It's official: Bernie's campaign managers put on their clown suits

[Cali_Democrat]

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Bernie Sanders’ Campaign Claims He Didn’t Compete In States He Actually Competed In
By Samantha Lachman

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Jeff Weaver, Sanders’ campaign manager, said on the call that their campaign chose not to compete in eight of the 32 states that have held primaries or caucuses so far. Weaver identified Texas, Alabama, Virginia, Tennessee, Mississippi, Arkansas, Georgia and Louisiana as the states where they didn’t mount a challenge to Clinton, who swept all of the Southern contests; he said the Sanders campaign did not broadcast television advertisements in those eight states or have “a big campaign presence.”

“Almost all of Secretary Clinton’s delegate lead come from states where she faced little or no competition,” said Tad Devine, Sanders’ senior campaign strategist. “Her grasp now on the nomination is almost entirely on the basis of victories in states where Bernie Sanders did not compete.”

Devine and Weaver’s claim depends on one’s definition of the word “compete” during the Southern primaries, where Clinton netted over 300 delegates.

Sanders held rallies in Austin and Dallas. He held multiple events in Virginia. He held rallies in Atlanta, Georgia. He also visited Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. His campaign had field offices in most of those states. If he wasn’t actually competing in the South, where his campaign always acknowledged he faced an uphill battle because of Clinton’s popularity among African-American voters, then why bother visiting?

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His campaign’s dismissal of his losses in the Southern primaries also doesn’t account for Clinton’s wins in Ohio, South Carolina, Massachusetts, Arizona, North Carolina and Florida, which Sanders visited multiple times and where his campaign ran television ads.

The rhetoric about not competing in the South is at odds with Sanders’ own argument that the Democratic Party should advance “a 50-state strategy” and Sanders’ comment after the Nevada caucus that his campaign would “be competing in 11 states all across this country on Super Tuesday.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/bernie-sanders-campaign_us_56f98f5ae4b0a372181aa375

[LexVegas]

1. Death throes of a dying campaign. nt

[GeorgiaPeanuts]

4. The same death throes that went 3/3 70%+ and cut the delegate gap by 30%

[Cali_Democrat]

7. Indeed. nt

[livetohike]

2. More desperation and lies. Who is surprised? n/t

[Cali_Democrat]

9. Tad and Jeff are in it for themselves.

They know he can't win, but they still want to line their pockets.

[livetohike]

21. Exactly. Why should Bernie care? It's not his money. n/t

[unapatriciated]

3. You just can't help yourself

Still waiting for your apology for the last negative OP. But hey it is only Sanders and his supporters who love all that negativity.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1251&pid=1599780

[Cali_Democrat]

5. I've already issued my verdict:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1251&pid=1597699

[unapatriciated]

8. damn, you doubled down.

If you watched the vid you would have seen a campaign aid coming to let Sanders know Jane was directly behind him. He only stated don't stand there, where he could have accidentally hit her (he does use his hands a lot while talking). Couples who have been together for years are comfortable enough with each other to be honest and direct. But you choose to see something were nothing existed and now you double down.

You do Clinton a disservice by using trump like campaign attacks. But do continue on.

[Gothmog]

15. The video speaks for itself

We did watch the entire video and the video speaks for itself

[reddread]

11. would an apology suffice?

not without a conscience transplant.
and whatever else may be missing altogether.

[firebrand80]

6. The real problem remains math

As the clock keeps ticking, his campaign's argument that he can still win becomes weaker. Now his campaign is trying to frame an argument that says "We won most of the states that we really tried to win, so the superdelegates should go with us because of that." Classic goalpost-moving stuff.

I do find it ironic that the same crowd that was outraged at the prospect of superdelegates throwing the election for Hillary are completely cool with such a travesty of democracy favoring their guy.

[HumanityExperiment]

10. Troll bait...

more of the same from the usual suspects yet again...

[boston bean]

12. You mean the reality based suspects?

[HumanityExperiment]

18. 56%...

of the remaining primaries Bernie needs 56% in each contest to win

[SidDithers]

16. You've got it all figured out...

in the 12 days you've been here.

Well done.

Sid

[nadinbrzezinski]

22. Yup

[oasis]

13. Like Lucy and Ethel wrapping chocolates on a fast moving conveyer belt.

In way over their heads.

[Gothmog]

14. Here is more on this silly claim

This is a good report on the silliness of the Sanders campaign claim http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/bernie-sanders-campaign-offers-awkward-take-state-the-race

But as a rule, presidential campaigns don’t get to lose a whole bunch of key primaries by wide margins and then declare, “Yeah, but we weren’t really trying.” If these eight nominating contests have left the Sanders campaign at a disadvantage they’re unlikely to overcome, it’s actually incumbent on his top aides and strategists to explainwhy they didn’t make more of an effort in these states.

It’s easy to imagine folks from Team Clinton saying they weren’t exactly going all out to win in Idaho and Utah – states Sanders won easily – but competitive candidates for national office don’t get to use that as an excuse when things aren’t going as well as they’d like.

At its root, Devine’s argument is that Team Sanders identified a series of early, delegate-rich states, but they chose not to bother with them. That’s not just a bad argument; it’s the kind of message that’s probably going to irritate quite a few Sanders supporters who expect more from their team.

Making matters slightly worse, Tad Devine’s pitch isn’t altogether accurate. In Virginia, for example – one of the eight primaries in which he says Team Sanders chose not to compete – plenty of campaign watchers know the senator actually made an effort in the commonwealth and lost anyway. The senator also campaigned in Texas, which is another one of the states Devine said the campaign wrote off.

As for the argument that Sanders wins “in every place that we compete with her,” even taken at face value, it’s not an especially compelling argument: Team Sanders made a real effort to win in states like Arizona, Nevada, Ohio, and Massachusetts, but he lost in each of them.

Don’t be too surprised if Devine walks back his comments today. It’s just not a message that does Team Sanders any favors.

Update: Devine also said the Sanders campaign chose to compete for state victories, rather than compete for delegate victories. I have no idea why the campaign would deliberately choose to compete by the wrong metric that would lead to defeat, but if I were a die-hard Sanders backer, this kind of rhetoric would be incredibly frustrating.

This excuse is so very weak

[Skwmom]

17. What utter bullshit. To effectively compete in a state where you are unknown and not receiving

hundreds of millions in free favorable press takes a LOT of resources. You also have to overcome the beating of the drum that Clinton is the nominee.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511600598

[cosmicone]

19. Rachel Maddow handed Tad Devine his ass last night. n/t

[ThePhilosopher04]

23. No she didn't she looked like an idiot who didn't even

bother to look up the amount of campaign spending in each southern state. She's doing the bidding of the establishment by making a false attack against Bernie. They have no fucking shame.

[hrmjustin]

24. Yeah their excuses made them look ridiculous.