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Et Tu, Bernie?
Last week, we had the drama between Senator Ted Cruz and Donald Trump at the Republican Convention. Tonight, there is a chance we may see similar sparks when Senator Bernie Sanders takes the stage so soon after revelations that the DNC was actively schilling for his opponent during the primaries:
Among the emails released on Friday were several embarrassing messages that suggest the committee’s chairwoman, Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, and other officials favored Hillary Clinton over Mr. Sanders — a claim the senator made repeatedly during the primaries.
In one of the emails, dated May 21, Mark Paustenbach, a committee communications official, wrote to a colleague about the possibility of urging reporters to write that Mr. Sanders’s campaign was “a mess” after a glitch on the committee’s servers gave it access to Clinton voter data.
[…]
In another email exchange, Mr. Miranda asked Ms. Wasserman Schultz whether they should call CNN to complain about a segment the network aired in which Mr. Sanders said he would oust the chairwoman if he were elected.
“Do you all think it’s worth highlighting for CNN that her term ends the day after the inauguration, when a new D.N.C. Chair is elected anyway?” Mr. Miranda asked. Ms. Wasserman Schultz responded by dismissing the senator’s chances. “This is a silly story,” she wrote. “He isn’t going to be president.”
[…]
In an email exchange that month, another committee official wrote to both Mr. Paustenbach and Amy Dacey, the committee’s chief executive, to suggest finding a way to bring attention to the religious beliefs of an unnamed person, apparently Mr. Sanders.
“It might may no difference, but for KY and WVA can we get someone to ask his belief. Does he believe in a God,” wrote Brad Marshall, the chief financial officer of the committee. “He had skated on saying he has a Jewish heritage. I think I read he is an atheist. This could make several points difference with my peeps.”
Sanders has a great many loyal supporters, many of whom were angry at Clinton before this evidence was made public. Now, they’re really angry:
Will Sanders stab Clinton? And, if so, will it be in the front or the back?
Published in General
I don’t relish that fact, Brent. I’m merely pointing out that an effective communicator of the ideas of limited government essentially has to be the package. Looks, smarts, warmth, humanity… everything. They have to convince people to eat the cat food and act like it’s pate. A guy like Cruz can say all the right things to me and he could be a black box from which a voice appears for all I care. He can get me without difficulty but I regard the word “average” as a deadly insult and getting “average” people is required if you’re going to win the Presidency.
My wife, who is no less intelligent or principled than I am hates Ted Cruz because he creeps her out. Most of the women I know are of a similar mindset on him. They are bothered by Cruz because of his mannerisms and verbal tics. I can’t help that and failing to point it out is a lie of omission.
On Editor/Contributor dichotomy: I hear that. Do you think the editors shouldn’t ever contribute articles to the site as contributors, or should they have separate accounts for their different hats?
I don’t think it makes that much difference.
Those things would be nice, but we go to war with who we have, not who we want.
I cringed a couple times during the Senate campaign, but got over it.
I think pick one or the other.
Almost all of whom are now kissing Trump’s behind to one level or another. I still fail to see how Cruz should be singled out here for simply tempering his criticism earlier in the election cycle (which he also did for many other candidates, not just Trump). I’ll give credit to Kasich and Bush for sticking to their moderate principles, just like I will Cruz for sticking up for constitutionalism regarding Trump.
I’m willing to give the various players who have soft-endorsed Trump a pass under the heading of party unity. I hold those who have fallen in to Trump sycophancy such as Christie or Carson in a whole other realm of contempt.
I am fine with Cruz maintaining his principles and being unwilling to endorse Trump strictly as a matter of personality – Trump would be getting rhetorically shivved by me hourly if he had said my wife was ugly or that my Dad had helped assassinate a President – so Cruz’s relative forbearance is fine and good with me.
His turn on Trump was just too convenient and too late. If you make a judgment call like that and it goes south? You have displayed not merely bad instincts at the craps table, but poor judgment to bet the mortgage payment (and by extension, that of the nation) on the Pass Line.
Did any of the candidate display good judgment then?
Gilmore – No idea what he was thinking.
Pataki – Same.
Jindal – Same again.
Graham – No one ever thought he could win his crucial home state. So same.
Bush – $150 million for three delegates. Three!
Perry – Hired Steve Schmidt. Steve Schmidt.
Fiorina – couldn’t capitalize on best debate moment all season.
Kasich – I like Galaxy Quest as much as the next person but there are times you should give up.
Christie – Shivved Rubio – the commentariat’s favorite candidate by far – and earned himself even more hate by his prisoner’s endorsement of Trump. Didn’t even get the VP slot for his troubles.
Rubio – lost his home state – a must win state! – and best remembered campaign moments are repeating himself in New Hampshire and making fun of Trump’s hand size.
Walker – didn’t even make it Iowa because his campaign blew all the money.
Paul – hired a man who toasted John Wilkes Booth.
Cruz – allied himself with Trump in an effort to take Trump’s voters.
I know I’m missing people, but I can’t imagine they covered themselves in glory either. Deepest bench in history my foot.
These guys were no chancers and anybody who was around them needed to tell them that.
Yeah. Another situation where an above-room-temperature IQ adviser would have said, “you know sir, people may not be ready for a third Bush…” Or that guy existed and got fired probably.
Whoops.
Very little there there, unfortunately.
Even less there.
Currently being fitted for a gimp mask.
Sigh. But for one dumb blunder in the Senate, are we having this discussion?
Clearly wasn’t ready for a national campaign.
Son of crazy had no chance.
Ambition unmatched by experience. Same could be said for Rubio.
As it turns out, it was the widest, but not the deepest. The depth was masked by the sheer number of clowns in the car.
No – which made the blunder all the more inexplicable in my opinion.
I’m happy to accept that Cruz has made mistakes. I likewise wish he was better stylistically. But as others have pointed out, this whole election cycle was an abundance of riches of incompetence. Why do we need to single out Cruz?
Classical liberalism is taking a beating from both presidential candidates, and I fully believe we’re in the midst of a political realignment. If we assume this is just a phase and continue “business as usual,” we’ll be left politically irrelevant. Whether we supported Rubio, Cruz, Paul, whomever, we need to figure out a way to work together to rebuild a viable political organization. This begins with not beating up our own over the pettiest of differences.
Apparently, that’s Hillary.
I have a strong sense Bernie will never make it to the podium. It’s not that he’s at risk of saying something damaging to Hillary — it’s that his supporters in the hall will be out of control. The DNC won’t let that happen.
After all, they’ve erected an eight-foot fence to keep the
illegalsdissenters out.What do you mean? After all of these “revelations” – I mean, come on… who didn’t think this was what was going on?
Yeah, I doubt he’s going to get within a hundred feet of the main podium’s mic.
I love how this starts on Sanders, and turns into another fight about Cruz.
Predicting Bernie’s actions should be looked at in terms of how Bernie weights his competing goals:
The second is merely a rear-guard action. The first has been his primary goal from the beginning. Evidently, Bernie’s core supporters are making it clear that his positive support of Hillary and the Democrat party has become counterproductive. It could possibly negate most of his remarkable success in advancing his primary goal. Therefore, he must create some separation from the Dems.
Bottom line: I think he will loudly condemn Trump but will stop short of formally endorsing Hillary.
My first inclination as well, but how can they possibly restrain the energy behind Bernie’s delegates (40% of total delegates) if they yank his mic?
What if he incites a riot?
The Democrats have a tiger by the tail right now. Figuring out how to let it go is tricky.
They have a serious problem on their hands. Either way, they could face a riot. This gives Bernie tremendous leverage. How do you suppose he will exploit it?
Tom Meyer, Ed: … wrote to a colleague about the possibility of urging reporters to write that Mr. Sanders’s campaign was “a mess”
For me, the quote above is the most chilling part of the whole mess. I mean we already knew the press is nothing but an arm of the DNC, and it was confirmed by Ben Rhodes’s gloating that the WH press corps printed whatever he fed them. But somehow seeing it in black and white, so blatantly and openly discussed! It’s truly shocking. They might as well all merge into one entity and call itself Pravda. I don’t know how they live with themselves.