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Common Dreams: How Can Sanders Win It All? It's The Passion, Stupid
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/04/05/how-can-sanders-win-it-all-its-passion-stupidWhy the press and pundits keep getting it wrong on Bernie
Let’s Look at the Trends
In February of 2015 pollsters reported that Sanders’ numbers were up to a grand total of 5% of the Democratic voters, allowing him to surpass O’Malley. Today, Sanders has all but closed the gap with Clinton, and at least one national poll giving him the lead
Sanders has won 6 of the last seven primaries (including the ex-pat primary)—the last three by crushing majorities. With 2,042 delegates remaining, Sanders is surging and he’s cut Clinton’s lead to less than 300 delegates.
In fact, the only reason Clinton is ahead at this point is the strong support she enjoyed among African Americans in the early southern state primaries. But that gap – once as high as 80% -- is also is rapidly diminishing.
Here’s the reality: Sanders is shooting up in the polls, and Hillary is trending down. The gap between the two has all but disappeared at the halfway point of the primary season. Sanders main opponent isn’t Hillary Clinton, however, it's the combination of time and an Establishment media the steadfastly refuses to cover the movement that is feeding his ascendency.
So Why Are the Establishment Media, the DNC, and the Punditocracy All Declaring the Race over for Sanders?
One answer comes from a well-known phenomena in psychology and cognitive science called confirmation bias – "a tendency to search for or interpret information in a way that confirms one's preconceptions, leading to statistical errors." So many Establishment media types who are doing quite well with the status quo, thank you, have a strong interest in seeing Clinton—the Democrat's status quo candidate—as doing far better than she is.
Another is almost certainly money. The stench of profit-over-principles reporting has been all over journalism for decades now, and with six corporations controlling the Main Stream Media (MSM), a candidate like Sanders—who wants to reduce the influence of corporate money in elections and media—is not likely to be popular. In fact, if Sanders were to succeed in getting money out of the election process, the corporate media would not only lose influence and power, they’d lose revenue – a ton of it. With politicians spending more than $4.4 billion on campaign ads, the last thing the corporate media wants to see is campaign finance reform.
And of course, as Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page pointed out in their landmark study on the influence of money and special interests in politics, corporations and the ultra-rich would risk losing what amounts to nearly complete control of the policies this country chooses if a candidate like Sanders won. As Gilens and Page point out:
When the preferences of economic elites and the stands of organized interest groups are controlled for, the preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy. (emphasis added).
In terms of return on investment, there’s almost nothing that can beat the corporate purchase of government. For example, according to one analysis, 200 of the most politically active companies reaped an astounding 76,000% return on their investments. So yes, money plays a role in the Establishment rejection of Sanders, as well as their embrace of Clinton – who gets their money because the corproations believe she plays politics by their rules.
In February of 2015 pollsters reported that Sanders’ numbers were up to a grand total of 5% of the Democratic voters, allowing him to surpass O’Malley. Today, Sanders has all but closed the gap with Clinton, and at least one national poll giving him the lead
Sanders has won 6 of the last seven primaries (including the ex-pat primary)—the last three by crushing majorities. With 2,042 delegates remaining, Sanders is surging and he’s cut Clinton’s lead to less than 300 delegates.
In fact, the only reason Clinton is ahead at this point is the strong support she enjoyed among African Americans in the early southern state primaries. But that gap – once as high as 80% -- is also is rapidly diminishing.
Here’s the reality: Sanders is shooting up in the polls, and Hillary is trending down. The gap between the two has all but disappeared at the halfway point of the primary season. Sanders main opponent isn’t Hillary Clinton, however, it's the combination of time and an Establishment media the steadfastly refuses to cover the movement that is feeding his ascendency.
So Why Are the Establishment Media, the DNC, and the Punditocracy All Declaring the Race over for Sanders?
One answer comes from a well-known phenomena in psychology and cognitive science called confirmation bias – "a tendency to search for or interpret information in a way that confirms one's preconceptions, leading to statistical errors." So many Establishment media types who are doing quite well with the status quo, thank you, have a strong interest in seeing Clinton—the Democrat's status quo candidate—as doing far better than she is.
Another is almost certainly money. The stench of profit-over-principles reporting has been all over journalism for decades now, and with six corporations controlling the Main Stream Media (MSM), a candidate like Sanders—who wants to reduce the influence of corporate money in elections and media—is not likely to be popular. In fact, if Sanders were to succeed in getting money out of the election process, the corporate media would not only lose influence and power, they’d lose revenue – a ton of it. With politicians spending more than $4.4 billion on campaign ads, the last thing the corporate media wants to see is campaign finance reform.
And of course, as Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page pointed out in their landmark study on the influence of money and special interests in politics, corporations and the ultra-rich would risk losing what amounts to nearly complete control of the policies this country chooses if a candidate like Sanders won. As Gilens and Page point out:
When the preferences of economic elites and the stands of organized interest groups are controlled for, the preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy. (emphasis added).
In terms of return on investment, there’s almost nothing that can beat the corporate purchase of government. For example, according to one analysis, 200 of the most politically active companies reaped an astounding 76,000% return on their investments. So yes, money plays a role in the Establishment rejection of Sanders, as well as their embrace of Clinton – who gets their money because the corproations believe she plays politics by their rules.
Great read. The rest at link.
