He's doing alright so far
dailykos.com
Tue Sep 22, 2015 at 01:30 PM PDT
Debates? TV spending? Bernie Sanders proves it's a new campaign world by kos
68 Comments / 68 New
Who needs debates when you have this?
There's no doubt the DNC has screwed up the debate calendar. The issue isn't so much the number of debates, but the timing of them—willfully scheduled during times designed to minimize viewership. At the time the schedule was announced, non-Clinton campaigns cried foul, as it meant less early exposure for the insurgent candidacies.
But as I've argued before, in regards to SuperPAC money, the modern media landscape is rewriting the rules of how a campaign gains supporters. While an invisible Martin O'Malley continues to whine about the debate calendar, Bernie Sanders has steadily gained ground in Iowa and New Hampshire, where six straight polls now show him in the lead. And he did it without a single debate. And heck, has he even run a single campaign ad?
Sanders has built what he has built by giving people a reason to get excited, and using social media channels to get his word and message out. I don't want to oversell his chances given real challenges in name ID and demographic appeal beyond the two early states, but it's amazing how far he has come with very little traditional exposure (TV, newspaper, magazine, etc).
All this is good. We are much better off in a world where getting people excited means something real, rather than spending all your time begging millionaires and billionaires for money (which is what Hillary Clinton is doing, explaining her invisibility on the campaign trail). Does anyone doubt that Clinton couldn't still raise tens of millions if she employed a similar strategy as Sanders', working big crowds, feeding them red meat, and getting them excited about her? Instead, her team seems to be gearing up for a big gazillionaire-funded traditional ad-blitz-centric campaign. Boo.
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