It kills me to come to a gathering place for democrats

[stevenleser]

339. You hardly have to rely on Eichenwald's description of GOP oppo research. Other factors are

Last edited Mon Dec 26, 2016, 11:09 AM - Edit history (1)

similarly fatal to Sanders' chances. For instance, in Pennsylvania as well as Virginia, Florida and the rest of the south, Hillary crushed Sanders as if he wasn't even there during the primaries. Of these states, Hillary lost all to Trump but Virginia which was very close but she won.

Hillary crushed Sanders in those states because to be even remotely competitive in those states in the primary or General Election, a Democrat has to have considerable enthusiasm in the African American and Latino demographics. Sanders couldn't compete with Hillary because he didn't have that enthusiasm on his side. It's pretty easy to interpolate that into Sanders losing all of those states against Trump if he had faced him in the General election.

If that is true, and no one has remotely come up with a counterargument to that, Sanders starts off the race giving up over 270 electoral votes to Trump even if we give Sanders Michigan and Wisconsin. But as I have said to other folks, the problems for Sanders would only start there. If you have no way of competing in a state, your opponent can reallocate resources they would have used on that state, time, money, etc., to other states. So Sanders being non-competitive in Georgia, the Carolinas, Florida, Virginia, and Pennsylvania would have meant Trump could reallocate a ton of resources to the rust belt and places like Nevada and other close states meaning Sanders would probably lose additional states that Hillary won beyond Virginia and may have lost one or more of Wisconsin and Michigan as well.

That's all before you get into Eichenwald's description of GOP opposition research and before you factor in that 50% of the country consistently says they will not vote for a self described Socialist.