To a certain degree, I sympathize with what Matt Taibbi is saying here about how the press is treating Bernie Sanders’ nascent presidential campaign.
The Washington/national press has trained all of us to worry about these questions of financing on behalf of candidates even at such an early stage of a race as this.
In this manner we’re conditioned to believe that the candidate who has the early assent of a handful of executives on Wall Street and in Hollywood and Silicon Valley is the “serious” politician, while the one who is merely the favorite of large numbers of human beings is an irritating novelty act whose only possible goal could be to cut into the numbers of the real players.
But, ultimately, I can’t really agree with this argument. I’m not trained by the national press to view the ability to raise money as a key component of any “credible” political campaign. I just believe this to be true as a matter of basic, responsible political analysis.
Money is not the only important thing. Prior to the New Hampshire primary in 2000, former New Jersey Senator Bill Bradley had managed to raise more money than the sitting vice president, Al Gore, but that didn’t translate into any victories. It did indicate, however, that Bradley would have the money to compete. What killed Bradley was a combination of lack of skill, a hostile press, and all the free press John McCain was getting from fawning reporters. But he could afford to organize, run advertisements, and could have capitalized on his victories if he had had any of them.
In 2012, Rick Santorum was in a different situation. He had several small victories but no money to turn those into a real campaign on the ground. In some states, Santorum couldn’t even get his name on the ballot. In others, he watched his rivals steal the delegates he had won in caucuses at later state conventions.
That last point is important because it highlights that winning the nomination isn’t just a matter of getting ahead in the polls and getting the most votes in some primaries and caucuses. You have to build a political organization of activist citizens who will serve as your proxies at the state level. Ron Paul was really good at this kind of organizing and regularly poached other candidates’ delegates. However, he still needed to win occasionally at the ballot box and this is what he could not do. A candidate that combined Santorum’s ability to win votes with Paul’s organizational prowess might have taken Romney out, and the same thing could theoretically happen to Hillary Clinton (again).
So, the key question then is this: was the press wrong not to take Rick Santorum and Ron Paul very seriously as legitimate threats to win the nomination?
I don’t think so.
And a related question is this: how important are ideas to a campaign if they aren’t offered by someone who has the potential to both raise money and build a proxy army on the state level?
To turn this around a bit, we might say that ideas can be really important in a campaign, but only if they inspire people to give money and work for the candidate who offers those ideas. Barack Obama had some ideas that accomplished this, but he also had personal qualities and political skills that inspired and motivated people. And what won the nomination for him wasn’t so much how he was treated by the press, whether seriously or otherwise. What won him the nomination was the proxy army he built and the money he had to build and fund them.
So, when it comes to Bernie Sanders there are really two questions. The first is to ask whether he’s built this kind of army and the second is whether he has the potential to build one.
The answer to the first question is clearly ‘no.’ The answer to the second is that it is too early to say with any certainty but there are good reasons to be skeptical. Most people look at Bernie Sanders and think that he’s too old, too ethnic, too socialist, too politically isolated, too unknown and too late to replicate what Barack Obama did eight years ago. Can he prove the skeptics wrong?
Well, maybe, but he ought to show some results before he expects people to consider him a “credible” candidate.
At the heart of what Taibbi is saying is the lament that ideas (and, perhaps, character) alone cannot prevail in our political wars. I understand that lament but standing alone it is really a rather unsophisticated and almost churlish kind of analysis. Yes, to some degree life is unfair and the system is rotten down to the studs, but we want political leaders who can prevail over the odds. If you go on with this kind of analysis it is not too long before you are wishing for ponies and leprechauns.
If I were a U.S. Senator, my voting record would look a lot like Bernie Sanders’ voting record. I love the guy and would very much enjoy living in an America where he might legitimately be seen as a prospective president. This does not mean, however, that I am going to suggest that we do live in this hypothetical America.
I think Sanders has a message that will resonate with a lot of people and I hope he gets some traction. If you want to join his proxy army, I won’t dissuade you and wish you every success. If I see successes, I will report them as successes.
But it’s not up to the media to do the hard work that Sanders needs to do for himself. Let’s see him qualify for all the ballots. Let’s see him raise serious money. Let’s see him build an army of engaged true believing citizens who go knocking doors for him.
Until this happens, even movement in the polls won’t be a good reason to treat him as “credible.”
You don’t have to be “credible” as a winner to be worth listening to, but you do have to be “credible” to be treated as credible.
Well I am hoping he gives it a good run. As someone who backed Howard Dean in 2004, I want to see the Democratic party move further left. I also think that if Bernie’s campaign does gain some traction, the Democratic Party will work against him. He is an outsider, unfriendly to moneyed interests.
Only time will tell.
I don’t say this because I endorse it. At all.
But if anyone makes a move on Hillary Clinton, the “Democratic Party” will move against them.
The reason is simple. We’ve never had a non-incumbent with this much unified support before. People can read the tea leaves and know where the bread is buttered, and there is just no margin in getting in the way of this train and much to be gained by greasing the rails.
So just follow the Pied Piper down to the sea to be drowned. Voting your conscience means nothing. After all this Hillary pressure, I’m fed up. Fuck her and all the Emanuel clones that ride her. She’s not willing to enter honest debate or present her ideas because her ideas are the same rotten crap that we’ve been fed since 1980! Will she demand that the Republican candidate withdraw also? I’m voting for Bernie in the primary if I have to write him in. In the general, I will leave “President” blank.
Not so sure you’re right about this. There is a substantial part of the Democratic Party that wants to pull Hillary to the left, on specific issues at the very least. For them, Sanders represents an important option, not because he can win, but because he is extremely articulate, coherent, credible, and ethical in putting forward those positions. To think only in terms of the general election at this stage is to ignore the functional value of the whole primary campaign process.
Sad but true.
I used to have a hard time understanding why so many around me just didn’t seem to care about politics. 2004 changed that. It’s not that people don’t care, it’s that they get that the game is rigged.
So it goes.
2008 proved that the game is not rigged at all. It just has very strict rules and enormous barriers to entry.
It’s not that any candidate is guaranteed anything, but more that you can’t get a ticket without first compromising yourself.
And once you win, you’ll find that even your own personal integrity isn’t worth a whole lot in terms of moving a bunch of people who have none of their own.
Oh, well, since you put it that way…
That’s not “rigging?”
Please.
Then you write!!!
Booman!!!
Once someone has done due diligence regardin securing the support of the controllers, what “personal integrity” really remains!!!???
Please.
WTFU before it’s too late.
(If it isn’t already.)
Please.
AG
Precisely. Welcome to the awakened.
I got it in 2000 when Gore copped out after the massive vote fraud. I got it even even more deeply several years later when Howard Dean was “AAAARGHED” out of contention in favor of that lickspittle Kerry.
You are correct. The game is indeed rigged.
And yes, so it goes. We can do nothing about it except watch and wait as it slowly comes unglued. It will, eventually. Every bubble has its bursting point.
All over the U.S. I can be fairly sure that I have about a 70% to 30% chance of experiencing a great deal of agreement from most of the people in almost any room that is not full of dedicated DemRats or RatPubs if I suggest that the elections have been one or another kind of farce since at least 2000 and quite possibly since the JFK assassination.
Meanwhile…hunker down and believe nothing said by the media.
How can you tell when thge media are lying?
You can’t.
But here’s what you can understand.
Yup.
Bet on it.
Believe nothing, and watch your own back.
AG
“I’m not trained by the national press to view the ability to raise money as a key component of any ‘credible’ political campaign. I just believe this to be true as a matter of basic, responsible political analysis.”
Which coincidentally is exactly how the national press presents it.
It has been suggested that he is doing this to offer Hillary some challenge and move the dialogue to income inequality, not to win.
I think he will actually help her by giving her space to tack a bit to the left while appearing as the middle of the road option to low-info journos and voters.
Bernie Sanders as her only major opponent is almost a dream situation for Hillary. Multiple debates would push the Overton Window to the left while allowing her to seem centrist, and the reasonable, popular positions Bernie and Hillary would espouse make the Republicans look extra bad in their debates. At the same time her advantages are so enormous that she has almost no chance of losing, and Bernie’s not a knife-wielder who’s going to go negative and leave bad feelings in the party. So she would end up with an even more liberal electorate, a unified party, and discredited general election opposition.
From your keyboard to the Flying Spaghetti Monster’s noodly appendages!
Yes, and there is nothing wrong with such a quest, provided that you don’t expect it to be treated as a potentially winning campaign.
Of course it’s a potentially winning campaign.
There is a non-trivial chance that, God forbid, something happens to Clinton during the intense stress and travel of the campaign. She gets shingles, it’s over. She trips and breaks a hip, it’s over.
yes, that’s what I’ve heard and it’s good. we’ll have more discussion and, let’s hope, some debates. all that will help Hillary in the long run if she’s the candidate.
You’re suggesting that Sanders is being employed by TPTB to soften Clinton’s neo-liberal/neo-con record and past rhetoric because it’s not as fashionable as it once was.
That may be the consequence of Sanders entering the race, but it’s not his intent. Nor do I suspect that Sanders is enough of a fool to think that his presence in the campaign will change whatever a President Clinton would do once in office.
He’s stepping up to the plate because there aren’t any left hand batters and he’ll get to see more pitches than someone like Kucinich saw because there’s only one other batter and a pinch hitter in the game.
If he’s in the PA primary would you vote for him over Hillary? I would.
I might want to hear what both have to say first, on the stump and in the debates. I’ll want to consider the extent to which Hillary tacks left on domestic issues, and especially if she tones down her anti-Putin rhetoric, shows a better recognition of the danger of our current policy towards Russia, and is generally less hawkish.
12 months until the PA primary. I have 13 months before CAians are finally allowed to weigh in. Most likely the first 2-3 contests will be decisive.
I live in PA. If Sanders is on the ballot here, I will certainly vote for him. Do I agree with him on everything? No. He sucks on Israel/Palestine, for one. But he’s miles ahead of Hillary.
I too am probably more in agreement w/Bernie on most of the issues than Hillary. But he’s 73, and a Jewish socialist democrat and so likely to play the McGovern role to the GOP’s nominee if he should somehow prevail over HRC.
Assuming we aren’t in a major war by next year that splits our party, he might even get a few more states than George. Still, he would greatly upset the moderate-corporatist-establishment wing of the party, and so we’d get a GOP landslide across the board.
But in terms of left-libs, he does bring more intelligence and gravitas to the game than did either Howard Dean or Dennis Kucinich, and with his long track record of left-liberal politics, he’s no Johnny-come-lately as Edwards was. With a steady overall primary showing he could make the far left more credible as a political force going forward in addition to possibly nudging Hillary leftward.
Maybe he could announce his VP choice early on, to drum up more excitement. Thom Hartmann? Chris Hedges?
Why was Herman Cain “treated as credible” by the MSM? It was that treatment that led GOP voters to consider him “credible.” Let’s get real. Vanity candidates at the presidential level aren’t credible, but they are useful to TPTB to suck oxygen out of the early caucuses and primaries and to lend a veneer of democracy to the process.
The elites (political and big money institutions) in both parties aren’t monolithic. There’s always an intra-party split to some degree. At one time, the money conformed to and followed the party split. In turn the media trailed along with the split and the electorate accepted the results of the split which meant that the nominee was the person that had gained the intra-party majority. Sometimes the split is near 50/50% and isn’t resolved until very late in the race. 1952 GOP for instance. That was also the year the GOP allowed the split to play out in primary and caucus contests.
With the Democratic Party reforms after the 1968 election, the party elites lost some power and money gained some. What evolved and was unintended with those reforms was that Iowa and NH voters would gain a whole lot of power. Since lost to money, but they weren’t using that power anyway.
The institutional power in the parties today is divided among state/local elected officials and committees, members of Congress and their respective electoral committees, the national party apparatus (usually controlled by the WH if the party holds that office), and think tanks, both publicly and privately funded. The International Republican Institute is a major source of McCain’s institutional power. However, The institutional support for Bradley and McCain paled in comparison to that for Gore and GWB. Money and MSM fawning over McCain and active hostility for Gore didn’t change the preordained nominee selection.
Howard Dean had virtually zilch support within the party. However, he was able to demonstrate that with a good enough message from a good enough candidate, enough voter support and small money donations could be raised. Not worth much in the Iowa caucuses if there’s not enough split among the wholesalers and/or the candidate can’t buy a large chunk of them.
Contrary to perceptions, 2008 wasn’t unique. Clinton entered the race with the largest portion of institutional power/support and largest early money campaign warchests, in part because she began raising that money a year earlier than the other candidates but it was officially designated as Senate election campaign funds. But the Clinton hold on the institutional power of the party was stale and post 2004, they were no longer dominant. It was less “not Clinton” (although they had burned a number of bridges) and more an interest in a fresher, younger, more exciting version. (Echoes of 1960?) Either one would do.
A difference between JFK and Obama was that once elected, the JFK “new guard” didn’t cede any power to the “old guard.” Also kept them enough in the tent not to suffer losses in the subsequent mid-terms. The Obama coalition is too loosely affiliated to build long-term institutional power against a determined and relentless “old guard.” Neither of whom have demonstrated any skill at translating that national institutional power further and deeper than Presidential elections. More like Ike and Nixon than Reagan.
Is Bernie Sanders a credible candidate?
Snort!!!
No. Of course not.
The only truly “credible” candidates are those who can be trusted by the Permanent Government not to rock the boat any more than is absolutely necessary to lull a sufficient number of voters far enough into sleep that they will somnambulate out of their mortgaged dwellings and pull one of two designated fix levers at their local pollbooth during Fix Day.
Please!!!
Have you learned nothing from the past 50 years?
Please.
WTFU.
AG
Does he have a chance at winning?
No.
Would he be neutered by the center-right parties in Congress?
Yes.
Would he make a great President? Would the country be better off if Congress, the White House and the USSC were made up of Bernie Sanders?
Absolutely yes, no doubts.
You remarked the other day about how much you’re inspired by the writing of Driftglass. I like that style of writing but I like the logical, informed way you approach these subjects, especially today’s.
I agree that this is the reality Sanders is facing and agree that it doesn’t just depend on the press to get him right in order for him to succeed.
Rather than talk about how the system is rigged, I’m inclined to see how it is rigged and work within it to get credible candidates elected or at least get the ones who more like to be elected, to lean our progressive direction.
I was a Dean activist when he ran. I still have the idealism from that experience but I also believe in dealing with what is real in front of me. Great analysis . . . now I have to figure out where I want to put my extra time as we lead up to this next presidential election. Sanders, at least for a while, might have me.
The problem with this idea is the system is rigged in such a way that the credible candidates are ones who DON’T lean in a progressive direction, at least a huge majority. So all your work results in dying more slowly only. The upside is far smaller.
I’m inclined to see how it is rigged and work within it to get credible candidates elected…
A rigged system, absent a strong and competing system, can’t be taken down by injecting a few good men and women into it. The system will swallow them up and often spit them out.
The current system is composed of many robust parts that are glued and stitched together for longevity. Historically, in the US the only organizing principle that ever shifted government to the left was workers’ unions. Alas, when the unions bosses could be bought off and the large numbers of workers bought into the notion that they would be better off without having the pay union dues, the movement began to die and wither.
Idealism continues to inspire and motivate many of us. But we’re spinning our wheels if it only results in intermittently rallying around a decent personality or a slogan.
Will YOU join his proxy army? Because I think that’s really what it comes down to and dovetails with Taibbi’s point. Are you just going to say “he’s not credible” or going to work to help make him credible?
I like the guy. He’s quick-witted and sharp as a tack, and has a spontaneity about him that is refreshing. He feels very genuine, and that sense of authenticity is really hard to come by these days.
Will be interested to see how far he goes.
I gave money to Bradley (cause I liked many of his positions) and to McCain (because I was hoping that he could help moderate the Republicans a little – heh) in 2000 just before the New Hampshire primary. I didn’t really expect either to win, but I wanted to broaden the debate.
I’ll be sending Bernie some money, too. Organization and getting good people in place and all the rest is important, and it takes money to do that. In many ways, the money has to come first (if only to rise above the noise in the popular media).
Hillary will only be strengthened by debating Bernie. Jim Webb (who also has made noises about running) isn’t going to pull Hillary in the direction that we want to move. O’Malley might. But all of these (prospective and actual) candidates need to be tested about the world as it is now, not stuff that happened decades ago… If she can’t fight off a challenge by Bernie (and instead has or lets her vast organization destroy him) well that won’t inspire confidence that she can win an argument by the force of her ideas.
A good profile of Bernie and what makes him tick was written by Rick Perlstein for the University of Chicago Magazine – http://mag.uchicago.edu/law-policy-society/political-education
Cheers,
Scott.