Is Bernie 2.0 Eugene McCarthy redux?

[GoneOffShore]

Some thoughts from Dick Polman in Philadelphia, who writes for WHYY and The Atlantic, among others.

Bernie Sanders 2.0 has officially launched. No surprise there. But his candidacy is probably doomed to fail. He seems destined to be Gene McCarthy 2.0.

Anyone remember that guy? McCarthy, an iconoclastic liberal senator, was the pied piper for disaffected Democrats in the early primaries of 1968. His insurgent antiwar candidacy galvanized young people and prompted President Lyndon Johnson to forego re-election. “Clean Gene” (his nickname back in the day) did not win the nomination, but, having enjoyed his historic moment, he tried to replicate it by running again in 1972. He was crushed. He tried to run again in 1976, this time as an independent. Crushed again. He tried again, as a Democrat, in 1992 — and he was crushed again. He was a terminally embittered guy by the time I interviewed him at length in 1987; according to my notes, he groused that the American electorate had become “over-advertised, over-drugged and over-infotained.”

Clean Gene’s moment came and went. So has Bernie’s.

More at the link

Why Bernie Sanders is probably toast

[tirebiter]

1. I hope not

McCarthy endorsed Ronald Reagan.

[GoneOffShore]

2. Exactly.

We certainly don't want that to happen with Bernie going over to the dark side.

[Cha]

3. Wow! thanks for the article,

GoneOffShore.

I don't know about the Gene McCarthy comparison but I certainly agree with the "Fresh Face" scenario.

[Sherman A1]

4. Yeah,

Okay..... It's one person's opinion, nothing more.

[GoneOffShore]

6. Opinion, backed with experience and a sense of history.

I'm in agreement with Mr Polman.

We need fresh faces and less baggage.

And a unified party.

[Sherman A1]

7. Still opinion

And nothing more than opinion.

[Garrett78]

10. Except that it is more than just opinion.

Without there being reason to think Sanders will do much, much better than last time among POC and non-millennial women, there is no reason to think he'll come anywhere close to being our nominee.

Politics isn't purely a guessing game. There's a reason we knew by Super Tuesday in 2016 that Sanders wasn't going to be the nominee, even though he hadn't been mathematically eliminated. His support among POC and non-millennial women was abysmal.

[Sherman A1]

12. And that is your opinion

This is a completely different election cycle with many different factors involved. You and the commentator may indeed be correct, or you both may be wrong. Time will tell.

Don't like Sanders (for whatever reasons) or prefer someone else that is all good, but every speculation as to who will be the nominee at this point is simply conjecture. It's a really long, long time to the convention.

I would think it more useful to look at the ideas and policies of the candidates preferred and discuss them as opposed to engaging in the Cable Noise Infotainment Style of Horse Race of who will be the nominee at this point, but suit yourself.

[Garrett78]

27. No, it's math. And not Bernie Math. Real math.

Politics is not purely guesswork. Why do you suppose it is that we knew after Super Tuesday in 2016 that Clinton had it in the bag, even though Sanders hadn't been mathematically eliminated?

The reason why Sanders does so poorly among POC and non-millennial women has everything to do with ideas and policies.

[Sherman A1]

31. And 24 hours in politics is an eternity

You can post as many opinions as you like. It is far, far too early to know what is going to happen. We haven't even seen all the potential candidates decide to enter the race or not.

[Garrett78]

33. The key question with regard to Sanders is this:

What reason is there to think Sanders will do much, much better than last time among POC and non-millennial women?

Because if he doesn't, he's basically done after New Hampshire. Again, that's just math.

Why did we know very early in the 2016 primary that Sanders was done? Because of demographic and regional trends, as well as primary vs. caucus data. 24 hours wasn't going to change any of that.

[Sherman A1]

35. You may be absolutely correct

Or maybe far less so.

Sanders is my second choice after Yang (who I have already been told here is irrelevant) and I very much appreciate Sanders having stood up for and brought forward progressive ideas for decades.

At this point I am interested in ideas from the candidates with which I tend to agree and far less in the opinions of The Horse Race as to who will or will not be standing at the convention. I will leave that to the Breathless 24/7 Cable Infotainment Channels filling airtime between ads for drugs we never knew we needed.

If you find the math and the horse race interesting, by all means enjoy yourself, currently I do not.

[Garrett78]

36. The reasons Sanders does so poorly among POC and non-millennial women is all about "ideas."

[True Blue American]

5. We have so many great Democrats running

It is like my cup runneth over. I have no choice right now just watching,reading and enjoying all the fesh, brilliant new faces.

I am so sick of the scowling, insulting, putrid thing we have to avoid now. But one thing is sure, I do not wantt Cable News choosing for me.

[chwaliszewski]

8. You should forward this to Bernie himself, ASAP!

Maybe he'll do the right thing and drop out. I'm guessing he'll probably be selfish and do something crazy like let the voters decide on who the nominee should be instead of a writer.

[workinclasszero]

19. Let the voters decide?

That's just crazy talk!

[Quixote1818]

9. One major difference now. The middle class is dying

The country was in pretty good shape back then so people weren't that upset with the establishment.

[George II]

11. Which 1970s are you looking at?

The country wasn't in pretty good shape back then:

Double digit interest rates
High inflation
High unemployment
Vietnam war
Oil Embargoes

[Quixote1818]

14. Incomes still went much, much further then

And being anti war was McCarthys big issue. Once it was over he lost his big issue. Sanders big issue is income inequality and a broken system. If anything his issues are even more pressing this time around.

[Sherman A1]

13. The middle class has been dying for about 4 decades

It has been a very, very, very slow death but started with Ronald Reagan and his Trickle Down Nonsense. Now not everyone in the Middle Class was able to figure out what was being done to them during that time frame as the changes were infinitesimally tiny, but it has been going on a very long time.

[workinclasszero]

20. Bingo

It's an entirely different world in Trumpland and climate change closing in fast.

[pecosbob]

15. The late sixties and early seventies was a pretty hate-filled time in America

but there's no way the plight of average Americans now can be compared to then. Fully one third of the country is food insecure and only one or two paychecks away from homelessness. This country has not seen anything like this since before World War 2. The vast majority of households in 1972 only had one wage-earner, as opposed to two or three today. I always felt Bobby Kennedy gave the '68 election to Nixon.

[Autumn]

16. Anyone who runs twice is Gene McCarthy 2.0. ?

What a load of hogwash.

This will be Bernie's second run. Hillary has run twice. If Biden jumps in this will be his third. IMO these three people are the cream of the crop


The author says of his opinion

So feel free, if you wish, to dismiss my analysis as the product of animus.

I will be happy to give him mine.

In the 2020 primaries, Bernie won’t have a monopoly on progressive market share.

That's a good thing and IMO we owe that to Bernie, he made being progressive popular

There’s a hunger to turn the page and leave the past behind.Democrats would prefer not to re-fight 2016.

There's only a few deadenders clinging to 2016, pragmatic and reasonable people have moved on. Too bad people like the author haven't.

An old white guy is out of sync with a party increasingly powered by minorities and women

there's a few other old white guys running. Are they out of sync? Bernie is 99% in sync with this Latina woman, so is the old white guy Biden.

[GoneOffShore]

17. I voted for Bernie in the primary in PA.

Met the man, like him and some of his ideas.

I don't think he's right for the time or this election, any more than I think that Joe Biden is right. And I'm speaking as an old white guy.

I've read a lot of Dick Polman's stuff and find him pretty astute. YMMV.

[Autumn]

18. That's the first I've read of him but when I read his article it was clear where he was coming from

As a Latina woman I can see his article is nothing more than bias against Bernie.

[GoneOffShore]

21. I've been reading Polman a lot as I've spent the last 37 years in Philadelphia.

And considering the following, I'm not sure what you're actually saying, apart from the fact that you like Bernie.

People of color decisively spurned Bernie in 2016, and it strains credulity to believe he’ll do any better with Kamala Harris, Julian Castro, and Cory Booker (or the various fresh-face white candidates) on the early primary ballots. And in this first presidential election of the #MeToo era, Bernie has to compete for women voters while fending off serious accusations of misogyny and sexual harassment in his ’16 campaign. This week he apologized (“some women went through experiences that they should not have”) while claiming he didn’t know what was happening.

[Gothmog]

22. Bernie Sanders is probably just another one-hit wonder

The Washington Post compares sanders to Santorum https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/02/19/bernie-sanders-is-probably-just-another-one-hit-wonder/?utm_term=.38aeb01c0e30

History shows this is likely to seriously hurt Sanders. CNN’s Harry Enten has compiled a list of every candidate who finished second in one year’s primaries and chose to run again the next time. He found that only six of those 13 people won the nomination in his next race, and only one of those (John McCain in 2008) became their party’s pick without leading the polls in February of the year before the election. The fact that Sanders runs second now is a strong indicator that he will not be the nominee in 2020.

Sanders seems most similar to two people who fared extremely poorly in their next efforts, Eugene McCarthy and Rick Santorum. McCarthy’s rise to fame was a lot like Sanders’s: He was an obscure senator who challenged a seemingly unbeatable leader (President Lyndon B. Johnson) and attracted young voters and liberals with his anti-Vietnam War stance. His lightning in the bottle forced LBJ to drop out in 1968, but when he tried to attract support on his own in 1972, a younger imitator, Sen. George McGovern (D-S.D.), attracted his voters with a broader left-wing and anti-war appeal. McCarthy finished fifth.

Santorum’s meteoric rise among Republicans in 2012 was similar. Languishing in the polls as late as January, the former senator from Pennsylvania rocketed to win the Iowa caucuses on the strength of religious conservatives who did not want to nominate Mitt Romney. He rode their backing to finish second, but when he tried again in 2016, religious conservatives looked for the fresh face. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) and noted neurosurgeon Ben Carson thrashed Santorum among Iowa’s religious conservatives. The man who won the state in 2012 received less than 1 percent in 2016 and quickly dropped out.

Sanders’s chances are slim even if he regains progressive support from his competitors. While his backers contend that the Democratic establishment rigged the 2016 race in Clinton’s favor, the fact is Sanders lost because he got wiped out among African American voters. This is a long-standing problem for white, progressive challengers to the Democratic establishment. Since 1984, African American Democratic primary voters have either supported a serious African American candidate or the more moderate among the white candidates. Sanders would face the same challenge that doomed him in 2016 and has shown no indication that he has figured out how to meet it.

[NurseJackie]

24. Great article. Many interesting points and observations.

I think they've hit the nail squarely on the head.

[George II]

25. +1,000,000

[Docreed2003]

26. Excellent article

I think this shows exactly how tough of a go Sanders will have this time. I ask this question in another thread today but it bears repeating...short of attempting to divide and conquer, where will his numbers come from? He has as close to 100% name recognition as you could get and he's facing a field that is more diverse in background and beliefs and there's nothing which would separate him from the crowd in a meangful way.

[Garrett78]

28. "...the fact is Sanders lost because he got wiped out among African American voters."

Bingo. And he didn't do well among other persons of color or non-millennial women.

I keep telling those in denial to look at the primary schedule. Look at those dozen or so states that follow New Hampshire. After NH, Sanders is in a heap of trouble. Calling him a front-runner is utterly ridiculous.

[Awsi Dooger]

30. "only six of those 13 people won the nomination in his next race..."

I can't believe they actually printed that in a serious manner.

"Only" 6 of 13? That is a phenomenal percentage.

You begin with a head start, in name recognition and benefit of a doubt. It's like a backup quarterback who has never lost a major game and therefore been discarded by the fan base.

Sanders has major opportunity in the debates. I always care about situational influence and also the math. There are plenty of dismissive math-based posts in this thread. But all of them are conveniently ignoring that Bernie Sanders easily could be the commanding presence during those debates. I don't doubt it at all. He is not a blend type. Once it is his turn among 7 or 8 or whatever, his words are going to be unique and powerful. That can change the math in a hurry.

I don't think he'll be the nominee. At 50/50 I'd bet against anybody. But it's silly to believe Sanders won't be a huge player. For one thing, people are underestimating the strength of Hillary Clinton. She won the considerable majority of debates against Obama in 2008, and made Trump look like a puppet. Bernie Sanders is essentially like a racehorse dropping down in class when he no longer has to face the caliber of Hillary Clinton.

[pnwmom]

32. Bernie lost last time by 4 million votes, and there is little reason to think

that many of those Hillary voters who rejected him last time would have changed their minds.

And they didn't view him as "commanding" -- at least not in a positive way.

[Garrett78]

34. The "only 6 of 13" argument is silly, I'd agree, but...

...here's the question that I think is key: What reason is there to think Sanders will do much, much better than last time among POC and non-millennial women? Because if he doesn't, his goose is cooked. He'll essentially be done after New Hampshire. The demographic data is why we knew on Super Tuesday of 2016 that Clinton had it in the bag long before Sanders had been mathematically eliminated.

And tone-deaf Sanders continually sticks his foot in his mouth with regard to matters of race and sex.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

38. He has 100% name recognition and he's polling at 12% among African Americans in SC

I report. You infer.

[brer cat]

37. Interesting analysis.

Thanks for posting, Gothmog.

[A-Schwarzenegger]

23. "... (McCarthy) groused that the American electorate had become

'over-advertised, over-drugged and over-infotained.'”

What a grousing embittered nut to spew such crazy talk!

[Generic Brad]

29. No

He is a legitimate contender for the nomination.

[GoneOffShore]

39. He may well be a legitimate contender for the nomination, but does he have a chance in the general?

My guess is no. He had a shot at the nomination, and then blew it.

Personally, speaking as someone who is of the same generation and similar political views, I'd rather see someone younger and with a broader appeal. And a person who could win.