Is it wrong to ask and help Biden to be better? He can't win without us so he has to listen.

By Marc Bochner
04/14/20


Biden can win a primary with only Democratic baby boomers... but do you honestly think he can ride that same limited base to a general election win? If you think so, encourage him to run the same campaign he ran in the primary. Tell donors nothing with his administration will fundamentally change any of the systems. Tell younger voters that he doesn't sympathize with their challenges that he helped create. And offer up no solutions for the massive challenges most Americans face. Challenges that didn't start 3 years ago, challenges that have been on an unaltered trajectory regardless of which party is in power. 

It would appear this will no longer be about Bernie (unless Biden does the right thing and make Bernie his running mate for the win), but it is very much about the policies that Bernie ran on. Stop pointing your fingers at Bernie supporters and pre-emptively blaming us for the latest incarnation of a losing neoliberal candidate. Start talking to Biden about what it would take to win. Make Biden a better candidate. Make a world with Biden as President worth fighting for... that's when he goes from a guy who can't win to one unlikely to lose. 

We have a unique opportunity to change the trajectory of the county and planet or we can keep circling the drain figuring out if we got to rock bottom yet. Anywhere in the ballpark of rock bottom is not a time when you settle for incrementalism or marginally better than the worst ever. Go in and start fixing the problems that led us to Trump. Make people's lives better, make sure every American has healthcare and saves money on healthcare at the same time. Make sure that the younger generations can have legitimate roles to play in the American economy (homeownership, business ownership, starting families, housing security, making a living wage, saving money and expanding the economy)

There are a lot of policies that help build that better world... Medicare for All, Free public college/ trade school, wiping the slate clean on student loan and medical debt that never should have gotten so out of control. Paid sick and family leave. A minimum wage of $15/ hour which raises all incomes above the minimum. Housing security with higher incomes paired with federal rent control and the construction of affordable housing. Unwind the free trade agreements that outsourced millions of good-paying American jobs, stagnated the wages of the jobs left behind, crushed labor unions and made it easier for the rich and corporations to hide their income and profits from taxation. Convert our energy policies to clean renewable ones to both boost the economy and make the planet inhabitable longer. What kind of a monster would choose losing an election over adopting a compassionate agenda like that? It's my sincere hope that Joe Biden is not the answer to that question. 

Let's operate in a win-win... Biden gets to be the President for the baby boomers while Bernie's policies uplift everyone including Joe's voters who never really asked him for anything on policy anyway so won't likely hate that agenda (even if their hatred for Bernie and the left drives them to say they do).

Those compassionate policies give us a more fair economy, more inclusive government. Biden kept telling us he can beat Trump and with a progressive agenda he can or he can lose with an agenda that more closely resembles his money over people record. He already has blind loyalty from boomers, but will he reach out to win the support of everyone else by being a better person?

So which Biden shows up for the general election? The one who gets all up in his ego and concedes nothing because he won a game he entered with a 10 run lead, home-field advantage and both the umpires and announcers on his payroll... or the one who is running to be different than Trump and undo the damage?  Will try to bring fairness for the majority of Americans that 40 years of corporatism has left behind?

There is really everything to gain and nothing to lose by adopting the Bernie agenda, as Biden was winning primaries, Bernie's agenda was winning all the polling on what policies the people supported. Biden crushed it with Baby Boomers and Bernie won nearly every other demographic even in the states that Biden won. Bernies supporters supported him for those policies not a cult of personality. Adopt the policies, bring in Bernie or other legit progressive as the running mate and the voter support moves with that, even with Biden's record. 

When we tell Biden to come earn our votes, we are doing him a huge favor. We are making him better whether he likes it or not. We are giving him a path to victory, a victory that will be consequential rather than 4 more years of status quo which drove the country into a ditch even before Trump. It's not much of an ask even if the media in the tank for Joe will clutch their pearls and try to pretend that making America actually great again is in fact too much of an ask.  We win together or we all lose if he is incapable of reading the room... a room filled with people living paycheck to paycheck, one illness, accident, missed paycheck or unexpected expense away from losing everything.

Videos

Does the DNC even want to beat Trump? Probably not - Nomiki Konst

How will Bernie impact Biden's platform? - Damage Report w/ Katrina Vanden Heuval

Biden wants 30 million people to buy Obamacare with money they don't have - Christo Aivalis

Biden's attempt to woo the left is a joke - The Hill

Uh Oh, Biden and Trump tied in key demographic that calls Biden's electability into question - Rational National

Biden Bros freak out over Michael Moores advice to make Biden better - Christo Aivalis

New poll shows Biden losing to Trump, Sanders leading Trump. All polls show Biden underperforming 2016 Hillary - The Hill



Articles

Young Progressive warn Biden, return to normalcy will not win their support - Common Dreams

Student Debt is a family crisis- The Nation Magazine

How wiping out $1.5 trillion in student debt will be a huge boost to economy - Market Watch

There is hard data a centrist Democrat will lose - Salon - Thomas Piketty

Joe, you want our votes? Show us you understand what we were fighting for & don't offer us crumbs

By Marc Bochner
April 10, 2020

Biden doesn't get it... Sprinkling crumbs on the Sanders supporters is not the way to win us over. I mean he based his entire campaign on telling Bernie supporters all the reasons the things we wanted. and needed were not pragmatic. So now that he or his policy consultants understand that his future depends on us, the very people he has treated as less than, he is trying to appear as though he is reaching out to us. His voters are the "Blue No Matter Who" crowd who vote blindly with the party, so the voters he needs to win are us, the very people who rejected him, his record, his worldview and his agenda. His supporters think he holds all the cards, he and his advisors understand they don't.

Remember these policy positions he has rejected are the compassionate positions, positions that make people's lives better. They are worth fighting for if you care about the American people and fairness... but therein lies the biggest problem Biden will have winning over Sanders voters. His default position has never been compassion or fairness. And he doesn't even know how to pretend that it is.

Reaching out with crumbs shows not only does he not care about the people who will benefit from those programs but he also doesn't really believe in the reasons he opposed them in the first place. He opposed the policies, not the size, or the impact. He opposed them as goals. He said they could never work and could never pass... but now he thinks he can pass token donor approved versions of them. What changed for him? Well, he now has to pretend to care about us long enough to get our votes... votes he knew he would never get in the primary and never with his agenda... we were the afterthought, the others.

There is a pathway to getting our votes Joe. Show us you will fight for us? Show us that you understand what we were fighting for and why we fought so hard (giving Sanders our time and money not just our votes). Show us you have bold ideas for undoing the damage of the last 40 years of neoconservative/ /neoliberal governance? (or 3 if you are of the belief that a rigged economy and government just started with Trump).

What can Biden do to win Bernie voters? Ryan Grimm (Rising)

Biden to Bernie Supporters - I know I need to earn your votes - Humanist Report

Biden courts Sanders supporters with student loan and healthcare policies - Reuters



Show us you can lead us back from the devastation of this pandemic and will prepare us for the next one and the one after that. The pandemic showed that the costs of not having a universal Medicare For All plan during a time of crisis far outweigh the costs of getting healthcare to everyone. This COVID-19 crisis showed Bernie and the healthcare experts were right, the people without coverage cost society way more in the long run (in addition to their personal unnecessary deaths, pain, and suffering. People without reasonable access to healthcare take longer to go to a doctor and are infecting others. They also go into work sick exposing still more people without the healthcare coverage they would have with Medicare For All, along with paid sick leave and a living wage (also parts of the Sanders plan but rejected by Biden). The people living paycheck to paycheck are not only suffering themselves but have secondary and tertiary negative impacts on society as a whole. Even if you are among the selfish who lives by the motto of "I got mine, get your own", even you will benefit from lifting the rest of your community up with you along with your kids and grandkids.

So you can see Joe misses all the points of the policies along with their personal and societal impact. But he is probably now being told that to get elected he needs to pretend to care about our policies. He is now offering us something that addresses none of the big issues our policies seek to fix but has the word Medicare in one of the policies and it seems to be about access to healthcare so stop complaining (cue Whoopi saying poop all over us). What he is proposing is not for society, it's not for everyone, it's for a very thin slice of people (of his existing voter base). It does not expand Medicare to the more comprehensive version, it only offers the current version with major gaps in coverage and only for people a few years before they were getting it anyway, at or nearing retirement. Even as reality keeps making the case for why Medicare For All is better, more compassionate and cost-effective, Joe comes to us offering crumbs, not actual policy solutions, proving he doesn't understand the purpose of the policy or why we are willing to fight for it.

But that's not all, Joe really wants us to think he is trying to reach out to us, so he has some crumbs to sprinkle over the issue of student debt as well. Again his proposal proves that he doesn't understand the spirit of the policies or what they offer. He wants to offer limited debt relief... but only if means-tested and only if you got the debt at a public college or historically black colleges. Not for trade school, not for private extension schools, night schools or online classes, not for specialty grad schools which often are trade or specific career-related. Not for native colleges. His argument is always that we shouldn't have to pay for rich people to send their kids to school... but rich people don't take out loans to go to school so that isn't a real argument and the policy he is offering leaves most student debt in the categories not covered.


Why we should cancel all student loan debt - ActTV

Should we cancel all student loan debt - economist Stephanie Kelton (Thom Hartmann Program)

The free public college/ trade school and eliminate student debt policy was so important and well-received not because it was Bernie offering free ponies. It was based on the premise that a better educated and trained workforce makes society as a whole better and our country more competitive in the global market. It is something that every citizen gets with their citizenship (like healthcare). Further justification for getting rid of this debt is that this education and training should have always been free or heavily subsidized and thus the debt should never have been incurred. If Joe can't understand why the policy is important and popular then he will never fight for us. His offer of crumbs proves he truly has no understanding of the policy and his offer is nothing more than pandering.

The bottom line is if Biden with his record and what we know of him and wholly rejected wants our support, he needs to first understand why we thought these policies were important enough to fight for and join us in those fights. Throwing us some scraps while he high fives his donors for blowing up the bigger policies and stopping a movement will not result in the unity he needs to win. We are waiting Joe... the next move is yours. Do you really want to beat Trump or are you already making plans on how to blame us for your loss? Do you have real policies to address these needs/ concerns? Do you have real progressives you plan on including in your administration as your running mate, in your cabinet and advising you on policy? You may have ridden the "Blue No Matter Who" crowd and 4 primary contests that should have been postponed to an apparent primary win, but you won't win the White House without us and our votes are attached to real policy, not empty promises, feckless proposals or platitudes.

Bernie remains on the ballot in upcoming primary states, might he close the delegate gap with focus now on Biden and his feckless argument for being President?

Has Bernie really thrown in the towel or is shifting focus to Biden a winning strategy?

Biden's refuses to debate so he can win the primary, even if it re-elects Trump.

By Marc Bochner
4/1/20

The 12th and final debate was scheduled for today. But obviously, that isn't going to happen and maybe shouldn't have on this date. But Joe Biden agreed to 12 debates and given all the new information with the crisis and how policy agendas look in this new COVID-19 world it should happen, perhaps a 13th even. Despite what the media and party goons would have you believe, more debates where the Democrats lay out their visions could only help whoever becomes the nominee because it lays out an alternative vision for the best pathway forward. Otherwise, people are getting all that information from Trump.

Joe Biden claimed to be a big play by the rules guy. Remember when Biden joined everyone but Bernie on the debate stage declaring that the party bosses should be allowed to choose someone other than the frontrunner if nobody gets to 1991 delegates? He declared that we should follow the rules that we all agreed to in the beginning. So refusing to appear at a 12th debate goes against that play by the rules commitment... More than that, it denies voters a chance to process what it would mean to have each of the candidates as the person navigating us through the new world with the new realities. A possible 13th probably should happen as well because while the debate moderators wasted everyone's time through the first 10 with nonsensical questions, including many of the same ones over and over again as if they were never answered or those answers would change (like how are you going to pay for it?), we rarely if ever got to meaningful discussion of what each candidates presidency would look like, how they would be different and how capable is each one for one of the most important jobs on the planet.

As a jumping off point for this conversation it must be noted that since the last debate nearly everything in the world, our lives and the race has changed. Nobody is wanting to rehash everything that has been done wrong so far. Nobody wants dishonest media pundits and party bosses playing gotcha with the populist and trying to talk the working class out of policies that will make their lives better. The crisis has definitively shown us that all those times Biden declared we couldn't afford like Medicare for All, paid medical leave, free public college and wiping out both student and medical debt he was wrong. Everytime he declared all of those policies to not be pragmatic along with a living wage, affordable housing, federal jobs guarantee he was wrong. Remember Hillary claimed Bernie was just trying to bribe people with free ponies? Throughout the campaign the media repeated all these disingenuous narratives and during the debates framed the questions from the perspective of Bernie and his crazy ideas will never come to pass, now let's have the others act like the adults in the room and tell us how things really work. the first 10 debates wasted everyone's time with that framing and what can only be described as journalistic malpractice from the moderators. The 11th debate was better questions, more policy discussion but featured Trump like dishonesty from Biden about nearly everything with no fact checking til days after 3 states went to the polls with those lies.

The 12 debate schedule for Democratic primary

Well, now the current crisis showed us a few things that have never been allowed into the national conversation...  Bernie's ideas are doable, the money to make them happen is there when you shift priorities and had we already implemented Bernie's policies we would be infinitely better equipped to handle this disaster, the next disaster, and people's personal disasters. And that his policies are the most pragmatic, not the least pragmatic. So now with all this new information, the people need one or two more debates to process all of this. If we are to choose our next president on who will be best for the American people and the nation as a whole, we need to have all these conversations again... and have them in a productive way without dishonest framing, and with all the new information that has come to light in the past few weeks.

Bernie is anxious to have these conversations. Joe Biden is not. People should both be concerned with not having them be a part of the electoral process AND why Joe Biden is refusing to have them. (Artwork by Humanist Report)

Debate Bernie you coward - Humanist Report

Joe Biden Desperately tries to shut down debate - The Hill TV Rising

The embarrassment of treating our electoral process as a team sport where the only things that matter

are who we are told can win, and what letter is next to the name on the ballot need to end. We need to be having real conversations with real facts and context. We have seen nothing good comes of ripping honest and meaningful conversations from the process. It has instead led us to an endless string of lesser evil elections where each election cycle what we are willing to settle for as lesser gets worse. It has led to two broken parties both of whom work for the people with all the money and power and nobody is really representing best interests of the people, the country or the planet. It has given us a swamp on both sides of the aisle that is allowed to persist simply because our votes we are told have to be cast to stop the other team, not to actually improve our lives or the country in any meaningful way. That old system has led never led to fixing any problems, because populist solutions are virtually never the goal and nobody is held to account.

It took flipping our whole world upside down to expose these realities... and now that we know, there is no going back. These conversations have to happen now, shut up and fall in line is no longer an option. These elections can not stay red, blue and purple or twisted ideas of conservative, moderate, liberal and progressive. The conversations need to be about putting the needs of people ahead of money, evening the playing field and letting honesty and trust into the process.

Now I get it. The past few weeks have been an utter disaster for Joe Biden. After the party orchestrated a coup on his behalf to secure him the nomination, Biden built a sizable lead that the media declared as insurmountable even when it was still pretty close. That lead grew solely on the narrative that Joe was winning and we need to fall in line so he can beat Trump. It got quite large after the last three primaries which should have been postponed but were forced by team Biden and the party anxious to put Biden into hiding before people noticed what a train wreck he was.

Then the pandemic hit our shores and life as we knew it changed within a week. Everything we thought was important was shown not to be. Everything we were told was possible, probable, pragmatic or even desirable was turned upside down. The compassionate policies turned out to be way more than pie in the sky, they turned out to also be the most pragmatic and the ones that could have eliminated a lot of the fear, desperation and lessened the severity of the crisis to begin with.

Bernie has led through the crisis laying out plans for moving forward that were later repeated by others on TV (remember the media doesn't like to cover Bernie so all his solutions, planning and comforting was done online). He then added a very significant amendment to the final bill to allow gig and freelance workers to qualify for unemployment and not be left as collateral damage, while tipped workers can include the tips in their income for determining how much they qualify for. Then there was Bernies epic floor speech when he shamed the Republicans into agreeing to the worker aid parts of the bailout which is what ultimately helped it pass. Sure there was a lot of terrible corporate giveaways and an unaccountable slush fund, but the people had to get aid immediately for survival and let's not kid ourselves to prevent the economy from collapsing without consumers or bills getting paid. Bernie isn't done as he continues to fight for more aid to the working class along with systemic change moving forward.

While Bernie was leading Biden was in hiding. The only calls he was making was to donors. He made no public appearances, put out no ideas on how to move forward, made no statements to help people understand the gravity of the situation. He didn't interview experts, doctors or scientists to help people understand why this is so significant and how they can help protect themselves and their community. (While Biden did none of these things, Bernie did all of them). When Biden finally surfaced he took a few shots at Trump but still offered no plans, no vision, and no leadership. He repeated a couple things Bernie had called for days earlier like shifting production from non-essential items to essential items like medical supplies, test kits, ventilators, etc. Then came a series of really bad TV and internet appearances where he seemed lost, gave confusing and disjointed non-answers to important questions and put his apparent dementia on full display leaving people to wonder if he was fit to even campaign any longer let alone to serve in the office of President. But his historically bad week didn't end there. His #MeToo problem resurfaced this time with a credible former staffer accusing him of sexually assaulting her and then demeaning her when she pulled away from the assault.

So we get why that Joe Biden would not want to make are another debate let alone for people to have another look at his plans next to Bernie's for which were the best and most pragmatic. We understand why he would want the rest of the states to cast their votes based upon what they believed pre crisis without having new conversations with the new realities to base their decisions on moving forward. He wants the primary campaign frozen in time to that time when he was winning and people were falling in line behind him.

Biden's last 5 appearances embarrass him and the Democratic party

Biden's terrible TV appearances show he is unfit for office - Hill TV, Rising

But let me explain why this is a terrible idea for everybody... for him, for the Democratic party, for the country and for the people. If he doesn't allow these new conversations we as a people will not have any power in holding our government to account in fixing them in a way that benefits all of us, not simply the people with all the money and power already. If we don't get to judge the candidates on their policy positions, what they will and won't fight for and who we trust most to fight for us then we will not be able to make good or informed choices which is more critical than ever given the enormity of the work the next President will have to do.

Specifically why this is a terrible idea for Biden and the Democratic party, sure putting him into hiding and backing into the nomination is the most likely path for him, in fact, becoming the nominees. But it would also guarantee his loss in November. By not having these conversations now with Bernie who will treat him gently and with respect, he would be leaving them to be had with Trump who will not be so nice and will not be honest with his answers and assertions. Biden will look terrible, unfit, weak, without leadership skills and with a mind that is failing. Nobody will want to vote for Biden who left all those conversations on the table to be had with Trump instead of with Bernie.

Another reason why this will make Biden unelectable is that over 40% of the voters have not had a chance to participate in the nominating process yet. Cheating them of the opportunity to participate in the nomination process and I promise you, they will not be motivated to support the nominee. A big part of participating is 1) not declaring the race over before it is. While Bernie needs 62% of the remaining delegates to get to the 1991 delegates needed to win the nomination, but Biden still needs to get 46% of them. Neither of those outcomes is a guarantee despite what the media and party would have you believe.  So refusing to discuss important issues AND denying the remaining states the ability to help decide who will be the nominee and ultimately who will be the President is the surest way I know to build resentment rather than goodwill.

Finally, if you want to unify the party, don't tell the half of the party you will need to win a general election that you don't intend to go along with any rules that might not benefit you. And that you no longer feel we need to let their half of the party participate in any policy discussions. I promise you, that is how your declaration that we don't need any more debates landed with practically every voter under the age of 50 and most independent voter. If you think you can win without them, your dementia is even worse than we the people think it is... and yes we are talking about your dementia. If you don't want us having that conversation then debates might be a good time for you to make the case that you don't.

Why Younger Voters Are Overwhelmingly Rejecting Biden - FiveThirtyEight

Biden slaps Sanders supporters in the face with rejection of Medicare For All - Hill TV Rising

Should the Bernie supporters stay home in November if populist policy continues to get blocked by Democrats? - Prof. Harvey Kaye? 

The most electable is not who the party and media tells you it is. They are simply telling you who they want to be the nominee. The most electable is the one who inspires confidence that they will make the best President. The one who inspires the most voters is your winner. The one who shows the most leadership is your winner. And speaking in terms of the current broken party politics game, the one who can get the best voter turnout from their base and win the independent voters. Bernie wins the independent voters by HUGE margins, he makes the best case to voters what he will do to help them and inspires the most voters... that is your most electable... If Joe Biden wants to have a chance in the general he needs to do a much better job of building those relationships and that excitement. That can only happen if he doesn't prematurely claim victory and shut down the rest of the primary without debate and without meaningful discussion of the problems we face and how to best address them.

Do the right thing. Even if you don't want to do it for us, do it for yourself. Because you really don't want to be the guy that gave Trump 4 more years at one of the most crucial times in history. All that death, destruction and insanity that would result will forever be linked to your legacy. Fight a fair fight and if you win, good for you, if you lose but Bernie stops Trump then good for everyone, especially the working class you claim to care about.

Not finishing the primary doesn't make Biden stronger, just reminds everyone how weak he is.

By Marc Bochner
3/30/2020

The same corporate media pundits who have been giving Joe Biden cover for his tragic record, his sexual abuse accusations, corruption scandals, his total lack of leadership in crisis and his obvious cognitive decline/ dementia are trying to put grandpa Joe back into hiding for the rest of the primaries. They want everyone to get out of the way long enough for him to back into the general election despite his many obvious flaws on which he will be pummelled by Trump and the right-wing media. They want everyone to give up and get out of the way before 40% of the voters have even had a chance to participate in the primaries. 

There are around 1775 delegates yet to be assigned. Bernie needs 62% of those to get to 1991 Joe Biden needs 46% of those to get to 1991 otherwise neither one of them gets there. Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, and Wisconsin are among the delegate-rich states that have not yet voted. And let's not pretend that a bunch of things in this race haven't also changed dramatically. Biden has been accused of rape by a credible former staffer after years of ducking away from sexual harassment charges. He spent the last debate lying for 2 hours and has been now called out on his 1/2 dozen or so big lies from that debate alone. 

Also, front and center in a world that has changed dramatically during the pandemic is that while Bernie Sanders has played a leading role in informing the public and laying out plans for moving forward in the COVID-19 reality. Biden went into hiding and showed a total lack of leadership, vision, plans or fight. Bernie has amended the bailout bill to include gig workers, freelance workers, and tipped wages into the unemployment expansion, he fought for the inclusion of a monthly rather than one-time UBI payment (which got compromised down to a single $1200 payment). He has explained the bill and explained what more we need to do moving forward including pressuring Trump to sign the Defence Production Act which requires manufacturers to shift their production from nonessential items to essential items like face masks, test kits, ventilators, gloves and gowns for first responders, securing additional hospital beds/ shelters and isolation rooms for those who are infected but not critically ill, etc. Its what our country has done in the past during war, this time the war is with a virus. Think of this as the Rosie the Riveter Act. 

Media Suddenly Realizes Bernie was Right - Secular Talk

Coronavirus proved Bernie was right all along, even as the math gets hard - The Independent

Teen who died of COVID-19 was denied treatment because he didn't have insurance




While all of this was taking place Joe Biden went into hiding showing definitively he is not up to the task of leading. Even after a week of hiding when Biden surfaced he still offered no explanations, no ideas or plans for the crisis simply some jabs at Trump (that others have already been questioning Trump on including Bernie) and then conducted some of the most embarrassing TV interviews and live streams seen to date by a Presidential candidate we are expected to take seriously. 

Biden's Cognitive Issues Can No Longer Be Denied - Sky News Australia

As mentioned above another major change in the race is that Biden's history of sexual harassment has escalated to sexual assault. This is significant. Previously he simply explained away all of the complaints against him as people mistaking his friendliness and touchy-feely personality for something sexual... well now he has been accused of pinning a former staffer against a wall, putting his hands inside her clothing and penetrating her with his fingers. Then he told her she wanted it and that she was nothing. This will not play well not only with people who actually think the MeToo movement is important in the upcoming states but also with people who voted for him already and are now having buyers remorse given the new information. 

Media is covering up Biden's #MeToo problem/ Sexual Assault charge - The Hill TV

The sole argument for Biden's candidacy has been the false assumption that he was the most electable. But can that argument still be made given the new information of his sexual assault, his complete lack of leadership at the moment the nation needed it most and his obviously being mentally unfit for the office given his advanced levels of mental decline/ dementia he has shown now that he can no longer hide behind other candidates and a media that has been trying to sell his candidacy rather than report on it?

I understand the media has been desperately trying to prematurely end the primary. They did this in 2016 as well, trying to end it before it was over and before everyone had a chance to vote. They know they are propping up someone who is only electable when running on name recognition and not record, agenda and worldview. Only electable when not speaking to their weaknesses as a candidate. But whether these things are brought up in the primary or not, they absolutely will be brought up by Trump, the right-wing media and GOP operatives. When Republicans bring them up, they won't be pulling their punches, they won't be nearly as gentle about any of it as Bernie is. They won't be calling Biden their friend, they won't be showing him respect. They will be beating him with these weaknesses. They won't be giving him an opportunity to answer to them, they will be bludgeoning him with them. This is precisely what happened in 2016 when Bernie ran an overly gentle primary campaign against Hillary, left all the weapons on the table for Trump who beat her with her scandals while she ran entirely on the sole argument of "I'm not Trump" (something we are already seeing from Biden). 


Biden proves over and over again that he is not up to the task of running for or being President. - The Michael Brooks Show

They keep telling you Bernie can't win even as there are around 1775 delegates yet to be assigned. We touched on these numbers before and while the math is tougher for Bernie, the scandals and weaknesses are far worse for Biden. It's not a slam dunk that either reaches 1991 delegates. We can already see them hedging their bets with Cuomo as the emergency backup that Bloomberg failed to become. 

The people who have been propping up Biden and hiding him behind the others (remember Biden was not the first choice for a lot of his voters... they sampled O'Rourke, Harris, Buttigieg, Warren, Bloomberg and Klobuchar before settling for him as the stop Bernie candidate (not the stop Trump candidate). Most of his voters have avoided looking too closely at his candidacy, record, or fitness for the job let alone whether he can win over the voters he needs to beat Trump one on one. They simply know him as a guy who has been around government forever and was Obama's VP. Many of them have a fondness for Obama that they have mistakenly transferred over to Biden even though they are nearly as different as Biden and Bernie. 

So the arguments now are if Bernie doesn't get out of a race that is not a guaranteed win for either of them, that it will be his fault if Trump destroys Biden in a general election. They had that excuse all cued up for Hillary last time. But Hillary didn't lose because she had to campaign to all the states in the primary. If anything that made her stronger letting her make a pitch to all states before Trump got a crack at her. It gave her a chance to start making a pitch to independent voters and labor voters before Trump and his allies hit her with a lifetime of lies, corruption, and policies that did real-world harm to large parts of the electorate who had been left behind by the kind of politics Hillary helped champion that created incredible income and wealth disparity between the haves and the have nots. Biden has all those same weaknesses as Hillary except throw in that he has dementia and failed his only leadership test of his career with his response to the pandemic. 

That brings us to the independent voter problem of both Hillary and Biden. The establishment of the Democratic party along with the media that props up them and their narratives (not the voters we are talking about party leaders, operatives, lobbyists and major donors), want you to think that the person who can get the most "blue no matter who" voters is the one poised to win in November. But they were shown 4 years ago that is not true. You need to stack the young and independent voters along with the labor vote who arent locked into a party on top of that "blue no matter who" base. The base will vote for whoever gets the nomination, the young and independent voters have told you from day one that they don't follow either team blindly. You need to earn their votes first to get them to the polls and then to get them to support you. They have overwhelmingly shown in 2016 and again this year that Bernie Sanders is their first choice. Then in 2016 they showed that Trump was their distant 2nd choice with millions instead choosing to stay home. Hillary was never their 2nd choice and Biden might not be either which is problamatic.

Bernie Admits its a hard road but his policies, record and coalition are suddenly winning all arguments 

For many of these young, independent and uncommitted labor voters neither party has earned their loyalty or even pretended to care about them. Both parties have ignored and dismissed their needs and voices, then demanded their votes. Both parties have given them an economy that has been rigged against them where about half of this country lives in poverty, one missed paycheck away from financial ruin, An economy where they need to work multiple low wage jobs just to barely make it with little quality of life or security. They have been taken to wars they didn't want, given a broken criminal justice system that locked up way too many of them, free trade agreements that have sent their jobs overseas and stagnated the wages and benefits of the jobs they left behind. Now with the pandemic, they are also becoming increasingly aware that we have a badly broken healthcare system that has not only left tens of millions of people without coverage or enough coverage, but that could be taken away by their boss in a labor dispute, job loss or national emergency when they need it the most. Their arguments against Medicare for All have been exposed for the fraud that they are and the need Medicare for All has been clearly demonstrated by this pandemic. 

Finally lost in all this misdirected indignation of the elites is that whoever wins the nomination needs to ask for the votes of all the voters in the primary, not simply 60% of them. The two remaining candidates have an opportunity to make their case to the states that haven't voted yet and include them in the process of picking the nominee. And don't forget when Bernie was looking like he could well be the leading vote-getter going into the convention Biden was among the candidates arguing that they all agreed to the rules of the primary and one of those rules was that super delegates would come into play if nobody reaches 1991 delegates... well now there are two candidates, Biden is anxious to get rid some of the rules that dont help hom but he agreed to... He agreed to 12 debates, not 11. He also agreed that the winner is the first one to 1991 delegates not the first one to 1168 delegates. So does he believe in the rules of the primary or only the ones that help him? Trying to shut out 40% of the voters and dismiss the rules he doesn't like will not help him unite the party, will not help him win independent voters and certainly will not help him generate the kind of voter turnout that will be needed to beat Trump. 

It's not over yet, stop letting the people who have been rigging the primary convince you otherwise. And stop pretending that ending it here will make Biden stronger, even if it allows him to back door his way to a nomination nobody has won yet and the perception that he cut off all debate while silencing the voices of 40% of the voters will hurt not help him. 

Biden fails the leadership test while Bernie is the voice of reason

By Marc Bochner 

3/22/20

Crisis gives context to the election

The coronavirus has exposed Joe Biden and if the Democrats are paying attention this could and should change everything in the Presidential race moving forward. Joe Biden is unfit for the office of President and that can no longer be ignored. 

No longer can people pretend to not be seeing and hearing what they are seeing and hearing from him. When Joe faceplanted at every debate and his mind followed incoherent ramblings into a corner the media pretended they didn't notice or offered up excuses. When he was making almost no campaign appearances but getting into bizarre fights with voters the media told you he was showing strength. When he defended his terrible unelectable record with outright lies, they did no fact-checking and talked only about the idea he was winning or their assertion that he was the most electable (an assertion never supported by facts, logic or even polling).

Then when the entire country and world got flipped on its head in a crisis that most haven't seen in their lifetimes, people couldn't help but notice Bernie, the guy they had been told couldn't win, couldnt lead, couldn't get anything done was the one who stepped up to lead... and Obama's VP who we were told was ready to lead and get things done on day one was nowhere to be found. 

Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti discuss Joe Biden's inexplicable disappearance from the public stage 

The Hill TV - Joe Biden's stunning absence abdicates crisis leadership

Rational National discusses how Bernie is showing leadership while Biden goes into hiding 

David Doel - Biden Goes Missing While Bernie Takes the Lead

Suddenly every argument Biden has made for over a year to attack Bernie with was debunked in real-time. Medicare for All went from how are we going to pay for it to how can we afford not to have it?  If everyone already had healthcare free at the time of service people would not have put off getting tested or treated. If we already had paid medical leave people would not have gone to work getting coworkers and customers sick. If we hadn't outsourced nearly all of our manufacturing with the job-killing free trade agreements that Sanders fought and Biden pushed we would have had the capacity to manufacture testing kits for the virus and not been waiting on China to send them to us (the lack of test kits is how we lost the ability to contain it). We also would have the ability to manufacture the facemasks and ventilators that the medical community is in a panic we don't have to meet the needs of the crisis. If people were already making a living wage and not surviving paycheck to paycheck they would be better equipped to survive shutdowns and self-isolating while the government figures out how to get them help. If we already had addressed the affordable housing crisis we would not have so many homeless out in the open at the highest risk and putting others at risk. 

On issue. after issue people are finding out Bernie was right and Biden was wrong.  Biden's entire campaign was built on telling us what was and wasn't possible, what was and wasn't pragmatic and that we can trust him not Bernie. Oops. Joe's argument was that people don't want a scary revolution, they want a steady hand to deliver results. But then along comes a crisis and it turns out the revolution had all the pragmatic plans to get results and Biden's plans and world view seemed archaic and ineffective, then he went into hiding. Turned out Bernie was the one ready to lead on day one not Biden.

Bernie shows both Biden and Trump the leadership we need right now

Day after day, Bernie has been putting together plans in congress, hosting video townhalls to update people on the crisis, put people at ease and propose solutions about how to move forward without leaving millions of Americans behind as collateral damage. Biden went completely silent for days and still has yet to put forward any plans. All he has offered up so far is a repackaging of something Bernie said a few days ago about accountability and Trump has already agreed to. Beyond that no plans, no solutions, no sense of urgency, just a feeble attempt at looking strong attacking Trump and a whole new reason why he is unfit for office... He literally said he has been spending days setting up his home for video conferencing, something his grandkids could have done for him in 10 minutes with a cell phone and streaming platform. 

Bernie lays out plans and holds others accountable for the inadequacies and short-sightedness of their plans along with explanations of who will be hurt and how. In this Livestream he talks about getting money to struggling workers who are having their jobs shut down, being laid off and losing healthcare... and that's for the people who are lucky enough to not get sick. The current plans put on the table by both the Dems and Republicans barely scratch the surface for helping people make it through the crisis. The plan submitted by Pelosi covers testing but not treatment of the coronavirus and doesn't even address the people losing health insurance. That plan rejects UBI as a way to get money back in the hands of those at risk both to help them through the crisis and drive the economy. Mitt Romney moved to the left of the Democrats and brought Trump there with him with talk of giving money directly to people. Romney proposed $1K, Trump and McConnell countered with up to $600 for individuals and up to $2400 for families, but it has to be means-tested first and only given to those who paid enough federal taxes, leaving out the most vulnerable (unemployed, underemployed, students, employees who live on tips, etc). Bernie called for monthly payments large enough to get people through the crisis and to last throughout the crisis. He called for free testing and treatment. Warned that profiteering would not be tolerated... not from corporations getting bailouts and using the money for stock buybacks or executive bonuses. He wants to prosecute for price gouging. Wants any drugs developed with federal money to be given at cost... not just for the coronavirus but also for every drug which was developed with government money (which was many of them). He wants those companies after the crisis to then raise their wages to a living wage and to give workers a seat on their board. He wants to put a time out on all evictions and foreclosures and to pause student loan payments for anybody impacted. 

This video is separated into 4 parts... a music set by a Bernie endorser, a video address that breaks down the above, a 2nd music set and then an interview with a labor leader about how to best protect workers moving forward.

Bernie Sanders hosts a coronavirus round table

Bernie is showing why it matters that we have a government of by and for the people and that following politics as a team sport has given us a government of by and for monied interests not people. 

Knowing how grassroots campaigns run, is how we know smearing Bernie and us was always the intent

By Marc Bochner                                                                    January 15, 2019

To understand how I know the NY Times is smearing Sanders with their claims of sexism in his 2016 campaign and not championing any causes, we need to as our jumping off point to understand that they know the difference between populist grassroots campaigns and establishment/ corporately backed campaigns. Many others have already covered how they are ignoring how commonplace harassment is in campaigns and chosen to solely focus on the guy who has a near perfect record on women's issues to turn a strength into a weakness (the Karl Rove strategy). This story has it all for the smear merchants. They can pin sexism on Bernie (which was Hillary's #1 strategy in 2016). They can also recycle their long debunked Bernie Bro narrative as well that Bernie's supporters are also a bunch of sexist/ hostile men.

For the sake of this take, I'm not going to rehash those points nor am I going to make any judgment whatsoever about the allegations of harassment made by the courageous women who came forward. Instead, I'm going to talk about how the smear merchants are weaponizing the claims and how we know this is a calculated smear, and in no way intended as a defense of the women who came forward. If it were we would be hearing about the other campaigns where similar things have and continue to play out and they would be focusing not on that these things happened, but on how Sanders set up a model to protect staff and volunteers in campaigns moving forward.

My take will be calling on my experience working on a national populist grassroots campaign very similar to the one Bernie ran in 2016. I was on staff, even heading up various tasks within the '92 primary campaign of then progressive Jerry Brown against Bill Clinton. Just like in 2016, Bill Clinton had all of the media behind him, had the party insiders behind him and had all the corporate money going into the campaign. He staffed his campaign largely on day one with political insiders who had been vetted and largely had worked on many campaigns before along with Democratic party insiders. 

By contrast Jerry Brown although a successful former governor of California, he was painted as a fringe candidate against the former governor of Arkansas (let that sink in, the former governor of California was the fringe candidate, not the embattled former Governor of Arkansas). The media ignored Gov. Brown, the party mocked him and in the early states, he was getting about 1% of the vote. But we broke through the media blackout with large rallies, lots of radio and alternative media coverage that went largely unnoticed by the insiders. Running on a progressive message and policy positions he connected with voters and started surging at one point running off a bunch of wins and polling ahead of Clinton in nearly every remaining state (before the wheels came off and handed the nomination to Clinton, but that's a story for another time). Since the money wasn't there on day one but came in in bunches as small donor contributions through an 800 number, staffing was done on the fly to keep up with the surging campaign. People who were largely political novices but community activists or newly engaged citizens were being hired without much vetting and the management of us was pretty loose. We weren't running a traditional campaign, it was a people-powered campaign and thus the campaign structure and campaign strategies were more fluid. This empowered the people whether staff or volunteers but also decentralized authority. 

I personally walked into the campaign headquarters as a volunteer. The volunteer coordinator and most of the campaign staff was gone when I went in since they had a big event the night before. That left me alone with the national fundraising director Christine for about an hour. At the end of that hour, I was made her assistant rather than tossed to the volunteer coordinator. I was really young and inexperienced in political campaigns, but I had a background in entertainment and concert production so she kept me to help oversee the large events. Within a couple of weeks, they asked if they could put me on staff and asked me what I needed to make to continue working full time on the campaign. I had another income which pulled me away weekend nights so I only asked for a minimal salary. I believed in the cause, the candidate and the movement so my pay wasn't based on my role or the crazy hours I worked, it was what I asked for. As my role continued to grow heading up college outreach, being one of the key planners of the campaign events, setting up radio interviews and stories in independent publications/ college papers and even heading up some of the advance teams in California while still keeping one foot in National fundraising my salary never grew.  While I never asked or cared what others were making I'm certain people with lesser roles made more than me. It wasn't the campaign taking advantage of my youth, it was what I asked for as someone who would have done it as a volunteer. 

I was allowed to keep volunteers to assist me and even allowed to put some on staff. There was no vetting that I was aware of. The campaign was struggling to keep up with the growth. If any of them were harassing each other I was never made aware of it, but it could have happened I suppose. And many of them really only answered to me. Remember I was young and sexism or harassment wasn't something I even thought about at that point. I saw each person for their skill set and passion, not their age, race, gender, religion or sexual orientation. If anybody had been mistreated not only was I never made aware of it, but since most of them only worked on my projects, its likely nobody else on the campaign would have been made aware either. 

While this loosely organized and impassioned chaos was common in nearly all the departments we kept exceeding expectations by letting people do what they did best without over-managing them. I barely had contact with the campaign manager and even less with Governor Brown and the people who worked with and beneath me had even less if any contact with either. Governor Brown spent most of the time on the road and was rarely in town let alone in the headquarters. When he was, as far as I know, he was largely meeting with policy advisors, the campaign manager, the press secretary, and the scheduling department. Had there been any staff complaints or staffing issues, none of that was something that would be brought to him, it was dealt with generally farther down the pecking order. 

I hope in telling my story you can see all the attack lines of the NY Times hit piece and how none of that is a reflection on the candidate who likely would have known none the staffing issues or interactions. Not only wasn't that his role on the campaign, he was gone nearly all the time (Sanders just like Brown). Also the attack line about how women were getting paid less than the men as if that was a calculated decision. if we all negotiated our own salaries, we were being paid what we asked for, not what we or the campaign thought we were worth. There didn't appear to be any set salaries for each position. We largely got what we asked for if it was reasonable and most of us asked for far less than our worth because of the cause of stopping the Clintons from stealing the Democratic party from the people and handing it over to the highest corporate bidders (they actually campaigned on how they would get the big donors and create a permanent Democratic majority without consideration for what that would mean in policy. Governor Brown, of course, was not shy about pointing out the dangers of becoming the other corporate party and the Clintons hated him for it (even though he was right about nearly all of it). 

The NY Times is well aware of how differently insider campaigns and populist grassroots campaigns are run. They know that none of what they are attempting to pin on Bernie or even Jeff Weaver would have been known by them. And even then after the fact when Bernie found out about what had happened, he did everything he could to prevent any of it from repeating in his 2018 campaign or moving forward into 2020 or beyond. He set up policies which go way beyond what most any other candidate or campaign has with a channel for filing complaints independent from the campaign. He also went in and gave raises to anyone who felt they were being underpaid because of their gender (even though they were likely getting what they asked for). He even apologized for something he knew nothing about because he cared about the people who were hurting. 

Huffington Post described sexual harassment claims in both Clinton and Sanders campaigns back in 2017. But you wouldn't know it from the current coverage by the people smearing Sanders and in so doing implying it's not a widespread problem that all campaigns need to deal with, even in the insider campaigns where the staffing is better vetted and some abusers should be known. If the purpose of these smear articles was to address the chronic issue going on in campaigns they would be giving more examples to make the point that campaigns like business settings and in life issues of sexism need to be addressed, they would also have focused on what Sanders had done to address the issues and what other campaigns had done after allegations came to light or to pre-empt such problems

Link to Huffington Post Article

The corporate media and party insiders will continue to punch left and smear all the progressive candidates. They will continue to bully and smear progressive voting blocks just as they have done for decades. We as progressives need to know its coming and push back everytime we see it. And we need to avoid circular firing squads were progressives are attacking other progressives. The corporate party insiders are counting on divide and conquer. They are showing no signs of having learned any of the lessons of 2016, let alone 2017 or 2018 and are still trying to fit all incidents and outcomes into their outdated and disingenuous world view.