Bernie Sanders Soared Back To Life. But He Couldnt Close The Deal.

UPDATE: April 8 Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) announced he was dropping out of the presidential race.

PREVIOUSLY:

As Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) prepared for the third Democratic presidential debate in mid-September, his campaign was publicly facing the problem of what to do about Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), the fellow progressive who was ahead of him in Iowa polls and was picking up national momentum.

But behind the scenes, Sanders aides were worried about someone else: former Vice President Joe Biden . Internal polling showed Biden was their main competition for working-class voters of all races particularly those in middle age who werent yet firmly in any candidates corner.

A few days before the debate, Sanders pollster Ben Tulchin and speechwriter David Sirota drove up to Boulder, Colorado, where Sanders and his inner circle had holed up to prepare for the event in Houston. The two aides demanded an audience with Sanders to discuss a memo they had drafted with senior adviser Jeff Weaver and campaign co-chair and former Ohio state Sen. Nina Turner, in which they recommended that Sanders draw clearer contrasts with Biden. They wanted Sanders to bring it up in his opening statement in the debate, when he would be able to control the floor uninterrupted and set the tone for the night.

Sanders, who felt Biden had treated him kindly in Congress, had always been reluctant to take a more aggressive approach. He was also attuned to the risk of blowback when a candidate goes on the attack in a crowded field. But he left Sirota and Tulchin with the impression that he was willing to give it a try. A senior aide even followed up with the pair, asking them to draft an opening statement for Sanders.

Senior aides familiar with the debate preparation taking place before Tulchin and Sirota arrived have a different version of events. Sanders had been warming to the idea of going after Biden in the preparatory sessions, but grew more tentative after the visit. He was skeptical of shaping his message based on the advice of any pollster, and had been growing frustrated with Sirotas shoot-from-the-hip approach for some time.

Regardless, when the moment arrived, Sanders blinked. At the start of the debate, when ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos turned to him for his opening statement, Sanders, appearing lost in thought, didnt respond at first. It took a second prompt of Senator Sanders to get him to launch into his introductory remarks. Then, rather than take on Biden, Sanders delivered his usual denunciation of the shift toward an oligarchic form of society where a handful of billionaires control the economic and political life of the country.

His greatest strength is his greatest weakness, which is that his independence and stubbornness mean he is not agile enough to respond to shifting moods.
- Pro-Sanders progressive strategist

The moment encapsulated the frustrations of multiple groups of aides particularly Tulchin, Sirota and Turner who had pushed Sanders to contrast himself with Biden earlier and more consistently.

The flare-up over how aggressively to attack Biden, however, was just one of many schisms that plagued the Sanders campaign. Over the course of just 10 explosive days between the Nevada caucus on February 22 and Super Tuesday on March 3, that campaign cratered, with Sanders going from an unrivaled front-runner to a distant second-place contender, likely due to finish with far fewer delegates than he commanded in 2016.

HuffPost spoke to more than three dozen Sanders aides, allies and critics about why the progressive leader stumbled. Many of them requested anonymity to speak freely.

The answers they suggested are myriad. He failed to erect a campaign nimble enough to overcome the built-in challenges he was bound to face from a skeptical press corps and a hostile party establishment. He hung his electoral success on the relatively risky bet that he could both expand the electorate and do so in a way that would benefit him disproportionately. His staff feuded unnecessarily with Elizabeth Warren, and he failed to make inroads with older Black voters a repeat of 2016 dynamics.

Perhaps most significantly, Sanders failed to expand his core bloc of support into a coalition capable of winning a majority, and he did not adequately prepare for the prospect that moderates would consolidate behind Biden.

There was a strategy to get to 30% and not to 50%, one Sanders ally said.

Many of these shortcomings go back to a defining feature of Bernie Sanders political career: He is going to do it his way or not at all.

It was that stubborn, independent streak and a contempt for the normal political playbook borne of deeply held moral convictions that reignited a fearsome grassroots army and powered a shocking political comeback after a heart attack sidelined the senator in early October. In many ways, the mere fact that a 78-year-old democratic socialist who proudly refused to affiliate as a Democrat, even as he sought the partys presidential nomination a second time, emerged as a primary field front-runner was nothing short of amazing in its own right.

But it was those same characteristics that undermined Sanders effort to translate his movement into a White House berth.

His greatest strength is his greatest weakness, said a pro-Sanders progressive strategist, which is that his independence and stubbornness mean he is not agile enough to respond to shifting moods.