******************** POSTING RULES & NOTES ******************** #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. *****************************************************************
These results are confusing... or are intentionally misread by some in the Sanders camp. They can only be understood correctly by understanding that the right wing of the party has four candidates and the "left" has two. On the "left" are Sanders and Warren, although it's charitable to call Warren on the left since she's beating a steady path to the center. On the right are Biden, Buttigieg, Klobuchar and Bloomberg. When taken together, the "left" wing has 39% and the right wing has 46%. If there were one single candidate from each side (with Sanders representing the "left"), the right wing would be in the clear lead. It was also interesting to see the other results from this poll. They give all candidates a clear lead over Trump, but they also give Trump a favorability rating of 43% approval vs. 53% disapproval. A Gallup poll of the last few days gave Trump a 49% approval rating vs. 50% disapproval. It is not that unusual for the different polling companies to come up with different results. Rasmussen, for example, consistently has results more favorable to Trump than any of the other companies. We will have to see what other polls say. Finally, I am not at all certain whether in an actual election Sanders would beat Trump that easily if at all. His Democratic rivals don't want to really attack him because they will need his activist base if they are to defeat Trump, and I get the feeling that the Trump campaign is largely waiting in the tall grass to really go after him when (if) he wins the nomination. Polls show there is about a 20% support for eliminating all private health insurance companies and maybe about 30% in favor of giving Medicare to undocumented immigrants. Does anybody think Trump won't ride those horses to death in a general election should Trump become the Democratic nominee? Also, has Sanders ever come up with a concrete plan for how to pay for Medicare for All, other than just to say that if other countries can afford something similar, so can the US? In addition, many analysts make a point that sounds pretty valid to me: As this Quinnipiac poll shows (and as do all others), most voters say they are economically better off today then they were a year ago. Yet it is exactly the economic issue that is Sanders' main point. Sure, this plays well to his youth base, whose economic future is still pretty bleak. But how about the rest of the voters? How much will it appeal to them? Or put another way: Can Sanders expand his active base much beyond its present one? John Reimann -- *“In politics, abstract terms conceal treachery.” *from "The Black Jacobins" by C. L. R. James Check out:https:http://oaklandsocialist.com also on Facebook _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
