a problematic narrative was hardening around him: His campaign is in disarray and Elizabeth Warren has eclipsed him as the progressive standard-bearer of the primary. He’s sunk to third place nationally, behind Warren and Joe Biden, and some polls of early nomination states show him barely clinging to double digits. He’s shaken up his staffs in Iowa and New Hampshire. He’s lost the endorsement of the Working Families Party, a left-wing group that backed him in 2016, to Warren.
* * * *
“Bernie has no idea how to right the ship and neither does anybody around him,” a Democratic activist with knowledge of the campaign says. “They don’t know where they’re going. They know things aren’t going well and they’re grasping at ideas.”
As Sanders has stagnated and Warren has soared, even some of the Vermont senator’s supporters are expressing alarm. Something is off, they say privately, adding to the chorus of people in establishment political circles saying the same thing.
* * * *
The ideas from his volunteers, former aides, past delegates, steering committee members, and even some people within his campaign, vary. But they almost all come back to the same fundamental question, a question that has confounded the campaign since its earliest days: Can Bernie Sanders — a 78-year-old iconoclast whose entire identity is about standing firm in his beliefs, damn it — change?
* * * *
“My go-to answer when anyone asks me what Bernie’s really like, and I get asked that question all the time, is he is exactly how he is onstage in real life," a former aide to Sanders says. "He’s kind of a cranky, cantankerous old man who is completely and just obsessively convinced of his convictions. There’s no political calculation, really, with the things he does and says. And that’s why he can speak with a clear mind and clear heart about his economic message better than almost anyone can. But it also comes with pitfalls.”
* * * *
Andrew Feldman, a progressive consultant with close ties to labor unions, says Sanders has been given a gift: With the national media absorbed by the impeachment inquiry, he has an opportunity to reset and develop a clear plan to win Iowa.
“The question,” he says, “is will he and his team be able to professionalize their operation to really maximize on this moment?”
Sanders has shown he can change, but only a little, at times, in ways that feel true to him. The question is whether that’s enough to win — and perhaps more importantly, whether Americans want a president who won’t bend.
Of course, this will mean that Politico is a centrist, not-to-be-trusted, out-of-touch media arm of the Clintons.
I think, if Bernie really cared about progressive issues, it's time for him to cut a deal with Elizabeth Warren and fall in line behind her. She's clearly ahead of him. But I doubt he'll do it until it's too late to make a difference, because this is as much about ego as it is about issues for him.
At this point maybe they all should fold up their tents and support Warren?
I think it's too early for that. First of all, the diversity of the candidates mean lots of ideas are aired. I think that's healthy. Second, maybe don't put all our eggs into one basket just yet, because at some point Warren is going to screw up or the gods will quit favoring her for even a stupid reason, and we'll want to have options.
I don't think Bernie would make a good executive, but I want his voice in the conversation about where we need to go from here. Until the primaries, let's keep that discussion going.
-------------------------------- fear is the thief of dreams
Originally posted by piqué: At this point maybe they all should fold up their tents and support Warren?
I think it's too early for that. First of all, the diversity of the candidates mean lots of ideas are aired. I think that's healthy. Second, maybe don't put all our eggs into one basket just yet, because at some point Warren is going to screw up or the gods will quit favoring her for even a stupid reason, and we'll want to have options.
I don't think Bernie would make a good executive, but I want his voice in the conversation about where we need to go from here. Until the primaries, let's keep that discussion going.
It's hard to know what the right time is. But I can say this with certainty: it's before the convention, you grumpy, cantankerous old man.
(And I also think it's before the primaries start and he and Warren start to split the progressive vote and Biden starts to run up the score in the South, the way Clinton did.) .
Originally posted by piqué: At this point maybe they all should fold up their tents and support Warren?
I think it's too early for that. First of all, the diversity of the candidates mean lots of ideas are aired. I think that's healthy. Second, maybe don't put all our eggs into one basket just yet, because at some point Warren is going to screw up or the gods will quit favoring her for even a stupid reason, and we'll want to have options.
I don't think Bernie would make a good executive, but I want his voice in the conversation about where we need to go from here. Until the primaries, let's keep that discussion going.
I think the reaction will not be uniform. There are those who are unchangeably opposed to her ... and then there are those who might say that, in hopes that someone else will be nominated ... but will fall in line reluctantly, because the alternative is so completely unacceptable.
Bernie came in with a hard ceiling. No way would he ever get the vote of someone who voted for Hillary. We didn’t support him because we didn’t think he could win.
And we still think he can’t win.
Cindy — confident that 2016 Bernie would have lost in a landslide
Posts: 19765 | Location: A cluttered house in Metro D.C. | Registered: 20 April 2005
Originally posted by Nina: Maybe people are tired of being yelled at by him, when Warren is saying essentially the same message without the drama and finger-wagging.
I’ve never noticed any daylight between them in the sanctimonious finger-wagging department.
In the drama department, she and her DNA test win.
-------------------------------- If you think looting is bad wait until I tell you about civil forfeiture.
Posts: 33808 | Location: On the Hudson | Registered: 20 April 2005
Originally posted by Nina: Maybe people are tired of being yelled at by him, when Warren is saying essentially the same message without the drama and finger-wagging.
I’ve never noticed any daylight between them in the sanctimonious finger-wagging department.
In the drama department, she and her DNA test win.
