The presidential race is more entertaining, if nothing else, because of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. But while Sanders should offer some nice pressure on Hillary Clinton in the debates, you don’t have to worry about him winning the nomination.
Sanders is already listed as an Independent in the U.S. Senate. Maybe this won’t matter to the Democrats who support him though.
Sanders is definitely staking out his positions on the far left. He believes the state is the answer to almost everything. He is a self-identified socialist.
Compared to all of the other major candidates, including on the Republican side, Sanders is the least interventionist when it comes to foreign policy. This wouldn’t have been true if he had been running previously when Ron Paul was in the race.
Sanders’ leftist credentials are not very good when it comes to the federal war on drugs. He would continue this horrific war that dramatically increases violent crime and locks away hundreds of thousands of people who did no harm to anyone else.
When it comes down to it, Bernie Sanders will not get the Democratic nomination. Why? I just need to remind you of one person.
Howard Dean
Do you remember Howard Dean? At one time in late 2003 and early 2004, Dean was the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination. The Republicans were all over him, saying they hoped they would get the gift of having Dean as the Democratic nominee.
At that time, the Iraq War was already highly unpopular. Most establishment Republicans were defending it, as many still do, unbelievably enough. But outside of the Republican Party, the country was already getting tired of war.
The problem is that the Democratic voters got cold feet. They were afraid that the Republican talking mouths were right and that Bush would defeat Howard Dean. He was not as anti-war as Bernie Sanders, but he could certainly stake out the anti-war position at the time, especially compared to Bush.
So what did the Democrats do? They made sure to put someone in there who was “electable”. In other words, they picked one of the biggest bumbling idiots they could find. John Kerry turned out to be the one candidate that could go down in flames to an unpopular George W. Bush. I still believe to this day that Howard Dean would have defeated Bush in 2004 in a general election.
If the Democrats couldn’t stomach Howard Dean, there is no way they will stomach Bernie Sanders. Sanders is far to the left of Dean. For this reason, they will be right not to put him up in the general election. Americans at large will not vote for a socialist. Americans like welfare and handouts, but they typically don’t like full-blown socialism. And they associate the word with the failures of the Soviet Union.
This isn’t to say that the nomination is a sure thing for Hillary Clinton. She has a lot of baggage. She is very much disliked by about half the voting population. And if she has any major scandals that the establishment fears could come out, then they may try to get rid of her.
Right now, there are basically five major candidates for the Democratic nomination. Did you even know it was that many? They are as follows:
- Hillary Clinton
- Bernie Sanders
- Lincoln Chafee
- Jim Webb
- Martin O’Malley
I don’t think Lincoln Chafee has much of a chance. I already explained why Sanders won’t win it. That leaves Jim Webb and Martin O’Malley, unless someone else enters at the last minute.
I believe that either Webb or O’Malley will challenge Clinton. Things will become more clear in the next 6 months.