Bernie makes moves pointing to 2020 run
By GABRIEL DEBENEDETTI 11/27/2017 05:02 AM EST
Excerpts:
As Sanders monitors his post-2016 political group Our Revolution and the Democratic National Committee's reform efforts, he has also slightly expanded his tight circle of 2016 aides. Campaign manager Jeff Weaver has returned to the senator's political payroll after helping build Our Revolution — which still hosts Sanders' campaign email list and provides him a nationwide foothold.
In contrast to the run-up to 2016, the group of counselors also now includes pollster Ben Tulchin, who joined that year's campaign only after Sanders was persuaded that hiring a pollster was worth it. A pair of senior advisers in Sanders' Senate office have also joined. Rabin-Havt, a former Harry Reid aide, has been directing political outreach, and Matt Duss, former president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, is working on foreign policy.
Recognizing the senator’s post-campaign national platform and 99 percent name ID across the country — and aware that his status as a potential 2020 front-runner draws further eyeballs — his team has stopped sticking to just a few pet issues. Now it tries to inject him into as many productive national conversations as possible, sometimes with the support of his wife's new Sanders Institute think tank.
After resisting advisers’ pleas to give more foreign policy-oriented speeches during his campaign, Sanders has also now been working with Duss to build a public record on international affairs. That work has entailed more than just his trio of major public speeches on the topic this year — a February address to J-Street on Trump, Israel and anti-Semitism; a speech on authoritarianism, in June, at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; and a September talk at Missouri’s Westminster College to stress the importance of partnerships “not just between governments, but between peoples.”
https://www.politico.com/story/2017/11/27/bernie-sanders-2020-elections-258160
