With total respect, Bernie supporters haven't got a clue. I know because I supported McGovern

[Sloumeau]

90. Thank you for posting this.

I have studied the 1968 Presidential primaries and general election as well as the 1972 Presidential primaries and general election. The similarity between those two elections and the 2016 and 2020 election it has gone so far are striking.

In 1968 and 2016, the Democrats won a close election. Then, after 1968, McGovern headed a commission to change primary and try to give more power to the people. In the same vein, Sanders supporters at Unity Reform Commission...

https://democrats.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/URC_Report_FINAL.pdf]

...after 2016 tried to change the primary rules to give more power to the people.


Then, in 1972, George McGovern, who head the reform commission, ran a campaign that was anti-Vietnam War, a campaign that appealed a great deal to the young and college students but had little appeal to older voters--whether they were Democrats, Independents, or Republicans.

In 2019 and 2020, Bernie Sanders, the man who was supported by the Democrats who pushed for the Unity Reform Commission, ran a campaign that has appealed the most to the young and college students, perhaps in part because of his promise of Free College.

In both 1972 and the past year, the McGovern and Sanders candidates were wildly popular with the young, but were quite unpopular with the oldest Democratic Voters. People so rejected McGovern's position that large swaths of older Democrats actually voted for Nixon in 1968. Now, let's look at what happened in Iowa in 2020. The caucus numbers were about the same as 2016, yet there was about a 33% increase in young voters from 2016 to 2020. In order for overall total numbers from 2016 and 2020 to be about the same, that means that older voters had to stay home. This is one of the reasons why Sanders did so well in Iowa and folks like Biden, who was strongest with older Americans, did so poorly.

If Sanders becomes the nominee, and if he is very popular with the young, but not popular with older Democrats, we might very well see a repeat of what happened in 1972. Older voters might not vote for Trump, they might just stay home or vote for someone else. In 1972, It wasn't just a lot of Democrats that voted for Nixon. A lot of Independents voted for him too, and of course, Republicans voted for him en masse. Democratic Nominees who capture the youth vote, but not the older vote, do not have a good track record in our party. I know a whole lot of older Democrats who really do not want to have to vote for Bernie Sanders.