Here's some of the oppo GOP would have used on Sanders

[Titans279]

For those thinking Bernie would clearly have won. He was never attacked or had to defend himself from anything in his career.

Quote

Here are a few tastes of what was in store for Sanders, straight out of the Republican playbook: He thinks rape is A-OK. In 1972, when he was 31, Sanders wrote a fictitious essay in which he described a woman enjoying being raped by three men. Yes, there is an explanation for it—a long, complicated one, just like the one that would make clear why the Clinton emails story was nonsense. And we all know how well that worked out.

Then there’s the fact that Sanders was on unemployment until his mid-30s, and that he stole electricity from a neighbor after failing to pay his bills, and that he co-sponsored a bill to ship Vermont’s nuclear waste to a poor Hispanic community in Texas, where it could be dumped. You can just see the words “environmental racist” on Republican billboards. And if you can’t, I already did. They were in the Republican opposition research book as a proposal on how to frame the nuclear waste issue.

Also on the list: Sanders violated campaign finance laws, criticized Clinton for supporting the 1994 crime bill that he voted for, and he voted against the Amber Alert system. His pitch for universal health care would have been used against him too, since it was tried in his home state of Vermont and collapsed due to excessive costs. Worst of all, the Republicans also had video of Sanders at a 1985 rally thrown by the leftist Sandinista government in Nicaragua where half a million people chanted, “Here, there, everywhere/the Yankee will die,’’ while President Daniel Ortega condemned “state terrorism” by America. Sanders said, on camera, supporting the Sandinistas was “patriotic.”

The Republicans had at least four other damning Sanders videos (I don’t know what they showed), and the opposition research folder was almost 2-feet thick. (The section calling him a communist with connections to Castro alone would have cost him Florida.) In other words, the belief that Sanders would have walked into the White House based on polls taken before anyone really attacked him is a delusion built on a scaffolding of political ignorance.

http://www.newsweek.com/myths-cost-democrats-presidential-election-521044

[Denali]

And there's also the oppo "And he's also a raging socialist".

I still think Bernie most likely beats Trump.

[Mythos27]

Wow, all that and Hillary still had way more dirt and was easier to attack.

[oldschool]

Sanders gets destroyed easily. The narrative stating otherwise is just a way for democrats to place the blame at Clinton's feet instead of the party as a whole.

Edited November 14, 2016 by oldschool

[Little Earl]

17 minutes ago, oldschool said:

Sanders gets destroyed easily. The narrative stating otherwise is just a way for democrats to place the blame at Clinton's feet instead of the party as a whole.

Sanders would have lost, but I would think they could have run other candidates that would have beaten Donald Trump.

[TitanDuckFan]

39 minutes ago, oldschool said:

Sanders gets destroyed easily. The narrative stating otherwise is just a way for democrats to place the blame at Clinton's feet instead of the party as a whole.

Political self-preservation.

Must have scapegoat!

Edited November 14, 2016 by TitanDuckFan

[rekirts]

Post election the bern-outs have been more annoying then the trump supporters.  

[Titans_Win_Again]

Really? Really???? All the crap that didn't stick to Trump didn't prove that people don't really give a fuck about the skeletons in someone's closet so long as they buy their message? Come on

All the polls showed it during the primary, before most of the Trump dirt had been dug up either, Bernie landslided Trump. 

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_sanders-5565.html

Bernie neutralized Trump's main weapon, anti-establishment sentiment, while being respectful and having a lifetime record of supporting workers. Trump would have been lucky to win 5 states.

[oldschool]

46 minutes ago, Titans_Win_Again said:

Really? Really???? All the crap that didn't stick to Trump didn't prove that people don't really give a fuck about the skeletons in someone's closet so long as they buy their message? Come on

All the polls showed it during the primary, before most of the Trump dirt had been dug up either, Bernie landslided Trump. 

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_sanders-5565.html

Bernie neutralized Trump's main weapon, anti-establishment sentiment, while being respectful and having a lifetime record of supporting workers. Trump would have been lucky to win 5 states.

No chance. white America wasn't voting for a socialist. all of his crazy ultra left ideas would have come out in the general.  it's incredibly naive to cite primary polls. now Biden definitely wipes the floor with Trump. if only he had run.

[Titans_Win_Again]

Name a demographic group that turned out for HRC. None did, not even women.

At a minimum Bernie would have had vastly superior millenial support and eaten into Trumps white working class base.

[Justafan]

5 hours ago, Little Earl said:

Sanders would have lost, but I would think they could have run other candidates that would have beaten Donald Trump.

Not unless they did a better job running the campaign.  I thought she would win, and I was wrong, but it shouldn't have been close.  Trump was a terrible candidate.  People never liked Hillary but they still should have been able to win if they had done a better job communicating their message and connecting with voters.

[Rogue]

It's hard to say how Sanders would have done.  If anything, this was an unconventional election.  No doubt he'd lose some voters, but in a year of "I just want my voice heard"?  That swath of voters that went to Trump that otherwise leaned left or centrists?  These people voted for Donald Trump, the epitome of uncertainty. How much more uncertain would a shift to the left be?  The advantage Sanders would have over Trump for these people is that he was genuine.  There is very little doubt who Sanders would fight for.  If they'd vote for Donald Trump and the uncertainty he brings with the uncertainty of who is going to fight for, it's not unrealistic they'd vote for Sanders and the uncertainty he brings with the certainty of who he is going to fight for.  

How much does he really lose?  Most Democrats would get in line.  Youth vote.  Not sure about the Latino vote, but I suspect he'd at least done as well as Hillary.  The African American vote would be harder to predict, but could be down.  He'd likely favor the women vote. So what's left?  5-10% of people typically leans left or centrist that just can't vote for him?  That's significant, but I'm not so sure he doesn't make that up with the working class folks that are wanting to be heard.  

He keeps MI, WI, and PA blue.  It's a race.  At that point it's down to VA and NV.  How do they go?  I'm not sure.  

I don't think it's unreasonable to believe he had as much shot as Hillary.  

[rekirts]

Democrats don't just "get in line".  They go third party ala Nader 2000.

[chef]

9 hours ago, oldschool said:

Sanders gets destroyed easily. The narrative stating otherwise is just a way for democrats to place the blame at Clinton's feet instead of the party as a whole.

When you don't have to sweat having to vote for a black guy or a woman, it still often comes down to this person will lower my taxes while this guy will raise them.

Obama did OK since 1) great motivator, 2) McCain and Romney both weak candidates, 3) hatred of W first time round, 4) Romney really wiped out on connecting to the middle class on down, truly seen as elitist. 

 

Now if it had been Trump/Sanders, the battle of old anti-establishment curmudgeons, I think in the end the tax thing levels Sanders, as not just the 1% but the 10-30% would jump up and down when they fully realized how his tax plans would affect them.  Clinton was never a huge threat to the wealthy on taxes, at least not on balance vs her basic coziness with Wall St. Obama is not a Socialist.  Sanders has been trying his best to be an American one (still light vs Scandinavia) for the past several years.  Basically Trump wouldn't take down Sanders, his policies would.

 

But both Trump and Sanders achieved loyal followings for making promise after promise their people wanted to hear, that they couldn't eventually deliver, at least not as stated.  

 

Had the DNC not internally laid down the hammer that HRC was to be the candidate (Sanders was not an internal Dem, and O'Malley and Chaffe were just canon fodder), were there really solid people ready to run?  

[Titans279]

I just think that the general electorate isn't ready to vote for a self described socialist. Probably in 20 years. The younger generation has no problem with it. 

In retrospect, Biden seems like he'd have had the best chance to me. I don't think he'd have written off the white working class. They're his people. 

I feel kind of silly saying it because it seems entirely based on memes, but Millennials really like him too, even though he's also been a pretty centrist Democrat. IDK if they'd turn out, but probably more than they did for Hillary.