What’s wrong with Bernie Sanders?

Bernie. Sanders.

If this site had its way, Bernie would walk away with it hands down.

Clinton isn’t dead yet, and whichever ogre the republicans manage to field, she should stand up just fine. I’m much more interested in how she intends to counter Sanders.

Bernie Sanders is much better than Hillary. Even Biden is better than Hillary. So yes.

Feel the Bern!

Joe Biden would be pretty good too!

I cringe to admit this here, but I don’t believe Sanders or Trump are electable. I don’t find either candidacy viable.

541 members of Congress are currently held hostage by a block of under 40 ultra-right conservatives. How is one Washington outsider going to accomplish anything in the environment?

I had high hopes for O’Malley at the outset. I even considered hireing my own bumper magnets made. He just hasn’t made much impression on me.

@ibstubro: “I cringe to admit this here, but I don’t believe Sanders or Trump are electable.”

Why do you not feel Sanders is electable? Is it the fact that the corporate media has already chosen Hillary? But what if people really learned about Sanders’ positions? His positions on things are quite popular, from polling I have seen. The challenge will be dealing with the onslaught from the media. It started as just ignoring him. But the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal (and others) have moved on to just publishing attacks.

@ibstubro
”...I don’t believe Sanders or Trump are electable.”
Anybody is electable.
Obviously

Still voting for Bernie, even if he doesn’t stand a real chance. Maybe something unbelievable will happen and the impossible will be achieved.

I’m anxious to see how O’Mally. Does.

Oprah would be a great candidate. Congress look under your chairs.

Yes. Bernie Sanders! He’s the only actual, real, non-corrupt candidate I know about who is running for president from any party, anyway.

Hillary will be the nominee.
Both Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden would win the general election if they were the nominee. The Republican field is that bad.

Hillary is not even a viable candidate.

Does no one remember Whitewater? Anyone that “naïve” should not be President. Come on.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/whitewater/stories/wwtr960602.htm

I guess by “viable” you don’t mean someone with political experience, skill, or popular support. What I don’t get is so many people thinking Sanders can’t win because only those anointed by the DNC or RNC are electable.

Let me let you all in on a secret about how elections work; the person with the most votes wins regardless of their party affiliation or lack thereof. The mind-blowing part is that voting for a candidate gives them votes, meaning that if more people vote for Sanders than for Clinton or whoever the GOP nominee is, Sanders will win.

Let me type that slower so those that still don’t get it can follow along.

If
people
vote
for
Bernie
,
then
he
WILL
win
the
election
!

@stanleybmanly It’s not just this site. Basically, the majority of those who didn’t already lock their votes in for Republican candidate back in 1962 also feel that Sanders is the best candidate outside. And even many swing-voters feel Sanders is better qualified than Clinton.

And I don’t think Hillary can counter Sanders. Many of the people who are open-minded enough to even consider a Democratic nominee other than Clinton have a variety of reasons for supporting pretty much anyone who opposes her, so the best she can really do is get Sanders supporters behind a third candidate like Biden… and watch the support go back to Bernie as Biden isn’t charismatic enough to win an election.

@ARE_you_kidding_me Hillary isn’t viable? She out polls everyone else! That’s the bottom line.

@filmfann *citation needed.

@jerb Biden supporters come from Hillary. If Hillary can keep Biden out of the race, she wins easily. How does she keep Biden out? She has already said she will make a campaign issue out of Biden advising against the raid that got bin Laden.

@filmfann Aside from the fact that the places where Sanders polls poorly tend to be places that never even heard of him, there is also a trend that shows Sanders rising steadily as Clinton drops.

@Seek Technically, he’s correct. Real Clear Politics supports @filmfann‘s statement currently.

I love Bernie. My fear is that the establishment democrats will treat him like they did Jimmy Carter and sabatoge his presidency even if he wins. They don’t like him and they didn’t like Carter.

Bernie Sanders is garnering enough support to stand out as a viable candidate.

I agree about the heavy odds against both Sanders & Trump, but the one thing that I will grant them both is that neither is bought & paid for (yet).

@stanleybmanly I’ve watched Sanders for decades. I helped put him in office for his first term in the House. Trump may sell out in order to get enough money to pay off his creditors, but Sanders never would.

Well, my short answer is that I’m with @Judi. I’m anxious to see how O’Malley does, and I fear that any candidate outside the establishment will end up a one term disaster.
We’re not electing a king that has powers, but a politician that has to form an effective cabinet that can work with congress. Best of luck.

@jerv Two words about “the person with the most votes wins”:
Bush
Gore

@ibstubro the Electoral College doesn’t affect the primaries.

@ibstubro The official count had G.W. Bush ahead in Florida by 537 votes. Because more Floridians voted for Bush than for Gore, Bush got those 25 electoral votes. Are you refuting that 2,912,790 is more than 2,912,253? I doubt it.

Those 25 electoral votes, when combined with the electoral votes from the other 49 states left the Electoral College in favor of Bush. Are you refuting that 271 is greater than 266?

Now, I understand your criticism, but if you wish to debate the merits of the Electoral College versus a straight-up popular vote, then we can discuss that another time/place. All I’ll really say here is that I personally don’t support the Electoral College, largely due to the fact that most states are “winner take all”.

The Supreme Court called it, @jerv, and along party lines. One more liberal justice and Gore might have been President.

@ibstubro The Supreme Court only ruled on the Florida recount. And the “party line vote” you refer to was simply whether or not a valid recount could happen before a certain deadline.

As much as I would like to think it a partisan conspiracy, I think that this one is not. I can see how one who is (small-c) conservative may question whether there was any viable way to rule differently than they did regardless of anything remotely partisan. And I know plenty of Democrats who are cautious enough that they may have ruled the same way out of sense of judicial impartiality when it comes to adherence to the law.

@jerv Exactly – if people vote for Bernie, he’ll win. Unfortunately, I don’t think most Democrats will vote for him, because he’s too left for them. Which is stupid and sad, but that’s why I think he doesn’t stand a chance. Unless younger generations come out of the woodwork and start voting like they never have before, but I don’t see that happening, either.

@DrasticDreamer I wouldn’t be so sure. Part of it is that between the two regions likely to vote Democrat anyways (the Northeast and the West Coast), one is familiar with him already and the other has a tendency to be a bit more Liberal than Democrats from other regions.

That said, he’ll have to spend the next few months working on name recognition. One of Bernie’s weaknesses is that he isn’t much of a campaigner. He’s a nice guy, but while Hillary is working in her marketing and getting $600 hairdos for her public appearances, Bernie is pretty much running his campaign during his lunch breaks at his day job and rarely bothers fussing with his hair.

That means that he isn’t well-known outside of New England, and that is a pretty big problem when running against someone who already spent a few years going around the globe at the elbow of a world leader and is used to pandering to the camera.

And with some of the stuff going on, I think that the young voters have more of an interest in this election than in the past. They may surprise us all next November.

The presidency is a distraction. It is much more important to win back democratic congressional seats and, to be honest, I am not hopeful in this regard. There does not seem to be much emphasis being placed on this. I cannot think of a single Senate or House race that has a Democrat challenging and Republican incumbent.

ok lets talk about democracy and the political situation on bangladesh ..
Does no one remember Whitewater? Anyone that “naïve” should not be President. Come on.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/whitewater/stories/wwtr960602.htm

@santonoshamrat I think it is more a question of whether anyone cares about something that supposedly happened 20 years ago and even at the time had the stench of a Republican political hit anyway.

I agree that bullets dodged while the gun was still smoking are given a pass, @rojo.

If your contention is that Hillary had been ‘clean’ the past 20+ years of her active political life, then that should be a selling point for you, @santonoshamrat.

I am not defending her, She seems rather shallow and insincere in this new persona and I very much doubt that she would be a candidate for sainthood.

I was agreeing with you, @rojo. I don’t like her either, but I don’t see something that was fully investigated 20 years ago bringing her down.
Just like the Birther movement was just a distraction for Obama after the election. Just more shit and bullshit. Whitewater, 20 years later, bleh.