Surprise For NYT: BERNIE IS ELECTABLE!

[ConservativeDemocrat]

137. Well obviously we disagree...

1. Campaigns can go for quite some time before they die, so saying that it took months before Brown hung up the towel is not exactly saying much. Most Democrats outside of the west didn't think he would win, while Clinton had already proven that he could win in the south. Kerry? He was the Senator from Massachusetts, and discursive to the point of aggravation.

2. You'll have to give me an example of Clinton's "negative charm". Most of the whining on the DU seems to be aimed at the fact that he rhetorically looks for the best even from Republicans. He never calls them evil - simply misguided, and maybe not fully understanding of the facts.

3. You asked for an example. I gave you two. Both where people with a natural advantage blew it by adopting an angry tone. Now you say it's "irrelevant". I think McConnell not being the Senate Majority leader from 2010 to 2012 was quite relevant.

4. Republicans and teabaggers don't deal in hypotheticals. Like most extremists, they deal in bullshit that they pull straight out of their ass. We don't have many of that kind of extremist on the Democratic side of the fence, thank goodness, though they do seem to congregate in a specific website to throw spitwads.

5. It's not substance for Bernie, it's tone. If you say "tax policy needs to be readjusted to give people on the bottom more chances for success, paid for by the most fortunate. this will help everyone in the long run", you have a chance of getting voter acceptance. If you say "The fact of the matter is that there has been class warfare for the last thirty years. It's a handful of billionaires taking on the entire middle class and working class of this country", you'll lose - because many of those middle and working class voters don't feel like they're being attacked by billionaires - they worry that Democrats are taking money from them. That, in fact, is why they vote for Republicans.

6. George Bush's lies about Iraq was pointed out time and time and time and time again. It didn't matter. Voters don't care. Their vote isn't "is this guy right?" so much as "Do I feel he's on my side?" Again, it's simply not a winning issue.


"You'd do a lot better if you dealt with actual facts instead of bad reasoning based on make-believe and snide invective."

...I was under the impression that this was one of those rare conversations on the DU where there was something actually real getting discussed (the efficacy, and limits thereof, of negative campaigning), with actual references to facts that backed up differences of opinion, rather than the typical screaming tribalism, labeling, and sanctimony.

Just about all the snide invective on this site is done by a handful of hyper-partisans who hate Democrats and Democratic office holders, and then cry about why mainstream Democrats don't pay any attention to them.

Hell, even with Bernie, other than issues with tone for the general, he's certainly better than his supporters here. He and Hillary seem to have agreed to keep it civil, and have an actual debate over substance, which I think will help both their positions.

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community