Is The Media Building Up Warren In The Hopes Of Destroying Bernie?

The goal isn't to put Elizabeth Warren into the White House. They'll take care of her in due time. The goal is simple: to stop Bernie's people-powered campaign. Bernie means what he says and that would spell doom for those whose fortunes and social positions depend on the status quo. These people don't care if they get Biden or McKinsey Pete as the nominee-- nor even if Trump gets a second term-- for them anything is preferable to Benie (albeit Warren least so). But lately the political and media establishment are testing the waters to see if building her up could help in their efforts to drag him down. Remember the much ballyhooed quote from a few months ago from some nameless Wall Street Democrats: Bankers’ biggest fear: The nomination goes to an anti-Wall Street crusader like Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) or Sanders. "It can’t be Warren and it can’t be Sanders," said the CEO of another giant bank. “It has to be someone centrist and someone who can win." They haven't forgotten, even if you did.

Early Monday morning Bloomberg News-- whose billionaire owner is an anything-but-Bernie fanatic-- published this OpEd by Jonathan Bernstein: Is Bernie Sanders Finished?. "I think," wrote Bernstein, "it’s starting to sink in that Senator Bernie Sanders is right at the fringes of plausibility. At best. That’s what I’m seeing from the mainstream media, some liberal bloggers and sophisticated polling analysis. Recent Iowa polls show Sanders at about 15%, essentially in a three-person race for second place with Senator Elizabeth Warren and South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg. That’s for a candidate who won half the vote there in 2016."

And while Sanders is faring somewhat better nationally, that’s mainly because almost all the other candidates remain unknown to voters. As Nate Silver points out, only about 8% of Democrats say they’re definitely supporting Sanders. In other words, it’s entirely plausible that Sanders could fail to reach the delegate threshold in Iowa, Nevada, and South Carolina (and possibly New Hampshire). Even if he stayed in, he probably wouldn’t be much of a factor.

Sanders does have some assets, of course. That 8% matches former Vice President Joe Biden’s dedicated voters, and no one else registers as more than a rounding error at this point. If it’s true that any candidate can catch fire and surge in the polls, then Sanders definitely starts a step ahead of everyone but Biden. He also has plenty of money and the capacity for raising more. He remains well-liked by Democrats.

They just probably don’t want to vote for him. What happened to the 43% of the vote he received in primaries and caucuses in 2016? Only a fraction of those votes came from dedicated Sanders fans-- that is, people who really thought he should be president. Some of those voters wanted to push the party in a more liberal direction. Some thought they could send Hillary Clinton a message. Some just disliked Clinton. In short, it was clear at the time that a lot of Sanders votes were protest votes, and everything so far in 2020 confirms that he simply doesn’t have that many dedicated supporters.

It’s worth noting, too, that Sanders really hasn’t expanded his support among party actors. He’s in sixth place in endorsements so far. At least this time around he has Vermont’s politicians in his corner, but he has the backing of only a single member of Congress from the rest of the U.S.

How many members of Congress is Ro Khanna worth? 100? 120? 150? You decide that one. Bernie's non-embrace by the party establishment should be seen as a plus. not a negative. The party establishment is part of the problem, not a part of the solution. And by the way, one congressman who was about to endorse Bernie a month or two ago was dragged into Pelosi's office and when he came out he looked ashen... and didn't endorse. (Sorry for sounding mysterious; but I have been given permission to name him in "the book.")

And this is how Bloomberg ended his column: "I think when it comes to the most liberal voters, Noah Berlatsky has it right: 'There’s nothing wrong with Sanders. It’s just becoming increasingly clear that, for the 2020 primary electorate, there isn’t anything overwhelmingly right with him either.' Is it possible for Sanders to win? Sure. Is he among the 10 most likely nominees? I don’t think so."

Reuters' newly released push poll by Ipsos reports to have found Americans are more likely to say they would reject a candidate older than 70 than a candidate who is gay. You believe that? Fits the narrative though.

Personally, I think Warren would make a great president-- and in my dream she and Bernie run as a 2020 ticket and he's president in 2020 and she's president in 2024. My beef isn't with her at all. She would make a great president. My beef is with how her candidacy is being used this month by the media to tear down Bernie.

Yesterday's Washington Post piece by Michael Scherer, for example: Warren's Nonstop Ideas Reshape The Democratic Presidential Race-- And Give Her New Momentum. "Six months after launching her candidacy amid blundering apologies for her longtime claims of Native American ancestry and nagging questions about whether she could compete on a national stage, Warren is experiencing something unusual in the crowded Democratic field: momentum. It is not showing up in national polls, which have remained largely steady with Warren in the single digits, far behind former vice president Joe Biden. But energized crowds have been flocking to her events in early-voting states. Her nonstop stream of policy positions, which add up to what would be a restructuring of American capitalism, has helped shape the broader debate."

HuffPo, also yesterday, moved the narrative: Elizabeth Warren Is Winning Over Left-Wing Hearts In Iowa. Maxwell Strachan was in Cedar Rapids where he found a voter to say "I just feel like Warren is more of the planner. And Bernie, while I love him for this, he’s definitely more of the idealist."

The challenge Sanders faces in keeping hold of the progressive wing of the party is clear. When Sanders ran for president against Hillary Clinton in 2016, he did so as the sole face of the far-left movement. But this time around, numerous candidates have embraced elements of his progressive platform.

Sanders faces especially stiff competition from Warren, who has consistently made her own news through a series of ambitious policy proposals, including a wealth tax, universal child care and a plan to eliminate the vast majority of Americans’ student loan debt.

...In Iowa alone, Warren has attended 36 events, spoken to more than 7,000 Iowans and taken almost 5,000 selfies over eight trips. She also employs more than 50 paid staff members in the state, which has garnered the attention of top local Democrats.

“There is no doubt that Elizabeth Warren has had a remarkable field effort,” said Sue Dvorsky, a former Iowa Democratic Party chair.

The strategy has started to translate into energy among Iowans. Prior to the Des Moines Register releasing its poll on Saturday, J.D. Scholten, a Democrat who ran against GOP Rep. Steve King in Iowa’s 4th Congressional District last year, said Warren seemed to be “sneakily doing a lot better than what the polling suggests.”

“It is common to hear people say things like ‘I’m not going to express an opinion but Elizabeth Warren makes it hard to not express an opinion,’” said Steven Drahozal, the chair of the Dubuque County Democrats in Iowa.

Sanders’ support in Iowa remains substantial. More than 12,000 people in the state have donated to the Sanders campaign, and 25,000 have signed up to volunteer, according to his campaign. About 10,000 people have attended his events here.

On Sunday, Sanders marched toward the Hall of Fame celebration alongside impassioned supporters and striking McDonald’s workers fighting for higher wages and union representation.

But Robert Shrum, a University of Southern California politics professor who has worked on numerous presidential campaigns, said it seemed Warren was taking votes directly from Sanders. While Sanders remains firmly seated in second place in the national polls, a Quinnipiac poll released last month showed Warren receiving 30% of the vote from very liberal Democrats, while Sanders pulled in only 22%.

“Elizabeth Warren has wonked her way into the top tier of candidates,” Shrum said.

While Roeder would be “perfectly happy” with either Warren or Sanders as the nominee, he said he’s come to appreciate the number of proposals Warren has put out.

“I just feel like Warren is more of the planner. And Bernie, while I love him for this, he’s definitely more of the idealist,” Roeder said.

On Sunday, some of the people who spoke to HuffPost outside the Hall of Fame event felt similarly.

Johnny Khuu, 24, was a Sanders supporter in 2016. But this time around, he’s decided to join Warren’s campaign as an organizing fellow.

“I feel like the way she laid things out is much more well thought out,” Khuu said. “She has no problem talking about how she wants to pay for things. In fact, she’s ready to go at it. Whereas Bernie kind of brushes that question off.”

Odd how the media-- even ostensibly "liberal" media-- allows untruths like that just hang there unanswered. It's OK for 24 year old Johnny Khuu to believe Bernie wasn't the first-- and once the only-- candidate to answer the "how do you pay for it" question, but one might expect HuffPo to know better. And, by the way, who owns them again? And maybe they should give a little more context for Robert Shrum other than he worked on campaigns and teaches at USC? Which campaigns? Arch-conservatives Joe Lieberman and Zell Miller come to mind-- as do neoliberal nightmares like Dick Gephardt, Bob Kerrey, Jane Harman, Bill Nelson and... lest anyone forget... Status Quo Joe!