Sen. Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign took aim at opponent Joe Biden Wednesday for giving tacit blessing to the formation of a super PAC, called “Unite the Country,” which was officially launched this week.

“Joe Biden should get scorched on the next debate stage for starting a super PAC because he doesn’t have grassroots support.”
—Erick Fernandez, journalist

In an email to supporters Wednesday morning, Sanders campaign manager Faiz Shakir took issue not only with the name of the new Biden super PAC—calling it “a bad choice”—but also the kind of politics it represents.

“While there may be disagreements between candidates in this race about whether or not it’s okay to have a super PAC,” Shakir wrote, “on this issue the country is already pretty united: People have had ENOUGH of the wealthy and powerful buying our candidates and elections.”

Paperwork for Unite the Country was filed Tuesday by former Biden aide Larry Rasky, a fundraiser for the former vice president whose emails asking for donations reportedly included in April the statement that Biden would “not work with a super PAC or take PAC money for his campaign.” 

As Common Dreams reported on October 24, despite Biden’s past opposition to super PACs, the 2020 candidate reversed course when it became apparent his campaign was lagging in fundraising behind Sanders, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg.

“Joe Biden should get scorched on the next debate stage for starting a super PAC because he doesn’t have grassroots support,” journalist Erick Fernandez said on Twitter Wednesday.

But Biden, speaking on Tuesday to MSNBC host and wife of former Federal Reserve Chair Alan Greenspan Andrea Mitchell, said that the super PAC—where a small group of extremely wealthy individuals and corporations can dump unlimited amounts of cash for their preferred candidate, unfettered by maximum donations—was itself an example of “grassroots support.”

“Here’s what happened,” said Biden. “There’s been a grassroots response out there to the fact that Trump has gone out and decided to not only ask the Chinese and the Russians to make sure I’m not the nominee, but he has, his folks are spending an awful lot of money, he’s raising a wole lot of money, they tell me there’s been 10 milion spent on running ads against me, telling lies about me, and so this is an understandabale response from Democrats who desperately do not want to see him re-elected president.”