Saying a woman can win in a general sense in 1988, or even saying a woman should run against Hillary in 2016 (before the GOP knelt to Donald) isn’t necessarily relevant to a conversation about the 2020 election and a conversation about whether one specific candidate will beat another.

Bernie has supported same sex marriage rights for decades, but in 2006, when speaking about specific Vermont laws, and asked if VT should legalize same-sex marriage, he said no. “Not right now, not after what we went through”. Context matters. Timing matters. What he said to some young girls as a motivational speech is meaningless in the context of this conversation.