alternet

Written by Amanda Marcotte / Salon

Late last Thursday, I noticed the name “George Wallace” — that nightmarish icon of the 1960s pro-segregation movement, a man so vile he hid his wife’s cancer from her so he could exploit her politically — was trending on Twitter. Wallace died more than two decades ago, so I thought was it odd. As Twitter wants you to do, clicked. The situation was wild — people (and likely bots) were making outraged claims that Sen. Bernie Sanders had “praised” Wallace as being “sensitive” in 1972, when Sanders was running for governor of Vermont as an open socialist.

I was immediately skeptical, as Wallace was a notorious villain at the time and Sanders had spent the early ’60s helping organize desegregation campaigns. Sure enough, a cursory search showed that the accusation came from the Washington Examiner, a right-wing website owned by conservative billionaire Philip Anschutz.

Of course the full context of the quote soon came out, courtesy of CNN’s Andrew Kaczynski: Sanders had said that Wallace “advocates some outrageous approaches to our problems, but at least he is sensitive to what people feel they need.” Sanders was not remotely a fan: He compared Wallace to Hitler and argued that Wallace’s racism was appealing to his followers who were experiencing “rebellion, frustration, economic instability”.

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Mediaite

By Reed Richardson Feb 3rd, 2020, 8:07 pm

The last Iowa poll before the caucuses, which was not publicly released after its results were “compromised,” found that Bernie Sanders was holding steady in the lead and that Joe Biden had fallen to a distant fourth place.

According to confirmation by FiveThirtyEight, the poll was going to report Sanders with 22% support in Iowa, Elizabeth Warren in second with 18%, Pete Buttigieg with 16%, and Biden trailing behind at 13%. That result would’ve pegged Biden’s support at more than six percentage points below his current level in the RealClearPolitics polling average.

However, the gold-standard Selzer & Co. Iowa poll was abruptly scrapped on Sunday night after one surveyor reportedly changed the font on their screen and inadvertently left off Pete Buttigieg’s name from the list of candidate choices. Since the pollster was unable to assess the impact of Buttigieg’s partial omission, the poll was considered statistically unreliable.

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Politico

He salutes “the great state of Kansas.”

By RISHIKA DUGYALA

02/02/2020 11:25 PM EST

When President Donald Trump tweeted his congratulations to the Kansas City Chiefs, he initially expressed his pride for “the Great State of Kansas.”

The Chiefs are based in Missouri. Not Kansas City, Kansas.

After a late comeback, the Chiefs scored a 31-20 win over the San Francisco 49ers, delivering Kansas City’s first NFL championship in 50 years. Star quarterback Patrick Mahomes was named the Super Bowl MVP.

Trump wrote at 10:15 p.m. on Sunday: “Congratulations to the Kansas City Chiefs on a great game, and a fantastic comeback, under immense pressure. You represented the Great State of Kansas and, in fact, the entire USA, so very well! Our Country is PROUD OF YOU!”

Within minutes, the president’s tweet was deleted and replaced — this time with the right state.

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Politico

One progressive wants to blow up the establishment. The other wants to unite the party.

By HOLLY OTTERBEIN and ALEX THOMPSON

02/02/2020 08:51 PM EST

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa — Bernie Sanders’ surrogates booed Hillary Clinton, lit up members of the Democratic National Committee, and proudly noted that people were “freaking out” that he would win.

Meanwhile, at a canvass launch Saturday, Elizabeth Warren’s campaign was busy putting up placards that read “Unite the Party.”

In the final hours before Iowa’s caucuses, the two leading progressive presidential candidates are making diametrically opposed pitches to voters: Sanders’ campaign is leaning hard into their anti-establishment bonafides, while Warren is selling herself as a candidate who can bring together a fractured Democratic Party.

Warren’s message is aimed toward more traditional and mainstream Democrats who have fretted for months about the need to bring the party together; many believe President Trump won the election partly because the party was divided. Sanders’ pitch is pointed at young, infrequent and disillusioned caucus-goers who are exhausted and furious with the status quo, and who think Trump rode to victory on an anti-establishment mood throughout the nation.

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Daily Beast

Some of Elizabeth Warren’s Iowa supporters are worried about Sanders’ high-energy fan base.

Scott Bixby
National Reporter
Jackie Kucinich
Washington Bureau Chief
Updated Jan. 31, 2020 11:10PM ET / Published Jan. 31, 2020 10:31PM ET

DES MOINES, Iowa—On Friday morning, Cyndi Conard’s home at the end of a snowy road was alive with pre-caucus energy. As Conard, a precinct captain in Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s presidential campaign, removed quiche from her oven, Warren staff instructed volunteers how to persuade undecided voters to join their team, handing out door hangers, clipboards and hand warmers, the hum of human activity interrupted only by the squawk of Conard’s cockatoo Derby Doo.

They were preparing for the arrival of Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), one of Warren’s several designated torchbearers there to help the campaign as the impeachment trial continued to keep the candidate in D.C.

But Conard was nervous.

“They’ve done a good job, I will have to say, getting out there,” she said of Warren’s team. “I think his group has too. So it’s kind of hard to know what’s gonna happen.”

The “his” she was referring to is Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and in the dwindling days before the Iowa caucuses, the energy among his supporters has propelled him to frontrunner status.

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