Trump had all that power and an unfair corrupt advantage and couldn’t pass any meaningful infrastructure package or rework national healthcare. Biden, on the other hand, almost immediately addressed infrastructure, and would have helped millions more with much broader programs, were it not for Manchin and Sinema. Those aren’t remotely two sides of the same coin.
If you're going to cite sources, try providing links. It's kind of hard to argue against imaginary data. That said, the ability of the DNC to pick their preferred candidate and paving the path to the nomination for them doesn't mean that candidate will be the "best" candidate available in general election. As the following charts clearly demonstrate.
If you just looked at these electoral college maps without knowing who the candidates were, which one would appear to be the stronger candidate? And if that doesn't give you pause, it gets exponentially worse for Clinton at the state-by-state level. Clinton and Sanders had six states in common as toss-ups (excluding NM b/c there's no data for Sanders; and CO b/c the only Sanders poll was from 11/2015):
AZ: Clinton -4% (lost by 3.5%); Sanders - +8.3%FL: Clinton -.2% (lost by 1.2%); Sanders - +3.2%NC: Clinton -1% (lost by 3.7%); Sanders - +7.5%OH: Clinton -3.5% (lost by 8.1); Sanders - +5
And it gets worse yet: Two states rated as toss ups for Clinton (MI: +3.4%, lost by ,3%; Sanders +19%; and PA: Clinton +1.9% ,lost by .7%; Sanders +12.7%) were rated as leaning towards Sanders. And the icing on the cake is three states rated as solid for Trump (against Clinton) being rated as toss ups for Sanders (IN -1%; IA +9%, and MO +3%). It's also worth noting that WI, rated as leaning for both Hillary and Sanders, was Clinton - +6.5% (and lost by .7%) and Sanders - +19%.
In the interest of intellectual honesty, I crunched the numbers for 2020 again and must correct a mistake: Biden came within three states (AZ, GA, WI and ME-2*) electoral, and 72,825 popular, votes of losing.
*38 additional electoral votes that would have given Trump a 270 to 268 Electoral College win. In fact, Biden could have won ME-2, resulting in a 269 EC tie, that Trump would have won in the House (on the basis of each state getting one vote, regardless of size, due to controlling a majority, or just a plurality, of delegations, which means Biden came within 51,734 popular votes of losing).
So, until you provide some credible evidence for "Sanders' supporters" (and you'll need a credible definition of who they were) throwing the '16 election to Trump, I stand by my original comments.
The statistics were from G Elliot Morris - Data journalist & US correspondent @TheEconomist
This is from Brian Schaffner, Political scientist ~ Newhouse Professor of Civic Studies at Tufts ~WI: 9% of Sanders voters voted for Trump.MI: 8% of Sanders voters voted for Trump.PA: 16% of Sanders voters voted for Trump.
I could cite more sources, but it's an accepted fact that 12% of Bernie's supporters voted for Trump, and 80% voted for Clinton. If that 12% had NOT voted for Trump, Trump would have lost. I'm sorry that makes you unhappy, but reality is reality. Bernie Sanders couldn't win with DEMOCRATS but he was somehow going to win a general election? He wasn't even CLOSE to beating Hillary, and he briefly led in 2020, because there were too many moderates splitting the vote. Did you ever wonder why Trump did his whole "poor Bernie" schtick? He was PRAYING Dems would be stupid enough to nominate Sanders in 2020. I have no clue why people think this is a far left country, but I can assure you that it is not. Seventy four million people voted for Trump AFTER he had killed hundreds of thousands of people. This is a center right country, and all the wishing in the world isn't going to change that.
If anything, the links you provide tend to support my contention that Trump didn't win as much as Clinton lost--due to a toxic combination of having policies (pro-TPP; anti-M4A/$15hr, to name a few), alienating to Republicans, independents and ('socialist-left) Democrats alike, as well as having a personality even more alienating than Trump's (yes, that is possible).
Another point is, in WI and MI, open primaries let Republicans and the undeclared vote in the DP primaries, which accounts for Sanders winning those primaries (the popular vote, but not the delegates, thanks to the super-delegate advantage for Clinton written into the Convention rules). So its hardly a surprise that anti-Clinton voters in those states would switch to the GOP in the GE (comprising 55% of Sanders' "supporters" who were Republicans or independents, and 45% who were Democrats, most of them identifying only nominally with the DP).
This also explains why PA, with its closed primary Clinton won, had a much higher percentage of Democrats switching from Sanders to Trump--the white working class in the free-trade decimated regions outside of Philadelphia.
All-in-all, the data suggests that roughly 10-12% of Democrats who voted in the primaries for Sanders voted for Trump, which contrasts favorably to the 25% of Clinton primary voters (PUMAs, remember them?) in 2008 who voted for McCain in the GE.
Again, the point of elections is to win them; and as the DNC has shown time and time again, they're more interested in shoving a pre-selected favorite down the base's throat in the primaries, without much thought as to how well they'll perform in the GE. It's curious to me how few establishment Democrats discounted all the reasons why Clinton lost the nomination in '08, as well as how her pathetic tenure as SoS (another stepping-stone resume builder) mitigated against her in '16. She was the wrong candidate with the wrong platform at the wrong time in '08, and even more so in '16.
Nice to see you totally ignore the point I was making, that Sanders was the candidate with the most appeal to "independent" and even Republican voters the DP could nominate, but thanks to the DNC's blinkered loyalty to the Clintons, shoved the candidate with the least appeal, not only to Republicans and independents, but much of the DP base as well, to the front of line.
If you can access (from the links provided) the Quinnipiac and Fox News polls from Oct. '15 through May '16, when the head-to-head general election polling began and ended (Clinton/Sanders v Trump/Cruz/Carson et al), you'll find a very interesting statistic. In Oct., both organizations had Clinton and Sanders leading Trump by 1% among independents. By May, Clinton still had her 1% lead, but Sanders had increased his to 15% (Quinnipiac) and 16% (Fox).
Again, aggregate state-by-state polling clearly showed Sanders having far greater appeal to the broader electorate than Clinton. Based on polling data alone, Sanders, as the nominee, would have made red states such as FL, OH, NC, IN, IA and MO competitive in all the ways Clinton made them safe for the GOP. If you can't see the advantage to having a candidate that forces the GOP to devote its resources to defending what they used to take for granted, you might want to take up handicapping baseball games or horse races instead.
Also, Sanders had the perfect no-nonsense/takes-no-shit personality that Clinton lacks to counter Trump's blustering buffoonery. Sanders also had the same anti-establishment appeal that establishment Democrats, looking down from their ivory towers, dismissed as irrelevant; especially in policy terms. Clinton was correctly seen as the candidate of a corporate-dominated status quo Americans were thoroughly fed up with; and having a platform more in tune with public attitudes, was the ideal foil to Trump's policy illiteracy.
The narrative arc for '16 was an electorate in rebellion against the establishment. Given the choice between a progressive populist (Sanders) and a regressive populist (Trump), the progressive was going to win. Given the choice between a status-quo establishmentarian and ANY populist, the populist was going to win. Thanks to the DNC's hubris, we got stuck with the regressive populist.
You presented polls, that's not evidence, particularly 2 right wing leaning polls (Fox News - Really?). Republicans LOVE Bernie Sanders, because he's so easy to beat. I can show you polls that show Jaimie Harrison was neck and neck with Lindsey Graham, until Harrison lost by FIFTEEN POINTS. Polls don't mean shit.
If Bernie was so wonderful, why didn't DEMOCRATS vote for him in the primary? I guess we were all too dumb to see how electable he was. A guy who can't win with Democrats will surely win a general election by running on "socialism" which is a thing all Americans love. Bernie Sanders would have lost in 2016, and he would have lost in 2020. He's a selfish narcissist, and nobody over 30 gives a crap about him. That alleged youth vote that he was going to bring out? They showed up in fewer numbers in 2020 than in 2016.
Clinton lost because the GQP had been smearing her for 30 years, and she had Bernie Bros sniping at her from the left. If Bernie's sour grapes supporters in 3 swing states had done the right thing, she would have been POTUS.
Republicans are meant to praise their collective works during the Trump administration, but reasonably agree it’s time he retire. And Dems are meant to belittle Progressives and demand them answer for things DINOs did, while explaining in front of the class why it’s bad to want progress. Okay. Republican shit stirring masked as pseudo intellectual bothsideserism. Can we all just get along???? (No, we simply cannot, especially with Republicans and their enablers).
Trump had all that power and an unfair corrupt advantage and couldn’t pass any meaningful infrastructure package or rework national healthcare. Biden, on the other hand, almost immediately addressed infrastructure, and would have helped millions more with much broader programs, were it not for Manchin and Sinema. Those aren’t remotely two sides of the same coin.
If you're going to cite sources, try providing links. It's kind of hard to argue against imaginary data. That said, the ability of the DNC to pick their preferred candidate and paving the path to the nomination for them doesn't mean that candidate will be the "best" candidate available in general election. As the following charts clearly demonstrate.
https://www.realclearpoliti...
https://www.realclearpoliti...
If you just looked at these electoral college maps without knowing who the candidates were, which one would appear to be the stronger candidate? And if that doesn't give you pause, it gets exponentially worse for Clinton at the state-by-state level. Clinton and Sanders had six states in common as toss-ups (excluding NM b/c there's no data for Sanders; and CO b/c the only Sanders poll was from 11/2015):
AZ: Clinton -4% (lost by 3.5%); Sanders - +8.3%FL: Clinton -.2% (lost by 1.2%); Sanders - +3.2%NC: Clinton -1% (lost by 3.7%); Sanders - +7.5%OH: Clinton -3.5% (lost by 8.1); Sanders - +5
And it gets worse yet: Two states rated as toss ups for Clinton (MI: +3.4%, lost by ,3%; Sanders +19%; and PA: Clinton +1.9% ,lost by .7%; Sanders +12.7%) were rated as leaning towards Sanders. And the icing on the cake is three states rated as solid for Trump (against Clinton) being rated as toss ups for Sanders (IN -1%; IA +9%, and MO +3%). It's also worth noting that WI, rated as leaning for both Hillary and Sanders, was Clinton - +6.5% (and lost by .7%) and Sanders - +19%.
In the interest of intellectual honesty, I crunched the numbers for 2020 again and must correct a mistake: Biden came within three states (AZ, GA, WI and ME-2*) electoral, and 72,825 popular, votes of losing.
*38 additional electoral votes that would have given Trump a 270 to 268 Electoral College win. In fact, Biden could have won ME-2, resulting in a 269 EC tie, that Trump would have won in the House (on the basis of each state getting one vote, regardless of size, due to controlling a majority, or just a plurality, of delegations, which means Biden came within 51,734 popular votes of losing).
So, until you provide some credible evidence for "Sanders' supporters" (and you'll need a credible definition of who they were) throwing the '16 election to Trump, I stand by my original comments.
The statistics were from G Elliot Morris - Data journalist & US correspondent @TheEconomist
This is from Brian Schaffner, Political scientist ~ Newhouse Professor of Civic Studies at Tufts ~WI: 9% of Sanders voters voted for Trump.MI: 8% of Sanders voters voted for Trump.PA: 16% of Sanders voters voted for Trump.
I could cite more sources, but it's an accepted fact that 12% of Bernie's supporters voted for Trump, and 80% voted for Clinton. If that 12% had NOT voted for Trump, Trump would have lost. I'm sorry that makes you unhappy, but reality is reality. Bernie Sanders couldn't win with DEMOCRATS but he was somehow going to win a general election? He wasn't even CLOSE to beating Hillary, and he briefly led in 2020, because there were too many moderates splitting the vote. Did you ever wonder why Trump did his whole "poor Bernie" schtick? He was PRAYING Dems would be stupid enough to nominate Sanders in 2020. I have no clue why people think this is a far left country, but I can assure you that it is not. Seventy four million people voted for Trump AFTER he had killed hundreds of thousands of people. This is a center right country, and all the wishing in the world isn't going to change that.
https://www.npr.org/2017/08...
they are a lot speedier with the typing, but less accurate
If anything, the links you provide tend to support my contention that Trump didn't win as much as Clinton lost--due to a toxic combination of having policies (pro-TPP; anti-M4A/$15hr, to name a few), alienating to Republicans, independents and ('socialist-left) Democrats alike, as well as having a personality even more alienating than Trump's (yes, that is possible).
Another point is, in WI and MI, open primaries let Republicans and the undeclared vote in the DP primaries, which accounts for Sanders winning those primaries (the popular vote, but not the delegates, thanks to the super-delegate advantage for Clinton written into the Convention rules). So its hardly a surprise that anti-Clinton voters in those states would switch to the GOP in the GE (comprising 55% of Sanders' "supporters" who were Republicans or independents, and 45% who were Democrats, most of them identifying only nominally with the DP).
This also explains why PA, with its closed primary Clinton won, had a much higher percentage of Democrats switching from Sanders to Trump--the white working class in the free-trade decimated regions outside of Philadelphia.
All-in-all, the data suggests that roughly 10-12% of Democrats who voted in the primaries for Sanders voted for Trump, which contrasts favorably to the 25% of Clinton primary voters (PUMAs, remember them?) in 2008 who voted for McCain in the GE.
Again, the point of elections is to win them; and as the DNC has shown time and time again, they're more interested in shoving a pre-selected favorite down the base's throat in the primaries, without much thought as to how well they'll perform in the GE. It's curious to me how few establishment Democrats discounted all the reasons why Clinton lost the nomination in '08, as well as how her pathetic tenure as SoS (another stepping-stone resume builder) mitigated against her in '16. She was the wrong candidate with the wrong platform at the wrong time in '08, and even more so in '16.
Nice to see you totally ignore the point I was making, that Sanders was the candidate with the most appeal to "independent" and even Republican voters the DP could nominate, but thanks to the DNC's blinkered loyalty to the Clintons, shoved the candidate with the least appeal, not only to Republicans and independents, but much of the DP base as well, to the front of line.
If you can access (from the links provided) the Quinnipiac and Fox News polls from Oct. '15 through May '16, when the head-to-head general election polling began and ended (Clinton/Sanders v Trump/Cruz/Carson et al), you'll find a very interesting statistic. In Oct., both organizations had Clinton and Sanders leading Trump by 1% among independents. By May, Clinton still had her 1% lead, but Sanders had increased his to 15% (Quinnipiac) and 16% (Fox).
Again, aggregate state-by-state polling clearly showed Sanders having far greater appeal to the broader electorate than Clinton. Based on polling data alone, Sanders, as the nominee, would have made red states such as FL, OH, NC, IN, IA and MO competitive in all the ways Clinton made them safe for the GOP. If you can't see the advantage to having a candidate that forces the GOP to devote its resources to defending what they used to take for granted, you might want to take up handicapping baseball games or horse races instead.
Also, Sanders had the perfect no-nonsense/takes-no-shit personality that Clinton lacks to counter Trump's blustering buffoonery. Sanders also had the same anti-establishment appeal that establishment Democrats, looking down from their ivory towers, dismissed as irrelevant; especially in policy terms. Clinton was correctly seen as the candidate of a corporate-dominated status quo Americans were thoroughly fed up with; and having a platform more in tune with public attitudes, was the ideal foil to Trump's policy illiteracy.
The narrative arc for '16 was an electorate in rebellion against the establishment. Given the choice between a progressive populist (Sanders) and a regressive populist (Trump), the progressive was going to win. Given the choice between a status-quo establishmentarian and ANY populist, the populist was going to win. Thanks to the DNC's hubris, we got stuck with the regressive populist.
You presented polls, that's not evidence, particularly 2 right wing leaning polls (Fox News - Really?). Republicans LOVE Bernie Sanders, because he's so easy to beat. I can show you polls that show Jaimie Harrison was neck and neck with Lindsey Graham, until Harrison lost by FIFTEEN POINTS. Polls don't mean shit.
If Bernie was so wonderful, why didn't DEMOCRATS vote for him in the primary? I guess we were all too dumb to see how electable he was. A guy who can't win with Democrats will surely win a general election by running on "socialism" which is a thing all Americans love. Bernie Sanders would have lost in 2016, and he would have lost in 2020. He's a selfish narcissist, and nobody over 30 gives a crap about him. That alleged youth vote that he was going to bring out? They showed up in fewer numbers in 2020 than in 2016.
Clinton lost because the GQP had been smearing her for 30 years, and she had Bernie Bros sniping at her from the left. If Bernie's sour grapes supporters in 3 swing states had done the right thing, she would have been POTUS.
Drinking G&T in preparation for the Malaria Season. That just makes good sense.
Somebody got into the chardonnay again.
There’s plenty of assholes in south bend and Norte dame.
Is Peggy the ‘gin-soaked barroom Queen in Memphis’ the Stones sing about?
Holy sh*t, Gary, this is scary-great!!!!
I'm shutting off my brain now, because if I hear the word "woke" one more time I am going to strike out at something.
Republicans are meant to praise their collective works during the Trump administration, but reasonably agree it’s time he retire. And Dems are meant to belittle Progressives and demand them answer for things DINOs did, while explaining in front of the class why it’s bad to want progress. Okay. Republican shit stirring masked as pseudo intellectual bothsideserism. Can we all just get along???? (No, we simply cannot, especially with Republicans and their enablers).