I have already written about why this imbroglio about a single private meeting a year ago, now suddenly brought up first through Elizabeth Warren aides to a corporate media dying to attack Bernie Sanders, falls squarely on Warren. It is not as if the private conversation is reflective of Bernie's off the cuff and more prepared public remarks over 35 years, as he has consistently supported women running for president, and being president. If he had said what Elizabeth Warren and her campaign aides said to her, why would he not have put it directly to Tulsi Gabbard when she had her private meeting with Bernie Sanders to announce she, too, was running for president? The reason for this leak was to demonize Sanders right before the primary, and that cynical strategy is far more important than the content of it. And worse, this divides the progressive forces at a time when there is a desperation in the corporate Democratic Party offices and campaigns, and where corporate media is, again, dying to stop Sanders first and foremost.*
I don't really want to talk about this again, as I agree with Jane Sanders, that it is time to stop. And toward that end, I want to remind readers and anyone who cares about progressive values and campaigns to recall how bitter the feud between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton was, when both were essentially neoliberals with highly similar views, and how, just weeks before the Iowa caucus, there were accusations from the Obama campaign that the Clintons were acting in a racist way toward Obama. See this Politico story from January 11, 2008. By that point, I was talking in my old blog (MF Blog) about HillObamaBiden, as all three represented neoliberal worldviews, and yet were somehow getting personal against each other. And here is an op-ed from Ryan Cooper in 2015, reminding people of how nasty it got between Obama and Clinton:
As the first primaries got underway in 2008, and Obama began to slowly pull ahead, the Clinton camp resorted to increasingly blatant race- and Muslim-baiting. It started in February, when Louis Farrakhan, the head of the Nation of Islam, endorsed Obama in a sermon. In a debate a couple days later, moderator Tim Russert repeatedly pressed Obama on the issue, who responded with repeated reassurances that he did not ask for the endorsement, did not accept it, and in fact was not a deranged anti-Semite. That wasn't enough for Clinton, who demanded that Obama "denounce" Farrakhan, which he did.
About the same time, a picture of Obama in traditional Somali garb (from an official trip) then appeared on the Drudge Report, and Matt Drudge claimed he got it from the Clinton campaign. After stonewalling on the origin question, the campaign later claimed it had nothing to do with it. A Clinton flack then went on MSNBC and argued that Obama should not be ashamed to appear in "his native clothing, in the clothing of his country."
....
Then there was Bill Clinton comparing Obama's campaign to that of Jesse Jackson's unsuccessful run in 1988. The capstone came in May, when Hillary Clinton started openly boasting about her superior support from white voters. (Links in original)
Clinton and Obama eventually made nice with each other, and became very close. There was also the deal made, just before the convention, where Clinton was promised the position of Secretary of State, something Clinton coveted almost as much as the presidency.
It is also true that some Clinton supporters never got over the primary rift. A group of largely white women formed a group called PUMA, originally meaning Party Unity My Ass, and they were bitter, angry, and not a little racist in denouncing Barack Obama, even at the 2008 Democratic National Convention. They even formed a fundraising PAC website in July 2008 and tried to change the meaning of the acronym to People United Means Action, which is pathetic as one asks "Which people?" Moreover, it bears repeating more Clinton primary voters in 2008 voted for McCain-Palin than Bernie primary voters voted in 2016 for Trump-Pence. Yet, these corporate Democratic die-hards for the Clintons are precisely the type of people who, in 2016 and through now, have lectured, hectored, and condescended to Bernie fans who had believed in creating a movement for progressive values, not just one flavor of neoliberal over another. Obama didn't need those people then as he expanded the voting electorate, which is precisely what Sanders and his campaign have been saying.
The point, however, is simply this: Progressives and activists should be tamping down this imbroglio and finding peace as we finally head into the voting in this long and winding primary season. Whatever wounds suffered these past few days should heal. The difference between now and 2008 is the corporate media is the true opponent here, and CNN's conduct during the debate earlier this week shows this, full stop.** My take is Elizabeth Warren remains a fundamentally decent person who would make a better president than most anyone else in the race,*** but Bernie remains the only one who understands the need to build a movement of voters, post-election, to take on the oligarchy that continues to undermine working people and the poor in America, and often wants to make war to divert and divide the working classes and the poor, and gobble up the world's riches on behalf of themselves.
* I remain convinced Warren herself initially did not want to leak the statement Sanders supposedly made in the year old private conversation, but that her campaign advisers, feeling desperate, and angry over the purloined and leaked Sanders' volunteers' voter calling script, went ahead without Warren's express approval. Then, when it was gleefully reported without even consulting with Bernie Sanders's campaign, Warren herself felt compelled to go forward to not diss her own campaign staff. This happens when a campaign is foundering in polls, and trying to defeat a rising opponent. The script, however, was a nothing burger, and Warren's reaction that she was being "trashed" was terrible hyperbole, as the script merely said the following for volunteers to say, when calling someone who identified himself or herself as leaning toward Warren:
I like Elizabeth Warren. [optional] In fact, she’s my second choice. But here’s my concern about her. The people who support her are highly educated, more affluent people who are going to show up and vote Democratic no matter what....She’s bringing no new bases into the Democratic Party.
As I said on FB and in conversation with people, why did nobody ask Warren's campaign to produce their scripts they are using to call people, and what they say about Sanders when the person says they are supporting Sanders or leaning toward Sanders? I have seen people on FB and in conversations who like Warren, in fact, trash Bernie as too old, too left, and too cranky. That is far more personal and trashy than what that leaked script said, as the script's statements about the base of Warren's support are true, per the consistent polling and campaign contribution data of the past six or seven months of this run up to the first voting in the primary. I am speculating Warren, again influenced by her campaign advisers, who love going negative as a professional class (I don't know her advisers, but I do know how campaign advisers operate over the decades), doubled down on her hyperbolic reaction to the script and the decline in support, according to the polling data, and, faced with the leaks from her campaign advisers, decided to go public with her interpretation of her year old private conversation with Sanders. A sad and desperate move, but one we saw as Clinton was falling behind Obama in Iowa in January 2008.
** It is a sad and continuing commentary on the corporate media that Teen Vogue has been, for years now, offering better political analysis. See their take on the imbroglio here.
*** Sorry, Yang Gang, but Yang has shown neoliberal worldviews in his various policy positions as the race has gone on, and is letting global corporations off the hook by overstating the automation and not mentioning the trade deals in the decimation of the mid west and elsewhere in the US. His stances against a federal minimum wage and jobs guarantee, and his weak plan on health insurance, without even a public option, show he has assesses no value to unions and challenging corporate domination of the planet.
