Here is why I think Sen. Sanders will not win the Democratic nomination. Before I start this is not a gratuitous slap at Sanders supporters who are my friends. It is just the conclusion I’ve come to after thinking about it for a while.
The problem I see is that the Sanders campaign is not capturing the persuadable Democrats. I count myself in that group, mostly because I have changed my support for a candidate before the writing was on the wall several times in my life.
I see most of the Sanders early support as coming from the folks on my party who have been hammered by the end of the conservative political swing in our national politics which started with Regan and ended with Bush the Younger. They have hoped and worked and spoke up for, in some cases, decades and now that there is a candidate who is unabashedly speaking to their point of view they are very excited.
The more recent support has come from folks who were hurt in the Great Recession and who feel, rightly, the rich have had it too good for too long. They get a stiff espresso like shot of strongly redistributionist fire from Sen. Sanders and say “That’s my guy!”
All this is to the good, as without it there was no chance Sen. Sanders would make a viable candidate. Being able to bring this support in made him viable.
The thing is its not enough. I’m a political guy, I watch it, I think about it, and (not as much as I used to) write about it. I have many of the same policy goals of Sen. Sanders, and yet I have seen, nor read, nor heard anything from him or his campaign which has persuaded me to change my support.
I’m not going to make my case for Sec. Clinton, as this post is not about her, but the Sanders campaign has failed to find a way to dissuade me from that case. This is the flaw I think will ultimately doom his bid for the Democratic nomination.
There are tens of millions of voters for whom Sec. Clinton is the default candidate. In order to win the support of enough of them to clinch the nomination, Sen. Sanders has to persuade them away from this default.
Unfortunately this does not seem to be the direction his campaign is taking. Sen. Sanders is very clear that what needs to happen is a political revolution. The thing about revolutions is they rely heavily on the right timing. If a revolution moves before the time is right, the climate is just so, they tend to fail.
Of course, Sen. Sanders thinks the time is right for the kind of revolution he is proposing. The signs show a lot of promise for this, there is a anger in the nation, there is a recognition of our unfair, dare I say un-American, our income and wealth inequality is. It is real and it is measurable.
His strategy is very heavy in the direction of saying “This is the time!” and letting the (to him and many of his supporters) the self-evident truth carry the day. For an actual revolution this is often enough, but for a political revolution where voting is the deciding factor, I think it is not robust enough.
Some of the persuadable voters will find this compelling, but not all. Most likely not enough of them will to grant Sen. Sanders the nomination, let alone the Presidency. Not everyone is energized by the idea of tearing down the system.
To win, Sen. Sanders needs to bring people with similar views around to the idea he is the best vehicle for their goals. This is where Sec. Clinton excels, and Sen. Sanders comes up a little short.
The same fiery rhetoric which energizes the Sanders rallies puts people who don’t completely agree with him in a feeling of opposition. The battle cry of the Sanders campaign is sweeping change, all or nothing, with little or no offer of compromise.
It is the way of revolutions and revolutionaries to assume and assert the day after the revolution will be a blank sheet of paper which the future can be written upon for the betterment of all. The problem is, most folks, even those who recognize the need for and want change, do not want wholesale change.
Whole sale change is freighting, because all chance offers the chance things will be personally worse for them. The larger the scale of change, the more danger possible, and the scarier it is.
If the Sanders campaign does not find a way to soften the hard edges, to make the contours of the revolution he proposes seem more knowable, more approachable, I don’t see how he can move enough voters from their default position.
Sec. Clinton may be a lot of things, hell, she might be some of the nasty things that people say about her, but she is a known quantity for most of the nation. Polls have shown even people who doubt her trustworthiness have no doubts about her qualifications and ability to do the job of President.
This opinion of Clinton is one they have arrived at over decades of seeing her in public service. Her popularity has risen and fallen and risen again, (to be fair to my Sanders supporting friends, it fell again too). She is not perfect, but is perfection needed to win? Take a look at our last 44 presidents and I think you’ll find the answer is no.
Sen. Sanders, for most of the nation, is a new and unknown factor. For those who like the new, the different he is a breath of fresh air. For those who are not early adopters, he has potential but they need convincing. I am not one to say it is undoable, I have never thought Sen. Sanders was unelectable, but it requires communication the likes of which we have not seen from him, yet.
So, at this point it comes down to which is more likely, our nation being in just the right place at just the right time so a cry of massive change from a new (to most voters at least) voice or a we are ready for change and will go with an imperfect choice who we have known for a very long time and have seen work for the change they advocate, while admitting that change will take a long and winding course?
I know which seems more likely to me.
The floor is yours.