With just two weeks remaining before the Iowa caucuses, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has been trying to stay focused on a major vulnerability of a top rival: former vice president Joe Biden’s past willingness to pare back Social Security.
But events — some within his campaign’s control and some outside of it — have conspired to change the conversation.
First, there was a dustup over a private conversation between Sanders and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), a longtime friend and current opponent for the Democratic presidential nomination. Then, there was an overreach by Sanders’ campaign, when it took out of context a 2018 video of Biden discussing his views on Social Security.
Then, on Monday, Sanders found himself apologizing to Biden for an op-ed penned by Vermont native, Fordham Law School professor and Sanders surrogate Zephyr Teachout, in which she wrote that the former VP had “a big corruption problem” because he’s gone to bat for major donors. “It is absolutely not my view that Joe is corrupt in any way,” Sanders told CBS News. “And I’m sorry that that op-ed appeared.”
Finally, on Tuesday, the senator from Vermont found himself on the receiving end of another round of fire from 2016 rival Hillary Clinton. According to the Hollywood Reporter, Clinton attacked Sanders’ record in a documentary set to be released by Hulu.
“He was in Congress for years. He had one senator support him,” Clinton says in the documentary. “Nobody likes him, nobody wants to work with him, he got nothing done. He was a career politician. It’s all just baloney and I feel so bad that people got sucked into it.”
Asked by the Reporter whether she would endorse Sanders if he won the nomination, Clinton said she was “not going to go there yet” and proceeded to accuse his staff and supporters of sexism.
Sanders himself has sought to keep the conversation focused squarely on a policy disagreement that separates him from Biden, who holds a slight lead in Iowa.
“We’re not going to make personal attacks on Joe Biden, but I think the record shows that Joe’s history in the Senate and my history in Congress are very different,” Sanders told CBS News on Sunday in New Hampshire. “I think it is important to know where a senator has come from and where his head is at. And Joe’s record on [Social Security] is a little different than mine.”
Indeed, though the Sanders campaign took the 2018 video out of context, Biden has repeatedly made the case over the years that Social Security and other entitlements must be scaled back in order to restrain federal spending. That’s a sharp contrast with Sanders’ staunch support for the popular programs.
“I think anyone who looks at the vice president’s record understands that time after time after time, Joe has talked about the need to cut Social Security,” Sanders told the Washington Post on Sunday. “I don’t think that that is disputable.”
What is in dispute is whether Sanders can keep the conversation focused on their differences when it matters most.
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Summing it up,
Bernie said he didnt make a sexist remark to Senator Warren- Allegedly.
Then Bernie doctored a video to distort Bidens record on Social Security.
Then a Sanders surrogate pens an inaccurate Op-Ed that Bernie wasnt aware of -Allegedly,
and then apologized.
Both Governor Shumlin and Governor Kunins claims of Bernie playing dirty are looking more and more accurate.
The emphasis most of the candidates put on records and programs is not useful, there’s inevitably too much evasion and ambiguity, they should deploy more general and inspiring polemic like:
If we speak of democracy, we do not mean a democracy that maintains the right to vote but forgets the right to work and the right to live. If we speak of freedom, we do not mean a rugged individualism which excludes social organization and economic planning. If we speak of equality we do not mean a political equality nullified by social and economic privilege. If we speak of economic reconstruction, we think less of maximum production (though this too will be required) than of equitable distribution.
Paul Heinz always spins Bernie’s record to his detriment. Given that, I am not surprised that “out of context” is the best that he can come up with regarding Bernie’s otherwise excellent calling out Biden’s willingness to throw social security under the bus. But to give print space to Hillary’s ugliness, her continuing to blame Bernie for her own campaign’s failure, her vituperation against the most respected man in the 2020 race, is ridiculous. To lay at Bernie’s feet Zephyr Teachout’s op-ed is also disingenuous, but that’s the way Paul rolls.
Not one word that Bernie has used issues, and not personal attacks, throughout this campaign. Not one word that Warren’s attack was so inconsistent with Bernie’s record, or acknowledgement that Warren is now being advised by many of the ex-Hillary staffers that orchestrated Hillary’s meretricious claim, repeated here, that Bernie is a sexist. Why not simply call this an opinion piece, rather than an attempt to fairly report the news?
This is so fantastic. These people are beside themselves with fear. They’ll try anything to smear him because they can’t beat him on issues. And how rich is it that Shumlin who Bernie endorsed, ia slamming him. Talk about a disingenuous politician. As slimy as they come. It’s a good thing Bernie’s a good hitter because the fastballs are going to be coming fast and furious. What wonderful is that they all help him become more popular and fund raise like there’s no tomorrow.
OMG, you brainwashed saps. Where does Jane give out the drugs to begin your initiation into this cult? Where do they hold the secret loyalty sessions with video appearances by the Dear Leader? Where are the secret *free stuff* meetings? When do they sear your skin with tattoos in the mysterious space alien runic letters that only *The Perfect One* can interpret? Where do they keep your embarrassing personal information that they made you give them so that you can never leave *The Organization*? How many fresh-faced recruits do you have to bring so that you can move up to Captain and get a personal meeting with The Chosen One? Where do they hold the mass weddings? How much money do you have to hand over to *Him-Who-Cannot-Be-Criticized* in order to achieve enlightenment? When is the day that the alien ship comes and you all get beamed up to Ork?
I agree, why waste space on witch Hillary!
This guy Bernie got into office catering to college students through the 1980’s his sole catch phrase was / is….. I’ll take less money than the other guy yet he was able to amass 10 million dollars has more than one home and helped make Vermont so expensive to live in that I had to leave now you will have the ultra Rich in Vermont looking for workers, the poor and the homeless. I will no longer fight to stay in Vermont you can have it. It’s turned into Bernie’s Brooklyn NY. Leave Bernie Leave Vermont retire and go away.
From Chris the guy who waited on your table at Pizza Hut in the 1980’s
“To lay at Bernie’s feet Zephyr Teachout’s op-ed is also disingenuous ….”
Teachout’s op-ed was published in the Guardian. At the bottom, here’s how she was identified: “Zephyr Teachout, an associate professor at Fordham Law School, is the author of Corruption in America: From Ben Franklin’s Snuff Box to Citizens United. Her next book is Break ’Em Up: Recovering Our Freedom from Big Ag, Big Tech, and Big Money. She has endorsed Bernie Sanders for president.” http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jan…
Was she disingenuous? Was the Guardian?