On Thursday, speaking on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” former Barack Obama campaign manager Jim Messina bluntly stated that Senator Bernie Sanders would be the “worst candidate in the general election,” and that Sanders’ message is “going to get him killed” in the election.
The segment began with host Mika Brzezinski asking, “And Jim Messina, it’s interesting first of all those numbers against who beats Trump is (sic) exactly what you’re focused on; ’cause that’s what you feel most voters care about right now and those are the numbers that can be depended on. But what about youth voters; can they be depended on not just to show their opinions, but to show up at the polls?”
Messina answered, “It is the great question. When you start to look at modeling who’s going to be the electorate in this primary, the question is who’s gonna actually turn out to vote in this election. I think those numbers Mika showed are actually stunning because over fifty percent of voters under thirty favor a candidate over seventy years old. You add up Bernie, Elizabeth, and Biden, and they’re over fifty percent among young candidates.”
He continued, “It says that electability matters; it says that issues matter. This has always been Bernie’s big calling card: that he can get the youth out. We just had the highest turnout in a midterm election in a hundred years with the young voters. The question is: Are these folks coming in a very big way, and if they do, it will change the electoral math.”
MSNBC’s Mike Barnicle posited, “You know what’s interesting and understandable, I think, about those numbers among millennials is the devotion to Bernie Sanders is clearly understandable. The large part, I think, because of his consistency over the years on issues. They value consistency; it makes him unlike other, in their minds, politicians. And don’t underestimate the fact that Bernie, a lot of what he says, the messages, basically you can live your life for free, we’ll have free college tuition, we’ll have free this, we’ll forgive your student debts, it’s a powerful message.”
Messina then savaged Sanders, saying, “It is, but in the general election it’s a message that I think is going to get him killed. I mean I — you know, I think he’s the worst candidate in the general election for exactly that reason.”
Co-host Willie Geist: “You think Bernie is the worst candidate?”
Messina: “Oh, I don’t think there’s a question about it. I think it’s very clear to me that with these swing voters that I care about, the Trump, Obama voters in the Midwestern states, Bernie Sanders is not the candidate we need to beat Donald Trump in November.”
As The Daily Wire reported on Thursday:
“Former President Barack Obama has remained mostly silent through the early stages of the Democratic race to unseat Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election but that may soon change, friends and associates tell FOX Business, as avowed socialist Bernie Sanders gains in national polls and seems poised to obtain front-runner status,” Fox Business reported on Friday. “He has recently grown even more wary of Sanders as the Vermont senator appears to be gaining momentum in polls and the Democratic primaries begin to heat up with the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary both in February.”
H/T Mediaite