Bernie Sanders has one major hurdle to climb if he wants to win the Democratic nomination for President. From FiveThirtyEight:

  "What’s received less attention is that Sanders has so far made very little traction with non-white Democrats. The most recent CNN poll found his support at just 9 percent among non-white Democrats, while the latest Fox News poll had him at only 5 percent among African-American Democrats. (Fox News did not provide crosstabs for Hispanics or other minority groups.)"

 Hillary Clinton's popularity with African-Americans and Hispanics is going to put her way ahead of Sanders in the long-run of the campaign. There would need to be a seismic shift in his popularity amongst these key groups to provide any hope of him winning. When one considers the general distrust Americans have of self-declared socialist candidates, then a Bernie nomination, let alone a victory in November 2016, seems all but impossible.

  "Electability" has long been the main focus of both major parties in selecting candidates for any office, and being easily labeled can actually work against a candidate. The electorate can be so fickle at times that allowing your overall message to be as vague as possible can actually help one get elected by merely appealing to emotion. Recent examples of this being Bush II elected on "Compassion" and Obama on "Change". Being labeled something specific, like a Socialist, and having very direct responses to questions of policy, isn't likely to get you very far.

  Sad, because even worse than someone simply deciding to vote for, say, Hillary Clinton solely based on the fact that "they just like her" is Donald Trump managing to inspire even a portion of the Republican electorate with shameless xenophobia. Only a few weeks after a horrid event in South Carolina inspired government bodies across the south to finally eliminate the battle flag of the Confederacy from official use, Trump is appealing to what may be the remaining vestiges of racism and hatred desperately seeking a voice to express their belief that they are losing hold of history.

  Yet, with Trump now leading in the GOP polls (in spite of one particularly poignant gaff) one has to wonder how this could affect Americans' perception of Sanders' candidacy. Like Trump, most observers see him as an unelectable figurehead representing the frustrations of his party's base. Much like in 2012, when Mitt Romney's campaign was doomed by the insanity of many GOP candidates, it's very difficult to imagine many moderates, upon looking at the candidates who most appeal to each party's respective bases, not coming away with a sense that they'd much rather deal with a socialist than an outright racist demagogue. Add to that the fact that the Latino vote will certainly not be for Republicans, Sanders may have more room for appeal than conventional wisdom would assume.