Paul Scott comment: Are Iowa Democrats still feeling the Bern?

In Presidential politics, timing is everything.  Attending Monday afternoon's campaign rally by Vermont U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, I couldn't shake the feeling that the timing isn't right this year for Sanders.

Yes, there was a good crowd at Luther College to hear Sanders speak.  But this year's speech was inside Luther's North Gym, not in the Main Gym, as it was in 2016.  While there were 50 or so people who were in the "overflow" area outside the gym and didn't get in, there appeared to be room inside the gym.

More to the point, the audience was largely Luther College students, as the photo above shows.  College students are wonderfully energetic in their support of political candidates, but it's also true that voter turnout is lower among college students than it is among older age groups.

But more to the point, Sanders' speech on Monday was a speech similar to the one he gave 45 months ago at Luther.  The ideas he presented in January of 2016 were called radical at first, but now have been embraced by many Democrats.  That should make Sanders proud--but it doesn't help his 2020 aspirations.

A Des Moines Register poll announced over the weekend shows Sanders has fallen from a high of 25 percent of likely caucus goers supporting him in May to a current 11 percent support today.  Most worrisome for Sanders is that he is losing a great number of his supporters to Massachusetts U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren.  It appears many of Bernie Sanders' ideas are becoming mainstream in the Democratic Party--but his candidacy is not.