Bernie vs. The Donald

I've long admired Brent Budowski, but his latest must be taken with a grain of salt. He notes a recent poll which has Hillary beating Donald Trump somewhat easily, and Bernie Sanders walloping Trump by a 13 point margin.

It is time for the mainstream media to end their obsession with Trump and their virtual news blackout of the Sanders campaign when discussing presidential campaign polling.

How about, from now on, when any analyst on television discusses how strong Trump allegedly is, that it be emphasized that this strength is only within the GOP, and that in a general election, the real heavyweight champion of presidential polling is Bernie Sanders, not Donald Trump!

The problem with this analysis is that, so far, the media attack dogs have barked very little at Bernie Sanders. At this point, the right has little incentive to attack the man, since he damages the Clinton brand name. High poll numbers come easily if no-one criticizes you. Lots of people, on both the right and the left, have criticized Donald Trump; few have criticized Sanders.

To the best of my recollection, the only dirty trick played on Sanders so far came when those fake Black Lives Matter activists pretended that Bernie Sanders (of all people) was personally responsible for every misfortune suffered by African Americans throughout the past four centuries. That was a smarmy attack, but not a serious one. The serious attacks will come only after Sanders attains the nomination. If he gets it.

Which he won't.

Let's get real. Here's a recent Gallup poll:

A Gallup poll found that nearly 70 percent of Americans think big government is the country’s top problem. The poll results were released just days after President Obama signed a $1.1 trillion spending bill.

While 69 percent of the 824 Americans polled identified government as the biggest threat, 25 percent saw big business as the largest problem for the country and 6 percent were most concerned about big labor.

In this environment, a self-described socialist cannot be elected president. Sorry, folks, but numbers are numbers.

Look, I like fantasy as much as the next guy who grew up reading comic books, but politics takes place in the real world, so don't expect me to coddle you. Your fantasies of a Sanders presidency will never come true.

The best thing Sanders can do for his country right now is to attack Hillary Clinton and the Republicans on their mutual obeisance to neoconservatism. So far, he has been weak and wimpy on that score, offering no real challenge to the nonsense that Hillary has spouted. If Sanders starts telling the truth -- shouting the truth -- he will go down in history as the person who shook this country awake and forced it to face reality. He will never be president, but he may yet be the most consequential unsuccessful candidate in our history.