Is Hillary THAT popular amongst Dems, or...

[mjr]

Are people just not feeling "the Bern"? Or is this a case of "the known vs the unknown"?

I mean, I know that for some reason Bernie has really struggled with the African American community, but South Carolina was an absolute beatdown. CNN reported that there was "low" voter turnout, but they also reported that the African American turnout was approximately twice the "white" turnout, AND that 50K+ absentee votes were cast.

It also somewhat surprised me that "cares about me" polled higher than "trustworthy/honest". I didn't necessarily find it surprising, though, that Bernie blew away Hillary on "trustworthy/honest". The Clintons, fair or not, have a certain reputation...

Hillary is poised to basically sweep "the south" on Super Tuesday, which doesn't bode well for the Sanders campaign.

Now, South Carolina, and Super Tuesday may not be indicative of how things will actually go, but it's looking like it's going to be more and more difficult for Sanders to gain any real traction after Super Tuesday.

Is this a case of what I'll call "enthusiastic slacktivism" on the part of Sanders Supporters, or is it just the states that have currently voted, or what?

Note: I'm not voting for either major party, regardless of who gets nominated. I'll find a different candidate I like, write them in, and "throw away" my vote.

[Greenday]

So what your asking is why the more conservative states that had their primaries already are for some reason picking the more conservative candidates?

Pretty sure your answer lies in that question.

[HYHYBT]

I wouldn't trust the reported number of "absentee" votes. Here, at least, while they've had early voting open since February 8 for the March 1 election, for all but the last week it had to be done at one centralized place rather than at the normal, more local precinct, and all those get counted as absentee ballots.

[mjr]

So what your asking is why the more conservative states that had their primaries already are for some reason picking the more conservative candidates?

As it pertains to the Democrats, yes.

There seems to be an interesting level of enthusiasm and support for Sanders, but he's struggled in the primaries, so far.

[Greenday]

As it pertains to the Democrats, yes.

There seems to be an interesting level of enthusiasm and support for Sanders, but he's struggled in the primaries, so far.

Iowa was pretty much a tie (Blue leaning) -
New Hampshire (Blue) - Sanders by a lot
Nevada (Red leaning) - Clinton
South Carolina (RED) - Clinton

So, really, none of the results there should surprise anyone.

[mjr]

Iowa was pretty much a tie (Blue leaning) -
New Hampshire (Blue) - Sanders by a lot
Nevada (Red leaning) - Clinton
South Carolina (RED) - Clinton

So, really, none of the results there should surprise anyone.

All that is true. However, Sanders didn't win New Hampshire (which is next door to Vermont) by nearly the margin that Hillary won SC.

[Jetfire]

Bernie's strongest demographic seems to be one that doesn't get out to vote without a lot of encouragement; and while he and his camp are trying to encourage all they can, the Dem show is just a lot more boring than the Circus going on over at the GOP tent.

Really, I suspect that most folk don't give a damn about the Primary season, and will be happy for any Dem contender, so they aren't going to bother going out for a political party vote regardless.

Admittedly, I'm on the outside looking in, but all that's going on at the moment, is the parties are picking who will go to the big Party to pick the Presidential candidate. They could probably have just as good a showing if they picked names from a hat at this stage. It's only because the Media (and the Political Parties themselves) are pushing for a 24/365.25 (All Elections! All the Time! Pick your 2020 Presidential Candidates Now!!!!) news blitz that so much attention gets pushed on this.

[Gravekeeper]

I fear somewhere along the way supporting Bernie kind of became the "hip" thing to do almost. I also fear his poll numbers are a bit of an illusion because the GOP has yet to pay any real attention to him. If he actually became the nominee and the GOP had to turn the attack machine on him those numbers would certainly slip some. Given how easy he makes it to attack him.

Conversely, Hillary's numbers are *after* they spent years attacking her for every imagined fault they could dream up.

[Daskinor]

Conversely, I think your going to see allot of blue states vote Trump in the primaries. Here in Maryland a forever blue state, many of the conservative strongholds are really pissed off at the establishment GOP. Living in in their eyes a high taxes and liberal world. We also don't have a very religious base compared to other states as well. Its a sentiment I have seen mirrored in other Blue states. If Trump is in to the end, I would bet allot of money he will take California by huge margins.

[D_Yeti_Esquire]

Is this a case of what I'll call "enthusiastic slacktivism" on the part of Sanders Supporters, or is it just the states that have currently voted, or what?

Note: I'm not voting for either major party, regardless of who gets nominated. I'll find a different candidate I like, write them in, and "throw away" my vote.

Sanders problem is that the entire base he needs to be able to count on and should be receptive to his message are not. The youth vote itself is always mercurial and represent one half of the Obama coalition and he's got it. Here's the problem: that youth vote is also highly tuned in to what minority communities are doing and that is where Sanders and his supporters actually ended up scoring an on goal against themselves in this process by not only not securing it, but by coming away looking flabbergasted their early tactics didn't work in regards to minority communities.

They pushed the Clinton 90's record hard and tried to drive a wedge between Clinton and those constituencies using the "new" way of looking at it through mass-incarceration. The problem is, minority communities include people that actually remember the communities that birthed the "Super Predator" myth. NYC didn't used to be a young adult playground for the rich. They lived through the crack epidemic and they remember everyone searching for answers after Reagan/Bush. There are people old enough to remember the "Clinton years" in reality was 6 years of Republican legislative control. And they perceive it as a time of economic prosperity even if that might not be entirely true.

The Clinton's aren't considered perfect, but they also weren't the problem and if you listen To HRC now, she's pretty up front in not being able to fix everything. That's cleaved the support Sanders needed in half across lines of age. That's really stopped any coalition synergy from occurring and it's really benefited Clinton as many white Sanders supporters are dealing with minority communities not buying their narrative and hence a lot of that enthusiasm we saw early appears to have been offset. After all, if you've spent 5 years telling white people to shut up and listen for a change and yet your campaign increasingly looks like a white constituency telling others what's actually good for them, you can see where politically that's a bit of a dubious proposition. So the youth vote is (honestly) probably a little confused if they're on the right side of history whereas there was no question in 2008 for them. And that's blunting their impact.

Older voters know not to care. Younger voters (for whatever reason) only seem to show up in times where they've convinced themselves they are the vanguard of political change. Obama could capture that. Sanders just isn't that guy.

[Gravekeeper]

<snip>

Solid analysis, thank you.

Older voters know not to care. Younger voters (for whatever reason) only seem to show up in times where they've convinced themselves they are the vanguard of political change. Obama could capture that. Sanders just isn't that guy.

I think US politics has been "politics as usual" so to speak for so long that yeah, apathy wise young voters don't seem to involve themselves much unless they're convinced they can conceivably change the status quo. Then when they do change said quo ( Obama ) they ( and frankly democrats in general ) ignore the mid terms despite how important they are ( arguably more so than who is president ).

As for Sanders, ideals aside he's yet another old white guy yelling about what he thinks is best for the country. The optics are hard to shake there and he hasn't really done anything to try.

He's also older than Mccain was when he ran. So literal physical age could be an issue as well. If elected he would actually be the oldest president in American history.

Dude's gotta survive at least 4 years in the most stressful job on the planet.

[Kheldarson]

Dude's gotta survive at least 4 years in the most stressful job on the planet.

Yeah...I've been seeing a lot of memes showing Sanders post-presidency. They aren't pretty.

[Daskinor]

Yea, just comparing Reagan, Bush, Clinton, W Bush and Obama...... the Arc of the Covenant is somewhere in the White House.

[XCashier]

Yea, just comparing Reagan, Bush, Clinton, W Bush and Obama......

Honestly, that's nothing to be surprised about. The before and after pictures of two-term presidents aren't that strange, really. You spend eight years in a high-stress job and see how you end up looking.

Even under normal day-to-day living, anybody'll change noticeably in eight years. Look at a picture of yourself from eight years ago, then go look in the mirror. I'm quite sure you'll see more than a few changes.

[s_stabeler]

it's also worth noting that Presidents need to be at least 35 years old to stand as a candidate. As such, even a single-term president would be 39 years old at least upon leaving office, and a two-term President would be at least 43. It's not exactly surprising that they would look considerably older (for example, wrinkles can start to appear at 30. issues seeing objects close-in tends to start to become apparent in the mid 40s. Grey hair generally starts at 50.) When you factor in the extreme stress Presidents are under (more-or-less, the President gets most of the criticism that should rightfully be aimed at the Government in general. Combine that with the fact that they don't ever really get a break (oh, they can jet off somewhere easily enough, but if anything happens while the President is away, notice how the first thing you usually hear is the President cuts their holiday short?)