All the “post-mortems” I’ve seen have all had the same fundamental flaw: They’ve all focused on what the Sanders campaign did wrong while giving short shrift to the much more important external factors, namely the fundamental solidarity of the Democratic establishment and the open hostility of the centrist media to Bernie.
You acknowledge these factors in passing but then you act like the real issue is what the campaign did or didn’t do. I do agree with some of your points — specifically that Bernie should have been a little more aggressive — but I don’t think messaging or tone or any of that ultimately explain what happened.
Biden’s campaign did absolutely nothing right from the beginning, and Bernie’s did pretty much everything right. It built momentum by winning decisively in all the early states. Bernie had overtaken Biden among black voters nationally 35–30 five days before South Carolina, but the last-minute endorsement of Jim Clyburn swung the race decisively.
Clyburn almost single-handedly revived Biden’s dying campaign. South Carolina only had 16 percent turnout and one-in-four voters said Clyburn’s endorsement was the most important factor in their decision. Half said it was important.
Of course, pundits applied the same sort of lazy (“intellectually dishonest” is probably more apt ) analysis to this as they do with everything and just made the case that Joe Biden “has more rapport” with the “backbone of the Democratic Party” and that Bernie hadn’t “done enough to reach out to black voters.”
That provided the basis for a “comeback” narrative that MSNBC, which is composed of Party loyalists and Obama comms people, ran with for a week until Super Tuesday, when most of the field coalesced around Joe Biden.
30 percent of Super Tuesday voters didn’t make up their minds until either the day of or shortly before. By and large, these aren’t people who are too terribly ideological. They just want someone who they think can beat Trump, and having the whole field line up behind a person k
Nothing you suggest would have enabled Bernie to overcome that. The establishment would be opposed to Medicare for All and other aspects of Bernie’s agenda whether he referred to himself as a “progressive” or a “democratic socialist” or an “FDR Democrat” or a “social democrat.” It wouldn’t matter. The establishment is conservative, austerity minded and beholden to corporate interests.
They don’t hate Bernie’s personal style. They hate what he stands for.
The only way he maybe would have had a chance is if he basically gave up on his entire political program and his life’s work. Then he would lose his entire base because that’s literally the reason we all love him.
I’m honestly trying to imagine you writing a similar piece titled “Why did Joe Biden’s campaign succeed?” with the same focus on internal factors. What was Joe’s secret sauce? Being incoherent? Not having a discernible platform aside from “Hey remember Obama? I was there! I was the guy, jack!”? Blowing up on voters at nearly every campaign stop? Alienating young people? Not hiring enough staff (477 to Bernie’s 1200)? Garbage fundraising?
If the shoe had been on the other foot and Bernie had done any one of the things Joe Biden did, he never would have made it to Iowa even. Joe’s secret to success boils down to: He’s not Bernie Sanders
