538: "This Is How Bernie Sanders Could Win"

[The Traveler]

21. Ground field advantages

The Clinton campaign will be well organized ... but will its ground game players have the energy?

I'm looking at those crowds. That's a lot of excitement and energy this early in the process. If 10% of the attendees become volunteers ... yeah. I wonder what a typical figure for that would be ... 1 out of 10? 2/10? Dunno. But I think it likely Sanders' ground army will be bigger and more energized than Clinton's. And that can have a huge effect on the race.

Where I think Nate Silver is absolutely right is with respect to black Americans and latinos. Sanders has to attract a much higher percentage of those groups than he is right at this moment.

But I don't think black Americans are as immune to the economic justice argument as this panel presumes. Racism has long been recognized by blacks as a method for maintaining economic control. Martin Luther King certainly knew it, and spoke about it. I doubt Malcom X would have argued against the point. Cornel West knows it. Sanders is not well known in those communities ... but that means he has an opportunity to connect with people of color. It remains to be seen if he can actually do so.

If he can ... all bets are off. This is not a normal election cycle. People have had it with the status quo and the political class. There's a lot of anger out there. And Bernie Sanders is one of the two beneficiaries of that frustration. The other is Trump, of course.

On a separate note, I watched part of Trump's event tonight ... this man is dangerous in every sense of the word. I think it is very unwise to presume that he will be unable to channel the public's anger at the establishment. We are prone to think of him as a buffoon. But he's not. He knows how to work a crowd. We better not underestimate him.

Trav