(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.)
[N]ew York Times reporter Yamiche Alcindor was savoring a rare Saturday night off the campaign trail when Bernie Sanders called.
“I don’t want to disturb the media narrative too much, but don’t write us off,” the Democratic presidential candidate is quoted (“wryly, with his unmistakable Brooklyn inflection”) in a resulting story headlined “Covering Bernie Sanders, As He Keeps His Spirited Campaign Alive.”
So goes the Vermonter’s challenge. On one hand, Sanders, having just announced $109 million in first-quarter fundraising, is projected to win Tuesday’s Wisconsin primary.
“Sanders wants to get momentum going into a quiet stretch before the map turns less favorable to him,” Washington Post reporter James Hohmann writes in a column titled “10 Reasons Bernie Sanders Will Probably Win Wisconsin.” “If he prevails in Wisconsin, he will have won six of the past seven contests. He knows he needs bigger wins down the roads in more diverse states, and voters like to get behind a winner.”
But according to a new Associated Press analysis, Sanders must win 67 percent of the remaining delegates and uncommitted superdelegates — party leaders and officials who can support any candidate — through June to be able to clinch the Democratic nomination.
That’s sparking headlines like Politico’s “Bernie’s Team Confronts Tough Questions” and “Bernie’s Math: Improbable, Not Impossible.”
“Looking forward,” reporter Steven Shepard writes in the latter story, “he currently trails Clinton in public polling in the four largest states left on the calendar: California, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania. With the exception of his win in Michigan earlier this month, Sanders hasn’t yet demonstrated he can win large states like these — let alone by the wide margins he’ll need to close the pledged-delegate gap.”
But Sanders still has defenders in the national press pool.
“Calls for Sanders to drop out, at this point, strike me as premature and probably counterproductive,” Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson notes in “Bernie Sanders Is Giving Hillary Clinton a Real Run for the Nomination.” “He embodies the views and aspirations of millions of Democrats — including many in large states that are yet to vote, such as New York, Pennsylvania and California. What purpose would be served by denying so many people the opportunity to vote for the candidate of their choice?”
Sanders himself, appearing Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” and CNN’s “State of the Union,” continues to voice optimism.
“I believe I am the strongest candidate to take on the Republicans,” he told ABC. “And the fact that I have been the longest-serving independent in the history of the United States makes my candidacy even stronger. You’ve got a lot of independents out there. I think we can get virtually all of the Democratic vote, I think we can get a lot of the independent vote, I think we can get a lot of young people’s vote, working class people’s vote. I think we’re on the way to victory if we can win the Democratic nomination.”
In other news:
— Politico contributor Bill Scher, in a piece titled “How Bernie Can Win (But He’s Not Going To Like It),” says Sanders needs to revise his well-worn stump speech.
“Many Democratic voters already know he has a shoot-the-moon platform and wants a grass-roots ‘revolution’ to ram it through Congress,” Scher writes. “But how many know about his bipartisan compromises to enact Veterans Administration reform and limited auditing of the Federal Reserve? How many know that his tenure as Burlington, Vermont mayor was, as the New York Times characterized it, ‘more pragmatic than socialist.’ Sanders references this history at times, but he needs to make it central to his case, especially if he’s to win over older voters who still remember the Cold War and are skittish about the ‘socialist’ label.”
— In “Sanders: Can’t Respond to ‘Every Moronic Statement Made by Donald Trump,’” the Vermonter tells CBS why.
“Any stupid, absurd remark made by Donald Trump becomes the story of the week,” Sanders explains. “Maybe, just maybe, we might want to have a serious discussion about the serious issues facing America.”
— That said, Sanders made a surprise appearance on Thursday’s “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” serving as the first-ever “mystery guest” of its “Wheel of News” segment.
“And if you thought Bernie was lovable before,” Salon writer Brendan Gauthier notes of the resulting YouTube video, “wait ’til you watch him awkwardly fire a T-shirt cannon.”
