Staunch Democrat William Galston provides some advice in his Wall Street Journal column—stop Sanders!
The Vermont senator’s ideologically aware defenders will retort that he is not the scary kind of socialist who wants government to take over the means of production. Rather, they cast him as a warm and fuzzy social democrat who wants to use government to reduce insecurity and bolster opportunity for all. But Mr. Sanders has proposed not only the complete nationalization of the U.S. health-care system but also a $2 trillion federal takeover of electrical power production. Public support for Medicare for All plummets when people are told that it would eliminate private health insurance, a core feature of Mr. Sanders’s plan.
Because there are more conservatives than liberals in the electorate, Democratic presidential nominees cannot triumph unless they win a strong majority of moderate voters. But only 11% of these voters have a positive view of socialism, compared with 53% who oppose it.
Unless a Sanders candidacy could somehow reconfigure the political map, he would need to retake at least Pennsylvania and Michigan to have a serious shot at 270 electoral college votes. But the less-educated white voters who dominate these states’ electorates are hostile to socialism, even more so than whites with college degrees. Only 12% of white voters without college degrees are favorable toward socialism, while 63% disfavor it—and 54% view socialism in a very negative light. Whatever the case in Vermont, socialism is not a winner in the Midwest.
Mr. Sanders claims his uncompromising message gives him a unique opportunity to translate popular passion into votes. If so, the NBC/WSJ poll results don’t show it. Only 13% of voters report being “enthusiastic†about his candidacy, compared with 43% who are “very uncomfortable.†(The comparable numbers for Joe Biden are 14% and 35%.) Among swing voters, 31% are very uncomfortable with Mr. Sanders, compared with only 19% feeling the same about Mr. Biden.
The longer all of the present Democratic field remains in the race, the smaller the plurality of delegates the eventual notional winner is likely to have, increasing the likelihood of campaigns that continue right to the Democratic Convention.
I’m quite confident Mr. Galston’s advice will not be taken. For one thing it’s just too late. The DNC should have called a halt to Sanders’s campaign long ago. Not doing so was a misjudgement on their part.
The key observation from Iowa is Joe Biden underperformed expectations.
But everything else is up in the air since no one got any momentum with problems in announcing results.
And whoever does win the nomination may still be a favorite to win the election. After all, Trump’s approval rating is still stuck around 45%.
From Trump’s point of view his approval rating is trending the right way. Right now it is very, very slowly increasing. His approval rating is very near the highest point in his presidency while his disapproval rating is very near its very lowest. The separation between is as small as it’s ever been.
His objective should be to have 50.1% approval by November. It could happen.
I suspect Trump is actually at the 50% threshold. People just don’t tell pollsters because he’s such a dick.
Biden is a tired and corrupt old man. Bernie is a loon. The Dems have a problem. Don’t think HRC hasn’t noticed.
I believe the polls as much as I believe Yang was the big winner in Iowa. Polls in the Anglosphere have been consistently wrong from the original Brexit vote onward. In the UK it’s called the shy Tory effect. People don’t trust the pollsters not to leak their data and get them in trouble, so they lie. Plus it isn’t the approval rating that is the important measure, it’s how much the opponent is disliked. Boris Johnson was probably hated by a majority of the voters in Britain, but because Jeremy Corbyn was loathed even more so, Johnson won.
Right now IMO the Democratic Party is so badly split between its viciously quarreling factions that there isn’t a candidate or potential candidate outside of Michelle Obama who has a chance in hell of assembling a winning voting coalition. And Obama is no longer untouchable, Trump’s lawyers ripped him up and down during the Senate trial and there was scarcely a murmur. IMO the entry of Bloomberg, coupled with with Steyer’s existing presence, is to use their scads of money to staunch the bleeding of the down ticket. If the Democrats can retain the House and hopefully flip the Senate they can run unending impeachment trials of Trump and prevent him from altering the judiciary any further.
Dave: Slight correction: 270 is the number Trump is seeking in November, not 50.1%. An understandable mistake. It fooled HRC too.
Socialism CAN be fine, here in Nebraska our Ne. Public Power District is publicly owned. Our Game and parks Department publicly maintains flood control and recreational areas for residents with entry permits.
Farmers typically sell grain to co-operatives they communally own. Milk the same. I suppose it devolves when leaders overstep or the sector socialized becomes too large.
You’ve just summarized why I’m not a minarchist.
I also think that those, like Bernie Sanders, who characterize themselves as “democratic socialists, you know, like Sweden” are confusing socialism with Lutheran social doctrine. I don’t think we’re all going to become Swedish Lutherans.