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 dont get to lose a whole bunch of key primaries by wide margins and then declare, Yeah, but we werent really trying. If these eight nominating contests have left the Sanders campaign at a disadvantage theyre unlikely to overcome, its actually incumbent on his top aides and strategists to explainwhy they didnt make more of an effort in these states.
Its easy to imagine folks from Team Clinton saying they werent exactly going all out to win in Idaho and Utah states Sanders won easily but competitive candidates for national office dont get to use that as an excuse when things arent going as well as theyd like.
At its root, Devines argument is that Team Sanders identified a series of early, delegate-rich states, but they chose not to bother with them. Thats not just a bad argument; its the kind of message thats probably going to irritate quite a few Sanders supporters who expect more from their team.
Making matters slightly worse, Tad Devines pitch isnt 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, its 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.
Dont be too surprised if Devine walks back his comments today. Its 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