Politico

Here's what surprised us and what will have the biggest impact from the last debate before Iowa's caucuses.

By POLITICO STAFF

01/15/2020 12:35 AM EST

DES MOINES, Iowa — The Democratic presidential candidates had one last chance to contrast themselves on national TV before the Iowa caucuses. And in between slams of President Donald Trump, they delivered.

Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders traded criticisms of their long records on trade, foreign policy and health care. Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar reprised their December clash about experience in the Oval Office. And Elizabeth Warren turned a question about her allegation that Sanders said a woman couldn’t beat Trump — a comment Sanders has repeatedly denied making — into a call to recognize female political power in the Democratic Party.

What did we learn? We asked four POLITICO campaign reporters — Laura Barrón-López, Natasha Korecki, Holly Otterbein and David Siders — for their takeaways from the two-hour showdown.

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Politico

Sanders initially attributed the talking points to rogue staffers, and supporters launched an online campaign to convince people the document was fake.

By ALEX THOMPSON and HOLLY OTTERBEIN

01/14/2020 05:06 PM EST

Updated: 01/14/2020 05:50 PM EST

DES MOINES, Iowa — The controversial talking points attacking Elizabeth Warren that Bernie Sanders' campaign deployed were given to teams in at least two early voting states on Friday, three Sanders campaign officials confirmed.

Volunteers and staffers used the script on Saturday while canvassing for votes, meaning the talking points were more official than what Sanders previously suggested after POLITICO reported on the language.

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The script mostly focused on Sanders' ability to beat President Donald Trump in a general election. But one page included attacks on the electability of Warren, as well as Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg.

“The language was pulled because it was sloppily worded,” a Sanders official said, confirming that the script was an official campaign document.

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Politico

The former vice president’s record on Social Security is about to be torn open by Sanders.

By MARC CAPUTO and HOLLY OTTERBEIN

01/13/2020 07:02 PM EST

Bernie Sanders’ first major tangle with Joe Biden — over a 2010 deal that Biden struck with Republicans that liberals believed threatened Social Security — helped fuel his national rise.

Now Sanders is set to reprise that clash Tuesday night on the debate stage, where the Vermont senator is preparing to lay into Biden over his record on Social Security.

For the past week, Sanders and his campaign have telegraphed his attack over the former vice president’s long-standing record entertaining cuts to the program that are anathema to progressives and many mainstream Democrats.

Sanders’ speechwriter and senior adviser David Sirota said Tuesday will be time for Biden to answer hard questions about his past onstage.

“Joe Biden has repeatedly worked to cut Social Security, and has never offered up a good explanation for that crusade. His Social Security record is not only atrocious on a policy level, it is an enormous political vulnerability in both a primary and a general election,” Sirota said. “Bernie Sanders has exactly the opposite record — he’s fought those cuts and fought to expand Social Security, and that is a contrast Democratic voters deserve to know.”

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Politico

The consolidation of left-wing support is a remarkable turnaround for Sanders.

By HOLLY OTTERBEIN

01/13/2020 05:10 AM EST

IOWA CITY, Iowa — Something’s happening with Bernie Sanders that looked unlikely to many a few months ago: Progressive leaders and organizations are lining up behind him, not Elizabeth Warren, in the lead-up to voting.

Two groups run by young people — the Sunrise Movement, which seeks to combat climate change, and Dream Defenders, which advocates for people of color — endorsed him last week. He’s also won the backing of People’s Action and the Center for Popular Democracy, which together claim more than 1.5 million members, as well as three lawmakers in the so-called “Squad” and liberal-minded labor unions.

The consolidation of left-wing support is a remarkable turnaround for Sanders. In September, the Working Families Party became the first major national progressive group to endorse a candidate when it picked Warren — despite siding with Sanders in 2016. Warren was surging at the time, and looked poised to overtake Sanders as the leader of the progressive movement and a frontrunner for the nomination.

But now it’s Sanders with the wind at his back. The endorsements, on display here Sunday when Rep. Rashida Tlaib and the Sunrise Movement joined him for a rally attended by more than 900 people, are giving him a jolt of momentum weeks ahead of the Iowa caucuses and supplying him with fresh volunteers in key areas.

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Mediaite

By Tommy Christopher Jan 11th, 2020, 3:44 pm

Trump White House counselor Kellyanne Conway smeared Congresswomen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Ilhan Omar (D-MN) even as she was congratulating Rep. Doug Collins (R-GA) for similarly smearing Democrats as loving terrorists.

Earlier this week, Collins said that Democrats are “in love with terrorists,” then defended the comments to Fox News before finally apologizing on Twitter.

Conway gaggled with reporters in the Brady briefing room Friday, and was asked about the potential for a change in “tone” represented by Collins’ apology. In the midst of a lengthy answer lauding her own efforts at elevating the tone, Conway slammed AOC and Rep. Omar by falsely claiming one of them had apologized to the Iranian people for the attack that killed Qasem Soleimani, and called their group “The Squad That Doesn’t Do Squat” as part of her tone-elevating effort.

“We had members of Congress earlier this week apologizing to the Iranian people, on behalf of America,” Conway claimed.

“Who? Can you name them?” asked Breakfast Media correspondent Andrew Feinberg.

“Yeah, what’s her name, was it AOC or Omar who did that?” Conway asked to a staffer, and added “Someone from the squad that doesn’t do squat, I’m pretty sure it was AOC, in a tweet, somebody said ‘Oh 52% of us believe a different way.”

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Mediaite

By Connor Mannion Jan 11th, 2020, 7:01 pm

CNN commentator Joe Lockhart told S.E. Cupp on her show that he doesn’t think the media is seriously considering how Sen. Bernie Sanders could run away with the nomination.

“There’s real shades of 2016,” Lockhart said. “I’m gonna get flamed on Twitter tonight … but the media early on did not take Trump seriously. So they didn’t vet him and say, does your plan add up? And you know what about your plan on Iran and getting out?”

“Up until now, the media has not taken Bernie Sanders that seriously,” he continued.

“He would say the same thing,” Cupp interjected.

“And he’s been right,” Lockhart agreed.

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more at link

Politico

The Democratic primary could come down to a simple question: Do voters want Biden’s promise of a steady hand, or Bernie’s revolutionary zeal?

By RYAN LIZZA

01/10/2020 05:08 AM EST


Last Saturday in Iowa, the day after an American MQ-9 Reaper dropped its ordnance on Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad, Joe Biden moved quickly to make himself the face of Democratic opposition to Trump’s drone strike. It was early evening at a Des Moines elementary school gymnasium, and despite the dip in temperature and the long lines to get inside, a larger and more engaged audience than the ones he attracted over the summer and fall was waiting for the former vice president.

It was a white-collar crowd—Des Moines-area lawyers and insurance industry professionals and a smattering of D.C. Obama veterans now in town to help Biden in the homestretch. The top lawyer at ICE under the last administration was there, and told me it was the first time he’d ever canvassed Iowa for a candidate.

ran had heightened the stakes. “#WWIII” was trending online and predictions of an all-out war were commonplace. Trump might now benefit from the halo that glows atop all wartime leaders, at least for a time. And the importance of the outcome of the Democratic primary—to say nothing of the country and the world— had suddenly ballooned. Would voters want an experienced hand whose position on world affairs is basically, “Trust me, I know what I’m doing” (Biden) or would they gravitate toward someone like Bernie Sanders, whose ringing calls to get the U.S. out of Middle East quagmires have the benefit of clarity, but make many a D.C. foreign-policy hand queasy? The answer may help determine who wins over the Democratic base, and perhaps the country, come November.

While waiting for Biden that evening in Des Moines, one of the pre-program speakers led the crowd in singing “God Bless America.” When he arrived, Biden the candidate still winked and shot finger guns at well-wishers and hugged them afterwards, but it was Biden the commander-in-chief that his advisers wanted on display. The former veep pilloried what he viewed as Trump’s recklessness and called for congressional authorization of any further military engagement with Iran. His aides began planning a major speech on the issue in New York for the following Tuesday.

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Politico

A candidate known for battling Bernie Sanders for the hearts of progressives is pitching her electability in the weeks leading up to Iowa.

By ALEX THOMPSON

01/09/2020 08:06 PM EST

Elizabeth Warren is often portrayed in media as a figure of the left-wing, locked in a battle with Bernie Sanders for the progressive base of the party. In fact, polling frequently shows she's the second choice not just of Sanders voters, but of Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg supporters, too.

Seeking a spark heading into the Iowa caucuses, Warren and her allies are making a surprising closing argument: That she’s best positioned to unite and excite the party — and is therefore the most electable.

It’s the first time Warren’s orbit has made the electability pitch so overtly. But the campaign has been quietly implementing that strategy since 2018, when Warren raised or donated $11 million to Democratic candidates and began drawing subtle distinctions with Sanders (She described herself as a "capitalist to my bones,” in contrast to Sanders preference for democratic socialism). Warren has also mostly abstained from attacking other Democrats in an attempt not to alienate supporters of other candidates. Her campaign staff reflects the approach, with a mix of officials from Sanders, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton’s past campaigns.

“She has gone above and beyond to convince establishment types that she is a team player and a Democrat,” said Ian Sams, the former national press secretary for Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign. “I don’t think they see her as a left-wing extremist, and they respect her seriousness and policy chops.”

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Politico

The former veep is more concerned about Sanders than he lets on.

By NATASHA KORECKI

01/09/2020 05:08 AM EST

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa — When Bernie Sanders attacked Joe Biden recently, the former vice president dismissed his former Senate colleague with a contemptuous brush-off.

“You guys expect me to take Bernie’s comments seriously? Come on,” Biden told reporters as he left an Iowa campaign event last week. “I don’t respond to Bernie’s ridiculous comments.”

But that’s Biden’s public posture.

Both in tactics and rhetoric, there are growing signs he takes his rival very seriously — and that he increasingly views Sanders as his most formidable opponent in Iowa and beyond.

The Biden campaign has specifically courted the endorsement of community leaders in Iowa who backed Sanders in 2016. They’ve sought to combat Sanders’ recent habit of rolling out star surrogates like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez with their own A-list surrogates. And last week, Biden’s five-day Iowa bus tour heavily concentrated on the eastern part of the state — the biggest regional battleground between the two candidates because of its concentration of working-class voters.

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