Some good news and some bad news for Democrats.

By Rob Janicki

Democrat demographic numbers have been on the rise with women and a
host of minority groups, too numerous to list.  That increase in those
demographics swinging to the political left is the good news for
Democrats.  They worked hard to create government entitlements to buy
these groups and their votes for generations to come and they have
been very successful at buying those potential votes.  The meteoric
growth in the numbers of people added to the rolls of food stamp
participants is just one example of Democrats success in buying votes.
Those receiving food stamps are hardly going to vote against their own
self interest and vote for someone that may restrict their access to
government giving away billions of dollars.  So much for Democrat good
news.

The bad news for Democrats is that current enthusiasm within these
groups is not exactly setting off fireworks for the 2016 presidential
election and that has to be a serious concern for Democrats and
Hillary Clinton in particular.  Supporters of Democrats have to get
out and vote to be meaningful to candidates.  Cheering crowds mean
nothing unless that enthusiasm translates to bodies showing up and
voting the Democrat ticket on November 8, 2016.

We know that Hillary will be the Democratic presidential nominee when
all is said and done.  Bernie Sanders, a self identified socialist, is
simply too radical for Americans.  Democrats don't have a candidate
bench with anyone on deck capable of waging a national campaign.
Martin O'Malley, Jim Webb and Lincoln Chaffee are virtual unknowns
outside the Democratic hardcore political circle and have no chance to
win the Democratic presidential nomination.  Vice President Joe Biden
is a known commodity, but voters are not apt to vote for someone who
has proven time and again that he is one bubble off the mark of
normal.

All this is not to say that Bernie Sanders cannot have an influence on
the Democratic nomination process.  Sanders is appealing to Democrat
voters with a populist type of campaign, attacking the rich, appealing
to every imaginable minority and setting them against the Republican
right as the party of the rich.  Sanders' campaigning is basic radical
liberal claptrap using tactics right out of the Saul Alinsky book,
"Rules for Radicals".  Nothing new here.  Play people and groups
against each other and pick up all those voters who feel
disenfranchised and powerless against forces they cannot understand or
overcome.

Sanders seems to be co-opting the hard core leftists of the party and
peeling away Hillary supporters in his campaign, to date.  This has to
be causing Hillary concern, since it has the potential of drawing
Hillary into a fight within the party, thus consuming her time and
energy from being directed at the top rung of Republican contenders
that she will face up close and personally.  A prolonged fight between
Sanders and Hillary will only tend to alienate and dull the enthusiasm
effect of Democrats in general and, with the current lack of
enthusiasm, could make it very difficult for Hillary to win in
November 2016, which would be a victory for America.

Watch polling on Democrat voter enthusiasm going forward.  This
polling may be the most telling indicator of whether Hillary will win
in the 2016 general election or fall flat like she did in the 2008
Democratic presidential primary against Barack Obama.