Meet Grandfather. His mind is sharp as a tack!

The question of the week: Is Bernie Sanders electable in a General Election???

The implied assumption is that a Democratic-Socialist from Vermont could not survive in real-world politics, with “real world” defined as the part of America outside New England. See an interesting discussion over at Clarissa’s Blog.

It is true that Bernie would have a hill to climb to persuade 51 percent of American voters to support him. But wait! Every presidential candidate must climb that hill. Would it be more, or less, difficult for Donald Trump to achieve 51 percent support in the General Election? How about Ted Cruz?

In Sanders vs. Trump OR Sanders vs. Cruz, both the Democratic and Republican nominees would be unconventional candidates. Maybe even strange candidates. In a normal election year, none of the three would stand a snowball’s chance of winning a major-party nomination.

The scenario is, we have a strange, unprecedented election in front of us. Totally unpredictable. But we can take a look at a number of obvious political factors. Continue reading →