Bernie Sanders news roundup 7/13-15 on Blog#42

I think I’ll be posting a Bernie news roundup three times a week for the foreseeable future. While the leading papers still aren’t giving Bernie the respect he deserves, plenty of others are and copiously so!


Poll shows Sanders gaining on Clinton | TheHill

By Jonathan Easley07/15/15

The Monmouth University survey released on Wednesday shows Clinton taking 51 percent support over Sanders’s 17 percent. That’s a 9-point drop for Clinton since April and a 10-point gain for Sanders.

Sanders is drawing crowds of thousands of supporters on the trail, and his campaign has consistently had to move events to larger arenas. While Clinton still holds a big lead nationally, Sanders’s surge has been most pronounced in Iowa and New Hampshire, the first two states to cast ballots in 2016.

In a briefing with reporters in Washington on Tuesday, top Clinton aides acknowledged they expect a protracted nomination fight.

“This will be a fight for the Democratic nomination, and it will be hard to secure it,” said communications director Jennifer Palmieri. “There are a lot of people Hillary Clinton will need to convince to support her, and that’s what we expect will happen.”

The Monmouth poll indicated the contest could endure another jolt if Vice President Biden enters the race. He’s currently in third place, taking 13 percent support, but the survey found his standing would improve if he jumps in.

Twelve percent of Democratic voters said they would be very likely to support Biden if he enters the race, and another 31 percent said they would be somewhat likely to support him.

All told, 25 percent of Democratic voters said they would be very likely to support Biden, and more than 50 percent said they would be somewhat likely to support him.

The poll found that Biden’s support would draw from Clinton’s: 68 percent of those who said they would be likely to vote for Biden are presently Clinton supporters.

“Most people seem to be focusing on a Sanders surge among the liberal wing of the party,” said Monmouth polling director Patrick Murray. “But the bigger threat to Clinton may come from a Biden candidacy, where the two would be fighting for the same voters.”

A majority of Democrats, 53 percent, say they would like to see Clinton face a competitive primary, with only 36 percent saying it would be better for Clinton to have a smooth path to the nomination.

Why Bernie Sanders thinks he’ll succeed where Obama failed

By REBECCA KAPLAN FACE THE NATION July 12, 2015

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, says he’ll be able to build a giant grassroots movement of support to win the Democratic nomination and the 2016 election, but that he’ll also go one step further than President Obama did successfully harness his grassroots support to change Washington.

In an interview on CBS’ “Face the Nation” Sunday, Sanders said that the president ran “one of the great campaigns in the history of the United States of America” in 2008, but he also made a mistake by trying to negotiate fair compromises with Republicans and their leadership in Congress.

“I’m going to be going around the country not only to blue states…but to red states, conservative states. We’re going to go to Alabama, we’re going to go to Mississippi,” Sanders said. “I think the message that we have is resonating. People are going to get involved in the political process, we’re going to drive turnout up and when we do that we win.”

Sanders has been attracting thousands of people to his campaign events and gaining in the polls against Hillary Clinton, his chief rival for the Democratic nomination. He still resists personal attacks against Clinton, but is quick to draw differences in their positions. Sanders cites his commitment to breaking up large financial institutions on Wall Street, his vote against the Iraq War, and opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal.

In a separate interview on “Face the Nation,” House Speaker John Boehner predicted that Sanders will give Clinton “a real run for her money” in the Democratic primary but said that both candidates are “out of step with mainstream America” because “there’s no limit to the number of taxes that Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton want to raise.”

Read the rest at CBS News


Sanders courting postal worker endorsement

By Tim Devaney07/14/15

Though the APWU has not yet endorsed any presidential candidate for the 2016 election, the union leader said there is “tremendous interest and excitement” about Sanders.

“He has been a forceful advocate for working people for decades,” Dimondstein added. “He’s not in the pocket of big corporations. We thought it was important to hear his ideas about the 2016 campaign — especially how he plans to take on the big-money interests that are strangling our political system and our economy.”

“It is time for Congress to save the Postal Service, not dismantle it,” Sanders wrote in an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal in March 2014 in response to attempts to privatize the postal service.

“Bernie Sanders has been an outspoken champion of postal customers, postal workers and the public Postal Service — demanding expanded services for all Americans, an end to mail delays, and an end to the closure of postal facilities,” Dimondstein said in a statement.

Bernie Sanders’ Senate colleagues stunned by his ascent

The Senate backbencher is drawing huge crowds on the trail, but his Democratic colleagues warn voters not to buy the hype.

Bernie Sanders’ Senate colleagues have come to know him as a bit player in the Democratic Caucus, a gruff, rumpled protest voice to the left of even the most liberal senators. Now the Vermont socialist is drawing crowds by the thousands seemingly everywhere he goes — and his cohorts in D.C. can hardly believe it.

Man, when I was away on recess, I kept seeing Bernie here and Bernie there,” said Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), recounting a conversation he had with Sanders. “It was like ‘Where’s Waldo?’”

Yet many are also implicitly — and some explicitly — warning voters not to jump on the Sanders bandwagon. He’s too far out there to win a general election, a number of Democrats who’ve worked alongside him — most, or all, of them Hillary Clinton supporters — say.

“I just hope they don’t move Hillary so far left that people believe she is out of the realm,” said Sen. Joe Manchin, a moderate West Virginia Democrat who supports Clinton. “I’ve seen bases move people.”

“No,” Sen. Bill Nelson said when asked if he was excited about Sanders’ candidacy. He added that Sanders would lose his critical swing state of Florida in a general election. “I’m totally behind Hillary.”

Bernie Sanders’ Senate colleagues have come to know him as a bit player in the Democratic Caucus, a gruff, rumpled protest voice to the left of even the most liberal senators. Now the Vermont socialist is drawing crowds by the thousands seemingly everywhere he goes — and his cohorts in D.C. can hardly believe it.

** Blogger’s note: It wasn’t lost on me that every single one of those interviewed is a neoliberal Democrat. Claire McCaskill, for example, was deployed on Morning Joe to test out negative mentions of Bernie. The consequence was immediate backlash.


Bernie Sanders Explains Why Elites Don’t Want You To Vote

In an excerpt from the 2006 documentary “American Blackout” Senator Bernie Sanders Explains Why Elites Don’t Want You To Vote.

Bernie Sanders Trolls Hillary Clinton Outside Her Meeting With Senate Democrats

Igor Bobik

Posted:

WASHINGTON — As former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with Senate Democrats at their weekly lunch meeting on Tuesday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), one of her rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination, seized the spotlight to air out where the two differ on contentious issues in the Democratic Party.

While Democrats listened to Clinton’s presentation behind closed doors, Sanders strode unannounced to nearby microphones typically used by leadership of both parties and proceeded to gamely “welcome” her back to the Capitol.

“I have known Secretary Clinton for 25 years, since she was first lady. I served with her in the Senate. I like and respect Hillary Clinton,” Sanders told reporters. “But there are differences of opinion that we have which should be the basis for a serious discussion.”

The senator, who has steadily risen in polls conducted in the early primary states of Iowa and New Hampshire, drew a contrast between himself and Clinton’s policy stances. He said he disagreed with his rival on trade agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which is currently being negotiated between the U.S. and 11 other nations. Clinton has not yet said whether she supports the agreement. On Iraq, Sanders highlighted Clinton’s vote to authorize the war. And he argued that Wall Street banks should be broken up in the wake of the recession, a step too far for his opponent.

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) appeared to troll rival Hillary Clinton’s visit to the Capitol. | Scott Olson via Getty Images

“The recent rise of Bernie Sanders,” wrote Vox’s Jonathan Allen last week, “points as much to [Hillary] Clinton’s vulnerability as Sanders’s strength.” Allen went on to argue that Joe Biden should run for president. “The Sanders surge shows that Democratic activists want an alternative to Clinton,” he explained.

We’ve seen this idea before. For at least a year, journalists have been urging, sometimes almost begging, Biden to enter the race. The more elaborate versions of the idea liken the 2016 campaign to 1968, a year in which the incumbent president, Lyndon B. Johnson, withdrew after the liberal, anti-war candidate Eugene McCarthy finished a close second in the New Hampshire primary. The nomination was eventually won by Johnson’s vice president, Hubert Humphrey, after Robert F. Kennedy (who had entered the race after New Hampshire) was assassinated. In the 2016 narrative, Clinton is Johnson, Sanders is McCarthy and Biden is some composite of Kennedy and Humphrey.

But these comparisons suffer from a fatal flaw. Unlike LBJ, who (mostly because of the Vietnam War) had approval ratings only in the mid-50s or low 60s among Democrats during the 1968 campaign, Hillary Clinton is beloved by voters in her party. In national polls, her favorability ratings among Democrats usually exceed 80 percent.

Nor do Sanders’s gains in Iowa and New Hampshire say much about Clinton’s vulnerability. This is easy enough to test. When a candidate gains relative to another, it could be because he is growing more popular, or because his opponent is becoming less popular. Horse-race polls, in which voters reveal only their first preference, won’t always be able to distinguish between these causes.

Favorability ratings allow us to say more. If Allen’s assertion is right — that Sanders’s gains represent an “anybody but Hillary” vote that could go to Biden — we should have seen a significant deterioration in Clinton’s favorability ratings. That’s not what we see, however. In the charts below, I’ve compiled all the favorability rating polls I could find among Iowa and New Hampshire Democrats since the start of the year. In Iowa, there’s been no change at all in Clinton’s ratings. Her favorability rating is about 85 percent, and her unfavorable rating is around 10 percent, right where it was in January.

Vox’s Jonathan Allen last week, “points as much to [Hillary] Clinton’s vulnerability as Sanders’s strength.” Allen went on to argue that Joe Biden should run for president. “The Sanders surge shows that Democratic activists want an alternative to Clinton,” he explained.

 

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