"Well, if I were him I’d want to debate me too. He’s got nothing else to do.”

      • doctorcrimson@lemmy.today
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        9 months ago

        The worst thing for Republican voter turnout is hearing a Bernie Sanders speech. The dude shows up in a coal miner town hall and convinces them all to vote blue.

    • Mnemnosyne@lemmynsfw.com
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      9 months ago

      It’s a shame it didn’t happen…maybe, just maybe, if Bernie had trounced Trump in a debate, there wouldn’t have been that whole Bernie is unelectable/would lose to Trump idea floating so strongly, and it might’ve given him a better chance in the primary either time.

      • themeatbridge@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        It wouldn’t have mattered. The “unelectable” narrative was coming from the DNC leadership. Bernie was polling just fine until everyone started saying he couldn’t win.

        • I_Has_A_Hat@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          I remember all the networks showing the number of delegates he and Hillary had, and they showed all the super delegates going to Hillary. Not only had they never shown votes like that before, but the super delegates hadn’t even voted at that point. It was all just based off the assumption that they would all vote for Hillary. Thumb on the scale.

          • themeatbridge@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            Hillary had bought their support from the beginning. She learned from 2008 that she couldn’t compete in an open field, so she wrangled all challengers before the primaries started. Sanders was the only one who couldn’t be bought.

          • Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org
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            9 months ago

            Thumb on the scale.

            That’s the whole point of super delegates. The consequence in 2016 being that Hillary only needed about 30% in a given primary to “win” that state.

            EDIT: Curious about the downvote. Superdelegates made up a large enough share of delegate that to win a majority of delegates for a given state she only needed about 30% of the primary vote plus the superdelegates. Do the math yourself if you’d like to confirm. Hell, I’m from a state where Clinton only got about 35% of the vote in the primary, which meant she only got one more delegate than Sanders, who had closer to 51%.

      • Captain Aggravated@sh.itjust.works
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        9 months ago

        At this point I see debates as pointless.

        There may have been a time in this country where candidate A would have this plan for healthcare, candidate B would have that plan for healthcare, candidate A calls for more trade with Europe, candidate B favors trade with Asia etc. and issues are discussed.

        These days, there’s one political party and one doomsday cult. I don’t think it’s worth the bandwidth to broadcast.