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Democratic Primaries

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lapucelle

(19,641 posts)
Sat Apr 4, 2020, 01:41 PM Apr 2020

Dear Bernie Sanders: Enough already [View all]

OPINION

Dear Bernie Sanders: Enough already
By Michael A. Cohen Globe Columnist,Updated April 3, 2020, 1:45 p.m.

I can’t decide what makes me more sick and tired: Bernie Sanders or being sick and tired of Bernie Sanders.

Four years ago, Sanders’ refusal to accept the reality that he was not going to be the Democratic nominee for president dragged the 2016 primary race with Hillary Clinton all the way to the party convention in July — undoubtedly damaging her candidacy.

Four years later it’s like watching the same bad movie again. In 2020, Sanders has even less chance of overtaking Joe Biden. He’s performed worse than he did in 2016. Since the South Carolina primary, Biden has trounced him nearly everywhere they have faced off, and usually by double digits. Every theory Sanders had about the race — that he could mobilize white working-class voters to support him and that he would bring new voters to the polls — has been proven wrong.

The view of the party rank and file has been unambiguous: they want Joe. Indeed, a good part of the reason for Biden’s Lazarus-like rise, after poor showings in the early primary states, was widespread fear, among Democrats, of Sanders being the party standard bearer. Sorry Bernie, it wasn’t the establishment blocking your path — it was you.

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While Sanders likes to claim that he’s no longer attacking Biden, that’s only partially true. In the last debate he didn’t hesitate to claim that Biden once tried to cut Social Security. Even now his national press secretary Briahna Joy Gray — who declared that she voted for Jill Stein in 2016 — is suggesting that Biden is “allowing bigotry and misinformation” into the Democratic Party because a campaign surrogate tweeted an article critical of Sanders.

This has become a tired and predictable game with Sanders: He claims to take the high road while his unbowed cheerleaders remain in attack mode. On social media the Vermont senator’s surrogates and more militant supporters continue to lacerate Biden for his verbal miscues and darkly suggest he is in cognitive decline. It was the same four years ago. When he announced his candidacy in 2015 he pledged that it would be “driven by issues and serious debate . . . not reckless personal attacks or character assassination.” A year later he was calling Clinton a tool of “big moneyed interests.”

Sanders could demand that these attacks stop. Dropping out of the race would certainly reduce intra-party tensions. But he hasn’t and he won’t. It’s apparent now, as it was apparent four years ago, that he doesn’t care about the consequences of continuing a race he cannot win.

For a candidate who proudly wears his ideological consistency on his sleeve, the one true constant in his presidential campaigns has been a desperate ambition to be president. Even a pandemic — and the potential of weakening Biden by continuing his campaign — doesn’t give him pause.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/04/03/opinion/dear-bernie-sanders-enough-already/

If I were to vote in a presidential
primary today, I would vote for:
Joe Biden
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