I Can No Longer Rationally Discuss The Sanders Campaign

Late Night Open Thread: Flagrant Nut-Picking

by Anne Laurie| April 28, 202012:27 am| 75 Comments

This post is in: Election 2020, I Can No Longer Rationally Discuss The Sanders Campaign, Open Threads

HuffPost, via commentor Immanentize:

The presidential campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) submitted a letter to the New York State Board of Elections on Sunday challenging a looming decision on whether to keep him on the ballot for the state’s primary.

Sanders formally suspended his campaign earlier this month, but said that he planned to stay on the ballot in upcoming primaries in order to maximize his influence on the Democratic Party’s platform and rules.

Five days later, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) signed a budget bill with an obscure provision authorizing the state’s board of elections to remove from the primary ballot those candidates who have withdrawn from the presidential campaign.

Malcolm Seymour, an attorney representing the Sanders campaign, argued in the letter to the board that the provision should not apply to Sanders “retroactively,” since he might have acted differently if it had been in effect when he decided to suspend his campaign…

Governor Cuomo is not, per CNN, a Friend of The Bern:

New York became the first state to cancel its presidential primary over coronavirus fears, the co-chair of the New York State Board of Elections said.

Douglas Kellner told CNN the decision came after Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders suspended his presidential campaign earlier this month, which “basically rendered the primary moot.”

“At a time when the goal is to avoid unnecessary social contact, our conclusion was that there was no purpose in holding a beauty contest primary that would marginally increase the risk to both voters and poll workers,” said Kellner, one of the Democratic commissioners on the board…
[NY Dem Chair Jay] Jacobs had told CNN in a phone interview earlier Monday that he agreed with the decision to cancel the state’s presidential primary contest — calling it a “necessary move” by New York election officials to protect the health and safety of voters and poll workers.

He noted that the outcome was essentially “predetermined” since Sanders dropped out of the Democratic race and emphasized the need to protect voters amid the coronavirus pandemic.

“We’ve stopped all nonessential business. This certainly is a nonessential primary if ever there was one,” Jacobs said.

Both Jeff Weaver and Nina Turner are reported to be “outraged”, but no current Sanders spokespersons had responded, as of 10:54pmEST.

His supporters, however, WILL NOT BE IGNORED!

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Late Night Open Thread: Flagrant Nut-PickingPost + Comments (75)

Late Night Schadenfreude Open Thread: Nobody Loves A Defunct Campaign

by Anne Laurie| April 5, 20202:11 am| 68 Comments

This post is in: Election 2020, Excellent Links, I Can No Longer Rationally Discuss The Sanders Campaign

From the Washington Post, this afternoon, “Some top Sanders advisers urge him to consider withdrawing”:

A small group of Bernie Sanders’s top aides and allies — including his campaign manager and his longtime strategist — have encouraged the independent senator from Vermont to consider withdrawing from the presidential race, according to two people with knowledge of the situation.

The group includes campaign manager Faiz Shakir and Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), a top Sanders surrogate and ally, according to the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive private discussions.

Sanders himself has become more open to the prospect of dropping out, according to one of the people with knowledge of the situation and another close ally, especially if he suffers a significant defeat in Tuesday’s Wisconsin primary, which polls suggest Joe Biden will win handily.

Beyond Shakir and Jayapal, longtime strategist Jeff Weaver has privately made a case that exiting the race more quickly and on good terms with Biden would give Sanders more leverage in the long run, according to one of the people; the other said Weaver has used a light touch in presenting his case. Weaver and Jayapal did not return calls and messages seeking comment. Shakir declined to comment.

Sanders has not a made a final decision, the people said, and other close allies have privately urged him to keep running, such as national campaign co-chair Nina Turner, while Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) is also said to favor him remaining in the race. Larry Cohen, a longtime ally who chairs a nonprofit aligned with Sanders, is waging a public campaign for him to stay in until the Democratic National Convention.

The Sanders campaign declined to comment on internal deliberations…

Emphases mine. Vulgar speculation: Maybe Shakir and Jayapal were not the ‘two people with knowledge‘ mentioned in the first paragraph, but that phrasing is a well-known form of reportorial snark. Also, if Jeff ‘Comic Book Guy’ Weaver thinks it’s time to cut & run, that’s a prime indicator there’s no hope left of reviving the embers. Nina Turner is either nuts or playing nuts for the media, and Tlaib backed herself into a bad corner when she publicly encouraged Sanders supporters to boo Hillary Clinton — no other campaign will touch her now, and she’s liable to lose the seat she won in a split race in 2018. And Larry Cohen, chairman of ‘Our Revolution’, has his own reasons for encouraging Sanders to continue running ~~the grift~~ all the way to the end.

Elsewhere, the postmortem infighting has already begun!

New: Once a front-runner, Bernie Sanders' contempt for the Democratic establishment and traditional campaign tools won him adoring fans, but undermined his path to the White House. An in-depth look at a campaign that rose and fell very quickly: https://t.co/NRBA4LmKYt

— Daniel Marans (@danielmarans) April 2, 2020

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… Over the course of just 10 explosive days between the Nevada caucus on February 22 and Super Tuesday on March 3, that campaign cratered, with Sanders going from an unrivaled front-runner to a distant second-place contender, likely due to finish with far fewer delegates than he commanded in 2016.

HuffPost spoke to more than three dozen Sanders aides, allies and critics about why the progressive leader stumbled. Many of them requested anonymity to speak freely.

The answers they suggested are myriad. He failed to erect a campaign nimble enough to overcome the built-in challenges he was bound to face from a skeptical press corps and a hostile party establishment. He hung his electoral success on the relatively risky bet that he could both expand the electorate and do so in a way that would benefit him disproportionately. His staff feuded unnecessarily with Elizabeth Warren, and he failed to make inroads with older Black voters ― a repeat of 2016 dynamics.

Perhaps most significantly, Sanders failed to expand his core bloc of support into a coalition capable of winning a majority, and he did not adequately prepare for the prospect that moderates would consolidate behind Biden.

“There was a strategy to get to 30% and not to 50%,” one Sanders ally said.

Many of these shortcomings go back to a defining feature of Bernie Sanders’ political career: He is going to do it his way or not at all…

Sanders trusts a very small circle of trusted advisers and is slow to make decisions, particularly when it comes to considering potential changes in his approach. It’s a tendency that would later be evident in his relatively drawn-out response this month to the COVID-19 outbreak. Biden incorporated fears of the pandemic into his critique of Trump in late January; Sanders began blasting Trump for his response to the crisis about a month later.

Likewise, Warren rolled out her first plan to address the crisis at the end of January, and second, more detailed one, at the beginning of March. But while Sanders convened a roundtable to discuss the topic on March 9, he did not unveil a comparable policy plan until March 17, the day after his first head-to-head debate with Biden…

In the absence of a nimble communications operation, some aides and surrogates ended up crafting their own messaging that was at odds with the official campaign line.

Briahna Gray, a national press secretary for Sanders who joined the campaign after a career in law and a brief stint in journalism, spent many days tangling with his antagonists on Twitter, including a number of media figures. In one string of late September tweets ripping the Warren campaign, she appeared to back the campaign into a position of publicly blessing a newly contentious stance toward Warren that the campaign never followed through on.

Turner also sometimes initiated assaults on Sanders’ rivals that the candidate himself had not yet engaged in. Ahead of the November debate in Atlanta, for example, Turner took thinly veiled shots at former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, before clarifying that she did not speak for the campaign.

And Sirota, a journalist with Capitol Hill and campaign experience, launched a Sanders campaign newsletter “Bern Notice” that offered a disclaimer that the newsletter reflected his views and not those of the campaign. He was still admonished for using the newsletter to promote a January op-ed by Sanders-backing law professor Zephyr Teachout on Biden’s “corruption problem.”

The disarray beneath Sanders ― whether on the communications side, or elsewhere ― might have been less harmful if Sanders himself had a sharper grasp of the tools it took to make a campaign succeed.

But at times, he appeared to be penny wise and pound foolish. He was known to complain to aides about the number of advance staffers it took to erect his events, wondering why it was necessary to employ so many people just to put on rallies…

…[T]he talk of a brokered convention spoke to a flaw in Sanders’ underlying strategy that the campaign never effectively confronted: Their coalition was considerably smaller than in 2016 and would not be able to withstand a sudden consolidation among moderate voters…

A pro-Sanders progressive activist described feeling as though the Sanders campaign felt entitled to the support of left-leaning groups and as a result, did not treat activists as respectfully as Warren’s campaign. The campaign sought organizations’ input on multiple policy proposals just a day or two before their rollout, providing little time for input, and did not answer emails from activists on multiple occasions.

“The outward motto of the campaign was ‘Not me. Us,’ but the real motto seemed like ‘Everybody against us’ or ‘Just us,’” the activist said…

There’s a lot more stories at the link — it would surprise me if Marans doesn’t have a book deal in mind, if not in hand. Also, since this report (unlike any other I’ve seen) credits Jeff Weaver as the wise, sensible voice of experience for the campaign… I have a suspicion about Maranis’ main source!

An overarching theme in the story: When expert campaign advice made Sanders uncomfortable, his discomfort usually took precedence.

When he let experts do their thing, as in green-lighting polling in May and unlocking funding for TV ads in October, his fortunes generally rose. pic.twitter.com/NYITvGWdzT

— Daniel Marans (@danielmarans) April 2, 2020

Pete Buttigieg’s former campaign manager:

There are two types of people in elections: people who know when to pack it up gracefully and end on a high note (see Buttigieg, Pete) and people who douse themselves in lighter fluid and strike a match while they’re plunging in the polls and facing a certain loss —> https://t.co/iN4AbLPlBr

— Lis Smith (@Lis_Smith) April 3, 2020

Late Night Schadenfreude Open Thread: Nobody Loves A Defunct CampaignPost + Comments (68)

Election Year Schadenfreude Open Thread

by Anne Laurie| March 24, 20203:40 am| 55 Comments

This post is in: Election 2020, I Can No Longer Rationally Discuss The Sanders Campaign, Open Threads

While @BernieSanders holds his virtual campaign event tonight from Vermont and rails against the ongoing Senate #Coronavirus rescue bill, important to keep in mind he skipped a key procedural vote tonight on the bill. https://t.co/01cY5qvbs8

— Ed O'Keefe (@edokeefe) March 22, 2020

Disclaimer: A 78-year old recent heart attack survivor absolutely should be self-quarantining right now. On the other hand, someone who’s second only to Trump in the ‘It’s Always About ME’ sweeps… maybe could’ve been a little more temperate when it came to proclaiming the shortcomings of every other not-Republican candidate. Or at least required his paid surrogates to dial it back a notch, when it came to publicly hoping on social media that the current Democratic ‘Shadow president’ would either die of coronavirus or lose all his supporters to it.

(Give me a break, it’s 3am in my time zone, and this is my self-reward for putting up yesterday’s virtuous info & respite threads, prior to setting up some more for tomorrow.)

To be fair…he's not a Democrat.

— Black Dem Savage ⚖ (@Ldy_Shay) March 23, 2020

Sanders spox tells @AnnieGrayerCNN that Sanders skipped vote bc “the cloture vote would fail, and his absence was effectively a no vote, so he was engaging on policy remotely” and was “weighing in to influence the contours of the bill during negotiations remotely from Vermont.”

— Manu Raju (@mkraju) March 23, 2020

Sanders told me last week he was dealing with a “f—ing” global crisis and didn’t want to answer campaign questions. https://t.co/UEYGPTAmIZ At 7p tonight, he had a campaign event – a livestream discussion on the coronavirus – rather than showing up to vote an hour before

— Manu Raju (@mkraju) March 23, 2020

You can tell how badly the Very Media Serious People rate Bernie’s chances at this point, because they’re suddenly willing to name names. From the Washington Post, paper of record in the town where the monopoly industry is national politics:

Sen. Bernie Sanders has convened a series of weighty discussions about the future of his presidential campaign with his closest confidants, according to two people with direct knowledge of the conversations, and at least three potential paths forward have come up in the private talks.

One option that has been raised: Keep the campaign technically active with a goal of winning votes and accumulating delegates to the July nominating convention, but forgo attack ads aimed at delegate leader Joe Biden. Another: Stay in the race and aggressively compete for the nomination. A third choice: End the campaign…

With Biden staked to a solid lead and the future of the remaining primaries in doubt, many in the party are calling for Sanders to bow out, in recognition of the destructive divisions that could deepen if he sticks around. They are eager to pivot to a general election posture against President Trump and want to empower Biden to get started as soon as possible.

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At 78, Sanders, a democratic socialist who long toiled on the fringes of the national political debate, might well be in his final national campaign. Unlike four years ago, when there was a clear incentive to keep running against Clinton and build a still-budding movement, he came into this race as a known entity with a proven following — making his current political aspirations less clear…

Biden has made entreaties to Sanders and his supporters, embracing policies the senator has championed and nodding to his youthful movement in recent speeches. Aides from the two campaigns have been in close touch over the coronavirus, officials from both sides said recently, outlining a potential path for negotiations that could lead to an exit more acceptable to Sanders.

It’s not clear he would take it, however. Sanders appears as keen as ever on using his platform to advance his own ideas…

Long-form read from the NYTimes, “How It All Came Apart for Bernie Sanders“:

The Sanders campaign appeared on the brink of a commanding lead in the Democratic race. But a series of fateful decisions and internal divisions have left him all but vanquished…

While Mr. Sanders has not ended his bid, he has fallen far behind Mr. Biden in the delegate count and has taken to trumpeting his success in the battle of ideas rather than arguing that he still has a path to the nomination. His efforts to regain traction have faltered in recent weeks as the coronavirus pandemic has frozen the campaign, and perhaps heightened the appeal of Mr. Biden’s safe-and-steady image…

Perhaps the most significant factor, as with every presidential campaign, was the candidate himself, and the stubborn ideological and stylistic consistency that both endeared Mr. Sanders to his supporters and limited his ability to build a majority coalition larger than his own progressive movement….

For months, his political advisers and outside allies had quietly mulled a shift in tone — the possibility that Mr. Sanders might take even modest steps to show skeptical Democrats that he could unify the party.

But he has always been disdainful of the art of politics and had to be nudged into wooing even friendly Democratic leaders. As Ms. Warren relentlessly courted Ms. Ocasio-Cortez last fall, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez’s advisers had to prod Mr. Sanders’s aides into having him call her — a conversation that eventually led to her endorsing him….

Arriving in Charleston, S.C., ahead of the Feb. 29 state primary, Mr. Weaver said the campaign had not yet sought a working relationship with figures like the House Speaker Nancy Pelosi because they wanted first to demonstrate the full sweep of their coalition on Super Tuesday three days later. He reached for a Civil War analogy to explain the muscle-flexing strategy. Abraham Lincoln did not issue the Emancipation Proclamation, Mr. Weaver said, until after Union troops turned back the Confederacy at the bloody battle of Antietam….

After being routed across the country, Mr. Sanders knew who to blame in an appearance on ABC’s “This Week.”

“What the establishment wanted was to make sure that people coalesced around Biden and try to defeat me,” Mr. Sanders said. “So that’s not surprising.”

Now that these garbage people lost- not just lost but lost in a massive collapse, getting blown out in state after state- all they have left is endless negativity, trying to bring down the Dem nominee, because (having failed at building a coalition) it's all they're good at.

— Centrism Fan Acct ?? (@Wilson__Valdez) March 20, 2020

Guys this is actually really unhealthy and if you feel this way about any politician you need to take a step back and consider if you're being rational. pic.twitter.com/B74QzcEAeo

— Staying inside to own the virus (@agraybee) March 22, 2020

Guess we all have different hopes and dream… pic.twitter.com/iXFuiDzRZp

— Centrism Fan Acct ?? (@Wilson__Valdez) March 21, 2020

Ask for his birth certificate next, @DavidKlion. pic.twitter.com/qmbtTbeWLN

— Peter Wolf (@peterawolf) March 22, 2020

People are focusing on Weaver and Sirota, but Turner was one of Sanders’s most vicious attack dogs on the trail. She’s gonna be riding the Sanders train to its bitter end. https://t.co/jPHXByEekx

— Peter Wolf (@peterawolf) March 21, 2020

I promise I never expected you to get on board. https://t.co/fDkAPkLGj5

— Staying inside to own the virus (@agraybee) March 21, 2020

Disingenuous claims like "Biden has dementia" and "Biden has disappeared" are more understandable when you realize that the many people pushing them–however they describe themselves politically–want to destroy Biden and the Democratic party more than they want to destroy Trump. https://t.co/eZlINnoLl5

— (((Yair Rosenberg))) (@Yair_Rosenberg) March 22, 2020

The cool kids on this website just cannot process that they got their ass kicked by a bunch of cringey normie shitlibs and it's breaking their fucking brains.

Vote for Joe Biden and every Democrat on the ballot in November or you're helping the fascists.

— Galar Regional Medical Director (@weedlewobble) March 22, 2020

Election Year Schadenfreude Open ThreadPost + Comments (55)

Late Night Open Thread: Time for Bernie Sanders to Drop Out

by Anne Laurie| March 18, 202012:40 am| 73 Comments

This post is in: Election 2020, I Can No Longer Rationally Discuss The Sanders Campaign, Open Threads

Kinda seems like Elizabeth Warren is doing more for the progressive movement by pushing for progressive policies in the bailout bills than Bernie is doing by continuing his zombie candidacy.

— Daily Trix (@DailyTrix) March 17, 2020

Senator Sanders — yes, he has a job already! — could be working with his Senate colleagues tomorrow. Murphy the Trickster God knows we could use every available hand in this crisis, if only to help reading through the various GOP proposals to see what kind of Ayn Rand boobytraps they’re trying to sneak through. Step up and do the hard thing for once, Bernie!

Biden goes 3-for-3 on the night.

He has now won 8 of the last 9 contests – losing only North Dakota. https://t.co/DEalOXG28H

— The Hoarse Whisperer (@HoarseWisperer) March 18, 2020

Dear @BernieSanders: thank you for your service. With all respect to what you achieved: Now is the time to drop out.

— Karen Tumulty (@ktumulty) March 18, 2020

Wow. Even Rachel Maddow now bringing up the subject of Sanders staying in a race he has all but lost despite a health crisis posing risks to voters.

— The Hoarse Whisperer (@HoarseWisperer) March 18, 2020

But I just do not buy the "he's more electable!" argument when he lost every county in Michigan and couldn't sell his healthcare plan in the middle of a fucking plague.

I'm sorry, I just don't.

— Starfish Who Is Frankly Freaking Out Right Now (@IRHotTakes) March 18, 2020

Staying in the race & not acknowledging Biden is the de facto nominee looks like Bernie trying to force a contested convention.

If Bernie doesn’t drop out people who might have avoided infection will get sick, & some of them might die https://t.co/AyZYFnc3E6

— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) March 17, 2020

The counter-arguments are, to say the least, unconvincing:

What this pandemic really needs is a zombie candidacy. https://t.co/STboPang1K

— Daily Trix (@DailyTrix) March 17, 2020

In a more sensible world, this would lead to serious reflection by the left at how they failed at messaging so badly. https://t.co/ZxbXxhR4Ba

— The face toucher (@JonIsAwesomest) March 18, 2020

The race is over and everyone know it. We're just going to pretend like this is about anything other than Bernie supporters hoping Biden dies before July. https://t.co/F7CdWLRvyz

— AdotSad (@AdotSad) March 17, 2020

Just checking in on how the left is doi…OMG…*backs out slowly* pic.twitter.com/0uRM3u2AUL

— staying home stan account (@Convolutedname) March 17, 2020

Voter turnout looks like it's higher in FL in 2020 than 2016 and largely because they have mechanisms to early vote and not in person and the results are a complete blow out. People just do not want to come to grips with Biden beating Bernie in a 1v1. https://t.co/s1zAfzEdHJ

— AdotSad (@AdotSad) March 18, 2020

remember three weeks ago when these guys were oh so outraged at the idea of bloomberg running third party as a spoiler? https://t.co/WNKvZkGIcP

— The Online-Normie Complex (@canderaid) March 17, 2020

Just the bestest surrogates. We really are gonna pivot from 2016 was rigged to 2020 was rigged even as Biden wins by 20 to 30 points. https://t.co/Nlez6LVaFR

— AdotSad (@AdotSad) March 18, 2020

Late Night Open Thread: Time for Bernie Sanders to Drop OutPost + Comments (73)

Another DNC Debate! Open Thread (Joe vs. Bernie Edition)

by Anne Laurie| March 15, 20207:35 pm| 279 Comments

This post is in: Election 2020, I Can No Longer Rationally Discuss The Sanders Campaign, Open Threads

Georgia postponing its primary from March 24 to May 19. Puerto Rico also considering postponing, so the calendar may get very empty after Tuesday’s races.https://t.co/tj3m1SdR04

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) March 14, 2020

Barring the Oval Office Occupant finds a way to fvck this up too during his immanent ‘briefing’, here’s the word per CNN:

The Democratic debate scheduled for Sunday will be moved from Arizona to Washington, DC, the Democratic National Committee announced Thursday.

“Out of an abundance of caution and in order to reduce cross-country travel, all parties have decided that the best path forward is to hold Sunday’s debate at CNN’s studio in Washington, D.C., with no live audience,” DNC communications director Xochitl Hinojosa said in a statement.

Additionally, Univision’s Jorge Ramos was possibly exposed to coronavirus. While he is not exhibiting any symptoms, he has has stepped down from his role as one of the moderators for the debate, the DNC said. The network’s Ilia Calderón will take his place, alongside CNN’s Dana Bash and Jake Tapper. The debate is still set to take place 8 to 10 p.m. ET Sunday.…

The debate partners had previously announced that there would be no live audience, press filing center or spin room at the event.

The debate will air exclusively live on CNN, CNN en Español, CNN International, and Univision at 8 p.m. ET. The debate will stream live in its entirety, without requiring log-in to a cable provider, on CNN.com’s homepage, across mobile devices via CNN’s apps for iOS and Android, and via CNNgo apps for Apple TV, Roku, Amazon Fire, Chromecast and Android TV, as well as Univision’s digital properties. The full debate will be available exclusively the day following the airing on demand via cable/satellite systems, on CNNgo (at CNN.com/go on your desktop, smartphone, and tablets, and via CNNgo OTT apps), and CNN mobile apps on iOS and Android.

There’s supposed to be one last, as yet unscheduled, debate after this… but Vox says it will presumably be cancelled if ‘a candidate’ has ‘the nomination sewn up’ by then.

If you’re wondering why my tone implies that the primary is basically resolved, here are our polling averages for the 4 states voting on Tuesday:

FL: Biden +42.8
IL: Biden +29.9
OH: Biden +24.6
AZ: Biden +24.5https://t.co/1IkQkQUkXE

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) March 13, 2020

There have literally been 10 debates and Bernie has yet to perform like his fans imagine he would. He likes Biden. They have a Grumpy Old Men chemistry. https://t.co/XSgCCaxeh0

— Malarkey Delenda Est (@agraybee) March 14, 2020

There is not one single swayable voter in America who is gonna give a shit about the democratic primary debate on sunday when half the country have quarantined themselves inside crude toilet paper forts.

— Galar Regional Medical Director (@weedlewobble) March 14, 2020

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*Another* DNC Debate! Open Thread (Joe vs. Bernie Edition)Post + Comments (279)

Election Year “Respite” (!!!) Open Thread: Scrabbling Through the Ashes

by Anne Laurie| March 13, 202012:26 am| 78 Comments

This post is in: Election 2020, I Can No Longer Rationally Discuss The Sanders Campaign, Nature & Respite

Bernie Sanders, here in Burlington alongside his wife Jane Sanders and his senior campaign staff, is staying in. pic.twitter.com/s4uZtWkCYY

— Ruby Cramer (@rubycramer) March 11, 2020

That was the least objectionable speech I’ve heard from Sanders this election cycle.

— The Hoarse Whisperer (@HoarseWisperer) March 11, 2020

It was just better than his 2016 version:

“Since you didn’t elect me mayor, I will burn down your stupid, corrupt village.”

— The Hoarse Whisperer (@HoarseWisperer) March 11, 2020

Yes, I am a terrible terrible excuse for a human being (yet a proud Democrat). For those of you who share my weakness: Let. Us. Savor…

The Week Bernie Sanders Realized He Was Losing

On the road and inside a campaign struggling to reconcile reality with the emotions of a movement that Sanders ran himself, the way he wanted, but has simply fallen short: https://t.co/3M7BslFGAG

— Ruby Cramer (@rubycramer) March 11, 2020

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… You could see it last week, when his motorcade arrived for a rally at the fairgrounds in Salt Lake City, and all they could do was watch as a seven-person field rapidly shrunk to a two-man race, with candidates flying in secret to line up behind Joe Biden in Dallas. As the news broke, a senior aide stood in the fairgrounds parking lot near a line of SUVs, visibly shaking with nerves.

You saw it back in his Washington headquarters, where staffers reassured themselves by digging back in, as if by muscle memory, to an old trench: “Did we really think they were going to let us have it?” they told one another. You saw it after Super Tuesday, a loss across 10 states, when some senior aides began to worry that Biden wouldn’t even show up to the next debate simply because he wouldn’t have to. And even as the campaign made a hard last play for Michigan, some aides said they could see “the writing on the wall” — and wondered if the boss did too.

Bernie Sanders promised a singular and unprecedented ability to bring young and working-class people into the political process, an antidote to the “same old, same old status quo,” a campaign of “energy and excitement.” But it was Joe Biden, not Bernie Sanders, who was expanding the electorate. It was Joe Biden who was turning nonvoters into new voters. Everyone knew who Bernie Sanders was. The other guy was just getting more votes — and how could he explain that?

A few days ago, when reporters asked in Phoenix, he couldn’t…

Interviews with nearly two dozen aides, allies, and progressive operatives over the last week reveal a campaign struggling to reconcile the reality of the delegate math with the emotions of an entire progressive movement that now rests on the shoulders of a man who has pursued his aims with a single-minded focus for more than 50 years, who built a vast and obsessive following from almost nothing in 2016, who doesn’t easily back down — even when he knows he’s lost.

“He was never able to expand his coalition,” said Mark Longabaugh, a top adviser who split with the campaign early last year over strategic disagreements with the candidate. “He just didn’t succeed at it.”…

Even as anxiety grew in Sanders’ Washington headquarters, the tight circle that travels around him mirrored the straightforward and laserlike focus of the candidate. Sanders is tough on his staff and prone to angry outbursts, but in pursuit of his “political revolution,” he is almost even-keeled — a temperament matched by his quiet campaign manager, Faiz Shakir. “He’s like Faiz,” communications director Mike Casca once told reporters. “He’s always at a 5 out of 10.”

But for many outside the senator’s small retinue of staff, the past week unfolded as if in slow motion, a muddle of frustration and sadness as they came to terms with what was happening.

On the road, Sanders and the senior aides around him pressed as if little around them had changed.

“The divide isn’t between the traveling staff and headquarters,” one progressive operative close to the operation said this week. “The divide is between reality and the candidate’s head.”…

… Sanders, a candidate rarely willing to budge, served as his own press secretary, digital director, pollster, advertiser, and campaign manager. The true inner circle around the senator is already exceptionally tight — limited to his wife and five or so staffers — and even smaller still is the group of aides on his 2020 payroll who are willing to tell him “no.”…

This article is…really something.

When @ewarren—Bernie’s closest ally—reached out a MONTH ago to start discussions about aligning, his campaign ignored hers.

But when Bernie’s campaign wanted him to go hard on Biden, he refused—because he “likes Joe.”https://t.co/pqGMseii21 pic.twitter.com/zs6ld82kgM

— Jeff Yang (@originalspin) March 11, 2020

WARREN: “We are responsible for the ppl who claim to be our supporters and do really threatening ugly dangerous things to other candidates.”

MADDOW: “Have u ever talked to Sen Sanders about that?”

WARREN: “I have”

MADDOW: “Wut was that convo like?”

WARREN: “It was short.”

— Misyrlena Egkolfopoulou (@misyrlena) March 6, 2020

Election Year “Respite” (!!!) Open Thread: Scrabbling Through the AshesPost + Comments (78)

Late Night Change of Topic Open Thread: Cue the Exploding Vape Pen

by Anne Laurie| March 12, 202012:35 am| 82 Comments

This post is in: Election 2020, I Can No Longer Rationally Discuss The Sanders Campaign, Open Threads

I don’t know, man. It’s almost like poisoning the well for every other worthwhile candidate wasn’t the smartest strategy for furthering the progressive cause. https://t.co/WFqHzUHcqu

— Dennis DiClaudio (@dennisdiclaudio) March 11, 2020

Congratulations Berners!

You worked so hard to undermine Clinton in 2016 you put the country in a position where they wanted Trump out and were in absolutely no mood to fuck around with your "revolution." https://t.co/4SL6Ob7DCl

— Andy (@trtx84) March 11, 2020

Bernie should start firing people. Even if it’s too late to turn this thing around, it’d be for the long-term good of his movement if he starts cultivating a cadre of more competent people. https://t.co/W4uwvQjIVj

— Starfish Who Should Be Told To Get Back To Work (@IRHotTakes) March 11, 2020

Well, assuming that we have free and fair elections in the future (which alone is a reason to vote for Kooky Uncle Joe if it’s him or Donald,) then the left wing of the party would presumably like to win them, and they are more likely to do so with people who are competent.

— Starfish Who Should Be Told To Get Back To Work (@IRHotTakes) March 11, 2020

I know I keep banging on this but I genuinely do not understand how I, a primary voter who is on their 837th choice and whose electoral considerations fundamentally boil down to "pull lever to make bad mans go away" am madder about this than 99% of the die-hard Berners I follow. https://t.co/YorfY2Gzp1

— Starfish Who Should Be Told To Get Back To Work (@IRHotTakes) March 11, 2020

In one of his rare moments of wisdom, our idiot king noted that "winners aren't losers," and he was right. Find some winners! By all means reward the people who were smart and competent, but you don't owe the guys who fucked this up jack shit.

— Starfish Who Should Be Told To Get Back To Work (@IRHotTakes) March 11, 2020

Yeah, about that…

Just for the record. If you do this, you are either playing someone or being played https://t.co/EJHyXsI3Js

— penitent admirer (@loudpenitent) March 10, 2020

Just say No to a #demexit
all the people we like will still be there if Biden wins
He seems pretty easily swayed so let's not panic too too much
Let's just kick trump'ass

— Console cowboy in cyber space (@Coolranch4lyfe) March 10, 2020

Late Night Change of Topic Open Thread: Cue the Exploding Vape PenPost + Comments (82)

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

The republican ‘Pastor’ of the House is an odious authoritarian little creep.

He wakes up lying, and he lies all day.

I might just take the rest of the day off and do even more nothing than usual.

They want us to be overwhelmed and exhausted. Focus. Resist. Oppose.

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

the 10% who apparently lack object permanence

Giving up is unforgivable.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

The desire to stay informed is directly at odds with the need to not be constantly enraged.

The most dangerous place for a black man in America is in a white man’s imagination.

Jack be nimble, jack be quick, hurry up and indict this prick.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

The current Supreme Court is a dangerous, rogue court.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

Bad people in a position to do bad things will do bad things because they are bad people. End of story.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

When they say they are pro-life, they do not mean yours.

“woke” is the new caravan.

The fight for our country is always worth it. ~Kamala Harris

Radicalized white males who support Trump are pitching a tent in the abyss.

Late Night Open Thread: Flagrant Nut-Picking

Late Night Schadenfreude Open Thread: Nobody Loves A Defunct Campaign

Election Year Schadenfreude Open Thread

Late Night Open Thread: Time for Bernie Sanders to Drop Out

Another DNC Debate! Open Thread (Joe vs. Bernie Edition)

Election Year “Respite” (!!!) Open Thread: Scrabbling Through the Ashes

Late Night Change of Topic Open Thread: Cue the Exploding Vape Pen