Bernie Sanders 2016 Feel the Bern!

hmmm...maybe you are talking about the democratic primary, but all the polls i have seen show sanders doing better against the republican candidates than clinton does...she actually loses to rubio and cruz, while sanders beats them. like i said, her negatives among non-democrats are way too high...sanders is clearly more electable.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/2016_presidential_race.html

and you cant say "polls are cherry picked" and then in the next sentence quote polls...no fair!

 

My point was limited to Sanders versus Clinton as that is the issue.

The belief that Sanders will catch Clinton for the nominee and that Sanders is nationally ahead of Clinton in polls is false.

Sanders is 10-15 points behind Clinton nationally, and the number has only increased the last 2-3 weeks. Delve deeper and there are major issues with blacks and Hispanics.

So the narrative that Bernie has the diverse base of supporters which have pushed him and his policies ahead of Clinton in the polls is false. The numbers are very clear. The delegates reflect this reality.

There is no clear or credibly path for Sanders to win the nomination. Small and white states don't get you far, especially when Clinton is getting the lions share in states like Florida, Texas, Ohio, Louisiana, Michigan and NY.

 

Id say he has a black and old people problem which is basically a death sentence in a democratic primary. Dont think he has any particular problem with Hispanics. It seems they roughly split the Latino vote in Nevada, he won it in Colorado and she won it in Texas.

 

I am not opposed to politicians getting rich AFTER their service. What I completely dislike is the direct and tangential revolving door that many dishonest pols such as Shillary take.

Everybody and their mother highly suspected she was running. Obviously, she was the only ignorant to that possibility, so she took the money.

 

Here's a good measuring stick:

http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/election-2016/delegate-targets/democrats/

This site estimates the number of delegates each candidate needs in a given state to maintain a pace to win the nomination. With the 4 weekend contests, the estimate is a dead heat - meaning that if they each come out with 67 delegates, they held serve. Bernie needs to make up an additional 80 delegates somewhere along the way, so anything he nets above 67 cuts into that deficit.

Bernie likely should survive this weekend OK with the 3 caucus states. But the following 10 days seem like major problems. According to the projections, he needs to outright win Michigan and Ohio to hold serve in those two. Assuming he loses ground in those states, he needs to overperform expectations in several of the other states and none look like particularly favorable territory for him to overperform.

 

Why are you not opposed to this? Politicians will simply angle for a later payday, and you end up with the same issue.

They're already doing it btw, and it is a serious corruption issue. Are you aware of what George Bush has been upto since he left office. I CERTAINLY AM. When you stop being the president of the most powerful country in history, and someone offers you the ability to stay relevant and get rich, that's something politicians think about.

Don't forget that most people who run for president have dreamed of being president for a long time. They've watched presidents leave office and it has no doubt hyper inflated their insecurity about what happens afterward. They're certainly not planning to get by on the savings they make from their $400k salary as president. They certainly will use the in-roads they've made in various departments to help get lobbyists where they need to go.

The other thing they do to get rich is they become advisors to foreign governments where they are undoubtedly getting large sums of cash in exchange for knowledge/information that was given to them to serve the American people. Instead you MIGHT (ahem) have them advising autocratic leaders in far away lands whom they were allies with on how to keep their power, generating alienated citizens, inevitably generating people who will join groups that Americans are allegedly spending trillions to eradicate.

To give you a hypothetical example, let's say George Bush starts advising some country on how it needs to inflate fear of terrorism in order to hold on to power, and the best way to do this is to invade another country. That country then starts seeing rampant terrorism leaking into surrounding areas. You then have to pay to clean that up.

There's a major problem going on and it's disheartening to see these things chalked up to:

- Well, it's better than other countries.
- Everyone does it.
- Whatareyougonnado?

It's an intense form of corruption which is leaking money out American citizens' pockets.

 

Mathloon, can you think about any country that prohibits former pols from giving paid speeches? Specifically to America, there would be constitutional issues if you were to block / limit speech.

 

So a Democrat with every intention of running for president in 2016 against the billion dollar Republican machine is supposed to ignore opportunities to raise money for his/her campaign? In other words, every Democratic president since 1960 was a corrupt and evil person? Give me a freakin break.

 

I haven't paid much attention(stopped caring after I saw trump and Clinton as the two top dogs) but My friend says he saw a video the other day that shows how Bernie signs and supports bills that are completely against his political views that he campaigns on.

Idk if it's true but my friend was a huge Bernie supporter and now after watching bills and such that he's supported he thinks is now just another 2 face politician, but like I said I never saw the video and don't know much about him

 

the ol' "i have a friend..."

 

Completely sold out to the NRA. Took our money without question.

Also, Obama is going to make millions on top of millions giving speeches and selling books after he is president. For decades. He will also have political influence via the media or directly.

 

There is not a single such example in history of course. Goes back to what I said in the previous post, the "everyone else does it" excuse.

Countries allow the limitation of free speech under circumstances of grave danger. You cannot disseminate government secrets. You cannot say anything you want at your job. To use the tired example, you can't yell fire in a theater or bomb on a plane.

Is there any greater risk than the purchase of democratically elected representatives? Isn't your free speech compromised if a person who wants to limit your free speech offers future gifts to your elected officials in exchange for pushing in that direction?

I would argue that if you are ever going to limit free speech, this is the highest priority case. If you can't do it in this circumstance, why would you ever allow it to happen?

More importantly, let's not act like this is simply a problem of paid speeches. It's much deeper than that today. Your ex presidents are advising tyrants on how to extend their tyranny, which is directly leading to conflict which you are then compelled to pay to control.

 

With the way bills are designed these days, they tend to have multiple sides. You might - for example - be faced with a bill to slow down funds to planned parenthood and at the same time criminalize assault weapons for civilian use designed to kill many people at once.

What does a politician do in this circumstance? Sometimes you got to make a call.

In that regard, Bernie and every politician will have supported overall bills which will have sections in them that go against what they claim to support.

That's not on Bernie though, that's the result of a poorly designed legislative process which by now has been gamed by the two major parties.

If you want to go by this standard in judging a politician, it's a good way to look at it but consider that by this stringent standard Bernie's history continues to shine vs other candidates.

 

Say whatever you want about Sander's candidacy and his chances this cycle, but it's very clear the future of Democratic party is in his direction and the policies he advocates. The demographics are undeniable. Millennials have pushed his campaign from grassroots movement to a nationally competitive race. The Democrats are at least a cycle away from the same type of restructuring the GOP is painfully going through right now. Either Democrats will embrace the Sanders movement and push candidates that embody his spirit or they will leave the party open to a hostile takeover.

Now, I'm not saying Trump will happen to the Democrats, but that the party base is shifting on both sides. For years, Republicans have underhandedly pushed policy stances on immigration, national security, race relations, etc that Trump has now blown the lid off of. Similarly the Democratic Party is headed toward "democratic socialism" whether it wants it or not. The next candidate who embodies this movement may not be a gentleman about it like Sanders.

 

If Sanders wins Vermont watch out!

 

Spoiler

 

Sanders continues his dominance outside of the Reublican South.