Van Johnson GREAT SUGGESTIONS for Bernie right now.

[grasswire]

On CNN tonight, Van Johnson suggests the following for Bernie to target specific voters he needs right now:

Lose the stump speech immediately. It is stale and everyone has heard it way too many times.

Instead, speak from the heart about his Civil Rights Era experiences, and his immigrant background, and about people he has met on the campaign and their stories.

The stump speech is now hurting him. Give people something to relate to!!

[winter is coming]

1. I disagree.

I hate it when candidates try to "personalize" their speeches with stories about people they've met. It tends to come across as phony and exploitative.

[grasswire]

4. depends on the skill of the speaker

The Clintons started that trend, I believe, and the Obamas have used it, too. I don't like that either.

But Bernie has spoken about the woman who started crying in his audience, with good reception. And others as well. And his own story about his immigrant parents is well received.

[mikehiggins]

2. I saw that sequence but disagree with the idea.

The "stump" speech is repetitive--many of us can respond to parts of it like the audience at midnight showings of Rocky Horror--but lots of people across this country have not heard it at all. And what he says bares repeating and the MSM has no interest in repeating it.

The idea of widening the scope of his speechs would be fine if it didn't carry with it the loss of the main themes, i.e. this economy is rigged and there is too much money from big donors underlying it. Certainly racism and police corruption and poverty and disasters like Flint are deserving of discussion and outrage but diluting Sanders' message to get blocs of voters to support him is the old, aka Clinton, method of political discourse.

Surely most have noticed that the more widespread the range of problems a candidate holds forth on the less likely any of it is going to get done. Things become the "crisis" of the moment and are dragged out depending on what group of potential voters the candidate is seeking to attract. Back in the day one of the present candidates was referred to as a "pander bear" in recognition of the attempt to be all things to all people.

Let Sanders maintain his focus on what we think is the problem, and what we think is its cause. Those who will criticize his positions as being insufficiently sensitive to their issues will have to deal with that as they will.

[grasswire]

3. there's no reason that he needs to lose his message about his positions

Johnson is simply suggesting that the speech needs a rewrite, and some personal history that we can all be proud of.

[mikehiggins]

5. I still don't agree

My impression of what was said was obviously more in line with my complaint than a simple inclusion of the "I'm the son of a Polish immigrant..."

I don't find any fault with that--actually liked it and his references to being a long distance runner--but what Van Jones was saying seemed to me to suggest Sanders should dump the parts of his speech that dealt with his analysis of the underlying problems that contribute to the unraveling of our nation.

To me all of these problems Sanders is "advised" to take up is like deciding to talk about the menu on the Titanic while dismissing the guy who is more concerned about the big hole in the hull, and that damn iceberg.

[Duckfan]

6. Keep reminding people about things that affect them...

And pretend you are talking to one person who has never heard your speech.

It's like an interview I saw of Huey Lewis on his concerts several years ago: He does his shows like there is one person in the audience who has never seen his show before.

And that one person walks away saying, "Wow! What a F'ing awesome concert."

Same principle with Bernie.

But I think there are people who (have never seen/heard Bernie) want to know how are you going to pay for a free education, or how are you going to create more jobs, etc...

You need to address those peoples concerns. Yeah, mix up the speech a little, but keep it focused.

[mhatrw]

7. That's what they would like him to do. But he's not running to get insider style points.

He's running to finally let the election reform, economic justice. and social justice genies out of the bottles the top 0.1% has for so long trapped them in.