Bernie Sanders 2020 campaign megathread v2 (pg 77 - declares victory in Iowa)

[Mr. Morden]

Sanders to scale back his campaign activity:

https://twitter.com/ryanobles/status/1181689439690604545

[Mr. Morden]

https://twitter.com/costareports/status/1212875216432619520

https://twitter.com/GaryGrumbach/status/1212907896167522304

[Mr. Morden]

https://twitter.com/AC360/status/1214360704905596930

[Mr. Morden]

CNN drops a nuke into the Dem. primary race:

https://twitter.com/mj_lee/status/1216785144134217728

[Mr. Morden]

Beet, we have literal footage of Bernie Sanders saying the opposite over the years.

Because politicians never say things in private that they wouldn't dare say in public?

[Mr. Morden]

Beet, we have literal footage of Bernie Sanders saying the opposite over the years.

Because politicians never say things in private that they wouldn't dare say in public?

Stop being deliberately obtuse.  This is not a case of Sanders saying something in private he wouldn't say in public.  This is a case of Sanders saying the exact opposite, unprompted, repeatedly over the years... of what he's accused of today by someone with a known history of stretching the truth and embellishing for political gain.  

It is obviously political poison (both now and decades ago for that matter) for a politician to say publicly that they don't think a woman is electable to the presidency.  If they believe that, then of course they're going to say the opposite in public.  I'm agnostic as to whether Sanders or Warren is telling the truth, but "He said the opposite in public!" is an absurd argument in this case.

[Mr. Morden]

https://twitter.com/BethLynch2020/status/1216788678296600583?s=20

Full statement from the Sanders camp;

"It is ludicrous to believe that at the same meeting where Elizabeth Warren told me she was going to run for president, I would tell her that a woman couldn't win," Sanders said. "It's sad that, three weeks before the Iowa caucus and a year after that private conversation, staff who weren't in the room are lying about what happened. What I did say that night was that Donald Trump is a sexist, a racist and a liar who would weaponize whatever he could. Do I believe a woman can win in 2020? Of course! After all, Hillary Clinton beat Donald Trump by 3 million votes in 2016."

I mean, even from the denial above, how are we to take that bolded sentence?  That he's worried that the nominee being a woman would be a net political negative, even if it's not *such* a negative that it tips the scales into being "unelectable"?

[Mr. Morden]

Of all the outlets to get hijacked by Bernie people, the Onion is one of the strangest.

IIRC the Onion is run by a bunch of snarky leftists in Madison, Wisconsin/Chicago. Seems like a natural Bernie demo.

I think it actually moved to NYC quite a few years ago now (maybe something like ~10 years ago?).  It was around the time it started publishing daily, and at the same time it became less absurdist and started trying to add in more Jon Stewart-esque political edge.  See, e.g.: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2013/09/the-onion-not-funny-a-slatepitches-special-report.html

[Mr. Morden]

Trump team offering some rhetorical support to Sanders:

https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-01-25/trump-defends-sanders-stoking-democratic-divisions

Trump has sent multiple tweets over the past week suggesting Democrats were “rigging the election” against Sanders because he was being pulled off the campaign trail to serve as a juror in the Senate impeachment trial during the final weeks before the Iowa caucus. Trump never mentioned that three other senators — including Warren of Massachusetts, Sanders’ chief progressive rival — were also marooned in Washington for the trial.

On Thursday, senior Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway wrote in the Washington Post that if Democrats were serious about nominating the most electable candidate, they would side with Sanders. He’s the candidate, Conway wrote, “who actually won primary contests and proved he can play David to Goliath in key places four short years ago.”

Why?:

Indeed, more moderate Democrats fear that Sanders — a self-described democratic socialist — would struggle to pull together a robust coalition in the general election. But they also worry his supporters might not vote in large enough numbers for any other nominee if Sanders fails in his second quest for the party’s nomination.

Both scenarios would benefit Trump. The president is closely monitoring the Democratic race, and has taken note of Sanders’ strong fundraising and polling, according to Republicans who have spoken with him about the election. But if Sanders stumbles in the coming weeks, Trump is also said to see an opportunity to suppress some of the senator’s most ardent supporters, or even win over some of their votes.

[Mr. Morden]

Team Sanders not happy with DNC appointments to the rules and platform committees for the convention:

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/480174-sanders-allies-in-new-uproar-over-dnc-convention-appointments

Some Democratic National Committee (DNC) members and supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) are venting frustration at DNC Chairman Tom Perez over his initial appointments to the committees that will oversee the rules and party platform at the nominating convention in Milwaukee later this year.

Sanders’s allies are incensed by two names in particular: former Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), who will co-chair the rules committee, and Hillary Clinton’s former campaign chairman John Podesta, who will have a seat on that committee.

The Sanders campaign unsuccessfully sought to have Frank removed from the rules committee in 2016, describing him as an “aggressive attack surrogate for the Clinton campaign.”

And Podesta, a longtime Washington political consultant and Clinton confidant, is viewed with contempt by some on the left. One of Podesta’s hacked emails from 2016 showed him asking a Democratic strategist where to “stick the knife in” Sanders, who lost the nomination to Clinton that year after a divisive primary contest.

[Mr. Morden]

https://twitter.com/ShaneGoldmacher/status/1223397756867436546

[Mr. Morden]

Unidentified Man, who also ran for prez in 2016, joins HRC in the Sanders criticism game:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/feb/01/bernie-sanders-iowa-democrats-martin-omalley

“Bernie’s still being given a bit of a free pass by the national media,” [O'Malley] says. “I do not believe that he would be a strong candidate for our party in the fall. And, except for three months out of every four years, he’s not even of our party.”

Sanders sits in the Senate as an independent, a democratic socialist, the “d” very much lower-case. He may be 78 but he’s popular with the young. Since leaving office, O’Malley has taught at Johns Hopkins, Georgetown, Boston College and Carnegie Mellon.

“I would frequently tell my students, ‘Look, I know in my own generation we fell for the Nigerian prince scam, but how do you all fall for the Bernie Sanders scam?’ I don’t get that.

“Here’s a guy who has been a kind of stalwart of the National Rifle Association, a man who said immigrants steal our jobs right up until he ran for president, a guy who said the sound of John Kennedy’s voice made him nauseous.”