Sanders Wins in November Because He's NOT a Democrat!

James Carville, the Clinton's campaign guru of old and a TV talk show staple, has a question this week:  Carville: Why Would The Party Pick Someone Who's Not a Democrat?  The answer is simple. Because the Democratic Party is going away.  So is the Republican Party.  The biggest bloc of voters is now "independent". So the question should be "Why would the Democratic Party nominate a Democrat?"

C'mon, Carville. Get with it! The elephant in the room this election year is that there is no elephant. No GOP elephant, that is. Precious little donkey either. Both parties are on their way out of existence.

It's the biggest change in American politics since time began. And no "experts" are paying attention.

To their credit, however, the talking heads and columnists have finally caught on to another aspect of this sea-change: the  populist revolt in both parties. But these commentators still don't realize that the revolt has been foreshadowed for years by the decline in party registration. Not even numbers man Nate Silver has noticed.  FiveThirtyEight .  The big decline in party registration bespeaks great disgust with both parties.

 This same disgust has led to the sudden outbreak of support for Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump.

The size of the drop in party registrations is stunning and should have been a tip-off, especially as regards the GOP, where registration has been dropping, not like a stone but like a boulder. While GOP numbers have been declining for over a decade, recently the pace has sharply accelerated. From just 2014 to 2016, GOP registration shrunk from a measly 26% of the electorate to a pathetic 23%.

A three percentage point drop in only two years!

The Democrats have seen a drop too. In spite of Obama's big victory in 2008, the Democrats were at only 30% in 2014. But unlike the GOP, by 2016 the Democrats picked up a couple of percentage points and are now at 32%, which is still very anemic.

The two "major" parties used to really be major. Each was close to 50% of the electorate.

So where did all those voters go? They chose the designation "independent" (or "decline to state"). These independents now constitute the largest bloc of voters, a whopping 43%!  www.pewresearch.org/

Not all these missing party members walked away. Many were carried away in boxes. In short, they got old and died. And the huge wave of young people now entering politics is not signing up to take the place of these dead.

In effect the young are saying, "A pox on both your houses, grandads! We are not following in your footsteps, tolerating a party or a country that is run by the super-rich and can't even provide us an education and a decent job."

Maybe the young folks felt this way even before Bernie Sanders gave them a voice. Remember Occupy Wall Street? Older, conventional people were saying, "What do they want?"

Well, now we know.

So what does this tell us about who is going to win in November? How is this enormous bloc of non-party voters going to vote?

Since "Independent" isn't a party, just a designation indicating "I can't stand either party", there is no Independent candidate per se.  But there are two insurgent candidacies.

Some independents will vote for Donald Trump if he's the GOP nominee. However, he won't be the candidate. (I'll explain that another time). And second: even if he were a nominee, he wouldn't be a big vote-getter in the general election. He's been getting only a maximum of 30 to 40% of the GOP primary vote. Remember that the GOP is only 23% of the electorate. So at his present rate of appeal, he'd get about 8% of the national electorate. (That's 30-40% of 23%.) You don't get elected president with 8%. "Yes, but," you say, "what if he expands his appeal?" Well, he won't. Because he hasn't. He hit his ceiling quite a while ago. He's been plateaued there ever since. Even in a two-man race against Cruz, Trump can't lift his percentage. (Yes, Kasich, is still in there but not so you'd notice, and he sure isn't taking votes that would otherwise go to Trump.) Sure, Trump will get some Independents but not that big bloc of them that is young and uncrazy or just uncrazy.

That leaves Bernie Sanders. Will the independents go for Sanders in the general? If he is the nominee, they will indeed vote for him. We know that because they already are. Everybody knows Bernie is winning the young by about 80 to 90%. And these young people are largely independents. They are a HUGE voting bloc. In fact, the young voters are juat a tad away from being the largest voting bloc in America. In just four years they will surpass the Baby Boomers in numbers. The iron grip of the elders will at last be broken. Bernie Sanders's Successful Insurgency 

Why do the young love Bernie? Hillary can't figure it out. She tells the young, "Even if you don't care about me, I care about you." (They sure love hearing that martyr-mommy voice.) To the young she is older than Bernie Sanders because she is so out of it. She hasn't a chance with them just because she has been a Democrat for a long time, and they despise the two parties. That's why they are independents!

Bernie's the original independent. He was officially an Independent as a Senator until he had to join the Democrats in order to run for president. Before that he was a Social Democrat in Vermont. That's sort of like being an independent.

So there you are. The largest voting bloc has one of their own to vote for! He's a granddad they CAN love! He despises what they despise!

The media doesn't get it! They say it's Bernie's weakness that so much of his vote comes from the independents in the primaries because it keeps out his independent supporters in closed Democratic primaries unless they reregister as Democrats.  But it will be Bernie's enormous strength in the general that he attracts independents. He's one of them, one of those hordes of independents, the HUGE 43% of the electorate!

Hillary, a peculiarly unobservant woman, does not get this. She's now making a big deal out of him not being "a real Democrat". My gosh, woman! That's what his voters love about him! You're not attacking him where he is weak. You're bolstering his support! (I see now why the banks paid Hillary Clinton $273,000 per speech. It's because she is so comical!)

So pay attention, you Democratic Party, if you want the voters to come your way in November.  If you nominate him, they will come!

That whopper 43% of the electorate will come to your ballfield. You will not just win the presidency. You will win back the Senate and possiby the House. It will be a wave election, a tsunami election. C'mon, my stupid Democratic party. For once, do something smart! Nominate independent Bernie Sanders!