Sanders Says Buttigieg, Klobuchar Pressured Out

[RandySF]

Sen. Bernie Sanders told NBC News that if Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar didn’t drop out, he would have won Maine, Minnesota and Massachusetts on Super Tuesday.

Said Sanders: “The establishment put a great deal of pressure on Pete Buttigieg, on Amy Klobuchar who ran really aggressive campaigns. Well, I know both of them. They work really, really hard. But suddenly right before Super Tuesday they announced their withdrawal.”

He added: “If they had not withdrawn from the race before Super Tuesday, which is kind of a surprise to a lot of people, I suspect we would have won in Minnesota, we would have won in Maine, we would have won in Massachusetts. The turnout may have been a little bit different.”





https://politicalwire.com/2020/03/08/sanders-says-buttigieg-and-klobuchar-pressured-out/

[TwilightZone]

1. "I lost, but it's not my fault"

That's basically the story here.

[Cha]

29. Well yeah.. and, what do Pete and Amy have to say about that?

[ehrnst]

46. Same as it ever was.

[Doodley]

2. Does he want to be remembered as a bad loser? And how much does he want to spoil Democrats in 2020?

[MontanaMama]

3. Once again BS being divisive.

Maybe party leaders did make those calls. It isn’t unusual to circle the wagons for the good of the party. If that’s what happened, then Pete, Amy etc will shake it out in the back room and not in public. Bernie sounds like he’s having a mad over Dems coalescing.

[BittyJenkins]

4. Nasty and then some

[onetexan]

20. Yes, crying over spilled milk

[emmaverybo]

53. +1

[CaliforniaPeggy]

5. This statement from Bernie seems to me to be grasping at straws. I don't get it.

I don't know how he got from his first point to the second.

Bizarre!

[Blue_true]

15. On the last sentence of your post. You and a ton of other people. nt

[Under The Radar]

6. Damnit I was hoping that he wouldn't flame out this way.

In 2016 Bernie was building steam and momentum until he hit a granite wall in Super Tuesday and was stomped in southern states. Why does he think he would have won?

[Hav]

7. Every time BS invokes the establishment,

replace it with deep state. It has the same validity and explanatory power. It's the same red meat used by Trump to feed his maggots. It's a ploy to distract the gullible and focus their anger.

[Blue_true]

17. Yep. nt

[showblue22]

50. Exactly right!

[relayerbob]

8. Can't wait to see if Pete and Amy chime in

[Cha]

30. Exaclty what I've been asking.. What do Pete and

Amy have to say about this?

[relayerbob]

34. I'm thinking they may have been asked to not comment, or choose not to do so on their own

Biden is trying to unify the party, and letting Sanders sink on his own is better than engaging and looking negative.

[Cha]

37. That's a unifying thought.

[George II]

9. He forgets that they withdrew after their very poor showing in South Carolina just 2 days earlier...

Buttigieg got only 8% of the vote and Klobuchar got only 3%.

It was the voters of South Carolina who "pressured" them out, not some mythical "democratic establishment".

[Celerity]

10. keep on whinging on, Bernie, it's a real shit look m8, makes you look bitter and weak

[MineralMan]

11. I wonder what Klobuchar and Buttigieg would have to say about that.

What they did say is that they endorse Joe Biden. They said that clearly and publicly.

That, to me, indicates that they weren't forced out, but got out at a strategic time after determining that they had no path to the nomination. They said that, too.

I didn't hear any complaints about pressure from either one, and neither did Bernie Sanders. He's making that up, and "saying the thing that is not."

Elizabeth Warren dropped out after Super Tuesday. She hasn't endorsed anyone yet, and that includes Sanders.

[griffi94]

27. I'm kind of expecting Bernie or some of his supporters.

To float the idea that Warren hasn't endorsed him because of pressure from the "establishment".

[relayerbob]

35. If you saw the look on Liz's face in her concession talk in front of her house

When asked about an endorsement, it was anger, not sadness. Was very similar to the look she had when she took down Bloomberg. She was very careful to repeat her words (paraphrased a little): Let's take a deep breath, think about it carefully. I'll make a statement when the timing is right. She also made it clear that she is not done talking about sexism and misogyny, but said she would be talking a lot more about that later.

[honest.abe]

12. Sanders again trying to cast blame on outside forces for his dismal primary results.

So we can look forward to his angry supporters booing, heckling and other anti-democrat behavior at the convention.

[Vivienne235729]

13. So, Amy and Pete are obliged to stay in a race that they wouldn't win in order for Bernie to win?

THIS is partly what's wrong w his campaign. So much entitlement and No personal responsibility. He is such a sore loser. But We have already seen shades of that back in 2016. Not a surprise.

[Blue_true]

14. Sanders is never the source of his troubles.

Maybe he should look at his shopworn stump speech that misses the point for a vast majority of Americans.

[Cha]

32. Never

[Orangepeel]

16. he would have won if people hadn't voted for the other guy

[babylonsister]

18. He embraces 'the establishment' (Obama ad) when it

suits him. What's up with that?

[dalton99a]

24. +1

[Julian English]

19. Career political hack complains about establishment politician n/t

[True Blue American]

21. Coulda, woulda, shoulda!

Did not happen.

[CincyDem]

22. They were pressured out...by voters !!!

Look...I love both Amy and Pete. I was hoping to a chance to vote for her here in Ohio on 3/17. But that’s not to be.

The sad thing about this is that Bernie sees being pressured out by voters as a bad thing vs a rational thing.

I voted for him in the 2016 primary and it saddens me that he appears to have spent the last four years digging into a strategy that’s out of step with today’s world.

I still agree with his vision and I disagree with his strategy...his sequence of what has to happen. Our democracy is like the overweight guy in the emergency room with broken bones and a potentially fatal bleeder. Bernie’s right that the guy needs to lose 40-50 pounds but stop the f’ing bleeding now. Well we’re bleeding now.

And I know a lot of folks will say they’ve heard the not now argument before...but really, you think we’ve ever had such a challenge to our democracy in the modern day. Civil war. Yeah. But other risks to the soul of our democracy. I don’t think so.

My hope is that Bernie comes to understand that his quest for M4A has the very real possibility of giving us M4N. That’s Medicare for none if we get another 4 more years of trump.

[radius777]

23. it's on Bernie to 'bring out new people'

as he claimed his movement would do, which it hasn't.

with such comments he's basically admitting that the Obama/Clinton wing is bigger than his, and he needs it divided in order to win.

[Gothmog]

42. It is Joe Biden who is generating increased voter turnout

These numbers are amazing

Link to tweet

[Codeine]

25. But it still would have been

30% of the vote, with the rest - in retrospect quite clearly - arranged against him. His thesis is basically “If they had stayed fractured my smaller vote would have been an unrepresentative win by plurality!” This strikes me as an unconvincing argument.

[Me.]

26. Blah, Blah, Blah

[mathematic]

28. He can't imagine somebody dropping out of a race they have no chance of winning

He thinks everybody's as ego-driven as he is. Not a good quality in a leader.

[comradebillyboy]

31. Yes, yes, yes

Excellent observation.

[Gothmog]

41. From day 1, Bernie built a campaign to appeal to 30%

Link to tweet

So if, from day one, they didn’t think they needed more than 30%, why would they actually run a campaign and build a culture designed to win more than his 30% ceiling? As that article notes, even way back in early 2019, Sanders was picking fights and creating enemies out of potential allies.

We saw that in Sanders’ refusal to broaden his message to bring in more people. When I said exactly that on Meet the Press, that “the problem with Bernie Sanders is that he has the exact same message he had four years ago” when he lost to Hillary Clinton 60-40, the response from the Sanders campaign was, well, this:

Link to tweet

If your message wasn’t a majority message four years ago, and you want to win, wouldn’t you tweak it? They didn’t. Proudly and explicitly did not tweak it. They had zero intention of growing new support by broadening and expanding their message. (Sanders famously refused to even inject more biography into his stump speech to humanize him more.)

Sanders and his campaign saw that their ceiling was 30%, and they built an entire strategy around winning with 30%. That means that instead of seeing the other 70% of voters as allies, they saw them as THE ENEMY. Even when there was ideological alignment.

[betsuni]

45. +1

[StarfishSaver]

33. Bernie's the only Democrat who can stand up to the Establishment

Sounds a lot like "Only I can fix it."

[Gothmog]

40. In the real world, candidates who have no path to victory drop out 99% of the time

Link to tweet

[Cha]

44. And, we know how badly that turned out.. Well we

knew before.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

36. Joe has a good campaign manager

[peggysue2]

38. The Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda Argument

This from a campaign that strategized it could win the nomination with 30-35% of the vote as long as the slightly liberal, moderate and conservative branches of the party were fragmented between an assortment of candidates. When that blew up, they're into finger-pointing how unfair the Universe is in toppling a badly flawed plan.

The continuous whining and howling doesn't change anything. They lost it, period. And . . .

The Real Enemy is Donald Trump and His Fascist Enablers.

[Gothmog]

39. sanders was planning on winning nomination with 30% of the delegates

Link to tweet

[Cha]

43. How's Pete and Amy'' endorsement workin' out for ya, BS?

[ehrnst]

47. Nah, it was people voting for someone else that caused him to lose.

not other candidates being "weak" in the face of the "establishment."

He doesn't have the following he assumes he does - at least who will vote for him.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

48. Yeah just saw that on Twitter

Link to tweet

?s=20

I thought it was the fact that they didn't get enough votes.

[Happy Hoosier]

49. Hey Bernie! They can do math.

Simply put, they took a look at where they were, what they expected to happen on Tuesday and were unwilling to syphon off delegates from Joe Biden to your advantage.

You being upset here just tells me you knew you couldn't win without a divided opposition.

[showblue22]

51. He could have received voters from

Pete and Amy if he ever tried to reach out to them.

[Happy Hoosier]

52. Bernie doesn't build bridges, he burns them.

He could have secured Liz Warren's endorsement as well if he hadn't called her a liar, and then blew off her complaints about his more vicious supporters. Bernie is not a skilled politician.

[showblue22]

54. You're right.

[LakeArenal]

55. Or: Bernie out-campaigned by everyone.

[Tarheel_Dem]

56. I can't imagine Joe Biden trying to foment this kind of division among Democrats. This makes it...

much more difficult to come together when the contest is over. Why would he do this unless his goal is to cause chaos?