Can Our Revolution Be His?
By 
Bernie Sanders’s new group is off to a somewhat rocky start:
Bernie Sanders has launched Our Revolution, a new group meant to support progressive causes. In doing so, they’re also promising to “revitalize American democracy” and “elevate the political consciousness.” All of which sounds great, and crucial, and they will probably be right on it, as soon as they replace the majority of the staff, who have resigned almost instantly.
Some of this initial rough patch seems to be connected to choices made by Sanders. In particular, Jeff Weaver, sort of the Mark Penn of the left, is predictably alienating a lot of staffers and causing resignations over Sanders’s personal entreaties. But as Merlan says, there are broader issues with this kind of enterprise that aren’t really about Bernie per se:
Politico reports that the board, which is chaired by Jane Sanders, was growing “increasingly concerned about campaign finance questions being raised over the last week.” Questions like, how does a political nonprofit founded by and closely linked to a sitting U.S. senator operate legally, even if Sanders isn’t directly running the show?
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The nonprofit status also means the group can’t give money directly to candidates. And the arrangement is deeply ironic, given that 501 (c)(4) designations are usually pursued by people who don’t want to disclose their donors. The most infamous example is Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS, which managed to get itself qualified as a nonprofit “social welfare group” despite being run by Karl Rove.
There are, in other words, structural reasons why major activist groups tend not to be led by sitting politicians: doing so limits what they can do and limits their leverage. If Our Revolution or a similar group of set of groups is going to be successful — and finding a way to harness Sanders’s strong support into a powerful voice in the party is important — it probably can’t be about Bernie or any other currently office-holding politician per se. And that’s probably not a bad thing.