Moment of Truth: The Decision that Derailed Bernie’s Campaign

[Starry Messenger]

I was just saying this to my husband this morning too. Why go after HRC when the Koch brothers are poised to plunge millions into retaking the White House? It makes no sense.

http://bluenationreview.com/decision-that-derailed-bernies-campaign/

Bernie Sanders has done many things right in this race — and one thing very wrong. It is the wrong decision that I believe partially accounts for his poor showing on March 15th.

Let’s start with what’s right about Bernie’s message: he is a passionate purveyor of core progressive principles who has activated and energized millions of young voters. He speaks with conviction about crucial issues and he has helped bring those issues to the fore in 2016.

Here’s what’s wrong, terribly wrong: He caved to the pressure from his campaign manager Jeff Weaver and top aide Tad Devine to ride the ever-present wave of Hillary hate and to go after her character, impugning her honesty and insinuating that she is untrustworthy.

As I’ve argued, Bernie’s Wall Street dog whistle is a barely concealed attempt to accuse Hillary Clinton of corruption, despite the fact that he lacks a scintilla of evidence to support that claim. No matter how lofty and inspiring his message, it is deeply unjust – and frankly, reckless – to run a campaign premised on the destruction of Hillary’s character through false innuendo. Especially when Democrats are facing a dangerous opponent like Donald Trump in a general election.

<snip>

The rest of the analysis is good too.

[pandr32]

1. I completely agree with this

Sanders seems to have crossed the line he drew earlier in his campaign. It seems he has gotten caught up in the competition and really, really wants to win--straying from his values.
I wrote about it earlier in a response to whether Warren will now endorse Sec. Clinton or not.
Here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1251&pid=1505099

[Starry Messenger]

2. He's been getting bad advice, for sure.

Good post there.

[pandr32]

13. Thank you!

I hope he pulls back and really reflects on things. He should be in charge of his campaign, not his advisers, and he is making choices he will have to live with going forward.

[Cha]

3. Yes, this is what I say to Hill fans who say they think BS is nice guy..

"Here’s what’s wrong, terribly wrong: He caved to the pressure from his campaign manager Jeff Weaver and top aide Tad Devine to ride the ever-present wave of Hillary hate and to go after her character, impugning her honesty and insinuating that she is untrustworthy."

Not really.

snip from your link//

Bernie’s campaign aides, surrogates and supporters have criticized the superdelegate system, claiming it reflected an antiquated structure that unfairly favored the “establishment” candidate. What they haven’t admitted is that Tad Devine helped craft that system and that Bernie himself is a superdelegate. Either way, the superdelegates will not save Bernie’s campaign.

Hillary is winning and she’s winning because of her positive, pragmatic and uplifting message. Bernie could learn a thing or two from her campaign.


Excellent piece by Peter Daou, Starry! Thank you!

[Starry Messenger]

7. Unfortunately that genie isn't going back into the bottle.

But it is definitely a failing genie. Love and kindness will win the day.

[BlueCaliDem]

4. I agree. The tide turned when he began going after Hillary Clinton (maybe a warning to Trump?)

instead of sticking to the issues that have propelled him to nearly the top of the ticket. NO BODY on the progressive side likes people impugning the character of a candidate - however subtle - especially since Hillary's a woman. Men have to tread carefully there, as Rick Lazio should've told them. It just breeds this "ick" feel, no matter how emancipated we believe ourselves to be.

[SunSeeker]

5. Yes, he broke his word not to campaign negatively, indicating he was the untrustworthy one, not she.

[Her Sister]

6. I agree

What derailed him for me personally was (not in any particular order)

1. Debates/town halls no real plan no answer
2. Revolution?
3. Supporters attitudes towards HRC & HRC supporters/surrogates/endorsers/voters (made me double down)
4. BS dog whistles about HRC (again made me double down)
5. I have been on HRC's camp since 2008
6. HRC is amazing and qualified and more than ready from day 1.

[stevenleser]

9. I agree. nt

[Starry Messenger]

14. Good list.

For me:

1) signalling early and constantly that the campaign doesn't take the Obama coalition seriously
2) colorblind and gender-blind proposals
3) tone-deaf to advice on shortcomings of #2
4) going negative on Hillary
5) vague booster of his coat-tails revolution theory, in the face of its non-appearance.
6) lukewarm to non-existent response to the bile of his supporters on social media and elsewhere

[yardwork]

22. Yes, yes, yes!

Early on, the Bernie campaign did nothing to reel in the abusive Reddit-style bullying by some of his supporters.

They wonder why the campaign failed to connect with many minority groups, especially African Americans. The tone deafness and condescension of supporters reflects a problem within the campaign, I believe.

[Starry Messenger]

23. Someone said early on here that he didn't want to alienate his existing base of support

by criticizing them. If so, seriously fatal flaw. That energy should have been turned away from negativity and into positive effort.

Several journalists of color on Twitter have said they've had to block Bernie supporters because of the unrelenting attacks--I mean, where did they think that was going to go?

[JSup]

33. Number 3 for me

3. Supporters attitudes towards HRC & HRC supporters/surrogates/endorsers/voters (made me double down)

When I first started visiting DU this cycle this was all that I saw on the GDP forums (I didn't know how to find 'groups') and since I've been seeing Hillary being gang-dehumanized nearly all of my life I reflexively chose her side.

Before visiting DU I went into this primary thinking, "We're good this time around; no matter who wins I'll be happy"; they've really managed to tarnish his image for me. I know it doesn't make logical sense but the human mind is what it is.

[stevenleser]

8. This has been a problem from day one among Sanders' supporters and surrogates.

It may very well have cost them the nomination. If they had concentrated on why Sanders is so good instead of making it about attacking Hillary, I think they would have had a shot.

Attacking Hillary, who enjoys well over 80% favorability with Democrats, was a fatal mistake.

[Starry Messenger]

12. They are curiously slio'd into their own little world.

The alignment of the narrative of the campaign and the narrative of his supporters has been so myopic.

I would have loved a campaign that was running on real substance, but the histrionic attacks on one of the world's most popular women, one who shares about 93% of his world-view---was wtf. Hillary must roll her eyes in private.

[brer cat]

10. Good read, Starry Messenger.

I have been very disappointed that Bernie decided to take the very low road of innuendo, lies, and smears against her character. His entire premise of running a positive campaign based on progressive issues was a sham if not a lie. It makes me angry that he chose to use our, not his, party apparatus and money for his purposes then started vicious personal attacks on our candidate. At first I thought it was his supporters running amok, but it is obvious now that it was a top-down decision.

[Iliyah]

11. I'm one who does not agree with some of what went right

The second part is in total agreement

Thirdly, when you have supporters advising misinformation, many times it will backfire.

[ismnotwasm]

15. Yes

This is what I posted on Facebook in response to this article, I have a much longer, better parsed out response, but you know, Facebook.

He knew. Unless he is stupid enough to disqualify himself from the presidency, he knew. I think one of the things his campaign did, was followed on-line trends of Hillary hate and adjusted his attack message accordingly--the idea that he would come ahead with the youth vote. I think they thought older voters are not as engaged with social media.
Just one of the problems with that, is a lot of the anti-Hillary memes are lies straight from the RW. Another is that millennials, while more reliant on social media for information, are in no way the only ones who use it, and use it effectively.

(Of note, Sanders team also mismanaged outreach to the African American vote to a degree that was embarrassingly awkward. There are other egregious mistakes his campaign made)

This group and others like it, the hashtags, Twitter, Instagram--all of it--sent an effective and truthful message about Hillary. She is an enormously complex person, eminently qualified to be POTUS, and that becomes clearer and clearer once the bullshit is scaped away. I think Hillary used social media with far more savvy than Sanders.

[Her Sister]

20. nice!

question: you wrote "this group and others like it,..." since this was a facebook entry, what groups were you referring to.

BTW the HRC smears were the reason that I decided to become active online, here and other websites. Before that I have felt better to be private about myself, but changed my mind. Thought that HRC and supporters needed more voices, so added mine.

[ismnotwasm]

24. I just checked and it wasn't a group

Oops. It was in response to a post from someone I became friends with because of a pro-Hillary group--Friends for Hillary I think. I'm a member of a whole bunch of them--that makes my news feed fabulous BTW--although some information does overlap. There are some real and very organized social media warriors for Hillary. Once I found them, I realized Sanders had a huge problem.

[shadowandblossom]

40. Me too.

I'm a very private person and only decided to start coming on and putting my voice out here online a little bit because the bigotry, lies, censorship, innuendo, and nastiness were just too much. I would watch what she actually said and did then I would watch it be warped through the most bizarre filters. It's really galvanized me to support her to be honest. It was also seeing what the berniebro mobs were doing and Sanders never really cracked down on them. I felt it was wrong to stay silent in light of what I was seeing, but this doesn't come naturally. It's more in my nature to stand back and observe.

[Starry Messenger]

21. Good response.

I especially agree about older people and social media. I'm an "old" and I administer social media accounts for my union and some other groups. Having a communications strategy on those platforms is key--and just letting the volunteers & staff go wild on anyone who disagrees with the campaign is not a good look.

[ismnotwasm]

25. That's why that whole "landline" crap was so irritating

I'm middle-aged, but I've been on-line since my husbands BBS board.

[cosmicone]

16. Jeff Weaver is a slimeball

Would you buy a used car from him?

[ismnotwasm]

18. Oh hell no.

Ick.

[Cha]

46. Wouldn't trust him with my lunch money.

[GusBob]

17. I was thinking this morning

About this "flipping the super- delegate" strategy that is coming from the BS campaign war room, and how clueless they are.

Look, there's no doubt that SBS is a decent guy, and his supporters are ardent true believers

But when the post-mortem for this campaign is written, it will be Devine and Weaver who blew it

[comradebillyboy]

34. Bernie must take responsibility for his own campaign.

Weaver and Devine are Sanders' employees doing Sanders' bidding. Sanders is not stupid or blind, this is the campaign he wanted to run. Sanders is the one who chose to focus his campaign on smearing Hillary. To think otherwise is to presume that Sanders is an ignorant puppet dancing to the tune of his underlings and not an astute career politician..

[charlyvi]

35. ^^^^THIS^^^^ n/t

[Starry Messenger]

39. It's very true.

I think the author in the OP was taking a more charitable view. I still think he would have been better served by higher calibre campaign staff. It's been painful to see the election get so meta and awful.

[Treant]

19. More than one error

It started with data theft. When you're running as the snow white candidate, you actually do have to be snow white.

Attacking Clinton was not a good move, either. Naturally. It further eroded the snow white image and the snowman started to melt.

Running away from President Obama wasn't a smooth move. He's popular among Democrats and it gave Clinton the opportunity to present herself (truthfully) as Obama Term 3.0. Most of us are very happy with that idea. We're aware of what Obama was up against and how limiting that was to his plans.

Failure to suppress out, or at least speak against, some of his higher-volume supporters was a minor straw, but it sure didn't help.

[Cosmocat]

26. Please

The Hill v Bernie battle has been tame relative to a lot of other primaries, on both their parts.

He has done nothing wrong, he has a great message in the right year except that Hillary is the wrong opponent - in this primary voters simply know her too well, she has too much name recognition and just feel it is both her turn personally and also to be the first female POTUS.

Bernie could have treated her like a southern belle the whole time and hed still be where he is now.

[liberal from boston]

29. Go Bernie

Thank you Cosmocat. Bringing up the data breach--please do not go there--Bernie was one to get a federal judge to hear the case on the same day it happened. Of course DWS backed down. BTW where are the results of the independent investigation that Senator Sanders wanted--Hillary nodded her agreement at the debate but of course nothing happened. Senator Sanders has been a gentleman who rescued her in the debates when asked difficult questions: i.e., e-mails, Benghazi. I know this is the Hillary group so I will end my comments here.

[Cha]

43. Nah, BS hasn't been "gentleman".. at all. they've had so dirty tricks in that campaign that

just goes down the rabbit hole. But, we remember and the OP is exactly right.. Wrong strategy berni.

[charlyvi]

37. Then why didn't he? Especially after he said he wouldn't smear her?

And why are you in the Hillary group posting this?

[Cha]

44. Not anymore he's not.. nor the others.. sorry it took me so long to spot them.

This is why we have so many BLOCKS in Hillary's Group.. because they come into disrupt.

They just can't stay away.

[Cha]

42. "Please" yourself.. that's what happened.. that and his decision to want the President Primaried in

2012 and continued dissing him ad nauseam.

Obama is just too popular for BS.. he is loved by many including our Country's African American Voters.. sanders took the wrong strategy going after an accomplished Democratic President and trying to demonize Hillary. Too bad he couldn't stick to facts.

[Cryptoad]

27. One of two thingys,,,

Bern is unable to count pass 100 or he is continuing his campaign just to spite the Democratic Party.
K&R

[Gamecock Lefty]

28. I'll go one step further . . .

One thing that got me most was Bernie switching his political affiliation to Dem so he could run for President. I get that he’s liberal and that he caucuses with Dems most of the time, but he changed to something that he has always said he abhorred in the past (becoming part of the two-party system in America). And he did it just so he could get elected (like Trump did for the Repubs – although I in NO WAY associate Sanders in any way with the likes of Trump).

Hillary, my proud choice for President, is one of us!

[Roy Rolling]

31. "one of us"

Really? Hillary is "one of us" and (Senator Sanders is "not one of us&quot ? Exactly what does that mean?

We just elected a Democratic Governor in the deep, deep red Louisiana. Saying Governor Edwards was "not one of us" was the main campaign theme (losing) of the GOP and his Republican opponents. So you think it will work here? For all Hillary supporters to huddle together and say that Sanders supporters are "not one of us"?

I would vote for Hillary, but I am certainly not "one of us" with your gang. You lose votes every time you smear others. Only the faithful respond to that, and they are already committed.

[charlyvi]

36. You call this a smear?

Go to the Sanders group or GD-P and read the constant vitriol and lies that are aimed at our candidate everyday. And WE are being exclusionary? Please.

[dogandturtlemom]

30. Blue Nation Review

Just a reminder that Blue Nation Review is owned by David Brock, a Hillary operative with a long history of dissing people. In fact, the substance of Bernie's focus on the money taken by Hillary personally, is the same position he has about the Political money that prevents anything getting done in our legislature. Money corrupts, period, because it increases access of one position over another. I, as an individual, would never have the same access to any politician, over wealthy donators. Money from insurers prevented consideration of the single payer health insurance promoted by National Nurses United. A union of many workers is overruled by the greater money involved with health insurers, big Pharma, and medical device manufacturers. The same is true of banking and investment corporations' power over ordinary citizens. So keep this in mind when you see something from BNR. Keep it in context when criticizing another politician.

[charlyvi]

38. A fact is a fact whether the one posting it supports Hillary or not.

And why are you posting this in the Hillary group? You smear very well.

[Cha]

41. So what David Brock supports Hillary.. lot of great People do.. David Brock holds the M$M

accountable with MediaMatters. Love the way he disses faux "news" too.. No respect there.

"operative.." ooouuuuu And, too bad you don't like him supporting Hillary. Just proves he's smart.

[LAS14]

32. I agree. nt

[bravenak]

45. Damn. Folks was mad you posted this!!