It’s silly to suppose the DNC never understood that fact. As a matter of fact, within the leaked DNC emails there was a discussion of how dire it would be for Hillary against Trump if Bernie dropped out due to a huge enthusiasm gap for Hillary.
There’s vastly more evidence to show that the DNC came to eventually know Hillary was a weaker candidate against Trump, but chose to support her over Bernie anyway.
There’s the fact of the early polling data, which as I said, I’m sure they were aware of (those people are obsessed with polls), then there’s their interpretation of that fact. I’d guess their interpretation would have been that at that stage in the race polls are highly unreliable (which is true, early polls are not reliable metrics of electoral outcomes, and this is something pols know well), but I can’t say what they were thinking since I’m not a mind reader and don’t have any information about it. I don’t see much use in playing that particular guessing game, either, FWIW.
I certainly think the DNC was wrong to play favorites at all, and if they’d done the same for Sanders it’d still be a dick move. “Let’s play favorites since this poll looks good,” isn’t an excuse for playing games to manipulate Democratic party voters in choosing a candidate a handful of party operatives prefer in a primary, though it’s been the norm since the 70s. They didn’t invent superdelegates out of a respect for the party’s voters.
Early polls aren’t as accurate as later polls, however, no professional pollster would ever throw them out of consideration if there are plenty of combined results pointing towards the same direction.
What the Clinton camp and/or DNC tends to do is publicly dismiss polls (no matter how early or late) that don’t help their agenda and embrace polls (early or late) that do. Don’t confuse that with pollster accuracy.
The polling isn’t all “early” anyway. It’s goes well into 2016 showing the exact, same results with many, combined polls. Bernie Sanders polls better than Hillary Clinton against Trump and it’s true to this day only months away from election.
Turns out about 90 polls from about 20 various pollsters were right. They were also correct in showing that Bernie couldn’t quite reach her in time for the primary (although he did gain on her at an extraordinary rate) and they were correct again in showing that Hillary can’t compete as well as Bernie does against Trump in the general election.
Again, to assume the DNC didn’t somehow see this and know the risks isn’t really based upon reality.
It’s probably fair to assume the DNC was not taking the publicly available polls as their sole criteria for electability. I can’t fault them for that. I’d refer to any pre-convention poll (or pre-primary clinching) as ‘early,’ & post convention there’s no meaningful metric any longer, since the primary’s over and the strategy changes are dramatic. If the early pre-convention polls were reliable we’d be talking about Pres. Carter’s second term, Pres. Dukakis, Pres. Kerry, and a significant number of other different outcomes - there’s barely greater than a 50% reliability in pre-convention polling, which makes them completely meaningless as a metric to take seriously over likely electoral outcomes. In this case, Trump was heavily playing Sanders against Clinton pre-convention, which would have ended and changed the entire dynamic.
Sanders would have had literally no chance in any normal race. It’s only the fact that Trump’s a ridiculous cartoon character that gave him any chance to win. If he’d managed to clinch the nom., the fact that he’s a very old (he would have been the oldest candidate in history if he’d won) Jewish socialist would have been smeared in America’s face and things would have gotten as ugly for him as Trump’s been to Clinton. It doesn’t matter that that’s all BS, our fellow Americans are poorly educated, heavily propagandized, and disturbingly gullible. So it’s comforting to imagine he’d have had an easy time, but the reality is that he’d have become the old Jewish socialist with the epic worthlessness and stupidity of the corporate media magnifying the public’s ignorance. The corporate media loathed Clinton and ignored Sanders. If he’d come out ahead so they had to pay attention, do you really think they’d be like anything but the shallow, horrible corporate media we all know? There’s no front he wouldn’t be under attack, and as Clinton illustrates, you don’t have to have done a thing wrong to be presumed guilty by the corporate whores at the NYT/CNN/etc. When the Trump ads with Mao, Stalin, and Sanders labeled “Socialist” were plastered in the faces of our fellow Americans, do you really think he’d be skating high and happy? I don’t. Not in the US.
No, but they don’t want someone as destabilizing as Trump either. The premisses “Wall Street donated to HRC and the DNC” and “the DNC stacked the campaign for HRC” do not by themselves lead to the highly questionable and counterintuitive conclusion “the DNC would prefer Trump to Sanders”, which is why I asked for the evidence not in your post.
The polling methodologies that we have today leverage tremendous advantages over polls created decades ago.
You’re making the critical mistake of comparing much older, limited polling techniques with newer, far more accurate, much more numerous polls with access to vastly more widespread demographics that’s vastly more technology-driven.
You made a bad comparison and it moots your point there.
Agreed, I’ve worked within the DNC and polling isn’t the sole criteria. However, in the last decade, as polling has become much more accurate it’s leveraged far more today.
That’s not what the many, numerous, national polls show. The polls clearly showed that Bernie was a long shot against Hillary and it was, of course, very questionable if he could overcome her lead in such a short amount of time. Bernie did remarkably well (to say the least) despite the massive odds, however, it wasn’t a shock to me when he lost. I stated from the very beginning that Bernie was facing an uphill battle and the polls reflected that fact fairly well.
On the udder hand, Bernie has had a solid lead against Trump for a very long time now. The fact is Bernie would’ve been vastly ahead of Trump compared to Hillary starting right out of the gate.
Independents that are staying out of Hilary’s corner in this race, would have flocked to Bernie Sanders. Millennials? Bernie would have the lion’s share as well against Trump. Plus, you know that even people like the publisher of Boing Boing who supported Hillary would vote for Bernie over Trump, so that wouldn’t be an issue.
My grassroots compatriots and myself forced the media to stop ignoring Sanders. Towards the end of the primary, Bernie was getting much more coverage than the early stages. They attacked him in literally every direction you mentioned in your previous post and he only grew stronger nationally against Trump.
Comparing Sanders to Mao and/or Stalin would have been a hilarious dream come true and only further bring yet even more of the youth vote to the polls against Trump.
Bernie Sanders would easily destroy Trump in an election and I find it strange that you earlier said that you voted for Bernie over Hillary if you believed otherwise at the time.
And yet, in 2004 some early polls showed Kerry ahead, in 2008 some showed McCain ahead. Sanders did have a better margin, but early polls are not a reliable metric of electoral outcomes, since undecided voter’s opinions change over time.
True, though Sanders lost, so we have no meaningful comparison. I do think he’d have had a fair chance of a win (against Trump). Clinton also stands a fair chance to win against Trump (and is in the same boat of being hosed if it were a diff’t candidate she was facing). I was of the view that either would stand a solid chance then, because, you know, Trump is an obnoxious moron, and am of the same view now, though America’s disappointing me a bit lately. I had assumed a Trump loss despite a worthless corporate media trying to invent a horserace, on the assumption that the basket of deplorables was a bit smaller, but we’re still not looking at Trump clinching anything, and today’s polls are showing Clinton jumping ahead in FL again.
I don’t think that if you assume an alternate previous history of the DNC’s behavior that you’re going to wind up with the same circumstances and results, so I think it’s a pointless fantasy to waste time on imagining that parallel universe where DWS backed Sanders, since it’s not only inherently unknowable, but there are real things happening in our parallel dimension that I’m more concerned with than playing pretend right now.
And you did a great job, I admire your work, and hope you keep at it - you’re one of the good ones.
You’re looking at polls nearly 9 years old at the earliest. Much has changed with polling aggregation technology, etc. since then. — And, why would you use “some polls” as examples? Professional pollsters look at aggregate polls nowadays if they’re looking for any modicum of accuracy.
I hope to gawd you’re right. Then again, I don’t think Trump would be president for long. I think he’ll be assassinated very quickly after he’s elected. I’m actually surprised no one has killed him already. I also predict it’ll be a right wing nut that gets him.
Disclaimer: I’m not endorsing the assassination of Trump.
[quote=“nemomen, post:1185, topic:72574”]
I don’t think that if you assume an alternate previous history of the DNC’s behavior that you’re going to wind up with the same circumstances and results, so I think it’s a pointless fantasy to waste time on imagining that parallel universe where DWS backed Sanders, since it’s not only inherently unknowable, but there are real things happening in our parallel dimension that I’m more concerned with than playing pretend right now.[/quote]
Agreed, I don’t think they’d ever back Sanders. Earlier in this thread my premise is that the top corporatists that run the DNC would rather have any (and I mean any) Republican in office instead of someone like Bernie Sanders. It’s all about the money they’d lose under his executive control.
That’s not playing pretend. That’s our current reality.
Thank you and I feel very much the same about you.
Your statement proved to be 100% accurate according to the Clinton campaign.
Are you clairvoyant ?
Because of Hillary’s health issues the election is now close. If Hillary can avoid anymore negative heath issues, the election will still be close–but Hillary will become the 45th President of the United States.
Presidents appoint U.S. federal (district, circuit/appellate and supreme court) judges.
Who the 45th President of the United States will be–is important.
Republicans know the key to winning Ohio in a presidential election, is winning Cuyahoga County in northern Ohio, where Cleveland, Ohio is located. If republicans cannot win in the heavy democratic area of Cuyahoga County, then their plan is to suppress the vote.
…The American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio and the New York-based public advocacy group Demos sued Republican Secretary of State Jon Husted in April, claiming the state illegally drops registered voters from its registration list based on their failure to vote in recent elections…
…The groups’ lawsuit had claimed that Husted “has cancelled the registrations of voters in part because of their failure to respond to a notice mailed to their registered address, including notices sent to homeless voters who frequently cannot receive mail reliably.”
Last year in Democrat-leaning Cuyahoga County, home to Cleveland, about 40,000 individuals were illegally purged from voter rolls for choosing not to vote, with a disproportionate number from poor and minority neighborhoods, according to the Ohio chapter of the A. Philip Randolph Institute, a labor group representing minorities.
A federal judge rejected the groups’ complaint in June after finding their claims lacked merit.
The Justice Department had urged the appeals court to reverse the district judge’s decision…
It would be great to be able to ask Hillary Clinton why someone should vote for her. I wish I had found out about the following website earlier. Many of the questions for the presidential candidates I am reading–are similar to writings expressed by members of our Boing Boing community.
Maybe in future years and presidential debates, instead of a having voters participate in a lottery of submitted questions in hope of being selected–the debate commission can have an actual debate added on–to allow for the entire debate to consist of questions from interested and engaged voters.
I’m not sure why we are always so quick to assume that someone is lying to us but telling the truth to everyone else. Nobody is questioning that she is a political opportunist.
Haven’t we learned not to trust leaked media when it is excerpted, especially when the excerpts are disseminated by the right wing?
Clinton’s record is as moderate-left on social issues and moderate-right on economic ones, and an internationalist/coalitionist (though also an interventionalist) on foreign affairs, her rhetoric in her early years was that of a progressive on social issues and moderate-left on economic ones, we won’t really know where she goes from here until she’s in office. She is so far superior to the alternatives that I’m ready to be an enthusiastic supporter.
I’m personally D-Soc by inclination, but that puts me to the left of 90% of all Americans, and so I don’t consider it a tragedy if we get a president who is much closer to the middle than I am. Real policy change takes place in Congress, and I would rather have a president who is smart and hard-working and respected by others but on my right in the White House than an idiot or flake who is completely aligned with me. I supported Sanders (who is smart and hard-working and respected by others) but he lost.
I’m looking forward to Clinton for the same reason that I’ve enjoyed having Obama as president despite the fact that he is way to my right on myriad issues.
No, of course not. The Washington Free Beacon can’t be classified as “right wing” except by anyone to the left of Nixon, and Russia Today has no reason at all to be favoring Trump over Clinton.
All those Breitbart-released tapes and videos over the years, as well as the anti-abortion videos about Planned Parenthood last year, were also “own words”.
Just like Clinton possibly actually believed last February that Sanders supporters were ‘basement-dwellers’ & ‘baristas’. If true (which I doubt) she has certainly learned better over the months that followed.
Doug Henwood wrote a book, good for him. Henwood did not vote for All Gore and we got George W. Bush. Source: from an article in Salon, from April of 2015:
Well, I have in the past. I voted for Obama the first time; I think I voted for Clinton in ’92, but not in ’96. I didn’t vote for Gore. I suppose I could.
If she avoids anymore public displays of concerning health issues, Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton will be the 45th President of the United States.
On a lighter note.
You know far to many republicans are extreme right wing, delusional, conspiratorial–and synonymous with the character in the 1999 Eddie Murphy comedy movie “Life” – named “Can’t Get Right.”
A drawn (not real) picture of Hillary Clinton pointing a gun on the cover of Doug Henwood’s book, will undoubtedly stir a response from many of the “Can’t Get Right” republicans (grounded in unsubstantiated and false claims), along the lines of:
“Hey she has a gun in her possession, is pointing it at someone, yet she wants to take away our 2nd Amendment right to own a gun.”
She never said “basement-dwellers,” that’s deliberately misleading propagandistic spin that warps what she said to mean the opposite. She was talking about millennials stuck living in their parents’ basements and working as baristas, who did what they were supposed to do, but got shafted. Not in an approving way, but in a way that noted this was a problem that generation is facing.
?
