We tried running a moderate last time it didn't work. In fact, all the moderates we have run this century failed. Gore- lost Kerry- lost Obama- won by running on a progressive hope and change message Clinton- lost. Clearly we need a progressive to encourage high turnout in order to win. This strategy of running moderates in order to appeal to centrists and conservatives is a loser. Why would we use the same losing strategy when we have a very popular progressive who has been fighting for positive reform all of his long career?

Bloomberg is a particularly unlikable moderate because he is an authoritarian republican plutocrat. Stop and frisk makes me very unpopular with African Americans and Americans who have morals. He has more sexual assault allegations than Trump. He is good friends with Trump. He donated millions to the campaigns of republican candidates as recently as 2018. He endorsed George Bush while onstage at the 2004 republican national convention. There are literally millions of democratic voters who will never under any circumstances defile themselves with a vote for the Bloomer.

With each passing week we get more evidence that the idea that Sanders isn't electable is nothing more than a myth. He is the most popular Senator in the nation. He made history by being the first person from either party to win all three of the first states in the primary. He is way ahead in all of the polls. He has an army of enthusiastic supporters willing to do whatever it takes to win. He is leading with people of color. People trust him the most on the most important issue of this election, healthcare. He has energized the youth vote. He does very well with working class voters of the rust belt which is the exact demographic which caused Hillary to lose. He is outside of the establishment and has been an independent for most of his career and independents like that so he does well with them. He can take voters away from Trump because he too is a populist who appeals to working class voters who feel left behind. He is shattering individual donor records and people love the fact that he is funded by the people rather than by the special interests. He is filling stadiums when he gives speeches. It's a very long list.

Why is he undetectable? People fear socialism. Well those people will be voting republican regardless. He is old and had a heart procedure. Yes but he is clearly in very good mental and physical shape. He is more energetic and holding more speaking events than some of the younger candidates. That's really all that is against him. He doesn't have any real scandals. He has massive consistency and integrity. More and more of the people who say they like him but don't support him because he isn't electable are realizing that he is actually electable and switching their support to him and it is creating a snowball effect.

@RoboGraham Excellent points.
I certainly hope you're right.
I'm not married to Mike...I like them all.
Obama won because of Iraq, the Great Recession, and McCain refused to throw the ravenous Pubs raw meat.
Plus he came on like a moderate in the Bill Clinton vein. Plus of course he's multi-racial and blacks turned out in droves.
Bernie is nominally Jewish, but in fact is agnostic and/or 'non-religious.'
This is great, as far as I'm concerned, but not so great for anyone religious, including lots of Independents.
Sure Trump isn't religious either, but he's conveniently anti-abortion and anti-gay so that doesn't count.
So he'll get no crossover votes, and fewer independent votes than otherwise would be the case.
And many Democrats are religious and would be turned off.
His only hope would be to inspire many other normally apathetic Democratic voters (for whom religion or lack thereof is not an issue) to actually get off their butts and VOTE.
Will they?
If he's the nominee, let's hope so.
There is also he comes off as a stars-in-his-eyes dreamer, not a serious politician.
Don't get me wrong: I agree with everything he says.
But I can imagine the Republican Propaganda Attack Machine can hardly wait to get their wagging tongues on godless communist Bernie.

Running as an independent would be least best option for him, but it takes time to form a party.

@1of5 ... and it dampens personal ambition of wanting to be president. Bernie knows he cannot win his own and he knows too that he could do more good to his cause by not running for president. But people smell what is going on here. It is more about his wanting to be president that starting and strengthening the movement. I for one just smell selfishness. in Bernie.

@St-Sinner I dunno what it is. At 78 he should be grooming a successor. No one lives forever but ideas and systems can far outlive an individual and help institute that vision for generations.

It's true that he more resembles an older style Democrat than a modern one. But he also resembles an even older, pre 1900's Republican. Political parties change over time just like everything else does. His ideas and ideals aren't new or radical and there is and should be a place for those.

The Democratic party isn't it. I don't know how they could make it clearer.

Bernies support exists within the party, of that there is no doubt. But I'd bet that most of them would follow him to another party if he created one. Happily so, I'd think. You read what they write about them?

Communism/socialism have been associated with the left forever. The cold war - which got hot more than once - pitted capitalism against those "godless evil" (shoring up the church) tyrannical systems. This, IMO, over time, blood, and treasure forced the left to the center and the right further right (and capitalistic). Its time an actual organized left party existed, and Sanders could make it.

But he fucking wont.

Yup

American presidency is not about ideas, plans, visions. It is a beauty contest. But crazy ideas would sure make you look ugly.

@St-Sinner

Are democracy and not being corrupt crazy ideas to you?

@RoboGraham
No, but you know what crazy ideas I am talking about.

@St-Sinner

The crazy ideas I'm talking about are the acceptance of big donor bribes and willingness to declare the winner of the nomination to be someone other than the candidate who gets the most votes. These ideas are held by every candidate except for Bernie.

That sort of corrupt undemocratic behavior does make a candidate look ugly int the eyes of most voters.

@RoboGraham
No, we all hope that the world is and this race is as idealistic as you want it to be. But it is not. That is what I have been urging you to understand.... for so long now.

@St-Sinner

Lack of corruption and support of democracy is ideology to you?

Well I suppose it is. Any ideology which does not include those two characteristics is a shit ideology.

@RoboGraham
Snap out of it!

@St-Sinner

Have some standards.

@RoboGraham
You are running and there is a cliff ahead of you. I am telling you to stop. Ask anybody. My act can be only viewed as kind.

@St-Sinner

Kindly reexamine your intellectually bankrupt stance toward social democracy.

@RoboGraham
I just heard the word "socialism" out of Bernie's mouth years ago. So did the voters across the country. So now are you going to ask us all to read a book to understand the difference? Do you think they will do it?

In politics, perceptions matter. Not hearts or not what is in your head. The damage was done by Bernie when he said.. "I am a socialist." This cannot be undone, no matter how hard you will continue to explain, run ads, hold seminars, do YouTube, write articles. American voters are not in the academia. You have to really understand how things work on the ground.

@St-Sinner

The way things work on the ground- Bernie Sanders the "socialist" has organized a mass movement of enthusiastic people putting in the time, effort, and money to create positive change and fix this rigged economy. The big scary socialism word is not preventing him from dominating the party and it will not prevent him from beating the fascist in the white house.

@RoboGraham

Please do not confuse the enthusiasm in the choir with the general election. Trump and the conservatives have not even started taking bites of their prey yet. When the prey is weak, predator gets it quickly.

Bloomberg is going to be funding the Democratic canidate, so if Bernie doesn't want his money he can't be the dem canidate. Or he'll need to backtrack and accept it, and be funded by a billionaire. How'd that look?

We need to remember that Mikey solves one, huge, gigantic, long term issue the dems have - republicans are nearly always much better funded. Remove fundraising from the equation and suddenly you don't need to spend energy on that, it all can be spent on getting votes.

@1of5

Why is it assumed that the plutocrat absolutely will be funding the nominee? Either Bernie will take the bribes from the billionaire or not be nominee? That's a fair dichotomy. These are not the only two options. He can be nominee and not take the money.

The lack of corruption, the lack of being beholden to a plutocrat is worth more in PR than the money itself.

@RoboGraham Bloomberg has said he will do whatever it takes to unseat Trump with anyone. He will spend the money, the dem establishment will take it, and Bernie will be funded by a billionaire.

Not that it matters, they're laying the groundwork to deny him the nomination anyways.

@1of5

I have a suspicion that the Bloomer won't be willing to fund the guy who is guaranteed to raise his taxes.

I have no doubt that they will do all they can to deny him the nomination. If he gets the most votes but the nomination goes to some other candidate, the anti-democratic party will wither. My generation and those younger than me will not tolerate elites subverting the will of the people.

@RoboGraham Mike's got money to burn and knows he could be taxed at 75% and it wouldn't affect his lifestyle one tiny iota. Mike also knows that the only way he can keep making money hand over fist is in a capitalistic system, not a Trump kleptocracy.

He's smart enough to see that no matter what happens he's going to lose money. He's opposed to Trump and Trump will make sure that the corruption flows against Bloomberg instead of to him.

EDIT: I suspect he decided to run himself because buying the presidency for himself is cheaper than buying it for any non Trump + a bunch of congressmen.

Gosh, I dunno...maybe so he doesn't get the nomination (like last time) and by the time he doesn't (which he won't) it's to late for him to mount an effective campaign in the general.

The DNC made him sign a pledge to run as a dem, remember? They don't trust him and...for fucks sake, are you actually claiming the DNC wants him to run? ROFLMAO

Letting someone play and allowing them to win, in politics, are 2 vastly different things.

@1of5 I'm suggesting they don't want him outside of the Democratic party, because it would split the vote too much, pretty much guaranteeing a Republican win. I suspect they regard it as a much greater risk than if Sanders is the Democratic nominee. Although I still think they don't want him to be.

Why would DNC allow? To play safe, not turn voters off, not matter how small a percentage and hope crazy candidates would fade away.

@bingst I'm suggesting they do. Siphoning off slightly conservative voters from the moderate republicans camp with a very palpable slightly conservative canidate - people who would never vote for Bernie - could, per thier internal numbers, lead them to believe that they'll get higher turnout/votes than Bernie would give them.

There are many ways to get votes. If I have 3 voters I need 2 votes to win. The Bernie camp is saying "we'll get 5 to vote and 3 of them will be for us, so we win", while the dem party thinks it'll be easier to switch one of the 3 to them, since that's actually easier than getting 2 more people to vote the way you want them too.

Stealing a vote from the other guy is thier strategy - shit, watch them do it at the convention.

Oh, and yes, Bernie voters may sit the election out - which means they won't vote for Trump either. The dems calculations are that more will switch to Trump than sit out.

Trumps actual victory count in the electoral college was under 100,000 voters. Thats not an insurmountable number to flip. So that's what thier strategy is.