Sanders may be the only fighting chance Democrats have
In many ways, socialist Bernie Sanders is the Left’s only answer to Donald Trump. Which is why the President and those around him are taking the threat so seriously, writes Miranda Devine.
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Of all Donald Trump’s putative Democratic rivals, 78-year-old socialist Bernie Sanders is the one the President’s son Don Jnr regards as the strongest.
“There’s part of me that wants to run against a communist,” the 42-year-old said in Iowa this week.
“But he also has the same sort of energy that Trump has, and people made that mistake before. Four years ago we had zero per cent chance of being where we are today. No one should [underestimate] Bernie.
“At least he’s genuine. Dangerous, but at least he’s consistent,” he said.
“Part of me also wants to fight against Joe Biden, because it’s one thing to hide him, as they have, in a field of 17 when he’s speaking to 20 people with a teleprompter. But how do you go up against Donald Trump one-on-one for three, five debates, on TV every day? And if Joe Biden knew how to fix America why didn’t he tell Obama? If Joe Biden is campaigning on this notion that government has failed you, what did he do about it for fifty years in politics?”
Another Republican who doesn’t discount Sanders’ electoral appeal is North Carolina congressman Mark Meadows, who also flew to Iowa to represent the President on Caucus Day.
Sanders “is much more difficult to beat just because he’s able to run on an anti-Establishment, drain the Swamp, platform. He’s a left-wing populist and when you’re giving away everything for free and not saying how you’re paying for it and the people who are getting the free things don’t care how you pay for it, it’s hard to compete with that.”
“At least some of the other [Democrats] are intellectually honest enough to say [Sanders’ $50 trillion giveaway is] not fiscally viable. And yet in campaign mode Bernie connects better than [fellow socialist] Elizabeth Warren or … Joe Biden. Joe is an engaging kind of guy personally but when he’s on the campaign trial he seems to have lost all his mojo.”
Still to join the presidential race proper is billionaire Mike Bloomberg. But Trump has been lashing the 77-year-old media mogul with nicknames such as “mini-Mike” for his short stature.
“Now he wants a box for the debates to stand on … why should he be entitled to that?” Trump, 73, riffed on Fox News before the Super Bowl.
Bloomberg, who is sitting out the Iowa caucuses, responded yesterday by calling Trump a “pathological liar.”
“I stand twice as tall as he does on the stage, on the stage that matters … I think Donald Trump knows that I can beat him.”
The former New York mayor is billed by most media as the most formidable foe for Trump, mainly because of his $1 billion-plus personal war chest.
But, as Trump’s 2016 campaign manager Corey Lewandowski says, if money were all that mattered, “Hillary Clinton would have won in 2016” because she outspent Trump four to one.