Posted on 12/26/2019 7:24:21 AM PST by Red Badger
His resiliency in the primary has caught the attention of the party establishment.
Suddenly, Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign is being taken seriously.
For months the Vermont senator was written off by Democratic Party insiders as a candidate with a committed but ultimately narrow base who was too far left to win the primary. Elizabeth Warren had skyrocketed in the polls and seemed to be leaving him behind in the race to be progressive voters’ standard-bearer in 2020.
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But in the past few weeks, something has changed. In private conversations and on social media, Democratic officials, political operatives and pundits are reconsidering Sanders’ chances.
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“It may have been inevitable that eventually you would have two candidates representing each side of the ideological divide in the party. A lot of smart people I’ve talked to lately think there’s a very good chance those two end up being Biden and Sanders,” said David Brock, a longtime Hillary Clinton ally who founded a pro-Clinton super PAC in the 2016 campaign. “They’ve both proven to be very resilient.”
Democratic insiders said that they are rethinking Sanders’ bid for a few reasons: First, Warren has recently fallen in national and early-state surveys. Another factor, they said, is that he has withstood the ups and downs of the primary, including his own heart attack. At the same time, other candidates with once-high expectations, such as Kamala Harris, Cory Booker and Beto O’Rourke, have dropped out or languished in single digits in the polls.
“I believe people should take him very seriously. He has a very good shot of winning Iowa, a very good shot of winning New Hampshire, and other than Joe Biden, the best shot of winning Nevada,” said Dan Pfeiffer, who served as a adviser to former President Barack Obama. “He could build a real head of steam heading into South Carolina and Super Tuesday.”
The durability of Sanders’ candidacy has come as a surprise even in some states where he performed strongly in 2020, and where he is attempting to improve his standing ahead of the 2020 election.
California state Sen. Scott Wiener, who defeated a Sanders-backed Democrat for his seat in the liberal-heavy San Francisco area in 2016, said that Sanders has been “more resilient than I anticipated.”
“But in retrospect,” he added, “he has a very, very loyal following, and people have really stuck with him.”
Sanders is in second place in national polls, nearly 9 percentage points behind Joe Biden, according to the most recent RealClearPolitics average. He is second in Iowa and first in New Hampshire. The latest CNN poll found that he has the highest net favorability rating of any Democratic presidential candidate.
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While Sanders’ supporters complain relentlessly that he has received less attention from the media than other candidates, he has also avoided sustained criticism that some of his rivals have suffered. That could be helping him, especially compared with Warren, who has recently come under fire from the left and center for her health care plan.
“If you really think about it, Bernie hasn’t been hit a lot with anything. It’s not like he’s getting hit by other campaigns,” said Michael Ceraso, a former New Hampshire director for Pete Buttigieg’s campaign who worked for Sanders in 2016.
“You sort of take for granted that he, like Biden, are institutional figures for very different reasons,” Ceraso said. “Early in the campaign, Bernie’s people said, ‘Look, this guy in these early states has a nice hold, and there’s a percentage of supporters, a quarter of the electorate will potentially go for him.” He added, “It waned a little bit because people were looking at other options … and now they’re saying, ‘Wait a minute, this guy has been the most consistent of anyone.”
At the beginning of the year — another high point for Sanders’ campaign, before Warren surged — some establishment Democrats talked about how to stop his momentum. Brock, who has a close relationship with many Democratic donors, said he has not heard anything like that being revived in recent weeks: “That doesn’t mean it won’t happen. This is more of an analysis in the political world than in the donor world.”
Many moderate Democrats still dismiss Sanders’ candidacy. They believe his so-called ceiling remains intact, and that Warren will depress any room for growth he might otherwise have.
“He can’t win the nomination,” said Matt Bennet, co-founder of the center-left group Third Way, adding that Sanders’ uptick is simply him “bouncing around between his ceiling and his floor a little bit more than people had thought he would.”
On the other hand, he acknowledged his staying power. “Not until the very end will people say to Bernie Sanders, ‘When are you dropping out?’”
A series of TV segments around last week’s Democratic debate illustrate the shift in how Sanders is being perceived. “We never talk about Bernie Sanders. He is actually doing pretty well in this polling,” former senior Obama adviser David Axelrod said on CNN after the event. “He’s actually picked up. And the fact is Bernie Sanders is as consistent as consistent can be.”
The same day on MSNBC, national political correspondent Steve Kornacki said, “Democratic voters like him, and if he starts winning, there could be a bandwagon effect.” GOP pollster Frank Luntz, who conducted a California focus group that found most participants thought Sanders had won the debate, said on CNBC, “I think you’re going to see continued movement. Sanders has been gaining in California over the past two months.”
Larry Cohen, chairman of the pro-Sanders group Our Revolution, said Warren’s candidacy is not a problem for Sanders if both of them can — together — amass a plurality of delegates heading into the convention.
“The math is that if you think of the voters for Warren and the voters for Sanders as two circles, yes, there is overlap, [but] most of the circles are separate,” Cohen said. “I think between them, we can get to a majority.”
If Sanders’ candidacy continues to be taken seriously, he will eventually be subjected to the scrutiny that Warren and Biden have faced for prolonged stretches. That includes an examination of his electability. “That conversation has never worked well for anyone,” said Pfeiffer. MOST READ Bernie Sanders
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Former California Gov. Gray Davis stopped short of saying firm support for Medicare for All would be an impediment for Democrats in the primary, but suggested the risk for the nominee is significant.
“Californians and Americans in general like options — not mandates,” he said.
Faiz Shakir, Sanders’ campaign manager, said political insiders and pundits are rethinking his chances “not out of the goodness of their heart,” but because “it is harder and harder to ignore him when he’s rising in every average that you see.” And he welcomes a conversation about Sanders’ electability, he said.
“We want that,” he said. “I’d love to be able to argue why he stands a better chance to beat Donald Trump than Joe Biden.”
Only a little over a month to go to Iowa for the Dems. I think Bloomberg is going to regret skipping the early primaries.
Iowa, this year will be a disaster for the Dems. No front runner...........................
I think unionistas will turn out for Bernie, those that aren’t voting for Trump. I’ve never understood the claim that Biden had the unionista crowd. Every hard core unionista leftist I ever met was a Bernie bot!
Bernie’s real problem is the 700+ superdelegates.
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The democrats don’t really have much use for democracy, do they?
When is Her Hideousness set to waddle back in to claim her rightful throne?
Actually, it means "red hair" on the body in Hokkien.
Curious as to why you would choose a semi-pejorative as a screen name. It's like calling yourself "gringo."
In Mandarin, they use "waiguoren" for "foreigner." That's much nicer than "gwailo," which is pretty bad in Cantonese.
Good to see someone with Southeast Asian connections on FR.
Simple disinformation for when they cheat Bernie out of the nomination again it will have the appearance of legitimacy.
It’s Joe Malarkey. That’s who the establishment has selected.
The Scandinavian countries are capitalist in structure with very high rates of taxation. They are nanny states but not socialist by definition. The Scandinavian states are large, overbearing, over-taxing, and overbearing but do not own the means of production.
Sanders will say he’s for choice but once he is in power, he will be his old subversive self, looking for ways to consolidate the left into permanent power by undermining the Constitution.
First, he will work overtime to get rid of the Electoral College and to destabilize the Senate as it is currently structured by rules as a bulwark against radical change and easy leftist tyranny.
He also thinks Trumps’s wall is not such a bad idea after all. Why? He will take a page out of Nikita Khrushchev’s book. Khrushchev ordered the Berlin Wall, and the barrier separating East from West Germany, built to keep East Germans from migrating to freedom. The wall at the Mexican border will be useful to Sanders to keep Americans from fleeing his coming socialist tyranny.
Study Sanders. He is an old fashioned Trotskyite. He despises the Chi-Comms because they adopted the capitalist economic model. They are right wingers to him. His deception is that low information voters think he is anti-communist because he opposes the Red Chinese. They couldn’t be more wrong.
There is going to be only one way to defeat this guy after he wins the Dem nomination, and I believe he might very well win it. President Trump must get VERY personal about this guy’s background and his history. He is a Communist of the old variety. Very few people know anything at all about him. He is the original red diaper baby. President Trump must get very negative and very personal to beat him.
Above all, do not underestimate Bernie Sanders.
The hardcore leftists will be out there registering dogs, illegal aliens, dead folks, and anyone else they can register to vote to win this race. But I believe the president can out-register them.
Our men and women in uniform must never have to salute this absolute despot posing as a democratic (small d) American political figure. Sanders is in love with old fashioned socialism of the authoritarian kind, not capitalism of any kind, including the Scandinavian kind. He must never be allowed anywhere near the presidency.
The Electoral College can only be gotten rid of by a Constitutional Amendment, not by legislation or Executive Order. The POTUS has no say-so in the matter..............
and AOC will be his VP , age limit be damned ,LOL
Very well stated about Bernie!
And again let me than the voters of Vermont for enabling this dangerous fool of 40 years!
I didn’t say how exactly he would go about it, but believe me, they are going to try to do it no matter what it takes.
Don’t think they can’t get it done. They can.
> IMHO the nominee is still a “player to be named later”, by the party bosses, the super delegates. <
I agree. According to the new DNC rules, the superdelegates can vote starting with the second ballot. And there probably will be a second ballot.
So my early money is on Hillary or Biden or Michelle (in that order).
Sorry, but unless someone takes everyone else out, Bernie will not be the nominee.. he has a solid low to mid teen support, and that’s where he’s been and hasn’t moved an inch since this all began... His supporters will vote for him until they have no choice, but he hasn’t expanded his base 1 iota...
This is wishful thinking by those who support him.
It’s really easy. All he has to do is get 3/4 of the State legislatures (38 of 50) to pass it...............
"I read about this, and laughed so hard I filled my adult diaper! Imagine someone saying John Bolton has a shot at the Republican nomination, THAT'S how funny it is!"
“It may have been inevitable that eventually you would have two candidates representing each side of the ideological divide in the party. A lot of smart people I’ve talked to lately think there’s a very good chance those two end up being Biden and Sanders,” said David Brock, a longtime Hillary Clinton ally who founded a pro-Clinton super PAC in the 2016 campaign. “They’ve both proven to be very resilient.” ... “I believe people should take him very seriously. He has a very good shot of winning Iowa, a very good shot of winning New Hampshire, and other than Joe Biden, the best shot of winning Nevada,” said Dan Pfeiffer, who served as a adviser to former President Barack Obama.
Thanks Red Badger, I needed a good laugh. Brock? Pfeiffer who? Bernie won't even live long enough to watch Biden accept the nomination.
Bernie will do as well as McGovern did.
Hillary-Sanders 2020............................
Or Mondale..................
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