Re: 2016 Election
 

That's a good way to put it.

I think that it's worse for conservatives (real conservatives, not Trump supporters) because they have nobody left to support or vote for.

My best friend, who is conservative, really struggles with this. She knows she can't vote for Trump but can't get behind Hillary either. The way we characterize it is that it is like rape. No should mean no --- yes should mean yes. I think I've gotten to "yes" and I'm okay with it, but there are a lot of people who aren't there. Incidentally, it was Elizabeth Warren's full throated endorsement that relieved some of my angst. There's been a paradigm shift and, for me, I have to focus on a different set of priorities than I normally would during an election.

Re: 2016 Election
 

Like who is the least likely to press the nuke button... :scaredhair:

Re: 2016 Election
 

I see this as a massive consideration. Whatever hawkish tendencies Clinton may have, I believe she is far more likely to think before she either speaks or acts. Trump's predilection for firing off stupid remarks and then saying that he was just joking, a day or so later, doesn't sit well with the role of commander in chief. He shows no ability whatsoever in the realms of diplomacy or rational thinking.

Re: 2016 Election
 

Agreed. ;)

Re: 2016 Election
 

Absolutely. Or who is the least likely to turn the US into Putin's poodle.

Re: 2016 Election
 

Another way members of Congress can influence legislative outcomes is to amend a bill someone else has sponsored, particularly in the Senate. The rules in the Senate allow for much more and freer amending activity than in the House, so senators introduce (and pass) many more amendments than House members do.

Clinton successfully amended bills 67 times in her eight years in the Senate. Sanders did so 57 times in nine years. On a year-by-year basis, that comes to 8.4 per year for Clinton and 6.3 per year for Sanders. Moreover, the mean senator passed 7.4 amendments. Clinton’s is significantly higher than the mean, and Sanders’s is significantly below the mean. Put differently, Clinton passed 33 percent more amendments per year than did Sanders.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...ernie-sanders/

A couple of points for next time:

-Since effectiveness is a relative measure, providing a list of amendments without context doesn't really address my point. Nobody claimed that Sanders does absolutely nothing as a legislator; rather, the issue is that he doesn't accomplish much.

-Alternet sucks as a source. It's the Breitbart of the left -- selective with the facts and poorly researched. Aside from it providing evidence that the left also has its share of idiots, I would not rely upon Alternet to prove anything.


Because he's a self-proclaimed socialist who will raise taxes. Two third-rails of American politics wrapped into one candidate.

There is this delusion among Sanders supporters that presenting that version of Sanders to the American public at large would have no impact on his popularity. This is the country that brought you the Red Scare.

He couldn't even win over a majority of the minority of Democratic voters who bothered to turn up for the primaries. I can only imagine what would happen if he had to sell himself to the rest of the electorate.

There was a reason why Republicans were hoping that Sanders would win the nomination, and it wasn't because they think that he's a great guy. Let's get real.

Re: 2016 Election
 

You don't think WaPo was biased towards Clinton. Look at this part of the article that you linked:

"Sanders’s record during his 16 years in the House of Representatives was similar. There he didn’t pass a single bill. Granted, it’s harder for members to pass bills in the House than the Senate — the mean House member passes only 0.7 a year — but even so, one passed bill over a quarter-century in both houses of Congress is a very low number compared with his colleagues.

A more general measure of effectiveness is the legislative effectiveness scores developed by political scientists Craig Volden and Alan Wiseman. Volden and Wiseman examine all the bills a House member introduces, how far each bill gets in the legislative process, and condense this information into an overall score. Unfortunately, these scores are available only for the House of Representatives, so they don’t shed any light on Sanders’s and Clinton’s records in the Senate.

But they do tell us something about Sanders during his time in the House. And the story fits with the other evidence: Sanders’s legislative effectiveness score was below the House median in seven of the eight Congresses in which he served." (my emphasis)

Compare that to how the same information is framed on Politifact:

Overall effectiveness

In the current Congress, Sanders ranks fourth when it comes to the number of career roll call amendments passed, according GovTrack founder, Josh Tauberer. The three lawmakers who top him are Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., with 27 in 15 years in Congress; Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., with 24 in 33 years; and Rep Steve King, R-Iowa, with 22 in 13 years.

Roll call amendments aside, Sanders isn’t shattering any legislative records, though he’s not doing poorly either. Tauberer’s research places Sanders at No. 14 in Congress with 90 amendments. The other senator from Vermont, Democrat Patrick Leahy, on the other hand, has passed 226.

Of course, amendments are just one of the ways lawmakers press their agendas. Sanders has had much less luck with passing bills.

During his 25 years in Congress, Sanders introduced 324 bills, three of which became law. This includes a bill in a Republican Congress naming a post office in Vermont and two more while Democrats had control (one naming another Vermont post office and another increasing veterans’ disability compensation). Clinton, for the record, also passed three bills in eight years.

But the sparse number of bills isn’t surprising. Volden and Vanderbilt University’s Alan Wiseman assess the legislative effectiveness of House members by comparing their records to a benchmark. According to this analysis, Sanders has either met or exceeded expectations during his tenure in the House (bold indicates Republican Congresses):

Code:

---

Congress          Grade                  Benchmark score Effectiveness score
1991-1992          Meets expectations    0.422                0.335
1993-1994          Meets expectations    0.411                0.219
1995-1996          Exceeds expectations 0.199                0.463
1997-1998          Exceeds expectations 0.258                0.347
1999-2000          Meets expectations    0.397                0.231
2001-2002          Meets expectations    0.439                0.343
2003-2004          Meets expectations    0.493                0.266
2005-2006          Meets expectations    0.514                0.379

---

Lawmakers who belong to the party in control are five times more likely to have their bills go anywhere than minority party members, according to Volden. So Sanders’ legislative approach may seem like fixating on small potatoes, but for an independent who caucuses with the minority party, it’s a smart strategy.

"He could have either resigned himself to that fate, changed the nature of his legislation and coalition-building strategy, or offered amendments on the floor," Volden said. "He chose the third of these paths, making him more influential in shaping policy than if he had taken the first path. Why he did not take the second path is an open question — likely linked to his ideological views."

Bernie Sanders was the roll call amendment king from 1995 to 2007 | PolitiFact

It's obvious Lazarus has written this article to portray Clinton in the best light and denigrate Sanders.
You're talking in generalities and ignoring the actual numbers. The more people knew Bernie Sanders the more they liked him. Clinton was able to capitalise on the fact she is probably the most well known politician for the last 25 years, for good and bad mind. That doesn't mean Sanders would lose. There is no evidence for that.

http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/...vorable-rating

Re: 2016 Election
 

One more time: Nobody has bothered to attack Sanders.

I don't understand why the Sandernistas have such difficulty grasping the fact that a general election campaign would not resemble anything that Sanders has experienced to date.

The GOP has spent 20+ years attacking Clinton, so it has nothing more to gain -- that damage has already been done. Sanders would be fresh meat who has ample baggage to attack, so it's no surprise that the Republicans would have preferred to have Sanders as an opponent.

Not even Sanders fans want to pay much for healthcare: Most Bernie Sanders supporters aren't willing to pay for his revolution - Vox They like the general concept, they just don't want to shell out anything for it.

When the GOP PACs start contributing to the public view's of who Bernie Sanders is, his popularity would surely drop. Unlike most politicians who are accused of being socialist, he would actually brag about it, which would only help his opponents. Trump might actually have a fighting chance against Sanders, whereas his odds of being Clinton are low.

Re: 2016 Election
 

It's hard to speculate how Sanders would have performed one on one with Trump. I recall all those early polls saying only Sanders beat each candidate one on one. But the current situation is nothing like those polls. Would Trump be melting down so badly if he wasn't losing to a girl? Would Sanders actually be able to withstand scrutiny? They've been scrutinizing Hillary for 25+ years very little has stuck.

Too many variables to guess how it might have been. I suspect as with Trump that sanders' support in the wider population is not as strong as it seemed just from his fanatics.

Re: 2016 Election
 

I agree all speculative. Around where I live most people who say they are voting for Clinton say so because they are against Trump,ant consider Clinton just more of the same. I wonder how Sanders would have stood up for scrutiny, as far as I know he doesn't have the sort of baggage that Clinton and now Trump have. My impression of him was he was sincere in his beliefs and that was very appealing and could be to many even if they doubted some of his policies.

Re: 2016 Election
 

I wonder what the reaction would be if BLM started calling for inner city voters to go to the suburbs to "monitor" the white voters to make sure they're not cheating.

Re: 2016 Election
 

One suspects...outrage.

Re: 2016 Election
 

Wasn't it recently that external monitors wanted to come to the US for the general election? Maybe 2008 or 2012?

Everyone was up in arms about it.

Re: 2016 Election
 

I remember that. It was justified. Sadly.

Re: 2016 Election
 

I have no idea what ya'll are talking about.