This Is Bernie Sanders' Plan to Beat Hillary Clinton

[eridani]

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/06/bernie-sanders-plan-to-beat-hillary-clinton

Sanders does have an overall plan on how to beat Clinton. As Devine explains, it goes something like this: Raise enough money to devote significant resources to building a full operation and maintaining a media presence in the early states of Iowa and New Hampshire, as well as Nevada and South Carolina. At the same time, develop a basic foundation for campaign organizations in other states, so if Sanders fares well in the initial contests, these preliminary outfits can quickly be built out. Devine and other Sanders advisers estimate they will need to raise $40-$50 million by the Iowa caucuses to be in such a position, and they claim Sanders is on track to hit that mark, mainly with thousands and thousands of low-dollar contributions. (Sanders has drawn crowds of thousands at recent campaign events.) "I don't know if we can outright beat her in Iowa and New Hampshire," Devine says, "but we have a real shot at it in both places."

And when—or if—that happens, Devine figures, Sanders will have about a million contributors already on his side, and this group will enthusiastically kick in more money to replenish Sanders' coffers and fund the continuation of Bernie-mentum. "I worked for Walter Mondale in 1984," Devine recalls, "but I saw what Gary Hart did." Hart, a former senator who went up against Mondale in a bid for the Democratic presidential nomination, placed a surprising second in Iowa and won New Hampshire. "Things then moved fast. Some polls moved 50 points in seven days," Devine says. (Mondale, though, did end up squelching the Hart insurgency by exploiting the Democratic establishment in key states.)

If Sanders does score well in the early states, Devine insists, his campaign will have a delegate-accumulation strategy reminiscent of the one Barack Obama's 2008 campaign employed to focus as much on snagging delegates as winning caucuses and primaries. "Even if Clinton beats us in some states by 20 points, we can split the delegates with smart focusing," Devine says. And then Sanders will be in a position to make the case to the Democratic establishment that he can assemble an electorate in the general election that is favorable to Democrats (as Obama did in 2008). "We don't know yet what it will look like," Devine remarks. "We haven't done the strategic modeling yet. I've been trying to persuade Bernie we should do that." Instead, he says, Sanders at this point would rather concentrate on promoting his message: Inequality is killing the middle class, climate change must be addressed, big-money politics must be reformed, and new progressive policy ideas, such as free college tuition and expanded Social Security benefits, must be advanced. (Devine also gave Sanders a PowerPoint presentation on how the campaign can use Big Data methods: "He was impressed, but we're not sure we can scale up to that. We won't have $1 billion.&quot

[Kalidurga]

1. Great article

Bernie does have a plan and it's working so much better than he anticipated. I was at the Pride Festival yesterday afternoon. I was talking to the person responsible for coordinating volunteers for Bernie Sanders campaign. They have so many volunteers that they are behind by 3 weeks in contacting the people who signed up. The DFL (Democratic Farmer Labor) table where Hillary supporters, O'Malley supporters, and Bernie supporters gathered under one canopy to promote their candidate was very busy. Yes, very busy on Bernie's side, we out numbered O'Malley supporters by 5-1 at the very least and I didn't see anyone stick around for Hillary. The volunteer coordinator told me that they had started out with 2000 campaign buttons and a few thousand bumper stickers, they were out in less than an hour.

And this is where I part ways with the idea that Bernie is going to beat Hillary. Oh, I think he will win. But, he would say it is the will of the people that he tapped into. That we are going to beat Hillary if we want him to be president. And this is true. The campaign isn't about Bernie, it's about us and how much we want to make real changes. It's about how much we want our voice in DC to be heard over corporate interests. It's about how much we love our families and if we love them enough to make sure an illness won't mean they lose their homes, if we love them enough to make sure they have access to an education, if we love them enough to make sure they all have equal rights under the law.

[Enthusiast]

2. Whatever the plan, I hope it works. K&R!

Go, Bernie!

Perpetual war and allowing corporate abuse of the citizenry is not a good strategy for running a country.

[Babel_17]

3. Makes sense

Makes sense, and struggling like this, and it is all public, while it raises some concern about viability, speaks volumes about demonstrating authenticity. Long story short, many primary voters in the early states will notice that authenticity, and be impressed. Imo, the credibility of those talking the talk is going to be of enormous importance. From WMD's to the collapse of our financial sector, and economy; a smile and a promise are no longer good enough.