Smh!

[bdtex]

Pretty amazing to me watching the Bernie supporters fawn over him and bash Hillary on a daily basis. Yes,Hillary has some problems that she has to overcome to win the Dem nomination and general election but Bernie would be a general election disaster. The GOP would love for Bernie to be the Dem nominee. He's never even ran for office as Democrat before. Not saying none of his ideas are good. He may be an independent,but he's certainly not a centrist or center-left.

Not so much here,but for months on other sites I've been asking his supporters to explain his "path to 270" to me. Most have dodged that question with the "it's too soon" excuse. Each time,I point out that the national,state and county party leaders,campaign strategists,and major donors on both sides are all numbers people. You can damn well bet they've been mapping out the "path to 270" scenarios. I've been specifically asking Bernie people how does he win FLA,OH or VA? If he doesn't win one of those,how does he win all of the Midwest,West and Southwest states that Pres. Obama flipped in 2008 and won again in 2012? The few that have attempted to answer lately have given me all sorts of pipedream scenarios. Who do they think they are gonna get to be Sanders' VP nominee?

I type too slow and I'm just envisioning all sorts of devastating ads the GOP would love to produce and run against Bernie. Mind-boggling. Have at it PJ responders.

 

[as seen on tv]

well, it IS too soon. no republican has a path to 270 either.

that said, as soon as Hillary's staff figures out that the way to nullify sanders is to total up all his grandious spending plans, the jig will be up.

the only people who don't fear massive government debt, spending and the eventual hyper inflation are:

• students
• the unemployed/welfare recipients
• medicinal marijuana farmers and users
• government employees, whose contracts mandate "cost of living" increases

the rest of the population ? not so much a fan of massive debt and a currency crisis.

 

[bdtex]

Here's one from another site:

"I live in Florida and I strongly believe Sanders could win here even against Jeb!."

 

[marvin martian]

IMO, Sanders is only a straw man to give the appearance that Hillary has some sort of competition. It's clear from the way the Clinton campaign and the DNC are in cahoots to rig the debate schedule that both groups have no intention of letting Sanders' campaign go beyond the first round of primaries.

 

[bdtex]

IMO, Sanders is only a straw man to give the appearance that Hillary has some sort of competition. It's clear from the way the Clinton campaign and the DNC are in cahoots to rig the debate schedule that both groups have no intention of letting Sanders' campaign go beyond the first round of primaries.

That may be true but he's still got people donating to him,working for his campaign or otherwise supporting him. If they're serious about him being the nominee they gotta answer the "path to 270" question if they are serious about him winning in November 2016.

 

[bdtex]

Any of my fellow PJDems who support Bernie wanna explain his "path to 270" to me? I know most of ya didn't like and didn't want HRC to be the 2008 nominee. If ya don't like her now and/or don't want her to be the 2016 nominee,make you case for Bernie being the better general election candidate. Biden isn't running. It's either gonna be Bernie or Hillary.

 

[Lukey]

I'd be more interested in a point by point comparison between his platform and Hillary's (or for that matter the one Obama ran on in 2008). It's all redistribution all the time with the three of them.

 

[Bugsy McGurk]

Pretty amazing to me watching the Bernie supporters fawn over him and bash Hillary on a daily basis. Yes,Hillary has some problems that she has to overcome to win the Dem nomination and general election but Bernie would be a general election disaster. The GOP would love for Bernie to be the Dem nominee. He's never even ran for office as Democrat before. Not saying none of his ideas are good. He may be an independent,but he's certainly not a centrist or center-left.

Not so much here,but for months on other sites I've been asking his supporters to explain his "path to 270" to me. Most have dodged that question with the "it's too soon" excuse. Each time,I point out that the national,state and county party leaders,campaign strategists,and major donors on both sides are all numbers people. You can damn well bet they've been mapping out the "path to 270" scenarios. I've been specifically asking Bernie people how does he win FLA,OH or VA? If he doesn't win one of those,how does he win all of the Midwest,West and Southwest states that Pres. Obama flipped in 2008 and won again in 2012? The few that have attempted to answer lately have given me all sorts of pipedream scenarios. Who do they think they are gonna get to be Sanders' VP nominee?

I type too slow and I'm just envisioning all sorts of devastating ads the GOP would love to produce and run against Bernie. Mind-boggling. Have at it PJ responders.

I agree with most of what you say. The GOP Slime Machine would have a field day with Sanders. It is very hard to envision his path to 270.

On the other hand, the GOP candidates are weak, and some of them are even crazy. Imagine a campaign between the uber-narcissist carnival barker and Sanders? I don't know who would win that one.

 

[bdtex]

I'd be more interested in a point by point comparison between his platform and Hillary's (or for that matter the one Obama ran on in 2008). It's all redistribution all the time with the three of them.

Less than half of the general electorate is not interested in that. Let's be honest about that. Optics,identity politics,bumpersticker slogans,labels and single issues drive them. It sucks but it is what it is.

 

[Lukey]

Less than half of the general electorate is not interested in that. Let's be honest about that. Optics,identity politics,bumpersticker slogans,labels and single issues drive them. It sucks but it is what it is.

Yep! That's exactly how a diehard Marxist community organizer from Chicago (where Brooklyn born Bernie went to college to learn how to be a socialist) got elected to the Presidency (twice!).

 

[bdtex]

Yep! That's exactly how a diehard Marxist community organizer from Chicago (where Brooklyn born Bernie went to college to learn how to be a socialist) got elected to the Presidency (twice!).

Romney and McCain tried to do it too in their own way and failed,but we're talking about the 2016 election now. I'm trying to anyway.

 

[Lukey]

Romney and McCain tried to do it too in their own way and failed.

Not really, they were both too easy for the Dems to "define" in the MSM liberal cocoon. McCain was "crazy" and Mitt was "weird and rich." He who controls the press gets to do the defining (as we are seeing now with Trump).

 

[bdtex]

Not really, they were both too easy for the Dems to "define" in the MSM liberal cocoon. McCain was "crazy" and Mitt was "weird and rich." He who controls the press gets to do the defining (as we are seeing now with Trump).

I don't buy the "liberal MSM" stuff. It's just an excuse for losing. You guys can post and sell it all you want. Maybe someone else will bite. Not me.

 

[Lukey]

I don't buy the "liberal MSM" stuff. It's just an excuse for losing. You guys can post and sell it all you want. Maybe someone else will bite. Not me.

That was a bit of hyperbole (as you might have guessed from my suggestion that Trump is currently controlling them and not Hillary). But Bernie Sanders is getting pretty nice treatment from them as well. It is a fact that much of the professional national media leans left but they have to sell ads, which at least keeps them honest to an extent. But the level of "in the tank" they went in carrying Barack Obama's water was over the top. Not one national outlet (not even Fox) dared to do any research into his many Marxist alliances. I'm not accusing them of supporting his Marxist agenda. They were just so enamored of the idea of (finally) putting an African American in the White House that they weren't even interested in where he was coming from (ideologically). It was a good (selling) story.

 

[bdtex]

But the level of "in the tank" they went in carrying Barack Obama's water was over the top.

As for 2008,including the nominating campaign, I'll concede that. A lot of them went on my no-fly list after the nominating campaign and remain there. Most of 'em have pretty much disappeared too. Carrying the water cost them.

 

[Arkady]

Pretty amazing to me watching the Bernie supporters fawn over him and bash Hillary on a daily basis. Yes,Hillary has some problems that she has to overcome to win the Dem nomination and general election but Bernie would be a general election disaster. The GOP would love for Bernie to be the Dem nominee. He's never even ran for office as Democrat before. Not saying none of his ideas are good. He may be an independent,but he's certainly not a centrist or center-left.

Not so much here,but for months on other sites I've been asking his supporters to explain his "path to 270" to me. Most have dodged that question with the "it's too soon" excuse. Each time,I point out that the national,state and county party leaders,campaign strategists,and major donors on both sides are all numbers people. You can damn well bet they've been mapping out the "path to 270" scenarios. I've been specifically asking Bernie people how does he win FLA,OH or VA? If he doesn't win one of those,how does he win all of the Midwest,West and Southwest states that Pres. Obama flipped in 2008 and won again in 2012? The few that have attempted to answer lately have given me all sorts of pipedream scenarios. Who do they think they are gonna get to be Sanders' VP nominee?

I type too slow and I'm just envisioning all sorts of devastating ads the GOP would love to produce and run against Bernie. Mind-boggling. Have at it PJ responders.

I think Sanders has a good shot in VA, by way of a similar path as got Obama there: he'll need strong numbers with minorities, good turn-out, and especially strong performance in the DC suburbs among highly-educated people. In Ohio, he'd need a strong showing among blue-collar workers. As the first Democratic nominee with an unabashedly populist economic message in many decades, it would come down to whether those votes are still in play, the way they once were, or whether white-identity-politics have effectively put them out of reach for the Democrats.

Sanders, obviously, has a tougher path to get there than a more conservative Democrat, since the play for undecideds will be tougher. But, the Republicans are making that easier than it could be, since they're all racing hard to the far-right, such that even Sanders is likely to come across as the more moderate and centrist of the two major options.

 

[Arkady]

well, it IS too soon. no republican has a path to 270 either.

that said, as soon as Hillary's staff figures out that the way to nullify sanders is to total up all his grandious spending plans, the jig will be up.

the only people who don't fear massive government debt, spending and the eventual hyper inflation are:

• students
• the unemployed/welfare recipients
• medicinal marijuana farmers and users
• government employees, whose contracts mandate "cost of living" increases

the rest of the population ? not so much a fan of massive debt and a currency crisis.

As I posted (yesterday, I think), his programs don't have to push up debt. We could easily pay for all of them while still having below-normal tax levels by first-world standards. We'd need to raise taxes some, such that total government revenues (all levels) rose from about 25% of GDP to about 30% (34% being roughly average for other developed nations), and couple that with some cuts to the more bloated parts of our government spending (e.g., the prison/industrial complex, and our flabby military).

 

[Arkady]

Any of my fellow PJDems who support Bernie wanna explain his "path to 270" to me? I know most of ya didn't like and didn't want HRC to be the 2008 nominee. If ya don't like her now and/or don't want her to be the 2016 nominee,make you case for Bernie being the better general election candidate. Biden isn't running. It's either gonna be Bernie or Hillary.

I don't think there's a case to be made that Sanders is a safer choice than Clinton, from the perspective of electability. I think if you're looking for the surest path to 270, Clinton's the better choice, since she's likely to come closest to the "sweet spot" of combining good turnout in the base (something someone like Webb couldn't give us) and appeal to the self-identifying "centrists" (something Sanders won't have), as well as being the candidate most likely to be able to get campaign funding that can stand up to what the GOP will put together. Sanders would have good turnout for the base but would make playing for the undecideds tough, and he's never going to have the big money to go ad-for-ad with the GOP. So, if you're looking for the safer choice, it's Clinton. But if you're looking for who would be the better president, I think it's Sanders. I think he's what the nation needs right now. That wouldn't be enough to convince me to back him if I thought he was unelectable, or such a long-shot that we're practically handing the election to the Republicans. But I don't think that's the case. I think he can win it, albeit with a higher degree of difficulty than Clinton. So he's my choice.

This is similar to the Clinton/Obama debate of 2008. I was on the other side of that one. I was skeptical about Obama because of his lack of experience and because his short track record made it hard to know what he'd really be like. So, I backed Clinton. And I argued that Clinton would have the surer path to election against the Republican. I still believe that. But, as we saw, Obama was perfectly capable of winning it all, even with his vulnerability on the experience issue, etc. I think that's how it would be with Sanders. He's more vulnerable to the Republicans than Clinton (who has already absorbed their worst shots), but he can win it.

 

[JuliefromOhio]

if Bernie is the Dem nominee, he'll beat the snot out of the Repub nominee, just as Hillary would, and Biden would.

 

[bdtex]

I think that's how it would be with Sanders. He's more vulnerable to the Republicans than Clinton (who has already absorbed their worst shots), but he can win it.

I don't think he can. And that sux for a guy like me,because I cannot pull the trigger for a GOP candidate,no matter how much I may agree with their fiscal and foreign,because of the GOP's tether to the evangelical right.