Barney Frank~ 3 Reasons Why Things Will Get Harder for Bernie Sanders

Until recently, Sanders has experienced the great benefit of not being taken seriously. Between the focus on the unexpectedly entertaining Republican race, and the intense scrutiny on Clinton as the overwhelming Democratic favorite, the only aspect of Sanders’ record to have drawn any attention from outside his own campaign is his ambivalence on gun regulation. What this has meant is that he has been enjoying one of the greatest gifts any politician can ask for: the ability to define himself as he wishes, without any inconvenient rebuttals.

In many ways his candidacy is deeply ironic. A senior United States senator who has held national office far longer than any other candidate in the race—25 years in Congress, including influential committee positions—has been the most successful in presenting himself as the quintessential outsider. He presents himself as not only free of responsibility for anything that happened during his tenure, but vigorous in his insistence that nothing that was done while he was there had any value in addressing the problems that he discusses. And his condemnation falls equally on Democrats and Republicans alike. When he leads his audience in the chant that Wall Street regulates Congress, he draws no distinction between Democrats who enacted crucial financial regulations like the Volcker rule, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and the regulation of derivatives and the Republicans who fought all three and are now working to undermine them.

Nor does President Barack Obama escape. While he does not explicitly attack the president, nowhere in Sanders’ campaign rhetoric is there any positive assessment of his record. His listeners do not hear that the Affordable Care Act was a great advance and must be protected as he and others try to go beyond it. They don’t hear that getting the top tax rate back up to where it was before Bush lowered it meant a real increase in tax fairness.

Many congressional Democrats, myself included, feel deep resentment at this wholly negative portrayal of our efforts. First, it is a prime example of how inattention has helped Sanders until now. Commentators have made a point of noting the lack of congressional support for Cruz, legitimately drawing negative inferences from the fact that his closest colleagues are essentially rejecting him. But little notice has been taken of the fact that Sanders does scarcely better: Cruz has one House supporter as I write; Sanders has two.