Sanders crowds, 10000-20000
Clinton crowds 600+-
Sanders is ahead of Clinton in numerous states, not 'lagging far behind' as Sweet lied. He also does far BETTER than Clinton in polls VS Trump. It's true, he's getting plenty of attention in those states where he's polling ahead, but not media coverage. The attention is from his followers, which he has plenty of.

There is definitely an effort to marginalize his campaign from numerous sides...Republicans, Democrats, the DNC, the media, wall street, banks, the 1%, polluting industries, etc..
No one but the people support Sanders...so I guess we get to find out this election who actually owns this country's government, political and financial institutions, or the citizens.

*quality

Boosting this quality contribution up in the Hot Listing - declared quality by Mordhaus.

"if this tactic is unsuccessful,they will do what they did to ron paul and demonize sanders.they will portray him as a "kook" a weird,fringe "goofy' candidate.which is exactly what was done to ron paul."

Except that Paul WAS a goofy, fringe candidate. He had no mainstream support from either side. Sure, the libertarians loved him, but the conservatives hated his stance on drugs and progressives hated his stance on, well, pretty much everything else.

Sanders probably has more actual support amoung his liberal base than Paul did amoung the conservatives, but there's a very real chance that he WOULD lose a presedential race against a moderate conservative.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see Sanders get in. Ironically, I think the only chance he has is if Trump gets the republican nod.

Media bias wants Hillary and it shows.

@ChaosEngine

if you are referring to the established political class,the pundit class and those with relative power and influence i would agree with your assertions.

which is pretty much what i am talking about.

if you look how ron paul was being treated by his own party and compare that treatment to sanders by the DNC,there are some glaring similarities.

while both paul and sanders have differing politics,they did align in a few areas i.e: audit the fed,citizens united,money in politics and restructuring the military to name a few.

they both had/have immensely popular grassroots support.ron paul garnering 20 million in small donations and sanders broke that record with 30 million.

they both held large rallies with high attendance.

they both had a populist flavor that appealed to their own political base.challenging the current corrupt power structures.

and they both have/had experienced a weird media blackout,even though they were/are incredibly popular with the voters.

now we can question WHY that is,but i don't think it too much a stretch to come to the conclusion that both candidates challenged the current power structures that dictate this countries dysfunctional and corrupt political system.add to that mix a paid propaganda pundit class that never challenges the current narrative,all put on display on corporate media which is owned by what? 5-6 entities? who just happen to be the biggest lobbyists in this country?

nader experienced pretty much the exact same treatment from the DNC in regards to media exposure and it went even further in his case with him being outright denied to some debates,or made to jump through almost insurmountable dictates to even get ON the debates.

so when i assert this is a well crafted and intentional practice by the parties,i do so with precedent.

because all three,nader,paul and sanders all had/have massive public support from the voters,but not their respective parties.

so when ron paul started to become a real thorn in the RNC,who did not want him anywhere near the nomination.they changed the tactic from ignoring or downplaying pauls message..to creating the "kook" myth.this was from his own party!!

nader received similar treatment,though in a different context.the establishment as a whole came out against him.

so what can we assume,based on previous tactics from these political parties in regards to sanders?when they can no longer ignore his popularity? his grassroots campaign donations? his rally attendances?

there will soon come a time when they can no longer ignore sanders and his grassroots success,and they will respond the exact same way they did with nader and paul.they will concoct a narrative that plays on peoples fears and biases and begin to portray sanders as an anti-capitalist "kook".that somehow him being a democratic socialist means the end of our civilization.just the word "socialist' makes many a republican wet their panties.

could i be wrong?
oh please god let me be wrong.
i happen to like much of what sanders is promoting,not everything,i have issues with some of what he proposes,but over-all i dig not only what he is saying but how he is going about conveying his message.

there is one huge problem if sanders gets the nod,and that is the support you mentioned.he has almost none in the legislature.which will make much of what he is trying to change in washington damn near impossible.

which will create it own political mess and just create fodder for the pundit class to ineffectually pontificate on,just so they can have a job.

i think it would be such a great thing for this country if sanders got the nomination,but the establishment has already made its intentions clear:they dont want sanders,they want hillary.the establishment does not play by the rules nor do they play nice.

playing by the rules and being decent is for the peasant class.

hope i am wrong.
i hope that every single point i made will never occur.
i hope that sanders gets the nod and things may change,because this country needs a fucking enema.
but my cynicism really struggles with that kind of hopeful optimism.

Ron Paul was not goofy, but he was a (partially) fringe candidate. The gold standard being his biggest kookiness. But as far as just being loved by libertarians, well, that's what the media sold and that's what some poor saps actually believe.

As more a liberal leaning guy I swapped parties to vote for Paul. His honesty was nice but would have been unverifiable. However, his willingness to buck those he could have been bought by and made president from amazed me. He wasn't a populist except insofar as that his message was against those in power.

But what is most funny is this. Paul didn't do bad in the polls for basically being a 3rd party candidate. In that he smashed Nader and most other 3rd party candidates. Even knowing his defeat, those still willing to show their vote to him was astonishing. Now some would argue that he technically wasn't third party since he ceremoniously went under the Republican brand...but that's about stupid logic there.

Here, let me see if you agree.

Basically, there were three camps around Ron Paul.

1st was the conservative camp. 2nd was the liberal camp. 3rd was the everyone who voted for Paul camp.

In the 1st one people hated Paul because he didn't follow their platform. He didn't want to ban abortion at the level of the federal government, he didn't want to make gay marriage illegal with a broad pen stroke and he wasn't keen on telling people they could drink but not smoke pot. He believed the states should decide.

In other words, this camp was solely based on their own selfish beliefs. Me me me, greed greed greed. Give me. Fuck the honest guy.

In the second camp people hated Paul because he didn't follow their platform. He didn't want federal government handouts, one-sized fits-all approach to education or legalization of gay marriage or abortion at the federal level. He believed states should decide.

In other words, this camp was solely based on their own selfish beliefs. Me me me, greed greed greed. Give me. Fuck the honest guy.

Then there was the 3rd camp. They valued him as a candidate, and said fuck the platform. Platform voting has been destroying our country and polarizing our nation since the beginning.

What makes me so pissed is that the first 2 camps believe they were doing the right thing. Like a rapist in India trying to make a lesbian straight...yeah, great morals there guys...these delusional whack jobs disgust me. Yeah, it is fine to vote against Ron Paul without being labeled as such, so long as you 100% believed your candidate was morally superior to Paul. And as long as that belief had nothing to do with platform...

Or am I just being a prick?

@Lawdeedaw
i get what you're saying and no,i don't think that makes you a prick.

totally forgot about ron paul's stance of reverting to the gold standard.that would certainly fall into the "kook" category.i had some issues with ron pauls politics but i admired how he was consistent and stuck to his principles (which CANNOT be said about his son).

this is a similar reason why i dig sanders.while i do not agree with everything he proposes and have some issues with his politics as well.the man has been fairly consistent through his career.

which i think we can all agree that we want principled,honest politicians in our government.we can disagree with someones politics and still admire them for being principled and honest people.

ultimately this is about power and who wields that power.maybe i am just biased in cheering for the anti-establishment candidate,because the establishment has proven over the years that they only seek to perpetuate a dysfunctional and corrupt system which serves their needs at the expense of the majority.

so fuck the establishment.

Paul was the only real "liberal" candidate in recent times.

I mean that with the dictionary definition of liberality - not the political definition.

He was a 'live and let live' person, not interested in shoving the ideals of either end of the political spectrum down the entire nation's cumulative throat.

Fanboys of either end of the spectrum can't support anyone like that. They inherently want their way to be everyone's way, which a voluntarist like Paul isn't about.

His willingness to let persons on either side live freely how they personally want to, and be free to dislike how others live, made him atypical, and hence fringe by definition.

To me, he is a person of most excellent character.
I wish his son was more like him (rather than swinging off the born-again crowd's nuts).

-scheherazade

the problem is the primaries. Primaries are just simply a shitty system. End of story. The primaries are run by the RNC and the DNC and they don't give a fuck about your vote. The RNC wants anyone but Trump. Trump will not get the nod unless they make some behind the scenes deal that we never hear about. The DNC wants Hillary and it doesn't matter how popular Bernie is.

The RNC/DNC are private organizations and there is no law whatsoever that they are beholden to us.

As the founders warned...parties are bad. I'm not going to tell you that they're equally bad, because that's stupid...but they are both bad.

Reince Priebus and Debbie Wasserman Schultz are the problem and both organizations need to be dissolved, but the Constitution does protect the right to assemble. The person is supposed to matter..not party..not money. Maybe an amendment could be created banning political parties somehow, but insanely difficult to enforce. A lot of shit would go away if we got rid of money in elections though and made them 100 percent publicly funded. It's so much bullshit that we spend so much money on elections in the Internet age.

Just give each candidate their own website...no fancy ads or graphics..just a fucking open source free wiki site where each candidate can put whatever they want on it so people can visit and judge for themselves. Elections are not fucking reality TV shows. This should be a no-brainer.

To more directly respond to the video though, the answer, as they already talked about is the media's fault. Bernie, despite his open socialism, is not very controversial. He's nuanced, shown that he can give complex answers to complex problems and actually seems to be interested in governance.

THOSE THINGS ARE BORING! Doing your job well is often boring. Media doesn't like boring. The media has their profits to think about, so they're going to generate controversy.

This is not groundbreaking at all. I call it the Cartman effect. South Park episodes usually focus on what crazy thing Cartman is going to do next. The show revolves around it. He does completely insane, amoral, disgusting things that no one should ever do...but the audience laps it up. Similar thing occurs with Sheldon of The Big Bang Theory. As I've already compared it to, Reality shows do the exact same thing. The contestant who everyone hates is kept on as long as possible, who otherwise would have been eliminated long ago. People love to hate that person. They keep watching to see what they'll do next.

This perfectly describes Trump. People who will never vote for him in a million years still follow what he does just to see what happens next. This also describes Fox "News" It recently just got ranked the highest in viewership for 2015 again. The right loves to pretend that means that their views are popular. No, that just means everyone wants to watch the trainwreck.

This is also why the Republican debates got more press than the Democratic ones. All the Republican candidates were fighting each other tooth and nail. All were going after Trump. There were a lot of catfights and lots of drama. Meanwhile, in the Democrat debates, everyone gets along. Even when they disagree, they do so in a constructive manner and everyone gets along. No drama, therefore no press. Being serious is boring and that doesn't generate ad revenue for media.

Having an outrageous, controversial candidate is still not enough to get elected though, in fact it cuts both ways. When you put forth a "Cartman" candidate, sure it rallies lots of supporters. But it also rallies lots of opponents (or more) against the candidate. This is exactly what happened with Palin.

Elections have turned into being more about voting against the person you don't want than voting for the person that should be in office. "Anybody but X"