Bernie Sanders 2020 campaign megathread

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Realignment imminent

The next FDR !

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Why does Bernie want to split the leftist vote? Does he really think he's the only candidate of sufficient purity? If he truly values the long-term strength of his cause, he'll endorse someone younger and fresher and not just hog his hardline supporters from other candidates who agree with him on practically every major issue.

There is no candidate who agrees with him. Booker has already walked back asking about minor modifications & so on. Booker & Gillibrand have categorically denied that they want the filibuster to go.

All other candidates vote for huge military spending. There is MASSIVE differences in policy & ideology. It is one thing to fight for something for half a century & another to suddenly embrace that position before an election while touting more moderate positions.

Even if IDEOLOGICALLY they are similar, they don't deserve to be the leader because they are incapable of implementing it fighting against all odds & special interests & will fold when the time comes. It is one thing to have a Harris or a Gillibrand a team player Supporting Medicare for all & another to lead that fight. Who do you want to lead? Someone with no policy history & someone who has flip-flopped or a visionary who has solely changed the narrative?

Bernie Sanders is the only one capable of enacting a range of progressive positions & can bring around a realignment like FDR did. Also, none of the other candidates are popular. Most of them are crap candidates. Warren is good on policy but has 0 political instincts & is doing bad in the polls & may lose. They are good to have on the team but are incapable of leading. Not selecting Sanders, is essentially giving on progressive policies & to make a winnable race vs Trump a competitive race.

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Sanders is the only credible candidate to reverse the oligarchy & build a new realignment. He is the only hope for a progressive agenda & will be a very strong GE candidate.

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It is only 12 hours & 4M has been crossed now. This is a record & far higher than Harris fundraising which got so much attention.  Probably higher than all other candidates combined.

Also Leahy & Welch both endorse Bernie Sanders.

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NYT reported Sanders raised 5.9/6M odd in 24 hours with 225,000 individual donations. That is incredible. Sanders has raised 4 times as the next best in Kamala Harris & has 6 times the number of donations as Harris. Ofcourse the others are nowhere near including Warren.

People forget how huge Fundraising is going to be to compete in Super Tuesday. Texas & California will be in play as will many other states. It will require huge money to compete in Texas & California. Most candidates will probably not have the money to continue beyond Iowa.

Also Booker, Harris, Gillibrand, Warren etc have also taken pledge to not accept PAC money so I don't know how Booker or Gillibrand funds their campaign with such low individual donations.

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NYT reported Sanders raised 5.9/6M odd in 24 hours with 225,000 individual donations. That is incredible. Sanders has raised 4 times as the next best in Kamala Harris & has 6 times the number of donations as Harris. Ofcourse the others are nowhere near including Warren.

People forget how huge Fundraising is going to be to compete in Super Tuesday. Texas & California will be in play as will many other states. It will require huge money to compete in Texas & California. Most candidates will probably not have the money to continue beyond Iowa.

Also Booker, Harris, Gillibrand, Warren etc have also taken pledge to not accept PAC money so I don't know how Booker or Gillibrand funds their campaign with such low individual donations.

Sanders is also the only candidate with a pre-existing nationwide fundraising apparatus. It's an impressive first day, but it wasn't out-of-the-blue, and it remains to be seen what pace he can keep up on fundraising for the rest of the campaign, as is really the case with all of the candidates at this point.

Apparently the Sanders campaign has recurring pledges  of 0.5M odd or so. They have a list of 2.5 or 3M odd donors from the last campaign (8M odd donations). The average donation is 30$ odd, the lowest of all candidates so PEOPLE still have a lot of money to give & will be giving every month or atleast can give.

In comparison, Warren raised like 0.3M, Harris 1.5M. No one has raised even 1M. Sanders has raised 20 times as much as Warren. Let that sink in -> 20 times as much in the 1st 24 hours. The point is  without PAC money, it is going to be compete without huge small $ donations.

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@realDonaldTrump
 Crazy Bernie has just entered the race. I wish him well!

@BernieSanders
What’s crazy is that we have a president who is a racist, a sexist, a xenophobe and a fraud. We are going to bring people together and not only defeat Trump but transform the economic and political life of this country.

@BernieSanders
Since yesterday morning, the response to our campaign has been incredible.

-$6 million raised
-225,000 contributors
-Average donation: $27

We are just getting started. Let's stand together to transform this country.

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“Socialist Berne Sanders raised $6 MILLION in 24 HOURS. Now I’m calling on you to CRUSH that number,” Trump's campaign texted recipients, noting that any donation would be tripled.

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Bernie supporters have taken over Youtube comment sections. Even Fox news videos bashing him get massively down voted. I've never seen a candidate with this much online support, it dwarfs even Trump's alt right legions.

Haha. Bernie vs Trump will be fun !

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Bernie is going to back to his routes (Where he attended Uni) & is holding rallies in March 2nd in Brooklyn, New York & in Chicago in March 3rd.

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40% of Bernie's donors are new people. Where are these new people coming from? Are these young people who were nor eligible to vote last time ?

I thought it was more about getting most of his 2016 voters. It will be very interesting to get a geographical & demographic breakup of his donors. The number of new donors is shocking.

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Shaun King's "The origin story of a political revolutionary" was pretty awesome.

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Bernie congratulated Hillary on her award & shook hands with her in Selma which is sure to get some fringe supporters mad.

Brooklyn rally was Fantastic but this Chicago rally seems way more electric.

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The radio interview was brilliant & Sanders did very well.

The hosts pushed him hard about every damn thing & he was very good.

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I'll add as a final salvo that ever since 2016 I've held essentially the opposite view - Bernie Sanders's best position is within the Senate. He's largely acted on the party by refocusing it's moral compass and shifting the Overton Window. And that's great! It's one of the major successes of his campaign and the reason why I think the 2016 primary was, in the long term, a good thing for the party even if it may have led to Trump's election. But Bernie can (and already has) done that effectively in the Senate when he's been given a platform and a megaphone; he can use his position to essentially whip and bully other Senators into adopting his platform. It's what he's already done with Medicare for All and we're seeing it (slowly) operate on foreign policy e.g. with Israel/Palestine. He's demonstrated that he can do this effectively in the Senate. All of the things you are arguing that he would have the power to do as a President, he is already doing.

Err yes, only since he made a relatively successful run for President in 2016. He didn't have any policy influence whatsoever with the Democratic leadership in the Senate until he won millions of votes running for President. The only way for Sanders to keep the Democratic Party moving to the left is to win the party's nomination for President to show the 'establishment' that his policy preferences have the largest constituency.

In a Sanders vs. Biden race, yes I agree with that. In a Sanders vs. Warren race (the context of that post) you're getting policy proposals to the same end. Ignoring high school level analysis like "But Bernie is a socialist and Warren is a capitalist" you aren't going to get very much difference in the values that the two candidates are trying to achieve. In a choice between these two I'd absolutely rather have the policy crafter instead of a motivational speaker as President.

I think both have very different approaches & priorities. Not only is Warren not that good in terms of foreign policy, there are massive question marks over her capability to implement policies. Coming up with some random obscure policy doesn't mean you should be President. FDR, Reagan weren't policy wonks & they were transformation figures. Warren is 2 tier below Sanders & may not be able to implement policies which Sanders has fought for his entire life & has brought into the limelight from obscurity.

Warren likely voted for freaking Reagan in the 80s & didn't support any version of Universal healthcare till a couple of years ago. She is not a visionary. She is not charismatic or inspiring. Transformation Presidents have not just incredible political acumen, vision but an incredible grassroots support & connect with people.

No President, not Sanders nor Warren can implement these incredible changes w/o massive grassroots public support !

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I have a legit question for Bernie supporters? What legislative accomplishments does he have?

Bernie Sanders was the amendment king & in his time in the House got more amendments than anyone which is why he was called the amendment king.

Sanders in the 1st time in history used the War powers act which got 60+ votes to stop the war in Yemen. Sanders drug imports bill passed with close go 60 votes but didn't make through a GOP House. Not just that he is a transformational figure who comes once in a century & got the majority of House Dems to accept Medicare for all, 15$ Min wage & other once fringe ideas into the mainstream ideas. Sanders has shaped the policy of the Democrats more than anyone in recent decades.

You can also add that despite being in the minority his pressure got Amazon & Disney to raise their wages to 15$ benefiting 100s of employees. All that while he was an Independent Senator in the minority.

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The Yemen vote was good but it doesn't actually do anything.

Liz Warren has been in the Senate for half the time as Bernie and (other than the CFPB) already has multiple legislative accomplishments that became law, as detailed by the Boston Globe:

https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2018/11/02/five-things-know-about-elizabeth-warren-record-senate/kURmTyZZuwK4NEF8GqohjO/story.html

Elizabeth Warren is not a serious candidates. She has no grassroots connect, is a poor political orator, has 0 charisma, is poor with the media, is not inspiring. She also has terrible political instincts & may actually lose vs Trump. Also add the fact that she may have voted over Reagan who was far worse than Trump. She also jumped recently on the Medicare-for-all bandwagon & may not pursue it as aggressively as Sanders will.

Warren is a terrible candidate no matter how many decent policies she can come with. Anyways if she is that good of a legislator, she is better served in the Senate helping enact legislation while Sanders lead the movement to be the FDR type transformational President that he can be.

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The unfortunate thing about Warren is that some voters feel that she probably has the best policies and that she might have been their first choice if they didn’t have electability concerns about her.

It'll be interesting to see if Sanders has improved his debating skills over the past four years.  If nothing else, Warren knows economic policy and I could see Sanders losing some support to her if one of the media narratives (b/c most people obviously don't actually watch these things) to emerge from the primary debates – fairly or unfairly – is that Sanders still can't offer any details on how things like single-payer, free college, etc, etc would actually work.  There was a pretty widely accepted narrative last time around that Sanders was just spouting left-wing buzzwords without explaining how he would actually implement or pay for things like free college (or get them through Congress, for that matter).  Regardless of whether this narrative was accurate or not, it definitely hurt him in the primaries and is something he's eventually going to have to address this time around.

Again Sanders' Free College tax funded with a Financial Transaction stock was one of the most sound & detailed policy proposals in 2016.

This is irrational narrative & had no role. If anything Warren needs to come out of his Professor mode & explain in simple language to a truck driver or a nurse about her vision & policy where she struggles. Sanders has always been fantastic in this regard.

He will likely gain in debates not lose. Warren has to have an unreal performance to gain.

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Yes, the debates are the best hope for folks like Warren and Booker to break through. Of course most people watching do not care about the policy specifics being discussed but how the media dissects their performance and if they get good zingers in.

Warren going after Bernie is what I most look forward to.

That may not end well. Especially for Warren. Sanders has a committed base who nay not take too kindly to that idea. Some of those supporters like Warren & may support Warren if Bernie doesn't do well. No way will they support Warren if she attacks Bernie.

If any of the other candidates were smart, they would almost exclusively focus on attacking him and Biden in the debates. They ought to make an alliance.

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Harris as a candidate is not working out. I think CNN will go all out for Beto because Biden is a paper-tiger & Beto seems to be the only organization who can stop Bernie.

I don't think CNN will like Warren either because her positions of breaking up monopolies  don't go well with CNN.

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There is a huge crowd in Bernie's rally in LA  today. It has to be the one of the biggest in this primary season so far.

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This was probably one of Bernie's best segments & he gave an incredible performance. There were many gotcha questions including is Biden a progressive, the show off hands questions & so on.

Many of the questions were loaded unfairly or with a wrong premise. That was the best thing Sanders did. He didn't take the bait to ridiculous questions & challenged the premise when asked absurd questions.

Bret & Martha were totally out of their depth & didn't have the subject matter knowledge that Bernie had. Sanders' talk about Insurance stability, him changing Insurance while as a Mayor or people losing Insurance if they quit or are fired & not being able to see a doctor etc was great.

FOX has the largest audience of the major networks & many of them live in a bubble. Sanders put an alternative view with strong logic to these folks.

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CAP is a vile disgraceful attacks engaging in low level attacks whose aim is to hamstring progressive politics & it is run by a Clinton hack in Neera Tanden.

It was disgusting to see them making such Trump type comments. Sanders is making a major mistake going soft on people like in 2016. He doesn't have to personally attack people but he needs to run a stronger campaign. Many contenders have said negative things about him & he needs to expose these people policy wise atleast.

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Sanders is the only candidate who can get away with this Boston bomber stuff which looks bad in the eyes of the unwashed masses even though his view may be correct.

The GOP is going to come up with crazy negative ads for everyone but I wonder if anything will stick regarding Bernie.

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That is not true. The centrist think tanks know Bernie is the only candidate who can get a Medicare for all or some sort of that legislation passed & are worried about it. Warren will come up with something moderate since she was never an early backer & wanted to strengthen the ACA & only supporter because everyone else did.

She also doesn't have the political acumen, charisma or devoted support to string together a movement to achieve much. She will have o Achievements.

As for the tweet, what is so wrong? Centrist think tanks will choose anyone but Bernie, even Wateen, which is true.