Many of Bernie Sanders’ aides and top allies are convinced they should have gone for Joe Biden’s jugular
It was late February, and Bernie Sanders was days away from the most important debate of his political career.
Sanders’ unwillingness to go for Biden’s jugular is just one of the decisions campaign aides are wrestling with since he exited the primary Wednesday. Despite being the best fundraiser in the Democratic field, having near universal name ID, and leading a massive volunteer army, Sanders performed worse in many ways in 2020 than in 2016. He badly lost among African-Americans yet again, and the rural and working-class white voters who were with him four years ago abandoned him.
Some Sanders aides think he should have used the period between Nevada and South Carolina to appear presidential and broaden his appeal, including to seniors. That was the idea behind a sit-down interview he did with Anderson Cooper on “60 Minutes.” Instead, he spent much of his time doubling down on defending positive comments he made in the 1980s about Cuban dictator Fidel Castro’s education program.
A few top advisers felt that Sanders would be seen as more electable once he won early states and that the matter would take care of itself, while others argued that the campaign should have more directly made the case. “We’ve got to do better at building relationships with the African-American community,” said Ro Khanna, Sanders’ campaign co-chair, of the progressive movement. “I don’t think we have done enough.”
“He was deeply disappointed that she didn’t endorse afterward,” said a person familiar with his talks with Warren. “It made him question her progressivism. Now maybe that was temporary, but I think he was very hurt by that because he would have endorsed her in a heartbeat if it was the other way around.”
At a meeting with top aides a few months before the Iowa caucuses, senior adviser Chuck Rocha raised concerns about the fact that they lacked precinct captains for hundreds of caucus sites in the state. Some staffers felt that was partly due to the fact that they required captains to go through in-depth training. On the day of the Iowa caucuses, while the vast majority of caucus sites were covered, the campaign had no precinct captains in some rural areas, said several aides.
Even critics of the organizing program concede that the best-run field operation can only move a few points in a close race. But Sanders lost to Biden by double-digits in at least a dozen states.
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