Former Bernie Sanders Staffers Are Preparing to 'Draft Bernie' for 2020 [View all]
BURLINGTON, VERMONT — Get ready to feel the Bern again. A movement to draft Bernie Sanders to run for president in 2020 is launching today, with the aim of building an organizational structure so the Vermont Senator can start campaigning at a moment’s notice.
“We have two goals,” Rich Pelletier, one of the four main organizers of Organizing For Bernie, tells Rolling Stone. “One, we want to show the support is there. The second is to begin to do the organizing that is going to need to happen for him to hit the ground running, by the time he announces — if he announces.”
The identity of the organizers is part of what makes this campaign interesting. Organizing For Bernie is led by a cross-section of senior campaigners from Sanders’ 2016 run. Pelletier, for instance, was the deputy campaign manager for Sanders last election cycle.
The Colorado-based group includes Dulce Saenz, the former Sanders campaign director for Colorado and Washington state, as well as former Colorado Caucus Director Mandy Nunes-Hennessey and Spencer Carnes, who began as the leader of the Buffs for Bernie group at the University of Colorado in 2016.
The news comes on the heels of a three-day retreat for progressive leaders called “The Gathering” at the Sanders Institute in Burlington, Vermont. Hosted by Jane Sanders and attended by the likes of Dr. Cornel West, Nina Turner and Bernie Sanders himself, “The Gathering” felt a lot like a kitchen-cabinet strategy session, both for the progressive movement generally, and for a potential Sanders run. The weekend included the unveiling of a new plan by University of Massachusetts economist Robert Pollin to cost out a Medicare-for-All proposal.
Of course, the question of whether or not the 77-year-old Sanders would run for president again was a major topic of discussion between panels.
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/bernie-sanders-2020-presidential-run-762393/
Let's not. Okay?
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