This is true - and that’s why it was never necessary for the psy-ops we saw to be done. The other candidates never should have folded, and the campaign should have been left to play out as it would - although the pandemic ultimately ensured that would not happen.
I was speaking more to Obama’s fund raising efforts in 2008. I recall he was going to take the limited public money till it became obvious that he would raise more on his own.
The article you link to was not about campaign funding, but this speaks more to how Obama followed the money, and never adopted small donor campaigns as a philosophy of serving your constituents better - he was always just following the money.
Speaking as a relatively moderate (or centrist, or whatever you want to call it) but 100% Democratic voter, I didn’t cast my vote for Biden because I was “tricked” into thinking Sanders would not beat Trump. I voted for Biden because I think Bernie is a bad candidate and would be a bad president whose demands for ideological purity would mean he’d achieve nothing in office and make it much more likely that we get President Haley and Vice President Donald Trump Jr. in 2024, and I think Biden is marginally more likely to be a halfway decent president. [[EDIT: Though of course if Bernie had been the nominee, he would have gotten my money and my vote.]]
I think a ticket of Rancid Ham Sandwich/Half Used Bottle of Adulterated Hand Sanitizer, if you put a (D) after it, would have stood a good chance of beating Trump this year (and that chance has only increased since he has shown how utterly incapable he is of dealing with a crisis), and I think Bernie likely would have beaten him too.
One person who seems not to be too upset about what was done to Bernie . . . . is Bernie.
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There are a lot of you in the universe of registered Democrats. There are not too many of you in the universe of BoingBoing, which is not the same thing.
I never said YOU did - I assert that many others did. Faced with the rest of the centrist candidates dropping out, a huge segment of primary voters had to cast their fate with somebody else. This was proceded by a campaign to undermine Sanders, to capture as many of the voters cut loose as possible.
I am not saying it was illegal. I am not saying it broke the rules. I am saying that the Democrats are just as willing as the Republicans to manipulate their constituents to achieve the outcome they want - not the outcome best for their voters.
I think the outcome for Sanders was good - better than he ever expected. Why would he be upset about that. That does not mean that the DNC did not act poorly or manipulate their voters to the end they desired. It means Sanders did better than he expected and gained more influence than he hoped.
He could have, and he did. You should have followed @PsiPhiGrrrl’s links to opensecrets:
Obama’s victory in the general election was aided by his tremendous fund-raising success. Since the start of 2007, his campaign relied on bigger donors and smaller donors nearly equally, pulling in successive donations mostly over the Internet.
Winning the presidency is the topic at hand. There is a long history of popular incumbent senators and congresspeople from small states running for re-election with small warchests. You can get away with that if you are essentially running unopposed and/or representing a small constituency.
In 2016 over 40% of Bernie’s contributions were from large contributions.
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What I mean is he could have forgone all the large donors and he didn’t. I did follow the links, but I already was aware of this.
But Sanders has moved to No SuperPACs, no dark money. There is no reason every candidate can not do this. Campaign finance must be revised to make this the only way. Thats hard to do when you are taking money from those sources.
Well, no - campaign finance is bigger than the presidency. Now we often see millions poured into small races when the win is desired. How many millions were poured into the primary challenge to AOC? And how much did she spend to fend it off? Sure there are races served by a small war chest - but that is by no means everything outside of a presidential race.
Your comments seem to indicate otherwise. As for the topic, sure the Democratic party has promoted crappy candidates in their history. Those elected sometimes worked against the interests of their constituents. It is a political party, and part of a flawed system.
However, I don’t believe that voters in the current election cycle were coerced, manipulated, duped, or tricked as you have stated. Do you have examples of voters being threatened or forced to support a candidate against their will? Political ads are not brainwashing. If this isn’t all about Sanders, what other candidates do you believe were good options, but DNC promotional activity prevented them from continuing?
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I believe you mean that you *don’t have evidence of your assertion *
There most certainly could be evidence and should be if someone isn’t just speaking out of somewhere other than their mouth.
Using your standards I could just say that it’s obvious that Bernie was a plant by the Mercer’s to elect Trump. It’s bullshit - but if that’s your standard of evidence.
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I’m sure that people who were told that Bernie was the only person who could win feel very disappointed.
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No - threats are not the mode that I am claiming. The mechanism is creating unfounded fears in the voters, in this case via untrue messaging about Sanders.
No - I mean that I personally can not have access to any such evidence which would be buried in personal files of Democratic campaign workers. I suspect there would be messaging coordinating the timing of talking points about Sanders health and promoting the idea that “Sanders can’t win” by individuals that communicated to the press, but I doubt this would ever be in official correspondence unless somebody was sloppy.
If you could point to a series of events that supported that which were in the wide open and influenced the primary - sure you could, but otherwise you are severely under playing the facts supporting my assertion.
If people were being told that, it was not a message that ever reached me. That said Biden is a seriously flawed compromise and we are supremely lucky that trump appears to be imploding on his own.
I obviously can’t have personal evidence that the Mercer’s were pushing a Sanders candidacy- but I suspect they were working behind the scenes to foster misogynistic messaging that derailed the woman who were his main competition.
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This is impossible as you post in the 2020 candidates thread.
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Thanks for clearing that up, but if that is intended as a comnparson to the events I outlined, you are making a false equivalency.
I suppose we’ll have to drag him into it kicking and screaming.
Bullshit yourself. If you look at the changes in the Democratic platform and major over the years they have always, ALWAYS moved to the Right. Ronald Reagan would be unacceptably Left by today’s Dem standards. Nixon would be Loony Left. Trade, Labor, Austerity, Mass Incarceration, Mass Surveillance, Foreign policy. You name it. The Progressive social policies, when you look closely, are all things the Party opposed when it came to actually making laws (DOMA, DADT, the Crime Bills, etc.) but jumped to the head of the parade when Courts made progressive rulings.
When they have had power Democrats over the last 50 years have always, ALWAYS started off by giving the GOP about three quarters of what they want and then “negotiated” it to 90%. The only way that happens consistently is when it’s by design.
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