By Ted Glick
Over the years I’ve come to count on www.realclearpolitics.com
during times when there are important federal election campaigns
underway and I want to get a sense of how the candidates are doing. It’s
a valuable resource.
During
the run-up to the 2016 Presidential election, every few days I checked
the status of the Democratic primary race between Sanders and Clinton. I
of course checked what the polls were saying about Bernie’s chances of
defeating Hillary, but once it was clear that Trump was going to be the
Republican nominee I also checked what they were reporting as far as how
each of them would match up against Mafioso Don.
Consistently,
for several months in the spring and summer of 2016, Sanders always did
much better in the polling than Clinton, by about 10 percentage points.
If the average of polls said that Clinton would win the popular vote by
5-6% over Trump, the average for Sanders was about 15%. It was striking
how consistently this was the case, for at least 2 ½ to 3 months.
The
polls said that Bernie would have been a stronger candidate against
Trump, but from the standpoint of media coverage of the Presidential
campaign, it was almost as if these polls didn’t exist; it was a media
non-story. Shame on those progressive and liberal media commentators and
outlets who kept this fact quiet.
These
polling results are similar to the voting results in the rural state of
Vermont when Sanders is on the ballot. He doesn’t just get the votes of
Democrats and Independents; he has a tri-partisan appeal, including a
decent percentage of Republicans.
When
progressives are considering who they’ll be supporting for President,
I’d urge them to include this in their thinking. It’s not just Sanders’
progressive positions and leadership on issues, especially economic
justice-related issues. Sanders has the authenticity, the political
smarts and the track record over decades of standing up for the working
man and woman against rapacious corporate power that will lead to a
winning back of white workers who voted Trump in 2016.
As far as Mafioso Don, I think the odds are good that he’s not going to be the 2020 Republican candidate.
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Source: tedglick.com
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