Democratic Primaries
Related: About this forumThe Hidden History of Sanders's Plot to Primary Obama
Bernie Sanders got so close to running a primary challenge to President Barack Obama that Senator Harry Reid had to intervene to stop him.
It took Reid two conversations over the summer of 2011 to get Sanders to scrap the idea, according to multiple people who remember the incident, which has not been previously reported.
That summer, Sanders privately discussed a potential primary challenge to Obama with several people, including Patrick Leahy, his fellow Vermont senator. Leahy, alarmed, warned Jim Messina, Obamas presidential reelection-campaign manager. Obamas campaign team was absolutely panicked by Leahys report, Messina told me, since every president who has gotten a real primary has lost a general [election].
David Plouffe, another Obama strategist, confirmed Messinas account, as did another person familiar with what happened. (A spokesman for Leahy did not comment when asked several times about his role in the incident.)
Messina called Reid, then the Senate majority leader, who had built a strong relationship with Sanders but was also fiercely defensive of Obama. What could you be thinking? Reid asked Sanders, according to multiple people who remember the conversations. You need to stop.
Sanders didnt end up running against Obama. But their relationship didnt improve in the years that followed. In another incident, in 2013, Sanders laid into Obama in a private meeting he held with Democratic senators, saying that the president was selling out to Republicans over Social Security benefits. (More on that incident, which has also not been previously reported, below.)
Now Obama, the beloved former leader of the Democratic Party, and Sanders, the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, are facing a new and especially fraught period in their relationship. To Obama, Sanders is a lot of whats wrong with Democrats: unrelenting, unrealistic, so deep in his own fight that he doesnt see how many people disagree with him or that hes turning off people who should be his allies. To Sanders, its Obama who represents a lot of whats wrong with Democrats: overly compromising, and so obsessed with what isnt possible that hes lost all sense of what is.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/02/sanders-obama-primary-challenge/606709/
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
krissey
(1,205 posts)It was so obvious he was trying to get people to jump on the wagon and ask him to primary Obama. It was so pathetically obvious. He was asking people to ask him. He played the same game in 2106 and was able to because there was a vacuum in that election.
primary today, I would vote for: Undecided
msongs
(67,441 posts)primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
dalton99a
(81,570 posts)primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
Cha
(297,649 posts)primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
calimary
(81,459 posts)Boy, that Bernie fellow is a real peach...
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
brush
(53,843 posts)primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
thesquanderer
(11,991 posts)...had his supporters after primarying Carter. Going up against Obama (personally or by supporting someone else) would not have destroyed Sanders. But... he didn't. Regardless of how people here take him to task for even having talked about it.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
SunSeeker
(51,691 posts)primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
Response to RandySF (Original post)
Post removed
BlueMTexpat
(15,373 posts)reasons that I simply cannot support Sanders!
IMO, it should be a primary consideration for all those who supported Obama, yet who support Bernie now.
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
aikoaiko
(34,183 posts)So mean.
primary today, I would vote for: Undecided
rampartc
(5,435 posts)many of us were (and remain) dissatisfied with Obama administration response to the wall st bail outs and the brutal suppression of the occupy movement.
the lame response to the deepwater horizon oil leak was very much on many minds.
I was, frankly, surprised that no one challenged Obama in 2012.
primary today, I would vote for: Undecided
Gothmog
(145,554 posts)primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
Doremus
(7,261 posts)primary today, I would vote for: Undecided
Scurrilous
(38,687 posts)Scurrilous@Scurrilous15
Replying to @Colettemai
2010 - Obama & Biden are toiling to craft a deal w/ the GOP to get an extension of unemployment benefits by extending parts of 09's 'The Stimulus.' Bernie uses the occasion to again piss on Obama - deal incl. GOP tax cuts (bad!) - filibustering w/ 8 1/2 speech on Senate floor.
Scurrilous@Scurrilous15 and @Colettemai
Obama's deal passes easily, the unemployed keep getting their checks. Thanks Obama! Meanwhile [redacted] Bernie cashes in by turning the transcript of his finger waggering & blathering into a book ingeniously titled 'The Speech.' Makes a little over $30k. [redacted] Bernie. [redacted]
Scurrilous@Scurrilous15
·
Replying to @Colettemai
Bernie made $3k in book sales in 2015. That was from a reissue of 2011's 'The Speech,' basically the transcript of him filibustering an Obama tax deal. Mocking the wealthy who own multiple homes, he wrote "Enough is enough! ... How many homes can you own
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Speech_(Sanders_book)
Scurrilous@Scurrilous15
·
Replying to @Scurrilous15and @Colettemai
2. The usual mob of bash the Democrats from the left take new notice of a guy oft discounted as a just a moldering [redacted] politician, thinking 'Look at this [redacted], shamelessly [redacted] as he kvetches about the rich.' 'We could use such an [redacted].' Fluffers up!
Scurrilous@Scurrilous15
Replying to @Scurrilous15 and @Colettemai
3. 'Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone praised the book saying Bernie Sanders is such a rarity..'
'100's sign online petitions urging Sanders to run in the 2012 presidential election..' (primary Obama)
'Sanders declined' ...'he would later run in 2016 and again in 2020.' -Wiki
After his loss to Hillary in 2016 Sanders signed a fat book deal to write about his campaign. Got a $795k advance in July and immediately used it to pay cash for a third home in August.
Now he's rich w/ multiple homes, the very thing he targeted w/ 'Enough is enough! ... How many homes can you own' in the 2010 filibuster that got him the notice from the people who urged him to primary Obama, which he declined opting to run in 2016 primary instead, and after which losing quadruples his income by writing a book about his campaign, the Guardian noting 'Throughout the year, both Bernie and his wife, Jane, kept records and notes. Sanders is using these as the basis for much of the text..'
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
Tarheel_Dem
(31,240 posts)primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden
primary today, I would vote for: Joe Biden