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The numbers were in his favor,they didn’t consider Obama making a bunch of calls at the last minute
Fair enough, but all candidates dropping to form the super-mutant-centrist two days before super tuesday is… hard to come by as a singular event. That none of the candidates would even dare to stay in the race for their ego is at least a little bit surprising. Of course the underlying material force created the already fucked up playing field, but if he came out on top on super tuesday it would be much more difficult. It’s still an amazing show of force versus the slightest bit of social democracy and social movements peering up under the rug.
I think Bernie was close to winning a bit more. The thing is that sequential battles mean that there is a high path dependency. Leftists and mainstream think as is the result was clear when the numbers are proportional very skewed in the end, however it is important to understand in which way effects of previous influence the late events.
This means you have to make lists, see who lives where who might vote and what their self engagement potential is. Same for organizing, you have to have people themselves do their work, but also make sure you will get to everyone who matters for the campaign.
I mean it looked like he was going to win until Pete and Klob (3rd and 4th) dropped out and endorsed Biden right before super tuesday.
They were more sanguine about his chances before the actual primaries kicked-off, but once the campaign got rolling they really started cheerleading, which isn’t a criticism since you got to keep morale up for the long fight. They might have ended up believing it whole hog and now can’t acknowledge that some of it was just propaganda for the supporters.
That being said, Bernie was in a solid position to win the primary even after Super Tuesday if you just compare it to past races. But this ignores the ideological challenge he represented and assumes some kind of unbiased playing field (which has never been the case).
I think Matt at least (not in those three, I know) always hedged that Bernie could win IF non-voters came out to support Bernie. And they did… a bit. Just not in numbers sufficient to overcome the even higher turnout among the olds who really wanted to make sure young people do NOT get to have a better life than they did. I don’t think any of the hosts really disageed with this.
