It’s not good news when a huge chunk of your staff resigns in protest right before you have the launch of your big new political organization, but that’s what just happened to Bernie Sanders.
…while the establishment of the new group, Our Revolution, has been eagerly awaited by many of his most ardent supporters, it has been met with criticism and controversy over its financing and management.
A principal concern among backers of Mr. Sanders, whose condemnation of the campaign finance system was a pillar of his presidential bid, is that the group can draw from the same pool of “dark money” that Mr. Sanders condemned for lacking transparency.
The announcement of the group, which will be livestreamed Wednesday night, also comes as the majority of its staff resigned after the appointment last Monday of Jeff Weaver, Mr. Sanders’s former campaign manager, to lead the organization.
Several people familiar with the organization said eight core staff members have stepped down. The group’s entire organizing department quit this week, along with people working in digital and data positions.
After the resignations, Mr. Sanders spoke to some who had quit and asked them to reconsider, but the staff members refused.
Jeff Weaver is part of the problem, but the structure of Our Revolution is causing serious consternation from Sanders’s idealistic staff and many of his supporters.
Claire Sandberg, who was the organizing director at Our Revolution and had worked on Mr. Sanders’s campaign, said she and others were also concerned about the group’s tax status — as a 501(c)(4) organization it can collect large donations from anonymous sources…
…“I left and others left because we were alarmed that Jeff would mismanage this organization as he mismanaged the campaign,” she said, expressing concern that Mr. Weaver would “betray its core purpose by accepting money from billionaires and not remaining grass-roots funded and plowing that billionaire cash into TV instead of investing it in building a genuine movement.”
…The staff members who quit also said that they feared that the 501(c)(4) designation meant the group would not be able to work directly with Mr. Sanders or the people he has encouraged to run for office because such organizations are not allowed to coordinate directly with candidates.
The launch is scheduled for tonight, but obviously there is now a large shadow cast over the event.
Things haven’t been going well for Sanders in general since the end of his campaign. His failure to issue his financial disclosure after having delayed it throughout the campaign has raised a lot of hackles, and his conspicuous purchase of a vacation home on North Hero Island isn’t sitting well with a lot of people up in Vermont. There have been a bunch of articles detailing how Jane Sanders ran Burlington College into the ground and about how the state taxpayers will have to pick up the tab for the school’s collapse. Sanders is also taking a beating for not doing much for the candidates he’s supposed to be supporting, with Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s opponent reduced to begging and pleading for Sanders to show him some love now that he’s down by double digits with less than a week to go before the primary and claiming that he can’t even get Sanders to return his phone calls.
I myself lambasted Sanders for quitting the Democratic Party after so many people stuck with him to give him influence over the platform, putting their faith in him to reform the party from within. Now he’s being too cute by half by refusing to rule out running for reelection as a Democrat.
If the true believers closest to him who were lined up to help launch the next phase of his revolution are quitting in protest, I don’t think it’s biased or uncharitable to say that Sanders isn’t turning out to be the person people thought he was. I don’t doubt that he’s made some enemies who are looking to settle scores, but this mass resignation certainly isn’t an example of that. Tim Canova calling him out for not returning his calls isn’t an example of that. His enemies didn’t force him to hire Jeff Weaver or to organize his new political outfit as a 501(c)(4) that can accept dark money but can’t coordinate with his office. It was his choice to delay and ultimately blow off disclosing his finances and then turn around and pay cash for an expensive third lakefront home on North Hero Island.
The kick-off parties for Our Revolution begin at 8pm tonight, and Sanders will appear in a livestream from a Burlington studio at 9pm. It will be interesting to see how he sells his big new project, but it’s certainly off to an inauspicious start.
Very glad to hear about a lot of the staff sticking by its principles. It was never a cult of personality. If you want to build something better you can’t undermine it at the beginning.
yes. also, problems to be expected, if change were easy would have happened already
You mean they’re too pure for even Bernie? That begs the question: Who is pure enough for them?
I wasn’t a Bernie supporter, but I completely agree with the resignations. And I hope this organization succeeds: I’d love to see a truly progressive, national grass-roots political movement in this country.
If you easily compromise your principles in the name of getting stuff done you will end having done very little.
This was a staff fight. Weaver simply has a 25 year connection to Sanders that the others will never have.
Funny – everyone in the field liked Weaver. Weaver was responsible for brokering peace with Clinton.
But people just can’t wait to shit on Bernie.
what was behind the disagreement? I was not aware that Weaver had messed up – ???
As is always the case, there is a lot of infighting on campaigns. One was about TV advertising. Weaver believed they needed to spend on TV to solve Bernie’s name recognition problem.
The Digital staff disagreed – and wanted to spend it on social media.
I happen to think Weaver was right: he was concerned with Bernie’s performance with older voters and the digital staff didn’t agree.
At the end of day Weaver is likely to win any argument. Bernie told Weaver he wouldn’t run if Weaver didn’t return to politics.
Basically this is about staff access. You can also say it is about old connections getting in the way of new ideas – there might be some truth to that as well.
But the bullshit way it is being spun is laughable.
the tv ads I saw were great. and I agree, re: reaching older voters.
But that doesn’t mean that Weaver was right. Doubt that either side had enough time to gather enough relevant data to know and then persuade those in the opposite camp of the optimal decision. Then there’s the zone of no data exists and the art of a political campaign in a specific particular time carries the day.
There were both newish and oldish elements in Sanders’ campaign and its not easy for outsiders to recognize who was driving these two. For example, was it older pros that put together those excellent TV ads or younger people with less experience? While the larger target market for TV ads is older voters, that doesn’t mean that they were particularly persuaded by Sanders’ TV ads. An example — NH and MA. NH not a huge age demographic difference, but NH is whiter which meant HRC would do better in MA. Among those age 45 and older, Sanders lost 6 points from what he received in NH. However, among 18-29 years old, he lost 18 points and 30-44 he lost 22 points. So, maybe the social media people had it right.
fladem’s not an outsider
–sigh– guess I should have said, “outsiders like me,” but as I wasn’t responding to fladem didn’t consider that outsiders alone would be a nit for someone to pick.
you should have, would have helped me understand your comment
Sorry.
well NH and MA are no test because he had name recognition. was there anyone in NH or MA who hadn’t heard of him? in the midwest, for example, many Sanders voters had never heard of him until the primary was imminent. in NH and MA one hears Sanders on NPR every week practically as they do a weekly friday VT talk with our DC senators and rep on VPR broadcast in those markets.
Okay — you concede that for Sanders NH and MA are much alike (which is why I focused on it). Then explain the significant differences in how those under 45 voted in the primary. The 6 points worse for Bernie in MA compared with NH for those 45 and older incorporates the demographic differences between those two groups in those two states — more women, more >64 years old, and more POC in MA. That same 6 point loss in MA for those <45 would be “natural.” Had that held across all ages, Sanders would have easily won in MA. Hell, had it been 12 points for those <45, Sanders would still have easily won. So, what made the <45 aged voters in MA so significantly different from those in NH?
btw — I’m only offering a hypothesis because I don’t know that the ratio of spending on social media outreach v. TV adverts differed in NH and MA and that this was a conflict point at that stage of the campaign. What we do know is that voter participation in both states was similar to that in 2008 and Sanders did better in both than Obama had done and HRC did worse in both than she’d done in 2008.
well, you didn’t understand my point at all: the original point was tv ad buys to reach voters vs social media where no name recognition. I responded MA vs NH irrelevant since Sanders had complete name recognition in both MA and NH, so your point is completely irrelevant to the original discussion.
But,
why a difference between NH and MA? well NH, esp HALF of it, i.e. Northern NH is a very poor state, typical Sanders territory. MA, well typical Clinton supporter economic level. as for POC, women, I have no idea b/c I think that varies state to state and the economic factors is the primary differentiating factor. dems who are doing relatively well economically are voting their pocketbooks, i.e. Clinton (one Clinton supporter even put it that way to me). POC in the South in the early states had a lot to do with name recognition from what I can tell.
We can argue this point for days and not get anywhere because we don’t have the data on ad buys v. social media in states where Sanders started with no name ID and then combine it with the election results. The primaries in most of the southern states were held early in the election cycle which does favor name ID. However, doubt that it was more than a minor factor this time. And no need to rehash the known factors that handed those big wins to HRC.
Another point I neglected to mention is that it’s known that HRC made TV large ad buys in NH earlier than anticipated because in polling Sanders had opened a lead in early September. She had more bucks to spend at that point than Sanders had.
You’re still dodging my point about NH v. MA. Are you claiming that more <45 year old low income voters in NH live in rural areas than in MA? Would have to be a lot more to produce the size of the voting variance for those <45. Once again, the variance for those >44 was 6 points in favor of HRC in MA. That presumably includes their higher level of income and financial security as well as the small demographic differences. It may be true that those <45 in MA are doing even better financially in comparison with their age cohort in NH than those >44. Well, other than that isn’t supported by economic reports comparing the two states.
However, considering that reality and perceptions of reality aren’t always the same, it still begs the question of why those >44 years old in MA are more like those in NH than those <45. And not by a small amount but a large amount. Something accounts for that variance and none of the exogenous (to the campaigns) factors appear to account for it.
interesting info comparing the two states. btw non english spoken at home would include french. S NH is considered an extension of MA, up to Manchester; it’s commuters to Boston area. N part of the state is rural, deindustrialized and wealthy owners of multiple homes [Mittens]. Some ppl retire to N NH because cost of living so low, and if one retires there from, say, Alaska, it’s moving to a warmer climate for retirement [have met ppl in that category]
and, btw, as a libertarian state it is pretty much the opposite of VT although they are next door to each other
Favorite son or neighbor favorite son always has an advantage in most states, and NH is no exception. In primaries, a libertarian dude would be running in the GOP primary and the NH electorate as a whole does differ from that of MA. Although of late that isn’t obvious from the statewide races.
Among SuperTuesday primaries (March 1), the <45 vote in MA stands out for me because it was more like TN and VA; whereas, OK and MI were more similar to the earlier NH results. And the later CT, IL, and WI primaries were also more similar to NH. Perhaps it was just an anomaly and nothing either of the campaigns did was a factor, but it still looks weird to me and that MA win was very important to HRC’s campaign.
see that Obama has designated Le Grand Bois du Nord as national monument [at least ME side of it]. very nice; NH’s section of Le Grand Bois du Nord is just north of the White Mountains, so borders on national forest. many unemployed from former paper mills in the region
any polling data on N vs S NH?
This fight was after IA/NH/NV.
It was about the big states, and became heated around the March 15 states.
Thank you. And considering the SuperTuesday (March 1) results, one side or the other may have had the better case. But it’s a lot of states and data to grind through and without the spending and allocation data, it still wouldn’t address the question.
Had to win at least two on March 15. To actually win the nomination maybe 3, though no one noticed the NC margin was lower than expected.
But HAD to win Ill and Mo. And they knew it.
Look, I was part of a campaign that lost because it pulled an add that WAS WORKING. It decided the nominate probably. There is no right or wrong – just a best guess. Made by very tired and ambitious people often unable to tell the difference between their own self-interest and the campaigns.
So Booman bought this pathetic story – floated by people who lost an internal fight.
The whole thing is just silly – but people want to take Bernie down.
See Bernie embarrassed people like Booman. He went far farther than any of them dreamed, and when he did he destroyed their sense of superiority.
And boy do they want it back.
Agree — guess right and one if a hero; guess wrong and one is a bum — and sorry if my comments read more in support of those outside Bernie’s long-time inner circle than intended. But good post-action reviews look at everything and challenges all the assumptions as to what went right and what went wrong. My overall opinion of Bernie and Weaver remains unchanged — they really did a phenomenal job.
Before ST came before March 15. That narrow loss in MA was the third one and it put him down going into the next round. Seabe and I did notice that Bernie did better in NC than would have been expected (5+% points better than VA two weeks earlier), but if that was achieved by deploying more dollars that could have been effectively used in IL and MO, it wasn’t an optimal decision. Again, I’m not criticizing anyone on his campaign. The time constraints were daunting, particularly since he was up against an opponent that had all her ducks in a row (including what was understood to be the cream of Obama’s campaigns) almost a year before Sanders entered the race. In addition to that HRC got more free media time and DWS’s debate schedule further advantaged HRC.
What’s intriguing to me is not that Bernie lost but how well he did. It is the first concrete evidence we’ve seen in decades that all the pros and all the big money can be beaten with a good and decent candidate that doesn’t have the big money behind him/her. Ultimately, the reason why he fell short by 1.5 to 3% points in several of the critical early states may have been no more than his age.
I have known Tad Devine for over 20 years. The story I heard was this:
This I believe was smart. To play in the South would have blown all of their money, and would have raised expectations that based on what they learned in SC they wouldn’t meet.
So they survived Super Tuesday – they won 4 and narrowly missed in Mass.
The basic theory was beating Clinton wasn’t a matter of delegates, but of momentum. You win a number of primaries in a row, and the press goes for blood, and Clinton simply becomes seen as a loser.
But the real problem was Iowa. They needed to win it. They had to create the front runner crisis early. But she escaped Iowa, and that meant she was able to win NV. So they had no forward momentum heading into Super Tuesday.
There were 3 inflection points: Iowa, South Carolina, and March 15th. Had any gone differently Bernie might have had a real shot. But they lost Iowa, couldn’t find a way to connect with the African American Community in SC, and lost Mo and Ill.
But my god what that campaign accomplished. Incredible.
I sat in the Nh/VT/ME delegation meeting one morning in Philly in utter amazement. My lasting image will be of Kunin genuinely excited for Bernie. They weren’t friendly when she was governor. But even she was blown away.
And every major VT Democrat showed up.
Except Howard Dean. He would not have been welcome.
Your inside view isn’t that different from what some of us on the outside observed. I’d like to bat around a few things about this later when I’m less tired.
Pardon — neglected to respond to your comments about Booman’s post. It is silly to focus on the internal squabbles in any campaign because it exists in all campaigns. Booman has a lot invested in making correct predictions. It’s what I view as liberal mindset; the let’s accept a crappy outcome in advance because that’s an easy to predict outcome and it’s too hard to do better. Doubt he’s embarrassed that Bernie lasted longer than he predicted, in part because he never makes such precise predictions. Did he even once look in depth at and write about the state of Bernie’s campaign? I don’t think so.
Based on what could be read from the outside, his fundraising and campaign operation was more robust as of 9/30 than Obama’s had been in ’08. The major difference was that Obama had participated in several debates by the point and it was still several weeks before the first ’16 Democratic debate.
Seems to me that burying Sanders at this time is to shutdown thoughts of “what could have been” when HRC gets in office and proceeds to deliver what any rational person would expect. Will probably be fine for Booman because it won’t be that much different from Obama (except for more drama) who is his idea of a great POTUS. Seems odd to me that some people believe that if Sanders and the GOP are buried that that will make HRC a great POTUS. Great for the MIC and corporate elites, but more likely to be a disaster for everyone else.
petty, as usual.
Bomb him and salt the ground.
I’m shocked to hear that a political organization is playing by the rules as they exist today not the rules we’d like to see.
I just don’t get it. Sanders is the guy who said he would do everything to see that Trump doesn’t get elected. But what has he done? Has anyone seen him on the campaign trail? No. He keeps his mailing list close. He doesn’t raise any money for Clinton or any other Democrats. He has people believing that $300,000 is enough to help people win congressional seats all over the country. His campaign vilified Clinton so badly that he has pushed his ardent supporters toward Dr. Jill. He has betrayed the Democrats which is easy, because he never was one. I say all that … and I like the guy. I just think he duped a lot of folks, maybe including himself.
He keeps his mailing list close. He doesn’t raise any money for Clinton or any other Democrats.
He has raised money for others. Whether it’s enough is a different question. He doesn’t need to raise money for Clinton. Have you been paying attention the past 3 days? You did hear she raised like $10,000,000 at Justin Timberlake’s the other day, right?
Keep in mind that most of the money raised for Hillary Victory Fund–about three quarters, I think (data here if you want to try doing the arithmetic)–goes to the DNC and 38 state party organizations and will be invested in House and Senate races.
He raised $250K for Canova and he gets this? No good deed goes unpunished, I guess.
He doesn’t raise money for Clinton? Shocking. She needs help in that department?
Yes she does because and she and her family are figuratively starving to death. Have you no compassion for the suffering?
He is a 74 year old man who is exhausted. The Convention ended 3 weeks ago.
Jesus.
Looks like there are serious problems, but the conflation of those issues with brainless “Al Gore flies in a jet!” stuff undermines the message and makes it appear petty and personal.
It’s very premature, but I get the sense that this organization will have a short lifespan.
Did you watch the broadcast? I didn’t get that impression at all. In fact, I signed up.
No, I was commenting on the apparent instability at the top. En masse resignations aren’t usually a good sign of things, nor is the fact that few people apparently have anything good to say about Weaver.
yes (actually I was already signed up.
Not fully understanding what one has initiated isn’t uncommon. It’s why having the right people in place to pass the baton to is so important. And why the leader and those in a subordinate position of the original effort have to be clear as to the talents and skills of the subordinates which almost always means that their effectiveness is as a subordinate and not the leader.
The staff that walked out made the right call. Weaver would probably be fine as an asset for whatever this new organization seeks to develop into, but not fine to lead it. What’s not fine on any level is a role for Jane Sanders in it. I previously pointed out that she was a problem and might say more on this later.
Ohh look at the concern trolling:
“many of his supporters.”
Yea. not. most have never heard of this.
“And his conspicuous purchase of a vacation home on North Hero Island isn’t sitting well with a lot of people up in Vermont”
Really. Alot of people in Vermont. Hmm. I was there for 3 weeks this summer. Spoke to a lot of people inside and outside of politics.
Not one had a problem with it. So that is made up.
But is typical. The socialist buys a summer house – LOOK he is a fraud!!!
Jesus.
“If the true believers closest to him “
Yea – this is wrong too. Jeff Weaver is far closer to Bernie (he managed his campaign in ’90, was his LA, and ran his Senate race in ’06) than the people cited in the story. Most of these people had no connection with him before 2015.
A bunch of unsupported statements.
Man are the knives out for Jeff.
I love the complaining about the vacation home. He sold the one he owned in Maine for something closer to his normal home!! And the one in Maine was in the family for a long time. Meaning the relatives of either him or Jane owned it at one time. So they inherited it, it seems.
Bernie also has a car – so clearly what he says about climate change is a lie as well.
What’s okay in a little pond isn’t necessarily okay in a larger pond. And vice-versa. Even if it’s perfectly legal.
The Clintons in AR didn’t get any flack for all their hinky financial dealings and were shocked that on a national stage that any of that would be questioned.
One would have to be blind not to have noticed that Sanders’ campaign lost momentum when he was asked for and was unable to produce his tax returns and then had numerous and not plausible excuses for not releasing them. (I do accept that Jane managed their personal finances and tax returns, but Bernie’s (and Weaver’s) failure not to have this all in order before he began his campaign isn’t excusable.)
“One would have to be blind not to have noticed that Sanders’ campaign lost momentum when he was asked for and was unable to produce his tax returns and then had numerous and not plausible excuses for not releasing them.”
I don’t think that mattered one wit.
I have no earthly idea what was going on with the returns. But it had nothing to do with his loss of momentum.
The rest is just basic look at the hypocritical socialist. I don’t think it cuts with Bernie’s people at all.
We’ll have to disagree on this. For a couple in their income tax bracket and with limited financial assets, their returns should have been so simple and straightforward that releasing them should not have presented any difficulties. It gives many people pause when a candidate offers lame excuses for not doing so. You seriously think it didn’t hurt Romney not to release his returns and Cindy McCain’s refusal to release hers? Trump could get away with it in the GOP primary, but it’s not going to fly with the general electorate.
Sanders major political assets were openness and honesty. On this and his financial disclosures, he was neither. And on the latter for a presidential nominee (unlike the near worthless disclosure requirements for member of Congress), he ran out the clock and has no intention of disclosing.
I think Mitt Romney released his tax return. I think I even downloaded it at one time but it was too complicated for me.
He released one or two years, not the extensive stuff that would have revealed how he treated his time at Bain.
I recall only the one about 250 pages but only income of $9m taxable. He seems to have lots of interests and trusts as I recall.
Do you have any objective evidence for this?
Honestly I never saw any evidence in the polling this mattered. It never effected his favorability rating.
Sorry – I don’t the data supports you.
I had almost no interest in Sander’s tax return bc I thought his would be boring. Hillarys had some interest for me but having looked at two of them, I lost interest though I have questions. Now Trump is interesting since he may have foreign income from strange places like Russia.
What report(s) is he required to file as a Senator? Just a financial disclosure form? Anything else?
maybe knives out for him b/c he might get something done.
Dunno about all of the problems…bureaucracy at work and all that…but I will say one thing.
“Our Revolution” is a colossally bad name.
First of all… the use of the word “our” reverberates with the sense of entitlement that was shown by so many Bernie supporters, especially the millennial types. Born to the middle/upper middle class, generally college and above educated and white as a Vermont snowstorm, they don’t even know that they don’t recognize their own entitlement.
“Isn’t everybody?”
Duh!!!
Anosognosia in action.
It also says that “our” revolution is not your revolution.
Great political marketing minds at work there, for sure…
More?
Sure.
The word “revolution”…when used in a sociopolitical sense it means “Blood and guts, fire in the hole, man the barricades and slaughter the leaders!!!”
For the average American, a revolution is what happened in the U.S. and France in the late 1700s, what happened in Russia in 1905 and what Mao Zedong did in China. Twice. This isn’t a revolution, it’s just an attempt to get back to FDR New Deal approaches.
Please.
Enough already.
We need a new party that is not totally owned by corporate interests. Dassit. If it can’t be done using social media, etc., then it can’t be done.
There’s been enough drama.
Bernie’s already shot his wad. I wish him a happy and fruitful retirement.
Next?
AG
I agree with you on the org name — most Americans are in no mood for a “revolution” right now.
In its simplest terms, I think most Americans just want fairness, because right now nothing seems fair unless you are a 1%er.
That was one aspect of his campaign that always clanged instead of zinged for me. The baggage associated with the word revolution renders it a poor choice for a political campaign, but worth it if fully descriptive. However, Sanders proposals weren’t revolutionary and more like “getting back to basics” which is the phrase used by every busy and/or industry when they’ve hit the financial skids after a period of ignoring best practices.
Agree with this. “Revolution” gets the kids’ — yes, some adults, too, but especially the kids — blood pumping, because that’s how young voters respond. But you start talking about revolutions (especially if you’re going to call yourself a Democratic socialist), and every steelworker thinks you’re a Joseph Stalin and every housewife in Bucks County thinks you want to raise her taxes to 90% and dole out free porn in her kid’s biology class or something.
It would’ve made more sense to promote it as a back-to-basics “New New Deal” or something.
…adding:
The term never bothered me, personally. Bernie’s ideas were and are largely workable, and while certainly on the left side of the party, they certainly weren’t completely unheard of ideas in liberal circles. Bernie was just bolder about pushing them, while others either didn’t think they were realistic or just didn’t think the timing was right yet.
But I’m not one of the voters who’re up-for-grabs in a general election.
ummmmm….Really? They left because “…we were alarmed that Jeff would mismanage this organization …”? If I wanted to make a point, I’d wait until the sob DID mis-manage the organization. It’d make a bigger impression on me than this.
Apparently, the people involved thought he mis-managed the campaign and took the (not necessarily wrong) attitude of “not again”. Presumably, these guys are talking about the generation of campaign funds because I seriously doubt that ANYONE did serious strategy in Bernie’s campaign except Bernie.
Having been involved with operations of this sort, I think there is one or two people with a personal problem with Jeff Weaver and they cloaked it with with a political argument that caught fire in the office. This happens and its best that it happen at the outset. Less upheaval than when it happens in the middle of a fundraising campaign.
Quite frankly, I doubt anyone outside the hardcore Bernie people and the people who read this blog have ever heard of Our Revolution. FWIW, I didn’t know anything about it until reading this.
Nobody heard of it because it was just launched. Now they’ve heard of it.
just put this Our Rev side by side with TPP to get an idea what Sanders’ ideas are up against. Sanders is supposed to join the ranks of failed candidates not take his ideas the next step. then watch the video of that Singapore guy – like someone trying to convince the girl to marry his batterer friend after all.
Maybe could use a Saudi prince to convince us of worker protections in the agreements? lol
yes, could be even more persuasive than the Singapore guy
It is always possible that Sanders, being 74 years old and all and ignored for most of the time, maybe has lost his fire. Buying a house and reverting back to an Independent for some is a terrible act of betrayal it seems. For me it is a nothing burger. But do carry on.
I am surprised about the campaign financing arrangement, but then isn’t that what Hillary does? If he does something different, and I were Trump, I would make something of that. And until I hear more, he may have decided Canova was not his man.
The most troubling part for me would be driving people to Dr Jill. Then again, I doubt even that. Those who want an excuse can find one anywhere.
I also thought that Sanders was not crucial to Clinton, since she was reaching across the aisle and signing up disaffected republicans. So why the fuss? Maybe it is more about Clinton than we know. She certainly has a tiger by the tail with the Judicial Watch and the freaking e mails and pay for play accusations. And I heard the other day it has been 265 days since her last news conference. Is she hiding? Trump just won’t go away. But damn Sanders can’t finance his campaign as we like.
Get out in front of this thing Hillary.
Hillary has never been in front of anything in her life. She’s long past the age where a pivot would be credible.
I think it was none other than that liberal icon, Michael Moore, who sometime ago pleaded with her to get the shit out on the table. But she figured there was nothing there so nothing to put on the table. That was a long time ago before this latest unfortunate shit.
Reverting to an independent is not an act of betrayal for a huge part of his base. For them, it’s a declaration that the Democratic Party is institutionally not reformable. Any realignment of Democrats will be as schismatic as the Trumpification of the Republican Party.
I’m not sure that without dramatic changes for the better in economic and foreign policy (which means substantially legislative) performance that that question is more than academic.
HRC doesnt do news conferences. Simply put all she thinks she’ll get is endless questions about email process so why bother?
Some truth in that no doubt. But that bets on voters not caring. We will see what Trump and the Wurlitzer delivers on that score.
So what are the staff who resigned going to do next?
That’s what is most interesting about this. Who exactly is going to be sucked into the Beltway lifestyle and depart from the idea that was originally sold to Sanders voters?
As Stephen Colbert proved, just because you have a 501(c)(4) doesn’t mean that you have to run it like every other 501(c)(4). Judging something on capabilities alone is how the DoD and CIA screw up a lot.
Some things are worth waiting to see what happens. And splits can be creative in the long run.
The movement that Sanders promoted into the halls of the Democratic Party is a critical set of ideas and some imterim proposals. Someone will eventually work that thread out.
Sanders’s house is a big Al Giordano move (among others). Let’s vet all the Congressional houses to see how it compares before we rush to judgement. Looks suspiciously like the treatment that Corbyn is getting in the UK. Punish the upstart for making the Clinton campaign actually have to work instead of drifting directly into the transition team.
The people who supported Sanders are the ones who will work out his legacy and we won’t know that anymore than we now know the legacy of George McGovern.
Hopefully Sanders scared the Clinton campaign enough to put a 50-state field staff on the ground to deliver the downticket that will in turn deliver the Presidency. That’s where all that corporate money needs to go instead of subsizing the media that continues to attack Clinton in a way that other politicians (Mitch McConnell, Mario Rubio, Ted Cruz, Paul Ryan, for example) are rarely attacked.
But the mood right now seems to be to hound Sanders out of Congress and then Kucinich him with whatever seems handy.
Now let’s talk about Mitch McConnell’s wife and her career failures.
I’m glad he’s a tough guy and VT is a small state where everyone pretty much knows each other. definitely Corbyning him, making it safe for elites to move forward on their agenda. OTOH if the people who resigned are serious about change, could be good having two groups going at it. As I mentioned before, and might as well mention again, we are running a flawed candidate and if there’s anything out there for an October surprise we can be sure it will happen. downticket races is the only insurance we have
We Dems have our own Wurlitzer. More internecine, lately. You did not expect neoliberalism to go quietly, did you?
Even in small states you have to be rich to be a senator. The Great Hero FDR was a traitor to his class. So making hay about this pizzles me. Daily News has also always hated him. Not with the blazing Bezos fire of WaPo but still.
“The movement that Sanders promoted into the halls of the Democratic Party is a critical set of ideas and some imterim proposals. Someone will eventually work that thread out.”
Sure, now who and when?
I would keep an eye on these folks (there are a lot of them):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Bernie_Sanders_presidential_campaign_endorsements,_2016
I shared the info on tonight’s meetings with my Facebook friends. I had high hopes for what we could achieve together. But my resources are limited and my faith in Weaver nonexistent. I’ll wait and see what happens. I wish them all the best, but my enthusiasm is gone.
Whoops!!! Sorry about the big gun. Hit the wrong button.
AG
Something I don’t really get here:
I know part of Bernie’s whole schtick was getting billionaire money out of politics. (I don’t think this is as big an issue as others in the age of small donors and declining impact of tv ads, but others disagree, and that’s fine.)
But the system is what it is. If Our Revolution is going to stand for the things Bernie stood for, and billionaires want to write checks to it…isn’t that, y’know, a good thing in the context of helping to push his “revolution” forward?
A lot of this just sounds like typical pissing matches between political operatives who’re having a sad that somebody else has the boss’s ear. It’s not Clinton 2008-bad, but it nevertheless just comes across as petty and stupid.
I don’t think the issue is the 501c4 per se. That could be run honestly/usefully. The issue is that apparently everybody working on the project thought it wouldn’t be if Jeff Weaver were running it. And even after they told Sanders that, he hired Weaver anyway.
“A lot of this just sounds like typical pissing matches between political operatives who’re having a sad that somebody else has the boss’s ear.”
This is of course, absolutely true.
But it fits a theme that Booman wants to write about.
Yep. “To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women!”
Bury those criticisms deep again and ring the grave with land mines.
you’re such a simpleton.
it escapes your grasp that I could vote for Bernie, prefer his politics, and still seem him as a bad candidate for the presidency, or that I could spend all of 2008 fighting the Clintons and then tell you that she will be the next president two years in advance because that’s what I know is going to happen, not because it is in any way what I want. Or that I could call out Bernie for basically letting his fans down on multiple fronts and in pretty glaring ways.
I mean, I’m let down by him, and I never even had any enthusiasm for his candidacy since he never had a chance.
But that is your narrative. Bernie was NOT a bad candidate. He did incredibly well against virtually impossible odds,
Your other basic point has been that Hillary had a lock before the primary even started.(Which, BTW, was no brilliant insight, it is in the category of “No shit, Sherlock.”) And this also factors into your “Obama was the greatest president ever” meme, because he supported Hillary all the way, for whatever reasons (not, because he loves the Clintons, which i don’t believe he does).
Considering how well Sanders did against Clinton (not only the numbers, but his effect on campaign messaging, otherwise known as educating the voters), and starting a viable and crucially needed movement (which is really what you’re questioning here), it’s just circular reasoning to say that he was a bad candidate because he was never was going to win, and that he let you down.
Plus the obvious fact that other good candidates were just not going to run against Hillary (e.g. Warren).
I phrased that the way I did for a reason, but the word ‘candidate’ gets confusing sometimes.
You can make two arguments about Sanders’ campaign.
The first is that he failed before he started, which is my take.
The second was that he was doomed from the beginning but ran an excellent campaign that exceeded everyone’s expectations.
This latter characterization is almost right, but I don’t think Clinton was 100% unbeatable because she has here own flaws and baggage, and she’s just very ill-suited for the times and the mood of the party.
To beat her though, you needed to look at how it had been done before and learn what you could use and what you couldn’t. For a guy like Bernie who was going to run a campaign that would alienate a lot of power brokers, he had to lock down support from somewhere in the establishment of the party. Obama had the Daschle wing, and eventually the Kennedy wing. A progressive needed to lock down as much of the progressive wing as possible, including at least more than a tiny handful of the CBC and the CHC. And they needed to get started very early, probably more than six months before Sanders actually announced he would run.
Sanders was a good candidate in the sense that once he ran, he inspired people, and he was great at raising money, and he dominated the discussion and got his issues taken seriously when they wouldn’t have been otherwise.
When I say he was a bad candidate for the presidency, I mean that he wouldn’t be a good president, in my opinion. I don’t feel like piling on the guy and getting personal, so I’ll just say that he doesn’t get along with people well enough to be a leader of people. He can inspire people on the stump, but he can’t do it one-on-one or in small groups among his peers.
Obama has his own weaknesses in that regard, and they’ve been a problem for him, but he’s miles better than Sanders at interpersonal relationships.
When it comes to presidents, policy is nice but temperament and leadership and judgment are more important. I never thought Sanders would be a good fit for the job. The big fractious Democratic Party would never unite behind him, nor would he excel at speaking for the whole country or getting any buy in or deference from his opponents. I don’t think Clinton will find most of this easy, either, but the party is pretty united behind her. She knows how to go about the job.
But, really, I’ve been so deeply dissatisfied with my choices that I had to overcome despondency to even keep doing this job. It’s just that I went through it in 2014 when I realized that we would not get a viable alternative to Clinton and that it would be wasted effort to try.
That doesn’t mean Sanders’s campaign didn’t accomplish great things or that he shouldn’t have run. It just means that it’s a shame that the messenger was too late, too imperfect, and that people got invested in an outcome that was impossible from the moment it began.
I know that being a senator is not the same as being president, but the fact is, he is the most popular senator (with his own constituents) in the country.
And no, contrary to what some would have us believe, Vermont is not a particularly weird state.
He also seems to get along well with the great majority of his colleagues in the senate.
But hey, maybe you’re right. And maybe not.
It’s not even Sanders that is the problem–he is just the present symbol they attack.
It is the ideas that have to be buried.
Sanders and Corbyn are the examples for others to see flayed.
This piece contains the typical hallmarks of a hit job.
You just made shit up.
“A lot of people”
Bullshit.
Your taking credit for anything related to Bernie is pathetic.
you’re such a crybaby about the campaign.
I never advised you to believe, so don’t put your grievances on me.
You own your own bitterness.
If you don’t think a lot of people in Vermont and throughout the country aren’t feeling pissed off and disillusioned by Bernie then you haven’t been reading jack shit.
As for the house, the issue is live in Vermont because they tried to explain that they bought with funds from a share of a property in Maine, but the value of the Maine share was nowhere near the value of the North Hero Island property, and they paid cash for the place, which is raising eyebrows considering its listed sale price, and considering that Sanders didn’t release his financials and wasn’t expected to have that kind of liquidity.
It’s true that there’s an optics issue with buying prime lake property (a third home) on the Hero islands when you’re supposed to be a guy who drives a beat up car and doesn’t care about material things, but I could give a shit about that.
His problem is that his story doesn’t add up and people are talking about it.
I’ve seen too many posts here recently that were either invitations to bash his quixotism or were direct from the DNC Wurlitzer on other issues.
Today’s presentation of oppo-slanted reports kinda capped it for me, especially teh house, as others have mentioned. You sure have two standards for behavior.
VT Digger
well, I’m guessing her brothers gave/ lent them $ to buy the Hero Island place; joint ownership problems – what to do if one joint owner wants out? lots of sad stories in that area. do they have the income to obtain a mortgage on the new property? what is the value of their VT home and the DC place? mortgages?
see says they paid cash, which is also what is indicated by the local government office.
So, they had a net worth below $400,000 when they campaign began and just plopped down nearly $600,000 on a vacation home.
She first claimed that the money came from the Maine property, but the records indicate she only got about $150,000 from that. When challenged on that, she came back with a story about using money from her retirement account and money Sanders just got in July as an advance on a book.
Still, paying that much cash (roughly double your pre-campaign worth is not something a normal family would do.
Plus, the reason she obfuscated in the first instance is that she knew people would be pissed if they thought the money came from cashing in on the campaign, which is what that book advance really amounts to.
And it must be a spectacular book advance, don’t you think?
The Guardian
– so it’s about 600 000 cash they needed to buy the house? they got 150 000 from ME house? could be the book advance, also my idea was her brothers to advance some cash to them, but I don’t know anything about her brothers’ finances, but I’ve also seen some articles about Burlington College implying some wrongdoing on Jane’s part. I guess the implication is taking $ from the campaign, and that’s what the stories want, but one thing I do know is the knives are out for Sanders, so I’m not jumping to any conclusions about his financial mismanagement. as it’s clear his framing of the issues is facing a tsunami trying to stop it. well, as we say in theology, the problems he proposes to address certainly aren’t going away,
anyway, should be pretty easy to find out. and perhaps you know more about this from behind the scenes. anyway, shouldn’t have to wait too long to find out, as we all know, VT is a small state and everyone knows each other.
autoplay ads making it very difficult to get around the site today.
This isn’t all that complicated.
They reported a net worth in 2015 of between $175,000 and $700,000. A news report from that year pegged the number at $330,000.
This is longer after she received a $200,000 severance package in 2011.
Also in 2015, she received $125,000 for the sale of her portion of the Maine property to her brothers. Depending on when that happened it could add or not add to the $330,000.
Let’s say it did add to it.
So, they have about $455,000 net worth in 2015 when the campaign begins.
How much of that is liquid? After all, they already own two homes.
A good guess is that most of it is not liquid.
Then he gets an book advance last month for an undisclosed amount and he immediately goes out and pays $575,000 in cash for a dream vacation house in the middle of Lake Champlain.
Now, if it’s me, I get a mortgage for a purchase like that, because I sure as shit am not going to take all my savings, my wife’s retirement savings, and my book advance money and put it all into a third house, leaving my completely illiquid all over again.
Anyway, people were like “What the fuck? Where’d the money come from?”
And she was like, “Oh, I sold my place in Maine.”
And people we like, “Word. Except the place in Maine would only pay for a quarter of the new place. So where’d the money come from?”
And she was like “No comment.”
And people were like, “We’re still waiting for you to tell the truth.”
And she was like, “Well, I cashed out my retirement and Bernie got a big book advance.”
And people were like, “So, you did basically lie and now you’re admitting that you cashed out on the fame and celebrity from the campaign to get yourself the place you’ve always wanted on North Hero Island.”
And she was like, “Yep. That enabled us to buy a place in the islands — something I’ve always hoped for.”
And people were like, “What the fuck?”
yes, I see what you’re saying. we need to know how much are the other 2 houses worth? but probably most of the 330 000 is in property, I assume with mortgages pretty much paid off so maybe they could have obtained a mortgage for the island place. they probably held the 125,000 to put into the new vacation place. so that’s 450 000 they needed for the vacation place. would the book advance be 450 000? how much of the 330 000 is retirement savings? 100 000? maybe 200 000 and the book advance 250 000. they could borrow against their paid off other properties. anyway, suppose they hadn’t bought the island place and had just put the book advance into savings – would that be ok? should he have turned down the advance?
I agree they should have said up front, and perhaps disclosed tax returns, but the judgmentalism against them for buying the island place is what happens to ppl who try to bring values other than greed into the discussion – they’re supposed to live a life of deprivation. in some parts of the country, a few decades back, many people had summer “camps” it was part of the middle class way of life to which everyone aspired. [I don’t know the numbers but I’ll bet Marie can find them] also assume it varied by state and region because of cost.
Again, I do not care that he got a big book advance and bought his wife her dream vacation house. He worked hard for it.
But, for one, a lot of his supporters seem allergic to wealth. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard Sanders supporters blast anyone who works in finance or who they consider to be rich and uninterested in anyone but themselves. They won’t like this move. His own staff resigned in part because they don’t trust him or Weaver not to accept billionaire donations. I mean, these people are extremists.
For another, they weren’t honest about it.
For another, they cultivated a very contrary image.
And, finally, this is just a piece of a bigger picture that ties in with not disclosing his finances, not doing much to help other candidates (so that they are publicly bitching about it), and dropping the Dem Party when it no longer suited his ambition after people trusted him to stay and help reform it.
It’s a bad set of optics.
many major issues here – this Mother Theresa model for social change is a problem; in reality many progressives, at least a number of them, are fine with wealth or working in finance [FDR model] but there’s no visibility to anything but the Mother Theresa model. that’s a problem.
Did you happen to read the 100-odd comments on your linked story?
I think they support fladem’s point overall.
Did Sanders use unspent campaign funds to buy his vacation home??? Did Hillary pay him off with the book deal??? Was there any editorial purpose in inserting those innuendos masquerading as pertinent information besides suggesting that vein of sludge? Inquiring minds want to know… All that stuff hit twitter, you know.
You rather illustrate the vindictive poor winner. Wonder if the Clinton Foundation will buy up all of Sanders books and remainder them in Azerbaijan?
Trying to make road-kill of opponents to the Washington Consensus is gonna keep everybody busy.
Democrats voted for endless war and status quo economics. The elite class is safe from any threat.
Having watched as Howard Dean turned over an activist army to his brother to turn into a bungling money raising org for politicos in the off season, this doesn’t surprise me.
Never gonna be a revolution built on the backs of those who get excited about politics every four years. An infinitely longer attention span than that is needed. I almost thought Howard had it at one point. . . . And maybe did–but those around him saw only cash cow, which is looking thin and weary about now.
ah, ignorance is bliss, isn’t it