Senator Bernie Sanders may well be the front runner. There are burdens that are put upon the front runner and his supporters. This diary is not going to contain personal, character attacks on Senator Bernie Sanders. I hope that posters will not engage in personal, character attacks upon him in this diary. This diary is going to give an analysis of the race which is very subjective, especially at this time, and the burdens of being a front runner.
No candidate is perfect. However, Senator Bernie Sanders has a lot of great things going for him and he would be a much better president than thing who is currently occupying the white house. First, he is pushing for fundamental changes to the economy. Many of us struggle tremendously. Despite my education, I am in financial peril. The only candidate who would help me more personally would be Andrew Yang, but he cannot win. The other candidates will not make fundamental changes to the nature of the economy with the possible exception of Senator Elizabeth Warren. In truth, I need a candidate who will fundamentally change the economy to win the primary and the general. And my best bet for that would be Senator Bernie Sanders. His constant support for Medicare for All would help me as well as I am going through substance abuse rehabilitation treatment (I have been clean since the end of July). There are consequences that I experience physically while I am going through my treatment. I am currently unemployed (my security guard work pays cash — no application or id or anything else and I did not know this until my first day which was last Saturday) . Having medicare would help me. He has added a diverse staff and his campaign manager is a Muslim.
Now, his supporters are extremely passionate. The people who support him absolutely love him. And there are a huge number of them, especially considering he brought a lot of people with him from his 2016 campaign. His strength is seen in raising $6 million within 24 hours of announcing his candidacy. He will have the funds to compete all the way through the primary and in the general election. He won about 42% of the Democratic Primary votes. The question is whether he will retain that 42 percent. There were only two candidates through most of the primary. The other choice was Hillary Clinton. However, despite her actual policies that she was running on, there was this strong conviction among some people on the left that Hillary Clinton was very conservative. For those who did not care about non economic discrimination which is dismissed as “identity politics” and otherwise considered themselves progressive, Bernie Sanders was the only other candidate. There were self-identified progressives like me who voted for her in the primary who cared about “identity politics”. The question, here, is: now that there are others who are running on an economically progressive platform (credit to Senator Warren she is running on racial / social justice explicitly as well), will he retain the full percentage of those non Clinton votes or will he split them with Senator Warren ?
If he retains the vast majority of those who voted for him in 2016 and the rest of the field remains splintered, then he is likely to win. He would then be almost the only one running in the “progressive” (economic only) lane and the rest would be too divided for any one candidate to catch up to him. Right now, he should be considered the favorite. The favorite or the front runner does have a burden. There is a precedent for how the front runner should run. You do not punch down. If you run as the front runner in the primary, you are probably going to win it. If you win the primary, you need the other candidates and their voters to support you in the general election. In 2016, Hillary Clinton was the front runner. Bernie Sanders was extremely vulnerable to personal character attacks on numerous fronts. However, at no time was it unclear that she was going to win. Therefore, even though he launched a personal attack upon her ( she is owned by Wall Street (because of her speeches which he called to see despite not revealing his own taxes) despite her policy platform which was judged to be more strict on Wall Street because she addressed shadow banking and he did not), she did not respond with any of a dozen brutal and available personal character attacks she could have launched against him. He was and remains extremely vulnerable on these fronts. However, she knew that she was going to need the votes of those who supported Senator Sanders. Therefore, she kept the gloves on. Even supposing that those of you who are supporters of Senator Bernie Sanders feel differently, she lost and so that would be a bad example which you would not want to replicate in 2020.
Therefore, since you all are the front runners and will probably win the nomination, then you do not want to alienate the voters of the other candidates. In polling, he is second to Joe Biden whom I do not think is going to run in almost every national poll of he Democratic primary of 2020. This is the burden of being the front runner. You do not punch down. The supporters of the front runner will want to be winsome and win over the other voters, at least after the primary. A lot of those of us who ended up deciding against Senator Sanders (while considering him, I was driven away by insults in 2016) recall diary after diary after diary appearing on the recommended list which was full of personal, character attacks upon Hillary Clinton. And while interacting regarding the candidates, many of us felt that we ourselves were personally insulted. There are a lot of bad feelings left over from the 2016 Bernie Sanders campaign. Suppose you feel that you were insulted a lot by the Hillary Clinton supporters. Well, she is not running and your candidate is the front runner. So, since your candidate is the front runner, the burden is upon to win over the other voters and at least not to worsen the alienation. After all, you all are, by definition, likely to win the primary and if you do, then you need their votes and they will not need yours. Therefore, the feelings of the 2016 non Bernie Sanders voters matters more in this practical sense now. He will need all hands on deck if he is to beat Donald Trump.
Socialist |
38% |
73% |
50% |
Atheist |
35 |
55 |
40 |
Muslim |
27 |
54 |
38 |
Evangelical Christian |
33 |
14 |
25 |
Gay or lesbian |
14 |
38 |
24 |
Mormon |
21 |
16 |
18 |
Hispanic |
6 |
9 |
8 |
Woman |
3 |
9 |
8 |
Black |
4 |
9 |
7 |
Jewish |
6 |
5 |
7 |
Catholic |
5 |
7 |
6 |
So, according to this polling, Socialist Jesus (ie the perfect candidate who was in agreement with every voter on every issue but was a socialist) could only get a total of 50 % of the vote. Now, if any voter disagreed with him on any other issue, then he is now below 50%. You can win as an actual socialist in the Democratic primary. Remember that while they labeled Barack Obama a socialist, he never accepted the label in any way at all. Here, we have a candidate who has accepted the label. I think of his Democratic Socialism as a positive and it is what I am looking for. But we are not only talking about me. We are looking at the entire electorate including republicans and republican leaning conservatives It does not make me think worse of him; it makes me think better of him. However, ads about his honeymoon and Nicaragua and his own acceptance of the label in any form at all of socialism will be run hard and not in our primary, but in the general election. And his numbers are highly likely to change. Therefore, if he is to win, we are all going to have to back him.
It is a serious mistake for us to engage in personal, character attacks because these would be used in the general election. We all need to come together. We who favor a candidate who is not the front runner need to not wound our front runner who is likely to become the nominee. If we engage in personal character attacks upon Bernie Sanders, then they will be replicated in the general election and it could cost him the win which would mean Donald Trump would win reelection and we cannot afford that !
Earlier I wrote that the front runner had an obligation not to alienate the voters of other candidates because he will need them in the general election, but now I am writing that we who prefer other candidates should not engage in personal character attacks upon Bernie Sanders because if he becomes the nominee (and he is the front runner) then he could emerged wounded and those personal character attacks could be repeated in the general election and he could lose and Donald Trump would win reelection.
All of us, therefore, have an obligation not to engage in personal character attacks of the candidates. All of them are far better (even Tulsi Gabbard) than Bernie Sanders.
Some points from how Bernie could become the nominee .
Sanders also may have a leg up in early primary states like Iowa and New Hampshire, where all-important local activists play an outsized role in building candidate momentum. Sanders knows them, and he won’t have to do as much as others to build up grassroots support.
This means the progressive-left lane in 2020 is quite a bit more crowded than it was in 2016, which is a problem for Sanders, albeit a problem that stems from his own success. Warren is perhaps his most direct ideological competition
In 2016, Clinton and Sanders split the white vote, but she did better among black voters overall, though young black voters trended toward Sanders. 2020 will likely be a whole different ballgame when it comes to courting the black vote. The field has two top-tier contenders who are black — Harris and Booker — and Joe Biden could hold some appeal given that he served as vice president under Barack Obama.
And then there is the matter of allegations of sexual harassment and gendered pay inequity that have been leveled against the Sanders campaign itself.
So, he could win Iowa and New Hampshire.(Senator Warren could win there as well). That puts him in a great place. He has to go from doing well with young African Americans in 2016 to doing well with all African Americans in 2020. His pick for campaign manager shows he learned he needs to develop a diverse group of supporters. He should do okay in Nevada, but might struggle in South Carolina. From there, we go into Super Tuesday. His fundraising and name recognition could really help him here. He will win Vermont. He could run into real trouble in the Super Tuesday states. He might come in second in Massachusetts. Many of the states on Super Tuesday are not states that are obviously good ones for him with natural constituencies. And natural constituencies still are the best way to predict outcomes in contests. However, many of the others might have dropped out. If Senator Warren drops out, then he could have the economic super progressive lane all to himself. There are so super economic only progressives in Texas, near major universities. That could really help him. There are a large amount of voters of color in the South. He will have to greatly improve on that.
Now, Senator Harris needs to do okay in Iowa and New Hampshire, probably not lower than 3rd in either one of those states. Then, she needs to win or almost win Nevada and crush everybody in South Carolina. Then, she should do exceptionally well on Super Tuesday. She will win California, Alabama, Tennessee, North Carolina, Virginia.. I think she has a good chance to win Texas unless Beto runs. She should come in 3rd or t4th in Massachusetts and Vermont. She should win Louisiana and Missouri. She will fight with Senator Warren and Senator Klobuchar and Senator Sanders in Michigan and Ohio .
The following anticipated primary and caucus dates may change depending on legislation passed before the scheduled primary dates.[189]
February
March
- March 3: Super Tuesday (Alabama, California, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, and Virginia primaries)[189]
- March 7: Louisiana primary[189]
- March 10: Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, and Ohio primaries[189]
- March 17: Arizona, Florida, and Illinois primaries[189]
- Not yet determined: Colorado caucus (March 3, 10 or 17); Minnesota primary (March 3 by default, unless an alternate date is chosen)[189]
April
- April 7: Wisconsin primary[189]
- April 28: Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island primaries[189]
May
- May 5: Indiana primary[189]
- May 12: West Virginia primary[189]
- May 19: Arkansas, Kentucky, and Oregon primaries[189]
June
- June 2: Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, and South Dakota primaries[189]
- June 7: Puerto Rico primary[189]
- June 16: District of Columbia primary[189]
July
Other primaries and caucuses
- Not yet determined (dates of 2016 primaries/caucuses listed in parentheses): American Samoa (March 1), Kansas (March 5), Maine (March 6), Northern Mariana Islands (March 12), Alaska, Hawaii, Washington (March 26), Wyoming (April 9), Guam (May 7), Virgin Islands (June 4), and North Dakota (June 7) caucuses and Democrats Abroad, Georgia (March 1), Nebraska (March 5), Idaho (March 22), and New York (April 19) primaries; Utah (March 22) has a presidential caucus, but a primary option if funded; New York primary is scheduled for February 4 for procedural reasons, but date is expected to be amended.[189]
Things will change and this is very subjective. However, this is how things appear to me at this time. Best wishes to each of you and to all of our candidates. I will vote and support in every way that I can whomever win the Democratic Primary in 2020.