Beastly Boy
Beastly Boy's JournalBiden mounts behind-the-scenes mission to win over wary progressives
With full appreciation of the progressive voters being a far broader segment than just the die-hard Bernie fans, Joe is implementing a behind-the scenes push to bring them to his side. This may explain why Bernie is so unnerved lately and so reluctant to drop out of the race: as far as Bernie is concerned, this is a direct assault on his movement, not just his presidential aspirations. He can only counter Biden's efforts to bring large portions of Bernie's base to his side if he remains in the race and maintains some semblance of an alternative to Biden.
https://news.yahoo.com/biden-mounts-behind-scenes-mission-110035973.html
Since his landslide victories earlier this month, Bidens advisers have engaged in talks with a range of top progressive groups, including some that endorsed his chief rival, Bernie Sanders, according to multiple sources familiar with the conversations. The outreach to left-wing organizations and individuals representing causes from climate change and immigrant rights to gun control and mobilizing underserved black and brown communities is focused on young activists. Broadly speaking, they viewed Biden as one of the least-inspiring candidates in the sprawling Democratic primary field.
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Biden aides are taking a two-pronged approach. They're reaching out to what they see as traditional progressive groups with longer legacies such as Planned Parenthood, with which the campaign held a long call ahead of the most recent debate, and movement groups that came of age more recently, including liberal organization Indivisible and climate change-focused Sunrise Movement.
Biden has also backed proposals from Sanders and Elizabeth Warren in recent weeks on the issues of student debt and free college, respectively.
Just pulled this flyer out of my mailbox. WTF???
It was an unsigned, undated, unmailed and otherwise unidentified sheet of paper printed in plain text and just stuffed in my mailbox by hand. First, excerpts from the content:
I write this note regarding the upcoming New York democratic primary.
Like many of you, I've been closely watching the primary unfold. In particular, I've been paying attention to Joe Biden's public appearances for the past six months or so. And what I see brings me an acute sense of worry.
I'll never forget when my grandmother first started showing symptoms of Alzheimers. Small details of memory loss were brushed aside at first: forgetting what she had done the day before, taking longer than usual to recall my name, etc. It wasn't until several months later when symptoms worsened that we realized that these instances were the early signs of a deeper, more tragic problem.
It brings me no joy to say that I intuitively recognize these symptoms in Joe Biden.
snip...
Many of us know and love people with Alzheimers/dementia.It's a brutal, unforgiving and tragic illness. From the bottom of my heart I hope Joe receives the treatment he needs. But I can't sit back and watch a candidate with symptoms that are all too familiar to me to become the guy we pitch up against Trump. Trump will be, and has already shown himself to be, merciless and offensive about Biden's increasingly apparent memory issues. The Joe Biden of 4 years ago could trounce Trump. But running the current Joe Biden against Trump would be handing easy prey to a bully.
I simply ask that you consider the risk of not only Joe's electability, but his overall ability.
Now, the WTF part: This shit is so patently provocative, it could only be the product of a troll farm. I live in Max Rose's district, the part of it that is made up of a quirky mix of staunch conservatives, liberal old-timers and lots of young people moving in. My first impulse, given the author's references to the Democratic primary and author's grandmother, was to attribute this pamphlet to a young supporter(s) of a certain Democratic candidate whose campaign is in a slump. Then I thought, nah. This shit is too stupid to take at face value. So I am not discounting the possibility of a Repub troll farm trying to undermine Biden and make it appear like Bernie deserves credit for it.
Has anyone in Brooklyn received anything that resembles this shit?
Can't blame Bernie. He is doing what he does best.
He is leveraging what little influence he has left to its maximum, while he still can.
Bernie is smart enough to know that his "the people" vs "establishment" narrative has fizzled. The Primary results are clear on this. He is now falling back on the "we won on ideological grounds" narrative, which is also unfounded, but this is not yet as obvious as the failure of his populist message. This will become obvious in time, but not yet. Bernie still has space to maneuver, but it is shrinking, and fast. The next debate gives Bernie the opportunity, possibly his last one, to solidify the grounds for demanding and getting concessions from the Democratic Party to include items from his agenda in its platform. This is why he is pushing so hard right now. This will surely change, commensurate with Bernie's ability to retain relevance in this race.
He is unlikely to succeed to the degree he did in 2016. In fact, he is unlikely to retain sufficient relevance to last him until the convention. My sense is, the sooner he makes an endorsement deal with Biden, the better off Bernie's position will be in the end. My guess is, Bernie will endorse Joe by April. Possibly a day or two after Warren's endorsement, but that's a whole different calculus.
FiveThirtyEight: Biden's chances to win the Primaries moved from 15% to 88% in less than a week!
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-primary-forecast/I am speechless...
Ari Melber on MSNBC just now: Sanders outspent Biden $30 per vote to $10 per vote.
That's 3 times more of the progressive working class money than the Democratic establishment billionaire money.
What is wrong with this picture? Is it OK to use the working class money so frivolously, or is the "establishment billionaires" buying elections for Biden bullshit falling apart?
Methinks it could be both.
Biden is ahead of Sanders among self identified "very liberal" voters in SC exit polls.
https://edition.cnn.com/election/2020/entrance-and-exit-polls(you have to scroll down about one third of the page)
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