“Bernie Sanders — who swore off big-money fundraisers and criticized Hillary Clinton’s fundraising as ‘obscene’ during the 2016 campaign — is changing his approach as the scramble for Democratic campaign cash heats up,” Politico reports.
“The Vermont senator has decided to hold in-person fundraising events where donors of all means will be invited and the media will be allowed. He has also hired a fundraiser to oversee the effort, a position he did not have in his 2016 bid.”
President Trump claimed the Democratic Party is again trying to manipulate its presidential primary elections, Politico reports.
Said Trump: “The Democratic National Committee, sometimes referred to as the DNC, is again working its magic in its quest to destroy Crazy Bernie Sanders… for the more traditional, but not very bright, Sleepy Joe Biden. Here we go again Bernie, but this time please show a little more anger and indignation when you get screwed!”
Sen. Bernie Sanders “flaunted his ground operation Saturday with what he called the ‘largest distributed day of action ever in a presidential campaign’ and announced a new online organizing tool called BERN,” NBC News reports.
“The app allows everyday supporters to contribute to the campaign’s voter database by logging names and background information of anyone from a family member to a stranger met at a bus stop. It matches each name to a voter record before noting their level of support, priority issue and even union membership.”
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New York Times: “On Saturday, Mr. Sanders’s campaign plans to kick off its national organizing program with what it says are roughly 5,000 events across every state. Mr. Sanders plans to address supporters via livestream.”
“The date for the organizing events was set weeks ago. But the timing is fortuitous. With Mr. Biden’s entry, the race has kicked into a new gear, and the organizing effort gives Mr. Sanders — who has been running second to Mr. Biden in most early polls — a fresh opportunity to lock up supporters and reassert his grass-roots strength.”
The Atlantic: “He’s counting on winning Iowa and New Hampshire, where he was already surprisingly strong in 2016, and hoping that Cory Booker and Kamala Harris will split the black electorate in South Carolina and give him a path to slip through there, too. And then, Sanders aides believe, he’ll easily win enough delegates to put him into contention at the convention. They say they don’t need him to get more than 30 percent to make that happen.”
“Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-VT) Monday evening Fox News town-hall event was the most-watched town-hall event of the 2020 campaign thus far… And at least three other Democratic candidates are open to participating in one of their own,” the Daily Beast reports.
“According to early Nielsen data, more than 2.5 million viewers tuned in to hear Sanders… The prior town-hall ratings record for the 2020 cycle was a CNN-hosted event with Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), which drew 1.95 million total viewers.”
Mayor Pete Buttigieg is also in talks to participate in a Fox News town hall, as well as Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) and Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH).
Politico: “Bernie Sanders entered the Fox’s den on Monday night — and he not only survived the hour-long encounter, but often dominated.”
“Appearing at a Fox News-hosted town hall smack dab in the middle of Trump Country, the Democratic presidential front-runner played the part, swatting down tough questions from the hosts about health care, defense spending, and his newfound wealth. At one point, the Vermont senator even led the network’s audience in a call-and-response that found them cheering loudly for his policies.”
New York Times: “From canapé-filled fund-raisers on the coasts to the cloakrooms of Washington, mainstream Democrats are increasingly worried that their effort to defeat President Trump in 2020 could be complicated by Mr. Sanders, in a political scenario all too reminiscent of how Mr. Trump himself seized the Republican nomination in 2016.”
“How, some Democrats are beginning to ask, do they thwart a 70-something candidate from outside the party structure who is immune to intimidation or incentive and wields support from an unwavering base, without simply reinforcing his ‘the establishment is out to get me’ message — the same grievance Mr. Trump used to great effect?”
“But stopping Mr. Sanders, or at least preventing a contentious convention, could prove difficult for Democrats.”
“Sen. Bernie Sanders, in a rare and forceful rebuke by a presidential candidate of an influential party ally, has accused a liberal think tank of undermining Democrats’ chances of taking back the White House in 2020 by ‘using its resources to smear’ him and other contenders pushing progressive policies,” the New York Times reports.
“Mr. Sanders’s criticism of the Center for American Progress… reflects a simmering ideological battle within the Democratic Party and threatens to reopen wounds from the 2016 primary between him and Hillary Clinton’s allies. The letter airs criticisms shared among his supporters: That the think tank, which has close ties to Mrs. Clinton and the Democratic Party establishment, is beholden to corporate donors and has worked to quash a leftward shift in the party led partly by Mr. Sanders.”
First Read: “If you consider Bernie Sanders to be the front-runner — or one of the front-runners — in the Democratic race for president, then isn’t he underperforming in the early states he easily won or essentially tied back in 2016?”
“A Monmouth poll of Iowa released on Thursday found Sanders in second place with support from 16 percent of likely caucus-goers… A new St. Anselm/New Hampshire Institute of Politics poll also had Sanders at 16 percent in the Granite State… Yet back in 2016, Sanders won a whopping 60 percent in New Hampshire in his race against Clinton.”
“Yes, the 2020 field is much larger than the one four years ago… But how do you know that the collective political press corps is still treating Sanders more as an insurgent rather than as a legitimate front-runner, despite his name ID and money?”
“Answer: There’s more attention on Buttigieg in third place at nearly 10 percent in both states, or on Biden leading before he’s announced a presidential bid, than on Sanders’ pedestrian numbers in states he already won or essentially tied. Sanders still gets treated more as an insurgent than a front-runner, even when he is a front-runner.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), “whose $18 million fund-raising haul has solidified his status as a front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, said that he would release 10 years of tax returns by Tax Day on Monday and acknowledged that he has joined the ranks of the millionaires he has denounced for years,” the New York Times reports.
Explained Sanders: “I wrote a best-selling book. If you write a best-selling book, you can be a millionaire, too.”
Texas Tribune: “Bryant Young and Autumn Lanning grew disillusioned with O’Rourke and convinced he was not the true progressive they had imagined.”
“From oil policy to health care, these two young Beto exes said they never took the time to pore over votes and policy positions. Once they did — and O’Rourke went from Senate hopeful to presidential wannabe — they abandoned him and are now supporting reliable liberal Bernie Sanders in the race for the White House.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders will be campaigning in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania next weekend, according to the Washington Post.
They are all states won by Donald Trump in 2016.
Associated Press: “Pichone voted for Green Party candidate Jill Stein in 2016 and said she may vote for a third party again if Sanders doesn’t clinch the nomination.”
“She’s emblematic of a persistent group of Sanders supporters who won’t let go of the slights — real and perceived — from the last campaign. The frustration is notable now that Sanders is a 2020 front-runner, raking in $18.2 million in the first quarter, downplaying concerns about DNC bias and highlighting his success in bringing the party around on liberal policies it once resisted.”
“Some establishment-aligned Democrats worry the party could lose in 2020 if lingering concerns about the last primary aren’t put to bed.”
“Sen. Bernie Sanders will participate in a town hall hosted by Fox News later this month,” Politico reports.
“The town hall is slated for April 15 in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and will focus on economy and jobs.”
Ron Brownstein: “In media interviews last week, Sen. Bernie Sanders — among the front-runners for the party’s 2020 presidential nomination — pointedly refused to endorse legislation that House Democrats had introduced to expand the ACA and to block Trump administration initiatives designed to weaken some of its core consumer protections. Instead, Sanders underscored his support for replacing the ACA with ‘Medicare for All’ legislation, in which government would become the ‘single payer’ for virtually all health care services.”
“Sanders’ cool posture toward the House legislation crystallizes the critical choice Democrats face on health care.”
“With Trump again emphasizing his determination to undo the ACA — both by backing litigation that would invalidate the entire law and by proposing to replace it with block grants for states in his latest budget — Democrats must decide how to respond. The choice is whether to center the party’s 2020 health care message on defending and reinforcing the ACA or to offer their own fundamental change by proposing to replace the law with a single-payer plan that would eliminate virtually all private health insurance.”
Tyson Brody, who was Hillary Clinton’s deputy research director during the last election cycle and dug deeply into Sen. Bernie Sanders, is going to work for Sanders, according to New York magazine.
“Brody, who worked on Clinton’s self-research as well as the Sanders oppo files last cycle, is the first Democrat to go from Clinton’s camp to Sanders’s 2020 campaign after their bitter primary fight.”
Shortly before launching his presidential campaign, Sen. Bernie Sanders emailed his supporters, urging them to “do our very best to engage respectfully with our Democratic opponents—talking about the issues we are fighting for, not about personalities or past grievances. I want to be clear that I condemn bullying and harassment of any kind and in any space,” The Atlantic reports.
“What he didn’t include was that one of the people already advising him and helping him write those launch speeches is one of his most famously aggressive supporters online.”
“Since December, David Sirota has, on Twitter, on his own website, and in columns in The Guardian, been trashing most of Sanders’s Democratic opponents—all without disclosing his work with Sanders—and has been pushing back on critics by saying that he was criticizing the other Democrats as a journalist.”
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.
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