(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.)
[T]he Daily Beast headline: “Bernie Sanders’s Sixth Sense Campaign Rolls On.”
And its opening paragraph: “Sen. Bernie Sanders’s Thursday speech was billed as a ‘Where Do We Go From Here?’ The answer, according to his schedule, was to another ‘Where Do We Go From Here’ speech on Friday …”
So goes the challenge for reporters covering the Vermont presidential candidate in the weeks between the end of primary voting and the beginning of the Democratic National Convention on July 25.
“It’s the song that never ends,” concludes Daily Beast correspondent Tim Mak, echoing the words of the infinitely looping Shari Lewis and Lamb Chop children’s tune. “It just goes on and on, my friends.”
Just a week ago, Sanders appeared to be moving forward as he made news for returning to the Capitol for the first time since missing 101 straight votes in the last six months.
“The Vermont Independent attracted a crowd on the Senate floor, with colleagues from both sides of the aisle approaching his desk to give him a handshake or a pat on the back,” Newsweek writes in a story headlined “Bernie Sanders Returns To Washington, More Powerful Than Ever.” “It’s a steep reversal from his decades toiling in the House and Senate, largely ignored by the Washington press corps and power brokers, as a lonely iconoclast.”
The homecoming had its hiccups.
“It’s been a while since Bernie Sanders has attended the weekly Senate Democratic lunch in the Capitol,” CNN would report. “So long, in fact, he forgot where to go Tuesday and headed — with his large Secret Service detail in tow — into the Republican lunch instead.”
Those Secret Service agents are sparking headlines of their own.
“Such round-the-clock protection can cost taxpayers more than $38,000 a day,” The Washington Post calculates in its story headlined “An expensive reminder that Sanders still hasn’t dropped out: His Secret Service detail.” “And with the potential for the Secret Service to be watching over Sanders through the Democratic convention in Philadelphia in five weeks, taxpayers may get stuck with a big security bill long after his campaign receded from the daily cable-news cycle.”
With Hillary Clinton the presumptive Democratic nominee, why is Sanders still running? The candidate attempted to answer that question in a Washington Post column titled “Here’s What We Want” (CliffsNotes version: “My supporters and I want real change in this country”) and a Thursday appearance on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”
Yahoo News, for its part, has launched an “Unconventional” column featuring “Bernie’s Wish List,” with ongoing updates on “which of his demands will be met at the convention — and which won’t.”
For a moment Friday, it all appeared to change when Sanders, appearing on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” said “yes” without hesitation when asked if he would vote for Clinton in November.
Then came the disclaimer.
“A spokesman for Sanders said that the senator is still a candidate in the presidential race, and that his remarks on MSNBC did not constitute an endorsement of Clinton,” reports the Atlantic.
For the political press, it just goes on and on, my friends.
