Oyvey...the DNC primary wasn't "rigged" and it wasn't a fraud. Both candidates had advantages and disadvantages. Clinton had connections in the party and was favored by huge democratic voting constituencies, and Sanders performed extremely well in small caucus states, which allowed him to earn proportionally more delegates than the actual popular vote.
Ultimately, Clinton's advantage with minority voters and her roots in states like Illinois and New York paid off, allowing her to cream Sanders in the popular vote and beat him handily (albeit more narrowly) with delegates. She had a better ground game than he did, appealed to more primary voters than he did, and ultimately Sanders was never able to give the DNC's super delegates a compelling reason to ignore their voters and pick him instead.
The DNC's wishes are never the be all end all. They wanted Clinton over Obama back in 08...but their voters handed them Obama instead, and Clinton's huge advantage among super delegates melted away.
And dammit, I'm a progressive. I want a more consistently progressive Democratic Party. But nonsense like this doesn't help.
| theprof00 said: Man, do you even know how heartbreaking it is to know that all the polls had Bernie winning by 3 points against Trump and Hillary getting crushed against Trump, and watching the whole thing go down with the superdelegates, and the bullshit. It's just so sad. Sanders voters were so motivated. |
I don't intend to engage in any sort of protracted conversation in a thread like this, but I do feel a burning need to address this.
I don't want to offend you, but you are wrong on a couple of levels here. For one, polls during primaries are never especially accurate, and Sanders had the advantage of being a lesser known candidate. Lesser known candidates tend to poll better, because and any dirty laundry they have hasn't been aired. Their beliefs aren't as well known. They haven't been subjected to intense general election attack ads. They haven't been subjected to fake news and rumors. These sorts of advantages do not hold in a general election for any candidate, and the same would have been true for Sanders. Post-primary, polls WOULD have tightened. Sanders had his share of dirty laundry that was either useless in a democratic primary or Clinton did not draw attention to, that Trump's campaign would have.
Further more, Clinton was never getting "crushed" in polling during the primaries. By and large, she was a polling a several points worse than Sanders against Trump, but on average she still kept a fairly consistent (and often sizable) lead. But, of course, as I said before: primary polling isn't particularly accurate or relevant to a general election, as this proves.
The only time Sanders began polling significantly better than Clinton was in May. This happened only after Trump effectively clinched the nomination, and Clinton had effectively won the nomination, but hadn't technically clinched it yet. This led to Republicans consolidating, while democrats remained divided, and the Sanders campaign was baselessly accusing the DNC of having a "rigged" system (I say baseless, because no evidence was ever really presented that actually proved that) among other things. That few (if any) attack ads were ran against Sanders also helped him. In the aftermath of the DNC primary, Clinton got a similar bump.
In any case, you can look at the primary general election polling via this website: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/2016_presidential_race.html
It's hard to directly compare numbers, but it is evident Clinton was never getting crushed. Of course, Sanders was also often ahead by more than three points.
If you want an idea of the sorts of things that would have driven down Sander's number: http://www.joemygod.com/2016/11/15/newsweek-posts-gop-oppo-research-on-bernie-sander/
And that's all I gotta say here. Regardless if you believe me or not, this is a more accurate picture of things.
