"There's 'The United States of America!'"

Corny and untrue as it was, THAT is how Barack Obama won.

>>the labor (left) party in australia suffered a historical
>>upset (led *every* poll since 2016 and lost) while running
>on
>>a campaign extremely similar to the 'progressive' agenda
>>here.
>
>Corbyn makes Bernie look moderate number one.


Not really. There are certainly differences between them, but there are also differences between the countries, as you point out when it becomes convenient. Mainstream political thought in the UK is generally to the left of mainstream political thought in the US. So even if "Corbyn makes Bernie look moderate" that wouldn't necessarily mean Corbyn is farther from the mainstream in the UK than Bernie is in this country.


>Number two, the metldown I am seeing is amusing because very
>few people used the *US* elections last month this much to
>forecast trouble for the GOP to this level.
>
>VA turning blue? media= "oh, cool but how can Dems keep it
>going? They better be careful!"

That's not what the coverage has been at all. It's been "Does this presage another Blue Wave? The Republicans had better be careful!"


>UK results? media= "democrats are fucked!! Is it too late to
>convince Romney to run as a Dem?"

I know you're joking, but NOBODY has been saying democrats are fucked. Democrats SHOULD be in a good position. The question is whether they're squandering their advantages by failing to run presidential campaigns that match the successful (and much more centrist) local campaigns.


>I do think we all need to be very wary of polls- yes polls
>that show Bernie beating Trump, but also polls showing Biden
>beating Trump.

Sometimes people don't like polls because they don't like data, especially when the data contradicts their beloved preconceptions.


>>https://www.vox.com/2019/5/18/18630483/australia-federal-election-2019-scott-morrison-coalition-bill-shorten-labor
>>
>>similar results await us if bernie sanders is the nominee.
>
>Again, I don't think we use results in different countries
>with completely different political systems to freak out.
>
>
>I have underestimated Bernie's campaign, as have you.


Nobody has seen Bernie's general election campaign, because he's never run one. We have seen plenty of campaigns that are analogous to Bernie's general election campaign. The UK catastrophe is one of them, the Australian Labor collapse is another.


>I don't know if nominating him is the smartest move
>necessarily, but I don't think its the apocalypse if it
>happens.
>
>
>I think if he keeps leaning into this FDR democrat thing it
>will help. And a VP who will ease some fears (not sure who
>that is...Kamala? someone from the midwest like Baldwin? )
>
>
>>
>>american history has been crystal clear about what happens
>to
>>prez candidates who run too far left of the (majority older
>>white center right) electorate.
>
>Yeah man the problem with this line of thinking is no one can
>pinpoint what "too far left" even means.


Just because it might be hard to do doesn't mean we don't have to do it. The voters will pinpoint what "too far left" means, whether we like it or not.


>Instead, it is used as reasoning to nominate/vote/support the
>centrist candidate.

Yes. As it should be. Because, again, history has been crystal clear that centrist candidates do better in general elections.

>Anything to the left of the preferred candidate is suddenly
>"too far left"

Exactly. And for Republicans, anything to the right of their best candidate is too far right.

This isn't about shutting down the left. It's about winning.


>>even biden (as well as clinton) is running even further left
>>than obama (especially on immigration). that comes with its
>>set of risks in crucial rust belts states and nc, fl, etc.
>
>This is more dem party panic thinking.

And more importantly, it's true.


>The entire country has moved to the left of Obama on a lot of
>issues, like immigration and gay marriage.
>
>
>'08 Obama is actually a decent look at what a Bernie nom could
>look like to me.

Really? Really?

Does this look like a Bernie speech?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueMNqdB1QIE


>I know certain folks want to revise what Obama presented
>himself as,

No. Maybe you misunderstood what Obama presented himself as. He definitely benefited from the fact that everyone sees in him what they want to see. And apparently a lot of people still do.

But he WAS running as a moderate. He didn't just say we needed to get out of Iraq. He said we needed to get out of Iraq so that we could increase our presence in Afghanistan. He said we could have health care reform without an individual mandate.

He was trying to become the first Black president. Job #1 was ALWAYS "don't scare anyone!"

>but dude was promising to walk picket lines with
>folks. Talked trade reform. Etc.

Oh, he supported unions. Like every Democrat since FDR. He "talked trade reform", like every Presidential candidate in the history of the republic.

>He was far more progressive than Hillary, and far more left
>than McCain was to the right.

You're inventing this because it makes you feel good.


>McCain was the moderate, the bipartisan "maverick"

That's what McCain was *trying* to run as, and that's why, at first, Obama was mostly running against the Bush record, and the fact that at that point Bush was not seen as any sort of moderate. Bush was popular when he was running as a "compassionate conservative." He was not popular when the deregulation that every Republican in the world supported caused the entire financial system to collapse and he'd put us in an unnecessary and catastrophic war.

The fact that McCain had forcefully supported the Iraq war (even arguing that Rumsfeld was being too cautious!), was a key to how Obama was able to undermine the "maverick" image.

And then when McCain got forced by his base to choose Sarah Palin as a runningmate it put that "maverick" image right to bed.

Obama won that campaign specifically by looking more moderate than McCain (and, just as important, Bush).


>Rewind 4 years. Dems nominated a "safe" moderate candidate
>and got their asses fucking kicked.

You're talking about Bush/Kerry? The electoral vote was 286 to 251. The popular vote was 50.7 to 48.3. Hardly an asskicking, especially considering that the Iraq war was still popular at the time outside of the Democratic base.

And let's not forget a central feature of HOW Bush won. Kerry was trying to run as a war hero who'd then protested the Vietnam war. The Swiftboaters turned him, in the public imagination, into a "typical progressive," supposedly a coward in Vietnam, and then "unpatriotic" after he got home.


>The sky isn't falling in the US because the UK just *might* be
>more fucked up than we are.

Nobody's saying the sky is falling. We're saying that if a candidate can get stereotyped as beholden to your base then it makes them weak in a general election. To the extent that "political science" is really a science, there's no principle more fundamental than this.


>Only lesson here is to not trust polls.

I'm getting the distinct feeling that you want to "not trust polls" because it feels so much better to trust your imagination.