When A Loss Is Actually A Win

Losing a battle to win the war? What the heck?!

Senator Bernie Sanders is a self-described Democratic Socialist who says he’s not a Democrat. He is for single payer healthcare, expanding Social Security, a $15/hr. minimum wage. Though he is far left in the US, he is looked at as a moderate in a lot of the world with more Socialist leanings. He is the populist candidate for the President of the United States

Secretary Hillary Clinton is the Former First Lady of the United States and the State Of Arkansas where her husband was Governor. She was very active in her husband’s White House and at the time was the First FLOTUS to have a post-secondary degree. She has been a United States Senator and her last governmental post was as Secretary of State under Former President Barack Obama

Across the pond in the UK we had another battle

Jeremy Corbyn, the underdog He is the controversial leader of the Labour Party accused of being too far to the left. His campaign is all about domestic policy and doing more for the People of the UK. Polls say the Labour Party will get walloped in this election. Will he be able to prove the naysayers wrong?

Theresa May is the current Prime Minister and called the snap election earlier than usual despite reports to the contrary. For her it’s about Brexit and having a better negotiating position for a “hard Brexit” Will her 20 point advantage in the polls generate enough momentum to get her majority of seats?

Since the Iowa caucuses happened first in January of 2016 I will start there.  The polls had Secretary Clinton up by 61 points. 68% to 7% and everyone thought this would be a blowout. The opening salvo of the mandate or it goes down in flames. Clearly, they don’t always pick the winner of the nomination contest, but trust me it can help buoy a struggling campaign. Former Presidents Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Obama and Senator McCain were all nominees that won in Iowa first.

So setting this up, it is a big deal to win the Iowa Caucuses because it could hold good news for New Hampshire’s first Primary usually being within 2 weeks of Iowa

So what happened? THIS happened! A clear mandate of the people of Iowa and it bears out this way: 49.9% for Secretary Clinton and 49.6% for Senator Sanders. The media pundits didn’t see this coming at all.

The Winner:

Bernie Sanders was the clear winner of this Iowa Caucus, Why? A 61 point gap is not easy to narrow. Let’s also think about this: The more Hillary spoke, and was in the public eye the more her negatives went up. She rarely went higher in the polls than normally forecasted and Lawrence O’Donnell cited her 2 US Senate campaigns for the State of New York as examples. Trump actually led Hillary in that poll and if that example held, it would be disaster for the Clinton campaign. We saw that disaster show itself on November 8^th 2016 and I didn’t bother going to work the next day because I would’ve rubbed salt in the wound

Bernie was the clear winner because he showed that he could stand toe to toe with Clinton and mount a challenge that could knock her off the path to the nomination. Clinton was on notice and this was really a wakeup call that 2008 could happen all over again

Now across the pond PM Theresa May called a snap election. A snap election is called by the Prime Minister often in hopes of increasing the share of seats held by their party. Another characteristic of the snap election is that it is called before the end of a term. At times, it will work and at other times it will backfire. Also, Theresa May hadn’t been elected in her own right prior to this having come into the role upon the resignation of David Cameron. Further, she wanted to strengthen her hand for negotiating a “hard Brexit”

So what happened? Her Tory majority shrank; she lost 30 seats in Parliament. Tories did gain a few seats from Labour but not enough to win the 326 for an outright majority and had to form a coalition government. The snap election backfired like a car too old to be driving around in

What of Jeremy Corbyn? Let’s face the facts: At the helm he has increased Labour seats AND it is the biggest gain since 1945 despite losing as Prime Minister. But what were they saying before this? The same things they kept saying about Bernie Sanders when he was running his Primary. That he was hurting the Labour movement by being its face. However, the polls got the clobbering completely wrong. So the result of a hung Parliament the media ended up covering was a stunning turnaround from the Tory landslide they projected.

Jeremy Corbyn was the real winner. His message of ending austerity, investing in domestic policy as his clear priority really resonated with voters and truly excited people

This is where we get from Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn. Sanders could easily have helped down ballot races in the US because of the message the same way Labour was buoyed by Corbyn. He excited voters as opposed to the stiff and wooden women they were fighting against. They were women who had the experience but their judgment is in fact shaky at best. Experience is good, but without sound judgment all the experience in the world is for naught. Both misread the polls and thought they had a clear mandate from the people. Oh how wrong they were

So these two men—populists won something far greater than a loss suggested. It is that progressive politics win the day and people are starving for a leader that will stand up for them and the people left behind in our political arena

Thanks for letting me talk to you