Sanders is winning (serpents and doves)

[eridani]

http://chasinjesus.blogspot.com/2016/02/sanders-is-winning-serpents-and-doves.html

So don't be fooled by the gleeful crowing of the likes of Chris Matthews, former Democratic Party speechwriter and personal friend of the Clintons, in the wake of the five-percent Clinton caucus win in Nevada. The Clintonistas are not celebrating Secretary Clinton's triumph, but her survival. The loss of Nevada - a state that is demographically quite old, where 25 percent of voters were over 65 and almost 90 percent of them were Clinton supporters - would have ended her campaign for all intents and purposes. But the fact is, Clinton and Sanders are quite close in general national polls, that give Sanders a squeaky edge as this is written. Senator Sanders made tremendous gains in Nevada, where he was down forty points just weeks ago. And he matched her among Latin@s, peeled off a substantial piece of the African American vote, and slaughtered her among white people under 50. Unions pushed membership toward Clinton, and Las Vegas won the day for Clinton. That's how it broke down. And Republicans crossed over in Nevada - at RP coaxing - to vote Clinton (Republicans do not want to face Sanders; they want to run against Clinton!)

<snip>

Sanders supporters need to do three things, then, in the larger scope of the rest of the campaign. Isolate and ignore the kitten-factor voters, consolidate and mobilize the Sanders hard-core, and win over that undecided 25 percent or so. That last intermediate mission is where most of the energy goes. Win over that undecided 25 percent. And this is also the target population of the Clinton campaign, where they will undertake that aforementioned 'most likely course of action.'

Setting aside for a moment the dirty tricks, let's look at 'messaging.' This is why Sanders is winning. The basic messages are quite simply not true. (1) Sanders has as much or more experience as Clinton, far more in the Senate. (2) And every poll out there right now - which you will not see Chris Matthews and other Clinton partisans report - shows Sanders running stronger against Republican candidates than Clinton.

So when the Clinton 'messages' go up against Sanders on that virtual battlefield, Clinton's forces will soon run out of ammunition. Old soldiers will tell you that this is very bad. This old soldier will tell you that Sanders supporters, in every possible venue, need to engage these two lies - the lie of experience and the lie of electability - as early and often as possible. Their defenses are weak, so to speak, and this is where to concentrate your fire. Your campaign is crowd-sourced, so recirculate every credible article that shows Sanders is more electable and more experienced than Clinton. Those are the bunkers that you have to destroy to neutralize their key weapons.

[Mbrow]

1. K&R Thank for posting

[sorechasm]

2. K&R nt

[nxylas]

3. An excellent article

I hope people here heed the writer's advice about "not getting into pissing contests with skunks".

[haikugal]

4. Thanks! K&R!

[PATRICK]

5. I have a sweeping speculation

and as such, besides my time limitations, I will not make it a separate discussion. Perhaps someone better informed or wiser can.

The Supreme Court and the rule of the Constitution, held political hostage literally by a cheating lying party of power that does not represent the majority of the people OR the law of the land, who instead perform this coup on behalf of the criminal super rich is at stake even if they bend to letting Obama appoint a semi-liberal corporate moderate into one of a few inevitable vacancies.

The Democratic establishment, despite their own misgivings of Clinton's political abilities to overcome public negativity- a chunk of it just as dishonest, representing in fact the same Coup Party- burned all their bridges to many other new fresh candidates who could easily have represented the same Sane Party established goals. They have not escaped, but postponed what has now become a crisis and day of reckoning.

They will have to surrender some key planks in the party platform, establish some substantial powerful reforms to TRY to keep up the illusion that her defeat and/or disaster downticket can be mitigated. Even if Sanders were to enthusiastically back her would they let him say anything after the Convention, welcome his ideas on the campaign trail, allow him to continue his movement within the party?

But I am not talking about what the current party leadership m ight do because all roads this time lead to hell. Trying to buttress Clinton is yet another stark failure of the party as a whole, years ongoing in fact. Having to choose Sanders destroys decades of corporatist sliding. Trying to maintain the facade- rational though it may be- of the "shoe-in" race is practically over.

They must and are as much in denial as the Coup Party is on SCOTUS and have provided the enemy with enough desperate hope of their own. Similar respect for Law and Democracy. Similar manipulation and cynical disregard of thge world at larghe and the despised mass of sucker voters kept in a seething ignorance beneath mediocre efforts to pretend representation of their interests- or very survival. World wide leadership in a global survival crisis sucks generally. In that the USA, the "elite" representation is trying to lead the way in shame and madness in service of wealth and power in a leaky lifeboat.

What is the speculative scenario? I am not sure. Anointing Hillary is the one that is blown. The one basket theory has succumbed to its major flaw. All their choices are now unpalatable. Should Sanders receive as massive share of delegates, they have no way either of anointing inevitability or stopping disaster downticket or of surrendering to the populist revolution on their doorstep. Had it been Obama or any other centrist... but wait they didn't let that happen. They have been begging Biden and Kerry, probably even Gore or Bloomberg for all I know to step in, but that has been too late even before the campaign started. The horrible truth is that the Hillary vote is a tepid establishment vote. Her general Democratic base is soft, a small fan core enthused that does not equate as Obama's appeal to blacks to any general base of women. They can only hope for a Coup Party implosion which in fact they are helping transform into an energized chance to plunder what's left of the nation. Their only hope is campaigning(in the form of power bullying) against Sanders and take the bloodbath it means in the fall. In all events their centrist power shares a corner of the same dustbin they are rescuing the GOP from- once again. It's all about occupying- established power style- which is so different from the non violent just protests of the citizens.

Aside from all the huffing and puffing this is not about the revolution or the stark non-choices now facing the establishment. No this post is about the Dem careerists and history, their look at the hand of cards and NOT being able to mouth the words We want a New Deal!"

Well, this why didn't post, the ranting and all that. But can anyone not see that between the rock and the hard place is only a chasm for the party controllers? One of their own making for decades as well as naively recently in effectually dampening all contest for a candidate with unconquerable negatives? I applaud her attempts to correct the injustice but their always has been much more at stake than the one failed issue of protecting Dems from slander. On the other hand everything today is consistent and emblematic of the party's indefensible weakness in even defending themselves. I understand they can't embrace Sanders and can't publicly admit their real reasons and can't campaign as converts to a better party and stubbornly tell themselves in the tinted mirror they WILL win.

But I don't think they have the same drive or lust or insanity as the other side. Strategically, historically, if Sanders hotly contests or wins the nomination the bed of nails cannot be avoided, nor the responsibility be evaded. This is why all the kicking and screaming now. And to their silent horror how ineffectual it really is. And by "they" or "their" I am talking far far beyond the actual Hillary flagship campaign itself. So they postpone and pass the bottle, the day of reckoning and gamble their careers against the country's welfare.

[sorechasm]

6. Nice Rant PATRICK!

Dem careerists' non-choices made even more ironic by the fact that most are retiring soon. They seem to have some kind of vengeance against FDR's and Bernie's policies. As if they must prove to themselves that their corrupted decisions were a necessary evil, and not a vain money grab.

Why burden the nation's children with more failed policies just to prove that their career was not in vain?

[dana_b]

7. yes they do

this is an excellent analysis and II think you're right. They are scared of losing their jobs and having to work for less. Welcome to OUR world!