Page 11 - Electability Question News Today

Democratic voters in the polls saying what were looking for is the candidate who is most likely strongest positioned to beat donald trump, and the poll shows right now the answer to that question is biden. how do the other candidates compete on that question? >> well, a couple things. i do want to throw some caution in the conversation. a couple things. one is, the electability question if you go back to 2008, look at democrats just suffering loss after loss to george bush. he electability quest...

Forward. i wouldnt place too much on electability. particularly if youre biden youre looking at this poll after poll after poll shows almost the entire field is competitive if not in fact beating donald trump in the general election match-up. to me, to joys point this is more what democrats have to do than donald trump. donald trump is going to have his somewhere between 42 and 46% locked in. to joys point, if you look where hillary clinton lost the election income 2016, it was 4 million obama v...

What do you think? >> a couple things. he does have something, right? name i.d. name i.d. counts for a lot especially at this stage. its not just name i.d., because bernie and those guys, they tried to attack him early on on all of his problems of touching women inappropriately. didnt put a dent in his poll numbers. bidens numbers with women have gone up since he has entered tha race. the other thing that he maybe has is that electability question. democrats, their main concern, as you heard the...

He has been in many very, very difficult campaigns against republicans. and he has really been through the sort of -- been put through the ringer. so if theres a suggestion people dont know who senator sanders is i think is really not fair. the truth of the matter about electability is if democrats twoopt win you have to be able to win democrats and you have to be able to win the lions share of independence. and the truth of matter is if we look at the polls, im not just making this up, if you l...

That seems like pretty shaky data. >> look, thats one proof point. right? his strength with independence is consistent and has been consistent throughout this campaign and thats something you cant deny. and democrats are not going to win. the number of people who self-identify as independents is far greater than republicans or democrats. i think you have to acknowledge a democrat cant win a federal election without winning independents. he definitely does better with independents. i will say thi...

Pleasure. come back again soon. >> thanks a lot. good to talk to you. >> all right. >> bye-bye. >> im jound now by jeff weaver, campaign manager for democratic presidential candidate bernie sanders. jeff, plett start with the last thing hillary clinton said about electability. and the case as far as i can understand it is hillary clinton is probably the most scrutinized and vetted figure in american public life and thats almost certainly true or shes in the top tier of that. >> absolutely. >> wh...

And yet i dont think weve seen those. so i think im telling the voters what i will do, where i will get the revenues from. you can see, you know, what im proposing, how much it will cost. i think thats what voters deserve to have before they make their decision. >> all right. final question. you know, i had someone whos an adviser of yours, a friend, david brock, on this program. it must have been a few months ago. and we talked about electability, which has become something you and senator sand...

Six weeks ago ben carson was going to beat everyone in the field in head to 45ed polli-to-. that seems like pretty shaky data. >> look, thats one proof point. right? his strength with independence is consistent and has been consistent throughout this campaign and thats something you cant deny. and democrats are not going to win. the number of people who self-identify as independents is far greater than republicans or democrats. i think you have to acknowledge a democrat cant win a federal electi...

So if theres a suggestion people dont know who senator sanders is i think is really not fair. the truth of the matter about electability is if democrats want to win you have to be able to win democrats and you have to be able to win the lions share of independence. and the truth of matter is if we look at the polls, im not just making this up, if you look at polling he consistently does better with independents than secretary clinton does. if you look at the recent polls coming out of iowa and n...

It must have been a few months ago. and we talked about electability, which has become something you and senator sanders have been talking about on the trail. and i asked him is bernie sanders electable in a general election? and he paused and said no, i dont think he is. do you agree with him? >> well, im not going to speak for anybody but myself. i will leave that to the voters to decide about who is or who isnt. but i can tell you this. im battle tested. i know how to go up against the republ...