Carrot:
Despite public defiance, Bernie told top Ds he expects convention process to be legit: https://t.co/EGTg8aHBBj pic.twitter.com/fQKPT5urQG
— Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) May 29, 2016
That was the day after the Washington Post reported:
The relationship between the Democratic National Committee and Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.) grew more heated Saturday after the DNC rejected his campaign’s request for the removal of the co-chairs of the standing committee on rules.
In a letter sent Friday, the Sanders campaign labeled the committee co-chairs, former congressman Barney Frank (Mass.) and Connecticut Gov. Dan Malloy, as “aggressive attack surrogates” for the Clinton campaign, whose criticism had “gone beyond dispassionate ideological disagreement and have exposed a deeper professional, political and personal hostility toward the senator and his campaign.”…
“In a March interview, Mr. Frank defamed Senator Sanders as ‘outrageously McCarthyite,’” Sanders campaign counsel Brad Deutsch wrote in the letter to the DNC. “Malloy has even ventured that Senator Sanders should be ‘held accountable’ for the ‘death and destruction’ cause by his ‘mistake.’”
The DNC responded in less than 24 hours, mentioning none of the ad hominem criticisms that Malloy or Frank had made. Instead, Jim Roosevelt and Lorraine Miller, co-chairs of the Rules and Bylaws committee, said that the Call for the 2016 Democratic National Convention had duly elected Frank and Malloy in January.
“Your challenge does not allege that there was any violation of the provisions of the Call in the conduct of their elections,” they wrote. “Having carefully reviewed your challenge, we find that it fails to meet the criteria.”…
“The way he’s been acting now is a demonstration of why he’s had no support from his colleagues,” Frank told The Washington Post this month. “The problem that most committed liberals have had with Sen. Sanders is that we don’t think his approach is effective. It’s a self-righteous view that if you just say something loudly enough, you win.”
Malloy, who beat the 2010 Republican tide to win a close election, was long seen as a progressive experimenter. While Republican-run states cut back on benefits and public employees, Malloy raised taxes, presenting Connecticut as a laboratory of democracy to contrast with Kansas or Texas. This year, however, Malloy’s approval ratings cratered as he proposed a compromise, cost-cutting budget to close the state’s deficit…
idea that Barney Frank is too hostile to progressive politics for Democratic platform committee is pretty funny
— John Harwood (@JohnJHarwood) May 28, 2016
.
Stick:
@SpryGuy @FactCheckBernie @P2 I liked it too!!! pic.twitter.com/8fWAMcHtiB
— Diane Dinnigan (@DianeDinnigan) May 29, 2016
Give the man this, he has an unshakeable conviction of his own worth…
Sanders doesn't rule out being Clinton's VP https://t.co/Z60mGbjeYZ pic.twitter.com/ta283ZbScM
— The Hill (@thehill) May 30, 2016
BGinCHI
If Barney Frank was 10 years younger, I’d buy some Warren/Frank in 2024 bumper stickers.
Major Major Major Major
According to the replies on that tweet, Frank didn’t say that. And I don’t doubt it either–he would use fewer words and slip the knife in much more elegantly.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Major Major Major Major: I’m sure it would include something about arguing with his dining room table.
BrianM
Glad he didn’t say it. I’d like a defense of the institutional Democratic Party to include something about economics.
(Hillary supporter, before you jump all over me.)
(Jeez, I hate that I feel obliged to write that.)
Major Major Major Major
@BrianM: Not feeling the love?
NotMax
@BGinCHI
Warren turns 67 next month, so she’ll be 75 in 2024.
Amir Khalid
@NotMax:
Given the age factor and the fact that she has been fighting hard and effectively from her Senate seat, I tend to doubt that Elizabeth Warren really wants to be in the White House anyway.
NotMax
@Amir Khalid
I’m perfectly happy with her where she is and hope she stays there.
Frankly, her skill set is not as broad as a president’s ought to be.
BrianM
@Major Major Major Major: I’m with those who think that attacking Bernie supporters is, at this point, dumb. I want even the tech-libertarian formerly-Paul-curious people to swing Hillary rather than Trump. A way to do that is making him seem like the clueless CEO – which he is – who swoops down with a Great Idea and screws up everything, where she is the operations person who keeps things running so they can do their jobs.
Ultraviolet Thunder
What about bread boxes? Everyone used to keep their bread in one and now they don’t.
I have too many questions to sleep.
Ultraviolet Thunder
My heart actually gave a little leap for joy when I realized Barney Frank was ‘back’.
I did miss him.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Amir Khalid: Everybody doesn’t want to be President and it’s not the only position that a politician can be effective. This is something that often seems to be forgotten, especially on the left.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Ultraviolet Thunder: He’s been on MSNBC as a Hillary surrogate for months, I enjoy seeing him each time he’s on.
rikyrah
Good Morning ?, Everyone ?
Bruce K
The Democratic Party’s sort of become the big tent by default, so disputes are inevitable, I guess.
I agree that Warren’s probably more effective in the Senate, but all the same, it might make sense to offer her the VP nomination, even if she’d turn it down. What I wouldn’t mind seeing is Warren giving input as to who the VP should be, or being publicly included in the decision-making process after the convention.
OzarkHillbilly
2:19 AM:
“Do you have your wand, Tom?”
“What?”
“DO you have your wand?”
“Yes Honey, I have my wand.”
“”Good, because you just never know.”
“Well, with He Who Must Not Be Named on the loose…”
snoring
Me, wide awake.
Mai.naem.mobile
I think Warren is way too useful to have in the Senate to be wasted as a Veep. If Mass had a Dem gov,as a crowning achievement of her career I wouldn’t mind seeing her at Treasury or the SEC or even AG. Diane Rheem had John Hickenlooper on last week, HRC could do a lot worse than picking Hickenlooper.
Keith G
@Bruce K: If something negative were to happen to Hillary’s numbers in the state by state polls, then an outreach to Warren as VP might make it a bit more sense.
But, I don’t spend a lot of energy speculating about Hillary’s VP slot send since I imagine that right about now they are polling variety of names in the crucial five or six up-for-grab states. The conventional wisdom is that VP choice does not win many votes, but as we found out 8 years ago, it certainly can be a factor in changing the comfort level that potential voters have.
Also, it seems that we are a bit in uncharted territory since I don’t think we have had a contest in which the two potential nominees are both suffering from such high personal negatives in opinion polling. In that case, maybe the VP slot will be a bit more important is that is normally the case.
The Thin Black Duke
Dear Democrats,
Uh, guys?
I know you mean well, but keep your hands off our senator, O.K.?
Thank you.
Signed,
A proud citizen of Massachusetts
burnspbesq
@Mai.naem.mobile:
All of those departments and agencies are in very good hands right now. Warren wouldn’t be an upgrade.
Jack the Second
You also don’t need to plan Elizabeth Warren’s retirement just yet. You can be an 80-something Senator (Dianne Feinstein will be 83 next month). We could see Elizabeth Warren in the Senate until 2032 or later, if she so chooses.
msdc
@NotMax:
Would that every senator had such self-awareness.
maryQ
@The Thin Black Duke: I’m kind of with you on this. And I LOVE her, but I also wonder whether her appeal is as broad as many of her fans think it is. However, I am coming around to the fact that if that is what it takes to get theses cry babies to shut up and not vote for Trump (just to see what happens) or Johnson (because it’s a REAL choice, man, not the lesser of two evils), then I will sacrifice my Senator.
Kobekid
from the tracking Bernie Bros on the Kubler-Ross scale dept, this was posted by one on a Democrats Abroad FB page,
http://disinfo.com/2010/11/debunked-the-myth-that-ralph-nader-cost-al-gore-the-2000-election/
SFAW
@Kobekid:
That bullshit again? (Yes, I see that it’s from 2010.) Great. The last time someone tried to “prove” that the Nader vote had no effect on the outcome, the study referred to as “conclusive proof” had so much woulda-coulda-shoulda in it, plus highly questionable assumptions, plus a fairly heavy dose of misreading the numbers, that they probably should just have written “because Zeus willed it, and thus it happened.” [ETA: In that particular study, I think the author(s) tried to claim that Nader took as many or more votes from Bush as he took from Gore.]
I especially liked (in the linked scrawlings) the part about how a vote for Nader did not decrease the number of votes that Gore had already received. Yes, imbecile, just as vote suppression doesn’t deduct from the number of votes already cast. But that’s not the issue, is it?
FSM spare me from these “Nader had no effect on the 2000 outcome” morons.
SFAW
@efgoldman:
Great, except that I don’t believe President Trump would nominate her. Even if he did, Senate Majority-Leader-for-Life McConnell would not allow her name to be uttered, never mind getting a hearing.
Matt McIrvin
@BrianM:
This will never happen. The one I know is actively hoping for a Trump win at this point to destroy “business as usual”, and will start a fight with anyone who advocates voting Democratic on Facebook. Hillary Clinton really is a figure of hate for them on par with Stalin or Hitler.
Gelfling545
@BrianM: “who swoops down with a Great Idea and screws up everything”
And hasn’t everybody worked for a boss just like that at some time? That would resonate with a lot of people.
Chris
@BrianM:
This.
Especially when 1) obviously, that’s specifically the aspect of the party that Bernie and supporters are attacking as “not liberal enough,” and 2) it’s not like the institutional Democratic Party doesn’t have good reason to be proud on that front. The ACA was easily the biggest progressive economic achievement since the sixties, and the fact that Bernie campaigns as if this hasn’t happened and as if economic populism hasn’t been becoming much more prominent in the party over the last eight years is a big part of what’s irritated me (and, I suspect, many others) about his entire campaign.
Amir Khalid
@BrianM:
Trump as the Pointy-haired President? That idea has potential.
Miss Bianca
@Mai.naem.mobile: Why do you hate us in CO? That would likely lead to the election of a RWNJ here.
D58826
FROM KOS
http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/5/30/1532655/-NBC-POLL-Clinton-s-lead-over-Trump-widens-once-Bernie-drops-out
And a template for the way to merge Bernie’s supporter and Hillary’s.
In a nutshell – Gov. Jerry Brown talks Bernie and governs Hillary. Obviously it helps that it is a single state and the democrats have a super majority in the legislature.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/30/us/politics/california-jerry-brown-democrats-primary-hillary-clinton-bernie-sanders.html?_r=0
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Not just that it didn’t happen, it was a sell-out. Also on the minimum wage– $12/hr nationally, which would be pretty damn difficult to pass, I suspect, with the 60 day 60 seat supermajority, isn’t just inadequate, it’s proof of HRC”s essential corruption. Meanwhile, gun safety and abortion rights, two issues where the bulk of the opposition doesn’t come from the “billionaire class”, which would also be hard enough to advance in better legislative circumstances, get waved away so we can get back to shouting about the one thing the Blessed Hedgehog can focus on.
And meanwhile again, Bernie Sanders has at long last found one– one!— Senate candidate worthy of his endorsement, Russ Feingold. If he’s mentioned the tight to longshot races in two of his best states, Iowa and New Hampshire, I haven’t heard it.
D58826
@Chris: I think most Hillary supporters have little or no problem with most of Bernie’s GOALS. It how you achieve them that is the sticking point. Burning the party down, sitting out the general or creating a third party, if those are his aims, will not get the job done. What it will do is put the GOP in charge of the federal government and the rolling back of 120 years of progressive legislation. I don’t think any one has any real idea of where ‘old little hands’ stands on most of the issues. Over the course of a day he will have more positions than Carter has liver pills. But he will sign any piece of legislation that a GOP Congress sends him. I really think the goals he has are winning the election to satisfy his ego and then renaming the White House the Trump Memorial Executive Mansion.
Jack the Second
@Matt McIrvin: See, while the “I hate Hillary” coalition does have a certain amount of diversity — including such paragons of progressivism like “people who believe what the vast right-wing conspiracy has been saying for 25 years” and “purity ponies” — when it comes to that core demographic of ‘gaters, MRAs, and quiet, unaffiliated misogynists aged 20-50, Hillary Clinton is the woman they grew up hating, the exemplar in their brains of the femi-nazi, the evil emasculating harpy who takes away men’s power. They have been fixated on her their entire adult, well, “adult”, lives, for some of them stretching back to their teenage years, to the first time they thought about anything outside their immediate purview.
The thought of her winning is just unbearable for this crowd, in a way that is really hard to grasp if you think of it in purely political terms.
msdc
@maryQ:
To be honest, I wonder how many of her fans are actual supporters and how many just like to point to Warren as their safely hypothetical proof that they aren’t against ALL women running for president, just the one who happens to be running for president.
I mean, if Warren ever did run, let alone against Sanders, we’d see the depth of their support real quick. I wonder how many of the Bros would already be calling her Pocahontas.
Miss Bianca
@Jack the Second: If this is true – and some part of me believes it whether I wish to or no – that is so fucking sad. Pathetic, even. I’d be sorry for them if I were a better person.
It’s always amazing to me how much power women are given in men’s minds vs. the amount we actually get to wield in the world. How did Public Enemy put it?: It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@msdc: I’ve always been skeptical of the notion that Sanders’ success proves Warren could’ve won the nomination. I don’t think she would have brought either the woo-woo or the negativity to the campaign that Sanders has. I think she would’ve been like Bill Bradley, the Volvo-driving tote-baggers candidate
Aimai
@maryQ: her appeal is not as broad as her fsns, smong whom i number myself, think. I think biden would make a great VP–wonder if he’d sign on again? Just kidding. As a democrat id like to see a hispanic or AA pick but it needs to be someone in their forties with immense gravitas and presence as well as stature–not just a fresh new face a la castro brothers but someone who has played in thd big leagues for a while. I dont know who fits that bill right now.
Matt McIrvin
@msdc:
Some of the original core of Sanders’ movement was basically the Draft Warren movement transplanted. I think those people are sincere.
Jack the Second
@Matt McIrvin: See, I think it’s important to draw the line between “Bernie Sanders supporters” and “Hillary Clinton haters”. It’s perfectly reasonable to think that Hillary Clinton is an imperfect politican, or not as progressive as she could be, or that there are better, more progressive candidates than she. I think a goodly number of Sanders (and Warren) supporters fall in this camp.
But once you start talking about the camp that thinks Hillary Clinton is a malicious, corrupt, evil politican, a threat to our democracy, worse than Trump, worse than Bush, you’re talking a whole ‘nother beast.
Ken
He also announced he’s available for CEO of General Electric, President of the European Council, and Pope.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
Barney Frank has Sanders’ number, and always has. The fact that he’s the chair of the convention rules committee gives me great pleasure. He won’t put up with any of Sanders’ shit, and has the possibility of providing some real entertainment when the challenges to his gaveling come. Barney’s no Roberta Lange.
[email protected]
Doesn’t this put the whole “He’s just trying to move the Democratic party left” idea up as a lie? Here we have one of the most successfully liberal (and liberally successful) governors in the country and a long serving extremely liberal congressperson (more liberal than Sanders by some measures), and Sanders wants them out not because they’re too conservative, but because they’ve criticized him. At the same time Bernie uses one of his newly found appointments to put icon of comity Cornell West on the platform committee. Is there any one left who thinks this isn’t about Bernie or his ego at this point?
Matt McIrvin
@Ken: Eh, I don’t hold that against him–somebody probably just asked him.
pluky
@BGinCHI: can’t happen. both from same state.
maryQ
@[email protected]: I was actually thinking about this over the weekend. I really don’t think that Sanders is, or ever was, about results. His engine runs entirely on screaming about how things should be and how certain parties are standing in the way of them being as they should be. But he is 74 years od, has been in politics longer than I have been voting, and he has not done much of anything substantive. Early on, I googled “what has sanders done” and I found a very very pro-Sanders articles that listed his votes. He voted. And, as we know, not always wisely. Yes, yes, I know, no Iraq war, but if you look at his votes, his sole accomplishments, he seems to prefer the purist positions, even if he goes down in flames, to the pragmatic ones that, while not perfect, advance progressive goals. He hasn’t seemed to shit his position to deal with road blocks and realities. He can’t convince anyone but true believers that he knows what to do. We know his positions, but we don’t know how he will advance them or what values would weigh into compromises.
This makes him not only unfit to govern, but it really does call into question how dedicated he is to advancing (as opposed to shouting) a progressive agenda, short of an unlikely revolution. He’s had lots of opportunity.
Davebo
@pluky: Actually the idea that a president and vice-president can’t be from the same state is a rather old political myth. The people of MA wouldn’t be able to vote for both of them (but could vote for one of them) but everyone else can.
Miss Bianca
@maryQ:
The uncomfortable corollary to this question is how dedicated a lot of so-called progressives are to advancing, as opposed to shouting about, a progressive agenda. I really have begun to wonder.
tastytone
@maryQ:
This was the same disappointing conclusion I arrived at in December, after one too many “millions of people will march on Washington” explanations on how he would attempt to enact his big policies. When that NYDN interview finally broke into the mainstream I couldn’t help but be relieved. (How it took a tabloid to pin him down on this stuff still bothers me).
Mary
@Bruce K: The optics of Warren turning down the VP slot would be bad – even if all parties swore the refusal was for all the righ reasons and Warren campaigned hard for Clintom, there would still be plenty of speculation that disapproval of HRC’s nomination played a part.
Elie
@Miss Bianca:
I hear you…. To me they seem to be a reverb chamber for the emotion of grievance… almost like the details of the grievance and doing anything about it really don’t matter: its the betrayal, the unmitigated corruption, and these cannot be thought about pragmatically or accepted. Once the betrayal is known or perceived, THAT is all that matters — FOREVER.
Chronic unhappiness and grievance that becomes an end in itself… The blogs, facebook and intertubes magnify the aberration rather than help to mitigate it. Again, big echo chamber where psychopathology of a minority becomes magnified.
Matt McIrvin
@Davebo: It’s practically a fact, though. Nobody wants to actually deal with the situation where the state’s electors can’t vote for both the presidential and VP candidate–it’s hard enough getting all the electors to even vote for the right ticket with the names spelled correctly, and the margin might matter in a close election, especially if the relevant state is a big one like Texas or New York.
Matt McIrvin
@[email protected]: Well, it may depend on what you mean by “left”. I’ve heard people griping about Barney Frank as Stooge of the Big Banks for years–it seems to come from the kind of economic leftist who thinks the party went astray by embracing “identity politics”.
different-church-lady
HOW THE HELL DOES THIS ONLY HAVE 60 COMMENTS?!?
maryQ
@different-church-lady: What else is there to say. Barney said it all.