I am looking at the history of Democratic Primary results in New Hampshire

[rufus dog]

Yes Hillary beat Obama by 3 and a half points in 2008. Before that you have Kerry, Gore, Tsongas beating Bill by under 10, Dukakis, Hart beating Mondale by 10, Carter, Muskie over McGovern by 7.

So in approximately 50 years they picked the eventual nominee, or the nominee was second and at most ten points back.

Now Hillary did get second, but was over twenty points back. Unfortunately the field was basically cleared out this year due to many being afraid to take on Clinton so it is hard to compare a typical candidate heavy field to a two person race.

But, IMO, this result demonstrates a warning for the party and Clinton. As many have said for the past year, her support might be much more shallow than many want to believe.

[cloudythescribbler]

1. let's see what the results are in NV and SC, then evaluate

I strongly support Bernie Sanders' candidacy, and hope he runs really strongly -- helped by several (so far) modest donations from me.

But as for realism, I don't know the history of the NV and SC contests or how long they have been so prominent prior to Super Tuesday. But I was worried back in 08 when I supported Obama (who I hoped would at least straddle the difference between the progressive and neo-liberal wings of the Democratic Party, instead of being solidly in the neo-liberal camp, if noticeably more progressive a president than Bill Clinton, tho both were firmly w/in the neoliberal tent); there is a VERY steep climb built into the Democratic primary schedule after NH. And on Super Tuesday, Bernie Sanders will be hard-pressed to be seriously competitive in more than about half the states. My guesstimate is that if he can keep Hillary Clinton's victory margins under 10% (in single digits) in both NV and in SC, he'll be doing pretty well. You can try to measure that projection against the historical track record looking only at NH.

[RobertEarl]

2. Bernie got a lot of Independents

From what I heard, the D party people were split 50-50, which in itself is a Uuuuge win.

Going forward we can probably expect close to 50-50 in strict party races, until H flubs again.

In the GE, Bernie is much more electable because of the Indie attraction.