Well, he did go to the forum’s professional idiot for advice via PM. I don’t think that’s what you had in mind though.
A walk in the park in Nevada for Bernie. He could have this wrapped up in 10 days’ time.
Gobshite
3 Likes
Ah would ya look who’s back.
Does he have any chance vs Trump?
Candidates who win tend to be the ones with the most energised base. Sanders has that. There’s an energy around his campaign that nobody else has. Conventional wisdom is saying Trump will win this time, conventional wisdom said he’d lose last time. The opposite of conventional wisdom usually happens. Had conventional wisdom held, Bush would have won in 1992, Gore 2000, Clinton 2008 and 2016. What Sanders is good at is tapping into the real issues facing people and making them actual real campaign issues. He has authenticity in spades and his campaign has the potential to be Obama-like in its energy. That’s what’s in his favour.
What’s against him is the real threat, possibly likelihood, that the votes in key states could be hacked - Republicans are actively encouraging Russian interference at every level and purging anybody who speaks out against it, and the DOJ is now run by terminally corrupt fixer who was brought in specifically to purge it and run it for Trump’s benefit.
What’s also against him is the corporate establishment of Democratic party - who will give lukewarm backing to him at best - but he can turn that around and use it to his advantage to portray himself as the outsider candidate.
Corporate Democrats are nuts. The one surest way to lose the election is by getting fucking Bloomberg of all people to steal the nomination. It’s like Lockhart has suddenly emerged from a time machine from 1996.
Focus Group Pete makes me want to retch.
Of course Sanders can win, Democrats are more energized than they have been in a long time. He hasn’t won the nomination yet, not many delegates decided but super Tuesday on March 3rd should winnow the field to 3 or 4. If he has a decisive lead by the end of March when 50% of delegates are decided, the remaining candidates should drop out and unite behind him. A contested convention would be a really bad outcome, which is still likely, as with at least 3 candidates in the race he is unlikely to get 51% of delegates.
The key question is whether Sanders can unite the party the way Bill Clinton and Obama did. HRC couldn’t do it as she was such a divisive figure and the result was a lot of Sanders supporters stayed at home and handed the election to Trump. Progressives are a funny lot, their ideology purity test is often more important than winning elections. I think he can unite the party, but he needs to control the absolute loons on the left who regard moderate Democrats as the enemy as much as Republicans, or fascists as former poster Sidney calls them.
The historical precedent here is 1972, Nixon was absolutely hated by Democrats and the result was running the very progressive (at the time) George McGovern against him. Nixon won 49 states in a landslide. Things have obviously changed since then, but there is still concern that a left wing candidate will alienate enough of the voters in swing states to give Trump a chance, and potentially lose the House majority.
The most important thing is for Bernie to run a high energy campaign, as you know Trump will. He will undoubtedly run a higher energy campaign than Clinton in 2016.
Nothing screams high energy like a 78 year old who had a heart attack 4 months ago.
3 Likes
Oh don’t worry that will be used against him.
That was probably the Russians in fairness
I still can’t really get my head around the age profile of the contenders. This has to be the oldest field in primary history. Bernie, Warren, Biden and Bloomberg all 70+. Then you have Mayor Pete who’s in his 30s!
And the Micks are complaining about being made to work to 67
2 Likes
Sanders and Bloomberg were arguing at the last debate about who had more stents.
What would be trumps big slags against sanders a la crooked Hilary etc etc?
Bad news for the Republicans, they’ve lost a reliable voter.
They’d be quite similar to what @anon7035031 uses against anybody who disagrees with him.
“Communist!”
And of course the anti-Semitic angle. Sanders will be both accused of being an anti-Semite, and face a massive, sustained anti-Semitic smear campaign against him, which Trump will actively participate in but deny doing so.
I’d imagine it will be tremendous fun. sanders wont be bullied by him too easy I’d say
He won’t. Like Australian soap characters in a coma, he’s a fighter.
I expect Trump to weasel out of the debates. I don’t think he’d match up well with Bernie in them at all.