So now, this advice is completely bogus. Moderate voters still outnumber far-left progressives and play a bigger role in the election.

You also don't here moderates bitching about not getting their unicorn and sitting out the election, or lighting votes on fire by casting them for Jill Stein or writing in the losing primary candidate either.

... as Bernie leads us out of the wilderness.

Bernie & Elizabeth 2020!!!

What percentage of Bernie supporters didn`t vote for Hillary? Your emphatic declarations tell me you must have the answer.

We need to try something else. Though,I'll freely admit that Sanders probably should not run in 2020.The party REALLY needs some young blood. Clinton, Sanders,Biden,etc.are all getting up there in years.

I think Sanders would have been an amazing president. However, I do really think the party needs to start looking to its future. We don't seem to have many rising stars.

and promote others, as well, without a doubt. But he is here on the world stage now and we shouldn't be selling him short for future impact on the basis of his age. That ain't right.

Bernie & Elizabeth 2020!!!

Democratic Primaries, after having close to zero national name recognition, and becoming literally the most popular policitician in the country, then sure.

If moderate mainstream corporate Democrats wish to cede the populist mantle to Trumphumpers and continue business as usual, and crap all over Bernie and his supporters and his message please proceed. Easy to blame Stein voters or bernie bros who sat out the election, but that is a narrow segment of the population. Better to realize that Bernie's message resonated with a large swath of the population, and try to capture & amplify it instead of scapegoating and focusing on personalities. JMHO.

Bernie's supporters were the ones expecting a coronation, not Hillary's. That whole narrative was nothing but childish projection from people who don't understand how voting or a 51% majority functions, apparently.

... so I'm not to hip on that "swath" right now.

To intimate at that any dem candidate proffered was not worth voting for over some other even generic GOPr is some bull fuckin shit.

It boggles the mind.

Your characterization of what happened is insane. Vast majority of Bernie voters, myself included, voted for Hillary. How is that "fuck you america". Those who voted for Stein and/or sat out the election are a DISTRACTION yet you keep harping on them because they stroke your sense of needing a scapegoat. GTF over it and focus the populist MESSAGE that was more popular than Trump's.
Are you actually willing to cede this populist groundswell to Donald Fucking TRUMP??? On the altar of the corporate DNC??? shame.

... as HRC's primary voters on its face so his primary voters were NOT a trend at all.

Im focusing on the voters in the primaries

No, I'm not a LIV

or offers false hope.

Hillary needed a strong overall message to pierce through the noise but I am not interested in slogans - and there are many people out there like me.

I look at the blue areas that went red and purple, and that is a larger population than former Bernie supporters who disliked Clinton. Its a bigger problem of strategy and messaging. Indignant STEIN VOTERS ELECTED TRUMP and WHY SHOULD I PANDER TO WHITE RACISTS posts telegraph a sense close minded entitlement that I saw as central all through the election.

Like you, I too voted for Hillary. Now I'd like to figure out how she lost the election and not repeat that behavior.

(rightly or wrongly) under investigation by the FBI, with its never-ending negative stories.

(I think that used to be one of the Ten Commandments of Basic Politics 101, which the majority of the party's primary voters saw fit to break this year. It's also filed under 'Common Sense 101')


#2, see #1.


Without that, she would have won outright. One can "blame Comey", but the buck stops with the candidate, who made that whole line of attack possible.

They now call far left. If we ran an FDR clone they'd call him an unelectable far leftist.... sad.

Bango.. some folks will never learn - they'd rather loose to a "Fascist" than allow the "Socialist" in office.. simply put, Corporatists prefer fascism.. what a suprise

Time for some kickboxin!

<-kickboxin'

How ya been?

Wasn't into posting. I hardly looned at a web page for almost a year....

Im slowly makin a comeback!

The party to the right and keep complaining when people vote for real republicans over "republican lite" democrats.

.


The Democratic Party was to accept people, have them register at the last minute to onboard as many new people into the party, but many states actually wanted to play a closed-loop system and shut out people eagerly wanting to join the Democrats.

Clinton would go to one state and say how she was against Sanders' positions, go to a state that leaned his way and she co-opted his positions to neutralize any differences between candidates, then went to coal country and reversed her positions--selectively pandering to each state, as the primary rolled along.

The DNC reading of voter databases was debunked by me months ago, ad no data center on the planet protects information by firewall only. There are userid, session tokens and database record level security which is common practice, not even best practice protocols.

The constant presentation of superdelegates, to say Sanders will never win contributed.


I could go on with a whole bunch of other things, but it will probably drive a flag campaign against me.


====


Too many people are still myopic in their views as to what happened, but suffice it to say, not selecting Tim Kaine sealed this election loss, as I just wrote on another OP. Had Sanders been onboarded, nothing would have prevented her win--nothing!

There would have been a lot of Independents, left-leaning Republicans, Never-Trumpers, and some Bernie or Busters.


.

I was wondering how long it'd be until I'd see that old toxic right wing meme of "America, love it or leave it!".

But we were told over and over again that he was "un-electable" unlike Hillary. Well, now we see how well that turned out. It should have been obvious from the size of his rallies relative to hers.

As Eichenwald of Newsweek pointed out, the opposition research on Sanders was devastating. Republicans would have torn him to bits.

The final vote totals for Clinton vs. Trump won't be all that different from the final vote totals for Obama vs. Romney.

Oh wait.

Trump has proven that oppo research means NOTHING.

That doesn't mean oppo research wouldn't prove devastating for others.

The only time I heard that expression was when she was being chastise by her opponents and using it as a derogatory statement.

Last edited Thu Dec 1, 2016, 09:35 PM - Edit history (1)

When did she say "It's my turn"?. If you can give me a citation for when she said it, I will gladly say I was wrong.

you feel better, fine. It permeated her campaign whether she said it herself or not, that's sufficient for my part.

I'm a Bernie primary supporter. HRC Supporters did not say that. Alleged Bernie supporters said it as a snarky smear.

Bernie & Elizabeth 2020!!!

Funny how those rallies didn't translate into votes, huh? Almost as though crowd size at singular events has no correlation with voting on a specific day...

In fact, most voters show ZERO interest in primaries. Just a handful of people ever show up.

Caucuses are even worse. They've been described as a sewing circle with the same faces every year.

Do your homework next time.

Especially now.

BTW: Republicans were voting for Hillary in open primaries because they figured she was easier to beat in the general. In closed primaries the establishment voted for Hillary and openly questioned the loyalty of Bernie supporters.

BTW: The ammosexuals were voting for Bernie.

That's why he won and Democratic judges and other officials on the ballot lost their elections, because "open primary" Republican voters went for him to ratfuck our primary.

And I've seen some of your other posts, so please don't try to project "smug superiority" onto me. I do not appreciate being used as a stand-in for yourself in such accusations.

You should share this window you have into an alternate reality with science. Don't keep it to yourself!!!

The problem with open primaries is they allow the opposition to cause strife. I suspect that played a big role in the difference between the Michigan primary and the Ohio primary. People wanting to damage Clinton took part in the Michigan primary, but when it came to Ohio folks with the same mentality were more interested in giving Kasich a boost.

Anyway, Clinton won more open primaries than Sanders did. So, however you want to look at it, that narrative should have been put to rest a long time ago.

And, as you point out, caucuses are pretty absurd. They're not accessible for a lot of folks. Without caucuses, the Democratic Primary wouldn't have been even remotely close.

Everyone from our precinct had to sit on opposite sides of a table depending on who they supported. We had 85 people and it was a tie with one undecided who eventually supported Bernie. All of the Hillary supporters stormed out in anger thinking it was a winner take all contest before any could be selected as delegates. The whole process took 90 minutes.

Unelectable.

Proceed, sir.

She lost by a razor thin margin in a few swing states. And faced unprecedented last minute interference from a rogue FBI.

A tweak or two and she's the President-Elect right now.

This was the part that really impressed me:

and see how many of those candidates got elected?

They didn't even get elected in California.

It's not the definitive rebuttal you think it is, in other words.

A lot of those are at the state level, but we need to take the states.

Because your comments show no awareness of this election.

What was so third way about what Clinton ran on? What was so unacceptable about her positions on the issues you list above?

What evidence do you have to support your claims about what wins? And how do you explain losses by Feingold and various Bernie backed candidates? And if Bernie was so much better, why did he lose the primary by 3.75 million votes?

At least he didn't say "oligarchs"

... that was so bad that a vote couldn't be cast vs a generic GOP not less DPutin

Clinton had some serious message cohesion issues, we can't pretend she didn't. First half of the race was third way, "free community college", "iron out Obamacare, we need to keep the market insurance system", "trade deals are good, TPP might be ok?"

Second half of the race was leaning progressive: "means-tested free college", I think her campaigned pushed a public option for a *day*, paid maternity leave. Really very little of the above policy proposals were campaigned on, she just ran hits on Trump.

For about the entire first half of 2016, her campaign hyped gun-control so much that down-ticket Dems all ran on it. 1st half of 2016 was almost exclusively "let's take guns away". Good way to hit Sanders from the left. Bad general election message.

Second half of 2016 was just trying keep Sanders supporters in line with vague messaging about "standing with her" and "standing together" "building bridges". And keeping disaffected Republicans in line with attacks on Trump's character.

Taken as a whole it was a message-less campaign in an economy where people are looking for straight answers and we have to learn from that mistake.

That didn't take long. Despite the assurances by weaver et al that Sanders would remain a D. As a lifelong D, let me say I'm not impressed.

from him...populism won ....not progressive policy...there is a difference. We need to fix trade and offer a manufacturing policy for this country that will return good paying jobs to the rust belt.

the BOB's stayed away...and there was so much damage done during the primary to Hillary's candidacy...both by Bernie supporters and by Bernie. He should have gotten out way earlier and not fixed it so there were protests at the convention...and he should have conceded. Many of his voters wouldn't come back. Bernies words went directly to Trump's lips...honestly I will never get over this election...but I know we must put it behind us and move on...however, advice from Bernie no thanks.

I hope they did come back...but I still think the divisive primary cost us the election.

And I believe that the 41% of registered non-voters made a far bigger difference. My belief is that it would be better to concentrate on motivating these apparently unmotivated voters.

or uses it. Otherwise we'd would have had a buncha down-ticket candidates campaigning on a public option. Guess how many did? 3, out of like thousands. I literally counted.

We can't let praise of Bernie go unchallenged.

Sounds like a winner to me.

Big items. Use clear and concise terms.

Clinton's campaign site was detailed and good, but far too many voters do not read well enough to follow. And many poor and rural voters have limited access to the internet.

For example, run ads for a Public Option health care proposal to improve on Obamacare.

frame the issue before the GOP machine frames this issue.

Party needs to refocus and move left, but let's get fact based.

Last edited Thu Dec 1, 2016, 10:26 PM - Edit history (1)

I'm glad Teachout didn't win. And I'm glad the Democratic establishment (and even the WFP!) didn't support her against Cuomo, nor against a Republican. /sarcasm

choice than Trump." Sanders also showed good judgment in telling CNN (when asked in June if he would be voting for Clinton) "Yes – I think the issue right here is, I’m going to do everything I can to defeat Donald Trump.” Only Sanders knows in his heart whether he actually followed through on that pledge, but it is nice to see him back on TV every day now that he's selling a book.

It's a shame that the fiery progressive from Vermont was unable to unite his faction with the Democratic party and marshal the most embittered among his supporters to do the right thing on election day. It was a test of leadership; I'll leave his grade for history to decide.

SO is running a good campaign, which did NOT happen.

He had no depth. He also had a lot of nasty insinuations about Clinton that he can never take back.

is that clinton thought people would vote smart and not vote color.

Lesson #2 Attack any and every Senator, Governor, Congressperson who endorses your opponent with viscous emails and phone calls.

Lesson #3 Gather surrogates who spew hatred towards your opponent

Lesson #4 Hold rallies at uber white colleges

I have to go cook dinner now.

That was a winning issue that seemed to really excite both young Republicans and Democrats.

Big ideas. Big proposals are what gets people going to the polls.

Not sure he could've won though. Too bad there's not a way to rewind time and try it again.

BRILLIANT idea.

The Humphrey wing of that election practically campaigned for Nixon, stop with the revisionism. Also, McGovern made a mistake by making someone who didn't even want him to win as VP. History shows us leftys shouldn't reach across the Dem aisle so much.

Our "Bernie or Bust", was your "Anybody but McGovern". Us Dems campaign against each other when they stand for completely different things. But next time maybe we'll do it as aggressively as Humphrey's team did to McGovern, practically campaigning for Nixon. I'm being serious. We'll campaign against a corporate Dem in the general, and make the next Clinton clone's electoral map just as red as McGoverns.

https://newrepublic.com/article/130737/democrats-still-dont-get-george-mcgovern

"Perhaps the deepest damage to McGovern’s campaign came not from its own ineptitude, but from the candidate’s fellow Democrats. Early in the primaries, an adviser for Hubert Humphrey, one of McGovern’s main opponents for the nomination, promised, “We are going to show that McGovern is a radical, just like Goldwater was in 1964.” Keeping that promise, Humphrey claimed during a televised debate prior to the California primary that McGovern’s Demogrant plan would hike taxes on a middle class family making $12,000 by more than $400. The number wasn’t remotely true. According to both private calculations by Nixon’s Office of Management and Budget and independent academic estimates, the bottom 70-to-80 percent of families would pay less under McGovern’s plan than under existing law or Nixon’s proposals. But Humphrey’s claim not only stuck, it practically wrote the script for an anti-Demogrant commercial that Nixon would run in the fall.

As McGovern barreled toward the nomination, leading Democrats’ attacks became more desperate. Anti-McGovern Democrats staged an “Anybody But McGovern” movement at the convention. When that failed, some pledged that they would not campaign for him and might even support Nixon. A Democrat even handed Republicans their best attack line: “The people don’t know McGovern is for amnesty, abortion, and legalization of pot,” an unnamed Democratic senator told the press. Hugh Scott, the GOP’s Senate minority leader, transformed the quote into “the three A’s: Acid, Amnesty, and Abortion” and a golden political slur was born. (Ironically, the unnamed Democratic senator who had originated the line was none other than Eagleton, though McGovern didn’t know it at the time.) "

I know some on the left have this fantasy about how the GOP wins it all and then...people go way left as a result...it doesn't happen...someone like Clinton who has to be a centrist wins eventually...and it takes years to go left...and in this case, we will be lucky to survive Trump.

nm

Dream big. Something like that. It would be risky, a departure from the waffling and triangulation to which we're accustomed. We might even lose. Better to die on our feet than to live on our knees. Is that true?

by complaining that Hillary was part of the "corrupt establishment" and that she was benefiting from a "rigged system."

He pretested Trump's best lines for him. Trump took what worked and the voters fell for his faux-Bernie act.

Also, Bernie insisted on staying in the campaign for months after the math made a win for him impossible, spouting off against Hillary and the establishment and the rigged system till the convention. Because he waited so long many of his supporters had kept their hopes up till the bitter, bitter end and were never comfortable getting on board.

With all that, I think the single biggest factor in DT's win wasn't anything Bernie did. It was the two letter bombs James Comey dropped into the election in its final days, at which point her support plunged from a 9 point lead to a 2 point lead.

He's still spewing venom on his book 📚 tour

according to Kurt Eichenwald, the reporter who viewed the opposition research that the RNC had prepared and was dying to use on Bernie in the General campaign, if he got that far.

For example, the bill he authored trying to get Vermont's nuclear waste sited in a rural, heavily hispanic part of Texas. Or his vote against the Amber alert system. In a long, productive career like Hillary's or Bernie's, there will always be votes the other side can use against you. Bernie wasn't the magical exception.

Some people have the fantasy that Hillary was the only vulnerable candidate the Dems could have put forward. Not true. Look what the RNC did to John Kerry, the war hero -- turning him into some sort of coward. When they don't have something on you, they just make it up.

"Trust me, I saw it."

We went over that issue of moving waste in the primaries. Was that really going to hurt him with potential voters that went for Trump anyway? Whether there would have been sit-outs on the democratic side is not in question though, just not for that issue, which if I recall the details, is far less ethically problematic than you make it sound.

I have no fantasy that Hillary is the only vulnerable candidate, or that Sanders wouldn't have had an uphill battle as somebody meddling with the primal forces of nature, not because of Trump but because of the whole political machine and its propaganda wing, our mainstream media. But I find it irritating that people want to blame Sanders because Clinton couldn't effectively defend against his accusations about her coziness with big business, nor even simply put up a strong enough message of intention to actually advocate against the influence of those interests. I'll repeat, "I basically told them to cut it out." I'm sure that had as much of a ring to it to everybody else as it did to me.

I was referring to this very thorough article by Eichenwald.

You should read the whole thing and disabuse yourself of the idea that Bernie would have been our savior.

http://www.newsweek.com/myths-cost-democrats-presidential-election-521044

Here are a few tastes of what was in store for Sanders, straight out of the Republican playbook: He thinks rape is A-OK. In 1972, when he was 31, Sanders wrote a fictitious essay in which he described a woman enjoying being raped by three men. Yes, there is an explanation for it—a long, complicated one, just like the one that would make clear why the Clinton emails story was nonsense. And we all know how well that worked out.

Then there’s the fact that Sanders was on unemployment until his mid-30s, and that he stole electricity from a neighbor after failing to pay his bills, and that he co-sponsored a bill to ship Vermont’s nuclear waste to a poor Hispanic community in Texas, where it could be dumped. You can just see the words “environmental racist” on Republican billboards. And if you can’t, I already did. They were in the Republican opposition research book as a proposal on how to frame the nuclear waste issue.

Also on the list: Sanders violated campaign finance laws, criticized Clinton for supporting the 1994 crime bill that he voted for, and he voted against the Amber Alert system. His pitch for universal health care would have been used against him too, since it was tried in his home state of Vermont and collapsed due to excessive costs. Worst of all, the Republicans also had video of Sanders at a 1985 rally thrown by the leftist Sandinista government in Nicaragua where half a million people chanted, “Here, there, everywhere/the Yankee will die,’’ while President Daniel Ortega condemned “state terrorism” by America. Sanders said, on camera, supporting the Sandinistas was “patriotic.”

The Republicans had at least four other damning Sanders videos (I don’t know what they showed), and the opposition research folder was almost 2-feet thick. (The section calling him a communist with connections to Castro alone would have cost him Florida.) In other words, the belief that Sanders would have walked into the White House based on polls taken before anyone really attacked him is a delusion built on a scaffolding of political ignorance.

His hit job in June cut her off at the knees when she was up really big, and the late October hit job did was you noted.

POS scumbag, I said in June.

could be a winning combination. Hopefully this is what we get in 2020.

Feingold would have won. There is not one easy answer.

Of what they were demanding.

There was a lot of discussion post primary and add how they would not vote for Hillary and and even protested in the convention and disrupted rallies.
The

His campaign message may have been incomplete, but if we want a morning in America, Sanders needs to be a part of our balanced breakfast. People need justice, economic, legal and otherwise. The reign of the bankers and fake Christians needs to end.

everyone was saying too lofty , unicorn dreams etc. Now we have the ultimate dream squasher for everyone but his billionaire club assholes.

If the people want big ideas and proposals then why didn't Sanders win? Sanders only had to deal with one opponent in the primary unlike Trump with about 17. Which meant that Sanders got even more minutes during the debates than Trump did in the GOP debates.

He was never treated seriously as a candidate by the mainstream media. Clinton had run previously and barely lost, and had nearly the entire democratic establishment putting their thumb on the scale for her, and had no serious opposition until Bernie entered the race.

That Bernie did as well as he did should be a wake-up call.

Your OP is just another part of the circular firing squad. It is unnecessary.

But when you cant come through with them the people who elected you to do those get very angry. Trump did that and its already started for him. I give it February, republicans will really start to turn on him and he wont be able to get much done.

The people need to know where you stand.