[Megathread] Bernie Sanders 2016

[Celista]

Woot, Wyoming! Go Bernie! <3

Clinton's lead in PA has pretty much evaporated, but she's still leading in CA by a fairly large margin. I don't see it turning around there. Perhaps he could make the argument if he wins all the states leading up to CA, but I don't see that happening either.


Unless of course Clinton appears in the Panama Papers :P

Six percent lead is not "by a fairly large margin". That being said, I think Hillary is going to win NY.

[Deleted]

Bernie won Wyoming as expected today, but not nearly by the predicted margins: only 56% to 44%. That actually puts him a couple delegates further behind his target.

And wow, only about 400 people participated in the caucus.

The surge in Sanders support is constantly being minimized in the media by his opponents.

The truth is that started from nowhere and was expected to get at most 1% of the vote as the vast majority of third-party candidates achieved in us electoral history. At no stage of this election has his support not grown despite constantly being written off.

[DisposableHero]

So you are going to steal people's money so that a bunch of college kids can stay unemployed with useless degrees and contribute nothing to society?

No, the idea is to as a society educate the populace, because higher education and the pursuit of knowledge has been the basis for scientific and social advancement for as long as there has been recorded history. It does not need to directly feed industry to promote prosperity. This is another a Reagan's great lies.

https://www.dissentmagazine.org/arti...gher-education

[McCulloch]

So because Wyoming has weird caucus rules, Bernie won Wyoming by 11% or so, but he and Hillary both got 7 delegates. It's basically like Wyoming didn't even happen.

[derpkitteh]

No, the idea is to as a society educate the populace, because higher education and the pursuit of knowledge has been the basis for scientific and social advancement for as long as there has been recorded history. It does not need to directly feed industry to promote prosperity. This is another a Reagan's great lies.

https://www.dissentmagazine.org/arti...gher-education

swear to god, reagan was one of the worst fucking things to happen to this country.

the bastard created the taliban, aided in making central and south america even more of a shitshow, propagated the biggest scam in the history of mankind with trickle down economics.

no clue why people practically deify him.

[Gray_Matter]

But he will win CA by 90-10, duh! THATS HIS PATH TO THE NOMINATION!!! GET WITH THE TIMES HE'LL DO IT!!! WHO CARES ABOUT POLLS AND MATH AND STUFF IT'S ALL WRONG - Half of the bernie sanders supporters on the bernie sanders reddit

They believe he's already won CA by huge margins, no matter what happens.

That's why Sydano asked, because he actually believe's its fully possible for him to win a 76-24 split in CA (Which is so unbelievably unrealistic it's not even a good joke). At best he could maybe win by a few pts, that is AT BEST. Even if he were ahead 10 pts nationally, he'd probably still only win by about 5 pts maybe?

For him to win CA by those margins, the race nationally would probably need to be somewhere in the 80-20 margins for Sanders, which it isn't. Even if it's tied nationally, she's still projected to win by a few pts.

Sanders supporters are clinging to this idea that CA will save their campaign, and that it'll be a landslide victory, I beg you, use math and reason to understand that it just isn't possible.

In order to win by 50 points Bernie would need to convince 1 million of the voters that are probably or likely to vote for Clinton that they should vote for him. It's almost impossible. I think that California will fall a little bit more towards Bernie. Maybe even as much as 10% but even that's going to be a really tough ask.

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Bernie won Wyoming as expected today, but not nearly by the predicted margins: only 56% to 44%. That actually puts him a couple delegates further behind his target.

And wow, only about 400 people participated in the caucus.

Delegates were divided evenly 7-7. He was behind his targets assuming that he was on track and was way behind the target for his current position (26% win margin). Overall, not a good day for him.

[Vynestra]

In order to win by 50 points Bernie would need to convince 1 million of the voters that are probably or likely to vote for Clinton that they should vote for him. It's almost impossible. I think that California will fall a little bit more towards Bernie. Maybe even as much as 10% but even that's going to be a really tough ask.

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Delegates were divided evenly 7-7. He was behind his targets assuming that he was on track and was way behind the target for his current position (26% win margin). Overall, not a good day for him.

He won't win CA by 10% unless something catastrophic happens, which even then i'm not sure.

I think she'd have to die or something.

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Clinton's lead in PA has pretty much evaporated, but she's still leading in CA by a fairly large margin. I don't see it turning around there. Perhaps he could make the argument if he wins all the states leading up to CA, but I don't see that happening either.


Unless of course Clinton appears in the Panama Papers :P

Well one poll has her at a 6% lead and another at 22%. Quinnipiac also has some bias for Sanders, and most of their polls have been wrong in the sense they're giving too much to Sanders.

For example, they had Clinton ahead 5% in Ohio, she won by 15, AND that was an open primary. They're very Sanders biased, they are almost never accurate in terms of where he is, usually giving him too much percent.

PA will more than likely follow the 15-20% polls, just because if you take away independents in Ohio Clinton would have won by 20-25% which her margins might be in PA.

So no, he hasn't erased her lead.

[Shadowferal]

You've been correct as often as the polls and pundits have.

Meaning not ever.

[Vynestra]

You've been correct as often as the polls and pundits have.

Meaning not ever.

I've been correct in all but Michigan, yes?

Oh sorry I was wrong about Wisconsin, I thought Bernie was easily going to win. I was wrong, he got sweeped. Whoopsies.

And while I didn't post it, I was expecting a large Wyoming win today, so I was wrong there too.

Seems like the majority of time i'm giving too much credit to Bernie? That's weird.


In fact most of the time i've been wrong, Hillary has out-performed what I thought she would. That can't be a bad thing in any case.

[Fugus]

Clinton's lead in PA has pretty much evaporated, but she's still leading in CA by a fairly large margin. I don't see it turning around there. Perhaps he could make the argument if he wins all the states leading up to CA, but I don't see that happening either.


Unless of course Clinton appears in the Panama Papers :P

From what I have heard, the Panama Papers have been heavily censored to the point even Wikileaks have been shit talking them for holding so much back.

If Clinton was in them, I am not sure we would find out. But even then, doubt she would be THAT stupid to actually try that while trying to run for president. That would be Darwin Award level stupidity there.

Now, if Sanders was in those things, Pretty much every news station in the nation would have it on blast at least 10 times per day every day till June just for good measure.

[Vynestra]

We're going to hear "We've won 8 out of the 9 past contests" forever. And then if he loses NY "we've won 8 out of the past 10 contests"

We're not going to stop hearing that til June.

Momentum is not as magical as people think, look back at Michigan, he had HUGE momentum after Michigan, but failed to carry it into the next 5 stats.

Momentum does not matter nearly as much as people think. It just doesn't, demographics do, statistics do, math does.

Demographics have predicted a TON more than any sort of momentum has.

Once again, I prefer to be on the side of demographics and math, than momentum. Wins in one state doesn't carry over to the next, clearly, it's been demonstrated with Michigan.

[Vynestra]

Did you also predict Sanders would flip Nevada after the initial caucus? I'm just keeping a running tally.

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The biggest thing that might hurt Sanders and Trump both in NY is the closed Primary and the fact you had to change party affiliation back in October or something crazy like that. However, he has significantly closed the gap in the polls and has 10 days to improve it.

No I didn't predict Sanders would flip Nevada. But it was what, a change in 2 delegates?

I like to look at states demographics and polling, not flipping 2 delegates in the county/state level conventions.

And like i've said earlier -- He didn't take away from her support, he's just taken more undecideds, she still has a base of about 53-55% of NY voters.

That's what he needs to do, take away from her base, if he doesn't, she will end up with 55-60% more than likely.

Also MoE.

[Gray_Matter]

We're going to hear "We've won 8 out of the 9 past contests" forever. And then if he loses NY "we've won 8 out of the past 10 contests"

We're not going to stop hearing that til June.

Momentum is not as magical as people think, look back at Michigan, he had HUGE momentum after Michigan, but failed to carry it into the next 5 stats.

Momentum does not matter nearly as much as people think. It just doesn't, demographics do, statistics do, math does.

Demographics have predicted a TON more than any sort of momentum has.

Once again, I prefer to be on the side of demographics and math, than momentum. Wins in one state doesn't carry over to the next, clearly, it's been demonstrated with Michigan.

Momentum has actually worked against Bernie more often than not. Every time he starts building up momentum, it's like that's a signal for the Clinton supporters to get out and vote. His problem is that it tends to happen with the big states with lots of delegates.

[Vynestra]

Momentum has actually worked against Bernie more often than not. Every time he starts building up momentum, it's like that's a signal for the Clinton supporters to get out and vote. His problem is that it tends to happen with the big states with lots of delegates.

Yeah his 8/9 victories is lighting a fire under Clinton NY supporters, two new polls show a 16 and 18 point lead.

Of course i've heard people said Michigan she had a 20 pt lead, but that was an open primary, NY is closed.

Also, Michigan is the exception not the rule, she also performed way better in Wymoning than expected (probably because of his "momentum").

Most polling in close primaries has been very spot on leading up to the primary, but the important part of this polling still shows her BASE in NY is about 53-55%, that is the important thing -- If he doesn't start cutting into that soon, he will lose NY and the primary with it.

Sanders has a lot more to lose in NY than Clinton has to gain, she can still have a tie or a very small loss and win the primary (despite people saying the media would kill her campaign and momentum would sweep Bernie to victory), because it takes like 241 delegates off the table of what Sanders can then make up.

However I think she'll win be a decent margin, and it'll hurt Sanders a ton if he loses by even 10%. It'll just make what he needs to do in other states even more ridiculous and crazy, and if he loses a lot of the following big states in the week after, really it's pretty much game over.

I did see some Sanders supporters on reddit already starting to say things like "Even if we lose we started a revolution", I'm glad some of them are starting to see the writing on the wall.

[Matchles]

You've been correct as often as the polls and pundits have.

Meaning not ever.

Well there goes that narrative.

http://election.princeton.edu/2016/0...or-prediction/

Are Democratic primary polls accurate? In individual states they are good, with a few exceptions. At an aggregated level, they are remarkably accurate. The delegate-weighted polling margin has a total error of 3.1%. This is better accuracy than one would expect from the reputation of polling these days.

[Vynestra]

Well there goes that narrative.

http://election.princeton.edu/2016/0...or-prediction/

Oh look, in closed non caucus primaries the polls are very accurate! What a novel idea, it's almost like ive been saying that the entire time.

Caucuses are hard to poll, they also favor Sanders.

And open primaries make it a bit difficult because of account for the amount of independents that will vote.

Closed however are usually spot on, because they can estimate the turn out based on previous elections (Michigan they didn't have that for 08 because of the mess-up with Obama on it) and it's only democrats, they don't have to worry about independents.

Hm, but clearly i'm still wrong, right?


Okay Shadowferal what do you have next? What shit will you throw at the wall to see if it sticks? Come on, go on, i'm ready.

[Deleted]

Momentum has actually worked against Bernie more often than not. Every time he starts building up momentum, it's like that's a signal for the Clinton supporters to get out and vote. His problem is that it tends to happen with the big states with lots of delegates.

Do you have any actual facts and examples to back up these words?

[Skroe]

We're going to hear "We've won 8 out of the 9 past contests" forever. And then if he loses NY "we've won 8 out of the past 10 contests"

We're not going to stop hearing that til June.

Momentum is not as magical as people think, look back at Michigan, he had HUGE momentum after Michigan, but failed to carry it into the next 5 stats.

Momentum does not matter nearly as much as people think. It just doesn't, demographics do, statistics do, math does.

Demographics have predicted a TON more than any sort of momentum has.

Once again, I prefer to be on the side of demographics and math, than momentum. Wins in one state doesn't carry over to the next, clearly, it's been demonstrated with Michigan.

I think it's worth pointing out, Clinton supporters didn't do "she won 5 primaries in one day and swept Sanders" or variations there of.

I gotta, once this election is over, the shoddy nature of Sanders supporters will require more examination. I've been a political person for some time and not even the Obama people were this bad. The cloest analog is the Ron Paul crowd, of which I suspect there is substantial overlap with sections of the Sanderistas.

What do I mean by "this bad"? I mean the actual mechanics of winning an election in a data driven way. Case in point, Sanders has failed, despite over 4 months of concerted effort at this point, to broaden his base beyond the 20-something to mid 30s White, Liberal crowd. It hasn't happened. Sanders has failed to tell a story that brings minorities, the older, the moderate, women, or Republicans like me disgusted with the Republican party. We've all gone to Clinton.

Now we can discuss about Sanders' one off attempts, like getting an endorsement from Spike Lee, or a meeting with Al Sharpton. But the cumulative effect has been a big fat zero. It is mid april, and the "BernieBro" is still a very real and accurate assessment of who votes Sanders.

Sanders supporters, when faced with this, when faced with massive strategic failures on the part of his campaign, when faced with polling thats barely moved, are deafer and dumber to it than I've seen any political movement. It's denial. It's like they don't wan tto hear the bad news. They challenge the poll, or they messager, or double down on an offering for the momentum fairy, but it's almost like they think that, like the sun, if they look at Sanders' campaign too closely, they'll go blind.

The Mitt Romney 2012 Campaign fell into a similar kind of circlejerk, and they were certain, up until results came in, that they had Obama beat. It seems ridiculous not, looking at the numbers, but the koolaid and self-criticism was so non-existent, immedietly the failure of their strategy and analytics team became apparently. Most of those jokers had their reputations ruined.

Which brings me to point point: do Sanderistas actually want to win or what? Like really win. Or do they want to make a point. Because for months now they've mistaken a critical eye to what sanders is doing, his mistakes, and what he needs to do to win as being showing weakness. It's not showing weakness at all. It's running a campaign that is capable of course correction because every campaign in the history of man has had to do that in order to win.

WHen Sanders is out, he will be gracious. His supporters won't be. They'll ascribe it to corruption or superdelegates, anything but the fact that, as far as campaigns go, Sanders simply didn't get the delegates nor did he get the popular vote, of which as of right now he's 2.4 million votes behind Hillary. It won't have been some scheme that sees Sanders lose. It'll be because his supporters rather throw arguing and political chaff into the sky rather than look at why Sanders team can count to it's credit so few political endorsement, or have a ground game in highly populated states that seriously threatens Clinton.

But this seems to be a recurring theme. Being disgusted with politics... being disgusted with the mechanisms of our our deeply flawed democracy, in no way implies that a political candidate or movement has a license to be utterly and hoplessly talentless at politics. This hooks into something I wrote in the NASA thread: in political matters, insurgents don't have the choice of the battlefield. They have to fight and win at somebody elses game by being that much better.

Obama was in 2008. He did it using the most advanced and sophisticated campaign technology the world had seen at that point, extremely high resolution analytics and an innovative ground game. Clinton won an old school campaign that was barely more sophisticated than Gore's 2000 campaign, and got trounced. In 2016, she's mostly hired Obama's people. Because she learned from her mistakes.

Bernie Sanders has enthusiasm, but it can't make up for fundamental failures in politicking that his supporters have waved off now for four months. When he loses, it'll be there, and his supporters should have demanded higher standards.

I guess that's my overall message to Sanderistas - just because you like a guy, doesn't mean you should look past the fact that he actually has to run a capable campaign in order to win. Of the four major candidates, he's run the worst. Trump has capitalized off his media presence to run one of the most economical campaigns in modern times. Ted Cruz is basically running the Obama playbook for Republicans, and is the most sophisticated REPUBLICAN campaign see yet. Clinton is running Obama's an evolved version of 2008/2012 playbook, and sanders is counting on enthusiasm of a crowd, small donations and waving his hands in speeches.

You folks should have asked for more. He may be saying things you like, but what will that amount to if the mechanisms of his effort are so shoddy?

[Caolela]

Clinton is running Obama's an evolved version of 2008/2012 playbook, ...

Which will result in the same ignored campaign promises, obfuscation, and feel-good talk as we got from Obama, while what she'll actually do is Bush Redux - Part IV, New & Improved!™; Obama having been Bush III.

Wall St., mega-corporations, and warmongers uber alles.

Your long-winded diatribes fool no one.

[infinitemeridian]

I think it's worth pointing out, Clinton supporters didn't do "she won 5 primaries in one day and swept Sanders" or variations there of.

I gotta, once this election is over, the shoddy nature of Sanders supporters will require more examination. I've been a political person for some time and not even the Obama people were this bad. The cloest analog is the Ron Paul crowd, of which I suspect there is substantial overlap with sections of the Sanderistas.

What do I mean by "this bad"? I mean the actual mechanics of winning an election in a data driven way. Case in point, Sanders has failed, despite over 4 months of concerted effort at this point, to broaden his base beyond the 20-something to mid 30s White, Liberal crowd. It hasn't happened. Sanders has failed to tell a story that brings minorities, the older, the moderate, women, or Republicans like me disgusted with the Republican party. We've all gone to Clinton.

Now we can discuss about Sanders' one off attempts, like getting an endorsement from Spike Lee, or a meeting with Al Sharpton. But the cumulative effect has been a big fat zero. It is mid april, and the "BernieBro" is still a very real and accurate assessment of who votes Sanders.

Sanders supporters, when faced with this, when faced with massive strategic failures on the part of his campaign, when faced with polling thats barely moved, are deafer and dumber to it than I've seen any political movement. It's denial. It's like they don't wan tto hear the bad news. They challenge the poll, or they messager, or double down on an offering for the momentum fairy, but it's almost like they think that, like the sun, if they look at Sanders' campaign too closely, they'll go blind.

The Mitt Romney 2012 Campaign fell into a similar kind of circlejerk, and they were certain, up until results came in, that they had Obama beat. It seems ridiculous not, looking at the numbers, but the koolaid and self-criticism was so non-existent, immedietly the failure of their strategy and analytics team became apparently. Most of those jokers had their reputations ruined.

Which brings me to point point: do Sanderistas actually want to win or what? Like really win. Or do they want to make a point. Because for months now they've mistaken a critical eye to what sanders is doing, his mistakes, and what he needs to do to win as being showing weakness. It's not showing weakness at all. It's running a campaign that is capable of course correction because every campaign in the history of man has had to do that in order to win.

WHen Sanders is out, he will be gracious. His supporters won't be. They'll ascribe it to corruption or superdelegates, anything but the fact that, as far as campaigns go, Sanders simply didn't get the delegates nor did he get the popular vote, of which as of right now he's 2.4 million votes behind Hillary. It won't have been some scheme that sees Sanders lose. It'll be because his supporters rather throw arguing and political chaff into the sky rather than look at why Sanders team can count to it's credit so few political endorsement, or have a ground game in highly populated states that seriously threatens Clinton.

But this seems to be a recurring theme. Being disgusted with politics... being disgusted with the mechanisms of our our deeply flawed democracy, in no way implies that a political candidate or movement has a license to be utterly and hoplessly talentless at politics. This hooks into something I wrote in the NASA thread: in political matters, insurgents don't have the choice of the battlefield. They have to fight and win at somebody elses game by being that much better.

Obama was in 2008. He did it using the most advanced and sophisticated campaign technology the world had seen at that point, extremely high resolution analytics and an innovative ground game. Clinton won an old school campaign that was barely more sophisticated than Gore's 2000 campaign, and got trounced. In 2016, she's mostly hired Obama's people. Because she learned from her mistakes.

Bernie Sanders has enthusiasm, but it can't make up for fundamental failures in politicking that his supporters have waved off now for four months. When he loses, it'll be there, and his supporters should have demanded higher standards.

I guess that's my overall message to Sanderistas - just because you like a guy, doesn't mean you should look past the fact that he actually has to run a capable campaign in order to win. Of the four major candidates, he's run the worst. Trump has capitalized off his media presence to run one of the most economical campaigns in modern times. Ted Cruz is basically running the Obama playbook for Republicans, and is the most sophisticated REPUBLICAN campaign see yet. Clinton is running Obama's an evolved version of 2008/2012 playbook, and sanders is counting on enthusiasm of a crowd, small donations and waving his hands in speeches.

You folks should have asked for more. He may be saying things you like, but what will that amount to if the mechanisms of his effort are so shoddy?

I'm curious, what exactly would you have wanted (not wanted?) to see from Sanders that would have improved his campaign? Just to me, it doesn't look like he's running it any differently than anybody else, other than the contributions. He just doesn't have the support, which has been his downfall. But in terms of strategy, I'm not quite sure what Hillary is doing so differently.