The thought just occurred to me: what is the source of the Bernie campâs speculation that given his âmomentumâ in caucuses and an occasional state, the Super Delegates to the Democratic convention will start to support him?
Why would a Super Delegate to the Democratic convention support a candidate who a) is not a Democrat, and b) is apparently warming to the idea of trashing the credentials and qualifications of the woman likely to beat him?
Sounds like a lost cause to me.
I think Bernie did have momentum coming out of WI that could have made it a lot closer in NY, maybe even another decimal point win. But he blew it up going way too negative way too strong, it looked defensive and amateurish. And following up with âshe started itâ didnât help. Whoever told him it was time to attack should be fired.
BE STILL MY HEARTâŚat first glance I thought this article was referring to the Republican Chairman. NOW that was a bridge to far.
Clearly, Hillary is our best shot at the WH. ON that note I think Hillary needs to align herself close to Berneâs message. The DNC as well, BERNIEâS message IS NOT going away anytime soon. IT IS A MOVEMENT. I would rather be on the right page going forward than NOT.
Once he decided to shift his target from influencing the Dem platform to actually winning the nomination, he had no choice but to go negative. He (or his advisersâŚ) realized that he was already nearly hopelessly behind in delegates and needed a game changer: something that would damage HRC so much that it might tempt the superdelegates to defect. Thatâs the reason I didnât want Sen. Sanders to stay in the race, I knew that if he were seriously trying to win he would have to go negative on HRC.
Countdown until the BernieBros denounce Cummings as a âWall Street lackeyâ and âtool of the Establishmentâ in 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . .
She already is highly aligned with a progressive message. And the way it works is that the loser is supposed to support the nominee, not the other way around.
Youâre late to the party my friend.They already have. After he made his comment about not seeing Sen. Sanders during the civil rights movement I read a comment from a Sen. Sanders supporter calling him an âUncle Tomâ.
Hmmm, this calls for an investigation â maybe even a select committee.
Completely agree. âGet off my lawn-ismâ and seemingly no real consideration for the truth. Although I am disgusted with the media and especially the WAPO for 147 FBI and the BS quotes.
Youâre right. And itâs already hurt him, as evidenced in the Wyoming numbers, which had been expected to be much better.
He could have weathered the Daily News interview, and he couldâve defended himself against the Clinton campaign innuendoes by responding in kind, but he wasnât deft and light on his feet, and American voters donât like personal attacks. They helped to sink Clinton in '08 and it feels very much like Bernie is sinking himself now.
But we can all also have a sense of humor about this war of words. It wonât end the Republic.
Thatâs always been a head-scratcher for anyone with even a tiny bit of knowledge of what a âsuper delegateâ is.
Bernieâs been in Congress for 25 years. Yet he has done 0, nothing, nada, squat, for any Democratic Party Super Delegate (Senators, Congresscritters, Governors, etc).
And Bernie occasionally comes out aggressively against Democratic Party members and/or leaders. He wasnât even a Democratic Party member until he decided to run for President late last year. (cough-***carpetbagger alert!!***-cough)
All the while Hillaryâs been out there for years raising money for the Democratic Party and its members (10s of millions), helping, campaigning, etc. You know, actually getting work done to elect progressives vs just railing at clouds in the sky and anyone within a 10 yard radius about Wall Street and Oligarchs and Banks (all while not having any plan on what to actually do about them).
Oh, and his current campaign is based on the premise that the Democratic Party (aka âthe establishmentâ) is so âcorruptâ that it needs to be destroyed.
But per BernieManiacs and Bernie himself, the Super Delegates will come out and support Bernie. Definitely. Any day now. (NOT!!!)
Just hope they donât hold their breathâŚ
Hereâs what I think happened: There was a Clinton memo leaked to the press that said they were going to attempt to disqualify Sanders in the coming weeks. Sanders then got wind of the WaPo article with the headline saying Clinton called him unqualified (she never said anything of the sort). I think it was at that point that they decided to go all in on negativity, so Sanders set out to hit back hard and keep hitting. Meanwhile, the Clinton camp realized he was doing more damage to himself than to her campaign, and they backed off while he kept digging.
I think he spent the weekend blowing it up because he is frustrated. He underperformed badly in Wyo - he needed to win big and he split the delegates with her. That effectively shut down any path to victory he thought he saw. So he started running his mouth. He spent the whole weekend doing it.
He canât win. Going so loudly negative isnât changing that.
I commented to a several of my friends after it happened that the March 8th, Michigan result was the worst possible result. I like Bernie a lot, but his win there gave the campaign hope that I knew would lead to some dark rhetoric. Had he lost in MI, the March 15th drubbing would have felt like the last nail in the coffin. He would have continued and would have done well in the next states, but the margins would have been thinner and enthusiasm would be diminished - not gone - but the tone would have stayed respectful because winning the nomination would have been completely out of the question. It would have stayed an issues campaign.
Now - Iâm not so sure I was right about it being the worst possible result. His persistent threat has forced income inequality right into the craw of the Democratic Party which is an undeniably good thing. Even though we have many good people on this issue, it is an issue that the entire party needs to take to heart. Iâm happy to credit Sanders with making that much more likely to be the case. It sucks that we arenât coming together as a party just yet, but August is a long way off. There is time. What Bernie does if/when he loses NY is the big tell.
Sanders has no path that does not depend on the super delegates. Ironic, ainât it?
Thatâs as perfect a summation as Iâve seen. I hadnât read about the leaked memo, but thanks for pointing it out. The storyâs complete with that piece.
Like, you know, advocating that the sitting President be primariedâŚrepeatedly and publicly.
Iâm an Obama supporter from the beginning, but when he was in talks with Republicans to make concessions on Social Security and Medicare on in order to get them to raise the debt ceiling, I think it was a good thing that someone stood up and opposed that. And it was these talks that were the last straw for Sanders; they led directly to his idea that someone (not him) should primary Obama. It was a very strong stand, on behalf of the Americans who depend on their benefits and entitlements.
Iâm grateful to Sanders for opposing those deals.
The president used SS and Medicare to call the Republicansâ bluff and it worked very well. President Obama knew Boehner would never be able to get his caucus to agree to additional spending and all the other things he (Obama) was asking for in exchange for the SS and Medicare cuts. The idea was to change the media narrative from âboth sides wonât work togetherâ to âthe president is putting real meat on the bone, heâs offering serious concessions in exchange for a dealâ. Plus, what never gets mentions is that even if heâd made the deal with Boehner there was certainly no guarantee that his party would actually vote for it. But that never came to pass because, just as Obama knew, Boehner couldnât get his party to agree to it. In the end, the president got exactly what he wanted out of it, he got to make the GOP once again look like obstructionists and exposed Boehnerâs weakness while revealing the first divisions within the GOP. It was an unmitigated win for the president, and the only people whoâve made mention of it since are some liberals who are still upset with him over something that never actually happened.