There will come a point when people have to admit that Sanders's polls vs. Republicans [View all]

[Recursion]

compared to Clinton's are no longer "meaningless".

For me, that moment was sometime last week.

The draw in Iowa and the lopsided win in New Hampshire pretty much take away from the "name recognition" argument: people do actually know who Sanders is.

Pre-emptive point 1: I do not "feel the Bern". I think Sanders would be a marginally worse President than Clinton. For that matter I'm not a huge fan of either of them and wish O'Malley had stayed in. For that matter I wish Schweitzer had run (he endorsed O'Malley, which was how I found him).

Pre-emptive point 2: Both potential nominees carry serious baggage into the general. There's no getting around this; we're going to face an uphill battle either way.

Pre-emptive point 3: The simple fact is that right now, when asked, national polls reveal a better scenario under a Sanders run than a Clinton run (if you think that's currently "meaningless", tell me a date on which you think it will be "meaningfull&quot .

Pre-emptive point 4: If you either disagree with my tactical assessment, or support Clinton for ideological or other reasons, I respect that and will do nothing more other than state my position. There's way, way, way too much feces-flinging from the Sanders side of the tent, and that's also a big worry of mine.

Pre-emptive point 5: Clinton is an amazing progressive politician who has done tireless (and thankless) work for all of us and I'm sick of Bernie-bros-come-lately rehashing every right-wing fantasy about her, so if you want to use this thread to pile on about how awful she is I'd prefer you didn't (not that I can stop you). I think she'd be a better President than Sanders, but I think the polls right now are in fact accurate and Sanders has a better chance in the General.

To conclude: we were always facing a rough election year, structurally (repeating the White House after 8 years rarely happens), and we kind of handicapped ourselves by the two candidates that survived the winnowing. That is what it is. It is my own, personal, considered opinion that Sanders is our best chance, and to the extent my opinion has any weight with other Democrats I'd just like to make that known.