‘We need a nominee who draws them to the Democratic column…’
(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) Establishment Democrats fear a 2016 repeat as presidential hopeful Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., gains in Iowa and New Hampshire polls.
Democrats are now scrambling to find a way to stop Sanders from becoming the Democratic nominee, but as of yet, there is no solidified, “organized effort” to hold Sanders back, said Matt Bennett, co-founder of the Democratic group Third Way.
“People were laughing at Trump when he came down the escalator and they kept laughing at him for way too long, until ‘holy crap’ he’s winning primaries,” Bennett told Politico. “What I fear is one will emerge too late, as with what happened with Trump.”
Many Democrats worry that a Sanders candidacy would result in a Trump victory in 2020.
“Swing states have a higher concentration of swing voters,” said Rahm Emanuel, former chief of staff to President Barack Obama. “We need a nominee who draws them to the Democratic column.”
Sanders’s campaign would not do that Emanuel suggested, citing Sanders’s attraction among “infrequent voters.”
Sanders’s Senate colleague and presidential rival Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., agreed that Sanders should not be atop the ticket.
“I think Sen. Sanders’s idea of kicking 149 million Americans off their current health insurance in four years is wrong,” Klobuchar said on Sunday.
“That’s why I don’t think he should be leading the ticket,” she continued. “I think I should be leading the ticket because my ideas are much more in sync with bold ways of getting things done.”
Right now, the Democratic Party isn’t sure what to do. Either they distance the party from Sanders and risk repeating their 2016 mistake, or they do nothing and watch as he gains momentum.
Former Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton didn’t help last week when she chose the former route, declaring that “nobody likes” Sanders and that the Democratic Party cannot choose a nominee who hasn’t gotten anything done.
But Bennett said the latter option—doing nothing—won’t work, either.
“They let him get away with murder,” he said, arguing that the media criticizes Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., much more than Sanders. “They let him bluster past hard questions.”