(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.)
[R]emember last fall, when seemingly everyone was surprised Bernie Sanders scored both a Rolling Stone interview and the cover of Time magazine?
This month, the Vermont presidential candidate has done it again. But this time, no one’s blinking.
Hillary Clinton may be just days away from essentially clinching the Democratic nomination — voters will decide that Tuesday in California, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Dakota and South Dakota — but her challenger continues to make news. (Even if, as Politico reported last week, “Sanders Takes No Questions from Media at ‘Press Conference.’”)
For the second time since September, Sanders is pictured on the cover of Time, whose June 6 issue features the headline “How Far Will Bernie Go?” and his explanation of why, as he confirmed to reporters this weekend, the Democratic National Convention on July 25-28 in Philadelphia “will be a contested convention.”
“If we are in a situation where 400 or more pledged delegates — superdelegates for Hillary Clinton — came on board before the first ballot was cast,” Sanders tells Time reporter Sam Frizell, “I think we have a right to say to those superdelegates, ‘Look, your job is not to tell us who you supported months before the first ballot was cast. Your job is determined in these very difficult times which candidate can most clearly defeat Donald Trump.’”
Making that case isn’t easy, Sanders explains in Rolling Stone’s latest issue.
“There aren’t a whole lot of people who understand the day-to-day mechanics of running a presidential campaign, who have history running a campaign for a candidate like myself,” he is quoted. “You tell me: Where are the democratic-socialist political consultants who have been involved in successful campaigns in recent history? There aren’t any. So we’ve had to put together our own campaign by the seat of our pants. And that’s been hard.”
“You go weeks sometimes without a day off — if you work 15 or 20 days in a row, and you don’t get a chance to relax or to think or to read or to reflect, it’s tough,” he continues. “Also, I have — as a senator and a congressman — always come home to Vermont. That is my touchstone. I love my state. I love the people in my state. My children and grandchildren are in Vermont and New Hampshire. And I don’t see them enough. And that is not a good thing. I miss getting home.”
Compounding the challenge, Clinton won Saturday’s caucuses in the Virgin Islands and is expected to win Sunday’s primary in Puerto Rico. But that isn’t stopping the Vermonter from pushing forward.
“Superdelegates may change their mind,” he said during a weekend appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “The Democratic convention is the end of July. That’s a long time from today.”
