2016 Postmortem

lost, over and over. Had to fight against that headwind the WHOLE primary, even as he gained ground. Had to fight against 'pledged delegates' that were assumed to be for Hillary, when they didn't cast their votes till the Convention. People push back against shit like that. Growing up, we still had 'live' polling places here in WA, rather than mail-in ballots. We were always told, before our day was half over, who the winner was, every time. You make people feel like they don't matter, and they start getting angry. That holds no matter whether it's politics, or race, gender, sexuality, education, or war, whatever. Get 10% of the way into a primary and tell the supporters of the underdog that it's over, and they better get in line behind the winner, and that's going to get a reaction.


There was a way to resolve this primary as a fair horse race, and that just didn't happen. People are going to be bitter about it.


On the other hand, I don't believe the Bernie supporters that were so bitter they didn't vote for Hillary were identifiable in the statistical noise. We couldn't have had a better opponent to ensure everyone held their noses and voted for Hillary no matter how bitter they were about the primary, or XYZ single-issue crusade.

They basically ran Atilla the Hun, and that worked because 'unreasonably angry' resonated with a huge number of republicans.
Bernie was a non-factor in the General Election.