Tad Devine's 42 State Strategy?

[CalvinballPro]

Did he really just brag to reporters that the Sanders campaign actively chose not to compete in certain states? No wonder this donation-leeching consultant has 4 failed presidential campaigns under his belt. Bernie's will make it a solid 0-for-5 record on Devine's old campaign scorecard.

And now the Sanders campaign has a list of "secret super-delegates" who are "ready to back Bernie," just not publicly yet, because... reasons, apparently. Right, like that's not a classic failing (or flailing, take your pick) campaign tactic right there. Why would the candidate with only 30-odd super-delegates publicly behind him so far want to announce that more had come to his side, right?

[LexVegas]

1. He is maximizing his paycheck. nt

[morningfog]

3. Bernie and Devine hate! Get your early morning hate on here!

You left out grifter and racist. This OP could have been so much more!

[Armstead]

6. Yes the OP poster missed the oppoirtunity to pack more meaningless memes into it

But the day is young

[Gothmog]

4. Bernie Sanders’ campaign offers awkward take on state of the race

This is a good report on the silliness of the Sanders campaign claim http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/bernie-sanders-campaign-offers-awkward-take-state-the-race

But as a rule, presidential campaigns don’t get to lose a whole bunch of key primaries by wide margins and then declare, “Yeah, but we weren’t really trying.” If these eight nominating contests have left the Sanders campaign at a disadvantage they’re unlikely to overcome, it’s actually incumbent on his top aides and strategists to explainwhy they didn’t make more of an effort in these states.

It’s easy to imagine folks from Team Clinton saying they weren’t exactly going all out to win in Idaho and Utah – states Sanders won easily – but competitive candidates for national office don’t get to use that as an excuse when things aren’t going as well as they’d like.

At its root, Devine’s argument is that Team Sanders identified a series of early, delegate-rich states, but they chose not to bother with them. That’s not just a bad argument; it’s the kind of message that’s probably going to irritate quite a few Sanders supporters who expect more from their team.

Making matters slightly worse, Tad Devine’s pitch isn’t altogether accurate. In Virginia, for example – one of the eight primaries in which he says Team Sanders chose not to compete – plenty of campaign watchers know the senator actually made an effort in the commonwealth and lost anyway. The senator also campaigned in Texas, which is another one of the states Devine said the campaign wrote off.

As for the argument that Sanders wins “in every place that we compete with her,” even taken at face value, it’s not an especially compelling argument: Team Sanders made a real effort to win in states like Arizona, Nevada, Ohio, and Massachusetts, but he lost in each of them.

Don’t be too surprised if Devine walks back his comments today. It’s just not a message that does Team Sanders any favors.

Update: Devine also said the Sanders campaign chose to compete for state victories, rather than compete for delegate victories. I have no idea why the campaign would deliberately choose to compete by the wrong metric that would lead to defeat, but if I were a die-hard Sanders backer, this kind of rhetoric would be incredibly frustrating.

This excuse is so very weak

[CalvinballPro]

7. Sanders should sue Devine for fraud at this point.

Devine also said the Sanders campaign chose to compete for state victories, rather than compete for delegate victories.

Tad Devine has been involved with 4 prior Democratic presidential campaigns. He should have known that delegates matter more than "state wins," and yet it's as if he's been telling Sanders the exact opposite this whole time. And Bernie seems to have believed him, because he and the campaign are most definitely on the same page when it comes to this whole "momentum instead of delegates" strategy they've been pushing since the weekend.

Tad Devine has committed political malpractice on the Sanders campaign. Even worse, he's being paid $500K per month to do it, all funded by Bernie's small donors. The whole Sanders campaign looks like a Ponzi scheme now.

[riversedge]

5. Good one. ha ha. Fits the Sanders/Devine camp brilliantly

[uponit7771]

8. Devines reddit account right now is getting all types of replies... sigh