So, sometimes the feedback we get as bloggers can help clarify our thinking, and sometimes you can get two sides of a story that are equally compelling. In response to my recent piece on Bernie Sanders and Rand Paul, some people chimed in to argue that they’re seeing exactly the kind of thing that I talked about when I said that a lot of Rand Paul supporters are natural Bernie Sanders supporters. Others dismissed the whole topic of Sanders’ electability as irrelevant or boring or naive.
Let me provide you with two sterling examples, one of each type. I realize it may be hard to read these comments on some screens, but you can click on the images to embiggen them.
The first is from commenter MikeinOhio at Booman Tribune who hails from BoehnerLand in the archly conservative southwest corner of the Buckeye State.
The second is from commenter Bruce S. at the Washington Monthly:
In response, let me start by saying that the entire point, or premise, of my piece was that there is at least some way conceptually or in theory that either Bernie Sanders or Rand Paul could win the respective nominations of their parties and then go on to win the presidency. If you don’t accept this premise, then just go ahead and say so. But there’s a big difference between saying something is exceedingly unlikely and that it is ruled out by the laws of physics. In other words, either you’re willing to play this game or you are not, but you shouldn’t stick your toe in unless you believe there is some possible winning answer.
What MikeinOhio was confirming for me, at least anecdotally, is that the people he knows who are getting excited about Bernie Sanders were previously interested in Rand Paul. Is this a statistically significant number of people?
That’s hard to say, but they do exist. If Rand Paul’s candidacy flames out early enough, these voters are Bernie’s for the taking, and he’s going to need them if he hopes to actually win anything.
Bruce S., on the other hand, doesn’t want Bernie Sanders to pursue a strategy that could plausibly lead to victory because no plausible path to victory would allow Bernie to remain Bernie. He’s a realist, and he’d rather that Sanders give us the pure unadulterated progressive junk than see him cut it with shwiggity swag. The rationale is that Bernie can’t actually win but he can still have a very positive longer term influence on our politics just by being in the race, in the debates, and presenting the strong progressive case to the public. If he starts pandering for votes, he’ll neither win nor do as well as he should in leaving that lasting legacy.
These two views aren’t mutually exclusive, although some of Mike and Bruce’s conclusions at are odds with each other. The thing I’d like to say to Bruce, though, is that he’s making an assumption that Bernie needs to compromise his principles in order for him to court the kinds of voters that Mike is talking about. I don’t think this is necessarily the case.
To see why, let me bring in another Washington Monthly commenter, bluestatedon, who said that my idea that some potential Sanders’ votes are presently toying with Rand Paul was “the stupidest [effing] thing I’ve read about Sanders in quite a while.”
Why does Don think this?
Rand Paul is a glibertarian who professes to hate all government activity regardless of its nature while Bernie Sanders is an unapologetic advocate for government action in a wide variety of policy arenas. Anybody who asserts that they are open to voting for both is somebody who has no fucking clue what either of them stand for, or just wants to smoke pot.
Or, maybe, these people care more about what Sanders and Paul have in common than they do about what distinguishes them from each other. You can call them idiots, but that doesn’t give us an accurate count of how many of them there are out there. Since we’re primarily concerned with two groups here, one being the universe of voters who are either disengaged from or alienated by the status quo political situation and the other being the semi-mythical low-ideology true swing voters, we should not expect these people to know or necessarily care that Bernie Sanders endorsed Jesse Jackson and Rand Paul employed the Southern Avenger. They might want the candidate, any candidate, who is convincingly against the War on Drugs, or that best questions the War on Terror, or that seems most sincerely outside the two-party system. Maybe government surveillance is their big issue. Maybe prison reform is their big issue. Maybe they’re generally a libertarian on non-economic issues that Paul speaks about, but they’re really opposed to free trade and outsourcing.
The point is, there’s a lot of commonality between Paul and Sanders, and for someone who wants to send a message that they don’t want more Bush v. Clinton nonsense, either one of them can do nicely.
I don’t even think Sanders’ potential appeal on the right is limited to Rand Paul supporters. It’s just that I think Paul’s supporters are riper for the picking than, say, Mike Huckabee’s supporters.
On the other hand, what I want to say to Mike is that he should go back and read my piece about Sanders’ supporters not succumbing to irrational exuberance. Can Bernie Sanders capture a lumbering giant and “change the political landscape for generations”?
I don’t think it is very likely, and I just have to be blunt and honest about that.
What this is is merely a thought exercise about what Sanders and Paul, respectively, would have to do to win. Hopefully, part of what becomes clear as a result is just how close to impossible it will be for them to pull it off.
But what should also become clear is that unorthodox candidates can only win by attracting unorthodox coalitions. Arguments that Sanders can outflank Hillary from the left are just wrong, as are arguments that Rand Paul can hold the Republican coalition together and then add enough to it win the Electoral College. No, if either of these gentleman want to win, they need to do it by reshaping the dividing lines, and that’s particularly hard to do in a system with a lot of closed primaries where only registered Democrats and Republicans can vote.
If either of them could somehow pull off the near miracle of winning the nomination of their party, they’d have a freer hand, but it’s doubtful that they can get that far.
If you’re a Sanders supporter, you’re probably in either Mike’s camp or Bruce’s camp, but either way you should be looking to see if your candidate has a plan beyond winning the progressive purity award.
There’s something beyond winning the progressive purity award?
Sheer, self-evident, rightness isn’t sufficient?
Sorry, that’s simply impossible.
Oh, definitely. After you put together an ideologically coherent coalition and sales pitch, the next step involves waiting for the establishment to jog onto a landmine after they take a post-hippie punching victory lap. It doesn’t always work (Bryan and McGovern were not able to take advantage of the collapse of the neo-Whigs and paleoliberals because they did not, demographically, have the numbers) but it’s usually their best bet.
Moderate Republicans did not predict that their incompetence would spawn the Radical Republicans, post-AMC GOPs and Democrats the classical Progressives, the classical Progressives themselves the New Deal Coalition, and if you want to get into more recent examples the rise of socialists and fascists in Eastern Europe. Hilariously, the serious and pragmatic types never see step two coming, probably because they’re busy jerking off to how realistic their aspirations are compared to the ‘radicals’.
Unless Hillary Clinton gets a rush of brains, she’s well on-track for such an explosion. Either in 2016 in the unlikely event that Bernie Sanders overtakes her or in 2020 when the centrist’s wings studious attempts to ignore the falling federal deficit, rising trade deficit, and soaring household debt leads to a recession.
In the early 30’s we had a U6 in the neighborhood of 50%, a U3 of over 25%, and a real domestic left, certainly by current standards.
Somehow, even that wasn’t enough to overthrow the capitalist order. Nor was it enough in the UK, or any of the dominions or commonwealths. Neither was it enough in France, or any of the other developed countries of the North Atlantic, save Germany. (Italy went fascist in ’22, and Spain at that point barely counted as developed.)
So I am right to expect the coming crisis to be that bad, or worse?
Who said anything about overthrowing the capitalist order? I’m just talking about shooing out the establishment Democrats who think that the Clinton surpluses were great, that voting for the AUMF would boost their careers, that the downfall of Bowles-Simpson was a tragedy and a new Grand Bargain needs to be made, that the urban professional wing of the Democratic Party is going to overlook H1-B visas without economic weregild, that college debt in the tens of thousands is the price you pay for a lottery ticket to the upper middle class, not to rock the boat too much on climate change, that voters won’t resent chained CPI, etc..
We tolerated these people in the 80s and 90s because the Rainbow Coalition didn’t have the demographic muscle to hold office without cutting deals with the corporate class. Unfortunately, they got high off of their own supply and think that their policies are really and truly the best way forward rather than deals with the devil that need to be aggressively renegotiated.
I doubt that Bernie Sanders is going to be able to save these dinosaurs from their own so-called pragmatic stupidity, so I have my eye on 2020. Or, more cynically, 2024.
A Jewish friend of mine from work — born and raised in Brooklyn — cares about two things: money/influence in elections and mass-surveillance. The rest of the issues, to him personally, are a side-show. He doesn’t care about tax rates (after all, what’s a few percentage point increase/decrease on him anyway? No difference, as far as he’s concerned); he doesn’t care about gay marriage (though he’s supportive, and bi-sexual himself); he doesn’t care about gun control (though he is personally in favor of abolishing guns).
I wouldn’t say he supported Ron Paul, but in many ways he shared a belief that AG seems to share: that Paul was anti-establishment, which at the very least was an encouraging sign making him worthy of support. He shares virtually none of Paul’s politics, and from what I know he’s extremely liberal except for his Zionism. Yet, I could see him voting for Paul, despite our drunken arguments over a glass of whiskey that Paul is not particularly threatening to the PTB (as right wing populists rarely are).
And in this election? He supports Sanders.
There are some Republicans who say they like Sanders. Honestly, though, once the Wurlitzer starts grinding, they’ll switch back. It’s a recurring theme every elections: Republicans talk about how sick they are of their party, they talk about how they’d like to vote for some Democrat who is in some ways congenial to them, and then come November they pull the lever for the Republican.
I like Bernie and I’m glad he’s in the race. But even if he won the White House he wouldn’t “change the political landscape for a generation”. There’s far too much magical thinking on the left about what presidents can accomplish on their own. Getting excited once every four years sure is a lot easier than engaging in the years of precinct by precinct work that enabled the right to take over the Republican party from the bottom up.
Damn, Martin. There are a multitude of thoughts in response to this which are swirling through my head. But I’m not sure when/if I will have a chance to respond in enough detail to do it justice.
Booman Tribune ~ A Progressive Community
Is the reverse also true? If Saunders flames out before Paul, could a lot of his vote go to Paul and be lost to the Dems if (say) Paul gets the Republican VP slot? Is Saunders a viable VP to Clinton, and would that broaden the Dem coalition, or does she need to look for an African American or Hispanic VP candidate? Does Saunders have a role beyond making the Dem primaries more interesting and perhaps forcing Hillary to look to her left at least during the Primary season?
Not my vote! IMO, comparing Bernie Sanders to Rand or Ron Paul is a grave insult to Bernie.
I don’t think anyone here is saying they are comparable, just that there is a significant overlap in the people likely to vote for them.
I doubt if Bernie’s voters run to Rand Paul.
Rand Paul voters are juvenile, nihilistic crybabies that quote from books they don’t read. His natural base is his daddy’s people.
Bernie’s voters tend to be far more liberal, thinking, and nuanced than anyone who would even THINK of voting for a declared Republican. (note the use of the term “tend”).
I can believe that there are those who currently support Rand Paul (over Bernie Sanders) who would vote for Sanders if Paul got (gets) blown out (see “juvenile, nihilistic crybabies”).
I have a distinct problem with the idea that anyone who would support Bernie Sanders over Rand Paul would actually vote for Rand Paul over Hillary… more likely to not vote at all.
I’m not saying its impossible, but I don’t see it happening in droves.
Which of course means either that:
A-They are comparable.
or
B-The people likely to vote…for them or anyone else…are bone-deep stupid.
Or of course the third option.
Both A and B.
I’m going for #3, myself.
Bet on it.
AG
Sanders won’t flame out. he’s an experienced articulate public figure who has been in public office starting on the ground floor, and has knowledge. Paul is a grandstanding grifting ignoramus
you should listen to some Sanders interviews
OK I’m looking at this from 3000 miles away and trying to get a sense of what the likely outcomes are. Looked at from Ireland, it looks like this:
Anybody got a problem with this expectation?
Let Hillary flame out. Someone else will be on the ballot with a “D” behind the name.
The Republican brand in the US is so damaged at this point that I don’t believe ANY (R) could get elected nationally. All of the current crop of R candidates have essentially made themselves unelectable nationally.
Other than the fact that you underestimate the enthusiasm in many quarters of the Democratic party, you aren’t too far off what I expect.
I can’t say I’ll be disappointed exactly if the Dems don’t retake the House. I don’t expect them to. When I’ve tried to give advice to the Clinton camp, it hasn’t been with the expectation that they would take it, but more in reaction to my perception that they’re going about this all wrong.
No Hillary win will be convincing. The days of Mondale-eque blowouts are gone. The country is 45-10-45, and the 10 are idiots.
that may well be the outcome, but and many may get turned off by politics, but the problems won’t go away and they’re not just in the USA. what about India? what about Greece? in addition to the fact that the Hillary campaign is only about Billary retaking the presidency, the Clinton foundation and the international dimension of Bankers Bankers Bankers [I had a more Godwin oriented phrase, but I’ll leave that out] bothers me and I think it’s fair to say, other Sanders supporters.
I can’t see Sanders as a vp option for Hillary. why would he do it? but at this point no one knows where things are going
For 6 1/2 to 7 years we have been told that every thing is Obama’s fault. The Bern is filling up venues because he is providing an alternate opinion as to what is going on here and in the world. Cable TV puts The Bern across the table for some wingnut that just yells and talks loud so no one can hear what The Bern has to say. Paul limits his world view to our lack of freedom/liberty and this is because government cannot solve any of our problems. Or something Obama did, did not do, or refuses to to because he is weak. Mean while Paul is the weakest candidate for president. He finally made himself available to respond to The Donalds immigration statements and he just mumbled, put his hands in his pockets, and walked away. For me it to early to even guess if The Bern will win the primary.
If somehow Paul or the Donald gets the (R) nomination, then yes Bernie can win.
Let’s not play the “if the GOP nominates a suckass candidate then an improbable or seemingly strong DEM nominee can win.” GHWB and GWB were both “suckass” candidates and somehow they won three out their four races.
GHWB won as the heir of Reagan. His son was selected not elected. Granted he should never have gotten that close but Gore ran a campaign that ran away from the administration he was part of, a very intimate part.
But I mainly posted that because Booman always treats Trump and Paul as serious candidates while trumpeting that Bernie can’t win. I know he’s in the bag for Hillary, but I wish he was more honest about it instead of boosting her inevitability. IF SHE’S SO INEVITABLE WHY ARE HER SUPPORTERS SO NERVOUS?
Off-topic (sort of): I see that O’Malley is adopting Bernie’s agenda. However my BS detector is telling me that he smells like Edwards. What do you think?
Doubt that Martin is “in the bag for Hillary.” He’s just attempting to be pragmatic. Unlike some of us, he doesn’t have the lived experience of being ever so reasonable and pragmatic during the Clinton years and waking up late to the shit he dumped on us.
Hillary’s supporters are nervous because her honesty and truthfulness ratings are low and opposition to her is large and strong. (Latest: “I never received a subpoena’ and the House GOP produced it.) Sanders doesn’t change the latter, but makes the former more obvious. Groupthink among partisan Democrats has led to them believe that she’s a shoo-in for the general election when the reality is closer to having to thread a very fine needle with no margin for error. And there are several trip wires lying around.
Trump could be a serious candidate if the TPTB have chosen him to be the sacrificial lamb. Paul will only be serious if all the other Klowns fall out of the Kar and smash their heads on concrete walls.
IMHO, O’Malley is a lightweight. Not quite as skilled at being an opportunist as Edwards, but has a better personal moral compass. He either lacks a strong political orientation or is another neoliberalcon and is trying to soft pedal it. Not enough money behind him nor enough charisma to pull it off as Obama did.
O’Malley cannot solidify African-Americans behind him. His pragmatism in Baltimore came back to haunt him this spring.
Agree that the Baltimore demonstrations put a big crimp in his nascent campaign. But it wasn’t going anywhere anyway. Absent other candidates, he might have played a Santorum-like role in the primaries, but he’s not sufficiently different from Hillary nor does he push any major DEM buttons like Santorum did among GOP voters.
It’s not the demonstration, it’s the failed “broken windows” policy he copied from Giuliani.
The demonstrations put spotlight on O’Malley’s past record for those outside MD to see.
Off-topic (sort of): I see that O’Malley is adopting Bernie’s agenda. However my BS detector is telling me that he smells like Edwards. What do you think?
O’Malley is a fraud. He used to co-write op-eds with Harold Ford, Jr. And then Baltimore will come back to bit him in the ass I’m sure.
As libertarianism and socialism are ideologically opposites, Rand fans switching to Bernie doesn’t compute easily. But factor in age. Libertarianism as a concept has been attractive to the <30 set since at least the 1960s. Then they either learn that its only superficially appealing or they grow up. IOW, the more one knows the less when likes. See page 80 of the Economist/YouGov poll. The <30 year olds “hate” Paul the least. (They are also the least likely to be familiar enough with him to have an opinion.)
What can also be seen is that Paul’s “Very Favorable” ratings are very low and only peaks at 24% among those >64. It’s Paul’s “glibertarianism” that gets him much better “somewhat favorable” support among those >44, and “libertariansim” for those <30. His 4% “Very Favorable” (core?) rating among liberals and 5% among moderates might not struggle much to switch to Sanders in open primaries, particularly if/when Paul begins to be viewed as unelectable.
Among Republicans his combined Very/Somewhat Favorable at 53% is decent, but lower than Bush, Cruz, and Rubio and with Independents not a standout among the GOP hopefuls. He could be the strongest second or third choice for many Republicans, but at this point he and Perry have similar Very and Somewhat Favorable numbers among Republicans.
Voters don’t exclusively vote ideology. The Republicans spend lots of money between elections continuing to hype ideology with the Great Wurlitzer for that very reason.
Structurally, big tent parties do not lend themselves to tight ideological alignment.
Voters vote for people they are comfortable making decisions for them, people they think are telling them the truth, and people who fit the role of someone capable of leading a 1-million-employee bureacracy that includes the power to go to war. Goldwater failed that last test with his rashness; Graham will as well. In fact, Graham seems to be running for either Secretary of State or Secretary of Defense.
In the back of my mind I keep thinking that the billionaire kingmakers might be more important in the Republican primary than the primary voters, and that those kingmakers might wind up splitting the vote such that there is a real instead of a staged convention. There are a lot of high-stakes contrary interests among those dropping big bucks. But that’s not likely because it would be too much of a godsend for Democrats.
Most voters vote D or R.
A snippet from the first chapter of Go Set A Watchman. (Recall this was written in the mid-1950s)
Now everybody is totally plugged in and bombarded with so much propaganda, misinformation, and advertising that surviving leads us to psychologically cut off ourselves and rely on D or R as our families or friends have always done or choose based on superficial physical qualities.
R tries to identify as narrowly ideological.
D tries the opposite and currently has a vague identity that is essentially not-R. That allows R ads to fill that blank slate.
And then folks vote like their family always did? The longitudinal results don’t show that at all.
Not in the south and border states where the parties flipped on race in the second half of the twentieth century. However, even that flip means that the family tradition of voting GOP or DEM is into the third and fourth generation.
For black Americans outside the south and border states, the flip from GOP to DEM came sooner and faster — mid-twentieth century.
However, I was thinking more of those families outside the southern tier that were traditionally Republican throughout the early twentieth century progressive era. A time when if I had been a living Californian, I would have voted Republican. Descendents more easily adopt the family political party than appreciating why their ancestors were R or D and adjusting their affiliation based on the reason and not the party.
is only one argument for Booman thesis: which just has no significant data to support it.
If you think of a chart, with ideology and one axis and establishment/anti-establishment on another you MIGHT find out data points that suggest overlap between Sanders and Paul.
This is not my idea: I heard Gary Hart suggest it in late 1982. In Democratic Primary politics at times the establishment/anti-establishment argument is really what the fight is about: it isn’t about ideology.
There is a feature that needs to be understood in this establishment vs anti-establishment argument. Voters who are drawn to anti-establishment arguments look for authenticity, or truth telling. Again – not my idea – it comes from Hart.
This is what is behind Trump, and what he shares with Sanders. The perception that he isn’t filtered – that he is authentic. In fact, I think that is one mistake Rand has made – he has muted the rhetoric of his father.
Jerome Armstrong who founded MYDD stands as example. He went from Paul to Nader to Dean. I think the attraction that was shared was each “told truth to power” for want of a better expression.
Booman’s fundamental mistake in looking for voters (which I do not believe exist) is he looks in the wrong place. He is too focused on ideology and on the few examples where Sanders and Paul might share issues. The problem is that Sanders and Paul have completely different world outlooks, and so the overlaps won’t mean anything in any serious way politically.
The overlap isn’t ideological, it’s about the establishment. It’s about authenticity.
The connection to the establishment is what connects Bush to Clinton. In Clinton’s case, the mistakes she has made (eg the TPP) aren’t so important ideologically (Democrats are more free trade the Republicans in polling) as personally. She appears to be waffling and trying to have it both ways: the opposite of authentic.
If it continues Hillary can lose.
Bernie’s path to victory is much, much easier than Paul’s. Bernie only needs one primary opponent to fall off a stage and break a hip.
No. He just needs to maintain the perception of him as honest and a truth teller. Then verbally and rhetorically run rings around his opposition in the debates.
With Paul there’s Charles Pierce’s Five Minute Rule
Although it might have to be adjusted for Rand to the two and a half minute rule.
It might even be that simple. How will Clinton try to defuse him in the debates? She will stand up and say ‘I am a woman’ which will leave Sanders at a complete loss for a rebuttal. On a less ridiculous note I’d say she will be at a loss for words of personal conviction. Money, money, money….
H: “I am a woman.”
B: “Yes, you are. And in 1964, and before, I was active in the civil rights movement that led to the passage of the historical Civil Rights Act of 1964. One of the provisions of the act is that prohibited wage differentials based on sex.
One of the staunchest opponents of that act was the Republican Presidential nominee that year.”
Okay my fantasy stops there because Bernie is too polite to include — “and in 1964 you were a Goldwater Girl. So, let’s not get into which of us has demonstrated more commitment to the rights of women throughout our careers.”
Or…any number of primary opponents split the straight RatPub vote, at which point Rand Paul takes a larger percentage of the total vote than any of them. Which is what he’s aiming at. Bet on it.
AG
Phoenix AZ July 18. How many? How enthusiastic? How diverse? More importantly, what are the reactions from media and other candidates?
Venue is the Hyatt. How large is that? Format is a “town hall”.
The two-axis political test at Political Compass is a great way to get past this confusion about Sanders vs. Paul / Left vs. Right — seriously, it’s worth everyone here taking a look (and even taking the short self test):
http://www.politicalcompass.org/
It’s not perfect — no political test is — but it has a lot of explanatory value, and is also not U.S. centric.
The basic premise of the site is that instead of a single “left – right” political spectrum, you add a “authoritarian – libertarian” axis to the picture. When you do that, you can see that someone who might be to the left of Paul and slightly to the right of Sanders on economic issues might support both because of their (lowercase L) libertarianism. (I think that’s a bit nuts because I dislike Paul’s right wing views, and he’s really not all that libertarian anyway, but my point is that the two axis political analysis really has explanatory power.)
The reason I think this is important is that left-libertarianism (also sometimes called libertarian socialism) is distinct from right-libertarianism, yet in American political discourse only right-libertarianism, the sort of Ron/Rand Paul, is ever mentioned.
Way down in the left-libertarian quadrant for me.
And I wound up here:
Your Political Compass
Economic Left/Right: -7.13
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -7.44
I had to think for a while about the making peace with the establishment one. It’s true one shouldn’t knuckle under mindlessly, but equally so, for me, reflexive continual rebellion is also a fool’s game. I’m for working within, making changes where possible, knowing that the establishment is tremendously resistant to any change that makes it uncomfortable.
There were a few questions that I can honestly say that I agree and disagree about 50/50 based on the specifics. But “forced choice” questionnaires produce better overall profile results than those that include a neither agree nor disagree option.
Neglected to note my scores, only that I was way down in that left quadrant. Perhaps I was feeling particularly socialist and libertarian yesterday.
Fun.
Economic Left/Right: -7.5
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -6.1
My only beef is that the progressive scores should be positive and the conservative scores negative – it’s only logical. Where’s Spocko when you need him?
I am interested to see where Davis X Machina ends up…
Changes from time to time when I take it. For example, “It is a waste of time to try to rehabilitate some criminals”; yeah, it is a waste of time to try and rehabilitate some criminals…such as Dick Cheney. But I get that’s not what they’re going for, so obviously I’m going to tailor my answer and say, “Of course it’s not a waste of time to try and rehabilitate some criminals.”
Anyway, usually economic -8.5 to -9.0 and socially -7.5 to -8.
I’m glad to see folks taking the test and am finding the results interesting. For the record I’m in the far left-libertarian corner like others here seem to be. And if you look at some of the charts they have on the site, there are two categories of leaders, present and historical, in the left-libertarian camp. In the first group are the various green parties of Western countries (and their candidates). In the second group are anti-colonial leaders like Gandhi, Mandela, and the Dalai Lama.
I’ve wondered how it was possible for me to be a strong Obama supporter while being so far from him on this political spectrum. I think it’s that most of us are realistic in what is “acceptable” politically at any time (the Overton window of sorts) and know that we have to go with the person who is closest to our views even if they’re not that close. That was and is Obama for me. (Well, in 2008 Kucinich technically was closer, but there are non-policy reasons that matter too.)
The test doesn’t capture one other factor that’s important to me but would be very hard to include, which is the relationship of the human economy to the global ecosystem. I subscribe to the perspective from ecological economics that the human economy is a subset of the global ecosystem rather than separate from it. (I think it’s sort of an obvious statement, but almost no conventional economists, even on the left, subscribe to that perspective.) That perspective requires some sort of ecosystem axis but I don’t know what that looks like, and it’d make the test too complex.
Also the lower left, as expected.
econ. -7.63
soc. -8.1
Economic Left/Right: -6.88
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -1.23
-8.63
-7.28
Eco: -6.5
Soc: -6.67
According to Huffpollster Rand Paul is at 9.3% and Bernie Sanders at 20%. It’s 6 months until primary season and these numbers suck for both candidates. Neither candidate is within shouting distance of obtaining the nomination. Add them together and the number still sucks and it is 11 points down from the nod.
Sanders could double his support and he’ll still lose. And where, exactly, is that support supposed to come from? Turning the primary into a 2 person race leaves ~13.9% Undecided. There’s no ‘space’ for a Sanders win.
It’s possible to pretend Sanders can but right now the numbers say nay.
A lot of Hillary’s support is weak. The progressives/liberal/non-batshit-crazy crowd is backing her for a variety of reasons:
A. We like her (I must confess, I fall into this group).
B. We utterly despise anyone with an R after their name.
C. She’s Bill’s wife
B is moveable.
C is moveable.
COULD Bernie win the nomination? Yeah.
WILL Bernie win the nomination? Probably not.
Personally, I’d like to see Bernie as VP. Among other things I am totally amazed that Obama managed to live this long. I’m not so sure the next non-batshit-crazy will.
I realize that’s cold, but it is a consideration.
In July of 2007 Clinton led Obama 34% to 25% with 41% Other/Undecided. Obama broke through to win the delegate count, despite Clinton winning the actual vote count 17,857,501 to 17,584,692, by a superior GOTV operation and strategy.
This year the situation is as outlined in my previous comment.
Clinton’s support may be soft. I have no idea. I do know there is an awful lot of it plus a strong feeling it’s her turn. And, let’s face it, Clinton is going to win the woman demographic by at least 10 points.
And, 2016 is the year the extreme GOP gerrymandering goes wonky on ’em. It’s entirely possible a lot of House districts will flip. Having Clinton heading the ticket increases the chance as young women should turn out in greater numbers.
I share your amazement re: Obama. I disagree about Sanders as Veep. He’d be wasted in that position. I’d much rather have him able to vote in the Senate.
Agreed that he’d be better in the Senate than as VP. However, look at his age (71). Do you think he wants to be a senate race at 73? Maybe, Maybe not.
I think he’s trying to go out with a bang. I think a VP slot from 2016-2020 would be a great way to do it.
Trump has a better chance of winning the GOP nomination than Sanders does to be selected as Clinton’s running mate. What don’t you understand about the Clintons?