Bernie tries to honor MLK, trashes Obama instead

[Shameless Lefty Hack]

b) for him to win in 2020, he desperately needs to find more votes in the South.

In a crowded field of candidates, he could win the nomination even if he gets exactly the same number of votes he did last time.  I mean, his %age of the vote in 2016 was higher than that of Dukakis in 1988, for example.

The bolded statement is interesting, the non-bolded is sorta irrelevant, as Dukakis had a comfortable majority of delegates. You can't win a Democratic primary with a plurality if that's what you're suggesting.

Bernie could do about the same in the South with the hope that the rest of the vote is massively fractured. But I don't really see that happening. I suspect if Biden runs, he'll win the South with big margins. If he doesn't, I think the crowded field will consist of a bunch of no-names (plus Sanders) trying really hard to win or do well in California on Super Tuesday, leaving the South to be only be seriously contested by 2 or 3 candidates such as Sanders and Booker and/or Harris.

And this is assuming Bernie holds 100% of his 2016 vote in this crowded field, and more. He still needs a majority of delegates to become the nominee. I don't know, this seems kind of hard.

I think Morden and I are referring exclusively to pluralities in the South, both of which are up by super tuesday. I'm pretty confident Sanders can come away with a strong plurality of the national delegates in a 3 way race in the other regions of the country and has a strong opportunity to win the majority in the rest of the country.

---- Edit ----

And like really, what else is he gonna do? What would his core constituency among black regular democratic primary voters in the South be? He's not gonna get a hearing from Bakari Sellers-esque business progressives, he's not gonna get a hearing from the old CRM crowd that has since yielded to the practicalities of politics, &c. His only real, practical choice is an end-run.

[Mr. Morden]

b) for him to win in 2020, he desperately needs to find more votes in the South.

In a crowded field of candidates, he could win the nomination even if he gets exactly the same number of votes he did last time.  I mean, his %age of the vote in 2016 was higher than that of Dukakis in 1988, for example.

The bolded statement is interesting, the non-bolded is sorta irrelevant, as Dukakis had a comfortable majority of delegates. You can't win a Democratic primary with a plurality if that's what you're suggesting.

Well, yes you can win a majority of delegates with only a plurality of votes.  Dukakis did it, for example, and the proportional delegate allocation rules already existed back in 1988.

Let’s leave superdelegates aside for a moment (there will probably be far fewer of them next time because of the new reforms, though the details are still unclear), and just focus on pledged delegates.  You can win a majority of pledged delegates even if you don’t win a majority of the votes in the primaries, and there are two reasons for this:

1) If a candidate formally drops out of the race, then all of his/her delegates become free agents, and can vote for whoever they want.  So they’re effectively no longer pledged at this point.

2) The proportional delegate allocation has a 15% threshold.  So if there are four candidates running in a given state, and the results are:

Sanders 45%
Biden 35%
Booker 10%
Gillibrand 10%

Then Booker and Gillibrand get zero delegates, and the delegates are apportioned between Sanders and Biden, with Sanders getting the majority.  The math can sometimes be even more brutal for underperforming candidates for the delegates apportioned at the district level, depending on how many delegates the district has.

So yes, Sanders (or any other candidate) could hypothetically finish with ~45% or less of the vote nationwide, and still win a majority of pledged delegates.

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It’s very rare that there are more than two candidates who win more than a couple of states.  That much is true.  The 2008 GOP race is a rare exception in that regard, with 2nd and 3rd place Romney and Huckabee each winning quite a few states.  More common for a crowded field is something like the 2012 GOP race (Romney and Santorum collectively won 48 out of 50 states between them) or the 2016 GOP race (Trump and Cruz collectively won 48 out of 50 states between them).

But even when the 3rd and 4th place candidates aren’t winning many / any states, they can still suck up a lot of votes.  E.g., Gingrich and Paul each won over 10% of the vote nationally in 2012, as did Kasich and Rubio in 2016.  In the latter case, that led to Trump being under 50% nationally even though he only had one opponent who actually did much of anything in terms of winning primaries.  So even if there are only two candidates actually winning states, a strong enough showing by the 3rd and 4th place candidates could lead to Sanders (or someone else) winning the nomination on a plurality of votes.

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It’s very possible that he’s not able to hold all of his former supporters.  But I guess what I’m asking is, why is it a given that he needs to focus on finding more votes in the South, as opposed to simply trying to hang on to people who voted for him last time + recruiting the new generation of young voters who were too young to vote for him last time?  I’m sure he’d *like* to get more votes in the South, or anywhere else, but I’m not sure that that’s automatically going to be his path of least resistance to getting the nomination.

[Landslide Lyndon]

And like really, what else is he gonna do? What would his core constituency among black regular democratic primary voters in the South be? He's not gonna get a hearing from Bakari Sellers-esque business progressives, he's not gonna get a hearing from the old CRM crowd that has since yielded to the practicalities of politics, &c. His only real, practical choice is an end-run.

Black supporters of Bernie Sanders:

Nina Turner: was begging for the Clintons endorsement in 2014, then trashed them as the destroyers of the Democratic party two years later. Endorsed for governor of Ohio a Trump apologist, conspiracy theorist, Fox News Democrat.

Cornell West: called Obama an "Uncle Tom", praised Trump as "authentic human being", voted in the general for Russian plant Jill Stein.

Killer Mike: NRA mouthpiece that went on NRA TV and attacked Parkland kids the day they marched for their lives.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

And like really, what else is he gonna do? What would his core constituency among black regular democratic primary voters in the South be? He's not gonna get a hearing from Bakari Sellers-esque business progressives, he's not gonna get a hearing from the old CRM crowd that has since yielded to the practicalities of politics, &c. His only real, practical choice is an end-run.

Black supporters of Bernie Sanders:

Nina Turner: was begging for the Clintons endorsement in 2014, then trashed them as the destroyers of the Democratic party two years later. Endorsed for governor of Ohio a Trump apologist, conspiracy theorist, Fox News Democrat.

Cornell West: called Obama an "Uncle Tom", praised Trump as "authentic human being", voted in the general for Russian plant Jill Stein.

Killer Mike: NRA mouthpiece that went on NRA TV and attacked Parkland kids the day they marched for their lives.

Are you going to attack Keith Ellison, Harry Belafonte, Ben Jealous, and Danny Glover as well?

[Dr. MB]

Obama was fine but he wasn’t a saint. Criticism should be given when due.

Which is at an event commemorating MLK in a 80% black city?

Yeah, I have to admit it was out of place.

[Shameless Lefty Hack]

And like really, what else is he gonna do? What would his core constituency among black regular democratic primary voters in the South be? He's not gonna get a hearing from Bakari Sellers-esque business progressives, he's not gonna get a hearing from the old CRM crowd that has since yielded to the practicalities of politics, &c. His only real, practical choice is an end-run.

Black supporters of Bernie Sanders:

Nina Turner: was begging for the Clintons endorsement in 2014, then trashed them as the destroyers of the Democratic party two years later. Endorsed for governor of Ohio a Trump apologist, conspiracy theorist, Fox News Democrat.

Cornell West: called Obama an "Uncle Tom", praised Trump as "authentic human being", voted in the general for Russian plant Jill Stein.

Killer Mike: NRA mouthpiece that went on NRA TV and attacked Parkland kids the day they marched for their lives.

Like look if you want to attack black people because they disagree with you that's your business my guy, but understand that it reflects on your already poor quality as a poster and person.

[King Lear]

I for one look forward to Democrats in the southern states saving us from nominating Sanders in 2020 much like they did in 2016.

Bernie Sanders doesn’t need to win any Southern Blacks to win the Democratic nomination, LOL. For example let’s say once the Democratic primary’s start the field has condensed to Bernie Sanders, Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, and Kirsten Gillibrand. In this scenario Bernie Sanders will win most White Millennials and Working Class Whites for 40% of the National Primary Vote and 31 state primaries and caucuses (all 12 Midwest States, all 6 New England States, plus OR, WA, AK, HI, ID, UT, CO, WY, MT, OK, KY, WV, and PA), Cory Booker will win most Blacks for 30% of the National Primary Vote and 14 state primaries and caucuses (LA, AR, TN, MS, AL, FL, GA, SC, NC, VA, MD, DE, NJ, and DC), Kamala Harris will win most Hispanics and Asians for 20% of the National Primary Vote and 5 state primaries and caucuses (CA, NV, AZ, NM, and TX), and Kirsten Gillibrand will win the niche clientele of Wealthy White Liberals and the #metoo crowd for 10% of the National Primary Vote and 1 state Primary (NY). The outcome of this result would be a contested Democratic National Convention in which the superdelegates would give Bernie Sanders the nomination due to him winning a clear plurality of pledged delegates.

[Barack Oganja]

I for one look forward to Democrats in the southern states saving us from nominating Sanders in 2020 much like they did in 2016.

[DrScholl]

It's really getting tiresome seeing the argument "Democrats lost 1000 legislative seats under Obama" because it ignores the fact that Democrats were extremely top heavy at the time due to wave year gains in 2006 and 2008 coupled with ancestral Democratic seats. It's really stupid to think that any other Democrat (or Independent) would have prevented many of those seats from falling short of stuffing the ballot boxes or throwing out Republican votes. All that said Sanders is not going to get anywhere close to the nomination in 2020.

[Bidenworth2020]

so apparently we HAVE to pander to each specific race or ya tone deaf?

[Progressive Pessimist]

He is right about the how weak the Democratic Party became under him but I doubt a President Sanders would be able to turn that around. If anything him as an incumbent (or really any Democrat) is bound to face substantial losses once again during their midterms. Such is the cyclical hell that is our politics.

[Strudelcutie4427]

Smooth move Bernout. I dont like Obama but he's astronomically better than Komrad' Sanderskov

[heatcharger]

Morden, I meant to say you can't win the nomination with a plurality of delegates. And I forgot about the 15% threshold actually, but that scenario of Sanders getting a plurality with 45% is highly implausible in the South, and maybe not many other early states either. I acknowledge that rules like that could help him though.

And Sanders could try to turn out millions of 18-22 year-olds like you're suggesting, but that's proven to be an extremely unreliable strategy. I also think there are a number of candidates who may do well with young liberals (the hard left is unrepresentative of this group), so that might cut into his 2016 "base". I think that's already happening with him polling in the 20s so far.

The main reason I said Sanders needs to add more votes in the South is so that he can stay a legitimate candidate post-Super Tuesday, unlike in 2016. A big issue for him last time was that Clinton was way ahead of him after March 1st. It's hard to win against a candidate who is seen as and basically was inevitable.

And like really, what else is he gonna do? What would his core constituency among black regular democratic primary voters in the South be?

I don't know really. I guess that's one of the downfalls of being so ideologically rigid IMO. You lock yourself into a certain demographic and can't expand much further out. I'm just saying it'd be beneficial to his 2020 campaign to appear competitive in the South, so he might want to extend an olive branch or two.

[YE]

How much of a difference would a recession make in the 2020 primaries? With more focus on economic issues, I assume that'd help Sanders but we've never really seen how a severe recession would impact a primary before, at least since 1932.

Regardless, if the black vote in the south was split up in a more crowded primary in Super Tuesday, it'd be less likely that Sanders falls much behind in the delegates, especially with northern states more favorable to him also voting on that day. I could see it turning into a 2016 GOP esque situation, but with a brokered convention more likely due to proportional delegates. Of course, if Sanders wins IA, NH, and NV, not far fetched, it could also be too little too late for an establishment fallback.

[Dr. MB]

I for one look forward to Democrats in the southern states saving us from nominating Sanders in 2020 much like they did in 2016.

The southern vote will be nowhere near as unified in 2020 as it was in 2016 and 2008, given how large a field it will be.

[Landslide Lyndon]

I for one look forward to Democrats in the southern states saving us from nominating Sanders in 2020 much like they did in 2016.

The southern vote will be nowhere near as unified in 2020 as it was in 2016 and 2008, given how large a field it will be.

By the time the first southern primary comes it would have winnowed considerably.

[Shameless Lefty Hack]

The main reason I said Sanders needs to add more votes in the South is so that he can stay a legitimate candidate post-Super Tuesday, unlike in 2016. A big issue for him last time was that Clinton was way ahead of him after March 1st. It's hard to win against a candidate who is seen as and basically was inevitable.

And like really, what else is he gonna do? What would his core constituency among black regular democratic primary voters in the South be?

I don't know really. I guess that's one of the downfalls of being so ideologically rigid IMO. You lock yourself into a certain demographic and can't expand much further out. I'm just saying it'd be beneficial to his 2020 campaign to appear competitive in the South, so he might want to extend an olive branch or two.

I think a minor improvement in his vote margin is going to look dramatically better in a multi-candidate environment though. In fact, I suspect that Super Tuesday 1 may just winnow the field down to a 3 candidate field. In which case, 30% of total delegates out of what will by Sanders' worst region by far looks pretty respectable.

[Landslide Lyndon]

Hahahaha!!! Weaver is such a tool.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/rubycramer/bernie-sanders-revolution-needs-black-voters-to-win-but-can?utm_term=.alVZJNKLG#.qkVEK54NM

Sellers argued that Obama’s legacy encompasses not just his work as president from a policy perspective, but his symbolic importance. He alluded to the photo of a boy touching Obama’s hair in the White House to see if it felt like his. “Bernie Sanders doesn’t understand how that photo is emblematic of the hope of many African Americans and that it speaks loudly to who Barack Obama is.”

Speaking by phone on Thursday, Weaver fired back at Sanders’ critics. Sellers, he said, was attempting to sow “racial division” by “deliberately misinterpreting” the senator’s remarks. (“My father was shot because of racial [division],” responded Sellers, whose father was shot during what became known as the Orangeburg Massacre in 1968. “[Weaver] should find another line of attack, because I will not dignify that.”)

[Adam Griffin]

I didn't bother reading the last page and a half (because I figure it's the same as the first half), but why are so many people conflating any black disapproval of Obama with any belief among blacks that Obama was a pretty crappy political operative when it came to providing benefit to his broader party?

I mean, if I were asked if I "approve" of Obama, I'd say yes. If I were asked if I thought he was "the worst thing to happen to Democratic Party influence up and down the ballot in the past century", I'd also say yes. They're not mutually exclusive, and I imagine there is no difference on the issue among black voters - or for that matter, their approval of him versus their thoughts on his handling of any other issue.

For rather obvious reasons, black voters are likely going to be more defensive about outside criticism of the President ("I can talk bad about my kids, but you can't"), but that doesn't mean that they 1) can't/don't acknowledge that a criticism might be true, or 2) can't have deep criticisms about a politician without also approving overall.

[Shadows]

Sanders also called Obama an extraordinary candidate, brilliant guy & charismatic person

Just watched the video. The question btw was about reshaping the Democratic party & Sanders said the model of the Dem party over the last 15 years have been failing & Dems have lost a lot of seats despite Republicans have a terrible agenda which doesn't resonate with the Middle & Working Class on policies.

As per Sanders, people may have ignored the Dem party slide for years because they had a charismatic president in Obama who was an extraordinary candidate & a brilliant guy.

So, Sanders is not shi* on because he called Obama "Charismatic", "Brilliant" & "Extraordinary" ?

This is just slander. People like Landslide should be banned for misinformation campaign.

[YE]

Just watched the video. The question btw was about reshaping the Democratic party & Sanders said the model of the Dem party over the last 15 years have been failing & Dems have lost a lot of seats despite Republicans have a terrible agenda which doesn't resonate with the Middle & Working Class on policies.

If true, then the comment isn't tonedeaf at all. Talk about spin from the Clinton hacks.

[Shadows]

Actual quotes from Bernie (Ignoring the misinformation campaign of idiots like Landslide) -

“The business model, if you like, of the Democratic Party for the last 15 years or so has been a failure,” “Now what happened — people sometimes don’t see that because of the charismatic individual named Barack Obama who won the presidency in 2008 and 2012. He was obviously an extraordinary candidate, brilliant man,” “But behind that reality, over the last 10 years Democrats have lost about 1,000 seats in state legislatures all across this country."

[Shameless Lefty Hack]

...Jeff Weaver is a stupid POS.

Just watched the video. The question btw was about reshaping the Democratic party & Sanders said the model of the Dem party over the last 15 years have been failing & Dems have lost a lot of seats despite Republicans have a terrible agenda which doesn't resonate with the Middle & Working Class on policies.

If true, then the comment isn't tonedeaf at all. Talk about spin from the Clinton hacks.

Yeah but now it's done the dirty work. Jeff Weaver elevated some hack whose greatest achievement in life is being state representative and going on CNN at 1am, and accused him (a black democrat) of race-baiting.


Jeff Weaver is a cancer on Bernieland, and he's been malignant since day 1.

[wjx987]

I mean, regardless of context or why he mentioned this, Bernie is technically right, but he talked about it in a pretty clumsy way.

[Shameless Lefty Hack]

Is anyone actually talking about this outside of Politics Twitter and the like? Not even a rhetorical question, either.

Eh, now that there's the headline of "Sanders Aide accuses black politician of race baiting" it might stick.

OTOH maybe this is the thing that will finally bring down Jeff.