Vanity Fair: Get a grip, Bernie Bedwetters: His Message and Media Machine could be Potent Against Tr

[Quixote1818]

Vanity Fair: Get a grip, Bernie Bedwetters: His Message and Media Machine could be Potent Against Trump

BY PETER HAMBY

JANUARY 31, 2020

he Bernie bed-wetting has reached full-blown rubber sheet mode. With Bernie Sanders hanging on to a slim polling lead in Iowa and an even bigger one in New Hampshire, panicked Democrats are sounding the alarm that Bernie Sanders could surf a wave of unstoppable momentum all the way to the Democratic National Convention in Milwaukee. Nominating Sanders to run against Donald Trump would be an “Act of Insanity,” according to New York magazine’s Jonathan Chait. “Dems Tormented Over How to Stop Bernie,” read a recent Politico headline, which quoted Rahm Emanuel, the high priest of boardroom centrism, proclaiming with authority that Sanders will repel swing voters. (Gotta print a Rahm quote!) The New York Times cited Bonnie Campbell, a longtime supporter of Hillary Clinton and now Joe Biden, talking about Sanders as if he was infected with the coronavirus. “I can tell you, I hear from friends and colleagues who say: ‘Oh, my God, what are we going to do if Bernie wins?’” Campbell said, sounding haunted.

The concerns are understandable. Nominating a socialist as a major party nominee for president would mark an extraordinary break from tradition and over 100 years of faith in the idea that the United States is fundamentally not a socialist country. Several of Sanders’s signature policies, like decriminalizing border crossings and replacing private insurance with a government-run Medicare-for-All system, are deeply unpopular. Those ideas have been litigated in a Democratic primary but have never been subject to sustained attacks in a general election. The Trump campaign will gleefully rope the socialist tag around Bernie’s neck in Florida, terrifying every Fox News–viewing retiree and micro-targeting every Cuban and Venezualan with Facebook ads reminding them of broken regimes back home. Khaki-wearing PTA members in northern Virginia and suburban Denver might recoil in horror at the idea of Sanders rattling the markets and their 401(k)s, putting states recently thought to be safely blue back in play. It shouldn’t be forgotten, either, that Sanders is 78 and suffered a heart attack in October, the subject of an anti-Sanders television ad currently running in Iowa.

Everything about Sanders—his ideas, his stubborn dogma, his sometimes-kooky supporters, his contempt for greenroom culture and the party circuit—is completely foreign to the intellectual and cultural fabric of Washington. In that universe, the claim that Sanders is unelectable is more or less gospel. The same Democrats who were assured of Hillary Clinton’s victory are now starting to worry about a Goldwater or McGovern-style Electoral College wipeout with Sanders atop the ticket. If they were so inclined, the bed-wetters could easily Google a year of polls showing Sanders beating Trump in hypothetical head-to-head matchups. A Texas Lyceum poll just this week showed Sanders performing better against Trump in Texas than any Democrat, losing by just three points. That’s on top of a raft of polls showing Sanders beating Trump back those precious Upper Midwest states of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. These polls aren’t totally hypothetical, either: Sanders boasts near universal Name ID. Most voters know who Sanders is and what he stands for—and they’re still choosing him, whether they actually like him or just because his name isn’t Donald Trump. The president and his advisers are starting to notice, according to recent stories in the New York Times and Daily Beast. Both outlets reported in recent weeks that some Trump advisers are worried about Sanders’s strengths—his populist appeal, perceived authenticity, and his durable popularity with the same white non-college voters who voted for Trump. “I think he’s tough in places where people are making $12 an hour,” Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale recently told CBS News, who said the media is underestimating his appeal. Trump himself has started asking his team about Sanders’s polling performance in key battleground states, specifically Pennsylvania, the Daily Beast reported.

More: https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/01/bernie-sanders-message-media-machine-could-be-potent-against-trump

[pnwmom]

1. Bernie's been doing almost nothing to reach out to former Hillary voters,

who are now divided between Biden and Warren.

And he has to win the primary before he could go against Trump.

[tirebiter]

2. He won't get past South Carolina

And children's crusades don't end well.

[DemocracyMouse]

3. People are sick of the status quo. Therefore Trump, Warren, Bernie.

And why are they sick of the status quo?

If you don't know, you're benefitting from it.

[Quixote1818]

4. Nicely put. nt

[highplainsdem]

5. LOL at Hamby quoting Trump's campaign manager building up Sanders. Of course they

will.

But Hamby is correct to point out that some of Sanders' signature ideas are deeply unpopular.

He's wrong again, though, in the section of the opinion piece where he talks abot how well Sanders does in GE polls against Trump. Yes, Sanders generally does fairly well in those polls, though in almost all of them Biden does better against Trump.

But Biden does well against Trump despite nonstop attacks from the GOP.

The GOP hasn't really gone after Sanders yet.

And they won't at this stage -- right now they're trying to help Sanders against Biden -- because they want Sanders to be our nominee.

[Cha]

6. Get a Freaking Grip Peter Hamby BEDWETTER.

[msongs]

7. this was already hidden earlier today for good reason nt

[BlueMTexpat]

8. I am not a "Bernie Bedwetter."

But I am certainly NOT a supporter.

And this article doesn't sway me at all.