There's a scene in The Blues Brothers where Curtis admonishes the boys to
"Slide on over to the Triple Rock and catch Reverend Cleophus. You boys listen to what he's got to say."
And further on, Curtis admonishes even further:
"You get wise. You get to Church".
Why do I bring this up?
Because this is how we get Bernie to win.
Currently there are 22 or 23 states in which we can get non-Democrats to vote in the Democratic primary. We must, as a community, actively recruit Bernie voters. After all, the media isn't going to give Bernie as much attention as the least polling Republican in the Klown Kar of Krazy gets. Also, the media is too obsessed with taking Hillary down to pay Bernie much attention. This must be a Faberge Shampoo campaign--We tell two friends, and they'll each tell two friends, and so on, and so on, and so on. We have seen how Bernie's message resonates, once people hear it.
An astute diarist and commenter, in another diary, brings up the point that there are a huge number of voters who are disaffected--they just don't care to vote, whether from frustration or apathy. Bernie has the kind of message that resonates especially with these voters. Hillary will have a "50-state" operation up much like Obama did. This is the kind of operation that supporters of Bernie will also have to put together.
Except it doesn't have to be top-down. Bernie has campaigned on not being "top-down". What it takes is people willing to pound pavement and talk, talk, talk.
But my diary title is about "Missing The Boat". Jump over the Chee-To for why:
Democratic voters are going to vote for Democrats. Republican voters are going to vote for Republicans. The Village has built up this myth of the "Independent Swing Voter" so much that once the conventions are over, everything is geared towards wooing them. The absurd extreme is played out in the movie Swing Vote (2008).
In that movie, the election comes down to one person's vote which was miscast or misread. The candidates spend the movie pandering to that one voter, with the media misrepresenting his views and opinions based on what he says so much that the candidates flip flop several times on what they say they believe in. Curiously, the Democratic candidate is a Senator from Vermont.
But here's why I bring it up: the Village will be so centered on those "Independents" that they will forget that well over half the country doesn't vote at all. THOSE are the people we need to reach, and THOSE are the people that Bernie is trying to reach.
I mean, Texas would be a solid Blue State if everyone in Texas who was voting age or even registered to vote actually voted.
And this is what we supposedly do best--get new people voting. The goal cannot be converting Hillary voters, nor can it be talking to the so-called "Independents". The goal can only be to persuade those tens of millions of voters to "Slide on over to the Triple Rock and catch Reverend Cleophus" and to "listen to what he's got to say".
So here's my proposal: Leave one group to write all about why the other group's candidate can't win, or is "bad", or whatever. The others will all be busy making sure the people are listening to what Reverend Cleophus is saying.