Picking daisies under mushroom clouds.
We’ve had a lot of discussion about which Democratic candidate is more or less “electable”. I’m going to focus on negatives, and since I believe Trump will be the GOP nominee, and I’m going to anticipate some of the arguments he might make. You are likely to think some of these criticisms are unfair (I’m with you), but if you’re on DKos, you’re not the average voter:
Here are Bernie’s negatives:
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He’s a (democratic) Socialist: A Gallup poll taken in June 2015 found only 47% of Americans saying they would vote for a socialist as president, while 50% said they wouldn’t. The hypothetical “socialist” gets the least support in the survey among all other categories. There are two counter-arguments: the poll was nine months ago when most people would have been hard pressed to name a democratic socialist running for president. The second is that none of the other categories in the poll are ideological. They are things like woman, atheist, etc. If you polled “extreme conservative”, you’d likely get a poor responses as well. Also, keep in mind the median voter is 44 years old. That means will turned 18 in 1990. The cold war, Soviet Union, Berlin Wall are all a teenage memory. I don’t think socialism packs quite the recoil it once did.
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He’s too old: At 74, Bernie is the oldest candidate running for president and would be the oldest nominee of a major party ever, if selected. This used to be one of my top concerns. I don’t know when it dissipated exactly, but he seems to be able to hold his own with people 5-6 years younger than him (Hillary is 68, Trump is 69). If he selects a qualified VP, I don’t think this will matter much
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He’s not a Democrat: Bernie was, until recently an independent. He has caucused with Democrats for years, and has seniority on committees within the senate (and earlier the house) thanks to this. The Democrats had a majority in the ‘07-’08 Senate thanks to Bernie. This is really only an argument for the primary, not the general election. Independent is actually the biggest response in party affiliation polls at 37%, Dems and Repubs only get 30% each.
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Can’t raise enough money: Though Bernie has managed to raise money in the primary, far more than anyone anticipated, the question is whether he can sustain this support in the general election. It’s an open question. My own take is that he won’t have any trouble. I expect 70% of traditional Democratic donors to give if he wins the nomination, and most of his individual donors to give something. That should be enough. Traditional democratic donors will continue to fund DNC and down-ballot races with Bernie heading the ticket.
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Weak connection with minorities: This is more of a wedge issue during the primary. Though AA turnout is unlikely to equal what it was when Obama was on the ballot, I expect minorities will lean heavily towards Sanders. Since Trump is virtually certain to gain the GOP nomination, the GOP will likely have terrible numbers among minorities.
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His plans are too costly: This line of attack is going to be the most potent in a general. Particularly when it come to additional taxes to support a “medicare for all” proposal. It will be key for him to explain how his proposals will impact those at various earning levels, below 50k (which is half of all households), 50-100k, 100-200k, etc. On healthcare, he could ask people to look at box 12-DD on their W-2s. That tells them what their employer currently pays for their health insurance (ACA feature). Add in all their out of pocket expenses over the course of the year and they can see whether “medicare for all” with a 6.2% (employer) + 2.2% (employee) payroll tax would save them money. A simple calculator to do this would take a couple of days to create, it would take two w-2 inputs (income and box 12-DD). The income, capital gains, estate, etc. taxes in the proposal will only impact a small percentage of the population.
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Susceptible to 3rd party candidacy (Bloomberg): I live in NYC and liked Bloomberg in some ways. I think he would be a weak candidate against Bernie, partly because of his wealth, but also because of the shenanigans he indulged in to change the term-limits. His close association with charter school movement which is increasingly getting mixed responses won’t help pull votes from Democrats either. I think he’s more of a risk to Trump since he would appeal to moderate Republicans turned off by Trump, but polls are mixed at this very early stage. On the plus side, the election would be a three way subway series, between Queens, Brooklyn and Manhattan/Boston.
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Bernie’s son was born out of wedlock: Bernie never married Susan Mott, the mother of his son Levi. He’s also divorced. We’ve never had a major presidential candidate with a child who wasn’t born to a married couple, though Reagan broke the divorced barrier in the 1980s. I don’t think it matters, but YMMV.
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He’s a secular Jew: I suspect Sanders’ answers on how he understands his spirituality and how it impacts his work satisfy a big portion of the electorate. I don’t think being Jewish is much of a drawback outside of states that are hard right anyway.
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Supported “crazy ideas” in the 70s: Your mileage may vary on this one, and I suspect it’ll largely matter to voters of Bernie’s generation, based on where they were during the culture wars of the 60s/70s. Decades ago, Bernie spoke about abolishing the CIA. To be fair, the CIA was fomenting coups left and right back then, I guess nothing much has changed. He also wrote an article on how gender roles impact sexuality that might make some people queasy if quoted in parts. You never know what’s going to stick, but I suspect neither of them will matter much.
Then we get to Hillary, who also has a number of big knocks against her that fall under the “electability” rubric.
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Dynastic concerns: Republican primary voters have exhibited something similar to glee as they’ve made quick work of Jeb’s candidacy. I don’t think the same is true of Democrats where Bill Clinton is still mostly well liked (though this cycle and the financial crisis have brought to the fore various criticisms of the welfare/crime bills passed in the 1990s). But the general election is a different matter and I think seeing a Clinton on the ballot will take away some support from voters who don’t think the presidency should be passed between family members, no matter how talented they are.
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She’s not very well liked: There’s no two ways around this. Hillary has poor favorable/unfavorable poll numbers. This makes some of her supporters more protective of her. Her unfavorable is at 51.4% in polls, which not too far from Trump’s at 57.8%, though her favorable are higher at 42.2% versus 34.4% for Trump. Bernie’s favorable/unfavorable are 38.4% to 38.2%, indicating 20% of the population has no opinion of him as yet.
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She’s part of the system: There’s an Anti-establishment mood in the country, and this is a significant weakness for Hillary. She’s been a major player in Democratic politics nationally since the 1990s. People associate her with insider status. This could be a very potent line of attack for Trump, who is running as an outsider. Rubio too could make a case, he’s new enough and has held so little power he could argue he’s a relative “outsider”. The relative impact of this line of attack depends on how much of an anti-establishment cycle you think this is. I think it will play a major role, but Hillary would be able to eke out a slim victory all else constant.
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Recession risk: Some Democrats don’t want to hear this, but the recovery from the financial crisis has been very uneven. This is no knock on Obama, the crisis was very bad in degree. A lot of wealth was destroyed, particularly in the lower and middle-classes, and weak wage growth has meant people haven’t been able to rebuild a cushion yet. Most people feel poorer and less secure than they felt prior to the crisis. This has hit young people entering the workforce particularly hard. If the economy weakens (quite likely given risks in China, Europe/Brexit, Brazil, Middle-East etc.) this will undercut Hillary’s “third-term” message. She might try to pivot to a more activist tone distancing herself from Obama in the general, but I think that would raise eyebrows. Both Bernie and Trump have a message that works well for, even anticipates a recession.
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Hillary is a woman: I don’t think this matters, it won’t materially impact the general election results.
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The Money: 225K for an hour of speaking is 4.5 times median household income. To the average person, these figures smell funny, even if they can’t put a finger on exactly why. It’s not just the speaking fees, it’s also the enormous sums the Clinton Foundation has raised from donors. Expect Trump to hammer this relentlessly in the general. Even Rubio could do the same, he has received support from patrons, but the figures are far lower for him (though I don’t really think he’s a threat, Trump will kill his candidacy by bringing up the cocaine connection or other rumors).
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The transcripts: This will continue to be an issue, until they’re released. When released, it’s likely they will contain some quotable atta-boys for Wall Street, which will then be used to further The Money line of attack above. As this diary about a speech to the American Camp Association shows, there are issues with all these highly paid speeches when you start digging into them. Not much of an impact to committed Democrats, but it could sway some independents.
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The Lincoln bedroom. People may have forgotten how distasteful the perception that campaign donors were being rewarded with nights in the White House was. I can just imagine Trump releasing an ad pledging not to turn the White House into a hotel and suggesting Hillary would. It’s another potent attack on the donor angle which some younger voters might learn about for the first time and be turned off by.
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Bill Clinton sex scandals: For many Democrats, this is not an issue. But Trump has shown, in trademark stomach-turning style, how Hillary’s reaction to the women accusing Bill of infidelity could be turned against her. For younger voters, some of the details are new and this could have an impact.
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E-Mail and Foundation inquiries: This is a wild-card. It depends on how the courts see the continuing battle over the FOIA requests, what is in the e-mails, and how far people go when it comes to tying Clinton Foundation activities to Hillary’s official activities as Secretary of State/Senator (staff have been transferred between them for years).
So I know you’ve kept reading only so you can find out what I think :-)
My personal take is that Bernie is the stronger general election candidate. Hillary is especially weak against a provocateur such as Trump, or a fresh new face like Rubio.
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