No, that’s not the question, because those aren’t the only options.
Sanders will endorse Clinton. 100% certain. He’ll move her as far as he can to his positions first. Everything will be okay.
It’s happening right now. Candidates look at the appeal other candidates have and try to co-opt that appeal. Candidates look to what big names in their parties are talking about or want and try to tailor their candidacies to meet those needs. On the Democratic side, Clinton is talking about things, or talking in ways, she would not likely have done if Sanders were not in the race. She is also trying to appeal to Elizabeth Warren. On the Republican side, the same thing is happening.
And that’s exactly how it should be. If Clinton doesn’t feel that Sanders has any power or value as an endorser, she won’t move far or at all. If she feels he does, she’ll move some (or just continue on the path). She obviously has already felt that he has power. We know this because she has reacted to his presence in the race and because she’s not an idiot.
This is not extortion; this is politics. If you want to win the support of X, you try to work X’s positions into your own. If you can’t do that, you might say goodbye to X’s support. That’s the chance you take with everything.
Politics is all about compromise. Politicians don’t compromise for the sake of it; they compromise to garner support. Calling that support “extortion” is madness.
There is a world of difference between that and demanding fealty to specific positions like single payer or $15/hr. minimum wage.
How dare that dirty fealty demander.
Yes, just like there’s a world of difference between simply adopting your opponent’s language about how Wall Street folks are earning too much money (“Top hedge fund managers make more than all kindergarten teachers combined”), and cutting off your opponent’s face and wearing it as a mask at rallies to trick people into voting for you. How dare Hillary go full Hannibel Lecter on Sanders!
Edit: just to be clear, this IS the thread where we imagine crazy fantasies about what political people are doing, with barely the slightest relationship to their real acts, right?
#extortion
Hillary Clinton stands firm against having any positions !
Demanding/requesting is what they do. He can demand and request, and then Clinton will do what she will do. Sanders will then endorse her and work hard to get her elected, regardless of whether she adopts $15/hr minimum wage or single payer health plan. Just file this whole thing under “can’t hurt to ask.”
takes off mask
Um, sorry. That was me.
slinks off stage
That would make him look weak. That’s why this is all a bad idea and why it isn’t normally done. Either the asker or the person asked ends up looking unacceptably weak, depending on whether the request is refused and whether the endorsement is given.
Sure, but no one cares for very long. George H.W. Bush called Reagan’s plan “voodoo economics” and ended up his VP. Look at Chris Christie’s attacks on Trump for almost a year, and then he’s the guy’s new mascot. Everyone wondered in 2008 if Clinton’s voters would go to Obama. They did. Just like most Sanders voters will go to Clinton this time.
Exactly. The risk someone has in going public with their demands is that they will also have to compromise.
I don’t know why it seems so many people this cycle don’t understand that politics is compromise.
No. Leave the plantation and vote Green. Jill Stein is a VERY appealing candidate.
“This cycle”. :rolleyes: Again, show me an example of another cycle when a runner-up made endorsement of his/her platform a condition of endorsement. The closest I’ve found is Jesse Jackson insisting on his planks getting votes at the convention, knowing they’d be defeated. If Bernie wants that, I’d have no objection. 
Citing examples of attacks that happened during the heat of primary battle (like “voodoo economics”) is not remotely the same thing. It’s not even in the ballpark of the same thing, so I’m mystified as why it is cited as an example of anything.
Yes, I think all of us get that you’re mystified.
Sanders is in the heat of a primary battle. When the time comes, there will be no “conditions.” Just an endorsement.
I think it’s that Dem centrist types are entirely unaccustomed to power sharing. They’ve not had a significant challenge from the progressive left in decades, and now there IS one, and the progressives want to WIN, which scares them shitless, and if they don’t win they want CONCESSIONS for their vote, which is SO UNFAIR because REASONS!
As for calling Sanders’ negotiating for his endorsement being called blackmail, well, to paraphrase Tom: BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA! For DECADES centrists have been saying “Shut up and vote for our centrists, or the REPUBLICANS will be in charge of the White House, boogah! boogah! boogah!” But THAT wasn’t blackmail.
You’re right. It wasn’t.