Bernie Sanders Soared Back To Life. But He Couldn't Close The Deal.

[Gothmog]

This is a very long but good read. There is a great deal of history about the internal workings of the sanders campaign. The bottom line was that sanders was counting on winning with 30% of the vote and the campaign fell apart when the moderate wing stop splitting the vote and Mayor Pete, Amy and Beto endorsed Joe

Link to tweet

HuffPost spoke to more than three dozen Sanders aides, allies and critics about why the progressive leader stumbled. Many of them requested anonymity to speak freely.

The answers they suggested are myriad. He failed to erect a campaign nimble enough to overcome the built-in challenges he was bound to face from a skeptical press corps and a hostile party establishment. He hung his electoral success on the relatively risky bet that he could both expand the electorate and do so in a way that would benefit him disproportionately. His staff feuded unnecessarily with Elizabeth Warren, and he failed to make inroads with older Black voters ― a repeat of 2016 dynamics.

Perhaps most significantly, Sanders failed to expand his core bloc of support into a coalition capable of winning a majority, and he did not adequately prepare for the prospect that moderates would consolidate behind Biden.

“There was a strategy to get to 30% and not to 50%,” one Sanders ally said.....

Of course, Sanders’ professed theory of the case did not require him to muse about how he might reach voters outside his demographic and ideological comfort zones. That’s because he insisted that his fortunes rested on bringing in new voters. He planned to expand the electorate by increasing turnout among an allegedly untapped bloc of young and working-class voters with a progressive worldview.

“The mythical voter that stayed home, but if you just give them a progressive candidate, they’ll show up ― it’s a lot like the tooth fairy, you hear about it a lot, but you never see it,” Mikus said. .....

In the end though, Sanders’ posture as a left-wing candidate likely did more to hurt his chances among South Carolina’s older Black voters than any single decision his campaign made.

Older Black Democrats, especially in the South, typically prioritize a Democrat’s electability above all else, since they believe protecting the freedoms they have won depends on keeping Republicans out of power, according to Darby. Biden’s perceived electability vis-a-vis the more radical Sanders was thus a critical factor.

Although Sanders racked up wins in the first three states to vote, he never managed to convince Black voters in South Carolina that he was the strongest contender against Trump in November. Clyburn’s endorsement of Biden three days before the primary was particularly powerful in this respect, according to polling.

“If the house is on fire, you put out the fire first, then you figure out what to do with the house,” Darby said. “I think Joe was the best person to put out the fire.”

This is a long read and there is a good discussion of the issues between sanders and Senator Warren. After reading this political obituary, it is clear to me that the primary is over

sanders based his campaign on a magical voter revolution that never materialized in the real world. One cannot win a primary with 30% of the vote unless the remaining 70% is split. sanders never anticipated that Amy, Mayor Pete and Beto would put the best interests of the Nation and the party over their own self interests because that is a concept that is foreign to sanders

[comradebillyboy]

1. Adaptig to changing circumstances is not something Sanders

is capable of. It never occurred to him he might need more than 30%.

By the way Pete won Iowa not Sanders.

[Thekaspervote]

2. His followers lived to go to his rallies, yet only a small percentage of them bothered to vote

Without the rallies, he dead in the water. He knows that, his campaign staff knows that!

I for one will be very very happy when he’s gone

[The Magistrate]

3. Sanders Believed Everyone Would Act As He Does, Sir

"From Bernie’s perspective, dropping out of a race once you have no chance of winning is peculiar behavior that can only be explained by the work of a hidden hand. For most politicians, though, it is actually standard operating procedure. Only Sanders seems to think the normal thing to do once voters have made clear they don’t want to nominate you is to continue campaigning anyway."





"When things are not called by their right names, what is said cannot make sense. When what is said does not make sense, what is planned cannot succeed. When plans do not succeed, people become uneasy. When people are uneasy, punishments do not fit crimes. When punishments do not fit crimes, people cannot know where to put hand or foot."

[Indykatie]

4. Bernie's 30% Strategy Would Have Won the Most Delegates Had Amy and Pete Stayed in The Race

Clearly neither of them would have done well on Super Tuesday but it was still stunning for them to drop out and be so passionate about supporting Biden. It save the Dem Party primary from being taken over by Bernie which would lead to a very nasty fight at the convention. Bernie never saw it coming and had no plan B since he couldn't beat Biden in a 2 or 3 person race.

[comradebillyboy]

9. Amy and Pete have my undying respect and admiration

for their political courage.

[Blue_true]

15. Sanders has been so invested in pissing on the mythical "democratic establishment" that

he completely missed the fact that the democratic establishment is everyday men and women. People were willing to overlook his initial pokes to their eyes, but when he began to imply that he was going to run over them and there was nothing they could do, those voters began waiting for an opening to put Sanders in his place, Buttigieg, Klobuchar and O'Rourke provided that opening the day before Super Tuesday.

Sanders made critical missteps coming into Super Tuesday, making even more hostile statements about democrats, holding big rallies in Massachusetts and Minnesota, almost to totally humiliate Senators Warren and Klobuchar. His missteps backfired massively on him on Super Tuesday.

[marble falls]

5. Bernie will be very effective in Senate, as he has been.

[Frances]

6. What were the issues between Sanders and Warren

[The Magistrate]

10. Two-Fold, Ma'am

She had actual plans for things 'Bernie' talked up, but had no details for.

Second, she is a woman, and 'Bernie' seems to have some difficulty dealing with women who do not confine themselves to making coffee and engaging in hero worship of stalwart radicals.





"From Bernie’s perspective, dropping out of a race once you have no chance of winning is peculiar behavior that can only be explained by the work of a hidden hand. For most politicians, though, it is actually standard operating procedure. Only Sanders seems to think the normal thing to do once voters have made clear they don’t want to nominate you is to continue campaigning anyway."





"When things are not called by their right names, what is said cannot make sense. When what is said does not make sense, what is planned cannot succeed. When plans do not succeed, people become uneasy. When people are uneasy, punishments do not fit crimes. When punishments do not fit crimes, people cannot know where to put hand or foot."

[Blue_true]

16. His campaign put out talking points to it's field workers that basically

said that Senator Warren was a non-starter as a candidate. Then Sanders compounded that by implying that she was lying about a conversation the two had in 2018.

[msongs]

7. its not his politics and views, it's Him nt

[Blue_true]

17. I agree.

I just don't see why his supporters didn't get behind Inslee or Warren massively.

Sanders comes off as toxic, a one gear person that is incapable of seeing that his opposition has some valid arguments. It was always about his worldview, nothing else mattered to him. Inslee and Warren were much better balanced as leftish candidates and they could have drawn in left-center democrats like me who gravitated to Biden once Inslee, then Warren were not making headway.

[George II]

8. So he was hoping to bully 70% of the Democratic Party with his 30% "plurality"? That is....

....a cynical use of OUR Democratic Party for one's own purposes.

[The Magistrate]

11. That Is The Thing In A Nutshell, Sir

"From Bernie’s perspective, dropping out of a race once you have no chance of winning is peculiar behavior that can only be explained by the work of a hidden hand. For most politicians, though, it is actually standard operating procedure. Only Sanders seems to think the normal thing to do once voters have made clear they don’t want to nominate you is to continue campaigning anyway."





"When things are not called by their right names, what is said cannot make sense. When what is said does not make sense, what is planned cannot succeed. When plans do not succeed, people become uneasy. When people are uneasy, punishments do not fit crimes. When punishments do not fit crimes, people cannot know where to put hand or foot."

[Blue Owl]

12. Soared?

Not sure that's the word I'd use...

[Gothmog]

13. Sanders is under 30% in this poll

Link to tweet

[Blue_true]

18. The less strident of his supporters are starting to see the light.

They now realize that 70% of voters is a well armored, impenetrable wall. Some of his supporters have surrendered without holding out conditions, while some others are negotiating terms of surrender, then there are a small number that plan on fighting to the figurative death.

[William769]

14. Kick & recommended.

[UncleNoel]

19. I am still amazed at how Joe orchestrated the unbelievable colition of Amy, Pete and Beto. How did h

How did he do that virtually over night? And bring them all together on stage at rallies. It was amazing.

Was it Joe's ability to bring people together? Certainly in part it was the patriotism of Amy, Pete and Beto to put their own egos on the back burner and standup for America. But it must have involved Joe and his team coordinating the process in profound ways at a critical time.

At any rate, never saw anything like this in American politics. This alone makes Joe so truely credible as a leader.

[Gothmog]

20. One month ago tonight - but it feels like a million years ago

Link to tweet

[Cha]

21. Good on the HuffPost! ".. BS' speech writer.. david sirota.."

that says a whole lot right there..

Just because someone has "..deeply held convictions.." Doesn't mean they're the best. I don't see "stubbornness and independence" as "strengths".. necessarily. A candidate needs Coalitions and Friends to build a strong campaign. And "stubbornness" speaks for itself.

In a memo he drafted, Longabaugh recommended that Sanders demonstrate a commitment to that goal early on by kicking off his campaign with a high-profile speech on racial justice in Chicago. (He would end up delivering a kickoff speech there, but it did not focus exclusively on race.) He also suggested that Sanders court the leaders of major labor unions ― officials who had shunned him the first time, despite the depth of support for Sanders among their members.

Longabaugh left the BS campaign in 2019 over creative differences.

WTG Nina.. I'm sure you helped a lot.. not.

Turner also sometimes initiated assaults on Sanders’ rivals that the candidate himself had not yet engaged in. Ahead of the November debate in Atlanta, for example, Turner took thinly veiled shots at former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, before clarifying that she did not speak for the campaign.

More on Turner towards the end of the long long article which I totally recommend reading!

Sanders tapped Turner, a Cleveland native and his closest Black confidante, to serve as his political emissary in the state. She began courting endorsements for Sanders early in 2019, helping him line up support from nine state lawmakers ― all of them Black. Sanders himself would go on to hold 70 events in the state over the course of his run.

Turner, for example, rather than a local lawmaker, authored the January op-ed in a state newspaper blasting Biden’s record on civil rights matters.

South Carolina wasn't buying what Nina was selling.

Mahalo, Goth.. Well Worth Reading! Even though it encompassed so much I think some important things were not included, that we saw from being right here on DU.