Bernie Sanders 2020 campaign megathread v2 (pg 77 - declares victory in Iowa)

[Roblox]

I've held it in for so long….But it's time to come out with my story of a traumatic experience with Bernie Sanders. Warning: the following is disturbing and could be highly upsetting.

I saw Bernie Sanders at a grocery store in Burlington last year. I told him how cool it was to meet him in person, but I didn’t want to be a douche and bother him and ask him for photos or anything.

He said, “Oh, like you’re doing now, you establishment hack?”

I was taken aback, and all I could say was “Huh?” but he kept cutting me off and going “huh? huh? huh corporatists, huh?” and closing his hand shut in front of my face. I walked away and continued with my shopping, and I heard him chuckle as I walked off. When I came to pay for my stuff up front I saw him trying to walk out the doors with like fifteen Ben and Jerry's ice cream cups in his hands without paying.

The girl at the counter was very nice about it and professional, and was like “Sir, you need to pay for those first.” At first he kept pretending to be busy reading his medicare for all plan, but eventually turned back around and brought them to the counter.

When she took one of the cups and started scanning it multiple times, he stopped her and told her to scan them each individually “to prevent any electoral infetterence, as that plays into the game of the millionaires and billionaires”, and then turned around and winked at me. I don’t even think that’s a word. After she scanned each cup and put them in a bag and started to say the price, he kept interrupting her by saying "not me, us" really loudly.

[TrendsareUsuallyReal]

I've held it in for so long….But it's time to come out with my story of a traumatic experience with Bernie Sanders. Warning: the following is disturbing and could be highly upsetting.

I saw Bernie Sanders at a grocery store in Burlington last year. I told him how cool it was to meet him in person, but I didn’t want to be a douche and bother him and ask him for photos or anything.

He said, “Oh, like you’re doing now, you establishment hack?”

I was taken aback, and all I could say was “Huh?” but he kept cutting me off and going “huh? huh? huh corporatists, huh?” and closing his hand shut in front of my face. I walked away and continued with my shopping, and I heard him chuckle as I walked off. When I came to pay for my stuff up front I saw him trying to walk out the doors with like fifteen Ben and Jerry's ice cream cups in his hands without paying.

The girl at the counter was very nice about it and professional, and was like “Sir, you need to pay for those first.” At first he kept pretending to be busy reading his medicare for all plan, but eventually turned back around and brought them to the counter.

When she took one of the cups and started scanning it multiple times, he stopped her and told her to scan them each individually “to prevent any electoral infetterence, as that plays into the game of the millionaires and billionaires”, and then turned around and winked at me. I don’t even think that’s a word. After she scanned each cup and put them in a bag and started to say the price, he kept interrupting her by saying "not me, us" really loudly.

Is this a bad attempt at a troll

[No War, but the War on Christmas]

I've held it in for so long….But it's time to come out with my story of a traumatic experience with Bernie Sanders. Warning: the following is disturbing and could be highly upsetting.

I saw Bernie Sanders at a grocery store in Burlington last year. I told him how cool it was to meet him in person, but I didn’t want to be a douche and bother him and ask him for photos or anything.

He said, “Oh, like you’re doing now, you establishment hack?”

I was taken aback, and all I could say was “Huh?” but he kept cutting me off and going “huh? huh? huh corporatists, huh?” and closing his hand shut in front of my face. I walked away and continued with my shopping, and I heard him chuckle as I walked off. When I came to pay for my stuff up front I saw him trying to walk out the doors with like fifteen Ben and Jerry's ice cream cups in his hands without paying.

The girl at the counter was very nice about it and professional, and was like “Sir, you need to pay for those first.” At first he kept pretending to be busy reading his medicare for all plan, but eventually turned back around and brought them to the counter.

When she took one of the cups and started scanning it multiple times, he stopped her and told her to scan them each individually “to prevent any electoral infetterence, as that plays into the game of the millionaires and billionaires”, and then turned around and winked at me. I don’t even think that’s a word. After she scanned each cup and put them in a bag and started to say the price, he kept interrupting her by saying "not me, us" really loudly.

Is this a bad grade A attempt at a troll

At least it made me laugh.

[Donerail]

I've held it in for so long….But it's time to come out with my story of a traumatic experience with Bernie Sanders. Warning: the following is disturbing and could be highly upsetting.

I saw Bernie Sanders at a grocery store in Burlington last year. I told him how cool it was to meet him in person, but I didn’t want to be a douche and bother him and ask him for photos or anything.

He said, “Oh, like you’re doing now, you establishment hack?”

I was taken aback, and all I could say was “Huh?” but he kept cutting me off and going “huh? huh? huh corporatists, huh?” and closing his hand shut in front of my face. I walked away and continued with my shopping, and I heard him chuckle as I walked off. When I came to pay for my stuff up front I saw him trying to walk out the doors with like fifteen Ben and Jerry's ice cream cups in his hands without paying.

The girl at the counter was very nice about it and professional, and was like “Sir, you need to pay for those first.” At first he kept pretending to be busy reading his medicare for all plan, but eventually turned back around and brought them to the counter.

When she took one of the cups and started scanning it multiple times, he stopped her and told her to scan them each individually “to prevent any electoral infetterence, as that plays into the game of the millionaires and billionaires”, and then turned around and winked at me. I don’t even think that’s a word. After she scanned each cup and put them in a bag and started to say the price, he kept interrupting her by saying "not me, us" really loudly.

Is this a bad attempt at a troll

No it's real, I was there and saw it all go down

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

I've held it in for so long….But it's time to come out with my story of a traumatic experience with Bernie Sanders. Warning: the following is disturbing and could be highly upsetting.

I saw Bernie Sanders at a grocery store in Burlington last year. I told him how cool it was to meet him in person, but I didn’t want to be a douche and bother him and ask him for photos or anything.

He said, “Oh, like you’re doing now, you establishment hack?”

I was taken aback, and all I could say was “Huh?” but he kept cutting me off and going “huh? huh? huh corporatists, huh?” and closing his hand shut in front of my face. I walked away and continued with my shopping, and I heard him chuckle as I walked off. When I came to pay for my stuff up front I saw him trying to walk out the doors with like fifteen Ben and Jerry's ice cream cups in his hands without paying.

The girl at the counter was very nice about it and professional, and was like “Sir, you need to pay for those first.” At first he kept pretending to be busy reading his medicare for all plan, but eventually turned back around and brought them to the counter.

When she took one of the cups and started scanning it multiple times, he stopped her and told her to scan them each individually “to prevent any electoral infetterence, as that plays into the game of the millionaires and billionaires”, and then turned around and winked at me. I don’t even think that’s a word. After she scanned each cup and put them in a bag and started to say the price, he kept interrupting her by saying "not me, us" really loudly.

Is this a bad attempt at a troll

No it's real, I was there and saw it all go down

True story. It was accidentally recorded by the camera just behind the counter. Unfortunately, the Russians have already hacked the camera and have it on the tape. They are threatening to release it during GE if Bernie doesn't chose Tulsi as VP, so ya all better vote for Biden, just in case.

[Mr. Morden]

Team Sanders not happy with DNC appointments to the rules and platform committees for the convention:

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/480174-sanders-allies-in-new-uproar-over-dnc-convention-appointments

Some Democratic National Committee (DNC) members and supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) are venting frustration at DNC Chairman Tom Perez over his initial appointments to the committees that will oversee the rules and party platform at the nominating convention in Milwaukee later this year.

Sanders’s allies are incensed by two names in particular: former Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), who will co-chair the rules committee, and Hillary Clinton’s former campaign chairman John Podesta, who will have a seat on that committee.

The Sanders campaign unsuccessfully sought to have Frank removed from the rules committee in 2016, describing him as an “aggressive attack surrogate for the Clinton campaign.”

And Podesta, a longtime Washington political consultant and Clinton confidant, is viewed with contempt by some on the left. One of Podesta’s hacked emails from 2016 showed him asking a Democratic strategist where to “stick the knife in” Sanders, who lost the nomination to Clinton that year after a divisive primary contest.

[Former Crackhead Mike Lindell]

Podesta is an odious individual whose activities in 2016 alone should disqualify him from being a part of the conversation about the direction of the party. What a joke.

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/01/bernie-sanders-electable-trump-2020-nomination-popular-socialism.html
Running Bernie Sanders Against Trump Would Be an Act of Insanity

In the field of political forecasting, almost nothing is a matter of certainty, and almost everything is a matter of probability. If Democrats nominate Bernie Sanders — who currently leads the field in Iowa and New Hampshire, and appears to be consolidating support among the party’s progressive wing, while its moderates remain splintered — his prospects against Donald Trump in November would be far from hopeless. Polarization has given any major party nominee a high enough floor of support that the term “unelectable” has no real place in the discussion. What’s more, every candidate in the race brings a suite of their own liabilities Trump could exploit.

That said, the totality of the evidence suggests Sanders is an extremely, perhaps uniquely, risky nominee. His vulnerabilities are enormous and untested. No party nomination, with the possible exception of Barry Goldwater in 1964, has put forth a presidential nominee with the level of downside risk exposure as a Sanders-led ticket would bring. To nominate Sanders would be insane.

Sanders has gleefully discarded the party’s conventional wisdom that it has to pick and choose where to push public opinion leftward, adopting a comprehensive left-wing agenda, some of which is popular, and some of which is decidedly not. Positions in the latter category include replacing all private health insurance with a government plan, banning fracking, letting prisoners vote, decriminalizing the border, giving free health care to undocumented immigrants, and eliminating ICE. (I am only listing Sanders positions that are intensely unpopular. I am not including positions, like national rent control and phasing out all nuclear energy, that I consider ill-advised but which probably won’t harm him much with voters.)

[Roblox]

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/01/bernie-sanders-electable-trump-2020-nomination-popular-socialism.html
Running Bernie Sanders Against Trump Would Be an Act of Insanity

In the field of political forecasting, almost nothing is a matter of certainty, and almost everything is a matter of probability. If Democrats nominate Bernie Sanders — who currently leads the field in Iowa and New Hampshire, and appears to be consolidating support among the party’s progressive wing, while its moderates remain splintered — his prospects against Donald Trump in November would be far from hopeless. Polarization has given any major party nominee a high enough floor of support that the term “unelectable” has no real place in the discussion. What’s more, every candidate in the race brings a suite of their own liabilities Trump could exploit.

That said, the totality of the evidence suggests Sanders is an extremely, perhaps uniquely, risky nominee. His vulnerabilities are enormous and untested. No party nomination, with the possible exception of Barry Goldwater in 1964, has put forth a presidential nominee with the level of downside risk exposure as a Sanders-led ticket would bring. To nominate Sanders would be insane.

Sanders has gleefully discarded the party’s conventional wisdom that it has to pick and choose where to push public opinion leftward, adopting a comprehensive left-wing agenda, some of which is popular, and some of which is decidedly not. Positions in the latter category include replacing all private health insurance with a government plan, banning fracking, letting prisoners vote, decriminalizing the border, giving free health care to undocumented immigrants, and eliminating ICE. (I am only listing Sanders positions that are intensely unpopular. I am not including positions, like national rent control and phasing out all nuclear energy, that I consider ill-advised but which probably won’t harm him much with voters.)

Didn't this guy write an article in 2016 about how he desperately wanted Trump to be the republican nominee because he would be guaranteed to lose?

Seriously, most of the people writing "Sanders is unelectable!" pieces right now have such a track record of being dramatically wrong i'm not sure why anyone pays the smallest bit of mind to them.

[junior chįmp]

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/01/bernie-sanders-electable-trump-2020-nomination-popular-socialism.html
Running Bernie Sanders Against Trump Would Be an Act of Insanity

In the field of political forecasting, almost nothing is a matter of certainty, and almost everything is a matter of probability. If Democrats nominate Bernie Sanders — who currently leads the field in Iowa and New Hampshire, and appears to be consolidating support among the party’s progressive wing, while its moderates remain splintered — his prospects against Donald Trump in November would be far from hopeless. Polarization has given any major party nominee a high enough floor of support that the term “unelectable” has no real place in the discussion. What’s more, every candidate in the race brings a suite of their own liabilities Trump could exploit.

That said, the totality of the evidence suggests Sanders is an extremely, perhaps uniquely, risky nominee. His vulnerabilities are enormous and untested. No party nomination, with the possible exception of Barry Goldwater in 1964, has put forth a presidential nominee with the level of downside risk exposure as a Sanders-led ticket would bring. To nominate Sanders would be insane.

Sanders has gleefully discarded the party’s conventional wisdom that it has to pick and choose where to push public opinion leftward, adopting a comprehensive left-wing agenda, some of which is popular, and some of which is decidedly not. Positions in the latter category include replacing all private health insurance with a government plan, banning fracking, letting prisoners vote, decriminalizing the border, giving free health care to undocumented immigrants, and eliminating ICE. (I am only listing Sanders positions that are intensely unpopular. I am not including positions, like national rent control and phasing out all nuclear energy, that I consider ill-advised but which probably won’t harm him much with voters.)

Didn't this guy write an article in 2016 about how he desperately wanted Trump to be the republican nominee because he would be guaranteed to lose?

Seriously, most of the people writing "Sanders is unelectable!" pieces right now have such a track record of being dramatically wrong i'm not sure why anyone pays the smallest bit of mind to them.

FEB. 5, 2016
Why Liberals Should Support a Trump Republican Nomination
By Jonathan Chait


Just think, these clown journos actually collect a check to write this shít

[Beet]

I don't put much weight on Jonathan Chait's analysis at all, but these statistics are undeniable:

https://twitter.com/jmartNYT/status/1222159566919622656

I think the most unrealistic of his supporters are still counting on some sort of white working class upsurge of support for him, but he's going to do better in upscale latter liberal places. I don't see him getting any kind of breakthrough in ancestrally Democratic places like Appalachia.

I think even a lot of people who aren't super enthused about Bernie are subconsciously counting on Bernie's "rabid online army" to counter Trump's similar rabid support, but--and going against what I have said in the past, I know-- having enthusiastic social media supporters doesn't necessarily translate into victory. At the end of the day a vote is a vote, it doesn't matter how "enthusiastic" or not. Sanders' "online army" didn't translate into enough votes in 2016 to beat Hillary Clinton. And people forget that while Trump did win the Electoral College, he actually got fewer votes than Mitt Romney in a number of Midwestern states. The main reason he was able to win was not his huge rallies, but that Hillary Clinton's support utterly collapsed.

Also, I think a lot of younger voters (which is especially true on places like Atlas) are out of touch with the mentality of Americans over age 40, who will be casting the most votes. Younger people see their friends and people on Twitter, Reddit and YouTube saying good things about Sanders and don't see the skepticism of him from older people. It's true many of them still will vote for him as the nominee, but they are more vulnerable to being swayed by charges of "socialism" and attacks on his more extreme policies which he hasn't really faced in the Democratic primary (despite running for 4 years).

He hasn't really started getting vetted until the past week or two, and it takes about four or five weeks of sustained attacks to take down a frontrunner.

[junior chįmp]

I don't put much weight on Jonathan Chait's analysis at all, but these statistics are undeniable:

https://twitter.com/jmartNYT/status/1222159566919622656

I think the most unrealistic of his supporters are still counting on some sort of white working class upsurge of support for him, but he's going to do better in upscale latter liberal places. I don't see him getting any kind of breakthrough in ancestrally Democratic places like Appalachia.

I think even a lot of people who aren't super enthused about Bernie are subconsciously counting on Bernie's "rabid online army" to counter Trump's similar rabid support, but--and going against what I have said in the past, I know-- having enthusiastic social media supporters doesn't necessarily translate into victory. At the end of the day a vote is a vote, it doesn't matter how "enthusiastic" or not. Sanders' "online army" didn't translate into enough votes in 2016 to beat Hillary Clinton. And people forget that while Trump did win the Electoral College, he actually got fewer votes than Mitt Romney in a number of Midwestern states. The main reason he was able to win was not his huge rallies, but that Hillary Clinton's support utterly collapsed.

Also, I think a lot of younger voters (which is especially true on places like Atlas) are out of touch with the mentality of Americans over age 40, who will be casting the most votes. Younger people see their friends and people on Twitter, Reddit and YouTube saying good things about Sanders and don't see the skepticism of him from older people. It's true many of them still will vote for him as the nominee, but they are more vulnerable to being swayed by charges of "socialism" and attacks on his more extreme policies which he hasn't really faced in the Democratic primary (despite running for 4 years).

He hasn't really started getting vetted until the past week or two, and it takes about four or five weeks of sustained attacks to take down a frontrunner.

Good point. Sanders endorsed Hillary and she lost too

[DrScholl]

If Sanders get the nomination and loses to Trump it really won't matter to his supporters, because their real goal is to push back the Democratic establishment and put a left-leaning candidate on the ballot. This isn't about defeating Trump for them, it's about making a statement about the system overall. If Sanders loses he can always run again in 2024 when the presidency is open and have a better chance at winning then after 8 years of Trump.

[Adam Griffin]

I don't put much weight on Jonathan Chait's analysis at all, but these statistics are undeniable:

They're absolutely deniable. The ongoing claim above is the quintessential example of cherry-picking data-points, and one of the most disingenuous attacks to come from the WOW class post-2018.

How many OR/JD/BNC candidates were actually running in GE campaigns in swing districts? Kara Eastman is the only one that immediately comes to mind, and she did as well as any candidate could - especially considering the DCCC triaged her early on, only to reverse course at the end (she lost by 2, and pulled a higher vote share than the establishment incumbent - who couldn't even win the primary 2 years later - did in 2016 when he lost).

The people endorsed by these orgs were mostly sacrificial lambs in GE campaigns from day one, or were complete uphill primary challengers from day one. As such, many of these candidates were not what you'd consider to be top-tier recruits anyway (after all, what A-list prospective candidate wants to run against a Democratic juggernaut in a primary that has more cash than God, or be a sacrificial lamb in a GOP district?).

Some may question the value in this. It's a borrowed tactic from the very successful GOP playbook from decades past, where the conservative movement ran "extreme" candidates they knew couldn't win, with the intent being to mainstream their ideas over time and everywhere across the country. The more voices you elevate, the more acceptable what those voices are saying becomes. Even just the past 4 years are proof that this works for Democrats just as well as any other strategy.

And also let's not compare somebody like Kara Eastman or Paula Jean Swearengin to Bernie Sanders. Sanders is a far superior candidate in every metric to these 2018 sacrificial lambs.

[Beet]

I don't put much weight on Jonathan Chait's analysis at all, but these statistics are undeniable:

They're absolutely deniable. The ongoing claim above is the quintessential example of cherry-picking data-points, and one of the most disingenuous attacks to come from the WOW class post-2018.

How many OR/JD/BNC candidates were actually running in GE campaigns in swing districts? Kara Eastman is the only one that immediately comes to mind, and she did as well as any candidate could - especially considering the DCCC triaged her early on, only to reverse course at the end (she lost by 2, and pulled a higher vote share than the establishment incumbent - who couldn't even win the primary 2 years later - did in 2016 when he lost).

The people endorsed by these orgs were mostly sacrificial lambs in GE campaigns from day one, or were complete uphill primary challengers from day one. As such, many of these candidates were not what you'd consider to be top-tier recruits anyway (after all, what A-list prospective candidate wants to run against a Democratic juggernaut in a primary that has more cash than God, or be a sacrificial lamb in a GOP district?).

Some may question the value in this. It's a borrowed tactic from the very successful GOP playbook from decades past, where the conservative movement ran "extreme" candidates they knew couldn't win, with the intent being to mainstream their ideas over time and everywhere across the country. The more voices you elevate, the more acceptable what those voices are saying becomes. Even just the past 4 years are proof that this works for Democrats just as well as any other strategy.

And also let's not compare somebody like Kara Eastman or Paula Jean Swearengin to Bernie Sanders. Sanders is a far superior candidate in every metric to these 2018 sacrificial lambs.

It's hardly cherry-picking when they are literally looking at all the endorsements and doing a statistical run-down. Not only were these candidates shut out, but they were shut out in a year when the Democrats made huge gains in the House. Arguably your naming Kara Eastman is cherry-picking because it was based only on your judgement. What about Richard Ojeda? Don't tell me there weren't people who thought he would win, or at least do better than the other Democrat running in the district to his north. Bernie acolyte Krystall Ball said she was certain he was going to win. Also it's not just about sacrificial lambs but competitive districts. For instance in my own district, TX-07, it is highly unlikely that the progressive candidate who lost the primary, Laura Moser, would have done better than the moderate who won it.

At the end of the day, Bernie is the one making the extraordinary claim that running further the left will be equally or more electable than vice versa, and it requires extraordinary or at least solid evidence, and there is none.

[Beet]

Also, a bit off topic, but I don't really get the point of posts where the first claim out of the poster's "mouth" is to call the other person's argument "disingenuous." Why even engage with someone in that case? I know politics are awfully polarizing these days but it'd be nice to be able to have some basic debates on electability without starting off by accusing the other person of being a dishonest awful person, for once. Accept that there can be legitimate doubts about the electability of a far left socialist gadfly Senator. Just address the argument.

[Adam Griffin]

It's hardly cherry-picking when they are literally looking at all the endorsements and doing a statistical run-down.

It's cherry-picking because it's selecting specific data-points to drive home a narrative, irrespective of what other data might show, or, you know, just common sense. What's next: "100% of people who are still alive and smoking haven't died from cancer, so smoking obviously isn't unhealthy"?

Not only were these candidates shut out, but they were shut out in a year when the Democrats made huge gains in the House. Arguably your naming Kara Eastman is cherry-picking because it was based only on your judgement.

Laughable. NE-02 was literally one of the prime targets from Day 1 - until the DCCC triaged it right after Eastman won the nomination. Talk about a self-fulfilling prophecy! If your party ends up abandoning every progressive candidate nominated and endorsed by various orgs, then the chance of none of them winning is much higher (obviously!). Perhaps if they hadn't assumed that a progressive being nominated was the end of the world in one of the closest House districts in the country, she would have won. Alas, nobody will ever know for sure - but we do know that the DCCC reversed course at the end once it was too late.

What about Richard Ojeda? Don't tell me there weren't people who thought he would win, or at least do better than the other Democrat running in the district to his north. Bernie acolyte Krystall Ball said she was certain he was going to win. Also it's not just about sacrificial lambs but competitive districts. For instance in my own district, TX-07, it is highly unlikely that the progressive candidate who lost the primary, Laura Moser, would have done better than the moderate who won it.

So now we're comparing actual swing districts with heavily-Republican districts? Who cares if some people thought he would win: there are people in my congressional district who think our representative can be beaten, and he won in 2018 with 75% of the vote. I guess my district is now a swing district too and worthy of being grouped in with the rest!

Krystal Ball was on his campaign at points and working alongside him: is she supposed to go around saying he was going to lose?

And just as a fun side-note, Ojeda outperformed the 2016 presidential margin in his CD by more than any other candidate in the country. Kind of a weird example for you to pick in driving home this non-point; attacking a candidate in deep Republican turf who more than halved one of the largest presidential margins for Trump in the 2016 election.

I've also never been somebody to say that we need a progressive candidate in every district. However, a big part of the reason why they almost never are nominated in swing districts isn't because of rational behavior: it's because establishment candidates have the money, the media support and a boatload of primary voters who've been brainwashed over the decades to accept that even in swing districts where there are no swing voters, a moderate candidate with name recognition and financial connections is the only way to win a general election.

[Adam Griffin]

Also, a bit off topic, but I don't really get the point of posts where the first claim out of the poster's "mouth" is to call the other person's argument "disingenuous." Why even engage with someone in that case? I know politics are awfully polarizing these days but it'd be nice to be able to have some basic debates on electability without starting off by accusing the other person of being a dishonest awful person, for once. Accept that there can be legitimate doubts about the electability of a far left socialist gadfly Senator. Just address the argument.

I did address the argument. I was referring to the writer's argument and the ongoing use of this tired statistic to make a case.

And perhaps basic debates on conversations would be more likely if those participating weren't just sharing the cookie-cutter opinions found on Twitter or every major media outlet's website. Frankly, I'm not afraid of hurting the feelings of a person I'm not interacting with or the equivalent of an RSS feed.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Let me see if I can summarize, and Sanders folks let me know when I start getting it wrong:

Bernie Sanders wants change.  Not just any change, but sweeping structural change, a massive overhaul of the core systems underlying daily life in America and complete legislative transformation of this country.

Putting aside the many problems with Sanders himself, there are two problems with his revolutionary proposals that even his most hardcore supporters acknowledge:
1) Congress is controlled by the opposition party, which will never pass revolutionary legislation
2) These revolutionary ideas are, according to polling, not broadly supported by American voters (the broad goals are, but Sanders' specific plans for achieving them are not)

The solution proposed for both of these is the same:  Bernie Sanders and his movement are so powerful, so convincing, and so morally righteous, that they will persuade an overwhelming majority of Americans to join him, demand revolutionary change, and either sweep the Republicans out of office or cow them into obeying Sanders' demands.

And here is where the 2018 election starts to matter.  Bernie Sanders already had 100% name recognition.  100% of Americans knew about his policies and had formed opinions on them.  He had spent the last 3+ years evangelizing his revolution and its policy pillars.  He was as well-funded as anyone could ever be.  He and his acolytes were a daily presence in the mainstream media.

Would this not be the perfect sandbox to simulate what a 2022 election in a Sanders administration might look like?  Yet by any metric it was a failure.  Sanders' slate of candidates lost most of their primaries, indicating that his revolution has limited appeal even within his own party.  Those who made it to the general election were only able to win non-competitive races.

There are a lot of Democrats, like me, who believe that should Sanders get into office, his policies will still be opposed by the majority of the nation, he will be unable to convince Republicans to pass anything, his first two years will be a do-nothing administration and in 2022, when he puts up another slate of revolutionary candidates, they'll get slaughtered just like they did in 2018.  He'll spend his last two years as a lame duck and lose his bid for re-election to someone even more radical than Trump.

If you want to convince us that this won't happen, you need to find a better argument for the two problems I identified above.  Because the results of the 2018 election, and the fact that Sanders has higher disapproval numbers than Trump himself, are pretty direct counter-arguments to the idea that he's some socialist demigod who will make it happen through sheer force of will.

[Beet]

It's hardly cherry-picking when they are literally looking at all the endorsements and doing a statistical run-down.

It's cherry-picking because it's selecting specific data-points to drive home a narrative, irrespective of what other data might show, or, you know, just common sense. What's next: "100% of people who are still alive and smoking haven't died from cancer, so smoking obviously isn't unhealthy"?

What is the electoral data to show your side of the case, then? What data are they excluding that in your view they should include?

Laughable. NE-02 was literally one of the prime targets from Day 1 - until the DCCC triaged it right after Eastman won the nomination. Talk about a self-fulfilling prophecy! If your party ends up abandoning every progressive candidate nominated and endorsed by various orgs, then the chance of none of them winning is much higher (obviously!). Perhaps if they hadn't assumed that a progressive being nominated was the end of the world in one of the closest House districts in the country, she would have won. Alas, nobody will ever know for sure - but we do know that the DCCC reversed course at the end once it was too late.

So you have (cherry picked) one House race where the progressive didn't underperform, even though she still lost.

By that standard, I could cherry pick Oklahoma-05, widely acknowledged as the biggest upset of the cycle, where the Democratic winner was given only a 7% chance of winning. Kendra Horn is also a member of the New Democrat Coalition and the Blue Dog Coalition. Oops!

So now we're comparing actual swing districts with heavily-Republican districts? Who cares if some people thought he would win: there are people in my congressional district who think our representative can be beaten, and he won in 2018 with 75% of the vote. I guess my district is now a swing district too and worthy of being grouped in with the rest!

Krystal Ball was on his campaign at points and working alongside him: is she supposed to go around saying he was going to lose?

I mean, she did start a Super PAC to collect money from wealthy donors & then blow it on a bunch of losers -- oops, except the part where she paid herself hundreds of thousands.

And just as a fun side-note, Ojeda outperformed the 2016 presidential margin in his CD by more than any other candidate in the country. Kind of a weird example for you to pick in driving home this non-point; attacking a candidate in deep Republican turf who more than halved one of the largest presidential margins for Trump in the 2016 election.

Wow, you're telling me a pro-gun, twice bronze starred Army major and elected State Senator from the district who voted for Trump, outperformed Hillary Clinton? Amazing! Most likely, however, he underperformed Joe Manchin, a centrist Blue Dog if there ever was one. It's really a perfect test because you have two men, in the same election, one a moderate, the other a Sanders-type, and Manchin almost certainly did better. (I would like to see the data here, though.)

[NOVA Green]

I've held it in for so long….But it's time to come out with my story of a traumatic experience with Bernie Sanders. Warning: the following is disturbing and could be highly upsetting.

I saw Bernie Sanders at a grocery store in Burlington last year. I told him how cool it was to meet him in person, but I didn’t want to be a douche and bother him and ask him for photos or anything.

He said, “Oh, like you’re doing now, you establishment hack?”

I was taken aback, and all I could say was “Huh?” but he kept cutting me off and going “huh? huh? huh corporatists, huh?” and closing his hand shut in front of my face. I walked away and continued with my shopping, and I heard him chuckle as I walked off. When I came to pay for my stuff up front I saw him trying to walk out the doors with like fifteen Ben and Jerry's ice cream cups in his hands without paying.

The girl at the counter was very nice about it and professional, and was like “Sir, you need to pay for those first.” At first he kept pretending to be busy reading his medicare for all plan, but eventually turned back around and brought them to the counter.

When she took one of the cups and started scanning it multiple times, he stopped her and told her to scan them each individually “to prevent any electoral infetterence, as that plays into the game of the millionaires and billionaires”, and then turned around and winked at me. I don’t even think that’s a word. After she scanned each cup and put them in a bag and started to say the price, he kept interrupting her by saying "not me, us" really loudly.

Is this a bad attempt at a troll

No it's real, I was there and saw it all go down

Somebody needs to get Larry David on the case....

[Adam Griffin]

It's hardly cherry-picking when they are literally looking at all the endorsements and doing a statistical run-down.

It's cherry-picking because it's selecting specific data-points to drive home a narrative, irrespective of what other data might show, or, you know, just common sense. What's next: "100% of people who are still alive and smoking haven't died from cancer, so smoking obviously isn't unhealthy"?

What is the electoral data to show your side of the case, then? What data are they excluding that in your view they should include?

Laughable. NE-02 was literally one of the prime targets from Day 1 - until the DCCC triaged it right after Eastman won the nomination. Talk about a self-fulfilling prophecy! If your party ends up abandoning every progressive candidate nominated and endorsed by various orgs, then the chance of none of them winning is much higher (obviously!). Perhaps if they hadn't assumed that a progressive being nominated was the end of the world in one of the closest House districts in the country, she would have won. Alas, nobody will ever know for sure - but we do know that the DCCC reversed course at the end once it was too late.

So you have (cherry picked) one House race where the progressive didn't underperform, even though she still lost.

By that standard, I could cherry pick Oklahoma-05, widely acknowledged as the biggest upset of the cycle, where the Democratic winner was given only a 7% chance of winning. Kendra Horn is also a member of the New Democrat Coalition and the Blue Dog Coalition. Oops!

What about this are you not getting? To my knowledge, Kara Eastman was the only candidate endorsed by any of these groups who was running in the general election in a House district that was actually competitive. There may be a couple of others I'm forgetting or can't think of: what data I'd be looking for is something with a sample size far larger than 1 - especially when the only candidate (to my knowledge) backed by these orgs in a swing district was triaged because of her ideology months before the election even happened - with variances between races and campaigns controlled for as best as possible. That means no comparing incumbent performance to challenger performance, no comparing swing districts to safe Republican/Democratic districts, no comparing primaries to general elections, and no comparing candidates with gobs of money thrown at them by the party to candidates who receive no assistance from their party.

So now we're comparing actual swing districts with heavily-Republican districts? Who cares if some people thought he would win: there are people in my congressional district who think our representative can be beaten, and he won in 2018 with 75% of the vote. I guess my district is now a swing district too and worthy of being grouped in with the rest!

Krystal Ball was on his campaign at points and working alongside him: is she supposed to go around saying he was going to lose?

I mean, she did start a Super PAC to collect money from wealthy donors & then blow it on a bunch of losers -- oops, except the part where she paid herself hundreds of thousands.

Right, so you throw out some unrelated snark, I remind you of how campaigns are conventionally ran, and you just decide to be cute. OK.

And just as a fun side-note, Ojeda outperformed the 2016 presidential margin in his CD by more than any other candidate in the country. Kind of a weird example for you to pick in driving home this non-point; attacking a candidate in deep Republican turf who more than halved one of the largest presidential margins for Trump in the 2016 election.

Wow, you're telling me a pro-gun, twice bronze starred Army major and elected State Senator from the district who voted for Trump, outperformed Hillary Clinton? Amazing! Most likely, however, he underperformed Joe Manchin, a centrist Blue Dog if there ever was one. It's really a perfect test because you have two men, in the same election, one a moderate, the other a Sanders-type, and Manchin almost certainly did better. (I would like to see the data here, though.)

He didn't just "outperform Hillary Clinton": he lost by 13 in a district Clinton lost by 49. No other candidate generated that kind of swing in a House race in 2018 (or I imagine in 2016, or 2014, or 2012...). So yes, relative rando Richard Ojeda did 36 points better in his district than Hillary Clinton while incumbent Manchin did 45 points better in his race. But I am sure you'll delegitimize any performance boost without controlling for variables that obviously benefit candidates such as Manchin (incumbency, name recognition, resources, established community relationships, a party structure that actually supports your efforts, etc).

[Illini Moderate]

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/01/bernie-sanders-electable-trump-2020-nomination-popular-socialism.html
Running Bernie Sanders Against Trump Would Be an Act of Insanity

In the field of political forecasting, almost nothing is a matter of certainty, and almost everything is a matter of probability. If Democrats nominate Bernie Sanders — who currently leads the field in Iowa and New Hampshire, and appears to be consolidating support among the party’s progressive wing, while its moderates remain splintered — his prospects against Donald Trump in November would be far from hopeless. Polarization has given any major party nominee a high enough floor of support that the term “unelectable” has no real place in the discussion. What’s more, every candidate in the race brings a suite of their own liabilities Trump could exploit.

That said, the totality of the evidence suggests Sanders is an extremely, perhaps uniquely, risky nominee. His vulnerabilities are enormous and untested. No party nomination, with the possible exception of Barry Goldwater in 1964, has put forth a presidential nominee with the level of downside risk exposure as a Sanders-led ticket would bring. To nominate Sanders would be insane.

Sanders has gleefully discarded the party’s conventional wisdom that it has to pick and choose where to push public opinion leftward, adopting a comprehensive left-wing agenda, some of which is popular, and some of which is decidedly not. Positions in the latter category include replacing all private health insurance with a government plan, banning fracking, letting prisoners vote, decriminalizing the border, giving free health care to undocumented immigrants, and eliminating ICE. (I am only listing Sanders positions that are intensely unpopular. I am not including positions, like national rent control and phasing out all nuclear energy, that I consider ill-advised but which probably won’t harm him much with voters.)

Didn't this guy write an article in 2016 about how he desperately wanted Trump to be the republican nominee because he would be guaranteed to lose?

Seriously, most of the people writing "Sanders is unelectable!" pieces right now have such a track record of being dramatically wrong i'm not sure why anyone pays the smallest bit of mind to them.

One time being wrong doesn't constitute a "track record."

[Gracile]

The fact that progressives haven't done as well in swing districts/slightly more conservative districts is also partly attributable to the DCCC and similar organizations being unwilling to invest in candidates that are perceived as too far left for said district. They consistently favor moderate candidates in the primary, and as such gain much of the party infrastructure and money that would help them win both the primary and the general election. It's hard for a more progressive candidate to win when the party establishment is largely behind someone else. It's not so much that candidates that are farther left can't win, but that structural barriers prevent them being the nominee in the first place.

[Adam Griffin]

The fact that progressives haven't done as well in swing districts/slightly more conservative districts is also partly attributable to the DCCC and similar organizations being unwilling to invest in candidates that are perceived as too far left for said district. They consistently favor moderate candidates in the primary, and as such gain much of the party infrastructure and money that would help them win both the primary and the general election. It's hard for a more progressive candidate to win when the party establishment is largely behind someone else. It's not so much that candidates that are farther left can't win, but that structural barriers prevent them being the nominee in the first place.

Yeah, I basically could have boiled all of my commentary down to this.