I’m sorry to say this as a Sanders supporter, but I am a realist about numbers. I could be proven wrong if he wins the New York primary and the California primary, but absent that kind of upset, it is not very likely he is going to get the nomination.
So why is it that the only time Hillary’s campaign talks about Bernie Sanders these days, it is still to diminish him?
It is well past time for Hillary to signal to her followers to stop the trashing of Bernie Sanders. Yes, it is likely that she – or any Democrat – is going to win the election this fall with such appalling candidates on the other side. But ANY election can be lost through party fracturing.
And with all due respect, if my fellow posters here who support Hillary respond with more vitriol against Bernie, that will simply signal that your campaign is still not ready to provide the leadership we need to start healing this growing rift.
And, yes, we can expect her to do that when she is still being criticized by Bernie with Bernie still gaining- it’s called leadership by the leading candidate. The next time a cynical questioner like Joe Scarborough is transparently trying to split Democrats, I do not think it is asking too much to have the erstwhile leader of our party actually lead.
Finally, there is indeed a double standard here. Bernie cannot be expected to stop striving to win while he still has a chance. Coldly stated, it is still good strategy for Bernie to be distinguishing himself from Hillary both to try for that upset and to promote his ideas within the party for the future and for the platform. But for Hillary that same differentiating is no longer wise.
Do not, I repeat do not, question our decision to force feed Hillary on the party.
…you take it. And I don’t particularly care why… the important thing for you is the shutting up part.
are really pretty mild. It’s time to get over that. After Tuesday, if everything proceeds as expected, Hillary will have no reason to attack Bernie. And Bernie will have no reason to attack Hillary, except to damage her for the general election.
Given Sanders likely loss, it’s time to discuss his wish list. He has followers. He has an agenda. He has influence. How should he press it so it unifies the party and expands the Democratic Left’s influence?
on Tuesday. His campaign expects to lose. That’s irrelevant.
I don’t think Hillary supporters or anybody in the Establishment understand Sanders supporters at all.
It’s really sad.
Do you agree that if Ms. Clinton wins the nomination, Mr. Sanders should lead his followers towards an agenda to unify the party and expand the Democratic Left’s influence?
From where I sit, this is starting to look like a reasonable litmus test. If Mr. Sanders does just this after losing his fight for the nomination, then he will have demonstrated that he has been sincere in his motives from the beginning. The supporters that follow him in this direction will demonstrate their sincerity, and I will enthusiastically welcome them into a newly energized progressive wing of the Democratic Party. If these things do NOT come to pass, then that outcome will confirm an entirely different set of characterizations and interpretations of this campaign.
We saw what Ms. Clinton did after losing a very hard-fought primary contest. We saw how she did all in her power to contribute to Mr. Obama’s successful campaign, and we saw the valuable service she provided to Mr. Obama after he selected her to be his Secretary of State.
Ms. Clinton has set a standard for how the loser of a primary campaign should comport himself or herself. It will be interesting to see the extent to which Mr. Sanders meets that standard.
of continuing to campaign until June because, hey, assassination potential?
First, we’re probably going to have a contested convention. You’re just going to need to accept that.
Second, at that convention, Hillary is going to be asking the delegates to support the candidate with the highest negatives in recorded history–numbers so bad nobody’s ever been able to win starting that low. Good luck with that.
So, we’ll see what happens at the Convention. After that?
I don’t know what Bernie will do. He owes the party nothing, considering the way it’s treated him. But what he does is up to him.
In any case, no one is going to be submitting to your litmus test. Sorry. No one has anything to prove to you. It doesn’t work that way. The party needs to earn my vote. Some folks will vote H if Sanders asks for it. Many won’t.
The condescension is unwise. Democratic membership is at its lowest level in history. For the Millennials, this rump party is pretty much irrelevant, and if Sanders doesn’t win, it’s going to remain irrelevant to them, perhaps permanently.
…about having a contested convention. We KNOW we have two candidates who will be placed in nomination, just as we did in 2008. Don’t forget, though that the voters need the right President more than the candidates need them. If Hillary loses a general election she’ll land on her feet. Maybe she can go back to making her infamous six-figure WS speeches and do just fine:) The people, however, will lose if a Republican gets elected, and those who deliberately abstain from voting better not complain. It will just feed the notion that they don’t vote anyway so why cater to them.
I don’t think any rational person would call it “contested” if one candidate already has a extremely high confidence of having the votes to win on the first ballot. You usually don’t use that term “contested” unless it goes to a second ballot, which obviously is impossible for this race since there are only two candidates.
I don’t understand the logic that some Sanders supporters are currently using that suggests that superdelegates don’t count except for determining if you have enough delegates to win. Clinton will very likely have a very clear majority of pledged delegates going into the election. If superdelegates did not exist, then that would be sufficient. It doesn’t seem very realistic that Sanders would be able to get supers to switch if he is not at least winning the delegate race if not the popular vote, especially when Sanders has not lifted a finger to help the Democratic party now or in the past. He cannot expect that after spending so much effort demonizing the Democratic party establishment that that same establishment is then going to happily take his side at the convention.
He is currently raising funds for three progressive Congressional candidates.
That’s nice, but it doesn’t really contradict my point. Sanders has not been a member of the Democratic party until this year and probably won’t remain a member whether or not he wins the Presidency. He has not campaigned or raised money for the party during his political career. Clinton, on the other hand has done so extensively for many years. Now, there is nothing really wrong with that given that he was an Independent, but it is not reasonable for him to expect to get much support from the enthusiastic party members who comprise the superdelegates when he has been openly disdainful of the party to which they belong.
Maybe 6 weeks, super-delegates were evil, anti-democratic obstacles to the voice of the people; now they’re the bee’s knees because they will all be so convinced that it will tip the vote to BS, notwithstanding the pledged delegate count.
The whole BS campaign is unicorn farts at this point.
…since you used his initials were you intending that abbreviation as a pun?:)