Ex-Governor of Iowa Vilsack: Clinton has geographic advantage in Iowa

Even beyond the polls, Clinton's advantage is the geography of Iowa

College students are concentrated in college towns which means their votes are "wasted". Clinton has support all over the state.

Even if Clinton loses Iowa it will be narrowly and can be explained away by "young white liberals"

Seems that Iowa will NOT be her Waterloo.

New Hampshire - can be easily explained

After that it's South Carolina, Nevada, and then Super Tuesday. Is Sanders leading in any one of these states (other than Vermont)?

Gold standard poll in Iowa: Clinton 45% Bernie 42%

Looking good for Clinton!!

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/elections/presidential/caucus/2016/01/30/clinton-keeps-slim-edge-over-sanders-latest-iowa-poll/79537020/

Some other things going for Clinton:
- she has the better organizational machinery
- her voters are more committed
- her voters are much more likely to have gone to the caucuses before
- she has the better demographics map (a lot of Bernie's supporters are concentrated in a few college towns)

"Clinton's voters are more certain and much more likely to have caucused before," Axelrod said. "Bernie's organizational task, counting so heavily on first-time caucusgoers — many of them young — is greater."

I read that Bernie could win the popular vote in Iowa but still lose in the number of delegates

How does that work?

Washington Post calls Bernie's health care plan "half-baked"

“Their savings numbers are — well, politely said — simply wrong,” Emory University health-care expert Kenneth E. Thorpe told Vox. Mr. Thorpe, who is not hostile to single-payer systems of the type Mr. Sanders favors and has even advanced single-payer plans of his own, released an analysis Wednesday finding that Mr. Sanders’s proposal would cost $1 trillion more than the candidate estimated. That is not over a 10-year budget window. That is every year.

New York Times on Sander's campaign: "promises of free tuition, universal health care"...

Where's the bus for the Old Gray Lady?

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/28/us/politics/bernie-sanders-hillary-clinton-iowa.html

Why do Bernie/his supporters get to decide what a Democrat stands for?

I support Clinton's promise not to raise taxes for middle class folks who earn less than $250k. So did Obama.

This seems to be mainstream Democratic Party platform.

The best leaders inspire sacrifice. The guy running for class president promises free pizza.

What kind of leader is Bernie? What has he inspired you to sacrifice (other than campaign $$)?

Can he deliver on the free pizza?

Avg health care spend is $6,125 (working age) and $3,628 (child) but Bernie claims you only pay $466

For a 2 parent 2 child family that's $20k on average.

https://www.cms.gov/research-statistics-data-and-systems/statistics-trends-and-reports/nationalhealthexpenddata/nhe-fact-sheet.html

But according to Bernie, you only pay $466 per family in taxes for $20k of estimated costs.

Last year, the average working family paid $4,955 in premiums and $1,318 in deductibles to private health insurance companies. Under this plan, a family of four earning $50,000 would pay just $466 per year to the single-payer program, amounting to a savings of over $5,800 for that family each year.

https://berniesanders.com/issues/medicare-for-all/

Where do the costs magically disappear to?

If a used car salesman was offering me this deal, I would walk away...