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Sanders forces bargained for joint task forces that would make policy recommendations to the Biden team, but these have not materialized.
When Bernie Sanders effusively endorsed Joe Biden on April 13, there were audible sighs of relief among Democrats seeking unity against Trump. Progressives who accepted that Bernie couldn’t win were also reassured that Sanders forces had bargained hard for six joint task forces that would make policy recommendations for the Biden campaign.
Two weeks later, there is no sign of the task forces. Meanwhile, Biden has been having daily calls with his own team of economic advisers, who seem well entrenched.
If and when the task forces appear, they could be more like window dressing, detached from the campaign’s power centers. Sanders himself, who seems to be in a period of well-earned R and R, has hardly been heard from.
As I’ve reported, Biden’s economic-policy team includes several centrist and corporate veterans of the Obama-Clinton era, including Larry Summers. Just one person leaked by Biden people as a good candidate for the joint task forces, Heather Boushey, is actually on those calls, and she was selected quite independently of the task force process.
Meanwhile, in another part of the galaxy, the Biden campaign is resorting to technicalities in an effort to reduce the number of Sanders convention delegates. The rules provide that a candidate who clears the 15 percent threshold by district gets a proportional share of delegates, and a similar share by state. But the Biden campaign, which is understandably seeking control of the convention process, contends that since Sanders has folded his active campaign, he is not entitled to those state delegates.
If that interpretation is upheld by the DNC, Sanders will end up with about 300 fewer delegates. Why does that matter? Sanders won’t be the nominee—but if Sanders delegates are at least 25 percent of the total, then they will be represented on the important committees on platform and rules.
Meanwhile, Biden’s substantive positions have been shifting left, as shown in this startling exclusive interview with Politico, in which Biden sounds like Warren on steroids. That’s less the result of explicit commitments made to Sanders than the logic of the political situation, in which recovery from the pandemic requires drastic measures as well as enthusiastic voters.
