WaPo: Bernie Sanders isn’t Barack Obama, and 2016 isn’t 2008 [View all]

[Algernon Moncrieff]

Complete article at LINK

It may be tempting to compare the race between Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to the epic race between Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama: Sanders, like Obama, has consolidated a good portion of the liberal wing of the Democratic Party. Sanders, like Obama, is raising millions from small-dollar donors on the Internet. Sanders, like Obama, is channeling the anger and frustration of some in the party. Then, it was about the Iraq war; now, it’s about Wall Street.

But that’s where the similarities end. From the perspective of someone who worked on his campaign and in his White House, it’s clear that Obama’s race against Clinton is not a useful example. Understanding the dynamics at play in the 2016 primaries requires looking further back at history. And unfortunately for Sanders, history shows that there are only two types of Democratic insurgent candidates: Barack Obama and everyone else.

The current system for selecting nominees in the Democratic Party is less than 50 years old. After the disastrous 1968 campaign and nominating convention in Chicago, the party abandoned the smoke-filled rooms of yore and shifted to a series of primaries and caucuses. The 1972 nomination went to the grass-roots favorite, Sen. George McGovern (S.D.), who used the new rules to edge out establishment picks Hubert Humphrey and Henry “Scoop” Jackson. (McGovern won only Massachusetts and the District of Columbia in the general election against Richard Nixon.) In nearly every election since then, an anti-establishment figure has sought the nomination.