A STEEP CLIMB. Selzer Iowa poll on June 1, 2015: Clinton 57%, Sanders 16%. Iowa Caucus results: 50% to 50%

The chances that Bernie Sanders, a dark horse candidate, could win the nomination against a frontrunner as well-positioned as Hillary Clinton have always been very slim. Sanders himself continually acknowledges that such a feat would be one of the greatest political upsets in American history.

That said, it’s absolutely necessary and absolutely reasonable for a dark horse candidate, and the candidate’s supporters, to not dwell on those low chances — to do otherwise would be completely self-defeating. It would change a campaign’s chances from small to zero. Such a campaign would never get off the ground. It would not be a serious campaign. And the Sanders campaign is indeed a serious campaign. He won the most votes in history by anyone in either party in the New Hampshire primary — arguably a critical state, one of only seven “obvious toss-ups” for 2016, according to Politico. His presidential campaign has received the most individual contributions in history, putting his fundraising abilities on a par with the frontrunner’s — and actually last month widely outpacing the frontrunner.

You can dismiss his chances all you want — but Hillary Clinton is obviously taking the Sanders campaign deadly seriously. Any politician with half a brain would.

We’ve already witnessed Sanders achieve things during this campaign that very intelligent, very rational folks have argued were virtually impossible.

To give an example I mentioned before, Clinton supporter floridageorge, who posts often on Daily Kos about the latest polls, contributed the following perfectly rational comment to a diary I wrote last year:

When someone is ahead by 5% in polls, that is usually very, very good (i.e. Obama vs. Romney polls for Virginia.) 10% is landslide territory. It would take a lot of movement to flip that support around. Here we are talking 45% plus. I don't see Bernie with a shot in Iowa…. ...a just released Iowa poll from Gravis has it this way: http://gravismarketing.com/... Hillary 59% Bernie 15% Webb 3% O'Malley 3% Chafee 1% The same 44% differential we are seeing in the RCP averages, the same 15% for Bernie that we are seeing when we average out the more recent Iowa polls. Nobody knows the future exactly, but I am sorry, I don't think you can claim that it is all open, either. 44% ahead is huge. It is not something you just overcome. It has never before happened that such a deficit was overcome in a nomination (either party, any cycle, historically) or in a general.

“It has never before happened that such a deficit was overcome.” And yet, as we all witnessed, Sanders did overcome that deficit and came within a hair’s breadth of winning that night in Iowa.

Arguments from Clinton supporters that his chances are miniscule continue to be perfectly rational, albeit self-serving. It’s also perfectly rational for Sanders supporters to ignore these arguments.

Sorry, I don’t mean to sound dismissive. As I said, they are rational arguments, but it’s quite sensible to ignore them. It’s counterproductive for Sanders supporters to focus on the obvious fact that he’s a dark horse, even when the arguments come from sources that aren’t self-serving. In the days before the Iowa Caucus, it would have been a great disservice to Sanders supporters to let themselves be discouraged by oracles like Nate Silver or Al Giordano or Bing, because although they were making rational, reality-based predictions that Clinton had a very comfortable lead, these and other wise oracles turned out to be wrong.

As a 4-term mayor, 8-term U.S. Representative, and 2-term U.S. Senator, I suspect Bernie Sanders may be the winningest politician ever to run for the presidency. Of course he faces steep odds against his world-famous and widely-respected opponent — but he’s as seasoned, serious, legitimate a candidate as anyone who’s ever sought the presidency; he’s earned his place in this race and as long as he has a possibility of winning — which is all he’s ever had as a dark horse, he’s never had a likelihood of winning — then it’s absolutely correct and completely reality-based for him and his supporters to continue this campaign, full speed ahead, until he wins the nomination or he doesn’t.

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