Vox: We asked 6 political scientists if Bernie Sanders would have a shot in a general election
Were Democrats to make the "democratic socialist" from Vermont their nominee, would he have a chance of winning a general election?
We posed that question to six of the country's top political scientists, and their answers were broadly consistent: Under some unlikely circumstances, Sanders could win a general election. But nominating him would make it significantly more difficult for Democrats to keep the White House.
"
Sanders's) political views are more toward the ideological pole than the average voter's," said John Sides, a professor in political science at George Washington University, in an email. "Absent a very favorable set of conditions, nominating a candidate like Sanders as opposed to a more moderate Democrat creates the risk of a penalty at the ballot box."http://www.vox.com/2016/2/5/10923304/bernie-sanders-general-election
= new reply since forum marked as read
I have used that many times.
to trof.
I found this section of the article posted in the OP to be scary
Seth Masket, a political science professor at the University of Denver, said his best "ballpark estimate" is that Sanders would cost the Democratic Party 2 to 3 percentage points in a general election compared with a more conventional nominee.
"It's not as big an effect as flipping a growing economy to one in recession," Masket said. "It's more like flipping a growing economy to a stalled one."
Miroff, a political science professor at the University at Albany, said he thinks Masket's estimate is likely too conservative.
"I'd say it'd have to be considerably higher than 2 to 3 points. I'm thinking the loss would be in the vicinity of 6 to 10 points," Miroff said.
Republicans would find it easy to tie Sanders to the "socialist" label, Miroff said, adding that only 25 percent of the public trusts the government to carry out policies effectively.
"
Sanders) really has made radical, socialistic statements in the past about the redistribution of wealth and the expropriation of the oil industry," Miroff said. "The full force of a Republican attack would find Sanders to be a convenient target."We can not afford to put the party at that type of disadvantage
The article spends a long time claiming that political scientists can accurately gauge how Sanders' position will be seen, both from the way he presents it and the way any opponents attack it, in the coming months. This, of course, is based on how that has happened so far.
But then it ends up asserting 'why those head-to-head general election polls are "absolutely worthless"', with the only attempt at a justification for their contempt for head-to-head polls being "the impressions people have of the eventual nominees months from now will be so different from today."
But the impressions people have now are exactly what the rest of the article has been based on. This is just arrogance from political scientists, saying "we can map out how all the candidates will be seen for months to come, but the public don't know their own minds. If they disagree with us about what they'll think, then they must be wrong" (it's "blindingly obvious" that the head-to-head polls are "essentially illusory"
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The problem with political scientists is that they've given themselves the title 'scientist', and think that means they have reliable theories. "Politics watchers" or "political analysers" just don't sound so grand, or worthy of a paid position.
