His path is so narrow that some of Sanders’ senior aides have even advised him to consider dropping out, though not everyone in his inner circle feels the same way, according to people familiar with the situation.
Another possible reason for not explaining his long-shot course to victory: it depends on something his staff and allies have for the most part only whispered about — an epic Biden collapse. But his remarks also suggest that Sanders could decide to remain in the race even absent a path in hopes of tugging Biden to the left, a task many progressives see as even more critical amid the coronavirus pandemic and economic meltdown.
“He knows he has a mathematical path if he starts to win these primaries, and they’re primaries he’s won before in 2016,” said Larry Cohen, chairman of the Sanders-founded group Our Revolution, who has known Sanders for nearly 30 years. “But he always knows that he is the leader of the progressive Democrats and there’s millions of them left to vote and delegate count matters in terms of leverage.”
Sanders hinted at an alternative rationale for staying in the race on Friday, when he said on MSNBC that “the key goal is obviously to win, but the other goal is to be able to continue to fight to give people the opportunity to participate in the political process to stand up for the views that they believe in.”
In recent weeks, Sanders and his campaign have been speaking with his allies about what he should do next. Sanders acknowledged this week that “among my supporters, there are different points of view as to how we should proceed.” His staff likewise privately voice divergent opinions.
According to people familiar with his thinking, Sanders often agonizes over big choices, and he may still be coming to terms with the fact that he likely cannot take the nomination despite coming tantalizingly close earlier this year, they said.
“I just think he’s in his rumination phase. When he makes a decision, he ruminates and ruminates and ruminates, and gets enormously wrapped up in his head,” said a Democrat who has known Sanders for years. “It feels to me like that’s where he is: He’s sort of rolling it over.”
Many of Sanders’ allies have openly admitted that Biden is all but guaranteed to be the nominee. Still, some are urging him to stay in the race in order to collect delegates for the Democratic National Convention, which was pushed back to August because of the pandemic.
It is especially important to these Sanders supporters to maintain the rule changes they achieved in 2016, such as barring superdelegates from voting for presidential candidates on the first ballot. In order for his backers to have negotiating power, they said, Sanders needs to receive at least 1,200 delegates — he has more than 900 now — so they can introduce minority resolutions. They also hope that Sanders can push Biden to commit to progressive appointments.
“The party reforms go down the drain if he doesn’t stay in,” said Cohen, adding that if he drops out before hitting 1,200 delegates, “it’s going to be Biden’s people writing the platform, that’s it.”
In recent weeks, Sanders has retooled much of his campaign to focus on the coronavirus and workers’ rights — both markings of a candidate running a message candidacy rather than a true race against Biden. He has raised more than $3.5 million for coronavirus aid, while ceasing to actively raise money for himself. He has also used his email list and social media accounts to drive up support for Walmart and Amazon employees fighting for protective equipment and additional benefits during the pandemic.
But managing even a successful message campaign at this moment could prove difficult, given that the coronavirus death toll and response efforts are commanding nearly all of the media’s attention. Last weekend, CNN and ABC canceled tentative appearances with Sanders.
Despite how bad his prospects for victory look, some of Sanders’ allies and former aides argue that an upset is not out of the realm of possibility, especially in these catastrophic times — providing a window into at least some of Bernieworld’s thinking as he remains in the race.
The fact that moderates and conservatives are entertaining ideas such as free coronavirus treatment — combined with the fact that Sanders won Wisconsin in 2016, and Medicare for All’s popularity has risen to a nine-month high in a recent Morning Consult-Politico poll — is giving them a shred of hope.
“I’m pretty confident that he’s going to do very well in Wisconsin,” said Randy Bryce, the co-chair of Sanders’ campaign in the state. “He won 71 of 72 counties in 2016.”
But the respected Marquette Law School survey released this week found that a lot has changed since Sanders defeated Hillary Clinton there by double digits in 2016: Sanders now trails Biden by a whopping 28 percentage points. Regardless, some of Sanders’ allies continue to speculate that Biden could seriously stumble, giving him a reason to stay in the race.
“The path to someone else getting the nomination besides Joe Biden is Joe Biden on television, and Joe Biden exposing himself as a weak candidate. I’m hopeful that the Democratic Party will come to its senses and nominate Bernie Sanders,” said Kurt Ehrenberg, Sanders’ former longtime political strategist in New Hampshire. “It’s clear to people who look at it that the health care system is failing us when we need it most. Who else has been hearkening us to this problem in such an articulate and smart way?”
Asked whether it is harmful to the progressive cause for Sanders to lose to Biden by double digits in state after state, Ehrenberg said no. “At this point, numbers don’t matter. It’s the fight that matters. It’s what Bernie has always done well, which is lead the fight.”
Sanders has not advertised online or on television, and cannot hold his trademark large rallies due to the coronavirus. But despite his long odds, Sanders continues to quietly campaign in Wisconsin.
His volunteers and staffers have made more than 300,000 calls to remind voters in the state to request absentee ballots, with 1,000-plus of them participating in the outreach to residents in the last week and a half alone, an aide said. Sanders also has upwards of 50 staffers dedicated to Wisconsin, including a state coordinator, field director and political director.
Whether Sanders is campaigning in Wisconsin to lead the progressive fight — or believes he can still actually win the nomination — is a separate question.
I am just going to highlight a couple of portions of the article.
Another possible reason for not explaining his long-shot course to victory: it depends on something his staff and allies have for the most part only whispered about — an epic Biden collapse.
Some of us including Trump think that this is inevitable. A repeat comment from yesterday.
The Sicilian in me almost wants Biden to get anointed just to see the pure carnage that would result. https://t.co/0nIJMy3i8d
— Plain Ol’ Johnny Graz Stands With Tara Reade (@jvgraz) April 4, 2020
Maybe that is why we get a plethora of similar articles and the continuation of the Bernie blackout.
. Last weekend, CNN and ABC canceled tentative appearances with Sanders.
What we know from history is that someone always shows up to harvest this level of ambient rage — but it can go in two directions. If people can be made “angry at the crime,” as Steinbeck wrote, there can be huge positive political changes. During the Great Depression, Franklin D. Roosevelt and unions organized the anger and used it to create the New Deal and the largest middle class in history. In unluckier countries, like Germany, Italy and Japan, the political left failed. The fury was organized by fascists, and directed at innocents.
It’s tough to be optimistic that today’s liberals can replicate Roosevelt’s success. The corporate-managerial-legal class that operates the Democratic Party fears anger and sees it as illegitimate as the basis for action. Having beaten back the threat of the Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren presidential candidacies, both fueled by strong populist emotion, they dream of a technocratic politics purified of messy, fickle human feelings.
But the American right specializes in the politics of anger. If the Democrats refuse to harness the legitimate rage of Americans and direct it at those responsible for our predicament, the right will make this anger its own and will win.
It’s tough to be optimistic that today’s liberals can replicate Roosevelt’s success. The corporate-managerial-legal class that operates the Democratic Party fears anger and sees it as illegitimate as the basis for action.
I’m not sure they fear anger so much as refuse to USE that anger towards progressive causes.
So they do things like channel that anger towards Trump (an easy target) and then play their games in the background for their donor/corporate stakeholders, while ‘resisters’ are busy yelling at Bernie supporters to vote blue no matter who, no matter what they get in exchange for that blue loyalty.
Let’s recount some of the ways that Joe Biden has almost entirely faded into the background of American politics over the past handful of weeks.
Most recently, as coronavirus led to widespread social distancing, candidates have had to quickly adapt, finding new ways to reach out to voters in a world where traditional canvassing, rallies, and debates simply aren’t possible. This was, to put it mildly, a disastrous transition for the Biden campaign, with early efforts marred by technical difficulties and awkward moments. But even that fumbling beginning had to wait for days as his team tried to come up with, and I kid you not, “ways to do teleconferencing.” One wonders if anyone on his team owns an iPhone.
This bumbling, glacial adaptation to the new status quo culminated in the hashtag #WhereIsJoe trending on Twitter as people wondered where the presumptive nominee was hiding.
Think about that, and about what it represents. Our country is gripped by the greatest emergency it has faced in many years, and it took days for the potential next Democratic nominee to come up with a way to simply talk to reporters. Can you imagine Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) sitting patiently as his team spends days brainstorming ways to put together a live stream? Impossible. He’d have whipped out his smartphone and had a twitch stream with colleagues and medical professionals thrown together that night. He’d do that because he cares. Because he wants to get his message out. Because he truly wants to win this thing. Joe Biden, on the other hand, seemed content to simply put his entire campaign on hold rather than pick up the phone and call CNN.
Perhaps we’re past that phase, you might say. Biden is now regularly appearing on news shows, although often for short periods of time, and the appearances have been troubling, to say the least. But there are other potential appearances he’s said he’s not interested in.
Biden doesn’t want to debate Bernie Sanders any longer. This is a horrible look and a terrible strategy. In terms of optics, it looks like he’s scared to share the stage with Bernie. Far more importantly, in a time when he is struggling to spread his message to the American people, he’s opting out of the single biggest platform for that message. Millions of Americans watch these debates, and in a time when virtually everyone is looking for a solution to the pandemic, we can expect viewership to be even higher. Biden isn’t interested though. I suppose he doesn’t think he needs to make the case. Or he questions his ability to do so, especially when standing next to a candidate with no such difficult
Partially because of this, he now finds himself struggling to be viewed as relevant as coronavirus rapidly spreads across America. Donald Trump’s titanic shortcomings in this area have opened up a leadership vacuum, but it is one Joe Biden seems barely interested in trying to occupy.
This is the issue of the day. It is almost certainly the issue that will determine who wins the election come November. And what is Joe Biden’s approach to assuring the American people that he will protect them more fully and more vigorously than Donald Trump? It’s hands-off, to say the least.
He said recently that it was “a little too harsh” to say Donald Trump has blood on his hands. This, despite Donald Trump dragging his heels for nearly two months as the coronavirus spread across the globe and even now refusing to assist states in finding the ventilators and personal protective equipment they so badly need. He said he “doesn’t want to be in a political fight” with Trump over coronavirus. I don’t even know what that means.
Coronavirus is the election. Trump has a vision for how to respond to it. We can see that vision playing out as the death toll rises. Is Joe Biden seriously going to simply surrender the discussion around this virus to Trump without a fight? How could he possibly imagine the American people will replace Trump with someone who plans to fight COVID-19 with politeness?
His desire to avoid a political fight over the defining issue of 2020 makes me cringe, but it also sends a shiver up my spine when I think about what it represents in regard to Biden’s willingness to fight to win the election. We all remember Hillary Clinton taking multiple states for granted in 2016. Will Joe Biden be the fighter Clinton wasn’t? If he won’t even differentiate himself with Trump I don’t know why I’d assume he is.
If you want Trump to lose in November, these facts should terrify you. Biden is not going to beat an incumbent president while the country is rallying around him due to fear and uncertainty regarding coronavirus by simply hiding from the media, his Democratic opponents, and indeed Trump himself.
So when I ask if Joe Biden really even wants to be resident, I ask it as a thought experiment for you to consider, but far more importantly, I’m asking it of Joe Biden.
Is this really what you want? Is this really something you’ll fight for?
Twelve doctors at her hospital and the chief executive were sickened with the coronavirus. A colleague had died. Patients as young as 19 were being placed on ventilators.
But Michele Acito, the director of nursing at Holy Name Medical Center, in the hardest-hit town in New Jersey’s hardest-hit county, felt like she was holding up.
Then her mother-in-law, sister-in-law and brother-in-law arrived, gasping for air.
The disease that has crippled New York City is now enveloping New Jersey’s densely packed cities and suburbs. The state’s governor said on Friday that New Jersey was about a week behind New York, where scenes of panicked doctors have gripped the nation.
Hospitals in the state are scrambling to convert cafeterias and pediatric wings into intensive care units. Ventilators are running low. One in three nursing homes has at least one resident with the virus.
At Holy Name in Teaneck, just across the Hudson River from Manhattan, two doctors are among the 150 patients being treated for the virus.
The ages of the 41 people on ventilators one day last week ranged from 19 to 90.
Twenty patients died in 72 hours.
One of them was Edna Acito, Ms. Acito’s mother-in-law.
Though New York City remains the nation’s epicenter for the coronavirus outbreak with thousands of new cases every day, officials are increasingly concerned about emerging hot spots near the city.
Citing coastal communities increasingly crowded by those fleeing other hot spots, Mr. Murphy announced that New Jersey would move to make it easier for municipalities or counties to block “rentals to transient guests or seasonal tenants” for the duration of the crisis, including at hotels and motels.
On Long Island, a rapid increase in cases brought New York City’s share of the statewide cases down to 65 percent, from 75 percent. It raised questions about the continuing migration of the city’s residents to second homes in beach communities or areas of the Hudson Valley — though Mr. Cuomo said he did not know if that kind of movement was contributing to the increase in cases on Long Island.
one thing we learned from the 2020 Democratic primary is that being a co-sponsor of the Medicare for All Act of 2019 is not the same thing as actually supporting Medicare for All.
Still trying to understand why it's permissible to tout the endorsement of Mike Stop-And-Frisk Bloomberg — who endorsed Bush/Cheney in 2004 and Scott Brown over Elizabeth Warren in 2012 – but it's immoral to tout Joe Rogan's endorsement.
what should the countries of the world be doing now?
Unfortunately, at present countries hardly do any of these things. A collective paralysis has gripped the international community. There seem to be no adults in the room. One would have expected to see already weeks ago an emergency meeting of global leaders to come up with a common plan of action. The G7 leaders managed to organise a videoconference only this week, and it did not result in any such plan.
In previous global crises — such as the 2008 financial crisis and the 2014 Ebola epidemic — the US assumed the role of global leader. But the current US administration has abdicated the job of leader. It has made it very clear that it cares about the greatness of America far more than about the future of humanity.
This administration has abandoned even its closest allies. When it banned all travel from the EU, it didn’t bother to give the EU so much as an advance notice — let alone consult with the EU about that drastic measure. It has scandalised Germany by allegedly offering $1bn to a German pharmaceutical company to buy monopoly rights to a new Covid-19 vaccine. Even if the current administration eventually changes tack and comes up with a global plan of action, few would follow a leader who never takes responsibility, who never admits mistakes, and who routinely takes all the credit for himself while leaving all the blame to others.
article from Financial times for free. Most of their work is behind a pay wall, but they are making pieces on the pandemic open
There are probably a few ghoulish dems that want to see the fatalities soar as a political advantage also.
Total MAGA meltdown in these replies. What do people expect Cuomo to do here? Let people die? Ideally he would have planned better and not gutted public healthcare but in the short term these fucking weirdos want people to die to prevent a minor PR win for China. Cold War 🧠 🐛 https://t.co/IRPCKsArjy
What’ll people think when they extend that logic and realize what the country already does for some other favors.
Don midwest
THE POLITICAL POSSIBILITIES of this moment are different than anything we have ever experienced. We possess a once in a lifetime opportunity to make the United States a more humane country. But if we fail to seize it, we will face mortal danger from the right.
That’s not hyperbole. The anger of Americans, once they figure out what’s being done to them right now, is going to be volcanic. The fallout from 9/11 and the great recession of 2007-2010 will be imperceptible in comparison.
Not long from now, almost everyone will have a family member or friend who died of Covid-19, many of them suffocating in isolation wards with insufficient treatment, perhaps deprived of a ventilator that would have saved their lives. Huge swaths of the country are plummeting into desperate penury, even as they witness large corporations unlock the U.S. Treasury and help themselves to everything inside.
the political parties are actually factions
they want to keep the establishment going
both of them
remember the expression “party to a crime”
that is probably a dumb line, but this article in The Intercept is the challenge facing the US as a country
What will it take for Americans to figure out that the DNC and RNC are servants to corporate fascism. We’ve been warned by several politicians over our existence as a nation that a take over will happen and has. Bernie would’ve of slowed it to a halt or at least forced people to pay attention..
The FBI opened up terrorism investigations into Palestine solidarity organizations, FOIA docs show. Important and damning investigation by @ChipGibbons89https://t.co/IEJHFT8X0R
Now that it’s warming up a bit, I hope Bernie moves some of his livestreams outside.
I can see him standing on a little stage (the one at Bernie’s Back rally was quite small) with a couple of big screens to either side of him, one showing the person asking Bernie a question and another from viewers’ homes, let’s say, watching with their family, even if from behind to protect identities.
wpDiscuz
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/05/bernie-sanders-path-to-victory-165161
Continued
I am just going to highlight a couple of portions of the article.
Some of us including Trump think that this is inevitable. A repeat comment from yesterday.
Maybe that is why we get a plethora of similar articles and the continuation of the Bernie blackout.
“likely cannot” is just another word for “hail mary pass.” 🤗🦜❤️
https://theintercept.com/2020/04/05/coronavirus-american-politics-democratic-party-biden-sanders/
I’m not sure they fear anger so much as refuse to USE that anger towards progressive causes.
So they do things like channel that anger towards Trump (an easy target) and then play their games in the background for their donor/corporate stakeholders, while ‘resisters’ are busy yelling at Bernie supporters to vote blue no matter who, no matter what they get in exchange for that blue loyalty.
Bernie should be on this show too. (carry over from my last night’s rant). What’s he got to lose?
https://thehill.com/opinion/491199-does-joe-biden-really-want-to-be-president
Finally an article that I can recommend.😁👏👌
For sure. T and R, jcb!! 🕊😊
Wow. The Hill. Pretty bad when the only good press Bernie gets is from the right-leaning media.
Why are Dems afraid of the R’s?
bc they’re on the same gravy train, but using Rs as an excuse is helpful?
It’s the nature of the beasts.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/05/nyregion/coronavirus-new-york-update.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/05/nyregion/coronavirus-new-york-update.html
How is your partner today in his recovery of COVID?
Getting better but definitely not finished yet
oh thank god. and that you didn’t have a bad case. {{{❤️}}}
I hope he recovers fully very soon!
Much strength to you both. ((hug))
what should the countries of the world be doing now?
article from Financial times for free. Most of their work is behind a pay wall, but they are making pieces on the pandemic open
Yuval Noah Harari: the world after coronavirus | Free to read
This storm will pass. But the choices we make now could change our lives for years to come
what choices are the political parties in the US making right now that will change our lives in the future?
what does the future mean today?
which presidential candidate is better to lead us in the future?
There are probably a few ghoulish dems that want to see the fatalities soar as a political advantage also.
What’ll people think when they extend that logic and realize what the country already does for some other favors.
the political parties are actually factions
they want to keep the establishment going
both of them
remember the expression “party to a crime”
that is probably a dumb line, but this article in The Intercept is the challenge facing the US as a country
The Democratic Party Must Harness the Legitimate Rage of Americans. Otherwise, the Right Will Use It With Horrifying Results.
What will it take for Americans to figure out that the DNC and RNC are servants to corporate fascism. We’ve been warned by several politicians over our existence as a nation that a take over will happen and has. Bernie would’ve of slowed it to a halt or at least forced people to pay attention..
remember Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11” movie when a group of elderly, Quakers, were peace activists and spied on by the FBI?
Glenn Greenwald says over and over, when a few good things come out of the FBI, don’t forget the harm they have done to our country over the years
when are all the documents on the Kennedy assignation going to be published?
https://twitter.com/proviewsusa/status/1246806290359365632?s=20
Now that it’s warming up a bit, I hope Bernie moves some of his livestreams outside.
I can see him standing on a little stage (the one at Bernie’s Back rally was quite small) with a couple of big screens to either side of him, one showing the person asking Bernie a question and another from viewers’ homes, let’s say, watching with their family, even if from behind to protect identities.