Marshall Matz, a policy adviser for Sen. George McGovern's failed 1972 bid warned Dems

[Gothmog]

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

[Thekaspervote]

1. Oh indeed!! Will be happy when sanders goes home to VT

[Dennis Donovan]

2. This isn't 1972.

Not even close.

[still_one]

3. It will be worse. George McGovern not only proudly wore the Democratic label, he didn't go out of

his way to criticize the Democratic Party, or large segments within the Democratic Party as part of his campaign for the general election

[George II]

7. Excellent points.

[Hankee]

9. It will be bad, but not worse

McGovern only one one States

[David__77]

22. He didn't rule out a post for George Wallace in his administration.

It is and was, indeed, a big tent.

https://m.

Any Democratic administration might span the spectrum of the party.

I hope that whoever the Democratic candidate is, he or she will aim to achieve unity in advance of the general election.

[UniteFightBack]

26. Yes unity...and who are the candidates promoting that??? Hint it's NOT Bernie. nt

[LakeArenal]

4. It's only opinion. (It's also mine)

Go Joe!!!

[George II]

5. Emphasis on "Democrats, please listen and learn."

[George II]

6. It would wind up a bigger landslide than Nixon/McGovern; Reagan/Mondale; Johnson/Goldwater

[Blue_true]

16. I don't believe that.

The economy is slowing pretty fast. Trump is causing trouble worldwide and that is hurting our country.

Trump will most likely have a lot of baggage in November. That should make the race versus Bernie (if he is the democratic nominee) close and if Bernie doesn't go apeshit with far left stuff, Bernie can win. I believe a large core of Americans are sick of Trump's continuous chaos and will replace him with a reasonable alternative that doesn't scare them.

[UniteFightBack]

27. +1000

[Demsrule86]

8. I have to say, I don't think Sanders is looking well...now we have VP's so that would not dissuade

me from supporting him if I was so inclined in the primary...and of course I vote for him in a general. If there is something in the medical report he doesn't want out there...I promise you the GOP will put it out there...so I wish he would release his records. I don't think it would dissuade his supporters.

[Blue_true]

17. If Sanders' medical records can be hacked, the Russians have them and are

waiting for the right moment to give them to the Trump campaign via back channels.

[redqueen]

10. Misguided, but not surprising.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/1287412562

[Gothmog]

15. I was amused by the article cited in that thread

The amusing article cited in the OP of that thread does a great job of showing how sanders and McGovern are alike

McGovern entered KELO-TV’s studios to declare his candidacy for the 1972 Democratic presidential nomination. To call McGovern a dark horse candidate for the 1972 nomination would be an understatement. In August, Vegas oddsmaker Jimmy “The Greek” Snyder gave McGovern scant 200-to-1 odds of securing the Democratic nomination. Heading into the election year, McGovern’s poll numbers sat in the single digits.....

But the McGovern campaign began falling apart almost immediately after McGovern secured the nomination. At the Democratic National Convention, McGovern didn’t give his acceptance speech until nearly three in the morning. Making matters worse, McGovern and his advisers selected Senator Thomas Eagleton, an anti-abortion Catholic, as his running mate in a sop to the party’s more socially conservative wing. Though Eagleton had assured McGovern that there were no skeletons in his closet, it soon leaked that Eagleton had undergone electroshock therapy, and, after initially pledging his support for Eagleton, McGovern removed him from the ticket, a turn of events that made McGovern look both incompetent and cruel.

Perhaps the deepest damage to McGovern’s campaign came not from its own ineptitude, but from the candidate’s fellow Democrats. Early in the primaries, an adviser for Hubert Humphrey, one of McGovern’s main opponents for the nomination, promised, “We are going to show that McGovern is a radical, just like Goldwater was in 1964.” Keeping that promise, Humphrey claimed during a televised debate prior to the California primary that McGovern’s Demogrant plan would hike taxes on a middle class family making $12,000 by more than $400. The number wasn’t remotely true. According to both private calculations by Nixon’s Office of Management and Budget and independent academic estimates, the bottom 70-to-80 percent of families would pay less under McGovern’s plan than under existing law or Nixon’s proposals. But Humphrey’s claim not only stuck, it practically wrote the script for an anti-Demogrant commercial that Nixon would run in the fall.


As McGovern barreled toward the nomination, leading Democrats’ attacks became more desperate. Anti-McGovern Democrats staged an “Anybody But McGovern” movement at the convention. When that failed, some pledged that they would not campaign for him and might even support Nixon. A Democrat even handed Republicans their best attack line: “The people don’t know McGovern is for amnesty, abortion, and legalization of pot,” an unnamed Democratic senator told the press. Hugh Scott, the GOP’s Senate minority leader, transformed the quote into “the three A’s: Acid, Amnesty, and Abortion” and a golden political slur was born. (Ironically, the unnamed Democratic senator who had originated the line was none other than Eagleton, though McGovern didn’t know it at the time.)

By the time November rolled around, McGovern’s loss to Nixon was a fait accompli.

I note that Nixon selected McGovern to be his opponent and sabotage several other candidates It is clear to everyone that trump really wants to run against sanders and that trump feats Biden. trump was willing to break the law to try to get dirt on Biden.

I note that Nixon was likely to win in that most POTUS who have a decent economy are re-elected but here Nixon won by historic margins. If sanders is the nominee, trump will likely win 45+ states easily

[NYMinute]

11. If Bernie wins the nomination, he may beat McGovern's loss

Vermont has only 3 EC votes as opposed to MA which had 14.

[Gothmog]

36. If Gabbard is sanders' VP, they may pick up Hawaii

[NYMinute]

37. No they won't

Tulsi's Hawai'i career is over.

[highplainsdem]

12. K&R

[crazytown]

13. There's the thing - you have to go back to 1972 to find a too left candidate,

but as little as 2000, and perhaps 2004 to find too center candidates.

[Blue_true]

18. The two elections you listed were very close. So you sort of blew up your own argument. nt

[crazytown]

19. 72, 84, Dems faced an ultra popular president

center-left, left-center, both went in style.

[Blue_true]

20. True. But Bush was also popular in 2004. The Iraq debacle had not yet blown up on him.

Same with Nixon in 72, OPEC was just getting organized and the oil shocks and decline of US automakers had not hit the economy. In 84, Reagan had invaded a couple of basket case islands with no American blood shed, so he was popular.

[crazytown]

21. W was the least popular president to be re-elected in the modern era

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/trump-is-the-most-unpopular-president-since-ford-to-run-for-reelection/

Nixon had a 61% approval on Election Day. No one could have bested him.

[Blue_true]

24. Bush II was only slightly less popular than Eisenhower and both won re-election.

To use your theory, Gerald Ford was more popular in 76 than Reagan was in 84. Ford lost and Reagan won in a massive landslide. So I think your original point about the popularity of the sitting President in 72 and 84 doesn't prove your point when all the data is examined.

My guess is the state of the economy was more important to reelection or defeat than the President's popularity, both Nixon in 72 and Reagan in 84 came into reelection with economies that were recovering from a downturn, Ford in 76 had an economy that had stalled and was hit by oil embargo driven inflation. Bush II in 84 had an economy that was propped up by post 9/11 interest rate easing. Clinton in 96 and Obama in 12 flatout had decent economies that they had lifted out of deep malaise. My point on the importance of the economy is why I think that a Bernie Sanders can beat Trump, the election at that point, IMO, will have distilled down to how people view their own economic situation, and big problems developed a year or so under Trump and the fallout is just starting to show itself.

[crazytown]

25. Approval on re-Election Day: Ike 68%, W 48%

1976 Ford 39% , 1984 Reagan 58%.

Am I missing something here? We seem to be talking at cross purposes.

If approval polls are any guide, trump is staring down the barrel of defeat, unless he can expand his popularity in the months ahead. That is not enough. Dems need to win the Senate and keep the House.

[NewJeffCT]

33. Bush Jr was at 48.4% on election day, Eisenhower was 68%

that's a huge difference.

[TexasTowelie]

14. K&R! nt

[David__77]

23. Campaign contributions data.

https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/lobbyists/contributions?cycle=2018&id=Y0000028383L

[UniteFightBack]

28. What does this have to do with the OP? nt

[Gothmog]

29. I was curious about that also

[Bradshaw3]

30. Funny how Biden's actions 20 years ago aren't relevant but an election 47 years ago is

Bringing up Biden's votes on the Iraq war supposedly aren't relevant but an election held almost 50 years ago is. So I guess this means we can bring up Biden's stance on busing, right? I mean fair is fair.

[LanternWaste]

32. You're allowed to bring up anything you like.

I get it... you need to pretend otherwise to make a petulant point that itself is otherwise irrelevant.

Awkward.

[Hortensis]

31. I think this would be almost beyond doubt. His admirers

don't realize how vulnerable his record is to just plain honest scrutiny, how other people would regard many of his attitudes and behaviors once a spotlight was finally shined on them, much less what the Republicans and Russians would make of all of it.

Seriously, the day I wondered, very hopefully, if he'd be a good choice when he showed up after Warren refused to run, I started reading about him. In less than an hour reading about his senate career before even poking much into his past, I felt he'd be a very weak, dysfunctional, and unrepresentative president. Since then I've learned a lot more about who he is, and I'd only vote for him, very upset, as my only choice.

Wishful thinking can't elect just anyone even if there were far more wishful thinkers than there are. Or make people who put trust, integrity, liberal ideals, and competence high on their lists decide they're not important after all.

[MineralMan]

34. As long ago as that was, his experience is still relevant.

I voted for McGovern, knowing that he would certainly lose, back in 1972. Why? Because he was the Democratic nominee. I always vote for the Democratic nominee. Nixon was a bad choice for a second term, as we all learned pretty soon after that. McGovern would have been much better, but couldn't win.

A similar situation occurred in 1968, too. I voted for Humphrey that year, in the first presidential election I was eligible to vote. I have always voted for the Democratic nominee, even when it was clear that nominee could not win. I won't change that practice, but I do hope we do better in 2020 than in those two election years. Don't you?

It's a lesson we should be paying attention to.

[Gothmog]

35. You and I both lived through that campaign

I was too young to vote but worked on the McGovern campaign and followed it closely.

[Gothmog]

38. It's Bernie, not Biden, who has the electability problem

Link to tweet

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has decided to attack Joe Biden, claiming that the moderate former vice president, who sits atop virtually every national poll with solid African American support, is somehow unelectable. His argument is that Biden couldn’t possibly be elected because he voted for the Iraq War nearly 20 years ago and for the North American Free Trade Agreement 27 years ago. There is no data to support that argument and, logically, one would think that running as a self-described socialist now is a much bigger electability problem than Biden’s past votes, but we do not have to speculate.

Some of Sanders’s signature, super-progressive issues play very poorly in swing states. The Kaiser Family Foundation’s Blue Wall Voices Project last year found that “large shares of swing voters in Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin say stopping detainments at the U.S. border for people cross into the country illegally and a national Medicare-for-all plan are ‘bad ideas.’ ”
Moreover, polling over the last week or so shows clearly that picking Sanders would be a gamble. While he once was leading outside the margin of error in head-to-head matchups against President Trump, he is now losing or at best within the margin of error while Biden continues to be the most viable candidate against Trump.....

Moreover, given that Democratic victories are heavily dependent on African American turnout, it is difficult to see that Sanders, who gets a fraction of the African American support that Biden does, could turn out a bigger African American vote than Biden could. (Recall that in the 2016 primary, Hillary Clinton walloped Sanders among African American voters.) In the latest Fox News South Carolina poll, Biden gets 43 percent of the African American vote, Sanders just 12 percent.

And finally, remember that in the 2018 midterms, super-progressive candidates endorsed by Sanders did not flip a single House seat from red to blue. All those House seats were flipped by Biden-type moderates.

There will be a debate next week. That might be a good moment to quiz Sanders on where his claim to superior electability comes from. So far, there is not a whole lot — if any — evidence to back up his boast.

[Gothmog]

39. The last time we experimented with a close to Bernie and Liz candidate was in 1972-George McGovern.

Link to tweet

[Gothmog]

40. Looks familiar

Link to tweet

[Gothmog]

41. Sanders would lose to trump

Link to tweet

?s=20

[Gothmog]

42. Trump is salivating at the prospect of running against Sanders

Link to tweet

[Gothmog]

43. James Clyburn thinks that sanders is like McGovern

Link to tweet