So I have an honest question for the Hillary supporters, and I’d like them to give it some real thought and give an objective answer – why isn’t she doing better?
Bernie Sanders came out of nowhere as an almost entirely unknown Independent. He’s eschewed corporate donations and billionaire patrons. He has few significant endorsements and hardly anyone among the party elites on his side.
Hillary Clinton has the highest name recognition of anyone who’s run for president in a long time. She has Wall Street and corporate money – a lot of it. She has PACs and well-connected bundlers. She has virtually the entire party machine working on her behalf.
In short, Bernie’s had zero advantages, while she’s had them piled up like pillows under a sultan’s ass.
On name recognition alone, she should have been crushing Sanders. Add in the money, and the party lever-pulling, and the media’s curious blind spot about Sanders for a lot of the campaign (he got a fraction of the coverage of Jeb!, who polled about as highly as Bernie’s shoelaces), and this should have been no contest at all.
And yet, here we are – Clinton and Bernie neck-and-neck for the lead in pledged delegates (52-51). It’s like Kerry Bowers threatening to overtake Trump for the Republican nomination (yes, he’s a candidate – if you didn’t know that, well, that’s kind of my point). So like I said . . . why isn’t she doing better?
Jeez, weighted polling averages had her with a 15 point lead in Iowa at the beginning of January – that ended effectively in a tie, and who knows how it will end by the time the multiple rounds of caucusing finally end. New Hampshire was supposed to be a dead heat around the same time – and Bernie crushed her in the state. As late as the beginning of February, polling had her up 20 points in Nevada, and she walked away with a 5-point win and a 1 delegate lead – and that, likely only because Harry Reid jettisoned his professed neutrality and called in markers to get casino workers off for the caucus (but only in pro-Hillary areas – giving Latinos in the hospitality industry the chance to vote apparently gets less important if they’re not voting Hillary). It’s been a noticeable trend in this campaign that, as Bernie’s name recognition rises, so do his poll numbers. Hillary’s appeal seems to survive only in a candidate-vacuum.
That makes me a little worried about the general election if she’s the nominee – if she’s barely holding her own against a candidate who doesn’t have the media visibility, the PAC’s, big donors and apparatchiks, how’s she going to fare in the general against a candidate who does?
Either Bernie’s a much stronger candidate than you thought . . . or Hillary’s a much weaker one.
For me, I obviously think the former, as a Sanders supporter - but it’s just as easy to go with the latter, frankly. She does, after all, have worse favorable numbers than anyone who’s ever successfully made it into the Oval Office – by, like, a lot. And she has “Honesty” and “Trustworthiness” numbers that would shame a used-car salesman. And while the low Democratic turnout has been a talking point for Bernie’s opponents, claiming that he’s just not exciting enough people to actually show up – well, Hillary’s the big name on the Democratic side, so apparently she’s not exciting them, either. And she consistently polls worse against Republicans than Sanders does.
We’re about to have South Carolina, and Super Tuesday after that. Polling says Hillary has a commanding lead in most of those contests, but it said that about Nevada and Iowa not long ago. It’s possible, maybe even likely, that she can beat the clock and cinch the nomination before Bernie’s star rises enough to snatch it from her – though with a less-favorable outlook in later states (and the expectation that her numbers will drop, as they have everywhere else so far), maybe not. Failing all else, she has the lion’s share of super delegates, at least some of whom are committed to supporting her no matter what the little people say– but, then what? If she’s had to work this hard to win the nomination from an upstart, socialist Independent who looks like an East Coast Doc Brown – if, gods forbid, she had to settle for a super delegate coronation - are you really still that confident about the general? There’s clearly something that’s been causing support to bleed from her to Sanders since day one. Are you sure that something will disappear from the race if and when he does?
Why isn’t she doing better? Why are the trend lines still showing Sanders rising and her fading – whether or not it’s happening fast enough to snatch the nomination from her?
Why? Simple question. Thoughtful answers appreciated.