 02 February 20
FOCUS: Bernie Sanders, the Democratic Front-Runner
 Benjamin Wallace-Wells, The New Yorker Wallace-Wells writes: "Bernie Sanders, at seventy-eight, three months clear of a heart attack, has outlived obscurity to become the co-front-runner for the Democratic nomination for the Presidency of the United States."
He is still thin and intent; to my eye, the hunch in his back has deepened. On a tour of Iowa last weekend, he wore a suit with an open-necked shirt, and his hair was on the tame side of its range. There are not many jokes in Sanders’s speeches right now, or stories, or people. He addressed thousands of people in Iowa and did not take a single question.
The better Sanders’s polls look, the more grave, even dour, he seems to grow. “Our infrastructure, our roads, our bridges, our border systems, wastewater plants are crumbling,” he said, morosely, in Ames. His ballooning prospects were enough to excite his crowds; Sanders himself could deflate into a more familiar tone. Americans have to endure the “international embarrassment” of failing to guarantee health care. Did you want to “talk about vulgarity?” Consider the pharmaceutical executives, “a bunch of crooks.” Dispassionately, he went on to climate change. “They have underestimated the kinds of forest fires and wildfires that we will be seeing. All of you are aware that Australia, a beautiful country, is now burning.” The average American worker “is not making a nickel more” than he or she did fifty years ago, he said, and “you got three people on top owning more wealth than the bottom half of American society. You got that? Three people, a hundred and sixty million people.” Why, you wondered, would a person invest himself in such a sick place? The answer, carried by his young crowds and surrogates: for the kids.
It’s common to describe the present split within the Democratic Party as pitting its left against its center. A different way to put it is that the Party is split between its likely future and its current reality. An Emerson poll of Iowa this week found that forty-four per cent of Democrats under fifty support Sanders; ten per cent favor Elizabeth Warren, and no other candidate reached double digits. You’d think that a growing coalition of this size would be enticing to other Democrats, but Sanders has been endorsed by just one of his Senate colleagues, Patrick Leahy, of Vermont, and by seven members of the House. On Friday, he had the support of only one Iowa state legislator, while Amy Klobuchar had been endorsed by eighteen. “Nobody likes him,” Hillary Clinton says, of Sanders, in a new documentary just shown at Sundance, which seems true in a certain sense but beside the point. His voters no longer look quite so much like outsiders to the Party. They are beginning to seem like the future base. The former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers has been talking up an analysis that he and some associates conducted, which found that Sanders’s proposals would add sixty trillion dollars in new spending programs, about twenty per cent of G.D.P. That is more than fifty times the new spending proposed by Klobuchar, ten times that proposed by Joe Biden, and nearly twice that proposed by Warren. According to Summers, Sanders’s program is nearly three times the size of the New Deal. Sanders might quibble with the numbers, but the vast gap between the scale of his own programs and those of his rivals suggests something about why his supporters have been so hard for other Democrats to pull away. “In any other country, Joe Biden and I would not be in the same party,” Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Sanders’s most prominent surrogate, told New York magazine last month. At stake in Sanders’s primary campaign is whether the transformation of the Democrats has already begun.
Last Saturday, at Ames City Auditorium, Sanders, travelling with Ocasio-Cortez and the documentary filmmaker Michael Moore, drew a crowd of more than a thousand people, which meant that two hundred of them had to watch the rally from a gym out back. Moore went out to address them. “You’re like me, this is the slacker crowd!” Moore said. “We don’t show up two hours early for anything!” But, whatever the Sanders campaign is, it isn’t for slackers. Sanders knew from the outset of the race that he was likely to raise more money than any of his rivals, and he has - more than ninety-six million dollars so far, according to the campaign. His campaign manager, Faiz Shakir, is a former Harvard baseball player who trained in Harry Reid’s Senate office. His role in the Sanders operation is something like the one that Rahm Emanuel once played in the young Barack Obama’s: the figure in an idealistic campaign who understands something about power. Sanders’s campaign has a sharp slogan - “Not Me. Us.” - and branding that keeps pivoting, deftly, to match the news. In Iowa this past weekend, volunteers were wearing the latest buttons, which respond to questions about Sanders’s electability. They read, “Bernie Beats Trump.” Sanders’s platform is no less radical than it was in 2016, and his supporters’ siege mentality is undiminished. On Friday night, Rashida Tlaib, one of Sanders’s most outspoken surrogates, made headlines for booing a mention of Hillary Clinton at a campaign event. (Tlaib later apologized.) But Sanders’s movement, with all its bristling emotions, is also beginning to look like a winning one. At every level, there is an interesting tension, between powerlessness and power.
Early last Sunday morning, about a hundred campaign volunteers were waiting to meet Sanders at an office in a strip mall. As people milled around, with their winter gear still on, I tried to get a sense of what was different from 2016. The campaign operation was much bigger and better - everyone agreed on that. But mostly, they said, it was the same. “I honestly don’t think there’s a difference - I think it’s the same thing,” a woman named Celia Ringstrom told me. Sanders’s constancy, in the face of opportunism and hypocrisy from both Republicans and Democrats, was the point. “I mean, he’s been saying the same thing for forty years,” a man named Mike McElree told me. Sanders was on the good side of a contest between “democracy and barbarism,” an organizer told the group - with little, it seemed, between them.
Throughout the fall, a wise thing to say about the race was that Democrats in real life were not the same as they were on Twitter - that they were not as committed to socialism and social-justice claims, and not nearly so far to the left. Out in the real world, the line went, the Party was populated by a more sedate group - older, less educated, and less spikily progressive. They wanted a touch more public health insurance, a more balanced system of taxation, and a return to some remembered public decency - they were Biden people. In the week before the Iowa caucuses, though, the distinction between the Party on Twitter and the real world seemed to be collapsing. “I just don’t like rich people,” a woman named Sara Brizzi told me in Ankeny. “Maybe because of having grown up poor.” Brizzi, who was there with her husband and their five-year-old daughter, explained that she worked for a health-insurance company, and that, if Sanders won, and his Medicare for All plan was realized, she would probably lose her job. In 2016, pundits sometimes described the Sanders and Trump campaigns as reflecting a “symbolic” politics, in which policy positions mattered less than resisting the status quo. But the Sanders movement is profoundly material: its adherents want Medicare for All, and a Green New Deal, and tuition-free public colleges, and they have imagined these programs clearly enough that they have considered whether their own jobs might be affected. Brizzi had weighed the risks and benefits, and decided that she was with Sanders.
We are a long way from the start of this primary campaign, when a half-dozen candidates met with Obama, and went out to try to build a gentler bridge between the political needs of the present day - as the Party sees them - and the coalition of the future. The majority of those candidates - Cory Booker, Julián Castro, Beto O’Rourke>, and Kamala Harris - are now out of the race, and two others, Pete Buttigieg and Warren, have seen their prospects weaken. In just a few weeks, Democrats may be left with a simple and stark choice between Biden and Sanders. In Iowa last week, the most powerful forces in the Democratic primary did not seem to be those massing behind Mike Bloomberg and Biden, but those affiliated with the Sanders bus speeding west across Iowa - the ninety-six million dollars and the multiracial coalition of the young behind it, who seemed to want what he was offering, and not, as he might have said, fifty cents on the dollar.
In icy, spare Perry, Iowa, last Sunday, Sanders’s audience was crammed into the town hall, and nearly ecstatic, but the more energetic that crowds are, the more focussed and concerned Sanders seems to become - an emotional contrarian. His mind seemed fixed on the short time until the caucuses, and the impeachment trial that would keep him in Washington, D.C. Sanders said, “I hope to come back - I don’t know if I will midweek. Maybe, maybe not.” A moment later, he seemed to decide - probably not - and slowed his cadence for a final message. Yes, this was about winning the nomination, he said, and yes, it was about beating Trump. “But we are asking even more of you. We are asking you to join us to transform this country.” The next event was in Fort Dodge. By the time I’d exited the building, the campaign bus was already gone. Sanders had said a few minutes earlier that he had enjoyed taking questions from Iowans through the campaign. “Today, we’re not going to have the time.”
|
Showing posts with label 2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS. Show all posts
Monday, February 3, 2020
FOCUS: Bernie Sanders, the Democratic Front-Runner
Sunday, February 2, 2020
FOCUS: DNC Members Discuss Rules Change to Stop Sanders at Convention
01 February 20
It seems we say this after every fundraiser at this stage, we have wonderful donors, and we do, but we continue to come up short of covering our basic operating costs. Basic operating costs being the key. We need to do better.
To our donors, we appreciate and salute you.
Sincerely.
Marc Ash
Founder, Reader Supported News
Founder, Reader Supported News
If you would prefer to send a check:
Reader Supported News
PO Box 2043
Citrus Hts, CA 95611
Reader Supported News
PO Box 2043
Citrus Hts, CA 95611
01 February 20
FOCUS: DNC Members Discuss Rules Change to Stop Sanders at Convention
David Siders, POLITICO
Siders writes: "A small group of Democratic National Committee members has privately begun gauging support for a plan to potentially weaken Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign and head off a brokered convention."
David Siders, POLITICO
Siders writes: "A small group of Democratic National Committee members has privately begun gauging support for a plan to potentially weaken Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign and head off a brokered convention."
The talks reveal rising anxiety over the Vermont senator's momentum on the eve of voting.
In conversations on the sidelines of a DNC executive committee meeting and in telephone calls and texts in recent days, about a half-dozen members have discussed the possibility of a policy reversal to ensure that so-called superdelegates can vote on the first ballot at the party’s national convention. Such a move would increase the influence of DNC members, members of Congress and other top party officials, who now must wait until the second ballot to have their say if the convention is contested.
“I do believe we should re-open the rules. I hear it from others as well,” one DNC member said in a text message last week to William Owen, a DNC member from Tennessee who does not support re-opening the rules.
Owen, who declined to identify the member, said the member added in a text that “It would be hard though. We could force a meeting or on the floor.”
Even proponents of the change acknowledge it is all but certain not to gain enough support to move past these initial conversations. But the talks reveal the extent of angst that many establishment Democrats are feeling on the eve of the Iowa caucuses.
Sanders is surging and Joe Biden has maintained his lead nationally, but at least three other candidates are widely seen as viable. The cluster raises the specter of a convention requiring a second ballot.
If Sanders wins the Iowa caucuses on Monday and continues to gain momentum, it is possible he could arrive at the convention with the most delegates — but without enough to win the nomination on the first ballot. It is also possible that he and Elizabeth Warren, a fellow progressive, could arrive at the convention in second and third place, but with more delegates combined than the frontrunner.
If, on the second ballot, superdelegates were to throw their support to someone else, tipping the scales, many moderate Democrats fear the upheaval that would cause could weaken the eventual nominee.
Conversations about a potential rules change picked up as Sanders ascended in the primary, but they have not gained traction to this point within the DNC.
“There’s talk about somehow trying to change this rule at this convention — just casual conversation, and I have participated in it some,” said Don Fowler, a former DNC chairman from South Carolina who opposed the DNC’s decision in 2018 to strip superdelegates of much of their power in the presidential nominating process. “But I want to be clear that I would not be a party to any effort to do that in the 2020 convention … It’s bad sportsmanship.”
Fowler said, “I think it would be not in good faith if those of us who lost that fight in committee would somehow regenerate that fight in a national convention.” If they did, he said it would result in “the most hellacious fight you’ve ever seen at the Democratic convention.”
Fowler declined to identify members participating in the conversations, and the DNC itself dismissed the idea.
"[DNC Chairman] Tom Perez fought tooth and nail to ensure our nominee would be chosen by pledged delegates, not automatic delegates,” David Bergstein, a DNC spokesman, said in an email. “The DNC passed these reforms unanimously. These rules make our party stronger and help ensure our eventual nominee has the full support of the party behind them."
The decision to relegate superdelegates — now called “automatic delegates” — to the second ballot in a contested convention consumed the DNC for nearly two years after the 2016 election. Superdelegates overwhelmingly sided with Hillary Clinton, infuriating Sanders’ supporters.
The rule change was widely viewed as a major victory for the Democratic Party’s left flank. At the time, Perez called the delegate overhaul “historic,” while progressive Democrats and many moderates lauded its appeal to young voters skeptical of centralized party power.
One DNC member who has advocated for the change in discussions with other members described the effort this week as an “uphill battle.”
But the member, who declined to be identified, said the convention body is the “ultimate authority of the party, so the convention body can do anything they want to.”
He added, “We haven’t had the first vote in the primary yet. Let’s see how the panic sets in as this thing progresses.”
More likely is a bid to rewrite the rules after the convention in Milwaukee — not for this year’s nominating contest, but for 2024.
Fowler said that “there’s a great anticipation that after this convention, there will be an effort to adopt the old rules … There are a lot of people who are interested in that.”
Following the publication of this report, Perez responded on Twitter: "Absolutely not. We put in the work to ensure power was returned to the grassroots, we will be following the rules set forth by the DNC. We will not bend on this, we will not change our rules."
And Sanders senior adviser Jeff Weaver, citing the party's "multiyear process to reform the nominating contest," said in a text message that "trying to undo those reforms would be a serious mistake.”
Even many vocal opponents of the move to dilute the power of superdelegates after 2016 aren't interested in revisiting the decision.
“My side, including me, we lost the debate,” said Donna Brazile, a former DNC chairwoman who sits on the body’s Rules and Bylaws Committee. “I don’t believe it’s wise to re-open a wound once it has healed.”
By 2024, she said, the rules will once again be “fair game, just like it was” after the 2016 presidential election. “But right now, we should be comfortable with the process,” she said.
Owen, who also opposed reducing superdelegates’ influence, said Friday that any rule change now would constitute a “slap in the face to the people who voted to change it.”
“I want our team to win,” he said. “And the way a team wins is through unity, not through division.”
Saturday, February 1, 2020
FOCUS: Sanders Tops Biden in New NBC/WSJ National Poll
31 January 20
FOCUS: Sanders Tops Biden in New NBC/WSJ National Poll
Carrie Dann, NBC News
Dann writes: "Sanders gets 27 percent support from Democratic primary voters around the country, while Biden gets 26 percent."
Carrie Dann, NBC News
Dann writes: "Sanders gets 27 percent support from Democratic primary voters around the country, while Biden gets 26 percent."
The two Democratic presidential contenders are statistically tied but Sanders has an edge in loyalty of his supporters.
ust days before the first votes are counted in the Democratic primary, a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal national poll finds Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and former Vice President Joe Biden statistically tied at the top of the Democratic field.
Sanders gets 27 percent support from Democratic primary voters around the country, while Biden gets 26 percent. Sanders’ single-point advantage, while well within the poll’s +/- 4.74 percentage point margin of error, marks his first lead of the primary in the NBC/WSJ survey.
Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren is the only other Democrat registering in double digits, at 15 percent, while former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg now holds the fourth place spot, at 9 percent. Former South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg gets 7 percent support in the poll; Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar has 5 percent, and businessman Andrew Yang stands at 4 percent. No other candidate has 3 percent support or more.
Sanders, Biden neck-and-neck in new national NBC News / WSJ poll
Warren is the only other Democrat in double digits.
The new survey marks a six-point gain for Sanders since last month. In the December NBC/WSJ poll, Biden led the field with 28 percent, with Sanders at 21 percent, Warren at 18 percent and Bloomberg at 4 percent.
The two co-frontrunners’ coalitions continue to split Democratic voters along sharp racial and generational lines, and the supporters backing each of them have starkly different views of capitalism and socialism.
But Sanders’ most powerful advantage may be the loyalty of his backers. Sixty percent of his supporters say they will definitely vote for him, while 48 percent say the same for Biden.
And despite worries that Sanders’ progressive politics might make him completely unpalatable to the Democratic Party’s centrists and potential swing voters, just 12 percent of Democratic primary voters say they are “very uncomfortable” with his candidacy, a share that’s statistically comparable to those who say the same of his rivals.
“Four years ago, Republicans thought it was unfathomable at this stage that Donald Trump could be the party’s nominee,” said Democratic pollster Peter Hart, who conducted the survey along with Republican pollster Bill McInturff. “The Democrats should not make that mistake. Bernie Sanders is formidable and that’s what we’ve learned in this survey.”
While Sanders has an edge on the enthusiasm scale, Biden may have room for growth if he remains near the top of a winnowing Democratic field after the coming contests in Iowa and New Hampshire.
More voters choose him as their second choice candidate (20 percent) than choose Sanders (15 percent), although Warren bests both with 23 percent second-choice support.
While equal shares of Democratic voters overall say they are either “comfortable with” or “enthusiastic about” Biden (70 percent) and Sanders (69 percent), those who have similarly warm feelings toward Buttigieg, Klobuchar or Bloomberg all express more comfort with Biden than with Sanders.
And Biden has an edge among the almost seven-in-ten Democratic voters who say that one of their top priorities in choosing a candidate is his or her ability to beat President Donald Trump. Among those voters, Biden leads the field with 32 percent, compared with 21 percent for Sanders.
Two top candidates, two coalitions
The survey confirms that Sanders continues to anchor his candidacy around younger and more liberal voters, while Biden’s coalition is founded on support from older voters and African-Americans, who back the former vice president by a margin of almost 2-1.
But perhaps most striking is the split in how each candidate’s supporters view capitalism and socialism.
Biden, Sanders voters deeply split over views of socialism
Pro-Sanders Dems are far more likely to view socialism positively.
Among Sanders supporters, just 12 percent have a positive view of capitalism, while 48 percent have a negative one. But a majority — 60 percent — view socialism positively, while just 4 percent disagree, a net positive rating of 56 percentage points.
Sanders describes himself as a democratic socialist, while his primary rivals have mostly shied away from that label.
Biden’s backers, on the other hand, are generally fairly positive towards capitalism, with 40 percent viewing it favorably and 26 percent viewing it negatively. But more of his supporters give socialism a thumbs down (35 percent) than a thumbs up (31 percent), yielding a net negative rating of 4 percentage points.
Among all Democratic primary voters overall, socialism is viewed favorably by 40 percent and negatively by 23 percent, while the remaining 34 percent say they’re neutral or unsure.
Those more favorable towards socialism are also far more likely to be younger, a correlation that is reflected in the dramatic differences in the ages of Biden and Sanders supporters.
Sanders gets 47 percent support among Democratic primary voters under 35, compared with just 8 percent for Biden. Among those over 50, Biden gets 37 percent support compared with just 12 percent for Sanders.
Bloomberg’s ads give him a boost
The survey also shows that Bloomberg, whose massive personal wealth and late entry into the race have the potential to shake up its dynamics right as voting gets underway, has dominated the field when it comes to flooding the broadcast airwaves.
Bloomberg has spent more than $230 million on TV and radio ads to date, and almost six-in-ten Democratic voters nationwide say they have seen one of his advertisements.
And that appears to be having at least some positive impact on their views of him.
Last month, 52 percent of Democratic primary voters said they had reservations or were uncomfortable with his candidacy, while just 31 percent were comfortable or enthusiastic about it.
Now, Democrats’ perceptions of his run are breaking even, with 45 percent expressing concerns and 45 percent saying they’re at least comfortable with his candidacy.
Thursday, January 30, 2020
The New York Times Endorsement Has Often Been a Boost for the Unendorsed
 | |
| |
Tuesday, January 28, 2020
FOCUS | Poll: Sanders Surges Into Lead in California
28 January 20
There are 4 days left in the January fundraiser and the numbers are dreadfully low. We are doing everything in our power to get your attention to the fundraising campaign.
Pull off the info-superhighway for a moment and put a few bucks behind Reader Supported News.
Marc Ash
Founder, Reader Supported News
Founder, Reader Supported News
If you would prefer to send a check:
Reader Supported News
PO Box 2043
Citrus Hts
CA 95611
Reader Supported News
PO Box 2043
Citrus Hts
CA 95611
28 January 20
FOCUS | Poll: Sanders Surges Into Lead in California
Jonathan Easley, The Hill
Easley writes: "A new poll finds Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) leading the field of Democratic contenders in California, where about 40 percent of all the convention delegates will be allocated on Super Tuesday."
Jonathan Easley, The Hill
Easley writes: "A new poll finds Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) leading the field of Democratic contenders in California, where about 40 percent of all the convention delegates will be allocated on Super Tuesday."
The latest survey from the Los Angeles Times and University of California, Berkeley finds Sanders at 26 percent support, followed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) at 20 percent, former Vice President Joe Biden at 15 percent, former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg at 7 percent and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg at 6 percent.
Candidates must hit 15 percent support statewide or in individual congressional districts to win delegates in the March 3 primary.
Sanders is up 7 points over the same poll from September, while Warren has fallen by 9 points in that time.
The Vermont senator leads the field among the most liberal Democrats, who make up about one-third of the California electorate. He has a majority of support among voters under the age of 30 and leads Biden, the next closest contender, by 20 points among Latino voters.
The Sanders campaign announced Tuesday it would launch its first ads in Super Tuesday states, spending $2.5 million between California and Texas.
Biden leads among voters 65 and older at 22 percent support, followed by Warren at 16 percent and Sanders at 14 percent.
Warren outperforms the field among the most educated voters, with a 9-point lead over Sanders among those with post-graduate degrees.
The UC-Berkeley IGS poll of 2,895 likely Democratic primary voters was conducted Jan. 15–21 and has a 2.5 percentage point margin of error.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Top News | 'Totally Crazy': Trump Holds Housing Bill Hostage to Eviscerate Voting Rights
LOTS OF POSTS IGNORED BY BLOGGER..... OR REMOVED ON THEIR WHIM! ALL POSTS ARE AVAILABLE ON MIDDLEBORO REVIEW AND SO ON BLOG...
-
04 April 23 Live on the homepage now! Reader Supported News Dahlia Lithwick | Let Donald Trump Cry It Out Dahlia Lithwick, Slate Lithwic...
-
LOTS OF POSTS IGNORED BY BLOGGER..... ALL POSTS ARE AVAILABLE ON MIDDLEBORO REVIEW AND SO ON Right now, we are standing on the edge of a he...
-
LOTS OF POSTS IGNORED BY BLOGGER..... ALL POSTS ARE AVAILABLE ON MIDDLEBORO REVIEW AND SO ON We love making ice cream, but our mission has ...
