[ The Vermont independent isnt buying the happy talk from a party
still talking up a pre-midterm turnaround. And he has a prescription
to avoid it.]
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BERNIE TO DEMS: CHANGE COURSE BEFORE YOU NOSEDIVE IN NOVEMBER  
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Burgess Everett
June 9, 2022
Politico
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_ The Vermont independent isn't buying the happy talk from a party
still talking up a pre-midterm turnaround. And he has a prescription
to avoid it. _

“Two corporate Democrats, Sens. Manchin and Sen. Sinema, sabotaged
[Build Back Better]. And it has been downhill ever since for the
Democratic Party,” Sen. Bernie Sanders said. |, Anna
Moneymaker/Getty Images

 

Bernie Sanders has something to get off his chest: Without a course
correction, he sees the Democratic Party on track to get shellacked
this fall.

As the progressive Vermonter, not one to mince words, put it in an
interview on Tuesday: “You really can’t win an election with a
bumper sticker that says: ‘Well, we can’t do much, but the other
side is worse.’”

“The Republicans stand an excellent chance of gaining control of the
House and quite possibly the Senate,” Sanders said. While the
GOP’s anti-abortion stance and opposition to more sweeping firearm
restrictions may help Democrats, he warned that if they “think that
they’re gonna march to victory based on those issues, I think that
that is not correct.”

With the majorities flashing before Democrats’ eyes, the independent
who caucuses with them is asking his leadership, from President Joe
Biden on down, to acknowledge that the party can’t actually do what
it wants with two centrist senators as their deciding votes. After
that real talk, Sanders wants Democrats to make the case for more
Democratic power in 2023 — through a Newt Gingrich-style “Contract
with America.”

It’s a long-shot attempt to break the malaise hanging over the
Democratic Party as Biden’s polling remains underwater and its
senators grow nervous about holding their majority with Republicans
favored to take the House. Many Democrats are hoping bad Republican
candidates, a Biden rebound or a last-minute flurry of modest
legislation could help save their congressional majorities.

Sanders, though, is done with such happy thoughts.

“Say to the American people: ‘Look, we don’t have the votes to
do it right now. We have two corporate Democrats who are not going to
be with us,’” Sanders said, referring to Sens. Joe Manchin
(D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.).

“The leadership has got to go out and say we don’t have the votes
to pass anything significant right now. Sorry. You got 48 votes. And
we need more to pass it. That should be the message of this
campaign.”

Sanders’ call comes at a precarious moment for the party. Last year,
Democrats united to pass a $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill, then
worked with Republicans to pass a historic infrastructure bill. But
Manchin rejected the larger climate-and-jobs bill known as “Build
Back Better” in December, and efforts to sway him and Sinema to
weaken the legislative filibuster ran aground.

That left the party in nominal power stalled on everything from
abortion rights to guns to elections reform.

Or, in the words of Sanders: “Two corporate Democrats, Sens. Manchin
and Sen. Sinema, sabotaged [Build Back Better]. And it has been
downhill ever since for the Democratic Party.”

[Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, right, holds the door open for Sen. Joe Manchin,
left. ]

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) right, holds the door open for Sen. Joe
Manchin (D-W.Va.) after they attended a Democratic policy luncheon,
Tuesday, Nov. 16, 2021. | Jacquelyn Martin/AP Photo

Manchin took strong exception to Sanders’ comment, saying in a
statement that “I have never berated Sen. Sanders for his socialist
views. It is a shame he refuses to accept the more moderate views I
share with my constituents.”

Sinema declined to comment for this story. She was widely seen within
the caucus as far more supportive of the House-passed $1.75 trillion
party-line bill, stocked with Democratic priorities, than Manchin.

Despite the dissension among the Senate Democrats’ 50 members,
there’s nonetheless a last gasp of legislative activity on Capitol
Hill. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) is leading delicate talks with
Republicans on gun safety legislation, giving Manchin and Sinema both
seats at that table. And the House and Senate are negotiating a bill
to address U.S. competitiveness with China — which Sanders sees as
too generous to large corporations.

Manchin and Senate Majority Chuck Schumer met Wednesday about a
smaller party-line climate-and-tax-reform bill that could, in theory,
pass before the election. The West Virginian wants legislation to
decrease the deficit, lower drug prices, raise taxes on the rich and
corporations and invest in both clean energy and fossil fuel
production.

Schumer said afterward he and Manchin were starting to get into the
details after their fourth recent meeting on the topic. But there’s
no deal yet, as many Democrats continue to hold out hope one will
materialize.

Don’t count Sanders among the optimists.

“They have been negotiating for nine months,” Sanders said of
Schumer and Manchin. “This is not exactly terribly effective
negotiation. And during those nine months, support for Democrats has
dissipated very rapidly.”

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) has similarly raised alarms
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Democrats’ situation, pushing her party to deliver before the
election. Warren and Sanders both serve on Schumer’s leadership
team, but she’s striking a more restrained tone than Sanders —
even while she agrees with him that “we need to make clear to the
American people that we need two more Democrats in the United States
Senate.”

“No. 1 on our to-do list is to do the things that we can. And No. 2
is to drive home how the Republicans are blocking us in critical areas
from doing the things that this nation desperately needs on abortion,
guns, voting rights,” Warren said. “We need to hammer the
Republicans relentlessly on what they won’t do.”

_John Burgess Everett is the congressional bureau chief for POLITICO,
specializing in the Senate since 2013. He’s a native Mainer, a
University of Maryland graduate and one of those people who goes by
his middle name._

 

* Bernie Sanders
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* midterm elections
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* electoral strategy
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