Monkeyboy wrote:I've gone back and forth with this, but it seems to me that not a lot of people outside of liberals really know what Sanders is about. They have the socialism label for him and that's about it. I think it will come down to if he can make the case for his vision when the debates (assuming there are debates) and town halls come. I think he can make a powerful case that Trump is just as socialist, but he is socialist for rich people. I think that's a very compelling (and correct) argument.

My one question is if Sanders will be allowed to define himself. If he is, then I think he has a good shot, especially with Trump's negative numbers. I mean, a whole lot of people say they will "never" vote for Trump. If Sanders can energize the base, I think it will be hard for Trump to find enough people to vote for him. If Sanders is not able or allowed to define himself, then I think we'll see four more years of a march towards fascism. Unfortunately, if this board and the early coverage by media elites is any indication, I fear Sanders will not be allowed to define himself. I'm sure we'll be hearing tons of otherwise intelligent people conflate socialism and communism.

Bernie has defined himself as a "Democratic socialist" (verbatim) his entire career.

Any time one of the two words you use to define yourself is considered controversial / radical, that's the word that will stick with people, especially those without the time/energy/care to deeply research as azrider mentions - which is the general population.

Yeah I would have gone with "Social Democrat" and I would do my best to frame it that way even now, but you know what, people like him because he is what he says and he says what he is, so screw it.

In case you didn't know, Sanders is responsible for today's market collapse:

Fox Business host Charles Payne is attributing Monday's massive stock market drop — which is widely considered to be connected to the deadly coronavirus outbreak — to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). According to Payne, Sanders' recent presidential primary win in Nevada is what caused the Dow Jones Industrial Average to tumble to its biggest one-day point drop in three years, rather than the deadly COVID-19 outbreak that has claimed over 2,600 lives and continues to surge in new countries.

At least they have moved on from blaming Obama for everything (for now).

Fox picked up Axios' reporting that the White House is compiling lists of disloyal officials. On the fox spin on this, they interviewed kellyanne Conway who said that the president has a right to hire whoever he wants and if your name or on the ballot than your policy agenda can be driven out.

That article later list out reasons for getting rid of people including Jesse Liu, the former nominee to be Treasury department undersecretary for terrorism and financial crimes, who is noted to not be sufficiently pro Trump as she have nots taking up criminal referrals from kavanaugh's confirmation or did she ask for jail time for McCabe, and she did ask for jail time for Flynn, etc. Basically she does not participate in cronyism, nor does she sharpen the blade to carry out retribution and vendettas.

this is pretty fucked up from our paisans over it Italy

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... rus-spread

Matteo Salvini, leader of the League party, used the outbreak to attack Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte for not defending the borders. He cited the docking of the Ocean Viking humanitarian ship in a Sicilian port with 274 African migrants on board to say Italy needs “to make our borders armor-plated.” He called on Conte to resign “if he isn’t able to defend Italy and Italians.”

***
Almost all of Italy’s cases are linked to a 38-year-old man who sought treatment at a hospital in the Lombardy region on Feb. 18. While there, he infected dozens of patients and medical staff, who then spread it further afield. Tracking efforts initially focuses on a friend of the man, a businessman who had returned from China, but tests proved negative and the origin of the contagion remains a mystery. A fourth death from the virus was reported in Lombardy on Monday, Ansa news agency said.

***

In his Facebook video, Salvini zeroed in on African migrants like the ones who landed in Sicily, saying “God forbid” one of them turned out to be a virus-carrier.

***
At the port of Pozzallo, the latest migrants to attempt the deadly journey from north Africa were placed in isolation on Sunday, while the crew were confined to the ship. None of the cases in Italy so far have been linked to African migrants.

Salvini is simply a piece of shit racist

I just want to add a data point to my skepticism about "electability". In retrospect, as an empirical fact, Obama was more electable than Hilary Clinton. But in the run up to the 2008 primaries, most "smart" people thought that a black guy with not even a full term in the Senate under his belt and a funny first and last name and a middle name Hussein was not electable. The "electable" candidate was John Edwards. Except he wasn't. At the time, Hillary Clinton was considered the safe candidate, as most people in the chattering class thought the country was more ready for a woman candidate that a black candidate.

Now, you can tell me about Obama's exceptional political talent overcame those handicaps, and I'd agree pretty much. Except of course say what you want about Bernie, he has a pretty decent amount of political talent itself. Maybe I and others are wrong about the dumbness of attributing the "socialist" label. Maybe by taking it on, it deflates the Republican charge of calling everything that isn't massive tax subsidies for the wealthy socialism. Maybe the fact that Jerseyhoya hates Sanders more than any other Dem candidate a good thing--we aren't winning this thing by appealing to the tiny sliver of Jerseyhoya types. (Not only are they few in number, but most of those people live in the blue states the Dems will win anyway.)

TenuredVulture wrote:Now, you can tell me about Obama's exceptional political talent overcame those handicaps, and I'd agree pretty much. Except of course say what you want about Bernie, he has a pretty decent amount of political talent itself. Maybe I and others are wrong about the dumbness of attributing the "socialist" label. Maybe by taking it on, it deflates the Republican charge of calling everything that isn't massive tax subsidies for the wealthy socialism. Maybe the fact that Jerseyhoya hates Sanders more than any other Dem candidate a good thing--we aren't winning this thing by appealing to the tiny sliver of Jerseyhoya types. (Not only are they few in number, but most of those people live in the blue states the Dems will win anyway.)

completely agree

TenuredVulture wrote:Maybe by taking it on, it deflates the Republican charge of calling everything that isn't massive tax subsidies for the wealthy socialism.

Hey, it worked for the Philadelphia Athletics and the “white elephants.”

More broadly, I would say the thing about Obama, retrospectively, is that it was kind of clear to me before 2016 ever happened that Obama actually did better than Hillary would have, not worse, in 2008. You used to hear about how it was a Dem year and if it hadn’t been a black guy the Dem candidate might have rung up 400 EVs - but really what Obama did in 2008 was create an entirely new electorate. People who came out for him who would not (and so far have not) come out for anybody else.

Trump had that kind of juice. I think Sanders does, Warren to a lesser extent also. Everybody else - not so much.

The closer you are to politics, the more confident you were that Trump couldn't win. I see similar handwringing with Sanders.

Big debate tonight.

Tonight's debate is about 2 things.............Bloomberg really needs to bounce back with a good showing, and the attack dogs need to be out on Bernie Sanders.

Another good opportunity for fireworks.

What is this about?

https://twitter.com/JohnBerman/status/1 ... 7455234048

are you being paid 2500 a month by bloomberg

Brantt wrote:What is this about?

https://twitter.com/JohnBerman/status/1 ... 7455234048

desperate campaign doing desperate things

bernie's wikipedia page currently lists Larry David as a sibling

Bloomberg v Trump is a Republicans wet dream.

Bucky wrote:bernie's wikipedia page currently lists Larry David as a sibling

Gotta do whatever it takes to get votes

CalvinBall wrote:

Brantt wrote:What is this about?

https://twitter.com/JohnBerman/status/1 ... 7455234048

desperate campaign doing desperate things

I did not vet the article below the tweet, but it appears when Bernie was in his early 20s he said some weird things about the link between sexual repression and cancer maybe? I am glad Bloomberg's campaign is poorly executing these types of attacks. It should make Senator Sanders a better general election candidate to be vetted clumsily, and the only way Bloomberg stops a Bernie nomination is by dropping out and throwing his money at the cause.

jamiethekiller wrote:are you being paid 2500 a month by bloomberg

Gotta cash checks to write checks.

Ace Rothstein wrote:

Bucky wrote:bernie's wikipedia page currently lists Larry David as a sibling

Gotta do whatever it takes to get votes

They are related actually. Not siblings, but an episode of Finding Your Roots on PBS showed that, via DNA testing, Sanders and Larry David are distant cousins.