After Thursday night’s heated debate with Hillary Clinton in Brooklyn, Bernie Sanders chartered a Delta 767 flight to Rome for a one-day conference at the Vatican. He had in tow close to 50 people, among them his wife, four grandchildren, other family members, a group of campaign staff, and members of the press and secret service detail.
Sanders’s critics have panned him for the brief trip, dismissing it as a stunt aimed at attracting the Catholic vote in Tuesday’s New York primary. The trip, his critics argue, was unnecessary. He should have had the good sense to shun the Vatican invitation at a time when he needed to be on the stump in New York and do everything possible to pull off yet another win, even if a narrow one, against Clinton. After all, he had done a similar thing before in Michigan.
His critics are also hard put to see the wisdom in spending huge sums of money chartering a big plane designed to consume close to 17,000 gallons of fuel over a distance of 4, 435, just hours after he had condemned his opponent for her alleged ties to the big oil companies whose activities are damaging the environment terribly.
As I write this, Sanders may already be on his way back to New York to take up from where he left off.
I think such criticisms of the man are unfair. I think the old man needed some respite --- Sabbath let’s say --- from the heated campaign atmosphere that has suffused New York in recent days.
But that, however, is not the most valid of reasons why I think Sanders needed to get away for a day or two to recover from the exhaustion incendiary politicking. There is actually something infinitely more important than that. Sanders, you may have noticed in recent weeks, has veered pathetically off course from the kind of campaign he promised at the beginning --- issues-oriented campaign.
Instead, what you have witnessed for weeks now is analogous to the slash and burn brand of politics which the Republicans have shown themselves to be so adept at. Sanders and his surrogates are daily perfecting the art of ugly name-calling and character assassination of his opponent and those supporting her. You saw some of that at the Brooklyn debate. You had seen that also at the huge rally he held a night or so before the debate when one of his surrogates reached into the gutter and emerged therefrom with some rather unprintable words to vilify Clinton and members of the so-called Democratic “Establishment.” And of course, days before that rally, Jeff Weaver, one of his chief surrogates, accused Clinton of making a pact with the Devil. Can it ever get worse than that?
Sanders’s trip to the Vatican, hopefully, should provide him that crucially needed opportunity to peer into his own soul for a self-rediscovery. The candidate ought to rediscover his original self, that pukka Bernie Sanders who many, including myself, admired most tremendously when he launched his run for the White House last year. That real Sanders may long have been hijacked by a lot of factors, not the least of which is the avaricious desire of his top advisers to continue to earn the fat pay checks that come from his campaign’s huge online earnings. To do that, they have to drag out the fight, make it as nasty as possible to excite his fanatical faithful and, in return, rake in more money for their pain. Maybe a moment with Pope Francis or a moment of solitude inside the hallowed halls of the Vatican could --- who knows? --- usher in such a soul-searching moment Sanders badly needs now to guide him gingerly and splendidly back to the essential Bernie Sanders we once knew and fell in love with.
Mudiaga Ofuoku also blogs at www.mudiagaofuoku.com. He can also be followed on twitter @MudiagaO.
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