Really we need a leftwing renaissance, and a leader who will move the pendulum back towards the Left, something Obama failed to (try to) do. After Bernie's heart attack and Liz's forerunnerocity, it would have been best if Warren's people told Bernie that the Dem establishment was never going to let him win, that milquetoast Biden was going to go back to the Obama playbook of moderate compromising tool. And if Liz and Bernie had joined forces with Liz declaring Bernie her Veep in waiting. if the progressives had united, then Biden and the establishment wouldn't have been able to stop them, if Bernie's folks truly got on board.
Bernie possibly too crotchety and uncompromising to do that, but if his heart condition had laid him up longer and made him miss a month of campaigning, he might have been amenable. The moderate Dem camp was weak, and the progressives needed to unite behind one candidate. The op was there.
Gotta disagree with you.
(a) Bernie would hever have listened. Never.
(b) With rare exception, the moderates outnumbered the progressives in state after state.
(c) Liz's apparent ascendency was no more real than Kamala's - neither of them was ever going to win a state. The Democratic Party was tired of fighting the gender wars. (You, too, Amy. No chance ever.) Putting her on the top of the ticket with Bernie as her avowed VP would not have gotten them anywhere. And too many of Bernie's folks had already branded her a corporatist or a traitor or anything but progressive enough. But it was moot - Bernie would never do it.
(d) Coronavirus. The change in Biden's standing had nothing to do with anything Biden did other than say "Ebola, Obama." He went from nearly dead to a huge lead in four or five days because people believe that
Joe will be better able to handle the country's needs in this crisis than
anybody available.
I have a couple Bernie lovers who are beside themselves in fury at the folks supporting the Democratic establishment because the betters have said that they think it more likely that Governor Cuomo (7.7%) or Hillary Clinton (6%) would become the nominee than Bernie Sanders (3%). Evidence things are rigged, say they. It's just the pandemic and nothing else.
They can't see it.
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I agree that if Bernie'd been out of the running, there would have been an opportunity for Liz, but I am pretty sure that as soon as the end of February rolled around, the same thing would have happened to her that happened to Bernie - she's have had her head handed to her.