Buzzfeed, of course, specifically Kate Nocera & Ben Smith, on “Bernie’s Reasons Why Not“:
If Bernie Sanders decides not to run for president, it will be for one of two reasons.
First, the dour Vermont socialist worried during an interview with BuzzFeed News Tuesday, he might wind up doing more harm than good to the progressive movement.
“If I do it, it has to be done well. And that’s not just for my ego,” he said, seated in his airy Senate office on blue couch beneath three indifferently framed Vermont tourism posters. “The worst thing I could do is run a poor campaign without the organizational support, without the money — and then have people say that the ideas themselves are ideas that people don’t support.”
So Sanders, who has spent his career fighting money in politics, who handily won his re-election without running a single television ad, will run only if he thinks he can raise “tens of millions” of dollars for the primary. And this brings us to the second reason.
Sanders is weighing a primary challenge to Hillary Clinton, a prospect with massive advantages — attention, a place on the debate stage — and the huge handicaps of facing a giant political network and a candidate whose super PAC plans to raise as much as $500 million. And then, after that, there’s the conservative money that would pour into a general election…
And yet, despite his lack of ordinary political skills and the deck that he sees as badly stacked against him, sometimes Sanders thinks he could pull it off. There have been sparks, lately, of a kind of leftism not seen in America for a generation — the Occupy movement, the surge of excitement for Elizabeth Warren’s candidacy, the daily feedback from Sanders’ own buzzing, under-the-radar Facebook page, which — with 906,000 likes — is the biggest of any Democratic senator’s official Facebook presence.
“We do very, very well on Facebook. We may have on some days more people talking about us than the rest of the Senate combined,” Sanders said. “It tells me, that is just one example, that there is a great deal of interest out there about the ideas we are talking about.”…
“I think there is a great deal of support for the necessity of taking on the billionaire class,” Sanders said, “for bringing people around the progressive agenda which talks about rebuilding our infrastructure, for creating jobs, for a national health care program, raising the minimum wage to a living wage, to dealing all the way with climate change, dealing with Wall Street. There’s a lot of support for those kinds of ideas.”..
Craigie
How do we make more billionaires into liberals, or more liberals into billionaires? Either way…
Kropadope
@Craigie: Screw that, how do we make more billionaires into Batman?
Death Panel Truck
This is the quality of writing you get from people who are pretending to be journalists.
RandomMonster
I absolutely love and respect Bernie Sanders. But Ralph Nader — I lived through that shit.
Jack the Second
My chief concern with Hilary is that she’s getting old. Bernie Sanders is not a step in the right direction from that perspective.
Seth Owen
Yeah, the age thing.
Yes, there is a hint that the Left is making a comeback. So what it needs is young leaders who can spend the energy and have the time to follow through.
We are where we are today as the culmination of Rightest work for 30 years to undo the New Deal. It’s going to take the Left at least as long to undo Reaganism.
What Bernie needs to do is mentor the new generation of Leftists.
inkadu
My chief concern with Hillary is that she’s been surrounded by yes-people, she’s used to getting her way in the Democratic party, and she gets rattled easily (Terri Gross? Really?).
The media has it out for her, too. I think it’s going to be a brutal campaign, and I don’t think she’s going to respond well.
the Conster
@inkadu:
As I said in one of the dozen earlier Hillary posts, her path to the Presidency goes through the sewers. Even if she prevails, can you honestly say you’re looking forward to going on that journey with her? Bernie Sanders running would be very good for her, and good for Democrats. He’s a class warrior.
RandomMonster
He is, absolutely. But he has no chance of winning. And letting a Republican win in his stead would be a disaster.
inkadu
@the Conster: I almost would like to go through it with her, because her undisguised contempt for Republicans is one of my favorite things about her.
Yatsuno
Elephant in the room number one: Bernie Sanders is not a Democrat. In order for him to challenge Hillary directly he would have to become a registered Democrat. Otherwise he’s just another third party fringe candidate who will get that support.
Elephant in the room number two: he is old. And as much as he is an inspiring figure, I cannot see him surviving the rigours of the modern American campaign process. Not to mention the constant worry that something could happen to him while in office. The last thing we need is a William Harrison.
I like Bernie. He does excellent work in the Senate. But he really should stay there.
fuckwit
It is very sad and dangerous that the three people generating all the interest are so old: Clinton, Sanders, and Warren.
Is there no bench in the Democratic party?
Eljai
@Jack the Second: @Seth Owen:
Listen you little punks (and I mean that in a good way) the average life expectancy in the US is about 76 for men and 81 for women. So Hillary, at 67, is not that freaking old. I’m not going to get into the other pros and cons, right now. I’m just saying that age is the least of her problems. With regard to Bernie Sanders – he is 73. But congress people get fantastic healthcare, and he’s feisty, so he could live a long life (see John McCain). And Sanders would probably pick a kickass vice president.
ETA: But it would be great if some younger Democratic candidates jumped in too. Hope springs…
Goblue72
@Eljai: it’s not just about health concerns – there’s also the quite legitimate concern that frankly seniors can get quite stuck in their point of view and inflexible. Not something I really want in a President.
Goblue72
@fuckwit: There is. They just aren’t white.
Eljai
@Goblue72: That’s a rather broad generalization.
jl
@Yatsuno:
” Elephant in the room number one: Bernie Sanders is not a Democrat. ”
We’re comparing things to elephants again? OK! That is the only elephant that worries me. Sanders won’t help the Democratic primary if he is outside as an independent. HRC might be OK with him in a primary debate, but the major parties will try to freeze him out of post-nomination debates (and the major candidates will enthusiastically go along).
I think RandomMonster is a unfair to Sanders in comparing him to Nader, but an independent run could turn Sanders into a Nader for this election, which would be a disaster.
I’ll write him and tell him I’ll send him money if he joins the Democratic primary. Maybe I will get a dour response.
Yatsuno
@jl: I guess the other version of that metaphor is gorilla. But it didn’t seem to occur to me at the time. I blame Obummer.
AnotherBruce
@Goblue72: So you think that Bernie Sanders is going to be more inflexible than any given Republican candidate from the clown car? I’ve got the feeling that Sanders has a more flexible, thoughtful and compassionate mind than you, me, and most of the Democratic and all of the Republican party combined. I’m not sure why you want to paint all older people into a corner.
jl
@fuckwit:
You can look over the bench here:
Democratic Party presidential candidates, 2016
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Party_presidential_candidates,_2016
I think unfair to compare to GOP, since their pols start preparing careers grifting off of campaign donations and as vanity candidates at very a young age.
Joel Hanes
Bernie is much more connected to the real world than Nader. They’re really not comparable.
(Ralph felt it his due to take a shot at the Presidency, as his first-ever elected office)
I hope some good comes of this, but I think he should stay where he is.
jl
@Yatsuno:
Gorilla for description of persons, elephants for characteristics.
So, HRC is the 8000 pound gorilla of the 2016 Democratic primary.
HRC documents subpoenaed for BENGHAZZII!!!! investigations weigh as much as 6 elephants.
And her combative secretive nature is the elephant in the room for her suitability as a candidate.
However, for Christie, we also have whale units.
askew
@Jack the Second:
Yeah, he is too old and honestly the last thing the Dems need is a field of Biden, Hillary, Bernie and Webb when compared to the more diverse and younger GOP candidates. Lordy.
From a progressive stand, I think Sanders should sit out if Warren or O’Malley run. Either one of them is progressive enough to run well to Hillary’s left and if Sanders runs with them it will split the tiny left vote and let Hillary cakewalk into the nod, which will likely happen anyway.
On a side note, now there is a new story from ABC/Politico that the State Dept had guidelines about personal email in a manual from 2005 that Hillary violated and was used by the Inspector General in part to fire an Ambassador. Yeah, this isn’t going away and boy do I hope this is wrong. This is getting bad enough that it is going to spill over onto the Obama WH and any Dem who had contact with Hillary via email.
Emerald
Yes, the ground is juuuust beginning to shift.
I remember my Grandma, who was born in 1887 and saw William Jennings Bryan speak (“He could raaaise the roof!”), telling me that she’d “seen that ol’ pendulum swing back and forth, back and forth.”
Grandma was right, and it’s time for that ol’ pendulum to swing again.
BillinGlendaleCA
@jl: Run Clooney, run. Then again, Vermin Supreme sounds interesting.
BillinGlendaleCA
@askew: It was the ambassador to Kenya, he probably found the documents about Obama’s true birth certificate. COVER-UP.
jl
@BillinGlendaleCA: But how old is Vermin? He won’t say.
BillinGlendaleCA
@jl: Vermin’s been around forever.
askew
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Great just what we need to add more fuel to the fire. It sounds like the guy was an incompetent loon but the IG report stating that State employees should not regularly use private email for government work because it is less secure isn’t going to help Hillary.
BillinGlendaleCA
@askew: Lighten up, makes life much better.
jl
@askew:
” Yeah, he is too old and honestly the last thing the Dems need is a field of Biden, Hillary, Bernie and Webb when compared to the more diverse and younger GOP candidates. ”
Not sure what you mean by ‘diverse’, unless you mean pathologies.
Jeb! may be young, but he don’t act it.
I think HRC will seem young enough in mind and spirit, if she is the nominee, compared to likely GOP candidates.
As I said in a thread yesterday, and above, the apparent bench of the GOP is more a matter of optics. A lot of younger up and coming Democratic politicians like O’Malley and Kamala Harris take their day jobs seriously. GOPers, with a very few exceptions like Haslam, view it as a racket, and they make a point of being noticed since that is the foundation of their main line of work, not governing or legislating or doing really much anything useful.
People like Haslam or Huntsman would be more dangerous to Democrats in 2016, and they are not much in the media all the time either. But they wouldn’t last five minutes in a GOP primary because they are too legit.
jl
@BillinGlendaleCA:Vermin Supreme is no Jack Fellure. You have to admit that much.
BillinGlendaleCA
@jl: None can compare to Gus Hall.
askew
@jl:
By diverse I mean minorities. So far we have Jindahl, Cruz and Rubio probably running on the GOP side. On the Dem side we have old white people. Really old. Like oldest or 2nd oldest president in history if elected old.
And Hillary hasn’t looked young since 2007. The campaign and State obviously took their toll. She is going to look ancient next to whoever the GOP puts up.
But my biggest concern is that we are going to end up with a repeat of 2004 where the entire campaign is about something that happened decades ago and our voters check out and stay home. We need to keep our base fired up to vote. We can’t just count on the GOP candidate to self-destruct.
Goblue72
The last gasp of Boomers who refuse to shuffle off the stage and let the next generation take over.
We aren’t going to remember you well Boomers – and we will be stuck cleaning up your messes and paying off your credit card for generations to come. Assuming we haven’t all died from climate catastrophe.
I mean seriously – I’m a huge Bernie fan and wish we had a Scandinavian social democracy in the U.S. but come ON. Dude is 73 years old – and we are over a year from Election Day. And we’re talking about a job that is literally a job that ages you before your time.
Jesus. Clue. Get one.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Goblue72:
This boomer crap is getting just a tad bit tiresome. You do realize that the youngest boomers are 50, right? And the Xer’s are no great salvation, guess we should just wait a few years for the oldest millennials to reach 35.
Goblue72
@BillinGlendaleCA: the bulk of the Boomers are in the 60-something cohort and are the ones to which I am referring. The Generation Jones cohort (which includes Obama) are the 50-somethings and are far more similar to Gen X in the crap they’ve had to deal with and the mess they’ve been left with.
Ruckus
@Goblue72:
I’m an early boomer. And I agree with you. Living a long time and thinking like you are 20 or 40 is great but that’s not what most of us do. We start to remember the great moments that are now in the past, we start to forget what life is like looking forward not backwards. Things hurt more, we don’t sleep as much, we heal slower and on and on.
It’s hard to say that some arbitrary age is too old, I’ve known 85-95 yr olds who amazed me with how spry they are. But spry is a word used about old people as in we are surprised how spry they are. I get that every once in a while. It’s no shame in getting older but there are a lot of people younger than Sanders, Clinton, Biden, Warren. Would Sanders be a good president? I don’t know, he is on the correct side of the aisle and I like how far on that side. But if these folks are that good and progressive then they should understand that we can’t just be the old party, any more than the GOP. We have to be inclusive and open, we also have to be realistic about how stressful the job of president is. And they should be working to build a coalition of like minded people of all ages, in other words be a leader, not just a good thinker/speaker.
I get tons of emails from OFA and the DNC, etc, etc., asking for money but really telling me nothing about the up and coming people in the party. Is it because there aren’t many? Is it because of egos? To me this is the greatest failure of the democrats, seemingly no party building. Maybe that’s impossible to do past the local level but to me it looks like no one is even trying.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Goblue72: If you check birthrates, the bulk are probably between 55 and 65. The boomers are defined as being born during the years of a spike in the birthrate dating roughly from 1946 to 1964.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Ruckus: Yup the Thugs run for everything from dog catcher to school board. Dems usually have some kind of career first and then expect to be a congresscitter. One thing I disagree with you on, the Thugs may have quantity on their bench, no quality what so ever.
Ruckus
@Goblue72:
OK now you’ve lost me. The mess they are left with? Every generation thinks the last one leaves a mess. Yes some of them have. But time marches on and every generation has an obligation to work on both the present and the future. So tell me what specifically the boomers as a group fucked up worse than any previous generation, or worse than succeeding ones will? Elected republicans? OK that’s for sure a problem. But then some of the democrats weren’t all that great either and the republicans weren’t as batshit crazy as they have become in the last 20 yrs. And boomers weren’t the only ones who voted in the last 20 yrs. And just because we are old(er) doesn’t make us conservatives. Bernie Sanders sure isn’t one and he’s older than I am. I’m not one and as I said I’m an early boomer. There are plenty of examples on this blog of old farts who are not in any way conservative.
Ruckus
@BillinGlendaleCA:
No disagreement here. I’m trying to see where I stated that there is any quality in conservatives. Don’t see that. If you are getting that then my writing is worse than I thought.
Ruckus
@Goblue72:
Also look at the real crazy conservatives. Many of them are younger than boomers. People don’t just turn conservative at 50 or 60 or whatever age. Crazy and progressive aren’t age related.
Applejinx
Russell Brand says that every Presidential election is won literally by whoever had the most money, full stop.
I would throw money at a Bernie candidacy, and get out and work for him even if it cost me. We’re representing something.
I never did throw money at Obama, because I didn’t have it. I got out and worked for him and he turned around and asked me for money (did take steps to see that I had more, though).
Don’t underestimate the ‘holy crap, I will leave my house and go to work for this guy’ factor. I’m not the only Vermonter who knows Bernie and is just waiting to spring into action. The thing about Bernie is he is NOT LYING.
pat
Bernie Sanders, seriously???
Count me among those who are not thrilled at the prospect of a Clinton campaign, with all the crap that will entail. But anyone who thinks Sanders is a viable alternative is wildly over-optimistic.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Ruckus: If you look at voting patterns, the Silents and the Xer’s have a more Republican lean than the boomers or the millennials. Just take a look at Presidental elections with an age break out.
VidaLoca
@the Conster:
Bernie is a class warrior but the Democrats, taken as a whole are decidedly not. And that presents a problem. If he runs a primary campaign as a Democrat he’s running on behalf of an organization over which he has no control, whose main goal would be to sabotage many of the principles on which and for which he’d be running. If he runs as an independent he can control the organization in whose name he’d be running — but it’s the Ralph Nader scenario all over again.
Eric NNy
I’m all in for Bernie. Run Bernie Run.
henqiguai
@askew (#34):
Maybe it’s just me, but aside from their surnames, two of those gentlemen (Cruz and Rubio) are caucasian. Ask them, off the record, and I’d wager they’ll proclaim their Spanish heritage; northern, outside the reach of those ravening Moorish hordes of yore…
Applejinx
I’d need him to run as a Democrat. Just sayin’. It’s not like they’re super effective at sabotaging anything, Obama won twice! What you do is move in and start running the Dem show. Ask OFA.
henqiguai
@Goblue72 (#35):
“Let”? get up off your ass and *do* something. You want to whine about boomers, what have ‘you’ done comparable to the activisms of the boomers? And are you also holding them responsible for the actions of their predecessors?
Fine; but don’t use any of the fruits of the boomers’ labors while you clean up said messes, be pure and true to your principles.
Normally I don’t give a rat’s ass about such intergenerational whining, but this morning I’m thinking purveyors of such shallow whiney sludge should either putup, go galt, and show your mettle; or go DIAF.
NorthLeft12
I had to laugh when I read this comment from the center of the universe;
Chris Cillizza
Sorry, but isn’t that supposed to be the capitalist/American ideal? Help me out here.
Is he suggesting that the Clintons should be held to [GASP!] some other standard?
FlipYrWhig
Nothing gets the public pulse racing like the phrase “dour Vermont socialist.”
Tripod
Drum is right – it was that goddamned leaded gasoline. That turned a whole generation’s brains to Fox News consuming mush. I find the silent generation worse than the Boomers on this front, but they’re checking out rather quickly these days.
RaflW
I’m warming up to the idea of Biden running.
RaflW
@NorthLeft12:
Wasn’t that Carl “Turd Blossom” Rove’s whole job description while working for Bush all those years?
piratedan
the thing is, if Bernie runs, at least we will be talking about things that we want to see happen, infrastructure, jobss, healthcare, income inequality, taxes on the rich, a living wage… you know issues? It helps to set up a narrative where we actually focus on those issues instead of the usual character assassination du juor that goes on on the Right and the ooga booga of the moment.
jibeaux
My question is, what the hell does “indifferently framed” mean? You can sense the lack of interest from the AC Moore staffer from across the office?
Richard Bottoms
Love Bernie, but if he runs it will make about as much of a difference as a fart in a windstorm.