This ignores that Hillary got 3 million more votes than Trump. Or that tons of people didn't trust her or like her. All of that is in the data, and historically, personality has been a huge piece of who wins Presidential elections - moreso than policy, the economy, etc. Hillary's problem was simply poor location of her votes - and the bad luck of losing several states by less than 1%. Dems didn't dominate 2018 by going far left - they did it by winning over GOP/moderates (largely suburban and women) all over the country with a simple stop-Trump message. Those voters don't *want* massive political change and you're not going to hold them with Bernie. That doesn't mean Bernie can't win - but he's not going to win the way Dems have won the popular vote in 6 of the last 7 elections, and he's not going to win the way Dems dominated 2018. He's going to lose a ton of voters, gain a ton of other voters, and basically be a wildcard - he'll probably compete/win in states Dems don't normally compete in, and he'll probably lose some states Dems generally rely on. In the end, who knows the outcome. It's very much like Trump threw a wildcard into 2016 with his unique style/message/policies. But Bernie will almost assuredly lose a lot of House seats since Dems won those in GOP districts with very moderate/non-scary messages, and he takes the already-uphill-battle Senate out of play this year because it's being contested in largely purple/red states (Georgia, North Carolina, etc) where you need to pull in lots of moderates to win.
I don't agree Bernie is a bad thing for the Democratic party, he has been great at actually pulling democrats from swaying to the right, he has actually brought them back to the center IMO.
So I see you are not even trying to be realistic or logical now. If you don't think her emails the FBI or Russia had nothing to do it, no one should take anything you say seriously again.
The general is always a "race to the center", but this is a silly notion. Ending the wars Closing Gitmo A public option for healthcare Cap and trade Repealing don't ask don't tell These were all Obama campaign promises in 2008 that are decidedly left of center. Some of them enormously so, especially for 2008. Add to that the fact his entire campaign was based around two concepts; "change" and "yes we can". Those are super vague but they are so obviously not centrist/moderate slogans. Fun exercise: try to imagine the counter slogan a centrist/moderate would use... "alterations!" "yes, we can, maybe!" This conveniently leaves out the fact that Hillary was running against the most vile, boorish, slimey fat b*stard to ever grace American politics. You can't say Hillary's personality was a factor and leave out the fact it is counterbalanced by her opponent being some nightmarish combination of Jabba the Hut and Richie Rich. That excuse might have worked if she was running against next-door-neighbor John Kasich or class-president Marco Rubio, but that didn't happen. Clinton ran as an economic populist. He was not radical by today's standards, but by 1992 standards... he wasn't as centrist as Hillary or any of the current crop of moderates. And yeah, Gore is a great example of Democrats running a centrist and, despite a huge amount of wind at their backs and an opponent who is a blithering idiot, still managing to lose.
Running up the score in NY and LA amount to nothing. See my response to Bob. I'd appreciate seeing any data or articles you have that support this idea. Losing to Donald Trump by any measure is a horrible, awful indictment against the Democratic party. Hell, winning by anything less than 10% nationally would have been somewhat embarrassing. I'd like to see some data that supports this. I've seen nothing that indicates GOP voters switched to DEM in 2018. Midterms are typically rough on first term Presidents. Happened to Obama in 2010... and it wasn't because moderate DEM voters went GOP. "STOP TRUMP" is not a winning message the same way "STOP BUSH" wasn't. "STOP X" is never going to win you anything, really. Bernie will win by taking back the rust belt. It's really that simple. Bernie will probably put tantalizingly close red states like Florida and Arizona back in the red, and you can forget about blue dreams like Texas and Georgia. But the goal is to win 270 electoral votes, not the popular vote, and that's where Bernie outshines most of the field. I'm fully prepared for blowback in 2022 to be big if Bernie wins. Perhaps bigger than if Biden had won. But I feel it's worth it in the long run.
Everything about 2018 was typical GOP suburbia moving to the Dems - just as Dems lost working class midwest voters to the GOP in 2016. Dems won 41 seats in 2018 - they gained 37 in suburbia. https://www.vox.com/policy-and-poli...-midterms-2018-democrats-republicans-congress In 2018’s blue wave, it was suburban Republicans who were swept away. Of 69 suburban districts held by the GOP before the election, just 32 will remain in Republican hands next year, according to an analysis by the Washington Post’s Dan Balz, one of our preeminent political analysts. This might not be a temporary aberration, either; President Trump has completely overtaken the Republican Party. “We are facing the prospect of realignment in your Rockefeller Republican districts,” Rep. Ryan Costello, who retired rather than run for reelection again as a Republican in suburban Pennsylvania, told me. “That’s on the table.” ... The denser the suburbs, the worse things got for Republicans. In 11 competitive rural districts, Republicans lost just one seat In 19 suburban-rural districts, Republicans lost “only” four seats In 30 sparse suburban districts, Republicans lost 16 seats In 15 dense suburban districts, Republicans lost 12 seats In 9 urban-suburban districts, Republicans lost six seats Across the country, highly educated voters went for Democrats. Suburban women flipped heavily for Democrats too. Democratic pollster Celinda Lake showed me polling that had married men voting 51 percent Republican and 48 percent Democrat, but their wives voted 54 percent Democrat and just 44 Republican, a notable marital break from prior elections. This is where I disagree. Winning 270 votes should be easy for most of these Dem candidates, with Bernie and Warren being wildcards because of their "political revolution" positions. But I want to win the Senate - without that, it's all fairly meaningless. And while 2022 favors the Dems in the Senate, it won't matter with a controversial President as a huge headwind.
This is not what I asked for. I asked for proof it was traditional GOP voters switching to DEM. Districts can go from red to blue or vice versa without such a phenomenon. I hate to break it to you, but it clearly isn't. It would be if the Democrats had not abandoned the working class over the last 30~ years, but here we are. If you want to thread the needle with a moderate Dem in 2020 to hopefully capture the Senate in 2022, I can't fault you for that goal. I suspect Republicans will call whomever is put up with a D next to their name a Communist baby killer and animate their base with the typical god, guns and gays playbook we've seen before. Not to mention I imagine Democrats would pay dearly in 2024 and beyond for putting up another anti-change candidate.
Suburban voters are the traditional GOP voters. That's what made suburbia always lean GOP. Those are the voters that flipped. But if you want more, you can google it. Here's another article: https://www.vox.com/2018/11/15/18078974/trump-gop-midterms-2018-arizona-texas-never-trump Of course they will. They did that to Obama too. But it's pretty irrelevant to whether Dems can win - we already know Trump's base will come out to vote. But his base is shrinking, as we saw in 2018, with the suburban shift. All of the moderate Dems win comfortably. But only a few - probably Biden and Klobuchar, maybe Bloomberg - put Arizona, Georgia, etc in play, and those are conveniently the places where Dems have chances as Senate seats.
There's a couple of problems with this article in relation to the original point about how to actually win a Presidential election. 1) The thesis of the suburb switcher in this article is centered around Arizona, Georgia, and Texas. Three states that are not part of a path-to-victory for Democrats. If you reach for these states, you let cannot do so with letting other, more attainable ones, go. 2) When they actually do get down to numbers and data, it doesn't exactly support the thesis. ___ Take Arizona, for example, where Democratic Senate candidate Kyrsten Sinema won 12 percent of Republican voters and 14 percent of those who consider themselves “conservative” — 1 percent more than what Hillary Clinton received in 2016 from the same group. ___ You're telling me I am supposed to be impressed or swayed by a 1 percent margin? In a super close state race, sure that is going to matter, but when we're talking about nationwide and long-term political strategy? Not so much. I still say this kind of repudiation is expected. It's the first chance for people to voice their opposition after a horrible, shocking, bitter defeat. We saw record turnout in 2018, yes? That was Poseidon's kiss of the Trump turd hitting the toilet bowl. You can't expect to ride that to victory in a Presidential election year. And even if you do manage to ride Trump-resentment to a win, you will have to deal with an angry electorate in 2022 and 2024 who are just as put-off by a "no change" candidate as they were with Hillary.
Under normal circumstances yes... split government is healthy for Democracy to moderate a president that gets in front of their ski's in executing their power. Bernie Sanders typically would be the president that you would for sure want a check on to ensure the national debt is considered, etc. I typically agree to your sentiment. Post Trump though, we have to realize that the Republican Party has swung the governing philosophy so far in absurd directions that I believe we would be best served with at least a single term of Democrats holding the Senate & House to be able to pass reforms. If we do not pass laws like HR1, I feel like we will have yet another Trump and this time even more dangerous as they will surely be smarter, younger, and maybe a little less racist. Also is there anyone in government other than Trump that deserves to lose his position of power more than Mitch McConnell? Taking back the Senate is something that must be done to get this guy out of office who has exposed the worst of Washington.
Why do we have to have massive changes? The most important thing this term is remove agent orange. If you can add a public option to Obama Care, it would be the icing on the cake. We do not need free universities and medicare for all this term.
Speak for yourself. Just because you are content with business as usual with incremental changes doesn't mean everybody else is. Some people want Trump gone, others want to prevent us from ever electing another Trump by fixing the problems that got him elected.
Dude you are getting embarrassed in this discussion and you are doing some historic levels of goal post moving.
Texas lyceum really? And he has actually gained support since they did this poll in August and it was never 50%. https://www.dallasnews.com/news/pol...ll-finds-bernie-is-best-dem-matchup-vs-trump/ In the August poll, when native sons Beto O’Rourke and Julián Castro were still in contention, Biden had 24% and Sanders, 13%. Man you and donny are going full on Mojo and O's today.
Something we all need to adhere to, especially Bernie bros who think they have everything figured out.
