Why Biden Plays Nice With Bernie--and Keeps Ripping Warren

[comradebillyboy]

Joe Biden is sharing the presidential primary’s top tier with two progressive senators. One, he says, levied an unprompted attack against his commitment to the Democratic Party and exhibits “elitist” behavior. The other, he stresses with striking frequency, is “honest” and, in the most Senate-speak way, a friend.

snip

“I know genuinely the senator does have a respect for Vice President Biden,” a senior Sanders 2020 campaign adviser told The Daily Beast. “They’ll joust on the debate stage, that’s as far as it will go.”

In contrast, his relationship with Warren, dating back at least 17 years, is illustrated in vivid detail during a 2005 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing over a bankruptcy bill that Biden supported and Warren was adamantly against. There were several terse exchanges leaving little doubt what the two thought of each other. But even before that hearing, Warren was not a fan. In her 2003 book, The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Parents Are Going Broke, Warren wrote that Biden’s support of the bill that she believed hurt low-income women in particular was hypocritical. “Senators like Joe Biden should not be allowed to sell out women in the morning and be heralded as their friend in the evening,” she wrote. In 2013, when Warren was being sworn into the Senate, Biden quipped: “You gave me hell.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/biden-is-facing-two-progressives-but-only-one-makes-his-blood-boil?ref=home

[PubliusEnigma]

1. Because Bernie is safely extremist. Warren keeps trying to sound more reasonable.

[comradebillyboy]

5. Warren was doing a good job of sounding more reasonable until September

or thereabouts. Lately she seems to be trying to go to the left of Bernie which is, in my opinion, her biggest mistake in an otherwise excellent campaign.

[Thekaspervote]

7. Agree.. she really boxed herself in. If she backs down her base will desert her and current attempts

To explain financing for mfa and wealth tax isn’t playing well at all

[PubliusEnigma]

11. a self-inflicted wound

Just like trying to prove genetics to a bunch of morons who believe the lies of Donald Trump.

[crazytown]

2. I don't think there is a lack of respect

Both are professional politicians. Warren is as famous for her sharp language as Biden is for working well with people he has serious differences with. As for why Biden has been ripping Warren - she's dangerous politically, having challenged him in the polls. Sanders has been safely chugging along at 15-17%, and few commentators see him winning the nomination

[TidalWave46]

3. Hard not to play nice with an old man who just had a heart attack.

Sanders is also not a threat as Warren is. I also question that Biden "keeps ripping Warren." Lots of sensitive people out there.

[BeyondGeography]

4. Took some time for the writer to get to the point

Biden’s “more worried about her candidacy than he is about Sanders’,” Andy Smith, a University of New Hampshire pollster, said about Warren. “They don’t think Sanders is as much of a threat.”

And:

“A stronger Bernie means a weaker Warren,” Sean McElwee, co-founder of Data for Progress, a nonprofit progressive think tank, said. The senior Sanders adviser echoed that point, adding that Biden and Sanders both pull from a similar coalition of working class voters.

“From a political standpoint, it does not benefit Vice President Biden,” the senior Sanders’ adviser said about attacking the Vermont senator.

The bits about Bernie scoring higher on honesty are pretty funny, since Warren has put out her cost and revenue plan for MFA and Bernie is on the record as saying he doesn't have to.

[BlueMTexpat]

6. Good points.

Especially the last one.

[comradebillyboy]

8. Well Warren does have much better chance of winning the nomination

than the other candidates. She's definitely the biggest threat to Biden.

[BeyondGeography]

9. Good reporting in the article

Much higher than average. Thanks for posting.

[comradebillyboy]

10. It was definitely a superior piece of political reporting, both informative and

interesting without obvious bias.

[The Valley Below]

12. I'd put that in the past tense--as in--"had a better chance."

That ended with the doubling down on MFA in my estimation and the slide in her popularity that followed directly from that decision.

The great mass of Democrats are in no mood for political suicide in 2020.

[Jose Garcia]

13. Bernie isn't a threat. Warren is.

[OldRed2450]

14. I think Joe and Bernie genuinely like each other

[myohmy2]

15. everybody...

...everywhere is minimizing and/or ignoring Bernie...why?

...because Bernie represents systemic change...because Bernie resonates with huge blocks of dissatisfied voters...because Bernie speaks the unvarnished truth...because Bernie methodically keeps moving ahead unifying and solidifying a nationwide movement...

...it's not about Bernie, it's about us...

...remember how they minimized and ignored trump?

...we can do it...