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[Name removed]

[Jackie Wilson Said]

1. I am a Bernie voter, so remember that. Oppo research has yet to come out.

[bobbobbins01]

35. If you're a Bernie voter, I'll eat my hat.

What a load.

[Jackie Wilson Said]

36. Was one before you knew who he was, probably.

bon appetite

[bobbobbins01]

39. Suuuuure

My Aunt Fanny voted for him too.

[Jackie Wilson Said]

41. In all seriousness, if you had any clue what was at stake in November, you would

not argue with people about what has to be done.

[bobbobbins01]

42. I know exactly what has to be done.

And you're right, too much is at stake. Which is why Bernie is our only option.

[Jackie Wilson Said]

43. But if he isnt the nominee, you are going to do what, now?

Are you going to do what Bernie does?

[bobbobbins01]

44. If he isn't our nominee, I'm going to do what I do.

And that is vote for the candidate who most closely resembles my ideals.

[Jackie Wilson Said]

45. Hillary?

[bobbobbins01]

46. I'll be voting for a woman.

The one who is closest to my ideals.

[Jackie Wilson Said]

47. Sounds like you will be default voting for one of the worst human beings to ever

run for our presidency.

SHAME on you

[bobbobbins01]

48. Nah, shame on you.

For trying to fearmonger me into voting for a damaged and corrupt candidate. My vote is my own, and I'll be very proud when I place it. You're part of the problem.

[Jackie Wilson Said]

49. Wait, so you will vote for Hillary? None of my business, I know. It is just that DU

is for liberals or at least democrats.

[bobbobbins01]

50. You try so hard.

You're right about one thing, I'll be voting for a liberal.

[Jackie Wilson Said]

51. Sounds like trump can count on you, sad.

[bobbobbins01]

52. I didn't realize he was a liberal woman.

Sounds like you'll be voting for corruption, sad.

[Jackie Wilson Said]

53. And you call yourself a liberal...

[bobbobbins01]

54. I do.

Which is why I'll be voting for the liberal in the primary.

[brooklynite]

2. The part where national head-to-head polls are meaningless six months out?

Have you ever wondered why campaigns don't end after the Conventions? After all, one of the candidates is ahead in the polls, right?

It's because polls, to the extent they tell you anything, are expressions of potential at a point in time. The Sanders polls don't assume he'll be hit with the Republican's oppo file, or hello have trouble ramping up his fundraising 500% to have a billion dollars to spend, or that he'll actually know how to campaign against someone as erratic as Trump.

[Tarc]

3. A Year Out, Ignore General Election Polls

They have little relationship to the final outcome

Still true today, and Rasmussen has been all but discredited as a Republican-leaning shill since 2013 or so.

The Demise of the Rasmussen Report, From Most Accurate to Least Accurate Poll

[workinclasszero]

4. Sanders hasn't been vetted

And Hillary has won the nomination already.

If you can't even win the primary how can a candidate talk shit about winning the general?

[Yurovsky]

11. She hasn't won yet. Take away the Superdelegates that she bought...

and this can still go either way. Same as 2008, once they see the votes going against Hillary, they'll bail to stay on good terms with the people's choice.

[NurseJackie]

5. What part of "hasn't been subjected to GOP smear machine" can't Bernie fans understand?

What part of poll after poll can't the corporate democrat establishment understand?

Fair or not, there's a lot (a LOT) of juicy material that a well-funded GOP smear machine could use against a candidate like Sanders. True or not, they'd get a lot of mileage out of it, and Bernie would be spending most of his campaign trying to explain or fight the accusations and smears.

There is no "Alert" button in real life. The things we're often not allowed to discuss here, and the conversations that are shut-down here, would go on and on an on in the real world.

Latest Rasmussen Reports has Trump up two points and he did not even start on Clinton yet.

Rasmussen, eh?

[grasswire]

28. Like what juicy material?

You've apparently got a file, so please prepare us for what you think is coming.

[anigbrowl]

38. Like 'he's a commie pinko traitor'

Sure, you think sensible people won't buy into 1950s red-baiting stuff, but that doesn't mean that an avalanche of it won't have any effect on the general public. If I didn't want to argue on policy and competence but just wanted to go for cheap shots, it would be soooooo easy to paint Bernie Sanders as both a clown and as a dangerous radical. I don't think a lot of his fans realize just how safe and comfortable of a ride they've had so far this season. Hillary has never really gone negative on him.

[grasswire]

40. That's juicy?

Hardly.

And debatable, too.

[bbrady42]

6. The part where a united front of right wing money and power starts attacking him.

That's never happened to him. But it'll be misleading or outright lying, it'll be brutal, and it'll work.

[Lizzie Poppet]

10. But it'll be even more effective against Hillary in the GE campaign.

Why? Because she's starting out much further in the hole: her unfavorability ratings are far higher than Bernie's. She already has a huge base of voters that hate her guts.

[politicaljunkie41910]

15. No it won't because we've heard all the lies before.

As far as Trump goes, the GOP might not have cared about his lies, bankrupcies, outsourcing of the manufacturing of Trump products to China, Indonesia, and Vietnam, and his total lack of knowledge on any substantial issue one would need to know to be the leader of the free world, but it will matter to Dems and Independents.

[Lizzie Poppet]

16. I sincerely doubt that.

Even leaving aside that negative statements about Hillary are in greater part factual, I don't believe for a moment that we've seen anything remotely near what we'll see in an actual top-of-the-ticket slugfest in a GE campaign. The GOP attacks will make the couple seasons of primary bickering seem like a visit to Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.

[highprincipleswork]

27. I agree. A lot of Hillary's negatives are factual, and will be used. Plus, she has never been

through a GE before. There will be all sorts of other angles that haven't been used by Democratic opponents.

I feel much better that Trump would have a hard time getting traction off of Bernie's past.

Socialist. That's the worst part of it. And we've already seen that with a little explaining the American public can actually get past that just fine.

[grasswire]

30. you ain't seen nothing yet.

Your nodding agreement to that talking point is meaningless. Hillary has twenty more years of materiel ripe for attacks. Worse than before.

[hack89]

7. So what?

are you suggesting we ignore the Democratic primary voters and pick a nominee based on polls?

[LanternWaste]

8. I'd thought Sanders supporters were all about convictions and ideals rather than polling.

Hence voters should choose a candidate on who's currently polled (in some polls) as stronger in the general election rather than their own convictions? Is this... new? I'd thought Sanders supporters were all about convictions and ideals rather than pragmatism and polling.

[JoePhilly]

17. Polls and SDs are now very popular in Bernie land.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

9. Yoou must have missed

wyldwolf's excellent thread here in GDP at http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511890988 He pulls seven devastating possible lines of Republican attack against SBS from a Slate article this week by Michelle Goldberg.

Google "Michelle Goldberg", a frequent contributor to The Nation and other progressive publications, to see that these Achilles heels of SBS have not been hidden but rather have been ignored.

Had Bernie not already been eliminated mathematically from competition for the nom (he'd need more than 100 percent of remaining PDs to catch Hillary), Bernie and Democrats would be toast in the GE, given the BILLIONS that Koch and other right-wing billionaires would spend on broadcasting Bernie's many many weaknesses.

[Gothmog]

21. That was a great thread

Match up polls are worthless because sanders has not been vetted Dana Milbank has some good comments on general election match up polls https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/democrats-would-be-insane-to-nominate-bernie-sanders/2016/01/26/0590e624-c472-11e5-a4aa-f25866ba0dc6_story.html?hpid=hp_opinions-for-wide-side_opinion-card-a%3Ahomepage%2Fstory

Sanders and his supporters boast of polls showing him, on average, matching up slightly better against Trump than Clinton does. But those matchups are misleading: Opponents have been attacking and defining Clinton for a quarter- century, but nobody has really gone to work yet on demonizing Sanders.

Watching Sanders at Monday night’s Democratic presidential forum in Des Moines, I imagined how Trump — or another Republican nominee — would disembowel the relatively unknown Vermonter.

The first questioner from the audience asked Sanders to explain why he embraces the “socialist” label and requested that Sanders define it “so that it doesn’t concern the rest of us citizens.”

Sanders, explaining that much of what he proposes is happening in Scandinavia and Germany (a concept that itself alarms Americans who don’t want to be like socialized Europe), answered vaguely: “Creating a government that works for all of us, not just a handful of people on the top — that’s my definition of democratic socialism.”

But that’s not how Republicans will define socialism — and they’ll have the dictionary on their side. They’ll portray Sanders as one who wants the government to own and control major industries and the means of production and distribution of goods. They’ll say he wants to take away private property. That wouldn’t be fair, but it would be easy. Socialists don’t win national elections in the United States .

Sanders on Monday night also admitted he would seek massive tax increases — “one of the biggest tax hikes in history,” as moderator Chris Cuomo put it — to expand Medicare to all. Sanders, this time making a comparison with Britain and France, allowed that “hypothetically, you’re going to pay $5,000 more in taxes,” and declared, “W e will raise taxes, yes we will.” He said this would be offset by lower health-insurance premiums and protested that “it’s demagogic to say, oh, you’re paying more in taxes.”

Well, yes — and Trump is a demagogue.

Sanders also made clear he would be happy to identify Democrats as the party of big government and of wealth redistribution. When Cuomo said Sanders seemed to be saying he would grow government “bigger than ever,” Sanders didn’t quarrel, saying, “P eople want to criticize me, okay,” and “F ine, if that’s the criticism, I accept it.”

Sanders accepts it, but are Democrats ready to accept ownership of socialism, massive tax increases and a dramatic expansion of government? If so, they will lose.

Match up polls are worthless because these polls do not measure what would happen to Sanders in a general election where Sanders is very vulnerable to negative ads.

[ProgressiveEconomist]

25. "We will raise taxes...yes we will."

Had Bernie some how gotten the nom, the Rs would have burned that video clip into all our brains for decades, just as they did with Mondale's similar epic fail in 1984 against Reagan. See http://www.newsworks.org/index.php/local/national-interest/90450-bernies-suicide-statement-we-will-raise-taxes .

And that was just one of Bernie's fatal mistakes. Support for dumping VT nuclear waste on TX Latinos, "honeymooning in the Soviet Union", advocating against K-12 public education?

The man has to be a real moron rather than someone who, like President Obama, thinks twenty moves ahead,. Certainly his cynical main plank of "free public college tuition" would waste tens of billions, put some private colleges out of business, and make it harder for poor kids to deal with competition with wealthy kids for college admission.

[Gothmog]

37. It worked so well for President Mondale

[Stuckinthebush]

12. It's all academic

He will never have a chance to find out how well he would actually do.

On to the GE with Clinton

[woolldog]

13. Poll after poll shows Kasic was stronger than Trump or Cruz...

And yet he dropped out today because it was clear Trump had wrapped up the nomination.

[Yavin4]

14. Please post a link to one negative ad run against Bernie

Just one.

[Mz Pip]

18. Just wait.

Bernie has been ignored by the Republicans. Just wait until the GOP PACs start painting him as the second coming of Stalin. It will happen.

[Beacool]

19. Poll: Trump trails Clinton by double digits

Donald Trump trails Hillary Clinton by 13 percentage points, according to a CNN/ORC poll released Wednesday, a day after the Republican presidential front-runner won Indiana decisively and became the presumptive GOP nominee following Ted Cruz’s exit from the race.

Clinton leads Trump in the hypothetical head-to-head matchup 54 percent to 41 percent, her largest advantage over Trump since July. Voters’ reasons for backing Clinton are largely split, with 48 percent of her supporters saying they would vote for her because they support her, while 51 percent said their vote is an expression of their opposition to Trump. On the other side, 57 percent of Trump’s supporters are backing him because they oppose having another Clinton in the White House, while 43 percent actually support his campaign.

Clinton and Trump both have negative favorability among Americans. Clinton’s net favorability is minus 1 percent (48 percent favorable, 49 percent unfavorable), while Trump’s is minus 18 percent (39 percent favorable, 57 percent unfavorable).

Among registered voters, Clinton is considered the better candidate on issues including climate change, foreign policy, education, health care, the income gap, immigration and terrorism. But voters suggested Trump would be better for the economy, which Americans said is the top issue for the next president.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/05/poll-trump-hillary-clinton-222780

[Gothmog]

20. A rassie poll?

It is bad enough that RWNJ material on the clinton e-mail are being posted on DU but now we have Rassie polls being cited. There is now no need to go the Free Republic because the same material is being posted here.

BTW, Rassie is not a reliable polling operation

[dana_b]

22. they don't care

they'd rather lose to Trump than elect Bernie.

[Tiggeroshii]

23. Polling aggregate: Clinton +6 Bernie +13

The poll averages at this point historically have a greater than 50% correlation with the actual results.

[kentuck]

24. I don't think it is altogether transparent by assuming anything from these polls.

If the Republican Party thought he was going to be the winner, he would receive much harsher critique, I have no doubt. At this time, they think their opponent is going to be Hillary. That is why Trump has started attacking her already.

[MattP]

26. I heard Deez Nutz came in first in a couple polls why not him?

[pdsimdars]

29. A vote for Hillary is a vote for Trump Presidency

[shadowandblossom]

31. Political scientists say those polls mean nothing so far out and he's already lost so who cares?

.

[Demsrule86]

32. Yeah well polls don't count

Primaries and delegates do...and since Bernie has not been vetted, such polls are a joke.

[Blue_Tires]

33. "Poll after Poll shows Arizona would have beaten Denver in the Super Bowl"

Yeah, it's kind of like that...

[LenaBaby61]

34. You're judging this on ....

The strength of a Rasmussen poll?

That poll isn't worth a warm bucket of spit.

By the way, that same Rasmussen poll gave us a Pres. Romney in 2012.

[bjo59]

55. The corporate democrat establishment can't afford to pay those polls any mind because

it is absolutely unthinkable that a candidate who is anti-corporate should ever rise to the position of president. Bernie Sanders is seen as an extreme threat to those who profit off the economic system as it is, so much so that even if HRC were to lose to Trump, it would still be experienced as preferable to Sanders trouncing him in a general election. A Sanders presidency: Quelle horreur!!

[The Second Stone]

56. Not the polls taken at the polling both

which are the ones that count. Sanders is behind by millions there.