2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: At least people are trying to explain away the Bernie rallies. People sense something doesn't add up [View all]ucrdem
(15,512 posts)By the end of the thing though his campaign was grossly exaggerating his attendance figures and the press was playing along. I witnessed it. Whether that was the case from the get-go I have no way of knowing but at least here in So Cal his crowds were in the hundreds not the thousands reported. So I don't see any disconnect at all. He also benefitted from motor-voter laws that register voters but don't give them much information. So they weren't all exactly dedicated Democrats. Lastly he didn't include any kind of party-building or GOTV message in his stump speech which I also heard with my own ears and saw numerous tidbits of online. How could he? He was basically running against the entire Democratic party. So those motor-voter registrees didn't come away from his rallies which more info than they had before they went. However, he does seem to have convinced a good number of them that Democrats are corrupt.