THIRD WAY / JELLYFISH DEMOCRATS NOT INTERESTED IN BERNIE VOTERS & Bernie Voters Not Very Interested in third way / jellyfish Democrats

+Mother Jones has a problem with Bernie Sanders. For some reason, the magazine that claims to "hold the candidates and the powerful accountable with relentless journalism" seems to be dedicated to seeing a third way democrat, someone who is being bought and paid for by the powerful, elected. Maybe the real reason Bernie's supporters didn't vote for JoAnne Kloppenburg in Wisconsin is that she ran her campaign to appeal to hillary clinton's supporters instead of appealing to the Wisconsin Democratic Party as a whole. Maybe Kloppenburg and the Democrats failed to learn the lesson of the 2014 Mid Term elections. Like many Sanders supporters, I am tired of voting for the lesser of two evils. I volunteered for and donated to Pres Obama's campaigns and feel betrayed. I never thought he would turn out to be the jellyfish democrat he has been. I have learned my lesson and will no longer compromise my vote. If hillary ends up being the Democratic candidate for president and wants my vote and the vote of many other Bernie supporters she is going to have to cut her ties to the 1%, corporate America, wall street funded super-pacs and start campaigning as a candidate running for the 99%, for all Americans, and not just those who can afford her. 

Bernie Voters Not Very Interested in Non-Bernie Democrats

—By Kevin Drum

| Thu Apr. 7, 2016 11:38 AM EDT

Dave Weigel notes that Wisconsin's Supreme Court race was yet another setback for Democrats:

They saw a decent chance to defeat Rebecca Bradley, a conservative justice appointed to the state Supreme Court by Walker. Her opponent, JoAnne Kloppenburg, nearly won a seat on the court in 2011.

…Bradley won the election, a surprise to Democrats. This morning, some progressives picked a culprit: voters who cast ballots for Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.) and left the rest of their ballots blank. According to exit polling conducted by the independent group DecisionDesk and BenchMark Politics, perhaps 15 percent of Sanders voters skipped the Bradley-Kloppenburg race; just 4 percent of Hillary Clinton voters did the same.

Bernie endorsed JoAnne Kloppenburg, so this isn't a matter of him refusing to play ball with anyone running on the Democratic ticket. Nonetheless, it's a serious issue, no matter what you think of Bernie versus Hillary on the issues. Bernie is basing a lot of his campaign not just on anti-Hillary sentiment, but on anti-Democratic-Party-establishment sentiment. That's fair enough, but like it or not, the Democratic Party is all we have to compete with Republicans.

Bernie has been asked before if, for example, he'd raise money for Democrats if he won the nomination, and he responded, "We'll see." That's really not going to cut it anymore. Bernie doesn't have to mindlessly support every Democrat on the ballot, but voters deserve to know what he'd do if he won the Democratic nomination. Would it be all Bernie all the time? Or does he become a fighter for all the down-ballot races Democrats need to win in order to pass all that revolutionary legislation we hear so much about?

KEVIN DRUM

Political Blogger

Kevin Drum is a political blogger for Mother Jones. For more of his stories, click here. RSS |TWITTER