I hope that Bernie is capable of being shallow.

[True Blue Door]

Whether you like it or not, presidential politics is overwhelmingly determined on image - not substance. We already know Bernie Sanders has substance. What remains to be seen is whether he can translate the substance of his views into a larger, shallower, more broadly-applicable image that convinces people who don't know very much that he is their candidate.

If he is serious, then learning how to be shallow will be the subject of his study for the campaign. If his only intent is to "steer the debate," then he will fail: Hillary Clinton will not learn anything, no matter what. She has proven that too many times over now. She learns nothing. At most he would make her use some unfamiliar vocabulary for a while before reverting to form. So I hope that his candidacy is serious - that he intends to be President of the United States.

If so, he needs to quickly start learning how not to be so genuine. How to instead spread his substance more thinly, into more shallow threads that normal, uninformed people can relate to. That is the reality of politics in this country. If he plays the self-gratifying game of running the campaign he wants rather than the campaign we need, then nothing will happen. He will be just another lightweight in a long list of them.

Bernie, be the candidate we need. Whatever you've been before, whatever you want to be, forget that and be what we need. Don't be another lightweight making symbolic points. Fight so hard and so deeply you sicken yourself. Let people into your campaign whose soulless mercenary hearts make you sick.

This is what it is. Don't be our ennobling loss. Rise to the day. You're all we've got. Don't repeat the stupidities of history, and don't embarrass us by being a new Ralph Nader.

Win. That is all we require of you.

[immoderate]

1. You rang?

--imm

[go bernie go]

2. I disagree.

People are tired of the phony banter.

[True Blue Door]

51. It's true that we here are tired of phony banter.

"People", however, watch The Kardashians and celebrate royal weddings.

Ignore them all you want, those people will not go away, and they do vote.

[LanternWaste]

3. We often pine for a politician speaking beyond the lowest common demonstrator

We often pine for a politician speaking beyond the lowest common demonstrator, and yet as soon as we we perceive that happening, we criticize them for speaking beyond the lowest common denominator.

I don't want ordinary in any candidate I eventually choose, and I certainly don't want more pandering.

[True Blue Door]

5. How a candidate speaks only matters until you know who they are.

We already know Bernie is the real thing. Now what matters is everything else.

[Bluenorthwest]

4. I don't share your cynicism. I also never call a Democratic Primary candiate 'Ralph Nader'

but that's just me.

[True Blue Door]

6. This is no cynicism.

This is presidential politics. Choose a candidate you trust, then win or go home.

[seabeyond]

7. first, his asset is being authentic and second. anti clinton and obama and others about the shallow?

[True Blue Door]

8. We already know he's authentic.

We need to know what else he is too, so we know if there's a basis for hope in his candidacy or if we're just going to make symbolic points for Hillary to rhetorical acknowledge and then ignore in her "Failing Upward Toward Victory" primary campaign (which would later become her "Avoiding Defeat Until Defeated" general election campaign).

[seabeyond]

9. he isnt selling to du. he is selling to the nation. i stand that his asset is his authenticity. nt

[True Blue Door]

11. Authenticity is a beginning.

Seeing it as the entirety of the matter is a recipe for Kucinich-hood.

[seabeyond]

13. i think it is the sell. not the beginning and sanders is no kucinich. nt

[True Blue Door]

15. I agree, he is more than that.

However, his experience so far is with Vermont - a state with fewer people than attended the second Obama inauguration. It will be a steep learning curve.

[seabeyond]

18. it will be. but i cannot stress enough what his voice does for our youth and first time voters.

it energizes them.

i think his conversation of middle class is also clear and succinct for our middle class across the nation.

i do not think he even compares to the spaceship discussion.

we just disagree on this one.

[True Blue Door]

25. I have more confidence in him than I had in Howard Dean in 2004.

I see no immediate showstoppers. There is definitely room for hope to grow.

[AgingAmerican]

10. "Don't embarass us by having depth"

DOH!

[True Blue Door]

12. I'm saying the exact opposite.

Don't embarrass us by being so shallow as to think personal qualities are a substitute for the ability to communicate with large audiences in a political race.

[AgingAmerican]

16. Ah, I see it now

Excellent!

[betterdemsonly]

14. Nader lost because he was a third party candidate, not because he wasn't as phony as a dlcer. n/t

[True Blue Door]

17. He would have lost as a Democratic nominee too.

Same as George McGovern, Eugene McCarthy, and every other candidate whose political talents were unequal to the ambition of their values.

There's a difference between wanting to speak and wanting to do, and they're not always compatible. We sometimes mistake the former for the latter, and fail to appreciate the latter if it's not accompanied by the former.

[betterdemsonly]

19. The dlc has racked up quite a few losses too.

Grimes, Nunn and Burke were all New Democrats that run on not being republican. All lost. Doesn't stop them from running more and more of them.

You're no more objective than anyone else. The dlc is an ideology, not a style. You really prefer them because you like centerist policies. You are very right wing on foreign policy issues. Obama ran as a progressive and tracked right after the election. So did Clinton the First.

[True Blue Door]

20. I know, that's why I support Bernie Sanders.

That's why I want him to win over people who might do the wrong things out of concerns about electability.

I thought I made that clear.

[betterdemsonly]

21. So you say

Thanks for your CONCERN?

[True Blue Door]

22. Are you calling me a liar?

If you want to call me a liar, then do it outright and take responsibility for it. Don't just post abusive innuendo because you don't want to contribute anything substantive to an important conversation.

I'm trying to have a conversation about getting Bernie Sanders elected President, and you're more interested in attacking me than talking about that. Be thankful I prefer to talk things out rather than Alerting, because we both know you crossed the line right there.

By the way, an apology would be appreciated.

[True Blue Door]

23. Let me reiterate: An apology is required.

Both of your above comments totally ignore the substance of what I say, and when confronted by the difference between your reaction and that substance, you attacked my integrity instead of simply getting back to the issue at hand.

An apology is required, in a timely manner.

If none is forthcoming, I will assume you intend to continue behaving like that, and I have no interest in submitting to that abuse or participating in meaningless diversions from the issues. You'll be on Total Ignore, so I won't be bothered again by your comments.

Failure to respond in a timely manner will be interpreted as the latter.

Have a nice day.

[True Blue Door]

24. Your silence is heard loud and clear. Goodbye.

[peacebird]

26. Totally disagree. It is his authenticity that will bring victory.

[True Blue Door]

28. How is his authenticity different from the authenticity of every other candidate

who ever lost trying to run as an alternative?

[peacebird]

29. Fortunately Bernie IS Bernie, so I have no reason to worry he will follow your advice

Have a nice evening!

[True Blue Door]

31. It all depends if he intends to win or not, doesn't it?

Winning will require convincing people very different from you and I to vote for him.

People very different from the Vermont electorate that elevated him to national exposure.

You can dismiss those facts all you want, but they won't go away.

They will draw the line between a symbolic challenge that slightly alters Hillary Clinton's rhetoric for a few months before she runs hard right in the general election, and a meaningful general election. They would also draw a hard line between a lightweight candidacy whose only purpose is to make us feel good about losing, and a major reform Presidency whose challenges would be so massive they would make getting elected seem like the easy part.

[peacebird]

38. Your concern is duly noted

[True Blue Door]

46. Your contempt for critical thinking is duly noted.

I really hope his candidacy isn't shaped by this kind of attitude.

[peacebird]

48. LOL! "Critical thinking" says Bermie should run as a shallow person instead of as himself?

As I said, your CONCERN is duly noted.

[True Blue Door]

50. Critical thinking says politics is not a support group.

I'm not aware of a single successful candidate in US presidential history who "ran as himself" in the puerile way you seem to want it.

Or was Jimmy Carter really some folksy down-home peanut farmer with just some aw-shucks-golly-gee...nuclear engineering degree?

FDR, using painful mechanical contraptions to stand up at campaign stops so the public wouldn't see him in a wheelchair, and standing before corporate executives berating the Hoover administration's obstruction of free trade rather than telling them to stop exploiting workers.

John F. Kennedy talking all about how the Eisenhower administration was soft on the Commies, that was legit?

Just stop using the word "concern" as a magical talisman to avoid having to make intelligent arguments.

Bernie Sanders has a lot more work to do than "being himself," and I seriously hope he can count on better advice than that even if not mine in particular.

[magical thyme]

33. he probably doesn't talk about seeing UFOs

also, he looks like the grandfather I always wished I'd had.
his hair is not an obvious wig or dye job.
he doesn't suffer fools.
and he's tall.

[True Blue Door]

40. That is definitely helpful.

Still, in shallow media terms he doesn't have a lot of image assets.

Sometimes you can tell right away if someone will win or lose. I see no decisive factors either way with him, but actually pulling it off will require some fancy footwork.

[A-Schwarzenegger]

27. "quickly start learning how not to be so genuine"

too late

[A-Schwarzenegger]

30. I know good political humor when I see it.

[Katashi_itto]

32. I agree. There is a shallow factor to overcome.

The current leading candidate is incredibly shallow.

A master of being shallow in fact. A true leader in that regard.

Can Bernie increase his own shallowness to match that?

Honestly I don't think so.

[True Blue Door]

36. Substance leveraged into image is stronger than purely fabricated image.

But it still has to be leveraged. You can't just dump substance on a table like a chunk of bloody raw meat and have the average citizen respond positively - a lot depends on presentation.

A substantial meal well-presented is more appetizing than the most artistically-arranged faux-food on a golden plate. He doesn't have to out-shallow her, just prove he can compete for the votes of shallow people.

[undeterred]

34. Morally serious people don't do shallow.

I don't think Sanders has a shallow side, nor should he cultivate one.

[True Blue Door]

41. Then why did FDR go out of his way to hide the wheelchair?

Truly morally serious people do shallow constantly, because it's more important as a leader to communicate with people than to gratify themselves and those whose ideas and depth are identical to theirs.

[L0oniX]

35. Bernie is not going to hold his finger up to follow the DC bubble political wind.

On the other hand your op slant may be a result of reading too many Manny ops.

[True Blue Door]

42. Speaking of shallow...

[stage left]

37. Is this satire?

[A-Schwarzenegger]

39. Parody

of a hip political consultant.
And a very fine parody at that.

[True Blue Door]

43. Is your question "double-secret" satire?

[stage left]

52. If you want it to be.

[Enrique]

44. he needs to talk more about Jesus

and sports.

[True Blue Door]

45. Not yet, but eventually he'll have to deal with people who love either or both.

And not just tell them they're idiots for thinking those things are politically important.

[Enrique]

47. he has never insulted anyone like that in the past

why would he do that now?

[True Blue Door]

49. He wouldn't deliberately insult anybody.

But it's very easy to miscalculate the difference between courageous passion for your own views and ignorance of the views of others.

That's why people with strong reformist convictions often have a hard time communicating with the apolitical public: A lot of times they think they're owed support because they're right, and the reality in a democracy is that they're not owed anything - they have to convince a certain number of people, no matter how mindless or frivolous the final 10% of those people are.

Nor can a candidate complain that voters aren't treating them fairly, nor can they ignore the problem - pretending the gulf in mutual understanding isn't there won't stop a candidate from falling into it. They have to be aware of how others think, and communicate with them in ways that are neither phony nor condescending from the perspective of the other person. Or at very least assemble a team that can manage this for them.

So, yeah, he will definitely at some point have to talk about Jesus, sports, and pop culture if he gets as far as we hope, not because they objectively mean anything, but because they mean something to a lot of people who are not strongly locked into one side or the other.