How the Dem primary went from an afterthought to a grudge match overnight.
After rocketing onto the national stage in the summer and climbing steadily in the polls, Sen. Bernie Sanders’ numbers remained largely stagnant during the final months of 2015, at about 25 points on average behind the front-runner, Hillary Clinton. For a while, it seemed as though the Sanders phenomenon had cooled; and that, while the Vermont senator would certainly make the Democratic primaries more interesting, and had done something special in bringing “democratic socialism” into the mainstream, Clinton had little to worry about.
Then, with a comfortable and steady lead in the polls, the Clinton camp became somewhat complacent, and began moving back to the political center, after putting on a show of pragmatic populism during the summer. And not for no reason: She and GOP front-runner, Donald Trump, are neck and neck in most general polls. Thus, with Sanders’ primary numbers at a standstill, Clinton once again became the “inevitable” Democratic nominee, and began positioning herself for the general election.
True, general election polls are notoriously unreliable this far out. (Although 2012’s election polls were very accurate one year before, with an absolute error of just 1 percentage point.) But to say that only Clinton can take on a Republican is, at this point, nothing more than establishment propaganda. There are many reasons to believe that Sanders would have a better shot at stopping Republicans, even if conventional wisdom would suggest otherwise. Beyond his performance in the polls, he also has the best favorability rating among all candidates, according to the most recent national Quinnipiac poll. The same survey found that Clinton has a lower trust rating than Donald Trump, at 59 percent to 35 percent “not honest and trustworthy.” Sanders, on the other hand, had the highest trustworthy rating in Quinnipiac’s previous national poll, at 59 percent to 28 percent trustworthy.
If Sanders were to get the Democratic nomination, we can be sure that a smear campaign focusing on his “socialist” background would permeate the airwaves, and corporate America would go on a spending spree to stop him. However, in American politics, individual personalities have become just as important, if not more important, than actual policy. In a clever HuffPost/YouGov poll done back in September, it was found that many American’s policy opinions depend largely on the politician endorsing them. (For example, Republicans were much more likely to support Obama’s policies when they were told Donald Trump supported them.) And the general population — particularly independents — has a positive view of Sanders.
MORE: http://www.salon.com/2016/01/13/hillary_vs_bernie_just_got_very_interesting_how_the_dem_primary_went_from_an_afterthought_to_a_grudge_match_overnight/