According to this old delegate tracker at the New York Times, Barack Obama netted 10 delegates out of Oregon in 2008 (31 for him, 21 for Hillary Clinton) when he won the primary there on May 20th. It was a actually a pretty bad day for him, not that it mattered at that late date, because while he was winning in Oregon he was getting absolutely shellacked in Kentucky (14 delegates for him, 37 for Hillary).
In the grand scheme of things, the delegate counts, the win in Oregon and the big loss in Kentucky, didn’t matter in the least. Obama had effectively wrapped up the nomination months earlier. As for Washington State, the final allocation of delegates were not made until the state party convention on June 15th. In the end, Obama had a big advantage in total delegates but only a modest nine vote advantage in pledged delegates who were obligated to vote for him at the convention.
I mention this because Oregon and Washington are areas where Bernie Sanders should do well. If he’s going to actually win any primaries or net some delegates in some states, the Pacific Northwest is one of his most promising areas to do it. As the Washington Post notes, he’s been drawing “eye-popping” crowds there, getting an overflow attendance of about 28,000 in Portland, yesterday.
But it’s not a region that has enough delegates or that fits into the calendar in a way that it can much influence the contest. The rallies help Sanders identify potential organizers, some of whom can work phones or go work for him in more vital regions and states. They help him raise money. And, at this stage, they show that he’s got enthusiastic supporters which helps him with the media coverage he gets.
So, I see what he’s doing and he’s having some success with it. But it’s easy to get irrationally exuberant about his chances. The Pacific Northwest just isn’t going to decide the nominee.
It’s true that there are many delegates in Oregon and Washington. But when he draws 15,000 in Seattle, then nearly 30,000 in Portland last night, this at a time when Hillary’s 2700 dollar a plate dinner in Portland a few days earlier saw her whisked into and out of town with barely a peep, while it’s still early in the campaign I’d say this is nothing but great news for Bernie.
I went to the rally here in Portland last night with six seniors. What I found quite interesting is that the people who wanted Hillary for President last year to a person are for Bernie now. As one senior woman said, “I’d still like a woman for President in my lifetime. Maybe Elizabeth Warren.”
I think that a lot of people on the Left have been groomed to embrace Hillary, but the social realities of our the last thirty-five years seem to take precedent.
P.S.: Now that Bernie is pulling in huge crowds, (15K) in Seattle on Saturday night, 20k with another 9k turned away from the biggest venue in Portland last night, someone please note how the horse racing metaphors have been retired by the media today.
…at a time when Hillary’s 2700 dollar a plate dinner in Portland a few days earlier… the political base of the Superdelegates as well.
Maybe the big rallies can’t compete with the big money and political institutions that coronated Clinton at least a year ago, but at least they piss off Hillary and her team.
her team?
Also is high dollar fundraisers are so evil care to explain how Bernie could have lowered himself to attend a fundraiser in Martha’s Vinyard where the minimum to attend was $37,000?
http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/07/11/sanders-courts-marthas-vineyard-donors/
Personally I think jeering at candidates for taking the time to build their war chest in what is sure to be the most expensive presidential race ever is naive at best.
CNN Clinton 2008
Tres riche coming from the candidate that had her hubby out there playing the race card for her benefit, wouldn’t you say? (That’s merely a rhetorical question — no need for you to reply.) If you didn’t pay much attention to the 2008 election, there are plenty of resources available to catch up on that history.
7 years ago is your “evidence”? Hillary’s campaign was horribly run last time, which, by the way, was the reason I wrote her off as a candidate early on. I am not seeing the same mistakes this time. I also think she has surrounded herself with a much better team. Conversely, so far Bernie’s team has been less than impressive to me, although it is getting better.
As far as your condescending remark about me needing to know campaign history you shouldn’t go around assuming I don’t. I can assure you I do and I find it rude as heck to be told I need to go read about history.
No — it was a quote from candidate Clinton.
The buttons that push any of us to be pissed off, don’t change much, if at all, over the years. Definitely not in a mere seven years under extremely similar situations.
Just don’t go over to WaMo. They hate when you point out that kind of stuff.
Hillary did it. Her operatives are everywhere, and nothing if not cunning, and thorough.
Only a few more weeks of these rallies and the reporting might just turn to what he’s saying instead.
You know, accusing this current administration of using fake unemployment numbers to protect a brokenly corrupt plutocracy that has devoured us all. Paraphrasing.
Color me shocked that angry white populism has overwhelmed both the Republican and Democratic Party nominations. No idea where this is all coming from…
Is he saying BLS is cooking the books? Because that’s Shadowstats-tinfoil-hat time.
Or is he saying U6, or perhaps U5, is a more accurate gauge than the headline number, U3?
At the Sanders rally last night he talked about official versus real unemployment records. The Atlantic a half decade ago (or maybe more) did a story about how every President since JFK has been cooking the books on unemployment.
Sanders brought up the best-known example, how when people “stop looking and give up” they are no longer counted as unemployed.
If this is what he is actually saying then he definitely doesn’t sound like a crackpot at all. He’s sure to win
Not any conspiracy theory, he’s just saying the usual, far left defeatist bullshit about U6 and lost/missing workers, etc.
Because heaven forbid the White House (with an assist from the Fed) get any credit for reversing a severe economic panic and boosting the private service sectors like never before.
Bernie Sanders is running against not just Republicans, but the current president. We all know it. And we all pretend like it’s surprising that it’s his campaign that is getting firebombed, instead of O’Malley’s or Hillary’s or even Confederate nostalgic Webb’s.
U3 has pride of place not because it’s the best, but because it’s the longest running measure — and economists love to study time series.
It also most closely mirrors the ILO’s measure, if country-to-country comparisons are your thing.
If you were president and wanted to cook the books, you’d just order the BLS to stop producing other measures, like LFPR, or U6, for that matter.
I know and I’m getting pretty tired of it. You’d think we’d had enough of the purity war but I guess not.
Don’t belittle Bernie Sanders, Boo, It’s great that at least someone is giving HRC some heartburn. Praise him for his tenacity. You’re too much into the DC crowd speak for my taste. Do you realize how appalling the situation is in the US. At least Sanders seems to have a heart. HRC, don’t make me laugh.
I’ve had too many experiences of irrational exuberance so I appreciate a little cold water thrown on the post-Portland, OR Sanders rally. Nonetheless, it’s hard to escape the feelings of the ground shifting a bit while we attended that rally. The language being used and response of the crowd felt a bit historical.
It also felt like Sanders has found a way to address the BLM controversy going forward in a positive way (a great new African American spokeswoman – and using “We stand together” as the chant to drown out future disruptions from BLM).
Having just moved to Portland (sadly to the Sherwood suburb), we’ll use this to try to start organizing activism as we had done in Pasadena for the past 10 plus years. Feels fundamentally good to have this dynamic in our political system in these troubling times!
The two women in Seattle were NOT BLM but agentes provocatrices. h/t Tikun Olam of Richard Silverstein in Seattle.
Another source @DU – Who is Marissa Johnson Jenae.
This is ridiculous. One of the founders of BLM has already said they were BLM, number 1. Number 2, plant/BLM/not, they accomplished something anyway because Sanders gave BLM the stage in LA before he started last night.
Correct, the interruption was ridiculous – see my diary – BLM Petition Demands Seattle OA206 Agitators Apologize to Sanders.
Apparently #BlackLivesMatter is a loose organization od activists with little coordination. These two persons were local agitators and belonged to OA206..
At dKos:
○ Seattle’s “Outside Agitators 206” & why they want to drive a wedge between BLM and Democrats by Left Coaster
○ The protesters were from Outside Agitators 206 (OA206) by kbman
BLM has not endorsed that petition. Talk about outside infiltrators…
BLM began as a slogan not an organization. A response to the acquittal of Zimmerman to the killing of Martin. Organizationally, not more developed than OWS. At an emotional level it’s easier to get people to rally around every incident of seemingly wrongful death of an AA because those are discrete events. Incidents of bankster fraud and the victims of such fraud are much more difficult to define and highlight.
Reflecting on the Zimmerman/Martin case and the emotions that surfaced within the public, it reminds me of the murders of Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman. Shortly after the murders in 1994, and before Simpson’s acquittal in 1996, Brown’s sister set up a foundation to help victims of spousal abuse. A worthy effort at the core of those murders and because:
But why reinvent the wheel? Organizations existed that could accommodate a focus on that case and use the public attention that those murders highlighted. Instead it ended up another rump organization that accomplished nothing, regardless if it were well intentioned or not.
My “spidey sense” urges caution wrt to “BLM activists” for a number of reasons. Public attention on the frequency of police killings of unarmed AAs is warranted, but …
○ Please Don’t Let Idiots Ruin the #BlackLivesMatter Movement Because it is Too Important by Ben Cohen
Do you have a link of yr argument BlackLivesMatter “founder” backed the Seattle protesters?
Marissa Johnson was noted as an organizer for Outside Agitators 206 at Garfield High School in Seattle on January 22, 2015 for a panel discussion titled “From Black Power to #BlackLivesMatter: A Forum with 1968 Olympic Medalist John Carlos.”
Marissa Johnson, the founder of BLM Seattle saying, “I was going to tell Bernie how racist Seattle is…” Activist Mara Willaford, who also interrupted Sanders, declared that “white supremacist liberalism” prevails in Seattle.
○ Seattle BLM Protest Was Not BLM (Sorta) by millansingh @dKos
Within the context of her age (approx 16) and peer groups (which we know nothing about), a Palin button (approx 7 years ago) could be nothing more than teenage rebelliousness. Extremism for attention.
I’m not one to casually dismiss the youthful (age 16 and over) political orientation of anyone. But it’s not telling absent information as to whether it expressed family and/or peer group political positions, was thoughtful and committed and was carried forward, or was merely a short-term posture/attitude devoid of any authentic political depth.
As an isolated and single data point, it’s not any more meaningful than Clinton’s stint as a Goldwater Girl at a similar age. In Clinton’s case, we know that at least in the home, she grew up within a Republican milieu. We also know that she majored in poli-sci at Wellesley and was president of the young Republicans chapter and attended the 1968 Republican National Convention. She has claimed that attending the ’68 GOP convention was not her doing and has avoided mentioning who she voted for in the ’68 election. (Too politically active and eligible to vote that year for me to buy that she didn’t vote.)
People do change cognitively as they mature, but political impulses are more resistant to change. Johnson seems to exhibit a continuing pattern of being extreme.
Apparently TWiB interviewed her; she came from a fundie family. The button was compliance. The rebellion part is coming a little late (better late than never!)
Or a consistent world view that liberals are the enemy of her and her’s. Why go unnoticed preaching to the choir when one can get more attention from going to the “belly of the beast?”
Re Hillary, I suspect (haven’t read her books) she either voted Hubert or was too discouraged to cast a vote for that office — a number of McC supporters failed to vote Dem, or didn’t show up to vote.
And didn’t you forget to mention that Hillary volunteered to work for antiwar Dem Gene McCarthy in early 1968? Very unlikely, in the extreme, she would then have cast a vote for Nixon.
My understanding is attending the GOP convention that year was an eye-opener and learning experience. She seems to have favored the candidacy of Nelson “Rocky” Rockerfella (so did LBJ), but was angered by how he was treated and by the undercurrents of racism she saw at the convo. Nothing in the record I’ve seen or know of that indicates she gravitated towards Nixon; just the opposite it appears.
1968 seems to have been an important political transition year for her, when she probably moved out of the Repub Party completely. Four years later she would volunteer for George McGovern.
As for the Seattle BLM woman, and her co-conspirator in “outside agitating”, this is looking more like a covert RW or GOP action to disrupt and divide the Dem left, maybe too to discredit Sanders by making him look weak (almost accomplished that — the women almost got Bernie to step forward to be a defendant and confess his crimes in their Maoist People’s Court …).
And didn’t you forget to mention that Hillary volunteered to work for antiwar Dem Gene McCarthy in early 1968?
Fine — throw that into her murky 1968 political profile. Is it relevant? Don’t know. She only claimed to have done so in the lead up to the NH primary when McC was challenging an incumbent Democratic POTUS that was considered unbeatable. Did she stick with Gene after LBJ dropped out a few days after that? Did she switch to RFK when he entered the race a few days after that? Don’t know. McGovern was only a candidate after the June assassination of RFK. Haven’t seen any indication that she supported him before the 1972 election.
What has been lost over the years is that there was no love lost between the McC and RFK camps. And the HHH camp as well. Added to that were the wounds from the Chicago convention. However, by election day, there probably wasn’t much drop-off among voters that had been staunch supporters of McC and RFK, at least not in competitive states. McC had a disadvantage because a larger percentage of his support was from people not old enough to vote.
I was in the McC camp but too young to vote, but knew without a shadow of doubt that had I been older, I would have sucked it up and voted for HHH. (Good training for subsequent elections.)
What also seems to have gotten lost is that back then for anyone politically engaged, registering to vote upon turning twenty-one was a right of passage. Didn’t matter if it occurred in a non-election year. Thus, it’s not easy for me to assume that Ms. Clinton didn’t vote in the ’68 general election. Plus, she’s never said that she was too angry/etc to vote or that she sucked it up and voted for HHH. Why not? (I’m going with the “dog that didn’t bark” on this one.)
While I have my own suspicions about some of the “BLM activists,” am also mindful that independent, non-politically affiliated “ratfuckers” have existed in the past. Or maybe they didn’t and merely escaped being exposed for what they were. It’s why getting a read on this sort of stuff in real time is so damn difficult. Also, subsequent to 1968, “ratfucking” began to be privatized. Don’t know how this can be sorted out in a timely manner.
Well since you conveniently neglected to mention that rather important point in your attempt to paint Hillary as a true Repub at heart, from an early age, even in 1968, yes I think it’s relevant. Typical too of Hillary … skeptics to highlight the very early Goldwater Girl, and not surprising to see the rest of your carefully cherry-picked summary that omits the antiwar and Dem-supporting facts.
And per a 2008 NYT profile (The Times– hardly a pro-Hillary source then or now), there are several sources to back the notion that she was politically evolving completely away from the GOP in ’68. Including testimony reflecting that from her former boss later that year, Repub rep Mel Laird, in whose office she was placed not by her choice but by her faculty adviser at Wellesley.
Who did she vote for? Checking a book by Lewis Gould on First Ladies, Hillary (b. 10-27-47) wasn’t quite 21 when registration closed in IL in 1968, so missed being able to vote. He quotes her as saying, had she been eligible, she would indeed have voted for Hubert.
Back in the nineties Daniel Brandt wrote an essay suggesting that Bill and Hillary have the profile of government insiders (assets?) from Bill’s days in the “anti-war” movement and Hillary’s summer job at the law office defending the Black Panthers. The right-wing Mena theme is incomplete, because Asa Hutchinson was also there in that corner of Arkansas to quash any prosecution of Barry Seal and his buddies from Southern Air Transport. So whoever ran the cocaine import ring (heh heh heh) had representatives of both political parties in places to ignore the duffel bags of white powder falling from the sky. Hutchinson’s due diligence in Arkansas propelled him to be the first drug czar for Dubya.
Ugg. Another (re-hashed) Klintoon Konspiracy story. That’s about 5 just in the past week. On a supposedly liberal blog.
Already up to my neck in other conspiracy matters, as I believe you know, sharing my interest in at least one of them. Not this one however, sorry.
I guess this is par for the course when we find ourselves mired in the Dog Days of Summer. I’m trying to get through it by watching a kind of conspiracy show, 4400, which I’m in season 2 of at the moment. Some X-Files similarities. Starring a lovely actress I’d like to meet someday, soon preferably while we’re still young, one Jacqueline McKenzie. Saw her first in my favorite End of the World flick, On the Beach (Aussie version, 2000), which I highly recommend.
Brodie, if I were you I’d google the Daniel Brandt essay.
If you want more of the ineffectual half-stepping we got with Obama, or you long for the reactionary laws and treaties that her husband put into effect, well, then you go right ahead. Hillary’s your candidate.
Conspiracies happen. They happen all different ways. If you overthrew the government of the US in 1963 wouldn’t you want some politicians in the future who were ready to go along?
I’m sure it’s a lovely essay, but it will have to wait. A long time. Possibly until the next lifetime. Remind me then.
Meanwhile I’ve got to get back to that 4400 series and see how my JacMac is doing on the investigation.
Yes, she does have a tendency to have years of “evolving.”
I also omitted that in the summer of 1968, she interned in DC for US Rep and future SecDef Melvin Laird (R).
I’ve already stated that as a single data point, her Goldwater Girl time is a nothing-burger. It only has relevance because of what she clearly engaged in 1966-1967 that was documented in real time and therefore, not subject to historical revision.
Maybe it was common for young and politically engaged people living near NH to work on McC’s campaign there in Jan-Feb and then too busy to engage further that year in the primary contests. She may not even have been alone among McC NH campaigners to land a summer DC internship with a Republican and attend the GOP convention based on several prior year’s activity in GOP politics. Sort of better a seat at a table than no seat at all.
As I have no idea what voter registration requirements were in IL or MA at that time, can’t challenge her claim to have missed out. However, would be more inclined to accept it and that if she could have, she would have voted for HHH if she had recorded that somewhere in real time instead of in an interview twenty years later or she were known for her honesty and truthfulness.
For someone that loathes LBJ for his personal ambitiousness and the Vietnam War while also dismissing his civil rights and New Deal type economic policies, you’re awfully quick to cut a highly ambitious candidate with a long record of supporting neo-liberal economic policies and voted for the Iraq War a lot of slack.
“Years of evolving” — oh dear, all of four of them, between the ages of 17 and 21, and during college. Someone needs to investigate this!
Laird: yes, I mentioned him, and how she was placed there by her faculty adviser, his doing not hers.
1968 primaries: volunteering for McC not enough? Did she need to personally work in all primary states that year? Wasn’t she a full-time student at Wellesley at the time?
Conventions: she also went downtown to witness some outdoor police mayhem at the Chicago Dem convo. Doubt if what she witnessed made her want to stay in the Repub camp.
Voting: look at her birthdate: 10-27-47, only 9 days before the election. Very plausible indeed that she just missed the eligibility cutoff in IL for that time. Would presumably be fairly easy to look up and check — and thus easy to see if she was fibbing or misremembering or simply misunderstood the situation. If so, well-established author L Gould missed it also.
Humphrey: even if she’d kept a RT diary, you would wonder whether parts of it weren’t backdated to make her look better. But did you want to go on record yourself and openly say who you think the Hillary of Nov 1968 would have voted for?
Not a great amount of slack needed to cut for her on this narrow, inconsequential inability to vote in 1968 matter. And if you can prove the situation was otherwise, congratulations — and be sure to send your findings to the NYT and Fox, who will be happy to run with another Hillary (Pseudo) Scandal story. Lawr O’Donnell also would be interested.
Finally, I discount some of the LBJ DP bills only to the extent the Johnson worshippers and revisionists vastly overstate his role in their passage, or otherwise imply they wouldn’t have happened but for the legislative genius of Lyndon. Mostly the counter is in re the overwhelming progressive majority he had in 65-6, and the earlier post-assassination, gale-force momentum he had at his back in ’64.
Finally (2), I don’t loathe personal ambition except as it easily crosses the line, as with Lyndon, into ruthless ambition. Worse than Nixon in that respect. But as to Hillary, I’m only 65% on board, mostly for electability reasons. i’m closer politically to Bernie, generally, but his disappointing FP positions are hardly as liberal-left as his DP, and not much different from Hillary’s. But those issues are yet to be fully fleshed out in this still-young campaign.
Do you think I’m so lame that I would have said, “years of evolving” if I were speaking of only four or five years between the age of 16 and 21?
No — it’s not “ruthless ambition” for a post 1960s Democratic politician to play the race card. Throw under the bus, AA allies that become inconvenient. No that’s not ruthless at all. And IMHO it’s naive to believe that team Clinton wasn’t initially involved in at least one of the three efforts to disqualify Obama: “natural born,” Rev. Wright, and “whitey.”
Shall we talk about her dodging sniper fire in Bosnia?
She “evolved” on that when the video surfaced. Evolved on the question of a unilateral war in Iraq (too bad the country was destroyed and so many people were killed and injured while she was “evolving.”) How many years was it that she needed to “evolve” from DOMA to acceptance of SS marriage?
So, all her friends, her faculty adviser, Mel Laird — they all lied about her political journey from GOP to Dem in 1968? They all conspired to fool the Timesman, the author Gould, and numerous other journos looking for a negative angle on her?
Again, who do you think she voted for that year? Your best guess —
And did you bother to do research about the voting registration cutoff in IL back then?
Why don’t you do the research on that? Also include MA because I’m not sure that out of state students in MA weren’t eligible to vote in MA. There were so many changes from court cases, by statutes, and even constitutional amendment between ’68 and ’71 that I doubt it’s easy to find what existed back then.
Not saying anybody lied — but memories are very fragile. Not so long ago, my sister pulled out my 9th grade school annual. One of the pictures was of the student council and I said, “What the hell am I doing in that one?” She remembered and I had zero recollection of it. (Still don’t.) Did X come before Y or Y come before X? Since our memories are always a reconstruction, we often err.
My best guess whenever somebody doesn’t offer a statement on something that could be telling is that he/she would prefer that others not know. A factoid that didn’t make it into one of her books or Bernstein’s exhaustively researched bio on her. Left at she loathed Nixon. Except I, unfortunately, knew people that loathed Nixon and yet given a choice between Nixon or HHH, voted for Nixon.
Nah, I think under the rules of online discussion, the person making the initial assertion or accusation or insinuation has the burden of proof. That would be you. Let me know what you find. If you hit pay dirt, you might want to offer it to one of the anti-Hillary media outlets and you could even earn a mention.
Fox Breaking News! Online Poster Unravels Concealed Clinton Voting Mystery!
Or you could offer it as an exclusive to the more friendly WaMo for their Tilting at Windmills column. They might shoot you a check for 25 bucks, I don’t know.
I only pointed out that it was a curious omission from her own bio. Particularly considering that she’s made an effort to explain away working for Laird and attending the RNC convention that year.
The only relevance her early affiliation with the GOP (before her transformation) has for me is that her later impulses skew rightward. There was a huge amount of stuff that women of her generation were confronted with absorbing and contending with in the decade from 1965-1975. Civil rights, free speech rights, Vietnam War, feminism, and gay rights along with sex, drugs, and rock and roll. All of that up close and personal for many of us. Classmates dead in Vietnam, a relationship too new to survive a draft order, working our way through college, etc.
While minor, being warned by a supervisor that it didn’t look good for me to be seen being chummy with a black man. To which I responded, don’t worry, I’m not good enough for him.
I’m straight and loathed, DADT and DOMA. Didn’t need even ten seconds to say, “fine” when gays and lesbians first asked for holy unions, domestic partnership benefits, civil unions and SS marriage.
Loathed all of the anti-New Deal legislation that was supported and signed by Bill Clinton. Hillarycare was a mess. Welfare reform was cruel. The IWR was worse than the Gulf of Tonkin resolution because they had guidance from the past and Clinton blew it off in favor of political aspirations.
She can’t even say — women choose; everybody butt out. Always hinting that abortion is a terrible thing that needs to be rare. (That’s one personal question that I never answer.)
I have a lot of beefs with Obama, but I do appreciate that he didn’t come with a backpack of drama of his own creation. That he ran and won on his own merits. Doesn’t invoke his mommy or daddy to explain his actions. I’ve had more than enough of the Bushes and Clintons. Looks as if Republicans are going to spare us from another Bush. Wish Democrats would do the same.
What I’d like to see from folks on the Sanders bandwagon is an argument for how his candidacy differs from other “insurgent” candidacies in the Democratic presidential contest over the past few decades.
What is there about Sanders, his positions, and/or his coalition that make him different from, say, Dean in 2004, Bradley in 2000, Brown in 1992, Hart in 1984, Udall in 1976—all of whom also appealed to the (oversimplifying here) white, liberal, good-government, college-town faction of the party?
Hey, I worked for Udall in ’76 in a college — sort of — town!
And there’s nothing wrong with that! It’s an important faction of the Democratic party’s coalition.
It’s just that, by itself, it doesn’t constitute a majority of the party. Candidates who appeal to that faction also need to appeal to at least 1-2 other major factions of the party’s base.
That’s why I’m curious to know whether there are folks who see signs that Sanders is (or is not) doing that.
Screw coalitions, and voting blocks, and all that politics! Politics is too full of politics. And way too many politicians are politicians.
All you have to do is be right!
Nothing can stop an idea whose time has come!
unless he can bring other factions of the Democratic coalition into the fold, he’ll be out pretty quickly.
Are you saying how can Sanders possibly win when other outliers didn’t? Because people stood on the sideline and said it couldn’t be done.
Thanks for your question. What I’m looking for is whether anyone can outline a campaign strategy that gets Sanders a majority of the delegates to the 2016 DNC, and if so, what that strategy is, and what would constitute evidence that it’s working.
For example, Obama in 07-08 had a campaign strategy built around 1) winning the votes of those who opposed going to war with Iraq in 2003, 2) building a campaign infrastructure around organizing people (especially in caucus states) and money (best small donor operation), and 3) winning the African-American vote (in part by proving he could win white votes in places like Iowa and NH).
Astute observers (like Al Giordano, writing in the Boston Phoenix) saw a path to victory for Obama as early as September of ’07. What would be Sanders’ path to victory in ’16?
September 7, 2007 Obama addresses Portland supporters
Notice any differences? (btw – team Obama might have depressed the attendance for that first Portland appearance because they charged $25/ticket.)
Yes Bernie drew a big crowd. If Bernie manages to sustain this momentum including drawing crowds that are more reflective of the Democratic party than his crowds traditionally have been then I will think he is a viable candidate. It will take a lot, though, because I think his age is going to be his biggest obstacle. After that his less than impressive legislative record.
Also here’s a big piece of advice for Bernie supporters. He will need a sizable portion of the Obama coalition to win. Trying to pit Bernie as the anti-Obama and/or so much better than Obama won’t help build that coalition. To his credit Bernie seems to understand that. His supporters would be wise to follow suit.
Also here’s a big piece of advice for Bernie supporters.
Thanks for your concern. Do you have any idea who was in the earliest Obama base support in 2008? That drove his candidacy until a coalition became possible? Apparently not …
His earliest support was from white voters but by this time in his candidacy his support among others in his coalition was tracking upwards. After the win in Iowa is when it took off. Also by this time in the cycle he was running second in Iowa to Edwards.
So again stop with the condescending assumptions about what you think I do and don’t know. It only makes you look like a jerk.
Thanks for your comment. More precisely, Obama locked up the “anti-war” faction of the party—which is a sizable minority, especially in a caucus state like Iowa…and especially after five years of war under President Bush.
After the win in Iowa is when it took off.
That’s six months away from now. And it wasn’t until after the NH primary that AA Superdelegates and votes began shifting to Obama.
At this time, Sanders is running second in Iowa.
October 2007 Gallup
Blah, blah, blah — because they got it wrong.
Why do you expect me not to present facts/history when you keep repeating a propaganda line that Sanders has created an AA voter problem for himself? And historical revision that Obama was a winning coalition nailed for himself nailed down by August 2007? Considering the history of the Clintons, why would any AA voter consider voting for them?
Yep. The earliest analysis I recall that made a cohesive, pragmatic argument that Sen. Obama could win was Al Giordano’s late September 2007 essay in the late, lamented Boston Phoenix. http://thephoenix.com/boston/news/48290-damn-you-barack-obama/
If he does well in the IA, NH, and SC then I’ll think he’s for real just like I did in 2008 for Obama.
We’ll see if Sanders can pull in the other parts of the Democratic coalition
By August 2007. I said it was starting to build and after the Iowa primary is when he took off. Your assumptions regarding what I posted doesn’t make it fact
Also by August 2007 the Iowa polls specifically said Obama was neck in neck with Clinton and Edwards, a far cry from where Bernie is right now (behind Clinton by 27%)
2007 poll
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/02/AR2007080202621.html
Poll from today
http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/2015/PPP_Release_IA_81015.pdf
As far as Bernie with AA voters it isn’t propaganda to say he trails Clinton badly in that demographic. You may not like it or understand but that doesn’t change the fact that he does.
If you ever read any black dominated blogs one takeaway I have from them is that Bernie calling for Obama to be primaried in 2011 left an indelible impression that he has to work to overcome.
A good 98% of the faces I see in the pix and videos of Bernie rallies are white, so it does appear he has plenty of work to do to get more broad-based support.
Haven’t seen the pix/video of his L.A. rally last night where he got great turnout, presumably 98% white. That venue, btw, is in a heavily minority area of central L.A., the site of the 1960 Dem Convention, right next to USC. If he had much minority backing, they would have been right next door, within walking distance, easy for organizers to bring in by the hundreds and thousands.
Bernie has a ways to go, and it’s only the summer when plenty of people are undecided or soft in their support, taking a look at a couple of Dem candidates (Walter O’Malley, Jimmy Webb and that other guy aren’t registering right now, and likely never will). The early primary/caucus states — overwhelmingly white, liberal or protest states — however do favor The Bern so if he can continue the enthusiasm and show well there, maybe winning both, suddenly the race could get interesting.
A trust deficit he has with African-Americans. A deficit he built himself when he suggested Obama in 2011 that Obama should be primaried, something he never suggested for Bill Clinton.
If you read any predominantly black blogs that hasn’t been forgotten. That is why I said he needs to work to win over a sizable chunk of the Obama coalition. Until he does that he doesn’t have a chance at the nomination let alone the election.
Although I still think his age will preclude him from getting elected. For that matter Hillary’s age is problematic as well, just not to the degree of Bernie’s.
Really? I’m pretty much on top of the news and this is the first time I heard this. Not doubting you that Bernie would suggest a sitting President be primaried for his second term, by 2011 it was pretty obvious he wasn’t a Kenyan socialist at all but a conservative Dem, but this idea that blacks resented Sanders wasn’t floating in the ether at all.
I think after the fact that BLM chapters began interrupting his rallies that people who use logic are compelled to try to think of a logical reason for their actions. But, no, that isn’t it.
As opposed to that bloom of youth, Mrs. Clinton?
Her age is a concern of mine as well. She in younger by 6 years but I still think her age is going to work against her. Just not as much as his will.
I believe that the relevant word is momentum.
The rallies are for the Bernie base. Getting them solid creates a base of support.
Remember that Washington State holds both caucuses and a primary. Only the Republicans use the primary results to choose some of their delegates. The Democrats rely solely on a series of caucuses to choose their delegates. The state is made of more than just Bernie supporters. There are large areas where he won’t gain enough traction to win delegates at every level. He will do fine in parts of Seattle and a few pockets of very blue areas of the state, but the moderate Dem base of the suburbs will go with other candidates. It’s harder to get people to show up for caucuses than people think. They’re long and boring and challenging to run. Bernie supporters are probably more passionate about their candidate than others will be, so the ones that bother to show up, will stick it out till the end. That said, BooMan is right…the delegates get chosen late in the cycle, which makes them less relevant.
I will defer to your better knowledge of Washington State, but the most solid base for Clinton, middle-aged liberal suburban women, were well-represented at the Portland rally last night and the ones I talked with HAD been Clinton fans but have moved to Bernie.
The same is true pretty much everywhere. The senior aged women who supported Hillary and Edwards in 08 never really got on board with Obama. They held their noses to vote for him. Bernie is much more aligned with their beliefs.