Fmr Obama Adviser: If Democrats Focus Attacks on ‘Shiny Object’ Bloomberg at Debate, That Just Helps Sanders

Former Obama senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer — one of the Pod Save America hosts — said Democrats shouldn’t be focusing so much on Michael Bloomberg at the debate tonight, calling him a “shiny object.”

Bloomberg on the debate stage is expected to shake up the calculus, given his steady gains in the primary race and the attacks between his campaign and other Democrats’ thus far. The current RCP average of polls has Bernie Sanders comfortably leading, followed by Joe Biden in second and Bloomberg in third.

MSNBC’s Katy Tur spoke with Pfeiffer Wednesday afternoon and brought up the possibility of a contested convention.

Pfeiffer said he expects that whoever the delegate leader is heading into the convention will be the nominee, saying that Barack Obama himself doesn’t want to “put his thumb on the scale now” because he wants to be able to unify the party going into the general election.

Tur asked what his advice would be to the Democratic field right now.

Pfeiffer said it’s “do or die time” for all the non-Sanders/non-Bloomberg candidates right now, given Sanders’ lead and how Bloomberg is “looming” over everything.

“The advice I would give these Democrats is do not chase the shiny object of Michael Bloomberg,” Pfeiffer said, “because all the time you spend attacking Bloomberg and not drawing a contrast with Bernie Sanders over policy issues or electability and other things is essentially an in-kind contribution to the Sanders campaign. Sanders could have this nomination essentially locked up before you get to Bloomberg.”

You can watch above, via MSNBC.