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Panicked Democrats Fear Bernie Could Cost Them the House

Panicked Democrats Fear Bernie Could Cost Them the House

“several of them privately described a sense of foreboding that has set in over the past two weeks as Sanders has emerged as the top finisher in the first two contests of the Democratic race”

https://youtu.be/xvv-qJ2oGrE

Many Democrats are rightly concerned that if Bernie Sanders gets their party’s nomination, they could lose to President Trump. The worry doesn’t end there, however.

There is a growing fear that a Bernie candidacy could also cost them the House of Representatives.

Conservatives would argue that this could and should happen anyway, but uneasy Democrats increasingly see Bernie as a bet they don’t want to take.

Sheryl Gay Stolberg writes at the New York Times:

Moderate Democrats Fear Bernie Sanders Could Cost Them the House

As Bernie Sanders emerges as the leader in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, his rise is generating fears among centrist Democrats that the apparent leftward shift of their party could cost them not only a chance to retake the White House, but also their hold on the majority in the House of Representatives and their shot at winning the Senate.

The anxiety is particularly acute on Capitol Hill among a small but politically important group of freshman Democrats who helped their party win control of the House in 2018 by flipping Republican seats in districts that President Trump won in 2016. Now, they fear that having a self-declared democratic socialist at the top of the ticket could doom their re-election chances in November.

Members of the group of about three dozen — often called “front-liners” or “majority-makers”— have toiled to carve out political identities distinct from their party’s progressive base, and most are already facing competitive re-election challenges from Republicans who bill them as radicals who have empowered a far-left agenda in Congress.

These people are in an impossible situation. They’re scared of a Bernie nomination, but they can’t say so just in case he actually gets it. They are also obviously terrified of retribution from far-left voters.

Stolberg continues:

Some are reluctant to publicly articulate their fears of a Sanders nomination, not wanting to call attention to the divisions within their party or risk alienating a potential nominee, but several of them privately described a sense of foreboding that has set in over the past two weeks as Sanders has emerged as the top finisher in the first two contests of the Democratic race.

“There is a growing concern among especially those of us on the front lines that we will not only lose the White House but the House of Representatives,” one of them said in an interview, insisting on anonymity to avoid criticizing a potential nominee.

This concern was on full display on CNN after Bernie was declared the winner in New Hampshire. Just as Van Jones began extolling the energy behind the Sanders campaign, former Obama adviser David Axelrod stepped on the brakes almost immediately. Watch:

Matt Schlapp of the American Conservative Union thinks House Democrats have a bigger problem than Bernie, suggesting the entire field of 2020 Democrats is too far left for the general public.

Joshua Nelson writes at FOX News:

Matt Schlapp on House Dems getting nervous about Bernie: The field has no moderates

While Democratic House congressmen are favoring a moderate presidential nominee over socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders, American Conservative Union chairman Matt Schlapp pushed back on that notion, arguing that there are “no moderates” in the current field.

“I think this is a mistake. The idea that [former South Bend, Ind., Mayor] Pete Buttigieg is a moderate and [former Vice President] Joe Biden is a moderate,” he told “Outnumbered,” noting that his organization “tracks all the votes” of Democratic members of Congress.

“They’re all liberals. The question is, are they socialist? I think that’s a legitimate conversation. There are no moderates in this race,” Schlapp asserted.

Democrats should be concerned. Bernie Sanders is not merely calling for a change in policy. He wants to remake the United States. He is openly calling for revolution. Calling him extreme is being polite.

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Comments

Colonel Travis | February 13, 2020 at 9:16 am

Wait – which candidate is a goofball leftist? Only Bernie fits the description? They’re all off the rails. Meanwhile, the House is run by tyrannical twits. Who’s the least-unhinged (D) Senator? Joe Manchin maybe? He voted to convict Trump on the stupidest impeachment charges ever tossed in the Senate’s lap.

There is nothing sane or moderate about anyone in the (D) party.

The Democrats soul accomplishment is unremitting calls for criminal investigations over nothing. Of course they are in danger.

It is not just Socialist Sanders. It is the unbridled hatred of Pelosi on display every day. It is Schiff and Nadler, Warren and Hirono.

“…centrist Democrats…” Which one is that?

No matter if Bernie the Socialist is not the nominee and some other Socialist-Democrat gets the nod, the House should be in Republican hands effective January 2021. If Bernie is not the nominee, it is more likely than not that his true believers will believe (probably with quite a bit of evidence) that he (and they) was screwed without being kissed and sit out the election.

    Exiliado in reply to Edward. | February 13, 2020 at 9:46 am

    Communists rarely call themselves so.
    They call themselves “Socialists” and they call their ideas “Socialism”.
    But you scratch under the surface and, surprise, surprise!

    notamemberofanyorganizedpolicital in reply to Edward. | February 13, 2020 at 1:35 pm

    “Moderate Democrats” and “centrist Democrats” both extreme oxymorons……

Unless Bloomberg writes the DNC a check MUCH bigger than the $100 million he gave them for the midterms, the Dems are losing the House.

“Sanders wants remake the United States”. B. Hussein Obama did too. Sanders will never get the nomination no matter what. If he is ganged up on and ousted, his base will riot in the streets at the convention and elsewhere. Bless their hearts.

johnnycab23513 | February 13, 2020 at 9:40 am

The fraudulent impeachment proceedings cost the communist democrats the house, and the Presidency! There is no way they can change that!

    You sure about that? Half the states in the country have voted to give away their electoral college votes to whoever is the national popular vote winner. So essentially a candidate only has to take California and New York.

      If they ever try to implement that pact it should get shot down by SCOTUS. We are a republic, not a democracy.

      Either that or the fly over states just say “we quit.”

        Milhouse in reply to Paul. | February 13, 2020 at 11:16 pm

        The state legislatures are entitled to choose any method they like for choosing their electors. They can decide to draw lots, or to sell the electorships to the highest bidder. And they can decide to award them to whoever gets the most nationwide votes on election day.

        But they can’t force the electors thus chosen to vote as they’re told. Once an elector is chosen he’s free to change his mind as often as he likes, just like any other elected official.

        Also, by federal statute, if they change their method for choosing electors after election day, Congress may choose not count their electors’ votes.

They can blame Bernie Sanders, but the truth is that in the last 3 years Democrats have done nothing but attack President Trump and his supporters.
They refused to work with the President on the issues that benefit Americans, and instead they went on a unicorn hunt led by the loudest and most extremist factions of the left.
They didn’t just ignore the silent majority, they openly attacked and slandered us. They pushed for the murder of babies and for the destruction of America’s sovereignty. They tried to undo the latest election by lying and violating the most basic ideals of our system of justice. They tried, and continue to cover for outrageous levels of corruption in our government.
The did all that themselves, Bernie Sanders included, but he was not “the one”. They are all to blame and they all now deserve a humiliating defeat in November. It’s our job to get it done.

We should hope it’s Bernie.

We need a “Which Way, America” election. Lets have, in stark relief, a choice of contrasts via Trump versus Bernie as the respective proxies for the two great approaches to government, one successful, one deadly in every sense of the word since that’s been the result no matter when in time or where in the world it’s been imposed,

(A) The way of the Founders/Framers (limited government*)
OR
(B) The way of the EU/USSR/PRC/UN/Islam model (unlimited government)

Under (A), rights are pre-existing and inalienable, inherent in each person by simply existing. Government is organized, with the consent of the governed, and most importantly with defined limitations, solely to protect those rights.

Under (B), rights are “granted” by government which exists unto itself regardless of the consent of the governed, acting as the final arbiter. Here, what government “gives” can as easily be taken away. And with (B), there are no limiting principles placed on governmental power.

*Well, sort of limited. To varying degrees each one of the 10 planks of the Communist Manifesto has found its way into our laws; Bernie would take us full-bore. We should aim to see where we want to go on how we wish to do government: as citizens or as subjects.

It’s not Bernie that burned you hold to the ground.

Bernie raised his hand with all the other Dem candidates when asked if they supported free health care for illegal immigrants. I hope I see that clip a thousand times before the election. That should scare the hell out of anybody. These people are crazy or liars or both?

notamemberofanyorganizedpolicital | February 13, 2020 at 11:04 am

Democrats in Disarray, Mic Seized at Bloomberg Rally with Mic Grabber Screaming “This is not Democracy!”

https://www.weaselzippers.us/443646-dems-in-disarray-protester-seizes-mic-at-bloomberg-event-this-is-not-democracy/

    “Democracy” is what they call for. They have no idea, no idea at all, what pure democracy would entail.

    The Framers, knowing full well what raw democracy meant, purposefully avoided it.

    “Hence it is that democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and in general have been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths … A republic, by which I mean a government in which a scheme of representation takes place, opens a different prospect and promises the cure for which we are seeking.” — James Madison, Federalist Papers No. 10.

JusticeDelivered | February 13, 2020 at 11:05 am

Well, instead of Congress doing their jobs, they were conducting one worthless witch hunt after another. They built their own echo chamber, and then they believed echos of their own horseshit.

Years of this, and now they discover that they have alienated much of the population.

How about some well targeted instigation of chaos in the Dem party?

    notamemberofanyorganizedpolicital in reply to Demonized. | February 13, 2020 at 12:46 pm

    Like….you mean the DNC reporting good turn out numbers this week in New Hampshire was really almost all MAGA Supporters??????

The demise of the Demonrat Party is far preferable to the demise of the country if a whackjob like Socialist Sanders were ever elected as POTUS.

The house of reps is in play no matter who they nominate.

This is just an early salvo in a Democratic Party civil war over control of the party between the establishment and the AOC/Socialist wing.

Of course only right wing news will cover this story honestly.

I think everyone has forgotten the biggest problem for Democrat House members.

They voted for Impeachment. An Impeachment which even casual voters started to understand was a political hit job.

To win in a swing district you have to have “moderate” credentials and this Impeachment was as far from a moderate act as you can get.

There is not a dem candidate without a fatal flaw. Bloomberg, in particular, will get murdered over things he’s said about blacks.

Trump is laying low, but the fact is, gun control is about taking guns from blacks.

OleDirtyBarrister | February 13, 2020 at 2:21 pm

I certainly hope that those “panicked” Democrats are correct.

Bernie!

Bernie!

Bernie!

There was a time when the dems were in complete lockstep with each other, now the realization that Sanders could actually get the nomination and cost themselves their power the are running around like cockroaches and looking for any media outlet that will put them on the air.
Then again the they have a backstop in the DNC, but I wouldn’t trust Perez / Ellison to get anything right. What kind of a deal will they have to make with Bloomberg to have him funnel his cash to keep the current legislators in place.

    The DNC may have to make no deals to get Bloomberg’s cash. Even if he does not win the nomination, Bloomberg could spend $5 billion on the general election for Democratic candidates and not even notice it. In my opinion, Trump is making a major mistake with his Twitter personal attacks against Bloomberg. How would a Trump second term be with the Dems controlling both the House and Senate and no new conservative judges? You just don’t piss off a sleeping tiger (financially).

notamemberofanyorganizedpolicital | February 13, 2020 at 3:21 pm

Morning Consult National Poll, Post-New Hampshire:
Sanders Rises to 29%,
Opens Up a Ten Point Lead on Biden (19%)

Politico previewed Biden’s collapse yesterday:

“There�s blood in the water,” said Quentin James, executive director of The Collective, a political action committee that backs African American candidates. “Black voters are starting to leave him now…. A big reason lots of black voters were with Biden is they thought he was the best person to beat Trump. And they thought one reason for that is that he had the support of white voters. Now they see he has done so poorly with white voters and he no longer looks like the electability candidate.”…

“This is horrendous. We’re all scared,” said a Biden adviser, speaking anonymously because the comments conflict with the brave public face the campaign is trying to broadcast. “I think we’re going to make it to South Carolina. I know we’re supposed to say we’re going to and we�re going to win. But I just don�t know.”

http://acecomments.mu.nu/?post=385833

The Dems are only NOW figuring this out??

The Democrats will blame losing the House on anything, except what the real reason is, Impeachment. It’s not just because they’ve lowered the standard for impeachment so much, it’s that they stretched the truth so far to get there. Adam Schiff has proven himself to be a liar. What group of voters wants to be represented by a liar? Pelosi has shown she lacks the judgement to be Speaker of the House and her district is a mess, if the Republicans put up anything close to a real candidate, she could lose also. I know this sounds optimistic, and it probably is, but those are 2 people in the leadership. Do you think the 31 in Trump districts are any safer than Pelosi and Schiff?

    If Trump continues to publicly belittle and insult Bloomberg, who has, arguably, an outstanding track record as a private and public executive, this election might see $5B of his money thrown at House and Senate races and Trump winning a pyrrhic victory. Bloomberg would hardly notice the expenditure, but the country would sure notice the complete stalemate in DC, especially on judges (including SCOTUS).