The Anybody But Bernie Movement Starts Revving Up The Machine

The transpartisan establishment-- classically conservative by it's very nature-- is freaking the hell out. Despite their best efforts, the damn working folks look like they're going to give Bernie the damn nomination to take on the sitting duck criminal of an illegitimate "president" in November. The Emerson poll of Iowa likely caucus-goers that came out late Sunday must have been a very bitter pill for them all. Over the last month, Bernie picked up the most support, up 8 points. Biden continued trending down as more people figure out what he is-- down l2 points, Klobuchar was up 3 points and Elizabeth Warren-- her ugly, desperate attack on Bernie backfiring in her face-- lost another point. Mayo Pete is barely a factor any longer-- falling 8 points into 5th place. Yang was up 3 as was Tulsi, apparently benefitting for the nasty Hillary Clinton attack on her. And Steyer, the "good billionaire," moved up 2 points. Bloomberg, the "bad billionaire" shows no support at all.

Only Bernie and Biden are above the 15% threshold. Emerson polling director Spencer Kimball: "This means that at the caucus, the second and third-tier candidate supporters will have an impact on the eventual winner, even if the winner is not their first choice." 39% of Klobuchar's backers are going for the other conservative, Biden, and same for Mayo Pete backers (35% for Status Quo Joe). Meanwhile 51% of Warren's backers say they'll vote for the other progressive, Bernie. 49% of Yang's supporters pick Bernie as their second choice. Most of Tulsi's supporters will just go home after she's eliminated, presumably to watch RT (cheap joke, sorry). None of them will vote for Biden.

An excuse: Biden's supporters aren't the caucusin' type. Yesterday Nate Cohn, writing for the NY Times asserted that "many regular voters don’t participate in caucuses." In 2016 there were 21 polls and every single one of them showed Hillary beating Bernie, mostly quote substantially, like Emerson's one day before the Feb 1 caucuses-- Hillary 51% to Bernie 43%. Travis had her ahead a week out 53-42% and CNN called it for her 51-43%. Monmouth predicted she would crush him 47.7% to 39.3%. In the end they were virtually tied. In the end she won 701 caucuses and he won 697 caucuses-- 49.9% to 49.6%. (The rigged system, though, gave her 29 delegates to his 21.) Cohn's interpretation: "Hillary and Bernie were virtually tied in the Iowa caucuses last cycle-- One-third of people who participated in a recent Iowa Democratic primary-- usually considered all but certain voters-- said they weren’t likely to caucus, and these voters backed Mr. Biden by 11 points in the Times/Siena poll. The large number of Democratic primary voters who seem uninterested in attending the Iowa caucuses is all the more surprising given that recent Iowa primary elections for Senate, House, governor or local offices were not particularly competitive and certainly did not attract national attention. On the other hand, a presidential caucus-- and perhaps especially Bernie Sanders-- draws a large number of voters to the polls who do not vote regularly. As a result, it was Mr. Sanders who led the Times/Siena poll-- by seven points-- despite weakness among regular and consistent voters. His supporters may not vote so often, but he led among those who said they had caucused before, including in 2016. Most important, he led among those who said they would show up next week, and therefore led the poll."

So Cohn, a 110% generational spokesmodel for the establishment, wants you to know that Bernie fans who caucus won't actually turn out to vote. This is 180 degrees from sanity. Cohn is a NY Times version of #NeverTrump-CIA-Republican Evan McMullin:

After the carefully planted (apparently false) rumors that Obama would step in to slay the Bernie dragon last week, Politico's Natasha Korecki also noticed the general establishment freakout over the big Bernie surge. Substituting the word "Democrats" for the more clumsy phrase "cocksucking corporate whores and neoliberals," Korecki wrote that "tormented Democrats are second-guessing what they say was a hands-off strategy against the Vermont senator in the 2020 primary. They fear a repeat of 2016 is in the making-- when mainstream Republicans scoffed at the idea that Donald Trump could ever win the nomination, until he became unstoppable-- only this time from the left." They are definitely not fearing a repeat of 2016 when mainstream stole the nomination for an uninspiring backward establishment candidate and managed to lose the election to a fascist. That, after all, is their modus operandi. The key for them is not the people, but the "money people." We are talking about the Republican wing of the Democratic Party.

“The Republican money people were laughing at Trump when he came down the escalator and they kept laughing at him for way too long, until ‘holy crap’ he’s winning primaries,” Matt Bennett, co-founder of Third Way told Politico. Bennett said he’s attempted for weeks to find an organized effort to combat Sanders’ rise, so far, to no avail. “What I fear is one will emerge too late, as what happened with Trump.”

Remember, what we're talking about here-- what Korecki is talking about when she says "Democrats"-- is the source of the problem with the Democratic Party and what Bernie is very much campaigning against. These are not people who will be voting for Bernie Sanders, whether they actually vote for Trump or not. Take this crooked, self-dealing scumbag for example:

“Swing states have a higher concentration of swing voters. We need a nominee who draws them to the Democratic column,” said Rahm Emanuel, the former Chicago mayor and chief of staff to Obama. “Sanders’ theory, like Trump’s for the right, is based on the notion of a higher turnout of infrequent voters.”

The status quo is what Bernie is threatening to overturn for the benefit of working families but for the "money people" and slime like Bennett and Emanuel, the status quo works just fine, thank you. They recognize Bernie as their enemy, as much as he recognizes them as his. They don't want Medicare-For-All or free college or a more equitable distribution of wealth or fairer taxes. They're fine with Women's Choice and gays marrying each other but... that's about as "Democratic" as they get.

But the Democratic establishment is caught in a catch-22: Attack Sanders and risk galvanizing his supporters and turning him into a martyr of the far-left. Or leave him alone and watch him continue to gather momentum.

Their bind unfolded in plain sight last week when Hillary Clinton complained that “nobody likes” Sanders and wouldn’t initially commit to backing him if he were the nominee. (She later clarified that she would do so.) Clinton suffered a backlash, and Sanders’ has only gained strength in recent days.

That’s largely why Bennett’s push for organized opposition to Sanders isn’t gaining traction.

“We’re not wanting to put our finger on the scale in any way,” said a board member of Priorities USA, the Democrats’ largest super PAC.

...“He’s in a position to win Iowa and New Hampshire at this point,” said Ben LaBolt, Obama’s former national press secretary. “Now’s the moment. We’re a week out from Iowa. It might be too late for some states already. But it’s not too late for the nomination.”

LaBolt said Sanders’ competitors should have hit him harder on the debate stage and on the campaign trail. He argued there’s less risk of going negative now that the field has narrowed to a four or five viable candidates in Iowa and New Hampshire.

He added, “There should be a paid media strategy that would challenge him.”

Who should do that? “I don’t have the answer to that.”

Democrats face the same trick box that Republicans faced in 2016. Attacking Sanders only gins up his already enthusiastic base.

“We’re not changing our game plan,” said a Biden associate familiar with the campaign’s strategy. “We don’t feel a need to attack Bernie or anybody else.”

The Biden super PAC has also refrained from attacking the former vice president’s rivals and is not expected to level attacks against Sanders in the days before Iowa.

LaBolt argued that Trump is pushing for Sanders to win, pointing to a recent tweet from the president alleging that the Democratic Party was “rigging the election against Bernie Sanders” to try to help Biden. On Facebook, the Committee to Defend the President, a pro-Trump dark money group is currently running ads against Biden.