It’s very likely that after tomorrow’s primaries that Clinton will have enough delegates to win the nomination outright. Something that she hasn’t had. Which means that Sanders has–as of Monday–a mathematical possibility of getting a majority of delegates, if everyone in California voted for him.
And so he’s stayed in the race. Insisting that he should drop out when he still had a possibility of getting the nomination doesn’t make sense. The shouting will be over tomorrow, and then he can drop out.
I like both candidates. Hillary had the most votes, she won the most delegates, she was a Democrat far longer, she raised money for other Democrats. In the metrics that matter, Hillary wins. Bernie may have some ideals which I share, but he would get zero cooperation from Congress and nothing would bear fruit. Time for Bernie to focus on what should be the number one goal of every American, keeping Trump out of the White House.
Unless Clinton wins enough pledged delegates to claim the nomination without supers, Sanders won’t quit. He’s going to push this “contested convention” business as long as he possibly can. The only thing that might finally put a stake in him is if Obama endorses Clinton after the California vote.
Except that I don’t see him dropping out after Tuesday, or even after the DC primary. It would send the message to his supporters that they should give in to doing things the Hillary Clinton way.
The only way I see Sanders “officially” dropping out - at least, before Hillary gets a majority of the vote in Chicago - is if he can strike a deal where she promises, in public, to push for at least one of his “big ticket” items.
Right, and it’s perfectly possible that in future a left wing section of the Dems will split off and declare themselves to be Greens. In quite a few countries around the world Green party candidates are part of coalition governments or even have won states in their own right. If a group of dems wanted to form a new party it might be easier for them to adopt the established branding of Greens rather than try and form a new party.
Except if there really were such a powerful faction of the Democratic party that they could form a viable third party if they split, they’d just take over the Democrats instead.
This is why third parties don’t work. Two left-wing parties will always lose to a single right-wing party, two right-wing parties will always lose to a single left-wing party.
Or, if that’s not the case, then the two left/right-wing parties now become the major parties and the remaining right/left party implodes into irrelevance, and the party members of the former party leave it to join whichever of the new major parties suits them best.
The point is, the ideology of the parties can change. There’s no need to leave the Democrats to found the Green party if the greens can just take over the Democrats. There’s no need to leave the Republicans to found the Tea Party if the Tea Partiers can take over the Republicans.
The Republican party used to be anti-slavery, northern, urban, and black. Now it’s white, southern, and rural. The party apparatus serves the voters and the elected officials, not the other way around. When the voters change, the party and the officials change to appeal to them.
The one way that the two-party monopoly might give way to true multi-party political environment is if we traded in “first past the post” voting for “instant runoff” elections whereby the victor is required to obtain 50+% of the vote and whereby voters are allowed to select 2nd, 3rd, etc choices.
The lowest vote-getter is discarded, those voters’ votes are then allocated to their second choices, (and if they have 3rd 4th etc choices those are moved up one notch) and we again look to see if anyone is over the 50% mark. If not we discard the lowest vote-getter and keep going.
Bernie Sanders voters would not be “electing Donald Trump”; Gary Johnson voters, for that matter, would not be “electing Hillary Clinton”.
Of course, the two major parties would not exactly line up behind this initiative with loads of enthusiasm under normal circumstances… but the Republicans right at the moment just might see the wisdom of it!
"Let’s see… Jim Gilmore discarded, allocate his voters to their second choice… OK, now discard Fiorina… hey lookit, those votes are now going to Bush and Christie… OK now oust Carson… damn, those mostly went to Cruz… " they would seldom have upped Trump’s numbers and most likely one of the other candidates would have had a majority first.
Total agreement. I’m one of those “Heart for Bernie, head for Hillary” types. I’d love a real liberal in the White House…but without Congressional support, why bother?
Exactly! Also, a strong opposition party is best suited for the role of opposition. Blocking unwanted legislation, keeping a beady eye on corruption, exposing crimes, etc. A weak opposition gives too much encouragement to the party in power, tempting them to overreach.
Congress should never become veto-proof…nor Filibuster-proof. Both forms of “supermajority” protections need to exist.
Without being in California now, it’s hard to divine what the voters will do. When I left a few years ago, I would have said that the Bay Area and Santa Cruz could be Bernie land. But Clinton, like she has nationally, was a respectable name across most demographics. I think the Clintons have generally done well in California and people remember the Clinton years favorably. Furthermore, when you consider that the state has elected two prominent establishment moderate progressive women to be their senators, and when you consider that Jerry Brown, a liberal icon, pretty much threw water on Bernie’s campaign flame, I’d guess that bodes well for Hillary. Bernie could make it an interesting night but I suspect Hillary will deliver in California and possibly have another dominant night tomorrow. If she doesn’t, and if Bernie can somehow stun her in California and other states, then that will leave the democrats with a lot to talk about over the summer, whether Hillary’s the official nominee or not.
Obama may have taken some heat for withholding his endorsement but I think he made the right move. Jump in too early and he loses some leverage among progressives, and he still has a few months in office and a convention to headline.
Following that little heart to heart, Sanders is already refusing to say publicly what he’ll do after Tuesday. That’s more like it, Grandpa. That’s what a candidate who’s writing his withdrawal speech does.
I really hope he drops out with dignity. Starting your campaign railing against superdelegates and talking about how unfair they are, and then ending your campaign asking them to overturn the will of the voters and side with you is not good for the progressive movement, it makes them seem like sore losers. Bernie lost by about 300 pledged delegates and over 2 million votes. He had a good run, but 45% of the pledged delegates is still a minority.
I really hope he gives a unifying speech when this is all done. I do think the fact that a no name (to anyone outside of politics at least) senator like Sanders gave Clinton a run for her money, keeping within 200-300 pledged delegates of her is impressive. But he lost. Let everyone vote, and after all the votes are counted, drop out and support Clinton while still building a progressive movement that is independent from the democratic party.
News flash, guys. Clinton isn’t getting any cooperation from Congress, either. No remotely progressive legislation is going to pass through Congress until the Democrats control both houses, which almost certainly won’t happen this election. Which sucks, but has no bearing on the question of which Democrat you should support.
One of the few ways in which I can see Clinton being an improvement over Obama is that she might be less inclined to try to compromise with people who have made it clear over and over again that they don’t do compromise.
Until the Dems retake Congress (or until the Republicans start prioritizing country over party) the role of a Democratic President will be to stay in continual campaign mode, taking the case for progressive change directly to the voters, and also to aggressively push the Constitutional envelope with regard to governing through executive orders.
Why would they? On the fundamental socioeconomic issues, the Libertarians agree with the Republicans except they virtue signal on a few cultural issues-ie “Sure we’ll gut Social Security and Medicare and get rid of the minimum wage but we’ll also legalize pot! Totally radical dude!”.
The Republican Party, even when it had largely a Northern base was the party of yeomen farmers and small towns where the Protestant and Yankee element dominated not the heavily Catholic and ethnically Irish/Italian/Jewish/Slavic cities.
