Bernie Sanders is currently behind Hillary Clinton by 23 points in RealClearPolitics’ average of national 2016 Democratic presidential primary polls and trails her by significant margins in three of the first four primary/caucus states. (He has a narrow lead in New Hampshire.) Given this gap, Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver’s assessment of Clinton in a Wednesday Bloomberg piece seems a tad bit crazy-delusional-insane:
He added, with a chuckle, “Look, she’d make a great vice president. We’re willing to give her more credit than Obama did. We’re willing to consider her for vice president. We’ll give her serious consideration. We’ll even interview her.”
Generous! To be fair, the Bloomberg piece notes that “Weaver was at least half-joking.” On the other hand, later in the piece Weaver refers to Clinton as “the quote-unquote front-runner,” while another adviser says she will “get run over by a Mack truck” if she engages in negative campaigning against Sanders. It’s a lot of bravado from a campaign that trails Clinton in the polls, in the race for endorsements, and even, despite its status as this cycle’s grassroots-fundraising phenomenon, in cash on hand. But then again, who knows? Maybe Sanders’ new strategy of criticizing Clinton’s past history of craven pandering will win him the next debate and create a tidal wave of fundraising and poll momentum. That’s his advisers’ story, at least, and for now they’re really sticking to it.
