WAPO: Bernie Sanders's strange behavior [View all]

[ehrnst]

Perhaps the strangest thing about this is that Sanders isn't vouching for Ossoff's progressivism even as he's doing so for another Democrat of pretty questionable credentials. That would be Omaha mayoral candidate and former state senator Heath Mello, whom Sanders will campaign with Thursday.

As the Wall Street Journal's Reid J. Epstein and Natalie Andrews note, Mello in 2009 sponsored a bill that would require a woman to look at ultrasound images of her fetus before undergoing an abortion (he still opposes abortion rights). Indeed, it's tough to think of something that progressives would hate more.
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Yet Sanders defends his endorsement of Mello — whom he somewhat curiously refers to as “this fellow" (?) — by noting the terrain on which Democrats are trying to win.

“If this fellow wins in Nebraska, that would be a shot across the board, that in a state like Nebraska a progressive Democrat can win, that will give hope to folks in other conservative states that perhaps they can win as well,” Sanders said.

That entire justification could just as easily be applied to Ossoff, though. He is, after all, running in a district that Republicans have routinely won with more than 60 percent of the vote. Omaha is in Nebraska, yes, but President Obama won its congressional district and an electoral vote there in 2008, and a Mello victory would hardly be the boost that Ossoff's would be.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/04/20/bernie-sanderss-strange-behavior/?utm_term=.e804922b8cd4