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The Bern Report reports
Dr. Rick Hardy and Dr. John Hemingway have been leading Mock Presidential Elections [at Western Illinois University] since 1975. During that time, students who have participated in these mock elections have chosen the winning party with 100% accuracy and have an astonishing record in selecting presidential winners.
On the Democratic side for the Primaries Sanders won[1] by close to a 2 to 1 margin over challenger Hillary Clinton.
[...] After nominating Sanders, the student Democrats put him up against Jeb Bush, who received the Republican nomination, with Bernie winning the electoral college by nearly a 4 to 1 margin and a decisive win for the popular vote.
This simulation always takes place the year before the presidential election year, and three months before the actual Iowa caucuses. The genesis of this mock presidential election began at the University of Iowa in 1975 with two political science doctoral students, John Hemingway and Rick Hardy. In that year, students selected Jimmy Carter over Gerald Ford--long before anyone really knew of Jimmy Carter.
In the years that followed, Rick Hardy expanded the format and engaged thousands of students at the University of Missouri-Columbia where students registered a perfect record of selecting the subsequent winning presidential party. In 2007 and 2011, Hardy and Hemingway teamed up again to conduct a massive campus-wide simulation at Western Illinois University. In 2007, Western students selected Barack Obama as president at a time when no one thought he could win! And, in 2011, students narrowly re-elected President Obama.
[1] Content is behind scripts.
(Score: -1, Troll) by srobert on Saturday November 14 2015, @05:16PM
It is inevitable that Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic party nominee in 2016. It is being reported by all of the respectable news sources that, according to the latest scientific polling of voters likely to vote for Hillary, that Hillary is leading Sanders by an insurmountably large margin. You may go and lodge a pathetic protest vote for Sanders if you're so inclined, but you're really just wasting your time. He has no chance of winning the primary. Just give up.
Even if he does win the primary, he would have no chance of winning the general election. He's a self-declared socialist. He wants to return the U.S. to the discredited economic policies of the several decades that followed the 2nd World War. Opposition to such an extreme leftist position will only end in the GOP winning the Presidency. If you don't get behind Hillary now, you could wind up with Trump, Carson, or another Bush, in the White House. Please, it's time to be adult about this now. Just give up. Either support Hillary or get out of the way. Bernie Sanders has no chance.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by takyon on Saturday November 14 2015, @05:35PM
You're mostly right, but why call it a "protest vote" during the primary process? It's a protest vote once you write-in Sanders or vote for Nader/equivalent in the general election. Voting for Sanders during the primary is not a protest vote.
Sanders could even win in the general election. He just needs a crazier opponent or a lucky scandal to strike the GOP pick. I wouldn't avoid Sanders because of fear of a Republican president either. Control of Congress is more important than which party has the Presidency, and a Presidency that makes people mad will just cause the pendulum to swing 4-8 years later in a two-party system. I guess you could argue that a Clinton ticket might result in more Democratic seats than a Sanders ticket, but I'd want to see data supporting that first.
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(Score: 2) by SubiculumHammer on Saturday November 14 2015, @07:58PM
Head to hear polls have Bernie crushing both Bush and Trump.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday November 14 2015, @09:56PM
I hate those hypothetical matchup polls. They are mostly useless before the candidates are finalized. A significant portion of the population will vote for one party or the other no matter what matchups are saying today (if it gives a candidate less than 40%, throw it in the trash). By election day, there will have been controversies, scandals, and debates tipping the balance one way or another.
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(Score: 2) by SubiculumHammer on Monday November 16 2015, @03:16AM
Agreed, BUT most of the other reasons pundits dredge up to say someone has no chance are even less reliable
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anal Pumpernickel on Saturday November 14 2015, @05:35PM
Yes, just give up. Then you can reduce your chances of winning from being very small to being absolute zero. Good strategy! Please tell me more about how to create self-fulfilling prophecies and how I should vote for evil scumbags because corporatist trash wants them to win.
If you're someone who supports Sanders, simply giving up will never get you anywhere. Supporting Hillary Clinton with your vote while you actually Sanders will make you more of a spineless loser than voting for Sanders and having him not win.
He's a self-declared socialist.
Most people might not know what that is, but that sure doesn't stop them from being deathly afraid of it. So maybe you are right that lots of people will see that as a bad thing.
Either support Hillary or get out of the way. Bernie Sanders has no chance.
Screw that. Once again, I suggest voting for candidates you actually like, rather than voting for evil scumbags who have a higher chance of being elected. If you don't do likewise, you're part of the problem, and are helping to create your precious self-fulfilling prophecy. No great change ever came about by simply giving up.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Saturday November 14 2015, @05:47PM
If I don't get to vote for Sanders, I'll be voting for Jill Stein. Clinton is just a female GWB.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Saturday November 14 2015, @07:31PM
Interesting, I'll have to look into Stein. I've been largely keeping my nose out of politics lately because it's so depressing. I know Sanders is worth voting for and that Hilary won't get my vote in the primaries.
(Score: 2) by srobert on Saturday November 14 2015, @07:48PM
I'm going to wait until the primaries are over. If Bernie's the candidate, I'm all set. Otherwise, I'll start working to get Jill Stein on my state's ballot.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Saturday November 14 2015, @06:22PM
There ain't no such thing as "inevitable" in politics.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by srobert on Saturday November 14 2015, @06:26PM
Poe's law still in effect I guess.
I left clues. Parse the sentence:
"...according to the latest scientific polling of voters likely to vote for Hillary , ... Hillary is leading Sanders by an insurmountably large margin."
and reference to the
"discredited economic policies of the several decades that followed the 2nd World War"
Though there was some turmoil in those times, they were decades that saw unprecedented widespread economic prosperity and technological progress.
You guys should have caught that.
(Score: 1) by What planet is this on Saturday November 14 2015, @06:53PM
Hillary? If Congress (Repubs) won't work with Obama they're damn sure not going to work with Hillary. It will be another 4 (or 8) years of nothing getting done.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 15 2015, @12:12AM
inevitable
It was inevitable that Obama would be crushed in 2008.
Oh, wait...
respectable news sources
Those get zero respect from me.
Giving credence to Lamestream Media is so 1988.
Hillary is leading Sanders
Well, she did -start- with a wide lead.
by an insurmountably large margin
See "inevitable", above.
Hillary's lead has been eroding and she continues to lose points to Bernie.
Bernie is ahead in Iowa and New Hampshire (where the first 2 primary events will be).
Bernie's appearances are getting crowds of 20,000 and more.
The biggest problem of the Sanders campaign has been having to turn away people because the biggest available venues are too small to hold everybody who wants in.
Hillary's crowds are sparse by comparison.
Your acceptance of what legacy media has to say shows that you are out of touch with reality.
You and Debbie Wasserman Schultz have an agenda (to get Hillary elected--and screw anyone else).
the discredited economic policies of the several decades that followed the 2nd World War
Those would be the policies that gave us the concept of "The Middle Class" and decades of prosperity.
They are only "discredited" in the eyes of Plantation Capitalists and, once again, Lamestream Media.
an extreme leftist position
This is where you would link to Bernie's call to nationalize Verizon, et al.
Bernie is NOT anti-Capitalist and is NOT anti-war.
The fact is that Bernie is Right-Center--not that far from other politicians.
The only place where he is "radical" is in his calling for fair wages so that workers have money to spend into the economy and get The Multiplier Effect going again.
...and to quit dismantling the stuff like civil liberties and safe workplaces which worked for those decades when the country was strong.
Bernie Sanders has no chance
...like Obama in 2007, as mentioned in the summary.
-- gewg_