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“I Don’t See Color”

On February 19, 2019

At 12:54 pm

In General

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WASHINGTON, DC – MARCH 28: Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) addresses a rally in support of Social Security in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill March 28, 2011 in Washington, DC. Sanders and four other Democratic senators, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), said the Republicans’ entitlement reform plan will “dismantle Social Security, delay distribution of benefits to seniors.” (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) *** Local Caption *** Bernie Sanders

I will of course strongly support any Democratic candidate who wins the nomination, up to and including Biden (and also including Gabbard if she had any chance of winning). If I had a vote I would lean toward Warren or Gillibrand, but any of the leading candidates would be fine and Erik observed the differences between them as a president are going to be exaggerated between both supporters and detractors. There are a couple of aspects of Bernie’s launch, however, that make me pretty skeptical about his ability to win in 2020. First, these Howard Schultizian words to not suggest a candidate who has learned much about why he lost last time:

This answer seems perfectly calibrated to make people Mad Online. https://t.co/k2uh0MaqqV pic.twitter.com/YQBSCxD7ev
— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) February 19, 2019

And I also agree that we have to hope Bernie’s people are lying about this:

Bernie is the one candidate who I routinely hope is lying about various things. https://t.co/QEuJL5c8of
— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) February 19, 2019

I mean, there are certainly some Extremely Online people who think that Bernie’s success in deep red, deeply white state primaries could translate into the general; given that Bernie certainly could be the nominee hopefully his advisors are just bullshitting to appeal to these people and not high on their own supply.

Anyway, one lesson that any nominee needs to learn from 2020 is to relentlessly focus on tipping point states. Clinton not doing that probably didn’t matter because of her failure to win either Pennsylvania or Florida, but it might in 2020.