To Rebound and Win, Bernie Sanders Needs to Leave His Comfort Zone – By Matt Taibbi (Rolling Stone) / March 6 2020
Current and former staffers say Sanders has run a great campaign — except when it comes to taking on Democrats like Joe Biden by name. Can he fix that?
A former aide to Bernie Sanders tells a story about the old days, when the little-known House Independent used to crisscross Vermont holding town hall meetings.
“It was morning to night, and we’d hit every corner of the state,” the aide recalls. “They would go on and on. I’d say to him, ‘Bernie, it’s okay if we leave a little bit on the table in some of these places. But he wouldn’t hear of it.”
Popular democracy to Sanders is a relationship where everyone gets a chance to be heard. Even though the aide worried that Bernie wasn’t optimizing his use of time, he admired his dedication. “At the end of the day, he’s a good man,” the aide says. “He cares about poor people. How many people really care about the poor?”
But as Bernie’s popularity and influence grew, it seemed all he wanted to do was scale up the regime of town meetings.
“It’s like the Steve Martin movie, The Jerk,” the aide says. “He’s born in a shack. Then, when he hits it big, he builds a shack-mansion.”
Continue to article: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/bernie-sanders-attack-joe-biden-democratic-primary-963934/
