Our campaign is doing so well because we are telling the truth about the reality of American life today. We are talking about a reality in which most of the new wealth and income in this country are going to the top one percent while working families are struggling more than at any point since the Great Depression.
-- Sen. Bernie Sanders
Sen. Sanders has pulled within ten points of Secretary Clinton in recent polling in Iowa. What he says about this feat above is true. However, no candidate can lay claim to the Presidency based on poll numbers alone. Sanders knows this.
As voters we are proxies for the conventions, whether they be Democratic, Republican, Green, or some other variety. As such we must think about not only the Party but the country. Where do we want this country to be in January 2017? We have the obligation to think not only about our own lives but strategically on the part of the body politic as a whole. Which Democrat can not only win the party nomination but go on to defeat the Republican? Which candidate, then, can not only articulate the best message, but can mount a stiff challenge to an over-financed Republican which will almost certainly be the case in the election of 2016?
What I am setting forth here is a high bar. But it is reality. This reality is what is giving me angst. Too many Democrats are thinking only of the nomination and not the fall election of 2016. Of course, we have a long way to go and we do not know who the Republican nominee will be. These are reasons I have been critical in the past of the excessively long campaign season we now have in this country. (See earlier post to this effect.) John Kennedy did not even announce his campaign until after the new year of 1960. Robert Kennedy, owing to LBJ's announcement declining to run in 1968, was even later.
Yes, I realize it takes time to build a campaign now that the old party bosses have been deposed and campaigning has moved to Big Media. But my main point is we the voters must think like the bosses -- we must think like winners. We must think like master strategists. We cannot afford to do otherwise.
-- Sen. Bernie Sanders
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| Sen. Sanders in Iowa (via Twitter) |
Sen. Sanders has pulled within ten points of Secretary Clinton in recent polling in Iowa. What he says about this feat above is true. However, no candidate can lay claim to the Presidency based on poll numbers alone. Sanders knows this.
As voters we are proxies for the conventions, whether they be Democratic, Republican, Green, or some other variety. As such we must think about not only the Party but the country. Where do we want this country to be in January 2017? We have the obligation to think not only about our own lives but strategically on the part of the body politic as a whole. Which Democrat can not only win the party nomination but go on to defeat the Republican? Which candidate, then, can not only articulate the best message, but can mount a stiff challenge to an over-financed Republican which will almost certainly be the case in the election of 2016?
What I am setting forth here is a high bar. But it is reality. This reality is what is giving me angst. Too many Democrats are thinking only of the nomination and not the fall election of 2016. Of course, we have a long way to go and we do not know who the Republican nominee will be. These are reasons I have been critical in the past of the excessively long campaign season we now have in this country. (See earlier post to this effect.) John Kennedy did not even announce his campaign until after the new year of 1960. Robert Kennedy, owing to LBJ's announcement declining to run in 1968, was even later.
Yes, I realize it takes time to build a campaign now that the old party bosses have been deposed and campaigning has moved to Big Media. But my main point is we the voters must think like the bosses -- we must think like winners. We must think like master strategists. We cannot afford to do otherwise.
