Thinking out loud and looking toward March 1, 2016

[MineralMan]

Polling for the February primaries seems to be pretty stable, with just a couple of outliers in Iowa pointing at changes in margins. In NH, Bernie appears to be leading, so that one looks like a possible win for Sanders. Not a certain win, but a good chance.

Nevada and South Carolina, though don't look at all promising for the Sanders campaign. Not at all. Clinton has a commanding lead in both, and those leads don't seem likely to disappear.

So what are we looking at, really? It appears to me that Senator Sanders might win one state, New Hampshire, in February. That's it, really. So what's he thinking about at this point? That's been a question in my mind for quite some time now. Here's one possibility:

The Super Tuesday primaries and caucuses are a really big deal, and will strongly affect how many delegates each candidate has in his or her corner after March 1. March 1 is a tipping point, at the very least. I'm not hearing much about Sanders efforts in those states. Everyone's talking about NH and IA almost exclusively.

Just last week, Senator Sanders once again stressed that he's uninterested in attacking Hillary Clinton. That's been a common theme from the beginning. Similarly, Clinton's not attacking Sanders. It's a different matter with each candidate's supporters, but I'm paying attention to what the candidates are saying, not the supporters. Imagine this scenario:

What if Bernie Sanders, a very smart man, can see the writing on the wall that is March 1? What if he can see winning New Hampshire's primary, but can't see much chance elsewhere. Does he continue on the grueling campaign trail to attempt to build support in the Super Tuesday states? Or does he settle for dragging the primary campaign leftward to some degree and start thinking about cutting his losses and limiting the stress that constant campaigning for the Super Tuesday races will be sure to create? His Senate seat is secure and stable, after all.

That's my guess at this point. By not going hard after Clinton's positions, he's kept a clear path open to endorse Clinton after admitting that he has no chance of getting the nomination. If trends continue, he would be likely to have to recognize that on March 2. I think he's going to work to win New Hampshire and then pack it in, endorsing Clinton on March 2. Super Tuesday follows closely on the February voting and caucusing. If those Super Tuesday states matter, and they matter very much, a candidate really expecting to win the nomination would already be working hard in them. I'm not seeing that.

So, there's my guess about the next few months. I don't think the funding or energy are there for a solid campaign in states like Texas and Minnesota for the March 1 date. Then there are the other states that vote on March 1. I think that Bernie Sanders, if nobody else in his campaign, sees the future looming up. There's not so much polling for the Super Tuesday races, but what there is isn't promising for Sanders.

I'm watching for an endorsement of Clinton from Sanders on March 2, 2016. We'll see. I'll bookmark this thread and revisit it then.

[elleng]

1. It's ridiculous to suggest polling NOW for Feb. primaries means anything except

for the fact that Dem ptb are keeping Martin O'Malley's visibility nil. If THAT maintains, maybe you're right, the 2 'leaders' now benefit from keeping him largely hidden (from most, those NON-political junkies.)

[MineralMan]

6. So, why is there so much polling, then?

I think you're incorrect about that. The media's polling. Clinton's sure as hell polling, and not just in the February states. I think the current polls and the trends they display are very important to the candidates. People are making decisions based on those polls that will affect how much energy goes into the Super Tuesday states. That's what my OP is about.

Going after the Super Tuesday states will take plenty of money, time, and energy. The current polling shows a developing snapshot of where things will be in February, and that affects planning for the Super Tuesday campaigning, which is already in the planning stages.

People are already making decisions about Super Tuesday campaigns. Frankly, the February caucuses and primaries don't amount to enough delegates at stake to warrant all this attention. Those four states are used by candidates to gauge their chances in March. They're used, too, by donors to make funding decisions, although that's less important for Democratic donors, since the number of potentially viable candidate is much smaller than for the GOP.

NH, IA, SC, and NV all together don't make any difference at the convention. Not one bit. The Super Tuesday states do.

[elleng]

8. Pollers have to poll,

media has to yammer, it's their jobs. And Feb caucuses will surely mean a lot, p.r-wise; correct that the delegates as such don't/won't mean much.

[HerbChestnut]

2. It's way, way too early to be talking about March.

So many things could happen between now and then. The debates, for one, may dramatically change things, they may not. Either way there's still 6 months of campaigning to do, and we all know how quickly things can change in American politics.

[Warren DeMontague]

3. Now the moon, it's almost hidden. The stars are beginning to hide.

The fortune telling lady
has already taken all her things, inside.

All except for Cain and Abel
and the Hunchback of Notre Dame

Everybody's either Making Love
Or else Expecting Rain.

[Juicy_Bellows]

26. And the ruckus squad is typing with a feverent pitch quite low.

As Hillary sends her insincere regards from desperation row.

Cheers!

[Warren DeMontague]

30. Well done!

[morningfog]

4. It is September 2015. Nothing can be chalked up as stable.

Revisit this analysis in January.

[whatchamacallit]

5. Wishful thinking out loud

Just last week, Senator Sanders once again stressed that he's uninterested in attacking Hillary Clinton. That's been a common theme from the beginning. Similarly, Clinton's not attacking Sanders. It's a different matter with each candidate's supporters, but I'm paying attention to what the candidates are saying, not the supporters...

Except for when his horrible supporters made you drop your support for Sanders.

[MineralMan]

7. That's true. I see that as a detriment to Sanders.

That's my opinion. Yours might differ.

[whatchamacallit]

10. Too bad you

had to punish your preferred candidate. Guess the mean zombie army of Sanders supporters overwhelmed your appreciation of Sanders (as well as your common sense and capacity to reason).

[MoveIt]

24. MM clearly supported Bernie until his mean supporters set that racoon loose on him.

[guillaumeb]

9. Some thoughts on your Sanders scenario:

When you wrote:
"Just last week, Senator Sanders once again stressed that he's uninterested in attacking Hillary Clinton. That's been a common theme from the beginning. Similarly, Clinton's not attacking Sanders. It's a different matter with each candidate's supporters, but I'm paying attention to what the candidates are saying, not the supporters...."

Another point that could be made is that by NOT attacking each other, the Democratic contest does not descend to personal attacks but concentrates on issues. Contrast this with the GOP side, where all the candidates are trying to outflank Trump on the right, as well as demonstrate that every candidate can be just as crazy as Trump. Personality definitely trumps issues in the GOP side.

While I respect your analysis of the possible scenarios for the Sanders campaign, if he does win Iowa, which at this point is a statistical tie, momentum also becomes a factor. Is momentum and the enthusiasm of supporters enough to overcome a huge campaign war chest?

[Gothmog]

11. Texas is a super Tuesday state

I am looking forward to that primary

[MineralMan]

12. It is. So is Minnesota.

It will be very interesting.

[Metric System]

13. I don't see him dropping out before Super Tuesday. He's in second behind Hillary, so it will likely

be a battle between those two. Now I can see some of the other candidates dropping out as early as January, like Chafee and, yes, O'Malley.

[MineralMan]

14. He won't drop out, but he might stop

Really trying. Campaigning is expensive and exhausting. The time between the February primaries and caucuses is very, very short, since Super Tuesday is March 1. He doesn't need to do anything at all.

[aikoaiko]

15. Wait?!? What?! "...I'm paying attention to what the candidates are saying, not the supporters."

Don't you remember when you said you couldn't support Bernie because of his supporters?

Recent attacks on people who insist that attention be paid to the wholesale killing of unarmed black people by official government law enforcement officers has convinced me that my support for Bernie Sanders in the primaries was misplaced. When I align myself with a candidate and pledge support for that candidate, I am aligning myself with that candidate's supporters.

I can no longer do that in good faith. Due to actions by supporters of Senator Sanders, I am withdrawing my support for him at our caucuses in Minnesota. I cannot be aligned any longer with his supporters, which has cost that candidate my own support. His insistence that economic changes will produce the kind of social change that is so much needed no longer can be supported, either.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1251507197

[MineralMan]

16. I remember everything I've said.

Thanks for asking.

[aikoaiko]

17. Does that mean your back to Bernie, uncertain, or still a HRC fan?

Or is this a "that was then, this is now" thang?

[MineralMan]

18. I'll let you figure it out.

I said what I wanted to say in the OP. Your question has nothing to do with that.

[aikoaiko]

19. Just curious why supporters were critical 24 days ago and unimportant now...

...based on this current OP and your previous OP.

Seems strange to be so fickle.

[kenfrequed]

33. I already have

I suspect you envision yourself to be some kind of operative. I know of no actual political strategist that would spend even as much time as I do here, and you spend considerably more than that.

Maybe you should stop trying to project your expectations and just frigging choose a candidate based on policy positions or whatever the threshold of your support is.

Meanwhile I will pretend that you hadn't already picked your candidate from the start.

[Major Hogwash]

25. Ha ha ha!!!!

Thanks for that, that's funnier than hell.

There's a guy like him where I work.
Whenever some issue of any kind comes up, he'll take a stand as firm as anyone I have ever met before, and he will be completely against something on Tuesday afternoon.
He'll even give you his reasons why, down to the last minute detail, and he refuses to budge an inch, even if everyone else is for it.

But then, on Wednesday morning, he'll come back to work and say something like "Ya know, I've thought about this some more last night . . ." and he'll take the totally opposite position on the issue, agreeing with everyone else.

And I just have to stare at him in amazement for a minute or two, and think "well, hell, ain't that grand, we CAN have 2 staplers on the same desk, after all."

[Skwmom]

20. Bernie can endorse Hillary until the cows come home, I won't vote for her. n/t

[MineralMan]

21. OK. Nothing to do with me.

It's your vote.

[Bonobo]

22. "I'm paying attention to what the candidates are saying, not the supporters."

Ummmm, you were the man who supposedly GAVE UP your support of Sanders BECAUSE of his supporters.

When did you stop paying attention the shat the supporters say now?

[kenfrequed]

32. Sad, isn't it.

I noticed that too. I think people are under the supposition that no one here has a memory and that you can reinvent yourself continually.

[madokie]

23. Hillary Clinton will never ever be President

Bernie Sanders on the other hand more than likely will be our next President. No matter how you try to parse this into a Hillary win it simply ain't going to happen. Sorry

[davidpdx]

27. So we're back to "it will be over by Super Tuesday"?

Where have we heard that before?

[MineralMan]

28. I don't know where you've heard it before,

but I've been saying that for some time now. Looking at the primary schedule, it seems pretty clear, really.

[davidpdx]

29. In 2008

[kenfrequed]

31. I was at the State Fair Saturday volunteering in St Paul

I can tell you that the energy deficit isn't on Bernie Sander's side. We had tons of people come up and state they were supporting us. There isn't a shortage of volunteers or energy.

I am sorry but if you think Senator Sanders is going to fold before Minnesota I think you are going to be in for a surprise. Stop projecting your own desires and pretending it is analysis.

[KoKo]

34. People Want Change!

Trump is the Carnival Barker ...the Trickster who has a way of selling what he wants you to see. Bernie is the "Stealth Candidate" who wants to Build a Movement for Change away from our Wall Street/MIC Controlled America and Focus on re-building a Strong Middle Class and Correct the Course of our Foreign Policy. Hillary and Bill are running because Power is what they live for and legacy is on their mind. What a treat to have the Clinton Dynasty on course with the Bush Dynasty in American History.

We have three older Americans who have come to their "Vision for America" from very different perspectives and life experiences. We might even have a fourth if Biden comes in. Who could have foreseen this?

This will be a very unusual election. We will probably need to be prepared to expect the unexpected.

[HappyPlace]

35. Endorsing Clinton? The layers of WTF of this OP are sublime.

Not that you intended that...

But first, the premise is one of hopelessness and the prognostications are even less hopeful and frosted with the insult that Sanders would come out and endorse Hillary Clinton.

Unreal, seriously.

[sadoldgirl]

36. Funny how things can change.

I would think that a blue state like Minnesota would
cheer for Bernie.

However it may go, don't count on CO going your way.
We have a trend to go in a different way than what
the parties hope for. We have over 40% of unaffiliated
voters, who now seem to go to either Trump or
Bernie, an they start registering already.