Sanders Raised Nearly Six Million in first 24 hours
Sanders raised $5,925,771 from 223,047 individual contributors across all 50 states in the campaign's first 24 hours, and more than $6 million from 225,000 individuals in total since the launch. And Sanders' campaign also noted that the average contribution was $27, "mirroring [Sanders'] 2016 campaign's average donation," a symbolic reflection of the Vermont senator's grassroots support that was key to his anti-establishment bid against Hillary Clinton.
UPDATE: E.MAIL THIS MORNING FROM TEAM BERNIEWe are just a little bit away from being able to say more than 1,000,000 people have added their name to say they support Bernie's run for president. This is a big milestone for our campaign, and it looks like it could happen very soon.
But we’re also just short of another milestone — 350,000 individual donations to our campaign. And we wanted to give YOU a chance to be the one who gets us there
ANOTHER UPDATE! BERNIE REACHED THE ONE MILLION MARK OF PEOPLE WHO HAVE SIGNED UP TO SUPPORT HIM.
I think he had about 2 million people signed up the last time around
Of course the Media is already find ways to say this means nothing, that Bernie will never win.
Bernie Sanders Will Hit Huge Obstacles in 2020
The Atlantic
The biggest question for Sanders is whether he can expand the coalition that he mobilized in 2016—or even, in this enormous field, maintain the advantages he displayed last time. Sanders ran extremely well in 2016 with three groups. Young people topped the list: Sanders won most voters age 30 and younger in 25 of the 27 states with exit polls. Looking across the entire contest, he carried fully 71 percent of younger voters, according to a cumulative analysis of all 27 exit polls by CNN polling director Jennifer Agiesta. That was an even higher percentage than Barack Obama carried among younger voters in 2008.
Sanders was also extremely strong with primary voters who identified as independents rather than partisan Democrats. He carried them in 24 of the 27 states with exit polls (losing them only in three southern states), and won nearly two-thirds of them overall in Agiesta’s cumulative analysis. He also ran very well among white men without a college degree—carrying slightly more than three-fifths of them overall—while posting a more modest advantage among their college-educated counterparts.
Bernie Sanders-Was Helped by the #NeverHillary vote
Nate Silver says:
Roughly one-quarter of Sanders’s support in Democratic primaries and caucuses in 2016 came from #NeverHillary voters: people who didn’t vote for Clinton in the 2016 general election and who had no intention of doing so. (The #NeverHillary label is a little snarky, but it’s also quite literal: These are people who never voted for Clinton despite being given two opportunities to do so, in the primary and the general election.)The #NeverHillary vote is more than a little snarky, I think it is downright misleading.
The simple explanation for Sanders popularity is that he is a populist. He ran against both the billionaires and the Democratic party establishment. Even after the success of Trump, the Media refuse to take seriously the fact that most people are fed up with all the establishments, and are looking for someone who will be on their side.
That is why the young went for Bernie, and that the independents went for Bernie. It also explains that the white men without a college degree liked both Bernie and Trump. All these people don't believe in establishments whether Democratic, Republican or Media. Trump had the advantage in his party that the establishment was divided among his opponents until it was too late; Bernie had the disadvantage that the establishment was united behind Hillary. The #NeverHillary voters were against the Democratic establishment. There may even have been some who wanted two anti-establishment candidates, Trump and Sanders.
Again in the coming election it behooves the Democrats to go for the young, the independents and the non-college educated (e.g. blue collar) voters if they want to overcome an organized Republican base around Trump. If they settle back into a Democratic establishment candidate they will meet the same result as Hillary.
I get the part that the Dems need their anti establishment voters. But they also need the ones who lean more in the establishment direction. They're never going to get the hard core Trump supporters, or likely the tea partiers either. So they're going to need all hands on deck.
ReplyDeleteEven Warren utters pieties to establish that she supports capitalism. Bernie doesn't and that's why I like him. It's not that he will abolish capitalism, but it means everything is on the table, including the domination of capitalism, the deference to capitalism. That's why I like him. It is a shame that he's 7 years older than I am.
ReplyDeleteBernie has already won in that he has driven the Democratic discussion agenda--health care, wage disparity, job insecurity, cost of higher ed--since he started campaigning for 2016.
ReplyDeleteModerates like Klobuchar who don't embrace Bernie's ideas are having to explain why they don't. I think that's a good thing because it keeps things focused on issues and specifics, and not just on the Horror of Trump.
No Democrat should underestimate Trump. He is already throwing around the word "socialist" incessantly, especially re Venezuela, and that may make Bernie vulnerable.
I hope to God that whomever emerges as the front runner will be a candidate who can cut through Trump's bullshit and throw it into high relief when it comes to a debate.
"He is already throwing around the word "socialist" incessantly... " Yes. That is what he does; he finds a word, a button to push. And says it and pushes it, over and over and over. It's not even subliminal. But it works for him. I would love to see someone mop the floor with him in a debate, in a way that throws his tactics into high relief.
DeleteI should clarify that I was talking about Trump, not Bernie.
DeleteI sure wish someone would educate people on the economic definition of "socialism". They must also educate the populace about the difference between a socialist economy and the mixed economies of most countries in Europe, sometimes called social democracies.
ReplyDeleteSocialism: An economic system in which the production and distribution of goods are controlled substantially by the government rather than by private enterprise....
Sometimes in socialist countries, the factories and businesses are controlled by the workers instead of the governments, but there are few examples of this around.
I don't think a majority of Americans would support true socialism - a country without any private enterprise or capitalism. They probably would support strengthening the social safety nets - especially in health care - and adopting some variation of a more mixed (than now) economy, such as those in Europe. The US already has some safety nets, but they are more limited than in most advanced nations of the world.
Capitalism and private enterprise are fundamental to the economies of most European countries, and in many successful Asian countries and other economically developed countries around the world. The mixes are different - just as the various forms of universal healthcare are different.
I was not happy with Bernie's call for free university level education for all two years ago, as is found in Europe.
He neglected to mention that most European countries have "filters", some beginning as early as middle school, most in high school, that essentially put students in different tracks. Getting into university there is often far more difficult than in the US, where almost everyone can get into some college, somewhere.
Many European countries who do track kids into univ. prep and "vocational" have far better ways of doing this than was the practice in the US. It's not home ec for girls and shop for boys. These systems usually involve a couple of years of combined classroom education and apprenticeships, leading to good jobs at good pay, usually involving sophisticated technology.
Our junior college system seems to fill the gap now in the US. Most European kids graduate from high school with a far better general AND job-ready education than do American kids. Our kids have to make it up the deficits in junior college before they can either get a decent job or qualify to transfer to a four year program.
There are as many variations as there are countries who have more educational safety nets. Those who do make it to university do not have to weigh themselves down with thousands in loans. But, many are blocked from the university route also, often at around age 15.
It would be good if Sanders and others on the far left could make realistic proposals for both expanding affordable health care eto all, as well as improving the entire educational system, and redesigning the secondary level especially. Perhaps make all junior college programs free for everyone.
Then perhaps expand free education for those whose families really cannot afford higher education - rather than burdening them with excessive debt. The cost should be adjusted according to family financial circumstances.
Besides going after the young, the independents, and the white, non-college educated males (not sure how many he would pull off from that group though), he should be looking at the women's vote.
I agree that people need to be educated on the economic definition of socialism, and the difference between socialism and social democracy.
DeleteAnd when people compare educational systems in Europe to ours, it's really an apples-to oranges comparison.
p.s.
ReplyDeleteAll in all, I don't think Sanders is the best choice going forward. I don't know who it is - but I hope someone else comes along who won't scare away Americans who do believe in capitalism. I believe in it. Capitalism, with all of its flaws, has been the most successful economic system. Formerly poor nations that adopted well-thought out, modified forms of capitalism adapted to their own culture and their own economic strengths and weaknesses, in an open trade and free capital flow international economy raised tens of millions of people out of extreme poverty, especially in Asia and parts of Latin America. But capitalism must also be combined with govt enacted social safety net programs. Pure capitalism needs to be regulated, and it needs to be directed in ways that help all, and not just those at the top of the heap.
Extremism on the left may end up ensuring that the extremism on the right seen in today's WH and much of the Congress again prevails in two years. Be careful what you wish for.
Fareed Zakaria has a cautionary op piece in today's WaPo.
ReplyDeleteIn their zeal to match the sweeping rhetoric of right-wing populism, Democrats are spinning out dramatic proposals in which facts are sometimes misrepresented, the numbers occasionally don’t add up, and emotional appeal tends to trump actual policy analysis....
The Medicare-for-all plan by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has zero out-of-pocket costs for patients, which would make it even more generous than plans in Europe and Canada. And if a herculean effort were made to raise revenue for Medicare-for-all, there would be few easy avenues left to fund any of the other ambitious proposals on the new Democratic wish list.
Universal health care is an important moral and political goal. But the U.S. system is insanely complex, and getting from here to single-payer would probably be so disruptive and expensive that it’s not going to happen. There is a path to universal coverage that is simpler: Switzerland has one of the best health-care systems in the world, and it’s essentially Obamacare with a real mandate. No one on the left is talking about such a model, likely because it feels too much like those incremental policies of the past.
Or consider the tax proposals being tossed around on the left, including a wealth tax championed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren ... I understand the appeal of tapping into those vast accumulations of billionaire loot. But there is a reason nine of the 12 European countries that instituted similar taxes have repealed them in the last 25 years. They massively distort economic activity, often incentivizing people to hide assets, devalue them and create dummy corporations. ....
We already have one major party that now routinely twists facts, disregards evidence, ignores serious policy analysis and makes stuff up to appeal to people’s emotions and prejudices. If the Democrats start moving along this path as well, American politics will truly descend into a new dark age.
Good thoughts, Anne. It's always easy for politicians to talk pie-in-the-sky without getting into the details of how their ideas are going to be funded.
DeleteAlso thanks for pointing out that that Medicare for all, and the status quo, are not the only two options available for healthcare. I had also read that Switzerland had a workable system.
From what I understand, the Swiss mandate for healthcare coverage actually has teeth. That is, it's like the obligation to pay your taxes. There's no token fine to make it de facto optional. The government will collect it, one way or the other. Of course that is the provision that makes it work, and is also the provision that would make libertarians here scream bloody murder.
DeleteKamala Harris sent me an email saying she welcomed her colleague Bernie Sanders and his "ideas". It's not about ideas. It's about class conflict and the attendant hierarchical domination. Right now, we have huge corporations like Amazon who control the fates of millions. This is without democracy. What capitalism needs is democratization, not regulations which can be obviated, safety nets which can be shredded and other bandaids. Employee ownership is one possible way. As I said neither Bernie or I want to execute the kulaks. But capitalism must be seen as a subsystem of society, not a demigod.
ReplyDeleteAnne makes a good point about "free college."
ReplyDeleteObama (I think) floated an idea that qualifying students should have two free years at community college. Qualifying involved some caveats about grades and ability.
Some communities have implemented programs (like the Kalamazoo Promise), in an effort to lift up the area generally.
It makes much more sense to me for localities to design and administer these programs with the local community college. They actually know what the local workforce needs and can change and adapt more nimbly.
Moreover, community college students tend to be the neediest, either financially or academically. Helping them get a start in a degree or shepherding them through a two-year training program is going to do more to address underemployment than giving free four-year rides.
The feds perhaps could and should do some serious scrutiny on the cost of public four-year colleges and universities. The Michigan legislature has tried to tie allocations to tuition increases, but they have very powerful lobbyists and the term-limited dullards cave every time.
No money for this. No money for that. But $685B for Defense(World Control). What if we cut back to the combined military budgets of the PRC and Russia? That would reduce the military budget by 2/3. There's a pot of money if you think we don't need to fund in preparation for an extraterrestrial attack.
ReplyDeleteI think money is there for some of these programs, but candidates need to outline where they will shift spending priorities or generate revenue.
DeleteAs Jean said way up on top, Bernie already has staked out the outer reaches of the Democrats' platform and pulled the whole party left. Four years ago, he was the only one out there. Now about half of the 168 or so announced or nearly-announced D's are out there with him. At least one of them has to be younger, smoother and have a life expectancy longer than he.
ReplyDeleteAll kind of friends of the Democracy, like Fareed Zakaria cited by Anne, will tell the D's they have to move toward the center. But the center has been moved by the pudgy president way over to the right. The center is now about where Robert Dole stood when he kept asking, "How you gonna pay for it?" There is no sense in going back there now that an increasing number of people realize they are being screwed by the people who have the money that could "pay for it" and haven't done a whole lot to earn it.
That said, the Bernie-ized D's had better have budget plans to pay for their ideas, which even I find somewhere south of believable.
Originally I thought of free college tuition as something that would only benefit the young, i.e. those who in the 20 years after their education had to repay their loans.
ReplyDeleteHowever the statistics show that many majors are unable to earn enough to repay their loans within 20 years, many taking up to 30 or 40 years to repay their loans. So we now have people in their 40's and 50's still paying off their loans at the same time their children are taking out loans to pay for their college.
I am all for free education. I get a lot of almost free education as a senior citizen at our local community college since I can audit courses for next to nothing. The only real cost is the text books. I have taken all sorts of programming courses, music courses, photography courses, etc.
Jack that is a good point. If people are still paying off college debt in their middle age, how do they afford kids, how do they help kids go to college, how do they save for retirement, how do they pay for Medicare supplements?
DeleteI like the idea of letting doctors, nurses, teachers, public defenders, etc. to apply for some debt forgiveness once they have proven themselves to be competent professionals in their fields.
Well, there's one field where you don't have to go into education debt. Criminal.
DeleteAnybody looked at HuffPost today? They've got the knives out for Klobuchar. At least two articles, one accusing her of abusive behavior, another saying she tried to sabotage job searches of former employees. Either they really want her out of the race, or she's the wicked witch of the west. Maybe both.
ReplyDeleteYes, HuffPo has been rather aggressively flogging the Mean Amy story. Eventually it will get traction, and tearful bimbos will get on 20/20 to tell about it. Why is a mean woman news, while Nixon could shove Ron Ziegler on public or LBJ could dress someone down while sitting on the toilet and nobody much cared?
DeleteThe New York Times also went full anti-Klobuchar on Friday. Monkey see, monkey do.
Deletehttps://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/22/us/politics/amy-klobuchar-staff.html for those who care.
My objection to the Klobuchar coverage is that it overwhelms any information about what she stands for, if anything. Reaching across the aisle to Repubs doesn't impress me. Her treatment of her employees DOES interest me as I think workers' rights and workplace conditions ARE a big problem. Keeping employees in fear and trembling and overworked seems to be becoming a management goal.
DeleteStanley, yeah. I've heard little to no coverage of what she actually stands for. And yes, how someone treats their employees does matter. I've had a toxic boss or two in my time, and it can make one's life a purgatory. The only positive thing I can say about it is that it makes you appreciate the good ones.
DeleteBut the primo toxic boss of all is sitting in the White House (or is it Mar a Lago today?) and why didn't the press throw more red flags about it when he was running? It wasn't exactly a secret, especially the ones who never got paid.
And the question remains in my mind, is this part of a long game by the liberal press? Are they getting rid of the candidates they don't want in order to anoint the one they do want, and who might that be?
DeleteKatherine, it goes without saying that I'd vote for Klobuchar over Trump. Basically, the corporate press, including the NYT, wants a pro-corporate president with a kinder, gentler visage. Obama was optimal. Harris or Biden would meet their criteria. Warren and Sanders don't. I find it interesting how the price of medicine is touted as a problem by both parties yet nothing happens. A supply of insulin that cost around $20 in 1996 costs almost $300 now. Are the genetically engineered bacteria that produce insulin charging higher wages? There are three "competitors", yet their prices track. Where's that capitalist magic? Must be locked up in Hogwarts.
DeletePBS has a brief thumbnail on where. Klobuchar stands on five issues. This info is out there, but you have to look.
Deletehttps://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/what-does-amy-klobuchar-believe-where-the-candidate-stands-on-5-issues
I DO care if a politician can work across the aisle because otherwise they're just grandstanding the purity of their ideology. John McCain said he worked well with Bernie because first they would have a big argument, which apparently they both enjoyed, and then they got down to business and co-sponsored VA reform legislation.
Bernie knows how to negotiate without giving away the farm, and I think Klobuchar may have a similar ability.
I think "mean boss" is often a subjective thing. A couple of unhappy employees does not make someone a Simon Legree.
Insulin, my God, is that a travesty or what? Martin Shkreli-ism infects the whole pharma industry. And their hot nee drugs ain't that great. Alternatives to the generic chemo I take are not leading to touted remissions or improving longevity, and side effects range from psychotic episodes to development of fatal lymphoma. All for thousands of $$ per month.
Don't get me started.
Yeah, Jean. But when you take the new drugs, at the end of the day you have a trophy wife waiting at the end of a dock. That is, if you are a man. As a man, I always ask if the pill that gets you the dock is "right for me." They couldn't put it on TV if it isn't true, could they?
DeleteJean, re Klobuchar being a mean boss - some commentators have noted that few male politicians have ever been derailed because they have occasionally been "mean" bosses. When a woman does the same thing, the double standard kicks in yet again.
ReplyDeleteSo far, I mostly like what I have read about her, which isn't much, I will admit. But I will continue to pay attention to her candidacy.
Didn't the lying boss we elected get the job by playing a mean boss on TV?
Delete