Quote (ThatAlex @ Nov 15 2015 01:21pm)
Yeah. Bernie Sanders is an independent who caucuses with the Democratic Party. Not technically a Democrat.
Personally, I think the DNC messed up by anointing Hillary too soon. They should have waited on many of the endorsements and slowly trickled them in.
It's bad for a party to pretty much only have one candidate. And that's what the DNC has.
The Republicans have the opposite problem. They have let their field be a little too big for a while now. They needed to cut people polling at less than 4% a couple debates ago to give the debates a little more quality.
What on earth? There's so much wrong with this.
The DNC has no influence on the electeds and how/when they're endorsing. If they went to their House members, let alone Senators and Governors, and tried to tell them how they should make this critical decision the electeds would tell them to go fuck themselves. It has major consequences for these people, especially with the dynamics of this race. Multiply it by ten when it's a Clinton, who have long memories, and who are THE draw in Democratic politics and will remain the most coveted surrogates for the next few cycles assuming their health keeps up, no matter what happens in this race.
Having one candidate is a
godsend in a presidential primary, especially for the Democrats when they face such a systematic disadvantage among big-dollar donors. They can't afford to waste a dollar when they know Republican billionaires are just waiting to cut their eight-figure checks for their nominee. If the electeds stupidly sat on the sidelines and didn't line up behind Clinton then a ton of money and talent would be getting wasted right now, like it is on the Republican side, instead of lining up behind the party's best and only real chance to hold the White House.
The only time banking on your prohibitive favorite doesn't pan out is when something unexpected happens. It could happen with Clinton (emails, health) but that's not a reason to not line up. The DNC does have an organizational influence over the rest of the party, just like the RNC does with theirs, but they've been brilliant to use it how they have so far. There simply isn't a better alternative to Clinton in the Democratic party. She's the most popular candidate, who has the broadest appeal to the party, and there's all the other advantages she brings. Why would you
not back your strength?
Edit: I understand that some people just happen to like another candidate, or dislike Hillary Clinton, but they're never going to be able to credibly argue that the party has made a mistake with the way they've coalesced around her. There's just no factual argument there.
This post was edited by Pollster on Nov 16 2015 08:55am