(Editor’s note: “Bernie Briefing” is a weekly campaign-season look at how Vermont U.S. senator and Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders is playing in the national media.)
[B]ernie Sanders may have lost primaries last week in Florida, Illinois, Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio, but his advisers haven’t lost hope.
“I really wish we’d won them, but it doesn’t change the campaign or our strategy,” consultant Mark Longabaugh tells Politico in a story headlined “Sanders team: We’ll beat Clinton in the states ahead.”
Longabaugh adds, “The next eight contests are going to be very good for us.”
The New York Times, in an analysis titled “Here’s How Bernie Sanders Could Win the Nomination,” confirms the candidate “should fare better over the second half of the primary season, after black voters gave Hillary Clinton such a big advantage in the first half.”
Voters will cast ballots Tuesday in Arizona, Idaho and Utah and Saturday in Alaska, Hawaii and Washington state before the race heads toward the home stretch in April, May and June.
“Sanders supporters can take some solace from the fact that the four largest states remaining are all northern and industrial and thus should favor Mr. Sanders,” the Observer writes in a story headlined “What’s Next for Bernie Sanders?” “Fully 1,034 delegates will be chosen from California, New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey.”
Sanders, appearing Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” expressed hope for wins in the coming weeks.
“I think as we head to the West Coast, which is probably the most progressive part of America, the ideas that we are fighting for — dealing with a grotesque level of income and wealth inequality, a national health care system through Medicare for all, raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour — I think the people in those states really are not going to be voting for establishment politics and establishment economics. They want real change. I think we’re going to do well there.”
In other news:
— In a story headlined “Why Bernie Sanders Won’t Give Up,” the Atlantic says the next several weeks will determine more than just how many delegates he’ll bring to the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia in July.
“The senator’s ability to achieve his political objectives over the long-term could hinge on the way the campaign is run from here on out as well as what comes next,” Atlantic writer Clare Foran notes. “The more money and grassroots enthusiasm Sanders taps into now, the easier it will be for the senator and his allies to sustain a progressive network of support that remains active and relevant after the dust settles on the presidential election.”
— In “Democrats and Republicans both loved this Bernie Sanders ad, but it has totally opposite effects on their beliefs,” Vox.com reports all viewers like his new “Vote Together” ad yet most right-leaning voters express a “less favorable opinion” about him after watching it.
“The way Republicans responded reveals exactly how partisanship colors how people react to an ad, even if they feel good about it,” Vox reporter Alvin Chang notes. “It’s a strikingly concise example of America’s increasing polarization.”
— A Jezebel analysis titled “Which Presidential Campaigns Have the Largest Gender Wage Disparities?” reports “although Bernie Sanders’ campaign pays women on average a little under $1,000 more than men, the top ten highest-paid employees are all male.”
The list:
1. Rich Pelletier, field director, $120,897.68
2. Jeffrey Weaver, campaign manager, $118,745.92
3. Michael Briggs, communications director, $102,640.68
4. Richard Eskow, writer and editor, $87,757.60
5. Jose Miranda, Arizona director, $85,094.40
6. Arturo Carmona, Latino outreach director, $84,911.68
7. Marcus Ferrell, African-American outreach director and Southeastern political director, $82,895.20
8. Warren Gunnels, senior policy adviser, $82,068.28
9. Jacob Limon, Texas state director, $81,304.68
10. Marc Levitt, director of scheduling and advance, $79,056.08
— Now that Denmark has been deemed the “world’s happiest country,” the Washington Post’s Wonkblog explores “What Bernie Sanders would do to America” if elected to extend such Danish staples as government-provided health insurance, free college tuition and higher minimum wages.
“According to economists, the question is not whether it is theoretically possible for Americans to adopt Scandinavian policies and still be prosperous,” columnist Steven Pearlstein writes. “The issue is whether Americans would be willing to accept the tradeoffs that go along with such a system — higher taxes and unemployment rates, open trade, slower growth, more income redistribution — and whether Sanders has overestimated the benefits and underestimated the costs of adopting it.”
— And, whatever happens, “Bernie Sanders is the future of the Democratic Party,” according to Vox.com.
“Sanders’s most significant legacy, win or lose, is going to be what his campaign has shown about the ideological proclivities of younger Americans,” Vox editor Matthew Yglesias writes. “Whether the first Sanders-style nominee is Sanders himself or Elizabeth Warren or someone like a Tammy Baldwin or a Keith Ellison doesn’t matter. What’s clear is that there’s robust demand among Democrats — especially the next generation of Democrats — to remake the party along more ideological, more social democratic lines, and party leaders are going to have to answer that demand or get steamrolled.”
