Dems willing to risk party damage to stop Sanders
>>House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Sen Chuck Schumer, the minority leader, hear constant warnings from allies about congressional losses in November if the party nominates Bernie Sanders for president. Democratic House members share their Sanders fears on text-messaging chains. Bill Clinton, in calls with old friends, vents about the party getting wiped out in the general election.
And officials in the national and state parties are increasingly anxious about splintered primaries on Super Tuesday and beyond, where the liberal Mr Sanders edges out moderate candidates who collectively win more votes.
Democratic establishment leaders are not just worried about Mr Sanders’ candidacy, but are also willing to risk intraparty damage to stop his nomination at the national convention in July if they get the chance.
Since Mr Sanders’ victory in Nevada’s caucuses on Saturday, The New York Times has interviewed 93 party officials — all of them superdelegates, who could have a say on the nominee at the convention — and found overwhelming opposition to handing the Vermont senator the nomination if he arrived with the most delegates but fell short of a majority. Such a situation may result in a brokered convention, a messy political battle the likes of which Democrats have not seen since 1952, when the nominee was Adlai Stevenson.
From California to the Carolinas, and North Dakota to Ohio, the party leaders say they worry Mr Sanders, a democratic socialist with passionate but limited support so far, will lose to President Donald Trump, and drag down moderate House and Senate candidates in swing states with his left-wing agenda of “Medicare for All” and free four-year public college.
Mr Sanders and his advisers insist that the opposite is true — that his ideas will generate huge excitement among young and working-class voters, and lead to record turnout. Such hopes have yet to be borne out in nominating contests so far.
Jay Jacobs, the New York state Democratic Party chairman and a superdelegate, echoing many others interview ed, said that superdelegates should choose a nominee they believed had the best chance of defeating Mr Trump if no candidate won a majority of delegates during the primaries. Mr Sanders argued he should become the nominee at the convention with a plurality of delegates, to reflect the will of voters, and that denying him the nomination would enrage his supporters and split the party.
“Bernie wants to redefine the rules and just say he needs a plurality,” Mr Jacobs said. “I don’t think we buy that. I don’t think the mainstream of the Democratic Party buys that. If he doesn’t have a majority, it stands to reason he may not become the nominee.”
While there is no widespread public effort underway to undercut Mr Sanders, arresting his rise has emerged as the dominant topic in many Democratic circles. Some are trying to act well before the convention: Since Mr Sanders won Nevada’s caucuses on Saturday, four donors have approached former Rep Steve Israel of New York to ask if he can suggest someone to run a super PAC aimed at blocking Mr Sanders. He declined their offer.
“People are worried,” said former Sen Chris Dodd of Connecticut, a former DNC chairman who in October endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden. “How you can spend four or five months hoping you don’t have to put a bumper sticker from that guy on your car.”
That anxiety has led even superdelegates to suggest ideas that sound ripped from the pages of a political drama.
In recent weeks, Democrats have placed a steady stream of calls to Sen Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, who opted against running for president nearly a year ago, suggesting that he can emerge as a white knight nominee at a brokered convention.
“If you could get to a convention and pick Sherrod Brown, that would be wonderful, but that’s more like a novel,” said Rep Steve Cohen. “Donald Trump’s presidency is like a horror story, so if you can have a horror story you might as well have a novel.”
Others are urging former President Barack Obama to get involved to broker a truce — either among the four moderate candidates or between the Sanders and establishment wings.
People close to Mr Obama say he has no intention of getting involved in the primary contest, seeing his role as less of a kingmaker than as a unifying figure to help heal party divisions once Democrats settle on a nominee.
He also believed the Democratic Party should not engage in smoke-filled-room politics, arguing that those kinds of deals would have prevented him from capturing the nomination when he ran against Hillary Clinton in 2008.
Officials at the DNC maintain it is highly improbable to head to the convention without an assured nominee. Historically, superdelegates had always supported the candidate who won the most pledged delegates, which accrue from primary and caucus wins.
While those delegates are proportioned based on the results of those elections, they are not legally bound — meaning that they are technically free to change their votes as the race progresses.
Supporters of Mr Sanders said that blocking him from the nomination if he had the most delegates would repel progressives and would deliver a second term to Mr Trump.
“If Bernie gets a plurality and nobody else is even close and the superdelegates weigh in and say, ‘We know better than the voters,’ I think that will be a big problem,” said Rep Pramila Jayapal, a Sanders supporter.
Others in the party view Mr Sanders as such an existential threat that they see the likely liberal backlash from a convention fight as less risky than the threat of losing moderate voters in November if he is the Democratic nominee. Many feared that putting Mr Sanders on the top of the ticket could cost Democrats the political gains of the Trump era, a period when the party won control of the House, took governor’s mansions in deep red states and flipped statehouses across the country.
“Bernie seems to have declared war on the Democratic Party — and it’s caused panic in the House ranks,” said Rep Josh Gottheimer, a supporter of former Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York.
“
How you can spend four or five months hoping you don’t have to put a bumper sticker from that guy on your car. BIDEN SUPPORTER, SEN CHRIS DODD