New York Times editorial board member Mara Gay told MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace on Tuesday that she was surprised to find that Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s platform is “far more liberal” than President Obama’s and is “much more similar” to socialist Bernie Sanders, who lost the nomination to Biden.
“I think what’s funny, Biden’s platform is far more liberal than Barack Obama’s was years ago, and so when we looked at that as an editorial board, we were kind of blown away about how much more similar it is it Bernie Sanders’ platform in some ways than Barack Obama in 2008,” Gay said.
“I think culturally what Joe Biden needs to do, is he needs to say that he is the campaign of the big tent, and so, that might mean having, you know, Mitt Romney, even, at some point,” Gay said. “The message is, this is about more than politics. This is a year to vote for your democracy.”
Gay added that Democrats can have “substantive policy discussions later on” but need to win the election first.
“That goes beyond politics,” Gay said.
The Democrats and the Biden campaign have tried to paint the nominee as a centrist, but he has adopted many of the far-left programs of Sanders — a point Sanders alluded to at the Democratic National Convention, when he said that voting for Biden will keep the progressive ideas alive.
Biden also reassured the Left that he would support their ideas with his selection of Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) as his running mate. Harris is far more liberal than Biden and will likely be more of the face of the campaign to minimize the gaffes that Biden is prone to make.
The Biden campaign will be hard-pressed to argue that it is running a moderate campaign when even the New York Times says in essence that their platform is far left.
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