So About “Honesty”
Watch this ad:
It’s from Bernie Sanders, and it’s called “Endorsed.” It lists a bunch of outlets that have endorsed Bernie — with quotes. But here’s the thing: two of the outlets in the 30 second spot — half of those shown — didn’t endorse him.
The first, from The Valley News, is from an editorial from before he announced for president. And the second…literally never happened. The text suggested the Nashua Telegraph had endorsed him. It hadn’t, and the executive editor of the paper was forced to tweet this:
Once they started getting bad press, they pulled the ad and replaced it. But look what’s still there:
Both of the non-endorsements. They’re still there. In an ad called “Endorsed.”
Oops?
Now, campaigns can (and will) make mistakes. But the same thing has happened over and over again.
In fact, they pulled the same ruse in Iowa, where they ran an ad featuring three newspaper endorsements they received — and in the middle, there was a surprise cameo from the Des Moines Register.
In other words, this evidently wasn’t a mistake. This was a strategy.
And believe it or not, there’s more!
In that same week, the Sanders campaign was caught using the AARP’s logo and a photo of their members in red AARP t-shirts as part of the campaign’s efforts in Iowa. The problem is that the AARP hasn’t endorsed Senator Sanders and isn’t planning to. They don’t endorse political candidates at all. To clear up the confusion, the AARP had to put out a statement distancing themselves from the Sanders campaign and explaining that “AARP did not authorize the Sanders campaign to mention AARP or use the AARP logo.”
Then, shortly after the AARP incident, the League of Conservation Voters called out the Sanders campaign for using its logo on campaign materials in Iowa, even though it only grants that permission to endorsed candidates. And in this election, LCV has endorsed Hillary Clinton — the group had to ask the Sanders campaign to stop.
Now, to this point we’ve been focusing exclusively on paid media. But the Sanders team has used misleading endorsements in their organizing efforts, too.
The Culinary Union
Last week we also learned that staffers on Senator Sanders’ campaign have been posing as hotel workers on the Las Vegas Strip in order to gain access to employee-only areas and try to win votes from Culinary Union members, effectively misleading them. Nevada’s top political reporter, Jon Ralston, wrote:
Culinary officials have been made aware of the faux union workers at four hotels…. The Sanders campaigners are wearing the distinctive yellow Local 226 pins, implying they are union members, to gain access to employee dining rooms. Beyond the obvious deception, union officials surely also are concerned about the implication that the organization has endorsed Sanders despite its recent pledge to remain neutral until after the caucus.
It is difficult for a big campaign to absolutely guarantee that none of its organizers will cross a line in a high-pressure situation. But when the Sanders campaign’s top official and his spokesman were confronted with evidence of what their staff had done, they gave what the same reporter called a “disingenous” “non-denial denial.”
The Culinary Union said in a statement that they were “disappointed and offended … It’s completely inappropriate for any campaign to attempt to mislead Culinary Union members, especially at their place of work.”
“I don’t have a SuperPAC.”
These false claims and implications of support were joined last week by new reporting from the New York Times that the Senator — who has, of course, made his opposition to spending by super PACs a cornerstone of his campaign, and says he does not have one — has actually gotten more super PAC funding than any other Democratic candidate.
That’s right: according to the New York Times, Sanders has received more independent expenditure support, measured by dollars, than Hillary Clinton, thanks to a union super PAC that often accompanies him to events in Iowa, hold events of its own, and runs advertising on his behalf. To date, they’ve spent almost $1 million for Senator Sanders, more than any super PAC supporting Hillary–which would presumably come as a big surprise to the millions of people who have heard him say or seen him tweet that he does not have a super PAC backing him.
It’s not clear if Senator Sanders himself is aware of all these incidents or would endorse this kind of conduct. But he and his campaign are ostensibly premised on the notion that he is not a typical politician, doesn’t have a super PAC, and always tells the truth. They very clearly aren’t living up to those standards.
Our campaigns have agreed on many issues, disagreed on others, and outright argued over a few. One thing there should be no disputing is that both sides deserve a fair fight, free of deceptions and misrepresentations — as, most importantly, do the voters whose trust we want to earn.
