Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump each entered a Presidential primary race.

[merrily]

One entered with little name recognition; the other did not.

Anyone notice a difference in the early media treatment of each of those two candidates?

[Scootaloo]

1. Bernie talks sense, but the media prefers gibberish

There's a reason Herman Cain was the front runner for a while in the 2012 race - because he was entertaining, in a Honey Boo-Boo kind of way. Then they got bored with him and moved on to a real candidate, leaving Cain's crazy dent-head ass to crash and burn.

Same will happen with Trump. They focus on him because he sounds like a raving idiot (well, because he IS a raving idiot) and people tune in to see what the crazy fucker with the unbelievable comb-over is saying now. Eventually htye will get bored, interest will wane, and the media will "get serious" and talk about Bush, Walker, and Rubio.

[merrily]

2. You are less cynical than I. I think they ignored Sanders because his first and urgent need was

to get his name out nationally, so people would look into who he was and maybe start donating.

When media could no longer ignore him, they morphed into mockery. Then, into condescension and damning with faint praise. To date, there are precious few stories covering him credibly.

But, that's me.

[daleanime]

7. Nope....

not just you.

[LuvNewcastle]

3. The difference is that Bernie has a chance

to make some changes in this country. Trump does not. We all know that sooner or later, Trump will say something so outrageous that his candidacy won't be able to recover. Therefore, since Trump really has no chance, it's fun and safe for the media to cover him. Since Bernie has a shot, their only choice is to either ignore him or find something to mock about him. What they cannot allow themselves to do is allow Bernie to be seen as a likable person with serious ideas.

[merrily]

4. I agree. More name recognition was not going to help Trump topple Jeb! or Scott Koch or

Marco Pretend Publius or whoever the anointed one is in that party this time around.

In fact, given Trump, more publicity about his stupid mouth could only hurt him. And so, that is what we are seeing--huge amounts of publicity shining a light on how bad he is compared with the favored sons. And, the worst case for giving Trump more publicity is that a mult-billionaire like Trump might by some chance get the nomination.

But, if Bernie were to get the nomination.......

[appalachiablue]

5. Bring him back, better than Trump. Herman Cain '999'

[merrily]

6. Herman Cain, though, did benefit from publicity, given that he was not a known name

in politics nationally before his run.

The thank you for smoking ad was pure gold. Whether it was genius gold or only comedy gold, I never figured out, but it got him Colbert time.