Poor Chuck Todd.

After a week of Todd using his MSNBC evening show Meet the Press Daily to assail the senator from Vermont, Bernie Sanders has won—clearly—in New Hampshire. It’s not if Todd hadn’t tried.

On Monday, Todd quoted conservative outlet the Bulwark, characterizing Sanders’s online following as “digital brown shirts,” essentially likening a Jewish politician’s supporters to Nazis. The Friday prior, Todd led a panel in hand-wringing over class warfare against billionaires. He has long had his crosshairs on Sanders. In May, he told the senator “the right will hammer and sickle you to death.” In 2015 after a shooting, he called Sanders, who has a D minus rating from the NRA, “pro-NRA.” And in December, he balked at the idea of refraining from the unjournalistic phrase “Bernie Bros,” asking, “What do we call them, Bernie siblings? Bernie people?” His guest suggested the obvious: “Bernie supporters.”

Of course, Todd is one among many in an anti-Bernie chorus. After the New Hampshire debate last week, his colleague Hardball host Chris Matthews went on a socialism rant, warning of “executions in Central Park” and exclaiming that “I might have been one of the ones getting executed”—perhaps revealing elite pundit anxiety that a growing consciousness about wealth inequality and its enforcers might turn on them. Matthews continued: “I don’t know who Bernie supports over these years, I don’t know what he means by socialism. One week it’s Denmark...Well, what does he think of Castro? That’s a great question.” On Morning Joe, James Carville, the old Clinton strategist, warned: “That’s it. If we go the way of the British Labour Party, if we nominate Jeremy Corbyn, it’s going to be the end of days.” Nevermind that Corbyn is deeply unpopular in the UK, with a net favorability rating of -40 percent according to YouGov polling, while Sanders is America’s most popular politician.

And all of that was just MSNBC.
After the New Hampshire results came in, political reporters and pundits put facts into linguistic pretzels, instead of just stating what the numbers did: That Sanders had won, taking the popular vote for two straight contests in a crowded field. Not all of it was pure ideological offense. New York Times politics reporter Jeremy Peters, tweeted: “Pete, after winning Iowa, is almost beating Bernie in a state Bernie won four years ago by 22 points. Under any normal standard of assessing the Democratic race, Pete would be called a frontrunner.” Likewise, Trip Gabriel also of the New York Times, also asserted an upside-down analysis tweeting, that the number one story of the night was Amy Klobuchar (who came in third) and the number two story of the night was Pete Buttigieg (who came in second) coming closer to Sanders than expected.

"My good friend Mike Bloomberg asked my good friend Henry Kissinger and me to represent him here today because ... he's made a decision to serve his country," said Paulson, who served at the end of George W. Bush's presidency.

The forum, which Bloomberg was originally slated to attend but backed out of at the last minute, is an exclusive gathering at a resort north of Beijing. Paulson was preceded by Chinese Vice President Wang Qishan.

The forum represents the limping globalist wing of the global political conversation — the presence of both Paulson, a former Goldman Sachs CEO, and Kissinger, a former secretary of state, spoke to that. Wang, echoing the themes of the conference, warned against the threats of protectionism, unilateralism, and populism.

On a panel on "staving off class warfare," Bloomberg's adviser and wealth manager Steven Rattner argued that the government's top priority should be "addressing the state of the average worker." If they don't, "we are going to have populism, it's going to take down capitalism, and it's all going to be worse off," he said.

Jerry Media, the promoter behind the botched Fyre Festival, is working with the presidential campaign of former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg in an effort to make the 77-year-old candidate look cool, The New York Times reports. The Meme 2020 project, led by Mick Purzycki, executive director of Jerry Media, has enlisted influencers with large followings to create content for the campaign and promote it to their audiences.

A Bloomberg campaign spokesperson did not provide answers to emailed questions from The Verge about the ad campaign, but offered a prepared statement: “Mike Bloomberg 2020 has teamed up with social creators to collaborate with the campaign, including the meme world. While a meme strategy may be new to presidential politics, we’re betting it will be an effective component to reach people where they are and compete with President Trump’s powerful digital operation.”

The former New York City mayor’s already run a relatively unorthodox digital campaign, including an awkward ice cream spot and a bizarre mid-debate tweet of “Meatball Mike.” The new ads, styled to look like direct messages, depict Bloomberg asking creators to make memes about him.

It’s the creative work of Jerry Media, better known by it’s controversial Instagram account, @fuckjerry, or better still as the promoter of the disastrous Fyre Festival in 2017. Astoundingly, this tactic of leveraging influencer accounts was exactly what Jerry Media had done in 2017, resulting in the FTC developing disclosure rules around influencer promotions.

Following his narrow victory in New Hampshire’s Democratic presidential primary — his second successive strong showing in the party’s first nominating contests — Sen. Bernie Sanders opened up a double-digit lead over former Vice President Joe Biden and entrenched himself as the best-positioned candidate heading into next week’s Nevada caucuses.

According to a Morning Consult poll conducted Wednesday, the Vermont independent is the first choice for 29 percent of Democratic primary voters, up 4 percentage points since polling conducted Feb. 4-9. Biden’s support fell 3 points during that time to 19 percent, leaving him 1 point ahead of former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg of Indiana, who placed second in New Hampshire but leads Sanders by a whisker in the race for Democratic National Convention delegates, saw no change in his first-choice support, while the Granite State’s third-place finisher, Amy Klobuchar, improved 2 points, to 5 percent. She trails Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) by 5 points.

The results are poor reading for Biden, who continues a dramatic drop that erases the national lead he held for over a year until his fourth-place showing in the Feb. 3 Iowa caucuses. The decline in Biden’s support comes amid faltering voter confidence over his perceived general-election strength, even as he banks his candidacy for the Democratic nod on the more diverse electorates driving nominating contests in Nevada and South Carolina ahead of Super Tuesday.

Bernie Sanders won the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday — with 90 percent of precincts counted, he had 26 percent of the vote, and networks declared him the victor. Sanders has won the popular vote in each of the first two contests in the Democratic primary and now has a lead in national polls. He is unquestionably the frontrunner for the nomination.

The win in New Hampshire, however, wasn't as big as many polls had predicted. Sen. Amy Klobuchar in particular drastically beat expectations, coming in at nearly 20 percent against a pre-election polling average of about 11 percent, while Pete Buttigieg also gained a couple points to 24 percent. Meanwhile, former Vice President Joe Biden got absolutely destroyed, just like in Iowa. He came in fifth with just 9 percent, compared to a polling average of 11 percent — and a total collapse from 23 percent just a month ago. It appears there is a significant population of voters who are just looking for any kind of moderate candidate who seems halfway plausible.

But the odd thing here is that a big number of these voters are almost certainly fine with Sanders — they have just talked themselves into thinking that he can't possibly win. Hey Democrats! You can just vote for Bernie Sanders if you want. It'll be okay.

It can be hard to see this if you watch too much of the hysterically anti-Sanders coverage on supposedly-liberal MSNBC — Chris Matthews recently spoke of his fear that Sanders is a secret communist who might execute him in Central Park — but the fact is most rank-and-file Democrats like Sanders just fine. Indeed, the Morning Consult poll found that his favorability rating among that group is 74 percent — the highest of any of the candidates, even better than Biden

Bernie Sanders won the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday — with 90 percent of precincts counted, he had 26 percent of the vote, and networks declared him the victor. Sanders has won the popular vote in each of the first two contests in the Democratic primary and now has a lead in national polls. He is unquestionably the frontrunner for the nomination.

The win in New Hampshire, however, wasn't as big as many polls had predicted. Sen. Amy Klobuchar in particular drastically beat expectations, coming in at nearly 20 percent against a pre-election polling average of about 11 percent, while Pete Buttigieg also gained a couple points to 24 percent. Meanwhile, former Vice President Joe Biden got absolutely destroyed, just like in Iowa. He came in fifth with just 9 percent, compared to a polling average of 11 percent — and a total collapse from 23 percent just a month ago. It appears there is a significant population of voters who are just looking for any kind of moderate candidate who seems halfway plausible.

But the odd thing here is that a big number of these voters are almost certainly fine with Sanders — they have just talked themselves into thinking that he can't possibly win. Hey Democrats! You can just vote for Bernie Sanders if you want. It'll be okay.

It can be hard to see this if you watch too much of the hysterically anti-Sanders coverage on supposedly-liberal MSNBC — Chris Matthews recently spoke of his fear that Sanders is a secret communist who might execute him in Central Park — but the fact is most rank-and-file Democrats like Sanders just fine. Indeed, the Morning Consult poll found that his favorability rating among that group is 74 percent — the highest of any of the candidates, even better than Biden

A new Gallup survey showing most Americans would not be willing to vote for a socialist also revealed that an overwhelming majority of Democratic voters said they would back a candidate like Sen. Bernie Sanders, who is leading in national polls.

More than three-quarters of Democratic voters surveyed—76%—told Gallup they would support a presidential candidate who identified as a socialist.

A large chunk of independent voters said they would back such a candidate, with 45% saying so, while only 17% of Republicans reported the same. Overall, 45% of 1,033 respondents said they would back a socialist in the poll, which had a margin of error of four percentage points.

The poll was released Tuesday as voters in New Hampshire head to the polls, a day after Sanders and one of his most high-profile surrogates, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), rallied more than 7,500 voters in Durham, New Hampshire.

Both politicians identify as democratic socialists and promote a vision of the U.S. which would more closely resemble other wealthy countries such as Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. Residents of those Nordic nations benefit from government-run healthcare which is free at the point of delivery and which has been shown to have better health outcomes for the population; public college that is tuition-free or nearly free; and robust labor protections including guaranteed paid family leave, vacation time, and unions.

"We're moving forward," Ocasio-Cortez said. "We're moving forward to a multiracial democracy, forward to guaranteed healthcare, forward to a living wage, for fighting for our neighbors."

Headlines regarding the survey suggested it had dire implications for a socialist candidate in the 2020 election, despite the fact that the majority of respondents with negative feelings about socialism would be less likely to support any Democratic candidate than the Democratic respondents.

As Common Dreams reported last October, an annual poll regarding attitudes about socialism revealed why Democratic voters aren't fearful of the word, despite fear-mongering by the corporate media and President Donald Trump about socialist countries.

"When Americans—especially millennials—think of 'socialism,' they primarily think about Bernie Sanders, Western European democracies, income equality, and access to healthcare," acknowledged the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation of the poll, which showed that 70% of U.S. millennials would back a socialist for president. "They also do not associate socialism with communism and authoritarianism."

Senator Bernie Sanders leads all the Democratic presidential candidates in support from non-white voters and has gained 10 points among black voters, according to new polls released Tuesday.

Former Vice President Joe Biden has long touted his support from minority–and particularly black–voters to demonstrate his electability for the Democratic party's nomination. But the candidate's support has appeared to slide dramatically among all demographics since his fourth-place finish in Iowa last Monday. Meanwhile, Sanders appears to be surging.

The independent senator from Vermont is backed by 28 percent of black, non-white Hispanic and Asian voters, according to the latest polling data from Monmouth University. Biden came in second with support from 20 percent, or 8 points less than Sanders.

A separate by Morning Consult, Sanders has gained 10 points in support among black voters, with 27 percent saying they now back the senator, as opposed to the 17 percent who were before the Iowa caucuses. Meanwhile, Biden's support from the vital demographic has dropped to just 35 percent, which still puts him ahead of Sanders by 8 percent.