Sanders not running out of money: He's on track to raise 50-60 Mio. $ in March

[RaphaelDLG]

All of these posts by Hillbots gleefully laughing about Sanders raising millions to no avail are stupid.

The race isn't very competitive any more, but an elderly, uncharismatic no-name from a tiny state without pac money facing establishment opposition made the Democratic primary into a competitive race against a woman with 100% name recognition who is probably the 3rd most beloved Democrat in the country and one of the most admired women in the world and, oh, also happens to have a very, very close relationship with the #1 and #2 most admired Democrats in the country.

So, yes, Sanders has done much, much, much better than he should have with his dollars against great odds, and whether or not he "wins" going forward depends greatly on the maturity of his supporters.

He has forced Clinton to stake out positions on the public option, TPP, keystone, education, etc that she normally wouldn't have.  

Will his supporters stay politically engaged hold her/Congress' feet to the fire going forward, or will they become depressed children and disengage for politics until the next messiah comes along?

Idk what election laws say Sanders can do with his leftover money, but I hope he uses it to create a progressive action network that is used between elections and during midterms, because that's when progressives and even moderate dems need to come out if we actually ever want to get something done.

[RaphaelDLG]

Wow this forum hates Bernie even more then Washington does.

The guy couldn't do it in the south. He couldn't do it in the upper Midwest aside from a fluke in Michigan. His appeal is limited to caucus states, parts of the northeast, and Dixiecrats who always vote R in the general. He has no winning coalition and needs to drop out if he cares about stopping Donald Trump.

Ok David Brock. Unfortunately for you he is not dropping out anytime soon. I don't know how staying in the race is going to hurt the Democrats chances against Trump, all I know is Democratic turnout will probably be super low with Hillary as the nominee. Even though people are voting for Clinton they like Sanders as well. (Not as much hate as this forum)

But what is the point of Sanders staying in when he has no chance of being nominated barring a Hillary indictment or death? The primary is no longer a legitimate contest of ideas, since only one candidate, Clinton, has a chance of winning. All it is doing is making it harder for Hillary to pivot to the center, which will be needed to defeat TRUMP, who is not necessarily a pushover in the general.

The spread is 1,147 to 830 in pledged delegates with 2,383 needed for the nomination so it's an uphill battle but not as impossible as you suggest. Also pivot to the center? I thought she was the progressive that was going to take on wall street (lol) just like she did in 2007 when she wove her finger at them and told them to knock it off. Anyone who supports her and believes she is going to fight for a progressive agenda instead of listening to her rich donors are suckers.

There's a big difference between theoretically possible and actually possible. It was theoretically possible for McCain to win in 08 after losing in Ohio. It's theoretically possible for Chuck Schumer or James Lankford to lose re-election. It was theoretically possible for Bernie to win Mississippi or Hillary to win Vermont.

Yes.  At this point, Bernie needs to have a tape leak where Hillary says the S and the N word in the same sentence and then have ABC news air a special news report detailing Bernie, Barack, and Bill's round of golf/afternoon of jovial back-slapping joking, schmoozing, and drinking if he wants to win a few of the necessary large states coming up by the appropriate margins.

[RaphaelDLG]

BTW, doesn't the fact that Sanders is soundly beaten almost everywhere by Clinton despite the fact that he outspends her kinda undermines his message about money in politics?

It really does.

Only if you're a moron with no sense of context.

[RaphaelDLG]

It really just goes to show that money has its limits.  Jeb Bush's 100 million dollar Superpac couldn't save his campaign because of fundamental flaws with the candidate and the messaging.

Similarly, Sanders still loses states like Massachusetts and Missouri despite outspending her 2:1 or 3:1.  It's not because money is worthless (after all, the spending definitely has buoyed his campaign), it's just that his appeal as a candidate is limited in a way that no amount of money can overcome.

Money definitely has its limits, mostly on the Presidential level, but it still really, really matters.  There's a reason why Congressmen spend over 50% of their waking hours dialing for dollars, why the average winning House and Senate races cost 1 million and 10 million respectively, why the candidate with the most money wins 90%+ of the time, and why studies like Gilens' and Page's Princeton study show that on average are policymakers respond very inelastically to our wishes but very elastically to the wishes of economic elites.

To overcome money, you need tremendous, 100% name recognition and a longstanding following (like Clinton and Trump) or to be up against a candidate with some other albatross around their neck like a scandal, horrible core policy positions, or the last name Bush.  These are sometimes available in a Presidential race but are almost never available in Congressional races.

[RaphaelDLG]

I mean, this is an election for President of the United States: a country of over 300,000,000 people and an economy that each year produces almost USD$17,000,000,0000,0000. The winner will be president of the US for 4 years, during which time he will substantially affect how that income is distributed. The total spent on the election campaign is not likely to hit even USD$5,000,000,000 - peanuts, really, in the scale of things. If money really mattered that much, you would have had campaign expenditures of 10 or even 100 times the present size.

Uh, $7 billion was spent in 2012 and that number will almost certainly be substantially eclipsed this cycle.  There's a very good reason why notoriously stingy corporations competing to squeeze the last dollar of profit out of their operations pour billions into political contributions:  Because doing so in aggregate yields fantastic return on investment.