The spin sold Bernie Sanders as a dedicated activist committed to the cause and uninterested in the personalities of politics. Like most spin, it's the opposite of the truth. Bernie Sanders is all ego. And we're finding out more of that.
“Bernie seems startled that people aren’t more deferential,” observed one Senate Democrat, who noted that Sanders was waiting for colleagues to come to him instead of going to them to initiate friendly chatter. “He thinks he’s bigger than just the Senate. He’s the head of a movement and his colleagues aren’t quite there.”
The notion that the White House hopeful is holding himself higher than his colleagues is reinforced by his decision to keep his Secret Service detail, at the reported cost of $38,000 a day — a subject of some grumbling among colleagues.
Sanders pulled up to the Capitol for a vote Wednesday morning in his motorcade, with police lights flashing and sirens wailing. The pomp didn’t necessarily befit a vote on an amendment to the commerce, justice and science appropriations bill.
But it does flatter his ego. And his ego defined the campaign.
Sanders is himself filled with resentment, on edge, feeling like he gets no respect -- all while holding on in his head to the enticing but remote chance that Clinton may be indicted before the convention.
Which is why he says that he probably won't be the nominee. Not that he certainly won't be.
"his guiding principle under attack has basically boiled down to a feeling that multiple aides sum up as: “Screw me? No, screw you.”
"and he takes personal offense every time Clinton just dismisses the possibility of picking him as her running mate"
"Sanders has been on email and the phone, directing elements of the campaign right down to his city-by-city schedule in California. He wants it. He thinks it should be his."
So he's still playing the big shot for as long as he can.