The Obama Campaign Remembers 2012 Very Differently Than Bernie Sanders

[wyldwolf]

Confronted with his support for a progressive challenge to Obama in 2011, Sanders said Saturday he “campaigned very hard” for Obama in 2008 and 2012. That’s not how Obama aides remember it.

In 2011, Sanders said more than once that a challenge from the left might help President Obama get back on track after, Sanders said, the president had veered far to the right, selling out the left on issues like entitlement programs in the interests of cutting deals with Republican leaders. At one point, he Sanders said he was “giving thought” to encouraging a progressive to run against Obama, telling a radio caller, “I don’t want to tell you more than that, but this is an issue we are beginning to talk about a little bit.”

As he mounts his own bid for the Democratic nomination this year, Sanders is having to thread the needle of his past independence. In South Carolina on Saturday, Sanders rejected the idea that he was less than loyal to Obama in 2012 — something that Martin O’Malley, who is running in a distant third place in the nomination fight, suggested on Friday night and has this year on the trail. (O’Malley has his own problems casting himself as an Obama loyalist; he was among Clinton’s most fervent supporters in 2008.)

Sanders’s response on Saturday was unequivocal: He said he was a strong advocate for Obama’s election and reelection.
“I think contested elections are not a bad thing, but the idea that I worked against President Obama is untrue,” Sanders said at a press conference. “In fact, I vigorously supported him in 2008, he came to my state in 2006. I campaigned for him in 2008, I campaigned for him very hard in 2012, and I never made any effort to enlist a candidate against him.”

Senior officials on Obama’s 2008 and 2012 campaigns did not remember the cycles the same way when it came to Sanders. BuzzFeed News talked to four senior officials from Obama’s campaigns, most of whom are unaligned in the 2016 primary.
Their take on Sanders’ role: In 2008, he got on board with Obama late. In 2012, he was either attacking the president from the left or doing little to get him elected. As for “vigorously” supporting him, they said, Sanders was not someone they thought of as a top surrogate.

“Every indication we had was that he was considering a primary challenge,” said one senior official from Obama’s 2012 campaign.

“Being annoying,” another said when asked to recall how they remembered Sanders in 2012.

A third senior Obama campaign aide from 2012 said Sanders was simply not often top of mind.

“Have no recollection of him being any kind of factor whatsoever, supporter or not,” the aide said in an email to BuzzFeed News.
The Sanders campaign declined to respond to the Obama campaign comments.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/evanmcsan/the-obama-campaign-remembers-2012-very-differently-from-bern#.oyx1rvpK5A

[Cali_Democrat]

1. What's funny about this whole thing...

is that many of Bernie's supporters on DU were calling for Obama to be primaried in 2012.

Now that he's running for the Democratic nomination, Bernie and his supporters are running away from their previous position.

Too funny.

[iandhr]

9. Indeed.

But facts don't matter to those folks.

[Cha]

24. And, bernie's denying it ever happened.

[bobbobbins01]

2. So is the issue that he said Obama should have a primary challenger?

Or that he didn't work hard enough to get him elected?

I'm not understanding what the point is...

[UglyGreed]

3. Boy really working this one

huh??? What is this 87th thread on this subject talk about trying to drive a point across

[HerbChestnut]

7. Yep, when you got nothing...

Create something! Who cares about the issues, right?

[Rosa Luxemburg]

4. Hillary supporters are really getting desperate!

Read what Bernie actually said for a change

[kacekwl]

5. I think Bernie was right

I didn't vote for a conservative right leaning president but seem like that's what we got.

[stevenleser]

6. That changes my mind in terms of what the percentage chance is of Obama endorsing early.

Before seeing the comments from the aides, I would have thought the chance of Obama endorsing Hillary before she clinched the nomination was close to zero.

Now I think it's at 30-40%.

[askew]

11. Obama won't endorse in the primary period.

He has way too much respect for the primary process.

[Cha]

25. I can't read minds but even though he'd probably like to endorse before the primary is over I

think he'll let it play out.

'Cause you know whomever he endorses would sky rocket.

Happy Birthday, Steven.. late to the

[stevenleser]

29. If I had to put a percentage chance, as I said, I would still say less than 50%. But...

Bernie certainly did himself no favors with the primary bullshit in 2012.

[Cha]

32. No, and I'm so glad it came back to bite him in 2015 and Gov O'Malley called him on it at the Dem

Forum. Booom.

Instead of owing it Bernie is trying to weasel out of.. not going to happen with the Black Folks I've been reading online or with me.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

8. He was right. Obama should have been primaried.

[MohRokTah]

10. I find it interesting that you wanted President Romney...

since the ultimate outcome of primarying a sitting president is to lose the white house.

[jfern]

12. The only time a President was primaryed, their party held the White House

[MohRokTah]

13. Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush both disagree with you. eom

[jfern]

14. They were both renominated

When you're primaried you lose renomination.l

[MohRokTah]

15. They both had primary challenges.

They both lost the GE.

[jfern]

16. Everyone has primary challenges

In 1972, Nixon only got 87% of the vote in the primary. He went on to win 49 states.

[MohRokTah]

17. Nixon didn't, Reagan didn't, Clinton didn't, George W. Bush didn't.

Fortunately, Barack Obama didn't, either.

Oh, and Gerald Ford did have a primary challenger. He went on to lose the GE.

[jfern]

18. I just said that Nixon only got 87% in the primaries

I guess you don't care about the facts.

[MohRokTah]

19. There was no challenger to Nixon in the primaries. eom

[jfern]

20. LOL, busted

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Party_presidential_primaries,_1972

[MohRokTah]

21. LOL!!!! Counting them is like counting Lyndon LaRouche!!!

[jfern]

22. 87% isn't that high

And he only got 68% in NH.
He had 2 sitting members of Congress challenging him.
I think challenges like this might have been what Bernie had in mind.
Again Nixon won 49 states.

[MohRokTah]

23. .

[JI7]

33. that's better than Obama did in the West Virginia Primary in 2012

[brooklynite]

34. "what Bernie had in mind"

An inconsequential challenger that wouldn't require Obama to change any of his positions? That's what Bernie wanted?

[Live and Learn]

27. Well, Nxon, Reagan, Clinton and Dbya certainlly should have. nt

[treestar]

26. Disingenuous of Bernie - he was in the Senate and should know what it was like there

Did he push for single payer?

[Live and Learn]

28. Yes he did and he voted for the ACA like most of us would have.

It wasn't an either ACA or Single Payer. It was an either ACA or nothing at the time.

[ibegurpard]

30. too bad the Obama campaign

Doesn't remember their own candidate. I liked that guy a lot better than the one who took office.

[Eric J in MN]

31. Opposing their plan to cut Social Security was "annoying."

We should have all cheered as Obama tried to make a Grand Bargain with John Boehner to cut our Social Security (sarcasm).

[davidpdx]

35. I certainly remember 2012 well

I was involved in the campaign and never heard a whisper about a challenge to Obama other than the idiot in jail that got a few thousand votes in one state.

These are tall tales coming from the Clinton campaign, the same campaign that tried to smear Obama in 2012 both directly and indirectly.

No, but wait. Their response will be we are suppose to put it behind us.

Oh the hypocrisy!