(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.)
[I]s Bernie Sanders set to endorse Hillary Clinton?
Several national news outlets are projecting the Vermonter could join his Democratic presidential competitor at a rally Tuesday in New Hampshire.
“Democrats, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to reveal confidential conversations, said that the endorsement was partly the result of daily talks between Mrs. Clinton’s campaign manager, Robby Mook, and the Sanders campaign manager, Jeff Weaver, about bringing together the two rivals and advancing the policy priorities of Mr. Sanders,” New York Times reporter Patrick Healy writes. “The discussions included a dinner between Mr. Mook and Mr. Weaver in Burlington, Vt.”
Sanders isn’t confirming or denying such speculation.
“We have got to do everything that we can to defeat Donald Trump and elect Hillary Clinton,” he said Thursday in a PBS interview.
Sanders has withheld an endorsement as he continues his campaign in hopes “the Democratic Party passes the most progressive platform in its history” at its national convention July 25-28 in Philadelphia. But while he still tops USA Today’s list of Sunday talk show guests with the most appearances (86 this year, compared with Trump’s 78), the candidate is finding himself increasingly overshadowed by other news, including last week’s string of racially divisive shootings.
“If not for all these major stories crashing at once,” Politico quotes a senior Democratic insider, “there would be a lot more attention paid to this exquisite ongoing Clinton/Sanders minuet.”
Then again, the press spotlight can be wilting.
“With each day that he withholds his endorsement, he loses a little more of the political capital he gained during the primaries,” Joshua Green writes in Bloomberg Businessweek. “Sanders undoubtedly shifted the balance of power in the Democratic Party and exposed its generational future. But his personal involvement in these changes is quickly fading.”
A new poll by the Pew Research Center shows 85 percent of Sanders supporters will back Clinton, while just 9 percent say they’ll choose Trump.
“That’s a significantly faster rallying effect than Democrats saw after their drawn-out primary in 2008,” The Washington Post reports.
Sanders also is losing favor with some of his Capitol Hill colleagues, as seen in a Politico story headlined “Sanders Booed by House Democrats.”
“The goal isn’t to win elections, the goal is to transform America,” Sanders reportedly said at a closed-door meeting of congressional peers.
That comment drew scorn from some and empathy from others.
“A lot of members are anxious about when is he going to explicitly support Hillary,” U.S. Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt., told Politico. “And what he’s saying is that’s an ongoing process. But if we want to win, we’ve got to take the long view that we need a platform that is going to genuinely create excitement for our nominee. What he said very clearly is we’ve got to beat Trump, and the way he believes we’re going to do it is by having a commitment to an agenda that excites people, including the younger people. And he’s working on that.”
As proof, Politico offered such weekend headlines as “Sanders Praises Clinton Health Care Plan” and “Sanders Claims Victory as Dems Approve $15 Minimum Wage in Party Platform.”
But the candidate doesn’t have much time left to spark additional coverage. Next week, the media will turn their attention to the Republican National Convention coming up July 18-21 in Cleveland.
“It will be tough for Trump to peel away voters if this cooperation between the Clinton and Sanders camps continues,” New York Times editor Toni Monkovic opines. “It will be quite a sight at the convention when Bernie gives a speech supporting Hillary — the drama heightened because Sanders has denied that support so long. It’s like that moment in a romantic comedy when the two lead characters, after sniping at each other for most of the movie, find they have a love connection — they both would love to beat Trump.”
