Bernie Sanders Overtakes Clinton in Three More States, Clinton Supporters Worried in Texas
Tom Cahill at USUncut.com February 19:
According to recent polls in both Democratic strongholds and swing states, Bernie Sanders’ once insurgent campaign is snowballing into a serious movement.
In the critical swing state of Colorado, where Sanders once trailed Hillary Clinton by as much as 28 points prior to the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary, Sanders is now ahead of Clinton by 6 points.
Cahill notes:
In Massachusetts, Sen. Sanders is leading Clinton by 7 points, according to a Public Policy Poll (PPP) conducted between February 14 and February 16. This is a significant change from previous polls, which had Clinton leading Sanders in the Democratic stronghold state by a 25-point margin in a Boston Globe/Suffolk poll in November.
Massachusetts was supposedly “Hillary Country,” but Sanders signs are visible throughout Cambridge, home of Harvard University.
Nationally a Fox News report says Hillary is “feeling the bern” as Sanders tops Clinton nationally in a poll by three points, although RCP average has Clinton up by 5 points.
With no recent California polls, it is difficult to tell what is happening in the delegate behemoth although last October the Sacramento Bee reported that Sanders by then had surged from single digits to 35%.
In another delegate behemoth, Dallas Morning News editorial writer and former congressman Chris Bell, presumably with a finger on the pulse of his state, worries that Texas is about to “blow it” by going for Sanders. Bell wrote today, two days after Sanders’ narrow loss in the Nevada primary:
Texas Democrats have a difficult decision to make in 2016: whether we care to be relevant. We have a perfect opportunity but a good chance of blowing it if there is not somewhat of an awakening.
Bell argues:
...idealism and anger are not going to change our state; that is only going to happen when Democrats once again become competitive statewide.
Bell also raises a common argument deployed against Sanders, that a “socialist” cannot win the general election :
While he has certainly struck a populist nerve and I appreciate many of the positions he has taken, the American people are not going to elect a socialist as president. It’s that simple.
But Sanders supporters say that Sanders’ nominal self-identification as a socialist is a non-issue, and that the US economy is already rife with socialism, much of it in the form of “corporate welfare” for large, profitable corporations and industries, such as the oil industry’s depletion allowance and the agribusiness corn ethanol subsidy. Sanders repeatedly distances himself from strict ideological socialism such as state ownership of the means of production. Sanders said last November:
“The next time you hear me attacked as a socialist — like tomorrow — remember this: I don’t believe government should take over the grocery store down the street, or own the means of production,”
The polls come as other national polls show Sanders beating Trump soundly in a head-to-head match up, with Clinton in a statistical tie with Trump.
Sanders has vowed to break up the “too big to fail banks” and to appoint only Supreme Court Justices who will make it a “priority” to overturn Citizens United.
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