't think the fact that he was attacking her made much difference in the end. Trump's opponents in the primaries said much worse about him, and yet he won. There continues to be a center-left split in the party, but it has been there for years, and Bernie and Clinton are manifestations of it rather than the causes. The left will continue to suspect that the center is overly pragmatic and cautious, and the center will continue to complain that the left is a bunch of hippies and communists who will never be accepted by most of America. They're both right.

Re: Bernie 2020
 

I think it facilitated at least some progressives staying home or voting third party and it was close enough to have mattered.

Misogyny definitely mattered.

Re: Bernie 2020
 

The thing that amazes me about the results is that all analysis I see focuses on disgruntled white people in Ohio or Pa or Mi. None of it looks at the third party issue. When I met Less he said "why do you think Johnson voters wouldn't break as much for Trump as Clinton?" I have no answer, I just cannot believe they would go Trump. I can't believe there has been no analysis of that breakdown.

Re: Bernie 2020
 

Such a close election means all sorts of things had a material effect.

Bernie's attacks on Hillary were used to good effect by Trump not because of anything particularly that Bernie did, but because they resonated with the voters.

Re: Bernie 2020
 

When you can't find data, let anecdote suffice.

Three of the people I was hanging out with over the long weekend were Johnson people. All three were traditional Republican voters, I suspect only one of them has ever cast a democratic ballot in a state or national race. Two lived in upstate NY, one in Massachusetts.

I have no doubt one of them would have voted Trump if he had to choose, and probably would have moved to Trump if he were in a swing state instead of NY. I have no doubt one of them would have voted Hillary. The third hated them both with enough ferocity that I'm not sure which he would have chosen.

Re: Bernie 2020
 

Yup. And it's a point that Ty has notably Not Addressed (like your mention of Jill Stein's vote in MI). And, IIRC, turnout of registered Democrats dropped from 2012.

There are a million things one can point to as a reason why Secretary Clinton lost the Electoral College, but the impact of Senator Sanders' attacks - more third party votes and lower turnout - can't be ignored. (Nor can sexism, Putin, and what with the benefit of hindsight are being called strategic and tactical blunders.)

But to pretend that because any GOP nominee would have attacked her on the Goldman speaking fees would have had the same impact as the Wall Street attacks on her by Saint Bernie, the socialist icon for the Democratic left, is just silly.