Writer Shaun King

Bernie Sanders would be Donald Trump's worst nightmare; Hillary, not so much



[...]



1. Like Donald's other fallen foes, Hillary Clinton represents the political establishment.



This narrative is strong and served as the primary crutch of Donald's strategy to defeat an enormous, well-funded Republican field. Americans are incredibly frustrated with our government and Donald used this very real sentiment to position himself as the anti-establishment candidate. Call it nonsensical, but this position, which Donald will hold against Hillary, is what President Obama used to defeat her in 2008, is what George W. Bush used to defeat Al Gore in 2000, and was even what Bill Clinton used to defeat George H.W. Bush in 1992.



Hillary Clinton is as establishment as establishment gets. The machine is behind her. Her campaign against Bernie Sanders has only advanced this sentiment.



Donald Trump simply could not use this angle against Bernie Sanders.



2. Hillary's millions of dollars worth of paid speeches to banks, lobbyists and billionaires cede a certain moral high ground to Donald Trump.



Donald Trump is a filthy rich fat cat. He's gaudy and cartoonish with his wealth. He openly admits that he hires foreign workers for cheap jobs and abuses tax loopholes. He is the poster child for everything that Bernie Sanders has railed against — not just in this campaign, but for his entire life in public service.



Hillary Clinton will not really be able to say much about this, though, because Donald's biggest liability is also an enormous liability for her. What's worse, being Scrooge McDuck, or getting paid to speak to a room full of Scrooge McDucks over and over and over again and refusing to release the transcripts of what you said to them? She and Bill rented a home in the Hamptons for $50,000 per week. They've made $230 million since Bill left office. Hillary made more money in 12 speeches to big banks than most American's will make in their lifetime.



Bernie Sanders is a career public servant and will be so until the day he dies. His entire life stands in stark contrast to the outrageous opulence of both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. The thought that this angle will basically be off the table if the campaign is between Donald and Hillary is simply dumb.



3. Independent and new voters are flocking to Bernie Sanders and even to Donald Trump, but not to Hillary Clinton.



Bernie Sanders is the longest standing Independent in the history of the United States Congress. Consequently, independent voters have flocked to his campaign en masse. When they are allowed to vote in primaries, like they did on Tuesday in Indiana, he wins. They have been absolutely essential to his wins in 18 different states thus far. With only 29% of Americans identifying as Democrats and 26% as Republicans, the largest voting bloc is independents.[...]



I believe many independent voters will stay at home if Bernie Sanders isn't a candidate. It will be up to Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party to win them over, but they've expressed very little interest in such a thing thus far. Many more conservative independents will indeed vote for Trump.



4. Hillary's reliance on millions of dollars from SuperPACs is a real problem.



Zero percent of Bernie's campaign funds come from SuperPACs [almost right]. Four percent of Donald's campaign funds come from SuperPACs.



Hillary? More than seven times that amount. An astounding 30% of her campaign funds come from SuperPACs. Donald Trump could feasibly decide he isn't taking a dime from them and put Hillary in a position to defend her reliance on them.



This would never be an issue for Bernie Sanders. It is his rejection of SuperPAC money that has actually won over millions of his voters. For them, this issue is everything. The idea of supporting the candidate who relies so heavily on this type of money nauseates many. Donald Trump will be able to get on the mic and tell supporters that he just isn't influenced by outside money and they'll believe him.



5. Young voters are crazy about Bernie Sanders and just don't care [about] Hillary Clinton.



By young, we don't just mean teenagers. Voters under 25, voters under 35, even voters under 45 all support Bernie Sanders over Hillary Clinton. The younger voter, the bigger the margin. In some age groups he's beating her by 85%-15%. [...]

"Change" candidate beats Establishment candidate.

Clinton is too vulnerable on speech money and content.

Trump competes better for independent voters.

Clinton has vulnerable ties to big money and Super PACs.

Clinton won't attract enough young and first-time voters.

This race isn't new anymore. People know enough about Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton to make an informed decision. I believe these polls are accurate. The team at FiveThirtyEight stated that they believe the polls between Trump and Clinton will continue to narrow.



We can all agree that Trump must be stopped, but this much is clear - Hillary Clinton is not the best opponent to stop him.

I'm looking ahead to the next stages of this unfolding drama, and setting up another installment in that series (Look Ahead part one here , Look Ahead part two here ). This is not part three, which will consider the question of who beats who in the general election. But this is preliminary to it.These are Shaun King's thoughts on the "who beats who" (I know, whom) question. For King, Trump easily trumps Clinton. After an introduction, he gives his reasons. Some I'll quote in full, for others I'll just give a taste of his thinking. It's a good read all the way through. King (bolded emphasis mine):King's arguments come down to:What do you think? Is Shaun King right? I'm not presenting this because I think I know the answer. I want you to give this some thought.King's close:Again, what do you think? Can Clinton beat Trump? Can she beat him easily? Try to picture that. And while you're at it, try to picture the debates? How would you debate Donald Trump? If you were Trump, how would you debate Hillary Clinton?(Blue America has endorsed Bernie Sanders for president. This is the final part of the run. If you'd like to help out, go here . If you'd like to "phone-bank for Bernie," go here . You can volunteer in other ways by going here . And thanks!)GP

Labels: 2016 presidential race, Bernie Sanders, Gaius Publius, Hillary Clinton, Trump, Wall Street