Want a recap of Vermont presidential candidate Bernie Sanders’ live online address last week?
What transpired, it seems, depends on who’s telling the story.
At least a quarter-million people streamed the 23-minute talk Thursday night, Sanders’ campaign reports, with the Twitter hashtag #OurRevolution ranking fourth in the nation as he spoke. But of the major cable news networks, only MSNBC broadcast his remarks live before going on to “Drop Speech Midway Through,” according to Deadline.com.
Washington Post delivered its verdict the next day: “Bernie Sanders Offers A Concession-Style Speech — Without A Concession.”
“Sanders sounded very much like a candidate prepared to drop out of the Democratic presidential race,” Post reporter John Wagner wrote. “But the senator from Vermont pulled up short Thursday night, neither conceding the party’s nomination nor endorsing Clinton in the general election.”
Accentuating the positive, Politico and the New York Times headlined their stories, respectively, “Sanders Vows to Work With Clinton to Transform Democratic Party” and “Sanders Pledges to ‘Make Certain’ Donald Trump Is Defeated.”
“He also dove into a series of reforms he wants the party to adopt,” Politico reporter Gabriel Debenedetti added, “reviving the ‘50-state strategy’ he spoke about frequently in the early days of his campaign, and which was popularized by fellow Vermonter and former Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean.”
In contrast, Vanity Fair favored the headline “Bernie Sanders Will Concede When Hell Freezes Over.”
“To his credit, Sanders saw the writing on the wall by the time the June 7 primaries rolled around,” Vanity Fair reporter Tina Nguyen wrote, “and began telegraphing that his primary objective was not to actually win the nomination, but rather to use his 1,881 delegates as leverage to change the Democratic Party’s platform during the convention.”
And what’s the expected power of Sanders’ pull in Philadelphia July 25-28? Politico doesn’t believe he’ll have much, according to its story headlined “Sanders Loses Convention Leverage.”
“What’s unclear now is just how far Sanders can push Clinton, whose campaign is coming off one of its strongest stretches yet,” Politico reporter Gabriel Debenedetti writes. “Far from just leading Trump in national polls, Clinton’s allies now note that battleground state surveys also suggest she has little reason to fear that tepid support from Sanders backers could doom her.”
But New York magazine believes “Bernie Sanders Still Has Some Leverage Over Hillary Clinton.”
“Bored media attendees will naturally be trolling in Philadelphia for stories of unhappy Sanders supporters exhibiting their displeasure at the proceedings and the inevitable minimization of Bernie’s role in the party and the general-election campaign,” New York columnist Ed Kilgore writes. “An aggressive exercise of discipline by Sanders and his campaign is the only thing that could more or less eliminate that risk. So under-the-radar-screen negotiations will focus on mere appearances as much as the heavy substance of the platform — and actually more, since the images of the convention will linger long after any arguments over carbon taxes versus regulation have been forgotten.”
Clinton, for her part, has some leverage of her own, Politico notes in a story headlined “Clinton Allies Try to Entice Sanders With Prime-Time Convention Slot.”
“If Sanders waits to hold a roll call in Philadelphia on the Wednesday of the convention, the only speaking slots left would likely go to President Obama and the party’s nominee,” Politico reporter Annie Karni writes. “But if he conceded beforehand, Sanders would be in a position to demand a prime time slot.”
So what do political pundits think will happen?
“While he and his staff — no longer aiming to poach superdelegates — go out of their way to assure fellow senators and leading Democrats that he is committed to defeating Donald Trump above all else, the Sanders campaign is mapping out a soft, extended landing that could take a few weeks,” Politico’s Debenedetti writes in a story headlined “Sanders Scripts His Primary-Season Finale.”
In the meantime, the candidate is set to make news for doing something he hasn’t done in six months.
“Bernie Sanders may still be a presidential candidate, but on Monday he’s returning to his day job,” USA Today reports. “The Vermont senator will cast his first votes since January on gun legislation Monday after his absence from a Democrat-led filibuster Wednesday drew an angry response on social media.”
The Washington Post notes the irony of Sanders’ absence, as the candidate orchestrated a 2010 one-man filibuster against a compromise that allowed most of the Bush-era tax cuts to continue.
“Six years later, Sanders is a major national figure, flanked by Secret Service protection for as long as he wants it,” Post reporter David Weigel writes. “It’s up to him — and eventually, delegates to the Democratic National Convention — when he’ll resume the usual work of the Senate.”
