Is Bernie Sanders the Ronald Reagan of 2016?

Is Senator Bernie Sanders (D-Vt.) electable? As Sanders has surged in the polls, supporters of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are issuing increasingly dire warnings about his general election prospects.  On websites like Vox, many political scientists agree: He can’t win. Millions of dollars in Republican ads, they insist, will paint him a socialist or a red. Americans aren’t about to elect a Jewish socialist who still hasn’t lost his Brooklyn accent.
It will be a debacle, critics predict, like Democratic Senator George McGovern’s crushing 1972 loss, when the Democrats lost 48 states, or Republican Senator Barry Goldwater, buried by President Lyndon B. Johnson’s stunning landslide in 1964. It will set progressives back for decades.
Ironically, as Sanders rises in the polls and does better than expected, the alarms grow in volume and intensity. It verges on oxymoronic for Clinton and the party establishment to scorn as unelectable a candidate who is beating her at the ballot box.
Insurgent candidates face forbidding odds — but they don’t always lose. In 1980, establishment Republicans issued much the same warnings about former California Governor Ronald Reagan, asserting he would be Goldwater redux. Moderate Republican John Anderson went so far as to mount a third party bid against him.

Bernie Sanders speaks during a rally at Franklin Pierce University in Rindge, New Hampshire, February 6, 2016. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton
Reagan not only won, he led a re-alignment election. Republicans took control of the Senate, and launched, in Barack Obama’s words, a transformative presidency that marked the end of the New Deal coalition and the beginning of the conservative era. (In 1984, Walter Mondale lost 49 states to incumbent President Reagan).
President Richard M. Nixon and then Reagan built the conservative Republican majority coalition by splitting off so-called Reagan Democrats — largely white, disproportionately Southern, working-class men — from the Democratic Party. The GOP attracted these voters with talk of God, guns and skillful use of race-baiting politics, while waging a culture war against gays and women.
Sanders similarly may have the potential to expand the Democratic majority coalition by attracting blue-collar, white male voters back into the Democratic Party.
As Donald Trump’s rise in the 2016 Republican primaries has shown, these blue-collar white male voters are restive. Trump has garnered significant support with anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim diatribes. But he’s also echoed Sanders by scorning the corruption of U.S. electoral politics, failed U.S. trade policies and endless wars without victory.
Sanders’s passionate populism may gain him a hearing from these voters and potentially forge a far broader electoral majority coalition for Democrats.
Predicting whether Sanders is a Reagan or a Goldwater isn’t easy. Polls that show him doing well in match-ups against potential Republican nominees are virtually meaningless. Sanders hasn’t even introduced himself to most Americans and the Republican assault on him hasn’t begun.
The assumption that he wins the nomination — against Clinton, who enjoys universal name recognition, the support of virtually the entire Democratic establishment, the best party operatives and all the money in the world — posits a stunning political rise. It would mean that Sanders makes significant inroads among minority voters, sustains the enthusiasm of the young and consolidates his support among middle- and lower-income Democrats.

Hillary Clinton greets supporters outside a polling place in Nashua, New Hampshire, February 9, 2016. REUTERS/Brian Snyder
As Alan Abramowitz, a political scientist from Emory University, has wisely noted, the fears of a Sanders electoral debacle may be overdone simply because the electorate is far more polarized now than when McGovern and Goldwater ran.  The harsh negative partisanship of U.S. politics, the growth of segmented media and the rise of social media have all helped consolidate more ideologically cohesive voting blocks.
A Clinton candidacy, for example, will mobilize the Republican right, which loathes her nearly as much as they do Obama. The Republican nominee is most likely to push an extreme right-wing agenda that will help unify and mobilize the Democratic base, no matter who the Democratic nominee is.
The question of electability is generally a comparative one: Is Sanders more or less electable than Clinton? There’s a natural tendency to assume that Clinton, the more moderate and experienced candidate, is presumptively more viable. But while Sanders has clear vulnerabilities, so does Clinton.  She is burdened with significant baggage — Wall Street money, the smarmy Clinton Foundation fundraising, the email mess and more. Sanders has been the most courtly of opponents, but Republican attacks are and will be incessant and poisonous. Polls indicate Clinton already faces troubling doubts about her honesty.
Democrats go into the 2016 election cycle confident that they have a majority coalition: the young, people of color, unmarried women, and liberal professionals. If they show up in large numbers at the polls. Already, polls report an alarming “enthusiasm gap” between Democratic and Republican voters. Sanders has clearly electrified young people, whereas Clinton has not. Sanders won voters aged 17 to 29 by an astounding 84 percent to 14 percent in Iowa, and he enjoys a similar margin in tracking polls in New Hampshire.
This is a troubling time, particularly for this new Democratic majority. The nation is still struggling to recover from what Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz has begun calling the “long depression.” Young people find themselves burdened with college debt, struggling with lousy job opportunities, inheriting a world of ceaseless war and catastrophic climate change. With wages stagnant and jobs insecure, Americans fear losing ground.

Hillary Clinton applauds supporters at a campaign rally in Hudson, New Hampshire, February 8, 2016. REUTERS/Brian Snyder
The alarming spread of drugs, suicide and declining life expectancy among white working-class men is only one measure of the scope of dismay. Growing movements — Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, the young Latino Dreamers, the “Fight for $15” campaign (referring to the hourly minimum wage) — reflect the growing demand for change. The hopes roused by Obama’s historic election have largely run aground on Republican obstruction.
In this context, Sanders offers a clear and passionate vision. He indicts an economy rigged by and for the few, and a politics corrupted by big money. His calls for fundamental reforms: Medicare for all, tuition-free public college, a $15 minimum wage, fair taxes on the rich, breaking up big banks, re-making U.S. trade policies and meeting the challenge of climate change. He summons a “political revolution,” of millions of people standing up to push politicians to respond. Sanders has walked the walk — funding his campaign with literally millions of small donations, spurning the creation of Super PACs to collect large and dark contributions from the wealthy and corporations.
Clinton dismisses Sanders’s agenda as unrealistic. Former President Bill Clinton scorns it as a “cartoon.” She’s made herself the candidate of continuity by defending Obama’s reforms, drawing distinctions mostly by being more hawkish on foreign policy. Hillary Clinton argues that progress can only come one step at a time — reaching out and seeking to find “slivers” of common ground with Republicans. She touts her experience and her skill at negotiating in back rooms to make progress.
In face of the Sanders challenge, Clinton increasingly sounded like the “No We Can’t” candidate. As New York Times op-ed columnist Charles Blow, among many others, has argued, she has yet to show that she has a vision that can provide hope and inspiration and can mobilize voters. Yes, electing the first woman president would be historic — but thus far it has not been enough.
This is also a battle over what the Democratic coalition looks like, who Democrats are and whom they fight for. Clinton seeks to consolidate the current arrangement — collecting upscale professionals repelled by Republican social conservatism and linking them with unmarried women, people of color and the young.  With financing from Hollywood, Wall Street and Silicon Valley, the party leads with its social liberalism linked to an established moderate economics. What Bill Clinton’s New Democrats once worried were damaging wedge issues now play in Democrats favor.
Sanders seeks to consolidate a coalition based upon his core economic and political populism, without abandoning social liberalism. He recognizes that single women, people of color and the young are united largely by their need for fundamental economic and political reforms. The authenticity of his appeal — his willingness to call out America’s rigged economy and corrupted politics — give him the possibility of reaching into the white blue-collar workers, who Trump has already shown are shunning establishment Republicans.
Hillary Clinton, of course, remains the prohibitive favorite to win the 2016 Democratic nomination. The argument about Sanders viability is, in some ways, a distraction. She has to show that she is viable electorally by laying out a vision and agenda that rouse energy among the Democratic base. If she does that, she could provide the best proof of Sanders’ lack of viability by beating him.

http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2016/02/09/why-bernie-sanders-can-win-the-white-house/

Well, it's the New Hampshire primaries tomorrow and Bern is ahead in the polls.  Bet Clinton didn't expect that.  I don't like her, expecially since she pulled the feminist card.  Real feminists vote for the best candidate, not for one because she happens to be a woman!

If I was American, I'd be backing Sanders every step of the way.  He's quite definitely the most left leaning candidate and will not be bought by big business etc and is honest.  In American politics that's saying something!

Bernie is the man. Probably as far left as you can get American style.

Just been looking at latest results for New Hampshire, they are putting Bernie ahead!

Bernie is expected to win New Hampshire. It's his country.

I like the old rascal. Too bad he would lose a general election.

Original Quill wrote:Bernie is expected to win New Hampshire.  It's his country.

I like the old rascal.  Too bad he would lose a general election.

Yes too much big money behind Hillary.
Democrats are rapidly become a laughing stock for their obvious cronyism and corruption.

veya_victaous wrote:

Original Quill wrote:Bernie is expected to win New Hampshire.  It's his country.

I like the old rascal.  Too bad he would lose a general election.

Yes too much big money behind Hillary.
Democrats are rapidly become a laughing stock for their obvious cronyism and corruption.

As I just posted on the other thread, I think something of a negative vote is going on with Hillary. It's not just money, it's her personal demeanor I fear. After all, Bernie's got money too.

It is turning out to be a poor field for Democrats. I wish Wendy Davis or Elizabeth Warren were in there somewhere.

Go Berne, won easily in New Hampshire. 

Sanders took to the stage at his victory party and wasted no time going straight to the theme that appears to have dominated the election here: campaign finance.

“Together we have sent a message that will resonate from Wall Street to Washington ... that government belongs to all of the people,” he said to applause and foot-stomping from a fired up audience of mixed ages.
But he warned of the brickbats ahead as the campaign prepares to move to the national stage. “They are throwing everything at me except the kitchen sink, and I have a feeling that it is coming soon,” he said.

One the biggest cheers of the night came when he started a sentence: “When we make it to the White House ... ” but the crowd turned and shook their fists at the press riser when Sanders talked of “sending a message to the media establishment”.

Foreign policy also made a return to his stump speech, after a period of relative absence during campaigning here that had attracted growing criticism. “As president I will defend this nation, but I will do it responsibly,” he said. “We cannot and should not be the policeman of the world.

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/feb/09/new-hampshire-primary-bernie-sanders-donald-trump

The powers above the USA government, will make the winner be, whomever they decide him or her to be.

eddie wrote:The powers above the USA government, will make the winner be, whomever they decide him or her to be.

Haha...are you and existentialist?  Sounds like it.

I think any comparisons are useless.  What is going on in the Republican race is not the same as what is going on in the Democratic race.  They may all be disaffected, but the match ends there.  The response on the RW is to go more conservative--Trump.  But the response on the LW side is to go more liberal--Sanders.  

Clearly, when left and right are broken down: so far from being the same phenomenon, they are polar opposites.  It's like the Goldwater revolution going on at the same time as the McGovern revolution.  We may have a double critical election taking place this cycle:

Brainscape wrote:Critical elections are rare, and refer to a dramatic shift in the electorate, where the majority party is often replaced by the minority party and voting coalitions shift alignments.

An example of a critical election is the election of Franklin Roosevelt in 1932, ending a long period of Republican dominance and enshrining the New Deal coalition.

https://www.brainscape.com/flashcards/28732692/-critical

Critical elections can take place even when the candidate does not win.  Goldwater did not win, but his candidacy sparked the southern strategy in the Republican Party.  Likewise, McGovern was the candidate of the left during the radical 60's and he did not win.

Here, we may have a two-pronged response, with the Republicans going to the right seeking answers to feelings of disaffection, and Democrats going the the left and backing Sanders for the same reason.

Left or right, right or left....

You know they all end up in the same boat called "corruption", don't you?

eddie wrote:Left or right, right or left....

You know they all end up in the same boat called "corruption", don't you?

you are in good company with that opinon

Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.
Douglas Adams,

If Sanders could do any of the things he's saying he'll do, I would vote for him and feel euphoric about it. Unfortunately, if he were elected, he'd still have to deal with the reality of an obstinate majority-Republican Congress.

People need to realize that Congress has the real power. We give the office of the presidency all the adornments of power, but there is very little the president can actually do without the approval of Congress.

eddie wrote:Left or right, right or left....

You know they all end up in the same boat called "corruption", don't you?

No I don't. Sounds like a religious euphemism...the god of symmetry or something.

I take each situation on it's own merits.

Ben_Reilly wrote:If Sanders could do any of the things he's saying he'll do, I would vote for him and feel euphoric about it. Unfortunately, if he were elected, he'd still have to deal with the reality of an obstinate majority-Republican Congress.

People need to realize that Congress has the real power. We give the office of the presidency all the adornments of power, but there is very little the president can actually do without the approval of Congress.

I realise that Congress has the real power, but don't see that as a reason not to vote for a President that stands for what you believe in.  At least you have some chance then.  Vote for Clinton and you are voting for the people that pay her.

Ben_Reilly wrote:If Sanders could do any of the things he's saying he'll do, I would vote for him and feel euphoric about it. Unfortunately, if he were elected, he'd still have to deal with the reality of an obstinate majority-Republican Congress.

People need to realize that Congress has the real power. We give the office of the presidency all the adornments of power, but there is very little the president can actually do without the approval of Congress.

So true. I find is surprising that people with a parliamentary system don't understand the primacy of the legislative branch. For six of the last eight years Dr. Obama has had to play chess with Congress to get anything done. In fact, it is that very Republican embolism that has stopped government dead in its tracks,

Ever wonder why we can't declare war on ISIS? Or fix the bridges in Minneapolis? All the Republican Congress wants to do is waste resources and time chasing non-existent chimeras...like Hillary's emails or Benghazi.

Original Quill wrote:

veya_victaous wrote:

Yes too much big money behind Hillary.
Democrats are rapidly become a laughing stock for their obvious cronyism and corruption.

As I just posted on the other thread, I think something of a negative vote is going on with Hillary.  It's not just money, it's her personal demeanor I fear.  After all, Bernie's got money too.

It is turning out to be a poor field for Democrats.  I wish Wendy Davis or Elizabeth Warren were in there somewhere.

Jennifer  Granholm should be in there as well ....


lovely woman smart as


ps
And IMHO Hillary`s personal demeanour more a republican attack strategy used as a  whipping post and unfair
they will do anything and everything to  bring her down as she is a real threat to them winning the whitehouse

eddie wrote:Left or right, right or left....

You know they all end up in the same boat called "corruption", don't you?

That's different to suggesting that a leader is chosen by a higher power. You are basically saying no matter what happens you will stand by your conspiracy. Its a win-win situation in regardings to 'confirming what you already knew'.

Re: Sanders and Clinton. I'd love Sanders to win but don't expect it overall. Sure he got New Hampshire, no surprise there, he'll get Vermont too. But Hilary will sweep the majority. And we better hope she does because in general I fear the majority of Americans are still too brainwashed into hearing the word 'cooties' when someone says 'socialist'...

It's concerning, not that Sanders won New Hampshire, but that he won by that much.  He was expected to win, but pundits are surprised by size of the landslide. Obviously there's something more going on than just his favorite son status.

That something more may not rest with Sanders, but might be a negative vote on Hillary.  Hillary has acquired a type-cast of something of a shrew.  She may be locked into that role of scorned woman, forever angry because of her husband's infidelities.

That and her ties to Wall Street may be doing her in.  Pundits may have underestimated how strongly the 99%er movement might have affected the young voters.  That would be another negative strike on Hillary.

The problem with negative strikes on your opponent is: it doesn't say anything positive about you.  Come the general election, we may find that the public doesn't feel that Bernie can do the job...and run off to vote for an imbecile like Trump.  The electorate can be very fickle.

Eilzel wrote:

eddie wrote:Left or right, right or left....

You know they all end up in the same boat called "corruption", don't you?

That's different to suggesting that a leader is chosen by a higher power. You are basically saying no matter what happens you will stand by your conspiracy. Its a win-win situation in regardings to 'confirming what you already knew'.

Re: Sanders and Clinton. I'd love Sanders to win but don't expect it overall. Sure he got New Hampshire, no surprise there, he'll get Vermont too. But Hilary will sweep the majority. And we better hope she does because in general I fear the majority of Americans are still too brainwashed into hearing the word 'cooties' when someone says 'socialist'...

Im still amazed you can think that it isnt possible for certain big events to be manipulated by the rich and powerful.

Original Quill wrote:

Ben_Reilly wrote:If Sanders could do any of the things he's saying he'll do, I would vote for him and feel euphoric about it. Unfortunately, if he were elected, he'd still have to deal with the reality of an obstinate majority-Republican Congress.

People need to realize that Congress has the real power. We give the office of the presidency all the adornments of power, but there is very little the president can actually do without the approval of Congress.

So true.  I find is surprising that people with a parliamentary system don't understand the primacy of the legislative branch.  For six of the last eight years Dr. Obama has had to play chess with Congress to get anything done.  In fact, it is that very Republican embolism that has stopped government dead in its tracks,

Ever wonder why we can't declare war on ISIS?  Or fix the bridges in Minneapolis?  All the Republican Congress wants to do is waste resources and time chasing non-existent chimeras...like Hillary's emails or Benghazi.

Or try to ban abortion ...

Eds, big difference between saying what is possible and saying what IS the case (which is what you're doing).

I believe lobby groups, corporations and the MIC have a strong arm in decisions the governmrnt make. I do not believe groups like Illuminati, the Rothschilds or the Elders of Zion are the direct puppets master who orchestrate the outcomes of global political changes.

You always try to simplify bigger issues. You make out I think nothing can influence politics when I don't; but what you really want me to think is that a James Bond evil organisation is actually ruling the world