Sanders Downsizes Campaign

iguanaman said:

LOL And Christie shook Obama's hand after Sandy too. You keep confirming that you are as nuts as the right wingers. And of course you think Hillary would pick the same SC Justices as Trump I suppose.

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Yep, you're trolling.

FieldTheorist said:

Yeah, Donald Trump is going to pull off a certain number of Sanders supporters, and he's going to do an exceedingly good job at it. If you don't think that Donald Trump is going to start talking about income inequality (he'll phrase it as "bad deals" for Americans) and how Hillary Clinton supported the trade deals, then you'll be making the same mistake that the RNC made --and without the excuse for why you couldn't have foreseen it.

What the Hillary bubble doesn't seem to understand that is that rather than yelling at Sanders supporters to toe the line because they won, they should be doing what every president has done during the end stretch of a primary time immemorial, which is position herself to become attractive enough to Sanders supporters that she secures their vote going forward. Instead, she's "triangulating" like Bill did. The problem? We're not in 1992 anymore. What she's actually doing is dousing half of the Democratic base and making the Democratic-voting bloc of the Independents exceedingly angry. And for Clintonites to complain about how awful the Sanders supporters are just re-affirms the bubble that they live in: The Democratic party keeps on losing members precisely because they feel left behind by the Democratic party. Democratic politicians like Hillary are the reason why Independents are now the largest (non)affiliation, and why the number of Independents increases every year. The Democratic party continues to move to the Right of America, and increasingly people feel left behind by the DNC (and, honestly, they should). So yelling at them to get in line is a terrible, terrible tactic that does nothing but strengthen Donald Trump's bid for presidency.

The DNC and the so-called loyalists shouldn't get themselves confused over this. They are the ones who are helping Donald Trump's bid for presidency, not anyone else. It's literally Hillary's job to convince Sanders voters, left-wing independents, etc, why they should vote for her. If you or any other "loyalist" doesn't understand this point, then you better brace yourselves for a Trump presidency because that's right where we're headed.

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We'll see. If she still winds a resounding victory in November what do you think will have been wrong with your analysis (if anything)?

Sherman123 said:

We'll see. If she still winds a resounding victory in November what do you think will have been wrong with your analysis (if anything)?

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Firstly, she needs to stop bloviating about how she won 2 million more votes (for starters, that's not including caucus states, so it's not even a truly representative number, then you have the fact that most Sanders supporters are irritated by the entire establishment having her back and the non-voters based advantage that she had). She desperately needs to turn off the attack campaigns and the mudslinging; no one is confused about who's giving the orders for those, so it just hurts her to keep those going. Save it for Trump, she'll need it then.

Secondly, she's going to have to absorb some of Sanders positions, or she'll continue to even her odds with Trump. And by "absorb," I don't mean re-phrase her currently watered-down policies on "universal" healthcare or college (both of which are basically just Obamacare and our current educational system as they currently stand, with at best a tiny bit more funding). I mean two things: Take a couple of Sanders' key positions, truly absorb them, and then start talking about them. Hillary is very unbelievable (whether she's serious or not, who knows) when she says "I support X" right before a group votes that X is important to, and then never talks about it again after group X votes.

Another possibility, which would be to her political advantage, is that she could choose Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders as her running mate, though these seem less likely --but it would be a case where VP would genuinely secure her position in the national election. If she really did that, she would actually lock up the election, the combination of Millennials, blacks, latinos, and women whilst shoring up Independents would quite literally doom Donald Trump to the point of no return.


I don't know if she's waiting to do this until after the convention, she's not realistically in a position where she can just ignore Sanders supporters and literally openly say like she did on Rachel Maddow's town hall that Sanders must endorse her without conditions. This isn't 2008, where Hillary and Obama essentially had largely similar policy positions. When 16% of voters in New York, and even larger percentages of voters in other states say that they won't vote for her --many crucial swing states, and even more crucially independent voters-- then that's a potential loss she shouldn't even be entertaining. If she keeps on campaigning like it's 2000, we'll get the same results as 2000.

Sanders has never had a chance. he has my vote, though, and i respect him for staying in long enough to force Hillary Clinton left. i think that it will have almost zero impact on her presidency, but it reminds some of us what we want, and that there are (albeit very few) candidates who agree that America could benefit from being a worker-centric nation with the first world social programs which have existed for decades in other nations. he's basically the left's Ron Paul, or possibly the Ross Perot of this race.

FieldTheorist said:

Firstly, she needs to stop bloviating about how she won 2 million more votes (for starters, that's not including caucus states, so it's not even a truly representative number, then you have the fact that most Sanders supporters are irritated by the entire establishment having her back and the non-voters based advantage that she had). She desperately needs to turn off the attack campaigns and the mudslinging; no one is confused about who's giving the orders for those, so it just hurts her to keep those going. Save it for Trump, she'll need it then.

Secondly, she's going to have to absorb some of Sanders positions, or she'll continue to even her odds with Trump. And by "absorb," I don't mean re-phrase her currently watered-down policies on "universal" healthcare or college (both of which are basically just Obamacare and our current educational system as they currently stand, with at best a tiny bit more funding). I mean two things: Take a couple of Sanders' key positions, truly absorb them, and then start talking about them. Hillary is very unbelievable (whether she's serious or not, who knows) when she says "I support X" right before a group votes that X is important to, and then never talks about it again after group X votes.

Another possibility, which would be to her political advantage, is that she could choose Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders as her running mate, though these seem less likely --but it would be a case where VP would genuinely secure her position in the national election. If she really did that, she would actually lock up the election, the combination of Millennials, blacks, latinos, and women whilst shoring up Independents would quite literally doom Donald Trump to the point of no return.


I don't know if she's waiting to do this until after the convention, she's not realistically in a position where she can just ignore Sanders supporters and literally openly say like she did on Rachel Maddow's town hall that Sanders must endorse her without conditions. This isn't 2008, where Hillary and Obama essentially had largely similar policy positions. When 16% of voters in New York, and even larger percentages of voters in other states say that they won't vote for her --many crucial swing states, and even more crucially independent voters-- then that's a potential loss she shouldn't even be entertaining. If she keeps on campaigning like it's 2000, we'll get the same results as 2000.

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If she is over confident about beating Trump she can, and probably will. She is already steamed at Sanders, has already moved further to the left during the primary than she wanted to because of him, she might very well decide "ENOUGH!". There are reports of a broad delusion in the D establishment that Trump will be easy to beat, that the only reason he rolled the R establishment so easy is that they suck and the journalists did not do their jobs but the the D establishment is way better and the journalists now understand what is at stake and will do "a better job" so no worries.

Hawkeye10 said:

If she is over confident about beating Trump she can, and probably will. She is already steamed at Sanders, has already moved further to the left during the primary than she wanted to because of him, she might very well decide "ENOUGH!". There are reports of a broad delusion in the D establishment that Trump will be easy to beat, that the only reason he rolled the R establishment so easy is that they suck and the journalists did not do their jobs but the the D establishment is way better and the journalists now understand what is at stake and will do "a better job" so no worries.

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I mean, keeping it real, Donald Trump is pretty skewered right now, but it's not an impossible position to move out of. He has to shut his ****ing mouth about women and Latinos, which he seems psychologically incapable of doing. But, if he can, then his only way of working towards getting voted in squarely depends upon convincing Millennials and Independents not to vote for Hillary (and get all of the 33% of Millennials who are Republicans to vote for him), gather as many of the left-wing Independents who Hillary is pissing on, and building bridges with conservative women and conservative Cubans. Combine that with the increased voter obstruction in the South and Midwest, and he can take the presidency --he'll likely be the president with the lowest approval rating in US history and he'll be obstructed to the point of not being able to do anything, but he'll be president.


This is why I say that if Hillary is actually serious about just curb-stomping Trump, she has to make amends with Sanders supporters. If she does that, Trump is over because he cannot recover just on the demographics --again, the Millennial, Latino, female, and black voting blocs were Obama's firewall against Republicans. If you secure those groups, you're talking about ~64% of the electorate (projecting from 2012, although if Trump pulls in white voters like 2004, then that may go down, but it won't go south of 50%). They would be Hillary's, too, if she'd stop being so stupid and start advocating for Millennials just like she's advocated for the rest. Yeah, that's going to cut into Wall Street's money a bit, but if Sanders has proven anything, that money is easily replaced with Millennials who are very willing to vote and finance campaigns they believe in.

FieldTheorist said:

Firstly, she needs to stop bloviating about how she won 2 million more votes (for starters, that's not including caucus states, so it's not even a truly representative number, then you have the fact that most Sanders supporters are irritated by the entire establishment having her back and the non-voters based advantage that she had). She desperately needs to turn off the attack campaigns and the mudslinging; no one is confused about who's giving the orders for those, so it just hurts her to keep those going. Save it for Trump, she'll need it then.

Secondly, she's going to have to absorb some of Sanders positions, or she'll continue to even her odds with Trump. And by "absorb," I don't mean re-phrase her currently watered-down policies on "universal" healthcare or college (both of which are basically just Obamacare and our current educational system as they currently stand, with at best a tiny bit more funding). I mean two things: Take a couple of Sanders' key positions, truly absorb them, and then start talking about them. Hillary is very unbelievable (whether she's serious or not, who knows) when she says "I support X" right before a group votes that X is important to, and then never talks about it again after group X votes.

Another possibility, which would be to her political advantage, is that she could choose Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders as her running mate, though these seem less likely --but it would be a case where VP would genuinely secure her position in the national election. If she really did that, she would actually lock up the election, the combination of Millennials, blacks, latinos, and women whilst shoring up Independents would quite literally doom Donald Trump to the point of no return.


I don't know if she's waiting to do this until after the convention, she's not realistically in a position where she can just ignore Sanders supporters and literally openly say like she did on Rachel Maddow's town hall that Sanders must endorse her without conditions. This isn't 2008, where Hillary and Obama essentially had largely similar policy positions. When 16% of voters in New York, and even larger percentages of voters in other states say that they won't vote for her --many crucial swing states, and even more crucially independent voters-- then that's a potential loss she shouldn't even be entertaining. If she keeps on campaigning like it's 2000, we'll get the same results as 2000.

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I appreciate that but it really isn't an answer to my question. I'm saying if she continues to campaign as she has been campaigning and pulls off a big win in November what will your analysis be? That is to say what will have been wrong with your present predictions and analysis?

Sherman123 said:

I appreciate that but it really isn't an answer to my question. I'm saying if she continues to campaign as she has been campaigning and pulls off a big win in November what will your analysis be? That is to say what will have been wrong with your present predictions and analysis?

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Sorry, I misread your question, I thought you asked "If she wants to win a resounding victory..."

To answer the original question, what will have been wrong with my analysis is that Trump will have screwed himself. I sort of answered this above to Hawkeye, but Trump will have done all of the things that he needed to not do, in other words he will need to have not properly used Millennial dissatisfaction and Independents to his advantage. His fight to the presidency is a hard one, and as I stated above to Hawkeye, it depends on these things:

1.) He needs to pull out a huge white voters turnout, like 2004. So far, honestly, he's on course for this. (This is the primary issue that I worry the DNC will not account for when they decide whether or not to build in-roads with Sanders supporters.)

2.) Taking the 2012 voting blocs, Obama's "firewall" against Republicans was record voter turnouts amongst blacks, women, Millennials, and Latinos. Hillary has more or less shored up blacks, women, and Latinos. Trump needs to stem the blood loss amongst conservative women and conservative Cubans --particularly Cubans, since Florida is vital to his presidential success. With that said, he also needs to make in roads amongst women. If he fails to do either of those, his chances shrink, even without Millennials.

3.) If Hillary does not reach out to Millennials and Independents, Trump needs to move to the Left of Hillary on a few key areas. He understand this, and has already started this process. This will either flip Millennials/Independents or convince them not to vote. So even if 66% of Millennials favor the Democratic party right now, that's with Sanders in the race. Once Sanders is no longer in the race, I do not expect that to continue to hold. What Trump needs to do is to chip away at Millennials and Independents (who are of all ages, and who Hillary has definitely not seen strong support from).


If Trump does all of these things while Hillary chooses not to court Sanders supporters, then I would place the election between Hillary and Trump at about 50-50, without having the exact numbers for all demographics in front of me. If Trump fails to do those things AND Hillary chooses not to court Millennials, she will still likely win. Specifically, if Trump continues to present himself as a fascist (and particularly ignores item 2 above), she may pull in the Millennial/Independent vote out of revulsion. The thing to note here, in my opinion, is that Hillary's victory, if she chooses not to court Millennials, is secured only by Trump harming himself. The RNC has made that same assumption for 9 months now, and they have Trump as their candidate now. It would be extremely stupid for Hillary to go out into the national election having pissed off 40% of her base of Democrats and left-Independents (especially while Sanders is her equal in current national Democratic opinion polls), and leave the success of her presidential campaign contingent upon how Donald Trump screws up. She shouldn't take chances like that. She should cede issues to Millennials/Independents, and then move onto steam rolling Trump in the generals.

FieldTheorist said:

I mean, keeping it real, Donald Trump is pretty skewered right now, but it's not an impossible position to move out of. He has to shut his ****ing mouth about women and Latinos, which he seems psychologically incapable of doing. But, if he can, then his only way of working towards getting voted in squarely depends upon convincing Millennials and Independents not to vote for Hillary (and get all of the 33% of Millennials who are Republicans to vote for him), gather as many of the left-wing Independents who Hillary is pissing on, and building bridges with conservative women and conservative Cubans. Combine that with the increased voter obstruction in the South and Midwest, and he can take the presidency --he'll likely be the president with the lowest approval rating in US history and he'll be obstructed to the point of not being able to do anything, but he'll be president.


This is why I say that if Hillary is actually serious about just curb-stomping Trump, she has to make amends with Sanders supporters. If she does that, Trump is over because he cannot recover just on the demographics --again, the Millennial, Latino, female, and black voting blocs were Obama's firewall against Republicans. If you secure those groups, you're talking about ~64% of the electorate (projecting from 2012, although if Trump pulls in white voters like 2004, then that may go down, but it won't go south of 50%). They would be Hillary's, too, if she'd stop being so stupid and start advocating for Millennials just like she's advocated for the rest. Yeah, that's going to cut into Wall Street's money a bit, but if Sanders has proven anything, that money is easily replaced with Millennials who are very willing to vote and finance campaigns they believe in.

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Wrong, because everything has changed, you cant go by past years. Yes D's will likely do well with non whites because blacks will not go for Trump, but Hispanics will, and the Democratic party is hemorrhaging whites, who are by far the biggest block. Re millennials Trump has a very good chance of getting males, even though they tend to act like dogs who have been kicked a few too many times....I expect them to snap out of it, though it is likely that right up till the end they will tell pollsters that they are voting not Trump, because they are not going to go THAT far to override the programing that they have been indoctrinated with since preschool.

Hawkeye10 said:

Wrong, because everything has changed, you cant go by past years. Yes D's will likely do well with non whites because blacks will not go for Trump, but Hispanics will, and the Democratic party is hemorrhaging whites, who are by far the biggest block. Re millennials Trump has a very good chance of getting males, even though they tend to act like dogs who have been kicked a few too many times....I expect them to snap out of it, though it is likely that right up till the end they will tell pollsters that they are voting not Trump, because they are not going to go THAT far to override the programing that they have been indoctrinated with since preschool.

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That's not really based on any facts and the whole rest of your idea that young males aren't largely and deeply progressive is seriously flawed (and polls show that now and they will continue to in the future), so that's more wishful thinking that anything. The idea that Trump can turn Latino vote to him is also pretty laughable, the only Latinos that will vote for him are conservative Cubans and not even all of them will vote. I gave a sort of similar scenario in post#108 above yours, but was far more specific and reality-based than what you gave above.

FieldTheorist said:

That's not really based on any facts and the whole rest of your idea that young males aren't largely and deeply progressive is seriously flawed (and polls show that now and they will continue to in the future), so that's more wishful thinking that anything. The idea that Trump can turn Latino vote to him is also pretty laughable, the only Latinos that will vote for him are conservative Cubans and not even all of them will vote. I gave a sort of similar scenario in post#108 above yours, but was far more specific and reality-based than what you gave above.

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Young men are economic losers....they will go for Trump based upon that alone. Him being willing to stand up to women will help as well. And lets remember that TRump is the least conservative R nominee in like forever.

Clearly you have missed some things in your analysis.