Behind the curtain

So naturally this means people will attack Howard Dean instead of asking why no one who really knows Bernie will endorse him:

Two of Vermont’s most prominent Democrats will campaign for Hillary Clinton this week, sending a clear message to fellow Vermonter Bernie Sanders as he gains on Clinton in the race for the Democratic nomination but struggles to win support from Democratic leaders.

Gov. Peter Shumlin will appear with Clinton in New Hampshire Thursday at an event on opiate addiction, though it’s not his first time campaigning for Clinton since endorsing her in May. The bigger prize for the Democratic front-runner will come Saturday, when former Gov. Howard Dean will speak on Clinton’s behalf to 3,000 Massachusetts Democrats at the state party’s annual convention in Springfield.

Dean endorsed Clinton in December, snubbing Sanders, who is currently mounting an insurgent presidential bid similar to one Dean ran 11 years ago. And Dean appears to be stepping up his work for the former secretary of state’s campaign as the threat from Sanders becomes more real.

In late August, Dean traveled to New Hampshire to campaign for Clinton, Clinton herself will speak at the New Hampshire Democratic Party’s convention, along with Sanders and other candidates.

While Dean and Sanders have often been compared, and share much in common, the two have never had a particularly warm relationship, according to people who know them both in Vermont. Sanders served as Vermont’s only representative in Congress at the same time Dean served as the state’s governor, but Dean was more moderate as a governor than as a presidential candidate and the two had different politics, personal styles and constituencies.

In his 1997 book “Outside in the House,” Sanders called Dean “a moderate-to-conservative Democrat,” which might as well be a four letter word for Sanders. When Sanders ran for reelection to Congress as a independent in 1996, most of the Democratic Party, including President Bill Clinton, tacitly supported Sanders over his Democratic challenger, Jack Long. “To the best of my knowledge, Governor Dean is the only major Democrat to come out for [Long],” Sanders noted at the time.