Hours after praising socialist Senator Bernie Sanders prior to ABC’s Democratic presidential debate on Saturday night, ABC News political analyst Cokie Roberts completely reversed course on Sunday’s This Week and brushed off Sanders as unelectable and having shot at the nomination even if he wins both the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary in February 2016.
Leading into the debate Roberts touted how Sanders “is the longest-serving independent in Congress and he immediately set teeth on edge because he took on both parties in the House of Representatives and then when he went to the Senate.”
Citing a speech he gave in 2010 denouncing the tax and spending deal forged by congressional leadership and Vice President Biden as an example, Roberts declared that Sanders has “always been sort of putting it to the leadership in a way that people would not have expected him to get this far.”
Returning to comment on the 2016 race the next morning on ABC’s This Week, Roberts shrugged off the possibility of Sanders winning the first two states as well as the impact of that scenario:
He has to be good to win Iowa and New Hampshire, Wait, if you win Iowa and New Hampshire, but then what? I mean, it doesn’t go anywhere.....then what? I mean, you still have a 74-year-old Democratic socialist who is too far to the left to win a general election and so what you have to figure out is, if he's going to be winning the Democratic nomination, is there somebody else?
Also during the “Powerhouse Rountable” segment, ABC News political analyst and former Bush/Cheney campaign official Matthew Dowd lamented the current state of the Republican Party in which there’s no place for Jeb Bush because of fellow candidates like Ted Cruz and Donald Trump moving the party to the right:
The problem Jeb has, here’s the problem Jeb has. he's a very decent man, he's a great leader and governor of Florida. It's not the same Republican Party anymore. The Republican Party now, the mainstream of the Republican Party is represented by Ted Cruz and Donald Trump. When you take a look at their stands on immigrants, exactly the same. Their stance on Muslims? Exactly the same. And so, when you take a look at that, Jeb Bush does not fit the Republican Party of 2015.
The relevant portions of the transcript from ABC’s This Week on December 20 can be found below.
ABC’s This Week
December 20, 2015
10:50 a.m. Eastern
COKIE ROBERTS: He has to be good to win Iowa and New Hampshire, Wait, if you win Iowa and New Hampshire, but then what? I mean, it doesn’t go anywhere?
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Oh wait. If you win Iowa and New Hampshire, it’s a new race.
ROBERTS: No, no, if wins — but, then still, then what? I mean, you still have a 74-year-old Democratic socialist who is too far to the left to win a general election and so what you have to figure out is, if he's going to be winning the Democratic nomination, is there somebody else?
MATTHEW DOWD: I actually don't think he's far to the left to win the general election. In the course of America today, there's no conservatives left in the Democratic Party and there's no liberals left in the Republican Party at all. They’ve both bonded to the polarized ends of the spectrum and if Bernie Sanders happens to win it, which I think is very difficult, he actually could beat somebody like Donald Trump if Donald Trump is the nominee.
(....)
10:53 a.m. Eastern
MATTHEW DOWD: The problem Jeb has, here’s the problem Jeb has. he's a very decent man, he's a great leader and governor of Florida. It's not the same Republican Party anymore. The Republican Party now, the mainstream of the Republican Party is represented by Ted Cruz and Donald Trump. When you take a look at their stands on immigrants, exactly the same. Their stance on Muslims? Exactly the same. And so, when you take a look at that, Jeb Bush does not fit the Republican Party of 2015.
