Sanders drags Democrats to the left; will it be 1972 all over again?
By Mark Penn, opinion contributor — 02/12/20 09:45 AM EST
Democratic voters enter the core primary season unsettled and uncertain, as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) narrowly won the New Hampshire primary — his second very strong performance — a move that could pull the Democratic Party to the far left and prompt a repeat of its 1972 electoral disaster.
But the contest between the left and moderate wings of the Democratic Party is far from over.
Sanders is an avowed socialist whose “free college†mantra has captured the part's youth vote, despite his having turned 78 years old. For decades he has lectured against the problems of big banks, an economy that works for the few, and the need for revolutionary change. It is odd — in a time of such great prosperity, low unemployment and rising wages — that his message would resonate.
The short answer is that his “socialist†message rings true to about 20 percent to 25 percent of the electorate — they just all happen to be concentrated among Democratic primary voters. The exit polls, for example, put the voters in the New Hampshire primary at 60 percent liberal while the electorate as a whole is no more than about 25 percent liberal. In a nutshell, this is the problem with today’s parties and the primary system: It is too easy for candidates who are out of step with America to gain traction in the Democratic Party, and this distorts all of Democratic politics among those who want to be president and thus pander to those voters.
more
https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/482718-sanders-drags-democrats-to-the-left-will-it-be-1972-all-over-again
