Tuesday, November 10, 2015

Can Bernie Sanders pull off a Harry Truman on the GOP?

Bernie Sanders defeats Hillary Clinton

An incumbent President seeking re-election usually faces no opposition during their respective party's primaries, especially if the sitting President is still popular. And after a President's two consecutive terms, vice-presidents and others within an incumbent's administration sometimes also have this same advantage — if anything, because of their name recognition — and why (despite what she says) Hillary Clinton is really running for Bill Clinton's or Barack Obama's third term (by piggy-backing on the popularity of previous administrations).

As to Presidents Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush — their races merely became pro forma for their respective political parties, because serious challengers are rare.

The first binding event, in which a candidate can secure their party's convention delegates, is traditionally by way of the Iowa caucus — and is followed by the New Hampshire primary, the first primary by tradition. In recent elections, the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary have garnered over half the media attention given to the entire selection process. But the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary have also produced a number of headline-making upsets in the past.

Regarding the 2016 general election, Democratic politicians and media pundits have expressed doubt about Senator Bernie Sanders's "electability" compared to Hillary Clinton's — even though polls have showed (as of November 10, 2015) Sanders winning in a general election by wider margins over Clinton against half of the GOP candidates.

* Via Real Clear Politics:
2016 - Sanders and Clinton vs GOP

And if someone such as Richard Trumka, President of America's largest labor union, the AFL-CIO (or the very popular Senator Elizabeth Warren) had come out with an early endorsement for Bernie Sanders, then other labor unions and other Democratic politicians/delegates may have followed suit — thereby increasing Bernie Sanders' so-called electability. (And probably giving him better early polling results.)

But instead, most labor unions and establishment Democrats have endorsed Bill Clinton's wife (Obama's former Secretary of State) to help perpetuate the political establishment's monopoly on American politics — and why Bernie Sanders says we desperately need a "political revolution". Sanders' Democratic nomination to run for POTUS may be the last chance in a very long time to change the establishment stranglehold on our corrupted two-party political system. Just the fact that Hillary Clinton is running is, in fact, an effort by the political elites to keep the corrupt political status quo.

If Hillary truly cared about the lifting more people into the middle-class (rather than just pursuing her own personal ambitions of becoming "the first woman president"), she would have bowed out of the race by now, allowing Bernie Sanders to run virtually unopposed — and then endorse Senator Bernie Sanders, who has just as good a chance of beating any Republican candidate in the 2016 general election (maybe even better, once the election process gears up, and more people get to know Bernie better — especially the African-American community).

Bernie Sanders is only running now because he saw no other viable alternative to fixing our corrupt political system. He may not have even ran had Elizabeth Warren thrown her hat into the ring. And vice president Joe Biden would not have been a viable alternative either, because just like Hillary, he would have also been running for Obama's third term. And uncle Joe knew that, and why he may have finally chosen not to run with Hillary in the race.

If we end up with a GOP President in 2016, we might have Hillary and her supporters to blame (some Republicans who would consider voting for Bernie would never vote for Hillary). Or if she wins the Presidency, and we end up with another 8 years of the "same ole, same ole", then we also have the DNC political machine and the media to blame. Either way, the American people will get screwed again.

But it doesn't always have to be this way going forward — because it hasn't always been this way in the past.

A very brief history of the current two-party U.S. political system

The Federalist party came into being as a national coalition of bankers and businessmen in support of Alexander Hamilton's fiscal policies. The Federalist Party was the first American political party and existed from the early 1790s to 1816.

The Democratic-Republican Party was the American political party in the 1790s of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, which was formed in opposition to the Federalist party. It came to power in 1800, and dominated national and state affairs until the 1820s, and then faded away. The Democratic-Republican Party (the first "Republican Party") was also known as the Jeffersonian Republicans, whose base was in the rural South.

After the 1824 election, separate factions developed in support of John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson. Adams' politicians, including most ex-Federalists (such as Daniel Webster and even Adams himself), would gradually evolve into the National Republican Party, and those politicians that supported Jackson would later help form the modern Democratic Party in 1828.

The Whig Party emerged in 1833–34 as a coalition of National Republicans, who were mostly disaffected Jacksonians and people whose last political activity was with the Federalists a decade before. Most Whig Party leaders eventually quit politics (as Abraham Lincoln did temporarily) or changed parties. The northern voter-base mostly gravitated to the new Republican Party. But by the 1856 presidential election, the Whig Party had become defunct.

The Constitutional Union Party enjoyed a moderate measure of success from conservative former Whigs (particularly in the Upper South) in the 1860 presidential election. In the South the party vanished, but Whig ideology persisted for decades and played a major role in shaping the modernizing policies of the state governments during Reconstruction from 1865 to 1877 following the Civil War.

The Democrats

The Democrats' philosophy of modern American liberalism advocates social and economic equality, along with the welfare state. It pursues a mixed economy by providing government intervention and regulation in the economy. These interventions, such as the introduction of social programs, support for labor unions, moves toward universal health care and equal opportunity, consumer protection, and environmental protection, form the core of the party's economic policy. (Well into the 20th century, the party had a conservative pro-business wing and was based in the major cities and included a populist-conservative and evangelical wing based in the rural South.)

Bernie and FDR

Click image to enlarge
FDR - elction results

After Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) was re-elected in the New York state election of 1912 and served as chairman of the Agriculture Committee, his success with farm and labor bills was a precursor to his New Deal policies twenty years later as President. By this time he had become more consistently progressive, in support of labor and social welfare programs for women and children (his cousin Theodore was of some influence on these issues*).

* Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt was a leader of the Republican Party and was a leading force of the Progressive Era. Elected in 1904 to a full term as President, he continued his pursuit of progressive policies. After leaving office, he became frustrated with his successors, so he founded his own party, the Progressive "Bull Moose" Party — and called for wide-ranging progressive reforms. The split allowed the Democrats to win the White House and Congress in 1912; those Republicans aligned with Taft would control the Republican Party for decades.

In May 1930, as FDR began his run for a second term as governor of New York, he reiterated his doctrine from the campaign two years before: "that progressive government by its very terms, must be a living and growing thing, that the battle for it is never ending and that if we let up for one single moment or one single year, not merely do we stand still but we fall back in the march of civilization." His Republican opponent could not overcome the public's criticism of the Republican Party for their economic distress during the Great Depression under Republican President Herbert Hoover, and so, Franklin D. Roosevelt Roosevelt was elected to a second term as governor of New York.

Today, U.S. presidents are limited to two terms. But beginning in 1932, FDR won four consecutive terms as President of the United States, and won each election by a landslide by running on progressive values (see the elections results on the left). FDR even won all the Southern States (which was before the Civil Rights movement had yet to become a national political issue, which later split the Democrats).

It should be noted that in essence, we already have a modern Progressive Party today. It was first founded in 1991 by U.S. Representatives Ron Dellums (D-CA), Lane Evans (D-IL), Thomas Andrews (D-ME), Peter DeFazio (D-OR), Maxine Waters (D-CA) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT).

Speaking at a town hall meeting in 2012, former Republican/Tea Party Representative Allen West (Florida) made the startling claim that many of his fellow members of the House were members of the Communist Party:

Moderator: "What percentage of the American legislature do you think are card-carrying Marxists or International Socialist?"
West: "It's a good question. I believe there's about 78 to 81 members of the Democrat Party who are members of the Communist Party. It’s called the Congressional Progressive Caucus." [There are 70 currently listed, and FYI: Senator Elizabeth Warren isn't on the list, despite the many progressive values she advocates.]

But by his own reckoning, Rep. Allen West was essentially saying that our former Presidents — Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft and Woodrow Wilson (as well as Senator Bernie Sanders today) — were all Communists (PolitiFact: "Pants on fire!" — Allen West's claims were a total lie.)

Senator Bernie Sanders, as a co-founder of the modern Congressional Progressive Caucus, is the Independent Senator of Vermont who calls himself a democratic socialist (although he may be more of a social democrat). But yet, either moniker may be just another terminology for describing a "progressive" ideology — a belief that FDR also advocated. And so, according to former Republican Representative Allen West, that makes FDR a Communist too.

But those within the Democratic and Republican political machines today (and the media) paint Bernie Sanders as Soviet or a Communist — which is totally untrue — and something that even the card-carrying Socialists and Communists deny. (Although, they may agree with many things on his agenda; but they don't believe he goes near left enough). Former Maryland governor Martin O'Mally recently said: "I am a Democrat. I’m a lifelong Democrat. I’m not a former independent. I’m not a former Republican. I believe in the party of Franklin Roosevelt."

Let's be perfectly clear: Martin O'Mally is no FDR — but Bernie Sanders could be. FDR was once a "moderate" Democrat, before morphing (evolving) into a "progressive" Democrat — but O'Mally is not a progressive either. And FDR didn't adopt progressive values (or the moniker) for political expediency, the way Hillary Clinton did. Within one month she went from being a self-proclaimed "moderate" to claiming to be a "progressive" — unlike Bernie Sanders, who has ALWAYS been progressive. Progressive groups such as the Roosevelt Institute and the Progressive Change Campaign Committee advocates the same values as Senator Sanders.

The establishment Democrats and Hillary Clinton (Neo-liberal Democrats, Third Way Democrats, Blue Dog Democrats, Moderate Democrats, Centrist Democrats, etc.), just like the establishment Republicans, wants to keep the current corrupted two-party system, which enslaves the voters and gives the political elitists all the power without any serious challenges to their hold on that absolute power.

The origins of today's Tea Party within the Republican Party

After 1932 and FDR's New Deal, the business wing of the Democratic Party had withered and, between the 1960s (because of the Civil Rights movement) and the 1990s, Southern whites and many European ethnics moved into the Republican Party.

Note: Today, the Democratic Party is composed mostly of progressives (like Bernie Sanders) and centrists (moderates like Hillary Clinton). And the Dixiecrats of yore are more like the Tea Party and Freedom Caucus within the Republican Party today.

When FDR died in 1945, Harry Truman (FDR's 4th-term VP) became the new President and established a highly visible President's Committee on Civil Rights and ordered an end to discrimination in the military in 1948. A group of Southern governors then met to consider the place of Southerners within the Democratic Party. After a tense meeting with the DNC chairman (and Truman confidant), the Southern governors agreed to convene their own convention in Alabama if Truman and civil rights supporters emerged victorious at the 1948 Democratic National Convention.

In July, the convention did in fact re-nominate Truman, and he adopted a plank proposed by Northern liberals calling for civil rights; and 35 Southern delegates walked out, and the move was on to remove Truman's name from the ballot in the South. This required a new party, which the Southern defectors chose to name the States' Rights Democratic Party — aka The Dixiecrats. (The term "Dixiecrat" is sometimes used by Northern Democrats to refer to conservative Southern Democrats from the 1940s on, regardless of where they stood in 1948.)

On election day in 1948, the Dixiecrats carried the previously solid Democratic states of Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina, receiving 1,169,021 popular votes and 39 electoral votes. The Progressive Party nominee, Henry A. Wallace (FDR's third-term VP), drew a nearly equal number of popular votes (1,157,172) from the Democrats' left wing (although he did not carry any States with electoral votes.) The split in the Democratic Party in the 1948 election had been expected to produce a win by the GOP nominee Tom Dewey, but Harry Truman defeated Dewey in an upset victory.

Dewey defeats Truman

As President Harry S. Truman had later said in 1952 (and he could have been speaking to Hillary Clinton today):

"I've seen it happen time after time. When the Democratic candidate allows himself to be put on the defensive and starts apologizing for the New Deal and the fair Deal, and says he really doesn't believe in them, he is sure to lose. The people don't want a phony Democrat. If it's a choice between a genuine Republican, and a Republican in Democratic clothing [a "moderate" Democrat — someone not like FDR], the people will choose the genuine article [like Bernie Sanders], every time; that is, they will take a Republican before they will a phony Democrat, and I don't want any phony Democratic candidates in this campaign. But when a Democratic candidate goes out and explains what the New Deal and fair Deal really are — when he stands up like a man [or a woman] and puts the issues before the people [like Bernie Sanders does] — then Democrats can win, even in places where they have never won before. It has been proven time and again. We are getting a lot of suggestions to the effect that we ought to water down our platform and abandon parts of our program. These, my friends, are Trojan Horse suggestions. I have been in politics for over 30 years, and I know what I am talking about, and I believe I know something about the business. One thing I am sure of: Never, never throw away a winning program. This is so elementary that I suspect the people handing out this advice are not really well-wishers of the Democratic Party."

Can Bernie Sanders pull off a Harry Truman on the GOP?

If Bernie Sanders ran as an Independent, the split in the Democratic Party in the 2016 election might be expected to produce a victory by a GOP nominee; but if Bernie Sanders can defeat Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination, Bernie Sanders might be able to win an upset victory over any Republican candidate — the way Truman defeated Dewey.

Our corrupt two-party system has created a nation of oligarchs and plutocrats — and that's why Bernie Sanders is calling for a "political revolution" today. America has had many political revolutions in the past, and we will have many more in the future. But it's time for the next one in 2016. A vote for another establishment politician will only perpetuate the misery we've had in wage growth for the past 35 years, especially for the African-American community — who doesn't know Bernie near as well as they know Hillary. But they should, or we may not be able to have our political revolution.

Who has the longest and strongest history for advocating civil rights?

While at the University of Chicago, Bernie Sanders threw himself into activism for civil rights and economic justice by volunteering and organizing. He railed against the college’s housing segregation policy by participating in Chicago’s very first civil rights sit-in. He became a leader of an NAACP ally called the Congress of Racial Equality at a time when most civil rights activists were black. In 1962 he was arrested while demonstrating for desegregated public schools in Chicago. He once walked around Chicago putting up fliers protesting police brutality. Sanders had worked for a meatpackers union and marched for civil rights in Washington D.C. with Martin Luther King Jr. in 1963.

The following year, in 1964, Hillary Clinton had volunteered to campaign for the Republican candidate Barry Goldwater in the U.S. presidential election. Goldwater was against FDR's New Deal, but fortunately (no thanks to Hillary), Goldwater lost to the Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson by one of the largest landslides in history.

As President, LBJ designed the "Great Society" legislation upholding civil rights, public broadcasting, Medicare, Medicaid, aid to education, the arts, urban and rural development, public services, and his "War on Poverty". Civil rights bills signed by Johnson banned racial discrimination in public facilities, interstate commerce, the workplace, and housing; and the Voting Rights Act banned certain requirements in southern states used to disenfranchise African Americans. With the passage of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, the country's immigration system was reformed and all national origin quotas were removed. During that time, Hillary Clinton served as president of the Wellesley Young Republicans.

All in all, can Hillary Clinton even come close compared to Bernie Sanders long history on civil rights?

Editor's note: I suspect many Black voters not only voted for Obama because he's a Democrat (who ran as a "progressive" — but who turned out to be another "moderate"), but also because he's Black — or they would have voted for Hillary. But for a similar reason, they shouldn't vote for Hillary just because she's a Democrat (but instead, IMOH, vote for Bernie.) And I also suspect that many of Hillary's supporters will also vote for Hillary, not because she's a Democrat, but also because she's a woman. I would hope that all these people would carefully compare the past histories of these candidates and look where they currently stand on the issues (Hillary vs. Bernie), and then vote for what's really in their own best interests.

Maybe we should all vote for "progressives" (including working-class Republicans) in all the presidential, congressional, state and local elections — because America really does need a political revolution. Please don't vote for more misplaced hope for any real meaningful change. We were promised that before in 2008, remember?

My Related posts:

Our Corrupt Political Duopoly Denies Voters Real Change
http://bud-meyers.blogspot.com/2015/11/our-corrupt-political-duopoly-denies.html

America's Two Party Political System is Rigged
http://bud-meyers.blogspot.com/2015/06/americas-two-party-political-system-is.html

Bernie Sanders is not Vladimir Lenin or Joseph Stalin
http://bud-meyers.blogspot.com/2015/10/bernie-sanders-is-not-vladimir-lenin-or.html

Democrats Moving Left, Not Center
http://bud-meyers.blogspot.com/2014/01/democrats-moving-left-not-center.html

13 comments:


  1. ...but yes, anyone OTHER than a Republican for President would be for the better...especially with the current Republican-dominated Congress.

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  2. Sanders beats Clinton against GOP candidates

    The latest NBC News poll shows Bernie Sanders beat all the GOP candidates — and by wider margins than Hillary — but yet, this wasn't NBC's headline; nor was this widely mentioned in the media. But there was one exception. To her great credit, Rachel Maddow (on MSNBC) mentioned this.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jTIcWRgH78

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  3. Here's a great music video: Bernie Sanders and His Political Warriors

    (The song is by Nickelback: "When We Stand Together")

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoS3QK7XP1A

    Here's 14 ORIGINAL Bernie Sanders Campaign Songs (not music videos)

    http://bud-meyers.blogspot.com/2015/10/14-bernie-sanders-campaign-songs.html

    * The whole country really is feeling the bern!

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  4. Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican president of the United States, told the Congress in 1861: “Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital — capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.”

    Here's what the Republican presidential candidates said about raising the minimum wage last night during their 4th debate:

    http://www.thenation.com/article/a-billionaire-some-millionaires-and-a-no-show-senator-debate-how-best-to-block-wage-hikes/

    In 2013 Obama wanted to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour by 2015, but 6 Democrats voted against it:

    http://bud-meyers.blogspot.com/2013/03/6-democrats-betray-30-million-workers.html

    Recently Hillary Clinton advocated $12 an hour:

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/hillary-clinton-raise-federal-minimum-wage-to-12-per-hour_56394247e4b0411d306eca12

    Last July Bernie Sanders advocated $15 an hour by 2020 (and later said he wanted it indexed for inflation going forward, so there would be no need to ever have go to Congress again to raise it with a vote.)

    http://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/sanders-introduces-bill-for-15-an-hour-minimum-wage

    What's in your wallet? Vote for your own economic best interests.


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  5. This article at Reuters below was posted 2 days after mine, and makes some of the same comparisons I did...

    Reuters: The real secret to Bernie Sanders’ success (November 12, 2015)
    http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2015/11/12/the-real-secret-to-bernie-sanders-success/

    When I asked Sanders who his political hero is, he quickly named labor organizer Eugene V. Debs, the six-time socialist presidential candidate. His ideas, Sanders said, “ended up becoming part of Roosevelt’s New Deal.” Though he calls himself a socialist and sits in Congress as an independent, Sanders is running for president as a Democrat ...

    History demonstrates that alternative party candidates – including Theodore Roosevelt’s Bull Moose platform in 1912 — are destined to reinforce the status quo rather than upset it.

    In choosing to run as a Democrat, Sanders has clearly learned a lesson from Henry Wallace’s unsuccessful 1948 third-party presidential campaign. Like the former Burlington, Vermont, mayor campaigning for a $15 living wage, Wallace endorsed a like-minded “people’s revolution” that makes genuine freedom attainable for working-class Americans.

    Wallace, who had served as President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s vice president during his third term, bucked the Democratic Party to oppose President Harry S. Truman’s candidacy for election. A son of Iowa, Wallace was the nation’s leading progressive politician — a champion of the American farmer. He represented the voices of rural voters, as well as disenfranchised African-Americans.

    Pressing for a “century of the common man” in “a fight between a slave world and a free world,” Wallace vowed to renew the New Deal vision of economic security for all Americans. In fighting to ensure an adequate standard of living, he proposed a new economic bill of rights in the spirit of Roosevelt’s “Four Freedoms” — from want and fear, and of speech and worship.

    When Roosevelt chose then-Secretary of Agriculture Wallace to be his running mate in 1940, conservative Democrats fought against it. By the 1944 campaign, the party’s conservative wing of influential Southern conservatives, along with Northern urban-machine bosses, pressured Roosevelt to drop Wallace from his ticket. As the staunchest ally of New Deal domestic policy, Wallace argued more forcefully than the moderate Truman for redistribution of wealth, collective bargaining and continued protections of labor to bring more equity to workers.

    “FDR did not ‘drop’ Wallace,” said William Leuchtenburg, professor emeritus at University of North Carolina and dean of the Roosevelt historians. “Rather, he sluggishly went along with party leaders who did not want Wallace,” Leuchtenburg explained in an email. “My point is only that he took no initiative toward disposing of Wallace, and would have been content to run with him again.”

    Wallace’s efforts to breathe new progressive life into the party backfired. Instead of strengthening the morale of the original New Dealers, Wallace disbanded the Roosevelt coalition into a minority stake within the Democratic Party. Rather than influencing Truman’s agenda, Wallace alienated himself and his cause from the party.

    Political scientist Karl Schmidt, examined Wallace’s creation of the Progressive Party in his book, Henry A. Wallace: Quixotic Crusade, 1948. It ultimately demonstrated, Schmidt wrote, the “continuing pattern of failure” among third-party competitors in a deeply entrenched two-party system.

    Joe Lowndes, a political scientist at the University of Oregon, agrees that the two-party system is entrenched in the free-market capitalism propelled by a conservative counterrevolution “We are in a very different era than 1948 now,” Lowndes said. “The country is so far to the right that Sanders looks much like a mid-century liberal Democrat.”

    Despite the Truman administration’s support for expanded healthcare and employment, it was unable to prevail against a “do-nothing Congress.” The void of New Deal activism swung the pendulum from what Sanders considers the socialistic Democrats to the corporatist Democrats.

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  6. The Washington Post headline reads: "Bernie Sanders says Denmark is socialist. Forbes Magazine says it’s the most business-friendly country. Who’s right?"

    Then in the article they write: "When Bernie Sanders said in his debate with Hillary Clinton that Denmark was a socialist country, which the United States ought to consider emulating, it created a big debate..."

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2015/11/11/bernie-sanders-says-denmark-is-socialist-forbes-magazine-says-its-the-most-business-friendly-country-whos-right/

    LIE!!! Bernie never said Denmark is a socialist country. He mentioned Denmark ONCE during the entire debate, and this is exactly what he said:

    "We’re gonna explain what democratic socialism is..." (And then he talks about healthcare, etc.) He then concludes: "Those are some of the principles that I believe in, and I think we should look to countries like Denmark, like Sweden and Norway, and learn from what they have accomplished for their working people."

    Full text of debate here:
    http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/14/us/politics/democratic-debate-transcript.html
    ========================
    Again, the New York Times:

    "Mrs. Clinton undercuts Mr. Sanders on his core political message, with 62 percent of Democratic primary voters saying she could bring about real change in Washington, compared with 51 percent for Mr. Sanders." (Doesn't that = 113%)

    "60 percent of Democrats also want their nominee to continue President Obama’s policies, and these voters support Mrs. Clinton over Mr. Sanders by about a 2-to-1 margin." (That has to be a whole lot of B.S.) "Her party’s primary voters expect Mrs. Clinton to be their eventual nominee by more than a 4-to-1 margin over Mr. Sanders." (That's because the media writes tripe like this.)

    "His chief indictment against Mrs. Clinton, that she is an establishment politician who is captive to big-money special interests and inconsistent on liberal priorities, simply has not persuaded many Democrats to abandon her."

    Any who, to be "fair and balanced", there's more B.S. here:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/13/us/politics/poll-shows-hillary-clinton-is-seen-as-more-likely-than-bernie-sanders-to-be-effective.html
    ===================
    The Washington Post:

    "The Real Clear Politics polling average -- shows that not much has changed recently. The Biden decision not to run boosted both Clinton and Sanders, to some extent, but Clinton's still got a large lead." But here's the problem for Bernie: "Clinton leads among whites by 13. She leads among non-white voters by 45." (Meaning, mostly African-Americans.) "In 2008, black Democrats backed Barack Obama 82-15 over Clinton. Whites backed Clinton 55-39 -- a split that Sanders only wishes he had to deal with."

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/11/12/bernie-sanders-needs-much-more-traction-among-black-voters-than-hes-seeing/
    ==================
    Washington Post

    Obama's crony, David Axelrod, said of Bernie: “He has no chance if he doesn’t win Iowa. Even if he were to win New Hampshire, it could be written off as a home-state victory because he’s from across the border.” In 2008, Obama was trailing Clinton in early polls out of South Carolina. Obama wound up trouncing her there, thanks largely to a shift in sentiment among African Americans after he won in Iowa. (Bernie may not need to win Iowa, although he has a good chance, but he will still mostly likely need the Africa-American vote.)

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/for-bernie-sanders-more-urgency-than-ever-to-win-iowa/2015/11/12/f1ce7d00-8938-11e5-be39-0034bb576eee_story.html

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  7. The article at Reuters below was posted 2 days after mine, and makes some of the same comparisons I did by comparing the 2016 election to the 1948 election. I lot of good history if you like that sort of thing.

    Reuters: "The real secret to Bernie Sanders’ success" (Nov 12, 2015)

    http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2015/11/12/the-real-secret-to-bernie-sanders-success/
    ================
    MSNBC: Can Bernie Sanders learn to let go?
    http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/bernie-sanders-micromanager

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  8. Nina Turner, the former state senator from Cleveland and a top Ohio Democratic Party official, is ditching Hillary Clinton in favor of Bernie Sanders.

    http://www.cleveland.com/open/index.ssf/2015/11/nina_turner_changes_her_mind_o.html

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  9. Besides Real Clear Politics, there's also this: 2016 National Democratic Primary Polls: Currently tracking 182 polls from 28 pollsters

    http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/2016-national-democratic-primary

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  10. According to a new AP survey, they say Hillary already has half the superdelegates needed to clinch the Democratic nomination.

    Clinton...... 359
    Sanders........ 8
    O'Malley....... 2
    Uncommitted.. 210
    Total........ 579

    AP: "The 712 superdelegates make up about 30 percent of the 2,382 delegates needed to clinch the Democratic nomination. That means Clinton already has 15 percent of the delegates she needs before the first voters go to the primary polls."

    http://bigstory.ap.org/article/98c6fd82b5154d01ae2bc998f69d4f23/clinton-has-early-commanding-delegate-lead-nomination

    My questions:

    1) Total superdelegates surveyed shows 579, not 712 need. Why?
    2) If there are 2,382 delegates, why are only 30% needed, and not 51% — because it's a three-way race with Martin O'Malley?
    3) Way does the AP say Hillary has "half the superdelegates needed" but then says she has "15 percent of the delegates she needs before the first voters go to the primary polls"?

    * Also, AP says 712 superdelegates is the 30% needed -- but 30% of 2,382 is 714 -- not 712

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  11. In mock election, Bernie wins big...

    Western Illinois University's mock election predicted a landslide victory for Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders, with running mate Martin O'Malley, in 2016. The predicted Sanders-O'Malley ticket garnered 404 electoral votes to Jeb Bush-Marco Rubio's 114 votes. In the popular vote, Sanders earned 741 votes (49 percent) to Bush's 577 (38 percent). The famously accurate mock election correctly predicted the outcomes of the 2008 and 2012 elections, and the university claims it's the "largest and most elaborate mock presidential simulation in the nation."

    http://www.nbcchicago.com/blogs/ward-room/Western-Illinois-University-Predicts-Bernie-Sanders-Victory-in-2016-346130992.html

    ReplyDelete
  12. 103 years ago, Teddy Roosevelt was shot in the chest and continued campaigning for president

    http://fusion.net/story/214441/today-in-history-october-14-teddy-roosevelt-shot-milwaukee-new-york-times/

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  13. Center for Public Integrity:

    "A staggering 77 percent of the $26.2 million Bernie Sanders, an independent U.S. senator running as a Democrat, collected during the third quarter came from contributors giving $200 or less. The haul helped Sanders narrow the fundraising gap between his campaign and that of Democratic Party frontrunner Hillary Clinton, who raised $29.9 million during the same period ... The strongest small donor campaigns are not about raising money, they’re about raising enthusiasm and getting actions ... Dollar for dollar, small-dollar donors are worth more than big-dollar donors. Those are the donors that can keep giving over and over [and] such donors are also likely to turn out to vote for a candidate, and possibly volunteer as well."

    http://www.publicintegrity.org/2015/10/16/18636/small-dollar-donors-power-insurgent-candidates-both-parties

    But Democratic political consultant Joe Trippi, best known for serving as Howard Dean’s campaign manager in 2004 when the former Vermont governor broke fundraising records during his failed presidential bid, says:

    "Both party establishments are pretty good at making sure that a candidate who isn’t of the establishment doesn’t make it ... It’s not just the money. A lot of the rules and things are set up to stop insurgent candidates ... The entire Democratic establishment would come out of the woodwork to stop Bernie Sanders from being the nominee. The establishment fervently believes that a socialist cannot be president of the United States."

    http://www.publicintegrity.org/2015/10/20/18647/why-joe-trippi-thinks-bernie-sanders-won-t-win-2016

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