Bernie out, Liz in at CAP's Ideas Conference

[james_1957]

Poor, Bernie. Not only is his wife being investigated for bank fraud, the Left just told him he's no longer in their future plans.

In the battle over ideas in the Democratic party, it’s clear the moderates aren’t getting much quarter. This was on display at the “Ideas Conference” held Tuesday by the Center for American Progress, the central policy and personnel clearinghouse for Democratic administrations. Just before the event, the think tank released “A Marshall Plan for America”—an ambitious jobs guarantee via “a large-scale, permanent program of public employment and infrastructure investment.”

The racially and gender-diverse main speakers ranged from the liberal to the very liberal. Senator Elizabeth Warren gave a strong lunch keynote demanding strong antitrust enforcement to break up concentrated economic power. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand extolled the necessity of paid family leave, Senator Cory Booker demanded universal healthcare, Senator Kamala Harris called for the total decriminalization of marijuana and the election of “progressive prosecutors” nationwide, Representative Keith Ellison called Trump’s voter fraud commission a scam and a “set-up,” and Senator Jeff Merkley demanded a green transformation of the energy economy that would put “every coal electricity-generating plant into a museum by the year 2050.”

Many of these speakers, particularly the ones gifted a “keynote” speaking slot, are widely rumored to be seeking the White House, and the mainstream media portrayed the event as a cattle call for 2020 candidates.

But there was an awkward absence: Senator Bernie Sanders. He was not invited to the “Ideas Conference,” and his exclusion makes clear that while Democrats are converging around a general set of ideological principles, the party still faces some serious coalition-building problems.

https://www.thenation.com/article/why-bernie-sanders-wasnt-invited-to-caps-ideas-conference/