Bernie Sanders just easily won the New Hampshire primary. It's a remarkable achievement.

[Uncle Joe]

The Vermont senator's triumph is a testament to the power of his economics-focused message, to his supporters' enthusiasm and organization, and to his wild popularity among young voters. It's also a stinging rejection of the Democratic establishment and Hillary Clinton by primary voters in the Granite State. And it's a strong follow-up to Sanders's tie with Clinton in last week's Iowa caucuses.

Some will argue that Sanders's win isn't that big a deal, since he's from the neighboring state of Vermont, and it's long been known that Sanders does well among the white Democrats overrepresented in New Hampshire. Yet it's worth remembering that when 2015 began, Sanders trailed Clinton by around 40 points in the Granite State. And though tonight's votes are still being counted, the early calls in Sanders favor suggest that it isn't even close.

(snip)

A longtime independent and "democratic socialist," Sanders is calling for the Democratic Party to move to the left on economic and domestic policy issues — embracing single-payer health care, funding college tuition for all Americans, and hiking government spending on infrastructure and Social Security benefits. And he's argued that because recent Democratic leaders have been too centrist and too reliant on fundraising from business interests, the American public has lost faith that the party will fight for them.

(snip)

First, there was a belief that something is very wrong with America, and that serious change is required to fix it. The underwhelming economy, growing wealth inequality, and the disproportionate power of corporations and the superrich came up again and again. "I'm supporting Bernie because of his commitment to changing the dynamic in Washington, dealing with this wealth inequality, and helping people at the bottom," said Fran Berman of Exeter, New Hampshire.

(snip)

Sanders's main problem, Ellison believed, was just that he needed more "exposure." He went on: "The black community and brown community have known Hillary Clinton since the ‘90s. So she has quite an advantage in this area. Her husband was fairly popular among African Americans and other people, so she has a built-in advantage. I think Bernie is going to be able to solve his exposure problem by continuing to do the things that he’s doing."

The Vermont senator's tie in Iowa and win in New Hampshire will ensure he'll get a tremendous amount of that exposure in the coming days and weeks. His real first tests among nonwhite Democrats will be the Nevada caucuses, on February 20, and the South Carolina primary, on February 27. And if he manages to do well in those, it will be clear that Hillary Clinton's campaign is in very deep trouble.

http://www.vox.com/2016/2/9/10955298/new-hampshire-primary-results-bernie-sanders-wins

[Hortensis]

1. It is a fine achievement, remarkable for illustrating

the desire of many people for Democratic progressive answers to their problems, and for a few, of course, the need for a voice of conviction to follow. His largest victory to my mind is still that he has moved the national discussion left, and for that the entire left half of America should be grateful.

As for that last sentence, not gonna happen. But Bernie's not going anywhere. No matter how he does as his campaign moves out into America, we can be very sure he will continue his fight for comprehensive financial reform. And who doesn't want him to do just that?

[Uncle Joe]

2. No doubt it will be a challenge but there are encouraging signs.

Bernie Sanders Could Be The Nominee, But This Is What He'd Have To Overcome

There's a path to victory in the Democratic primary, but it's a tough one.

(snip)

UPDATE: Sanders won the New Hampshire primary, as expected. He earned the support of 49 percent of nonwhite voters, according to early exit poll results, although those nonwhite voters were just 7 percent of the sample. Still, the result may be encouraging to Sanders' campaign as he attempts to win over nonwhite voters in upcoming primaries.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/bernie-sanders-2016_us_56b91726e4b01d80b2478746

[Hortensis]

3. If he went up against the right-wing forces,

he'd need a lot more than "encouraging signs" that he could have a path to winning the primary, UncleJoe. He'd need that giant tsunami of national support we are not seeing signs of.

[FrostyAusty]

4. yeah... right..

Those giant rallies he's held in numerous cities all over the country don't mean jack shit right? Meh guys we might as well pack it up, Nostradamus is back and says Bernie doesn't have a chance.

[Hortensis]

24. Sure they do and they are encouraing. But!

Last edited Wed Feb 10, 2016, 04:15 PM - Edit history (1)

For perspective, Superbowl attendance for one stupid ballgame is often over 100,000, never less than 60,000. According to Wikipedia, of 226 stadiums in the U.S., only a few hold as few as 20,000; half of them range from about 50K to 100K capacity.

That's because we have over 300,000,000 people in the U.S. Any big crowd these days is YUUUGE!

Now these are impressive movement-size crowds: The 2006 Hispanic immigrant rights marches in dozens of cities across the nation drew several hundred thousand people out by conservative estimates, likely over a million. The Washington Post and L.A. Times reported 500,000 in Los Angeles. In Chicago it was apparently somewhere between 100,000 and 250,000.

I've been by City Hall in downtown L.A. a bunch of times, but it never looked like this.


This was the Washington Mall - packed end to end and way beyond.


Of course, Bernie doesn't have to draw people out in those numbers to win, but 30,000 from a nation of over 300,000,000 is 1 in 1000. Ten of those are 10 in 1000. He needs to draw a lot more outraged Americans determined to fix our nation if we're going to beat the extremely well organized and funded opposition of most of our over 500 American billionaires, most of the 45,000 Americans with net worths over $50 million, the Religious Right, and most of the rest of our conservative working people who've been brainwashed to at best dismiss left-wing programs as unworkable and at worst downright evil.

Oh, and let's not forget all those on the left who don't normally vote because it "won't make any difference" or "whatever." If they don't vote, their orientation does not make any difference at all.

[Uncle Joe]

7. You can thank Debbie Wasserman Schultz and the corporate media conglomerates for that in

trying their best to stifle Bernie's message from reaching the people.

CAMPAIGN 2016 COVERAGE: ANNUAL TOTALS FOR 2015 1. During 2015, Campaign 2016 logged more than 17 hours of coverage on the broadcast networks' weekday nightly newscasts (ABC, CBS and NBC combined).

2. The annual total of 1031 minutes is higher than any other penultimate year of the last seven Presidential campaigns, except for 2007 (1991 = 146; 1995 = 294; 1999 = 339; 2003 = 167; 2007 = 1072; 2011 = 790).

(snip)

4. The Republican race is more than twice as newsworthy than the Democratic race (701 mins vs 248 -- with 82 mins of coverage with no partisan focus). Besides the fact that there are many more Republican candidates than Democratic ones, the GOP debates have made much more news than the Democrats' (123 mins vs 25).

5. Donald Trump is by far the most newsworthy storyline of Campaign 2016, alone accounting for almost a third of all coverage (327 mins or 32%), more than the entire Democratic contest combined. The other GOP candidates, in order of prominence, were Jeb Bush (57 mins), Ben Carson (57), Marco Rubio (22).

6. Hillary Rodham Clinton has been the second most newsworthy candidate (121 mins), with an additional 88 mins devoted to the controversy over her e-mails as Secretary of State and 29 mins to the investigations into the Benghazi Consulate attack. The second most newsworthy Democrat was a non-candidate: 73 mins on Joe Biden's decision not to run.

7. Noticeably under-covered have been the current second-placed candidate in each party's national opinion polls: Ted Cruz has attracted only 21 mins, Bernie Sanders only 20 mins.

http://tyndallreport.com/

WASHINGTON – Sen. Bernie Sanders has made big gains in Iowa, leads most New Hampshire polls and fares better than Hillary Clinton in general election matchups against Donald Trump and other Republican White House hopefuls.

But the insurgent campaign that has drawn the biggest crowds on the presidential campaign trail has been all but ignored on the flagship television network newscasts, according to Tyndall Report, which tracks nightly news coverage by NBC, CBS and ABC.

“The corporately-owned media may not like Bernie’s anti-establishment views but for the sake of American democracy they must allow for a fair debate in this presidential campaign,” said Jeff Weaver, Sanders’ campaign manager. “Bernie must receive the same level of coverage on the nightly news as other leading candidates.”

ABC’s “World News Tonight” has devoted 81 minutes to Donald Trump’s campaign so far this year compared to a mere 20 seconds on Sanders through the end of November. NBC’s “Nightly News” afforded 2.9 minutes of coverage to Sanders since January. The “CBS Evening News” provided viewers 6.4 minutes of coverage on the Vermont senator.

“The network newscasts are wildly overplaying Trump, who regularly attracts between 20-30 percent of primary voter support, while at the same time wildly underplaying Sanders, who regularly attracts between 20-30 percent of primary voter support,” according to a report Friday by the journalism watchdog group Media Matters for America analyzing the Tyndall report data.

Media Matters called the lack of coverage of Sanders a “rather stunning revelation.”

https://berniesanders.com/press-release/why-the-bernie-blackout-on-corporate-network-news/

Bernie's biggest challenge has been name recognition, Schultz and the corporate media conglomerates knew this.

There is still a wide gap between the two in name recognition nationally. Nearly a quarter of Democrats and two-fifths of Independents say they are still not that familiar with Sanders. In comparison, Clinton has almost total name recognition among voters.


http://news.yahoo.com/exclusive-presidential-hopefuls-sanders-clinton-dead-heat-reuters-133828882.html

Schultz only added debates at the last minute after realizing that Bernie was becoming competitive in Iowa, leading by double digits in New Hampshire and beginning to attract more minority support.

In the meantime, the Republicans with their superior number of debates ruled the airwaves and were allowed to set the frame.

Bernie has done remarkably well despite this blackout and mismanagement of the Democratic debates.

I believe that Bernie decidedly winning in New Hampshire and finally having more Democratic Debates will only improve excitement nationwide as his message reaches the people and more people come to know him.

[zeemike]

9. The right wing is not as powerful as you say they are.

The GOP and the Dems party are not the majority...it is independents that are the largest group.

42% identify as independents, 29% as Democrats, 26% as Republicans
Independent identification at least 40% for fifth consecutive year
Democrats maintain edge over GOP in party identification and leaning
PRINCETON, N.J. -- In 2015, for the fifth consecutive year, at least four in 10 U.S. adults identified as political independents. The 42% identifying as independents in 2015 was down slightly from the record 43% in 2014. This elevated percentage of political independents leaves Democratic (29%) and Republican (26%) identification at or near recent low points, with the modest Democratic advantage roughly where it has been over the past five years.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/188096/democratic-republican-identification-near-historical-lows.aspx

And they are independents because they are not the right wing and don't care much for the establishment Dems. Sanders offers them a chance to get away from both of those.

[Hortensis]

11. Before political affiliation comes personality type,

Zeemike. We now know that human beings are born hard wired to mainly conservative or liberal personality types and to various "strengths" within those types. True libertarian is probably another type as they see the world very differently from the first two.

After birth environment goes to work strengthening and weakening orientations, of course, and most of us end up with a goulash of positions.

All this is to say that a large majority of those "independents" lean left or right and will vote pretty dependably as expected. Conservatives behave as their name suggests. In all these years that moderate conservatives have been disgusted and appalled by what the people to their right have been doing, few of them have refused to vote with those they see as most like them -- their fellow conservatives -- no matter how extreme right that has taken them.

And pulling their strings this way and that as needed are ultraconservative megamillionaires and billionaires who have been working on them for four decades now. It's no accident that conservative Americans who could once could pretty much be counted on to protect what works from change are now so badly twisted that they are committed to dismantling what those who came before them built.

[Uncle Joe]

14. In large part because the left hasn't done enough to differentiate itself from the right, the people

perceive both parties as being economically institutional, and they know that money rules the day on Capital Hill.

Without that distinction, the people first and foremost revert to cultural issues and partisanship in making their deliberations.

That's a major reason as to why the U.S. has one of the lowest percentages of people that vote or participate in the system.

Cultural issues by themselves aren't enough to fire up the masses necessary to create meaningful change.

[zeemike]

17. Well I don't believe people are borne hard wired one way or athe orher.

I think it is a learned experience and it is nor fixed for life...there are many examples of that.

But you are right, the PTB have been manipulating us for decades now. But it is becoming less effective as information is more widely available and people are starting to wise up to the game.

In both cases Trump and Sanders represents a rejection of the status quo...but in the end most moderates will go with Sanders. Trump has the supprot of 30% of 26% of the voting public and that is a small number.

[Hortensis]

23. It is both, and belief or faith

Is not involved. Turns out MRI scanning can fairly reliably identify most people as conservative or liberal. Like muscles, areas of the brain that are used more are more developed. In cons they tend to see larger amygdalas, an emotion center, and iberals larger anterior consulate cortices, which evaluate uncertainty and conflict. Cons send info for emotional reaction first, while libs "think" about it a bit before running it through the amygdala.

I hope you are right that people are less easily fooled now. After forty years of seeing many people become more committed to being fooled, I am not so sure. I had expected our con friends to get smart for all those years and was very mistaken. Being smart and competent in evaluating your own small world is not the same as being wise about the world "out there.". Wising up would not only require setting aside beliefs built up and acted on over decades but accepting that one had been very foolish and wrong. And that is without considering that different types of people are wired to see moral issues and man's place in the world very differently. There are people who see authoritarian government as necessary for a moral and well run society, for instance, just that it be their kind, " their" people's.

[zeemike]

25. Those arias of the brain are developed by personal experience.

Much like a computer is programmed. No one is born a conservative or liberal although I will concede that some physical factors may possibly have an impact...but largely it is programming.

But I probably should have said that there are fewer and fewer people that are fooled. And you are right to say that some of them are more committed to being fooled than ever. But that too is a sign of change...when you see a desperate attempt to hold on to illusion.
But again you are right, there is a core group of people that will never change...but they are a lot smaller group than they appear.

[Hortensis]

26. I think I'm seeing one now,

just not desperate.

[JDPriestly]

20. Bernie will have a lot of support in Florida for a number of reasons.

He will be very popular in California and in parts of NewYork State.

He has the votes of people under 40 and they are coming out to vote for him.

As a Bernie supporter, I am very optlmlstic.

The polls we were told about showed Bernie down and Hillary up in New Hampshire just a couple of weeks ago.

BUT, but, but, but, Bernie won by slightly more than 20, I repeat, 20 points.

A virtual landslide.

Bernie will be our next president..

[Octafish]

5. People who know him like him.

Which is very cool, considering how the news corpse paints him -- SOCIALIST wink wink COMMIE ANGRY GUY YELLING TO HELP WHITE PEOPLE.

Perhaps even more people will support him when they hear him speak in his own words.

That is unusual for most politicians: The more we get to know, the less there is to like.

[Uncle Joe]

8. Precisely, Octafish.

Polling conducted in August 2011 by Public Policy Polling found that Sanders's approval rating was 67% and his disapproval rating 28%, making him then the third-most popular senator in the country.[105] Both the NAACP and the NHLA have given Sanders 100% voting scores during his tenure in the Senate.[106] In 2015 Sanders was named one of the Top 5 of The Forward 50.[107] In a November 2015 Morning Consult poll, Sanders had an approval rating of 83% among his constituents, making him the most popular senator in the country.[108]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernie_Sanders

Peace to you.

[chervilant]

6. I cannot see a single reply to your OP,

although it says you've had four. I must surmise that you've heard from a few Hi11ary supporters, most of whom are on my IL. So, as a Bernie supporter, I just wanted to say: I am excited about Senator Sanders, and all of his supporters!!!

Feel the BERN!!!

#NotMeUs

[Uncle Joe]

10. I have never put anyone on ignore, I like the debate with people I may not agree with.

If I find them to be totally unreasonable, I just don't click on their threads...although sometimes I do just for the hell of it.



Peace to you, chervilant.

[chervilant]

28. I purge my list every so often.

I'll purge it after the GE, just like last time. And, just like last time, I'll resume interacting with those therein who stop verbally abusing any of us who support their candidate's opposition.

Peace backatcha, Joe!

[Scalded Nun]

12. I wish I could agree

"The Vermont senator's tie in Iowa and win in New Hampshire will ensure he'll get a tremendous amount of that exposure in the coming days and weeks."

I think now, even more than before, the MSM will continue to marginalize Bernie and all of his positions.

The more people hear from Bernie the more support he builds. His voice/message is a clear and present danger to the mainstream/establishment left, and they will do anything to silence it.

Forza Bernie!

[Uncle Joe]

16. At the same time more people will seek out information from the Internet; Bernie's strength and if

the corporate media conglomerates go overboard slanting coverage against Sanders and are consistently called on it, (which they will be) their credibility with the people will continue to deteriorate to levels even lower than it is now.

The corporate media conglomerates will have to change their practices if they want to remain viable in the 21st century.

[JDPriestly]

22. I have a friend who spent almost an entire night watching YouTube videos of Bernie before

Deciding to support him.

TV journalism needs to catch up with the internet. The TV news is mostly just the primary source for news for older people.

Internet users research a story and don't do one-stop shopping on news stories. This is the information age. We get news from everywhere. Thenetwork news can'tbury stories liketheyused to.

Bernie's success in New Hampshire proves what I am writing.

[malthaussen]

13. I note Mr Trump and Mr Sanders both won by over 20%...

... although of course the aggregate percentage is much higher in the latter's case. Might this be an indication that, at least in New Hampshire, yes indeed a lot of voters are fed up with the status quo?

-- Mal

[Enthusiast]

15. Kicked and recommended!

Thank you, Uncle Joe.

[Uncle Joe]

18. It was my pleasure, Enthusiast.

Peace to you.

[Orsino]

19. It's good. Offsets the MSM inevitability narrative.

Sanders needed an early victory more than Clinton did. Now we have a horse race.

[Punkingal]

21. Indeed it is quite an achievement...

He beat Secretary Clinton BADLY. While I expected that, I didn't expect a tsunami like it was. I think the size of the victory will get the attention of people who haven't really been engaged, especially considering who his opponent was. Personally I am not as interested in how bad the Clinton campaign is as I am pleased and proud at how well Bernie's campaign is doing, and Bernie himself.

In the final analysis, it is the candidate that matters, and Bernie is so focused and authentic he can't help but connect, if people just listen.

[Uncle Joe]

27. I agree with you on all counts, Punkingal.

Peace to you.