As the results of the Democratic New Hampshire primary rolled in Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, NBC claimed that the supposed “moderate lane” of the liberal field was getting “a little wider,” while wondering how voters could “coalesce” around alleged “centrist” candidates and prevent socialist Senator Bernie Sanders from getting the Democratic nomination.
During a brief prime time special report Tuesday night on the election results, Meet the Press moderator Chuck Todd observed: “And the combined total of [Pete] Buttigieg and [Amy] Klobuchar tells you that Bernie Sanders, while winning here, has got a long way to go to build a coalition to win this nomination.” Nightly News anchor Lester Holt concluded: “The moderate lane appears a little wider tonight.”
Moments earlier, Todd laughably attempted to cite evidence of Senator Klobuchar’s moderation: “Among those we asked, ‘Do you want the next president to return to Barack Obama’s policies or change to more liberal policies?,’ Amy Kobuchar won essentially the Barack Obama vote....she won the, ‘Let’s go back to the Obama policies.’” As if Barack Obama was somehow a “moderate” Democrat.
The “moderate” Klobuchar actually wants to radically expand abortion and has expressed interest in packing the Supreme Court with left-wing judges.
On Wednesday’s Today show, co-host Savannah Guthrie fretted to political analyst and former Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill: “Claire, I think it’s fair to say you’re – you represent the centrist left. So assuming that’s the case, what does your lane of the party do here?” The anchor continued: “How do you decide, ‘Okay, we need one standard-bearer here or it’s going to be Bernie Sanders’?”
McCaskill, who only had a lifetime American Conservative Union score of 12 while in the Senate, insisted: “I think there are folks out there that will hopefully convince some of these candidates to coalesce after Super Tuesday....a lot more people are voting for a more moderate, pragmatic approach to the problems we face than some of the things that Bernie is advocating.”
Also appearing on the NBC morning show, National Review editor Rich Lowry provided a desperately needed reality check as he pointed out how far left the Democratic Party has moved in recent years:
Bernie is not a fringe candidate in the Democratic Party. He has set the ideological terms of the debate for three or four years straight now. And if you look at the polling, the Democratic rank and file is not as freaked out at the prospect of Bernie winning as the Democratic elite lead is.
Guthrie worried: “Don’t you think the right, don’t you think the President, they want to run against Bernie Sanders?” Lowry replied in part: “Yeah, he’s clearly the riskiest choice....he has the most baggage. He’d be the candidate that Trump would most easily be able to make most radioactive.”
On Tuesday’s Today show, Washington correspondent Andrea Mitchell feared that the divide among Democratic “moderate candidates” could be a “recipe potentially for disaster.”
With a socialist like Sanders seeming to now represent the Democratic Party, the media must work overtime to portray the rest of the candidates as “moderate” in an attempt to keep voters from getting scared off.
Here is a transcript of Guthrie’s February 12 discussion with McCaskill and Lowry:
7:08 AM ET
(...)
SAVANNAH GUTHRIE: Claire, I think it’s fair to say you’re – you represent the centrist left. So assuming that’s the case, what does your lane of the party do here? I mean, you’ve got Biden, does somebody need to talk to him about potentially deciding not to go forward with the race? He’s hanging everything on South Carolina. I mean, how do you coalesce? How do you decide, “Okay, we need one standard-bearer here or it’s going to be Bernie Sanders”?
CLAIRE MCCASKILL: I think there are folks out there that will hopefully convince some of these candidates to coalesce after Super Tuesday. But remember, our party is not winner-take-all.
RICH LOWRY: It can stretch for a long time.
MCCASKILL: Every – it can go for a while. And even after Super Tuesday, we will still only have about half of the delegates selected. So this may go for a while. But eventually, I think they will be – if you look, a lot more people are voting for a more moderate, pragmatic approach to the problems we face than some of the things that Bernie is advocating.
LOWRY: True. But also, Bernie is not a fringe candidate in the Democratic Party. He has set the ideological terms of the debate for three or four years straight now. And if you look at the polling, the Democratic rank and file is not as freaked out at the prospect of Bernie winning as the Democratic elite lead is.
GUTHRIE: Well, that’s a nice way of putting it. Don’t you think the right, don’t you think the President, they want to run against Bernie Sanders?
LOWRY: Yeah, he’s clearly the riskiest choice. I wouldn’t discount his ability to win a general election, anything can happen. But clearly, he has the most baggage. He’d be the candidate that Trump would most easily be able to make most radioactive.
(...)
