Jim Lane

Jim Lane's Journal

June 8, 2018

Bernie Sanders Is Losing Primary Battles, But Winning A War

This NPR piece -- "Bernie Sanders Is Losing Primary Battles, But Winning A War" -- is a valuable counter to the overemphasis on scorekeeping of individual races.

There are two main points:
* First, tabulating results has to take into account the context, namely that Bernie is not endorsing favorites and is playing a longer game than just running up numbers in the 2018 primaries.
* Second, the big picture of all the primaries shows that the party has moved significantly in Bernie’s direction on issues like health care. This shift has multiple causes but certainly Bernie’s 2016 campaign and his follow-up advocacy have played a role.

On the first point, Bernie put his endorsements in context:

"I hope they win," Sanders said. "Maybe they don't. But if you get 45 percent of the vote now, next time you may well win."

Bernie is perfectly well aware that a challenger who faces an incumbent and who has less money is fighting an uphill battle:

"I could be 100 percent in terms of my endorsements," Sanders told NPR. "All you've got to do is endorse establishment candidates who have a whole lot of money, who are 40 points ahead in the poll. You know what, you'll come and say, 'Bernie, you were 100 percent supportive of these candidates, they all won.'"

The second point is the Democratic Party’s overall issue stance:

Even if many of his hand-picked candidates are coming up short, more of the Democrats who are winning are lining up closer to Sanders anyway. A Medicare-for-all, single-payer health care plan continues to gain support among Democratic candidates, and the $15 minimum wage Sanders made a key part of his presidential campaign has been adopted as a cause by party leaders across the country.

Along with health care and minimum wage, there’s similar movement on universal preschool and debt-free college, as Bernie’s longtime strategist observes:

"Many of these issues were considered fringe issues, and now they are mainstream issues that we take for granted that there, of course, are legions of Democratic candidates running on those platforms," said Jeff Weaver. "Three or four years ago you would not have seen candidates running on that platform I would have considered to be outside the mainstream."

Now, going beyond the NPR piece, I’ll venture my own prediction. The Democratic nominee in 2020 will not be Bernie Sanders, but it will be someone who calls for single-payer health care.

Profile Information

Name: Jim Lane
Gender: Male
Hometown: Jersey City
Member since: Fri Nov 12, 2004, 11:22 AM
Number of posts: 11,175

About Jim Lane

I spend most of my online time on Wikipedia, where we desperately need more people to help counter right-wing bias. Please PM me whenever you want help with a Wikipedia-related issue. (Remember that Wikipedia material must be neutral, but we can and should include facts that conservatives would prefer to suppress.)