Well, I'm paying attention now.
Well, I'm paying attention now. If I am reading this correctly, and some other info, my spidey-sense suggests that Sanders is giving up on Western NY, and Clinton assumed it was hers, but decided to pay enough attention that they are making a quick pass through.
In fact, Sanders should think he might have a chance in NY, if he was willing to make the effort. Will Frank pointed something out a while ago, and he was right. In national Presidential elections, downstate NY is a Democratic guarantee; upstate is not. The cities upstate are more left-leaning, with the rural areas all over the state the same as the country - very much right-leaning. However, those left-leaning cities away from the greater NYC area are much closer to the middle. They get the Rockefeller Republican/Conservative Democrat labels, and they are not a guaranteed Democratic winner in national Presidential elections.
The thing Clinton's campaign obviously paid attention to is that the demographic in the Buffalo area, anyway, that is very much the same as places like Michigan and Wisconsin, is split and many unions and others are actively considering Sanders. So they showed up in person. It's being suggested that it's a last minute add-on, which is probably true and evident in the venues and types of events, but they are here.
There is nothing scheduled for Sanders to show up. He cannot win NY on the basis of WNY, but he could lose it without it. If he makes no effort to come here, that will, I think, lose him people who are still deciding. He did not do well in the interview about his specific plans to implement changes on Wall Street. He might in the upcoming debate, but he might not.
It would seem no one should take anything for granted at this point, and voters do care whether you show up in person. If this is potentially important, you'd think they'd be all over NY state, firming up support. And, like other parts of the country, people will remember the primaries when the national election happens. In a place like Western or Central NY, where it could go either way, wouldn't you like them to remember in November that you showed up in person for the primaries?
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/29/upshot/bernie-sanders-faces-tougher-terrain-after-a-big-week.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=second-column-region
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/29/upshot/bernie-sanders-faces-tougher-terrain-after-a-big-week.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=second-column-region
In fact, Sanders should think he might have a chance in NY, if he was willing to make the effort. Will Frank pointed something out a while ago, and he was right. In national Presidential elections, downstate NY is a Democratic guarantee; upstate is not. The cities upstate are more left-leaning, with the rural areas all over the state the same as the country - very much right-leaning. However, those left-leaning cities away from the greater NYC area are much closer to the middle. They get the Rockefeller Republican/Conservative Democrat labels, and they are not a guaranteed Democratic winner in national Presidential elections.
The thing Clinton's campaign obviously paid attention to is that the demographic in the Buffalo area, anyway, that is very much the same as places like Michigan and Wisconsin, is split and many unions and others are actively considering Sanders. So they showed up in person. It's being suggested that it's a last minute add-on, which is probably true and evident in the venues and types of events, but they are here.
There is nothing scheduled for Sanders to show up. He cannot win NY on the basis of WNY, but he could lose it without it. If he makes no effort to come here, that will, I think, lose him people who are still deciding. He did not do well in the interview about his specific plans to implement changes on Wall Street. He might in the upcoming debate, but he might not.
It would seem no one should take anything for granted at this point, and voters do care whether you show up in person. If this is potentially important, you'd think they'd be all over NY state, firming up support. And, like other parts of the country, people will remember the primaries when the national election happens. In a place like Western or Central NY, where it could go either way, wouldn't you like them to remember in November that you showed up in person for the primaries?
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/29/upshot/bernie-sanders-faces-tougher-terrain-after-a-big-week.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=second-column-region
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/29/upshot/bernie-sanders-faces-tougher-terrain-after-a-big-week.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=second-column-region
The counter-problem is that Sanders is on his own. Sec. Clinton has many surrogates - starting from her own husband - who can campaign on her behalf in multiple places. Sec. Clinton can count on her surrogates to keep up the drumbeat in NYC while she swings west, or meet with wealthy "dark money" donors to fund her efforts. In contrast, Sen. Sanders can only be in one place at one time.
ReplyDeleteMore critically, Sec. Clinton doesn't need to rally small donors to fund her campaign, while Sen. Sanders is vastly more dependent. His rallies aren't just about whipping up votes - it's about whipping up small donor dollars, the dollars he desperately needs to keep up with Sec. Clinton's non-small donor sources of funding. It takes a lot of excited small donors to raise thes same cash Sec. Clinton raises elsewhere [1]. And the yield of those small donors will be vastly higher in NYC and Philadelphia than elsewhere.
Unless Sen. Sanders' small donors can keep up with Sec. Clinton's "dark" money - which so far they have done a remarkable job of doing - his campaign will starve to death. With only one of him, he has to concentrate on the locations that will give him not just the highest yield of voters - which the big urban regions do - but the highest yield of dollars, without which he gets buried in Sec. Clinton's non-small-donor money. Which is why I think Sen. Sanders is holding rallies in Philadelphia before the NY primaries.
The truth is, Sen. Sanders realistically can't win the nomination, for all the reasons multiply cited (his inability early on to break through among key minority populations, leading to an early delegate deficit, the determination of superdelegates to vote for Sec. Clinton regardless of the vote of their states, etc.). But what Sen. Sanders can do - if he can keep his campaign alive long enough, which requires him to keep sufficient small donor money flowing in long enough - is show Sec. Clinton and the party that the era where the CEO of Goldman Sachs can be named Treasury Secretary, and all that followed, is over. That there is a real hunger for actual reform.
Sen. Sanders has already forced Sec. Clinton substantially further to the left than she started out - for ex, her belated endorsement of Public Option. And if Sen. Sanders succeeds in making Sec. Clinton's victory in the 2016 primary narrow enough, it will encourage other progressive leaders within the Democratic party to mount similar challenges in the future. And hopefully make Sec. Clinton worried enough about a primary challenge in 2020 to not dare make any further accomodations to Wall Street at the expense of the rest of us, as her husband did in his term.
With only one Sen. Sanders, if he spreads himself too thin, he loses everything. All he can do - and a worthy goal it is - is concentrate on the areas richest in delegates and dollars, which offer him the highest yield of both, and let him narrow the gap as much as possible.
[1] https://www.publicintegrity.org/2016/04/07/19521/how-citizens-united-helping-hillary-clinton-win-white-house