A poll released on Friday showed Bernie Sanders leading Iowa for the first time. On Saturday, a story was run in Politico, by Sanders reporter Holly Otterbein and Warren reporter Alex Thompson.
Scoop: Bernie stealthily goes negative on Warren w/ a volunteer script to tell Warren-leaning voters that she only appeals to the "affluent"/"highly-educated" &
"She's bringing no new bases into the Dem Party" (I re-typed script below to protect sourcing) https://t.co/4IxNYNosrO pic.twitter.com/afussXPPlB— Alex Thompson (@AlxThomp) January 12, 2020
Now, this allegation was immediately refuted by a number of Sanders volunteers, who had canvassed, phone banked, and texted for him and never seen any such script as this. It eventually came out that a random volunteer uploaded the script to Slack, whereupon it was rejected by he campaign and other volunteers.
Bernie Sanders volunteer hits back:
Here’s what actually happened. A random user who’s only ever posted once before posted that document in the Sanders volunteer Slack group. A moderator promptly removed it and stated that it was NOT a campaign source. https://t.co/gt2xSvQNX5
— eric isaac (@ericisaac) January 12, 2020
Somehow, it leaked from this to Politico, who immediately ran with it.
But what’s more, Elizabeth Warren and her new surrogate Julian Castro immediately seized the opportunity…
Warren hits back: “I was disappointed to hear that Bernie is sending his volunteers out to trash me. Bernie knows me and has known me for a long time…I hope bernie reconsiders and turns his campaign in a different direction.” Also notes the “factionalism” caused by 2016 https://t.co/ER0Vm6sgJS pic.twitter.com/N8prZdeZk9
— Alex Thompson (@AlxThomp) January 12, 2020
…and weirdly, a whole lot of Politico’s staff seems to be trying to coordinate this attack on Bernie Sanders.
Sanders is betting that Biden and Warren supporters will swallow his disdain for them if he’s the nominee. Which they probably will. Then, to govern, he’ll need those people to canvass, march, donate, vote in ‘22. Which makes his scorched earth strategy a terrible, myopic idea.
— Joshua Zeitz (@JoshuaMZeitz) January 12, 2020
Response from Bernie trolls the last 12 hours is divided b/t:
1. GOOD. Everything we’re saying is true. Where’s the lie?
2. Apologize and retract! The Bernie campaign would never do that.— Alex Thompson (@AlxThomp) January 12, 2020
(“Bernie trolls”– good old Objective Journalism at work!)
How was the Warren camp so prepared for this story? Did they coordinate with Politico? Is Politico in the tank for Elizabeth Warren? There’s some evidence…
Joshua Zeitz is an editor at politico and just deleted this tweet.
Politico is in the bag for Warren and that's exactly why they manufactured this controversy. pic.twitter.com/kXLYOoHquK
— Sultaan of Agrabah🕊️ #Bernie2020 (@RogueSultaan) January 12, 2020
alex is a maxed out donor to the warren campaign https://t.co/40GtIHwgXG
— banned🚩⭐️🚩memes (@nickbiddle) January 13, 2020
Reminder that Warren claimed ignorance of @AlxThomp's story about a dark money group backing IA earlier this year, but seems well-briefed on this AT 'scoop.'https://t.co/2Q88Dq5jeLhttps://t.co/iN67G1wTo6
— Every nimble plane is a policy failure. (@KindAndUnblind) January 12, 2020
So we have what appears to be a manufactured, coordinated controversy between Politico and the Warren campaign in an attempt to smear Bernie Sanders.
And we’ve seen in the past that Politico will resort to outright anti-semitism in their Sanders coverage. Hell, they don’t even care when their own coverage contradicts itself, manufacturing a controversy about something their own reporters have said:
— beth, purity test enthusiast (@bourgeoisalien) January 12, 2020
Might their editorial direction be influenced by ownership? Say, if they were founded by a millionaire banker who made his money in shady ways?
Before he started Politico, Robert Allbritton and his father Joe ran a bank that eventually was sold amidst charges of laundering money for Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. They settled the Spanish case in 2005 for $9,000,000.https://t.co/mcrbuhnmf3
— Gregory Pecked (@Gregory_Pecked) May 24, 2019
And the New York Times picked this up, too, letting “a top Warren endorser” speak anonymously, somehow engaging in the same “divisive” behavior anti-Bernie Democrats constantly accuse Sanders of, and once again trying to push an absolutely ahistorical retelling of the 2016 primary:
“Doesn’t surprise me about Bernie,” said a top Warren endorser in Iowa. “He went straight to the gutter with Hillary. More of the same.” https://t.co/uY4Zz5LlFk
— Shane Goldmacher (@ShaneGoldmacher) January 12, 2020
The Warren campaign and the anti-Bernie media are getting desperate. Don’t be discouraged. If anything, this means they realize we’re a genuine threat. (Luke Savage predicted this in Jacobin this week.) Keep organizing, volunteering, canvassing, phone banking, and the rest. We’re going to win if we can get everyone who’s passionate about Bernie 2020 to dedicate some energy to the on-the-ground effort.