Would Bernie Sanders have won the election?

Democrats are stuck, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

The 2016 Democratic Primary is still being fought.

Hillary Clinton had to write a book.  There is a story to tell, her side about what happened. Publishers wanted to publish, readers wanted to read.  It holds open wounds.

Donna Brazile just wrote her book, Hacks.  There is her story to tell.  She said she wanted to talk about Russian hacking but the interesting part of the book, the one Fox News wants front and center, is her comments on Hillary, Hillary's campaign manager, any slights she felt, any disadvantage the DNC gave to Bernie Sanders, anything that would keep alive the feeling of frustration felt by people who favored Bernie Sanders over Hillary Clinton.  

Many progressive voters feel the better candidate was robbed. Moreover, Bernie Sanders would have won had he been the nominee.  And moreover, yet, don't go blaming the undervote among the left for Hillary's loss.  She lost because she, herself, was a lousy candidate and exactly as flawed as Bernie had said.

I quote below the full text of an excellent comment sent this blog.  I consider it a primary source, a piece of evidence documenting this feeling.  It is representative of what this blog has reported in multiple places on Facebook groups, in activist groups, and anywhere that progressive voters congregate and share feelings.

"I join anonymous in urging you to take cognizance of Donna Bazile's revelations about the subjection of the national Democratic Party machinery to the Clintons. The reason I think it especially important that you do so is that you have consistently faulted Sanders' supporters for resenting the way that our candidate was, from the start, impeded and undermined by the DNC. My resentment didn't prevent me from voting for Clinton, but Sanders' supporters didn't do Clinton in. She did Sanders in, and then she did herself in. But more important now is whether we will allow what she represented--that portion of the Democratic Party utterly wedded to big money and the militarized foreign policy that promotes the interests of big money--to do the party in. I frequently get the sense that you believe the threat to the party's future is from its populist wing. I think you're wrong. And I pose the question to you that I think you should answer: Don't you think that Sanders would have beaten Trump had he been the candidate? Certainly, he drew crowds, created excitement, and conveyed a charisma akin to what you saw as keys to Trump's success, and which were completely absent from the Clinton campaign."

Fought the good fight.  Lost in a landslide.

We will never know if Bernie would have won the election.  I have up on a wall in my house a photo of George McGovern, a candidate of the liberal, populist left flank of the Democratic Party, the candidate I supported enthusiastically in 1972.  I left an American History Ph.D. program at Yale in 1972 in part because I was studying American culture but recognized every single person I knew--professors, classmates, university staff, and most certainly myself--planned to vote for McGovern but that he was going to lose in a landslide.  I concluded that I wasn't learning what I needed to learn; I needed to get out of an academic bubble. I went off to look for America in a tent and Ford Maverick.

It was Trump's strategy not to vilify Bernie, other than to call him Crazy Bernie.  Trump wisely--strategically--focused on asserting Hillary cheated Bernie out of his nomination.  That built up Bernie as victim and exacerbated his supporters' sense of victimhood.  So, was he cheated out of the nomination?

Fact: Hillary got more Democratic primary votes than did Sanders.  She got them early--in March--with her superior reputation among black voters.  She got them in the red states of the south. In the Primaries, she carried Alabama but Bernie carried Wisconsin.  Her weakness in the north and midwest was a bright red flashing signal of a problem for Hillary.  The Democrat needs to carry Wisconsin, not Alabama.   Still, a vote is a vote.  A Democratic Party official or candidate would tread very carefully in deciding that the vote of a black voter in the south (Hillary's margin) should be underweighted compared to that of a white voter in the north, on the idea that the white vote was more meaningful for the general election.  It would be exactly the kind of realpolitik decision that opens one up to a legitimate charge of racist thinking.  Still, it is undeniable that Hillary's vote margin over Bernie suggested strength and weakness in the wrong places.

Many supporters of Bernie objected to including the votes of "Super Delegates", people who had voting rights bestowed "ex officio" rather than by primary election; Democratic Governors and Senators and party elders.   Hillary had overwhelming support among those.    

Their support for Hillary does not surprise me. Hillary paid her dues to fellow Democrats.

I watched up close my local Democratic Party make the decision to nominate a candidate to fill the vacancy of Oregon State Senator Al Bates, who died unexpectedly, creating a vacancy.  A dozen or so candidates put their name in contention for the nomination.  Party officials assumed the voting would take multiple ballots to get to a consensus candidate.  Some nominees had significant name recognition and professional standing in the community.   One candidate won a majority on the first ballot, Tonia Moro. 

She had paid her dues within the Party.

Was she the one with the best public reputation, the one most likely to win the seat in a general election?  Likely not.  But she won overwhelmingly in a vote of Democratic activists.  Why?  Because she had paid her dues.  She had been a regular participant in local party activities.  She staffed booths.  She organized and carried out door to door canvases.  She had show up at fundraising events and meet-and-greets,  

The other candidates had not.  Tonia Moro won the nomination then lost the general election, notwithstanding an 8 point Democratic advantage in the district.  Democrats picked the candidate who had earned their nomination over decades of showing up.

Bernie Sanders caucused with Democrats but overtly called himself NOT a Democrat. He had not flown to out of the way places to headline fundraisers for Democratic candidates; Bill and Hillary Clinton had been doing so for decades.  Advantage Hillary.  One can argue that that advantage had the effect of letting the wrong candidate prevail, the less charismatic candidate, the one with the weaker message, and the one who could not carry a majority of white voters in the Upper Midwest.  She had baggage she could not shed.  I agree with that assessment.  Still, the rules were in place and understood long beforehand.   

Would Bernie have won the general election?  Maybe.  

Observers of Trump for the past two years have seen him re-brand opponents.  Presumably, in a general election struggle against Sanders, Trump would have continued to have overwhelming advantage in media attention. All eyes on Trump.   Objectively, Bernie Sanders is toward the left end of the political spectrum of left-right politics, although depending on what is measured he is either at the extreme left end (bills sponsored or co-sponsored) or not quite the left edge of the scrum (general votes measured by progressive groups.)  

Click Here: Govtrack.us

Or perhaps not the left edge, based on a variety of issues monitored by progressive groups.  This chart shows the Senators who have signed onto Sanders' health proposal:

New York Times article:  Click Here

Currently, Bernie Sanders is well liked.  Would his reputation have stayed intact?  Surely, he would have been called extreme.  Unrealistic.  Too extreme even to be a Democrat, so he called himself a Democratic Socialist.  We would have stopped hearing about Benghazi and begun hearing about the Sanders family corruption, a crime worthy of multiple House Oversight investigations.  Fraud!  Cannot be trusted with money!  Spendthrift socialist.  Corrupt.

We would have heard more of this.

We can imagine the charges.  Extreme socialist.  Bankrupt America.  Free stuff for everyone, especially the undeserving layabouts, paid for by hard working American blue collar workers.  Welfare queens.  Illegal Immigrants.  Free college payoff to young radicals. Confiscation.  Communism.. Surrender to the Muslims. Soft on crime. Far out of the mainstream.  Atheist. Extremist.  Democratic Goldwater.

Bernie Sanders would have voiced a full throated progressive platform.  He has the courage of his convictions.

Upton Sinclair, progressive candidate.

Sanders might have withstood the Trump re-brand, but the history on this is not good.  Politicians on the extremes have failed in America.  Center left ones get elected, far left ones have not.  Upton Sinclair's campaign for California governor was characterized as a crazy socialist.  

On the right, Goldwater was tagged as being "extreme."  Voters have been uncomfortable with that. 

Trump's nativist appeal had a foundation in racial and social class resentment that was less focused on the very rich than it was on the coastal elite sensibilities of the progressive left.  

Bernie condemned billionaires.  A majority of elector votes did not reject billionaires.  They elected one.  

Instead, they rejected professional urban elites and their politically correct culturally modern values, and they found a convenient target at the people below them in socioeconomic status, the immigrants, blacks, Hispanic, and lazy who they felt were taking status and benefits from regular hard working deserving people like themselves.  

Sanders' policies would have amplified that meme. Perhaps, his authentic progressivism would have inoculated him from appearing corrupt, but doomed him to appear a crazy, unrealistic do-gooder.  He sincerely, authentically wants redistribution.  Trump would have tried to make that a vulnerability.

We don't know how he would have done, but it was not crazy for Democrats to have nominated a center-left establishment politician, as contrasted with Bernie.  It may have been a mistake, but it was not foolhardy or ignorant of the risks of a choice that could be characterized as "extreme."  

George McGovern lost 49 states.   That was then, not now.  But still.