My conversation with my DNC operative in Florida

We'll lose the ability to pass ANYTHING without flipping the Senate, and the ONLY way to do that is voting for a moderate as our candidate.

...didn't mean I didn't see the Reagan landsllide coming.

Is a no-go. Dead in the water.

I agree with the OP. He needs more than just Democratic voters. Now is not the time to push for a "revolution" headed by people who are constantly disparaging "established Democrats". Just who does that refer to anyway? The ones he wants to work their tails off to get him elected? That's not happening.

But they're living in some blue-tinged bubble where the real world doesn't peep in. Socialism, alas, is still a scare word across middle America, and those suburban Moms and other factions hard-working Democratic activists brought into the fold to vote Team Donkey will balk at voting for Bernie.

The puppies and unicorns crowd fails to realize that we need more than just Sanders followers to take the White House, and even more voters than "Vote Blue No Matter Who" Democrats. This is not a prediction based on Sandalista "party elites" bunkum. It's a sober acknowledgement of unpleasant facts. The unpleasant fact is that Bernie is perceived as being too radical for most of the country. The 2016 election should have been instructive; those of us who saw what happened to Eugene McCarthy and George McGovern already know.

The puppies and unicorns crowd needs to sit down and soberly reflect on whether the Democratic Party has enough voters to win elections on their own even without the rest of the voters out there. They don't. We need Democrats and others if we want to see a Democrat in the White House as President of the USA on January 22nd, 2021. Great futile gestures avail us nothing.

For any of us who lived through those campaigns and even worked for those nominees, nominating a "socialist" who promotes a "revolution" is political suicide. I hope there are enough sane, realistic, practical voters who will nominate a centrist/moderate. Otherwise we will have another 4 years of the Orange Maggot, and the country will be damaged for generations.

are close to virtual impossibility. And when it's over, WTH do we have? 4 more years of Traitortot. Keep saying this!! because our party is divided in 1/2. One part going with policies they like the other half going with who looks best in matchups in battleground.

..his candidacy would be toxic in most parts of the country outside of a few white gentrified urban areas..none of us can change who he is ..

No amount of working one's tail off will change the minds of people, who absolutely will not vote for someone, who calls himself a "democratic socialist". For all the Bernie supporters who will move heaven and earth for him, there are plenty of voters who cannot stand him.

If Bernie is the nominee, not only will we lose the White House, but we'll lose the senate and possibly the house as well. That will effectively be the end of democracy as we know it. We will experience profound change, but not the change that Bernie and his people are proposing.

When I ask how to defend his healthcare plans i either get called a stooge who doesn’t want universal healthcare orbthat “yes you lose your employer based plan and your taxes might go up but trust me you’ll come out ahead”

I guess I can learn to say it with a smile.

It's like they have blinders on and cannot see beyond the primaries. They don't see other scenarios happening other than winning. They're going to come up against a force unlike anything we've ever seen before and that's not even mentioning the money the Republicans have at their disposal. Russia will stop at nothing to win.

Trust the voters. Next Sunday after numbers are released at the latest, again the voters in South Carolina will let everyone know. Super Tuesday again will give their concrete decisions. We don’t have long to see who the voters want and that is all that matters.

Yes, they'll decide who the nominee is, but I have no assurance that they'll make a thoughtful decision.

Reagan and Bush are not trump at all.

Reagan and Bush did a lot of damage to our country that never got fixed. That damage is a big reason we got Trump.

I was talking being normal at least perceived.

... African Americans get the chance to vote in great numbers. That won't happen until after Nevada.

But I remember watching on election night as he got hammered and all the great left ideas went up in smoke. Now Sanders supporters have the gall to say that McGovern and Mondale were not on the left solidly.

If Sanders is nominated, I am going to convince as many people as I can to vote for Sander. I will supports his campaign with money and my own vote. But I won't watch the election returns, I just can't put myself through that again after enduring it four times before (McGovern in 72, Carter in 80, Mondale in 84 and Dukakis in 88).

I was not an adult when McGovern went down. Carter in 76 was my first presidential vote. I am a widened older man now, I am not the wild idealist that I was in 72. I know that bad things happen when you reach for too much at once and scare the majority of Americans. Life is good for me, I will never need an abortion, I own my business and give orders, not the other way around, cops don't seem to follow me around and I don't get followed when I am in stores, I have never been in trouble with the law so my citizenship can't be challenged in any way, I have the right to vote and no one has tried or would be able to take that away. I am just tired of trying to warn the inexperienced that think they know better or the oldsters who are somehow embittered by our system of governance. If Sanders is nominated in November, I know that regardless of what happens, I will be in good shape, I lived every disheartening minute of the Reagan years, Trump can be worst, but other than his crimes, nothing that he has done has negatively affected me. There is a good chance that I will be dead before climate change hammers people, so more years of Trump fucking things up only affects me philosophically, again I will likely be either dead when the problems hit big, or I will be secure in my world that will be among the last feeling the impact.

I am just tired of warning people only to see the depth of their self-delusion, I need to start thinking more about myself and immediate family, I am not going to convince the McGovernites, the "progressives" who ripped Carter and Mondale for not being "pure" enough and not adhering to some world that we simply can't reach in one swoop. Those people think they know better and that things will be different this time, the very same foolishness that I heard all the other times we suffered setbacks that take a decade or more to fully recover from.

we could lose two Congressional seats.

Many BS supporters have lost their critical thinking skills. We all saw what happened in 2018 and why we took the house. If BS is the nominee there is absolutely NO WAY we will kick trump out of the White House. The thought of 4 more years (at least) of his corrupt administration, and the long term damage he will cause is frightening.

and replace them with anecdotes.

Hopefully we Democrats get our shit together before its too late.

He was pretty blunt in saying Bernie is an out of control brush fire for our party. He wins, we will lose the House, a few more Senate seats and the White House in a huge landslide.

Is that they all come from the self-styled “pragmatic realists” that also displayed zero in the way of critical thinking on 2016 when they voted in a candidate in the primaries that had the lowest historical approval ratings of any presidential candidate ever -and one who was consistently losing in head to head polls vs Sanders against Trump.

So remind me again why you all think your record of realistic thinking is so convincing?

Ignore them at your peril. America will not elect a Socialist in 2020.

They also didn’t get the support of the DNC. It’s a bit harder when you’re fighting on both fronts.

It seemed evident that Hillary had the entire GOP against her for years. I was willing to give BS a chance then. Now, however, he is an angry old man who is going to destroy a party that he is using to run for President, but is constantly disparaging with his divisive comments . So, no. Not all of us voted for Clinton. We ARE critical thinkers who can see that it is very evident that Trump and his Russian friends want Bernie to be the nominee. Why would they want that? Because he is the weakest candidate and will be the easiest to defeat. It does not take a rocket scientist to figure that out.

I guess it is easier to complain than it is to drop your favored candidate for a consensus candidate, whoever that is. The only reason Bernie is ahead is because the moderate vote is fractured too many ways. Fix that problem and you don’t have to worry about Bernie.

We both posted this idea at the same time lol.

She is going nowhere

She understand that there is nothing to go after Bernie, the only reason people here are going after Bernie is because he is on top and their chosen candidate is not. What a way to divide the party, it is incredibly crazy to read all these posts attacking our own.

Oh, and the predictions..."This or that will not win the GE" and blah, blah, blah....Has it occurred to anyone that the Democratic canidate who wins the nomination will have done so because the majority of Democrats wanted them to win, that this person has the most support from Democrats?

FYI. Bernie is not one of our own. He is not a Democrat. He is a Socialist

That ticket will roll to an easy victory.

We need to take that seat.

I don't get it, but it could be my ignorance on how good Abrams is?

It puts Georgia in play. A lot of motivated voters who felt they were ripped off. Pennsylvania is already looking good. Especially if we boost turnout in Philadelphia. We just need one more state. If it’s Georgia we have a potential blowout.

My personal solution, if no one at the convention has the delegates to win, would be to nominate your candidate, Elizabeth Warren, as a unity candidate. That would keep moderates and progressives happy, IMO.

She still scares moderates, just not as much as Bernie. She could be a good VP candidate on a unity ticket for both sides of the democratic party

.... friend doesn't see any difference between Bernie and Lizzy. She calls both of them "socialist". Even when I point out only one calls himself that.

Moderates needs to unite behind ONE candidate. Bernie is not polling over 30% anywhere. If Moderates pick one standard-bearer at worst that person will have a 50-50 shot of being the nominee.

Stop holding back and start hitting him over all of the oppo research that will supposedly kill him in November. If Bloomberg or a superpac run ads in Florida of Bernie praising Fidel Castro and he wins there anyway, then we'll know that people don't care what he said about a socialist dictator 30 years ago. Alternatively, people do care and get scared off and someone else gets the nomination.

They consistently show that they love the fascist in office, Trump. Look, I hope Sanders doesn’t win. I think it’s a gamble. But I think he has a chance if we all unite and GOTV. The one I’m worried about most is Bloomberg. I think he’ll depress turnout more than Sanders.

But I’m not convinced Sanders would lose there either.

If we keep Hillary’s states plus the three battleground states, we win.

Arizona, Michigan, North Carolina,

And also NC. Sooner or later, we will have a decent chance at Texas, too.

I’m just saying we can win with Hillary’s states plus the three battleground states.

He will kill Tom Malinowski's campaign.

Booker will be fine - but Hunterdon County is a long ways away from Bergen, Essex, and Camden county.

don’t see the danger of four more years of Trump then I question their commitment to Democratic Party ideals. Sanders would be much better than Trump and would at least preserve our democracy.

Dependable voters, straight Democratic votes for 4 decades. They remember the Cold War and Sanders is a bridge too far for them. Sanders will drive these people into Trump's hands even if they just don't participate any longer.

They look at Sanders as just another despot wannabe, only a Commmunist despot.

just as deplorable as Stein and Trump voters. Sanders is not a USSR communist and they should know that.

My moderate R friends care who it is . They are going to “ vote blue, depending on who”.

We need their votes here in PA.

Biden, Klobuchar. That’s it.

Maybe he can get Ralph Nader in the VP slot, since Nader worked out so well to torpedo Gore in 2000.

middle lane.

He may have convinced the kids.... but Sanders and his My Revolution shit ain't going to sell and it isn't selling. Look who his advisors are, and who surrounds himself with.


[link:https://www.npr.org/2020/02/19/807047941/poll-sanders-rises-but-socialism-isnt-popular-with-most-americans|]

[link:https://thehill.com/hilltv/what-americas-thinking/398580-poll-majority-of-americans-say-the-would-not-vote-for-a|]

Trumps already using the socialist message.

Meanwhile the poll gets twisted...by commondreams.

Like they did with the "gay" club, the "Women" club, the "Black" club, the "Hippie" (reaching way back) club and so on and so forth. The Repukes know how to exploit that type of shit. They are experts in reaching into the darkest corners of human fears and insecurities.

... that Bernie is the nominee then they are crazy.

Bernie would get us hammered in OH, PA, WV, VA, western NY, IN, and IL where they
produce natural gas by fracking because he is on record as saying that fracking should
be banned. (Yes, I know fracking is bad and that burning natural gas gives off green-
house gases) In a lot of those areas many good paying jobs are from fracking and Bernie
is telling those people that if you vote for me I will take away your jobs.

The polls were right

it should have been a larger margin, knowing the voting shenanigans of 2012. Republicans counted Obama out, knowing they could steal a percentage of the vote, we won because there was such a large margin. Remember Rove's meltdown on Election night? I live in Ohio, we were not supposed to go blue, but we did by a large enough margin that their tampering didn't work.

we need to win huge, we need to plan better.

Can people stop this madness please? Enough...Is it too difficult to understand that posts like this are doing the job for the republicans and Putin? This is exactly what they want, split the Democratic party with empty accusation and predictions, create panic, he/she will never win the GE, blah, blah....Stop it now please.

It seems like nowadays everyone is a wizard who can predict the future.

Trump-Putin are using Bernie to divide the opposition. I hope the rest of the party has figured it out in time. Dictators want Trump elected. Dictators hate democracy. We fought WWII to defeat fascism, and here it is back again, trying to grab freedom for themselves and shake us all down.

I doubt Bernie will win a majority of delegates. Watch him closely. See if he attacks Trump as hard as he attacks Democrats or the financial system.

Jan 29, 2020 - In his public comments, Trump has shifted his attention and attacks from Joe Biden to Bernie Sanders, an Intercept analysis found.
~~ [link:https://theintercept.com/2020/01/29/trump-sanders-2020-election/|

[link:https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/02/04/watch-bernie-sanders-responds-trumps-third-state-union-address|

Links don't make it true, Intercept doesn't make it true, you believe the words from Trump's mouth? Trump wants the weakest candidate. SOCIALISM! will be all he screams if Sanders is the nominee.

Thanks for your ideas, we can't agree on anything, good luck.

https://thehill.com/hilltv/what-americas-thinking/412545-70-percent-of-americans-support-medicare-for-all-health-care

Bernie’s policies are supported by a majority of the voters. This poll says 70% support Medicare-for-all.
This garbage about Bernie not being able to win is fueled by Russian bots and right-wing hacks. Be careful about who you are listening to, their motives are probably not honorable.

I’m not listening to Russian bots. I’m listening to a lot of my Democratic friends who are astonished that our Democratic Party will nominate a Socialist

But if you think there are can you explain why you think so? What makes a socialist? Is it tax cuts for the rich, or subsidies for the great corporations, or healthcare that is only enjoyed by people in public office? I don't know, what is "Socialism", and who is the socialist you talk about and why?

These are questions that should be answered to help the rest of us who do not have a crystal ball, or may not know who the socialist is.

Also, how many times has Florida voted for Democrats? Is the wizard from Florida saying anything new?

By someone else's definition that is, and unfortunately up to the candidates to re-frame that definition. The presidential debate, if Trump even shows up, would be the venue to clarify that definition.

It's total BS, but that's the hand we've been dealt.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/when-iran-took-americans-hostage-bernie-backed-irans-defenders

If you want to say that this was so long ago that it's irrelevant, you also have to remember that Sanders waves his participation in the MLK march on Washington, which was much earlier, as relevant evidence of his social justice cred...

I suggest we get a candidate that pledges to end ALL socialism. No military, no, government pensions or salaries, for profit fire departments and police, end SS, end Medicare, end Medicade, end all insurance (health, auto, home, life) end state and federal highways and roads, pay as you drive, end space programs, eliminate National and State Parks, end the U.S. Fish and Wildlife as well as state agencies, eliminate disaster release, end billionaire and Corporation subsidies, end Farm loss relief, stop fighting fires with tax paid state and Federal taxes, end stadium building with tax dollars, end border patrol, no schools, end the Veterans Hispitals, no more WallMart socialism paying worker food and insurance, eliminate the CDC........I can go on. No damn socialism. The only what to beat trump. How did we not think of this. MAGA!!! No socialism, no way no how, dead in the water. Damn idiots! Jesus was an idiot as well, feeding all those people on a fish and loaf of bread. Damn him. Feed a stray dog you never get rid of em..

Almost all of our candidates would make great presidents, a couple are marginal one is not good. But all are way beyond tRump in acceptability.

BUT... the House and the Senate are absolutely non-negotiable. We can have a crummy democratic president as long as we get and keep Congress. And hey, we have the best of presidential candidates.

Sanders will most likely make us loose ground in congress and THAT is a place we cannot go.

There is no way he can WIN. In Texas which has an open primary, you can bet tons of Repugs will be lining up out the door to vote for him.

You can’t keep letting them move the middle. And quite frankly, if it’s a brokered convention and they take the nomination from Bernie through back room deals, you’re going to lose his supporters...

We’re not beating Trump without the Bernie vote.

And for the nominee in November. I already did the only Hillary can win, so don't vote for who you want thing.

Trying something different with my lowly primary vote.

Thanks for sharing you insights.


P.s. AOC won in 2018.

with people other than their own tribe. Americans aren’t primed for the thought of togetherness. Maybe after a couple presidential cycles we can solve big problems.

If I didn't know better, I would've thought I was on a right wing blog.

Link to tweet

-Laelth

TX CD 22 is an open seat with Pete Olson retiring. The DCCC has targeted this seat for flipping. There are 15 candidates in GOP primary including the grandson of GHW Bush. Another candidate, Kathleen Wall, is running in the GOP primary and she spent $6 million in 2018 running in GOP primary for TX CD 2 and did not make GOP primary runoff. I have had Wall block walkers come to my house twice (I live in a very GOP neighborhood) and I have found Wall doorhanger on my door twice now.

Pierce Bush is running against socialism

Link to tweet

Sri Preston Kulkarni is the leading Democrat for this seat (Sri has a GOP type and another person running against him in the Texas Democratic Primary) I texted this ad to Sri and he knew about it already. Sri Preston Kulkarni is a great guy and we need to flip this seat

If sanders is the nominee, we can forget about this seat and we will have Kevin McCarthy as speaker

And, if Sanders is our nominee, there's no doubt that a lot of Republicans will run against socialism.

Here's the thing, my friend and favorite ringwraith, it looks like we're out of step and that the country has gotten a lot more liberal over the past many years that you and I have been posting on DU. I still think that Bloomberg will win our nomination, but Sanders has real energy behind him, and anything could happen.

Hope you are well.

-Laelth

That said, I am concerned about coat-tails and down-ballot races. Sanders may not be our best choice of a nominee for these reasons. But there's a lot of pent-up liberal energy in the party right now, and it has to go somewhere. Looks like it's going to Bernie. Ignore Bernie and his supporters at your peril. If you don't like the risk that Bernie and his supporters pose to the party, you had better do something about it and do it fast. Give them someone they want to vote for. You can't just tell them NOT to vote for Bernie because it will hurt the party. You have to give them an alternative that they actually want to vote for.

What do you have? Nothing? Most likely, if they can't vote for Sanders, they will vote for Bloomberg, and I predict that Bloomberg will, in fact, be our nominee. At least he's shown his willingness to take the fight directly to the Great Pumpkin.

-Laelth

Sanders is to far left to win a general in terms of policy...

Seriously. It's attitude and appearance that are driving this election cycle, for better or for worse.



-Laelth

Bernie can win if the older crowd does not join the way more progressive younger crowd in voting for him.

I would hope that whoever we nominate would get the support of every Democrat. The real threat is in the White House let’s get real.

Yes Vote Blue no matter who, none of our serious Candidates are remotely as bad as Dumb Orange Would Be Hitler. I mean come on, who among our candidates can come remotely close to doing the damage we would see with 4 more years with a dumb sociopathic Autocrat. Who would want to facilitate that?