Daily Kos: Democrats, South Carolina, and wrapping up our primary season

[Amimnoch]

A very analytical, even if hyperbolic assessment of the state of affairs of the Democratic Primary by Kos of Daily Kos.

Democrats, South Carolina, and wrapping up our primary season

Don’t be a dick! If you are a Hillary Clinton person, you want to spike that football, but we need to stick together to win the all-important general election. Never let go of the big picture.

Nice start. I agree with it. As someone who's been on naughty boy time out during this primary season, I've been guilty. I've been trying to atone since January after I inadvertently supported someone.. downthread.. who'd called Senator Sanders a Racist (a notion that I completely disagree with.)

On the electable argument:

On the flip side, if you think Clinton can’t win against Donald Trump, you are a fucking moron. Seriously, you are as dumb as rocks. “But!” you yell, “Her unfavorables are 54 percent!” Yes, they are! But a big chunk of that is Sanders supporters. Check out the chart below: see that inflection point when Clinton’s unfavorables overtook her favorables? That was April 2015. You know what month Bernie Sanders entered the campaign? April 2015. Most will come home after Sanders bows out.

There is no correlation between primary turnout and general election performance. Fact is, Democrats have long assumed (correctly) that Clinton would be the nominee, so there has been less impetus to vote than in the GOP civil war. In fact, the lower-than-expected turnout is an indictment on the Sanders campaign, because despite all the talk of revolution, fact is, he hasn’t inspired casual Democrats to turn out in any real numbers.

Also, it’s hard to spark a revolution when you are arguing that your own party’s president has fucked shit all up. Especially when that president has an 81 percent approval rating among your party.

The public polling in South Carolina was brutal, completely understating Clinton’s final margin. And you can’t blame this on funky caucus turnout. This utterly contradicts Team Sanders arguments that the polling understates his support because young people can’t be reached. Right now, polls are sometimes good, sometimes bad, and when they’re bad, they’re bad for no real consistent reason. Meanwhile, Super Tuesday polling generally looks like South Carolina polling looked.

Sanders doesn’t need X number of delegates to have a prime convention speaking slot. He’s earned that already.

The establishment didn’t beat Sanders. In fact, he exceeded every possible expectation in spite of serious institutional roadblocks. The stupid debate schedule was irrelevant, as was the lack of traditional media coverage. In this day and age, none of that shit really matters. You can use digital media to bypass the traditional gatekeepers and build support and raise money, and he did. (Compare to whatever the heck it was that Martin O’Malley did.) He even had $100 million to spend!

This one is a biggie for me as well:

Sanders’ problem was the presence of someone with universal name ID and huge respect in the party, and who was explicitly running on continuing the legacy of a popular incumbent Democratic president. What if Sanders had started laying the groundwork for a run two years ago, spending time getting to know voters in black and Latino communities? What if he’d become a Democrat earlier and spent time helping other good Democrats win (like Elizabeth Warren has been doing since elected to the Senate)? Maybe things would be different. But you don’t get to parachute into a party less than a year before the first contest and expect to win huge swath of support.

And finally, my own biggest reason for continued support of Hillary:

A reminder: No president, no matter how revolutionary, can single-handedly kill Citizens United. But you know who can? A new liberal replacement to Justice Scalia. Donald Trump doesn’t give us that. Even if you assume the worst nonsense about Hillary Clinton, she does give us that.

Not just Citizens United, but just about everything on Senator Sanders Agenda. If he can't get his own party behind him in the Primary season (0 Senators, 5 Representatives at the time of this writing), exactly how is his campaign anything but empty and false promises? What is the path or the "how" to get his agenda passed? I've asked this repeatedly throughout the primary season, and other than vague "it'll be a revolution, or it's start the wave of change", I have yet to see a path. I haven't seen any push to get the Senate or the House changed. I even, in one post to try to see if there was an appetite for it, linked a list of potential congressmen that would back a Sanders plan.. it barely got acknowledged.

More bullets at the link beyond these excerpts.

[Cha]

1. Gracias, Amimnoch!

[rjsquirrel]

2. Pretty much where I'm at

I adore Bernie and always have. I'd rather be his friend than Hillary's. But I am voting for her. We have to win this thing and I don't buy the Sanders argument that he'd be stronger in the GE.

I also don't much like Hillary or Bill and would prefer a Bernie Sanders world. But we just don't live in that world and won't get there with one presidency.

[Amimnoch]

3. I actually like both, I agree with a Bernie Sanders world being a better world.

If we had a more positive outlook in the 115th and 116th congresses, I'd very likely be feeling the Bern as well if both candidates still had the same platform.

I think that the next Presidency is ours for the taking with Trump and the Republican clown car. Which is really funny since after 8 years of a Democratic Party presidency, this typically should have been theirs for the taking.

[alarimer]

4. Because berating people into voting for your candidate always works.

And you know, millions of people won't even get a choice if Bernie drops out now. So, no, Kos, just go away, you useless tool.

[Amimnoch]

8. Am I missing the recommendation for Bernie to drop out now?

No snark intended at all, but going back through the bullets on the link, the closest is:

So what is Sanders’ deadline to show real results? Not this Tuesday, but by March 15. By then, the states of Michigan, Florida, Illinois, Missouri, Ohio, and North Carolina will have voted. Right now, Clinton has big leads in all of them (where polling is available). If Sanders can’t win a significant chunk of those, then it’s over. Winning the Maine and/or Nebraska caucuses aren’t a viable counterbalance.

I'm not reading that as even suggesting he should drop out now, but if it does keep going as projected, consideration for dropping out might be a responsible way to go about it by March 15th.

Of course, if kos is wrong (elections are never "certain" things), then there might very viable reason for him to continue on rolling.

[Dawgs]

5. LOL! Kos has a great site but his predictions and analysis are bunk.

Last edited Tue Mar 1, 2016, 10:48 AM - Edit history (1)

Remember Bachmann?

[Mnpaul]

13. Kos - Bernie won't break 20%

[SidDithers]

6. DU rec...nt

Sid

[Historic NY]

7. Recommended & Kicked.......

[NEDem]

9. Kick

[jfern]

10. Kos was pure flamebait

[RobertEarl]

11. Two things

Turnout in SC was pitiful. 87% of the Dem voters ignored the chance to vote for a Democrat. 87%!!

And

In places where turnout was good Bernie did very, very well.

[whatchamacallit]

12. Steaming peanut-riddled log

[Snotcicles]

14. LOL, Holy flaming payday, Batman. nt

[John Poet]

15. KOS is a fucking moron.

Hillary Clinton supports the kind of right-wing foreign policy that made it necessary for his family to leave his country in the first place. She just helped make a mess of Honduras, Kos ought to go visit there.