Hillary vs Bernie

[Martinus]

Wha? He tied with Hillary in Iowa, won NH and lost Nevada. How's that "annihilation"? 

Correct me if I am wrong, but my reading is that Sanders need to convince the general electorate that he is a viable alternative.  He is expected to win NH, so him winning it doesn't really help.  He needs to win the other two to better establish his viability, yet he failed to do so.  The upcoming states have demographics that are against him, so he will only go downhill from here. 

Or at least, that's how I hope the destruction of Sanders will play out.

What does that even mean? He is winning by a higher margin in national polls than Clinton against pretty much every Republican candidate. Sure, it may change by November but the "he is not a viable candidate" narrative about Sanders is as contrived right now as it is about Trump.

Btw, Sanders is not a plural so that would be "Sanders needs".

[Monoriu]

What does that even mean? He is winning by a higher margin in national polls than Clinton against pretty much every Republican candidate. Sure, it may change by November but the "he is not a viable candidate" narrative about Sanders is as contrived right now as it is about Trump.

Because Clinton is the clear front-runner and Sanders isn't.  Sanders was considered a fringe candidate a few months ago.  The majority still expect Clinton to win and it takes something significant to change that expectation. So far it hasn't happened. 

Btw, Sanders is not a plural so that would be "Sanders needs".

My bad

[Siege]

I am chocked so many Americans consider socialism to be viable option.
What gives?
Isn't ironic winning the Cold War and then adopting the loser's ideology?

I mean seriously, what is going on here?

I agree Siege, it is pretty messed up.

Still - don't despair yet.  There is still a chance Trump doesn't get the nomination.

I wonder if Siege considers the irony of adopting the loser's ideology from WWII

National socialism is a collectivist ideology based on nationalism, as to opposed to international socialism.

The left has been very successful in playing the falsehood that the far right is national socialist, when in reality nazis are not far right, but another shade of collectivism.

Also, when you dig deep into the criticism of the free market economic system you realize all the criticism is actually against crony capitalism, a system in which the gruberment instead of being an impartial arbiter is a player and and /or a winner chooser.

Think of the economic system as a big slide in which the far left is collectivism and the far right is free market. No one system is purely in one of the ends, even in Soviet Russia there was some little leftovers of free market, but the closer you are to the free market wnd of the slide, the freer and richer your society is, creating wealth for everyone. A rising tide rises all boats, and it is better to be poor in a rich country and in a socialist hellhole.

Free market economy is a weak system because there isn't an ideology behind it. It has enemies everywhere, collectivists and especially crony capitalists, who a after succeeding in a free market environment want to pervert the system to eliminate their competition by achieving monopoly status.

There is a reason why every super rich dude is against a free market economic system.

[Siege]

Sorry for the typos. I am using my phone.

[Siege]

A successful free market system requires a government willing to protect it and enforce anti monopolistic laws and regulations, while limiting itself from over regulation and collectivism.

However our political class is in the pocket of the donor classes, which include everything from the super rich to the big unions.

And the political system cannot be reformed because no politician will vote for limited terms of political service or for limting political donations.

Even worst, if we were to limit donations even further, nobody si going to limit the media and then the media would become the choosers of our politicians even more than they are today.

We are pretty much fucked.

[DGuller]

Reading Siege is like reading a random page from Flowers for Algernon.  Well, usually it's page 1, but somehow today he managed to flip to the middle of the book.

[Valmy]

A successful free market system requires a government willing to protect it and enforce anti monopolistic laws and regulations, while limiting itself from over regulation and collectivism.

However our political class is in the pocket of the donor classes, which include everything from the super rich to the big unions.

And the political system cannot be reformed because no politician will vote for limited terms of political service or for limting political donations.

Even worst, if we were to limit donations even further, nobody si going to limit the media and then the media would become the choosers of our politicians even more than they are today.

We are pretty much fucked.

Well pretty much. But we will be fine. Politicians are not what ultimately makes society function. They just cannot fuck it up too much.

[Martinus]

A successful free market system requires a government willing to protect it and enforce anti monopolistic laws and regulations, while limiting itself from over regulation and collectivism.

However our political class is in the pocket of the donor classes, which include everything from the super rich to the big unions.

And the political system cannot be reformed because no politician will vote for limited terms of political service or for limting political donations.

Even worst, if we were to limit donations even further, nobody si going to limit the media and then the media would become the choosers of our politicians even more than they are today.

We are pretty much fucked.

Isn't this exactly what Bernie Sanders is saying? His "socialism" does not mean he wants to abolish free market.

[Martinus]

Reading Siege is like reading a random page from Flowers for Algernon.  Well, usually it's page 1, but somehow today he managed to flip to the middle of the book.

[alfred russel]

Sanders is gonna stay in as long as he has the money to do so.

If he gets 25% or more of the pledged delegates, he can make all sorts of demands with regard to the platform, and the closer he gets to 50% the more demands he can make.

Hell, Ron Paul got all sorts of ridiculous shit passed in 2012 and he only had like 10% of the delegates.

Who cares about the platform?

I think Sanders needed to win Nevada. He is facing annihilation in the next couple of weeks.

Wha? He tied with Hillary in Iowa, won NH and lost Nevada. How's that "annihilation"? 

To sum up the national democratic primary, Sanders and Clinton are probably roughly tied among the non black vote. The non black vote is overwhelmingly for Clinton. Unless that changes, Sanders does not have a winning hand.

We just had two white states vote, and a state with minorities but not huge number of black voters, and they have come out roughly tied in pledged delegates. The problem for Sanders is most the Southern states are scheduled to vote in the next few weeks, and in a democratic primary black voters make up about half the voters in many of those states.

So right now you see 3 states have voted, after which there is a tie, but in the next few weeks you are going to see something like a third of the race completed, and Clinton with a massive and dominant lead. He will have lost most of his chance to make up ground with black voters, because so many of them will already have voted, and he won't have much momentum to create a strong majority needed to win the non black vote. In fact he will start getting pressure to yield to the inevitable and drop out.

[MadImmortalMan]

Sanders could probably win every primary and still lose. None of them are winner take all, and he'd need to take a more than 500 delegate lead over Hillary to compensate for the superdelegates.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Yeah, it's questionable what would happen if Sanders won by say 150 pledged delegates. In 2008 not that many Clinton endorsing superdelegates actually "switched" to Obama. Instead, near the end when it was obvious Obama was going to finish with about a 100 pledged delegate lead, 60 previously uncommitted superdelegates endorsed Obama on the same day (obviously the announcement was coordinated with the campaign.) A few jumped ship from Clinton--> Obama, but most didn't. Instead Clinton a) never had such a massive superdelegate lead as she does in this race against Obama, and b) more stayed uncommitted longer, and many of those went for Obama when he had won the pledged delegates.

It'd be unprecedented for all 400 of hers to jump ship if Bernie beats her by say, 100 pledged delegates.

But the reality is that won't happen. To expand on what dorsey said, basically if Hillary wins the heavily black states by 10-20% (and she's polling better than that in many of them) and basically runs 50/50 with Bernie in the rest of the states (it doesn't matter who gets the W, say Bernie gets some, she gets some) she ends up with a big time delegate lead and an outright majority. There's only a few states left where Bernie is expected to win big, he's polling like 70%+ in Vermont, which while a small state with few delegates, that does help, and then he's up 5-10% in a couple other states, but not enough to counter the large number of states where Hillary is up by double digits.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Something else to keep in mind is I'm being conservative when I talk about Hillary winning southern states by 10-20%. In some she is up monstrously, in Georgia a poll by Landmark of 700 likely voters showed her up 72%-20%. This is a reflection not just of the huge black vote in Georgia, but also that white Democrats throughout the Deep South are much more conservative than the white democrats in States where Bernie has a fighting chance/will win, like Mass, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Vermont etc.

A big state like Georgia winning by 50% is a serious delegate margin created. Some analyses have showed it would only take about a 100 delegate lead over Sanders after Super Tuesday for it to be "functionally impossible" for Sanders to ever catch Hillary. She's up 25 in Arkansas, 26 in Tennessee, 23 in Texas, 22 in Virginia. Some of the "competitive for  Bernie" states on Super Tuesday, Oklahoma Hillary is up 2, Massachusetts is shown as a tie in aggregate polling. It's not just the delegate margin after Super Tuesday either, there's going to be a major media reaction in a negative way when Sanders loses say, all but 2-3 of the Super Tuesday states, and loses large states like Texas or Georgia or Virginia by 20 pts, that makes him seem "gravely unelectable" and the media will be talking about how his campaign is now one to "advocate for issues" and no longer a serious threat to HRC.

[garbon]

I was just thinking that I fall into the group they keep talking about as young black voters who lean for Clinton.

[crazy canuck]

Do you still qualify as young?